The Sporadic Curmudgeon

If anyone needs any more evidence that the entire world is headed straight down the crapper, order a burrito.

About ten years ago some evil puppy-killing hellspawn realized that it’s less expensive to fill a burrito with rice instead of filling it with actual burrito ingredients, and then everybody else started doing it. I hope that guy died horribly, and Satan is now using his mouth for a spitoon while he’s being ass-raped by a vengeful three-foot sea urchin.

Let me be absolutely clear about this: RICE DOES NOT BELONG IN A BURRITO!!!! RICE IS A FUCKING SIDE DISH!!!!

This is not a matter of opinion, nor is it open to discussion. I lived in Texas most of my life, and if there’s one thing we know besides jaw-dropping political corruption, it’s burritos. Rice belongs in a burrito like mayo belongs on a hot pastrami sandwich. And if you don’t turn in revulsion from that last sentence, then I pity you. You plainly have no soul.

Here is a list of acceptable burrito ingredients. I’ve broken them down into the two main burrito families.

Breakfast Burrito

• Flour tortilla
• Potato
• Egg
• Chorizo
• Cilantro
• Bacon
• Hot sauce
• Yellow cheese

Regular Burrito

• Flour tortilla
• Refritos
• Beef
• White cheese
• Green chilis
• Chicken
• Salsa Verde
• Hot sauce
• Sour cream (although that’s awfully close to the line)

Please note that there is no rice, lettuce, tomato, or crunchy little fried corn tortilla bits. (I’m looking at YOU, Volcano Burrito!)

A burrito with rice is a burrito made for pussies by pussies. It is one of the few things you can eat that is actually improved by a slow boat ride down the alimentary canal. It is a vile corruption of one of the finest culinary treats on the planet.

Dammit, isn’t there one single joy in life that’s not being shit all over these days?

After I handed off the baton of my daughter’s interminable English assignment to my wife (and I do mean interminable; in all violation of time and space she began the dang thing back when New York was called New Amsterdam), I started dinner.

Our pathetic menu was hamburger steak (our fancy name for ground beef squished into a vaguely pancake-like shape) and supremely unpopular leftover Potatoes-Au-Gratin from the night before that have been miraculously transformed into mashed-potatoes-with-the-works using an electric mixer. I smashed the meat and plopped it into the frying pan. Hmmm, I thought. This could probably uses some seasoning to disguise the pervasive tang of beef hormones. I reached for the garlic powder (hey, I was in a hurry), unscrewed the lid, and sprinkled some on.

It was like an old Candid Camera sketch where they unscrewed the lids on all the salt shakers. Garlic powder completely covered my hamburger patties. I stared at the container. All previous garlic powder from this manufacturer (a famous spices-and-herbs brand that isn’t Lawry’s) had screw tops with a shaker underneath. THIS one had a screw top cleverly hidden beneath a barely-visible flip top. There was no shaker underneath the screw top.

To make sure I wasn’t going crazy (sadly, always a possibility), I checked the same brand’s onion powder. Screw top with a shaker underneath. Someone at the seasoning company was obviously playing some sort of mean-spirited practical joke.

I scraped the excess garlic off as best I could and tossed it in the trash, then continued as if nothing had happened. My family has yet to try it, so I may be spending the rest of my evening dodging hurled epithets and regurgitation. I’ll let you know, assuming I live.

Special Gastronomic Update: To my astonishment, the meat was eaten with nary a retch. The potatoes, however, were still regarded as something you might serve party guests in order to cut the evening short. Our cat is at this moment trying to bury the leftovers in her litterbox while glaring at me accusingly.

In the village of Lyonshall in Herefordshire, UK, a cackling Slovakian leapt through the open window of an elderly couple’s home, bit off the old man’s thumb and ate it. The victim also suffered bites to his face and upper body, even losing his left nipple in the bizarre attack.

Police yesterday sent a team of officers to the village to reassure locals it had been a “highly unusual and random attack”.

Thank goodness it wasn’t a routine, scheduled cannibal attack. That would just be upsetting.

Normally I find stories about cannibalism pretty funny. I’m not sure why, exactly; it’s probably something I should discuss with a professional. But this one really creeps me out. An old man’s nipple? That’s got to be tougher than year-old beef jerky.

Extra-special grossout update: Since posting this story, speculation has run rampant around the office as to the precise texture of old man nipple. So far, suggestions have included a used rawhide dog toy, a rolled-up condom and a piece of octopus sushi.

It has come to my attention that a number of people I work with are unfamiliar with Steve, Don’t Eat It! It’s been around for a while, but the aforementioned Steve adds a new entry once a year or so, presumably between trips to the hospital.

The premise is simple: Steve finds some ghastly horror in the grocery store or in a book of questionable recipes, and, so that no one else will ever have to subject themselves to the ordeal themselves, he eats the nasty stuff and records his impressions.

In lesser hands this could be moderately amusing, but what puts it over the top is Steve’s writing. The man is the Shakespeare of gross. Here’s a few samples to give you a taste.

On Beggin’ Strips bacon-flavored dog treats, which he made into a Beggin’ Strips, lettuce and tomato sandwich, Steve writes:

In closing, the only silver lining to this dark dark cloud is I have figured out why so many dogs lick their own assholes. They are trying to kill the taste of Beggin’ Strips. (By the way, it doesn’t work.)

On a vile fermented soybean product called Natto:

I force-fed myself a big ol’ spoonful, and found it to be slightly rancid and extremely bitter. Unfortunately, swallowing didn’t help dissipate the flavor because the strings of bean jizz melted, coating my mouth and lips with a glistening sheen of sadness.

The entire experience is difficult to describe, but if you can remember back to the very first time you made out with a hobo’s ass, it’s a lot like that.

He also tackles such gag-a-riffic fare as diseased corn, potted meat, prison wine, and a shot glass full of human breast milk laced with Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

I bow to you, Steve. You are a God among gross-meisters.

Other than the incredibly foul foodstuffs, there’s another disturbing aspect to the site. You end up really liking the guy, and let’s face it: there is ample reason to be worried about his health.

On a closing note, you should probably not go to Steve, Don’t Eat It! anywhere near mealtimes or cranky supervisors. I read his latest post about a can of Korean Silkworm Pupas and shot milk out of my nose. I was not drinking milk at the time.

This morning I was taking a shower, as I tend to do every week or two, when I happened to spit. It was pink. That’s odd, I thought. I spit again. Pink.

Uh-oh.

Then, like the bitter recriminations of ex-friends following a birthday party gone horribly wrong, the memories came trickling back in. Before bed, I had opened a package of my daughter’s Peeps®, vowing to only eat one or two.

As you are no doubt aware, I have been waging a well-publicized struggle with Peeps® addiction for some years now. Yes, I had succumbed to the pink suger-covered marshmallow temptations and eaten them all, then fallen asleep in a Peeps®-induced stupor. It wasn’t blood, it was food coloring.

Some people have a monkey on their backs. Mine is made of marshmallow. Oh, God, the shame.

Brace yourself. The dreaded “Food,” “Genitalia in the News” and “Now That’s Just Gross!” category combination means this one’s gonna get real ugly.

A new restaurant has opened in Beijing, China that only serves dishes made from animals’ penises and testicles. Kind of puts a new spin on tubesteak, doesn’t it?

I’m not sure which is worse, the “cuisine” or the description of it in the article. Here’s a couple of samples to whet your appetite:

Some dishes appear unexceptional, such as the simple goat penis, sliced, dipped in flour, fried, and served skewered with soy sauce.

…The Xinjiang horse and the donkey, on the other hand, were quite different. Though both came sliced lengthwise, and looked like bacon, the horse was light and fatty, while the donkey had a firm colour and taste. The testicles were slightly crumbly, and tasted better with lashings of the sesame, soy and chilli dips thoughtfully provided.

Kudos to the author, Richard Spencer, for indomitable courage and his use of the word “lashings.” I wonder how many food critics at the paper resigned before Mr. Spencer agreed to eat there and write up a review. Nixon faced a similar problem in 1973 when he tried to find an Attorney General who would fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate brouhaha.

A theater I worked at years ago had one of those candy menus with little snap-on plastic letters. Being young, bored and about to be fired, I used it to express my opinion that the proprietor was an enthusiastic consumer of “greasy donkey dick.” If only I’d known.

Months-Later Update: My friend John C. believes that this restaurant should be named “Members Only”. Tres bon!

A Russian woman and her two teenage sons have been arrested for strangling a man and eating his internal organs. According to Rostov police, the grisly repast was the result of an argument that got way, way out of hand.

Coincidentally (or not), this isn’t the area’s first brush with cannibalism. Between 1978 and 1990 Rostov was the stomping grounds of the worst non-governmental serial killer in Soviet history, Andrei Chikatilo, who was known to take an occasional nibble from the 52 victims under his belt.

It’s this sort of thing that can have an adverse effect on tourism. Not to worry, though:

According to [police spokesman Alexei] Polyansky, there has been no cannibalism cases in the Rostov region in more than 10 years.

Now that’s a Chamber of Commerce motto I can get behind!

By the way, a few years back HBO made Citizen X, an excellent movie about Chikatilo and the dogged forensics expert who worked on the case for years in spite of the official line that “there are no serial killers in the Soviet Union.” If you ever get the chance, see it.

Here’s a puzzler for you.

It’s bad when a restaurant in China is closed down for putting stir-fried Siberian tiger on the menu. There are only a few hundred of the critters still alive because, as is often the case with an endangered species, flaccid idiots believe eating them will promote perpendicular plumbing.

So how exactly are we supposed to feel when it’s revealed that the restaurant has actually been serving donkey meat marinated in tiger urine instead? I’m glad it’s not really tiger meat, but still…

You gotta figure donkey meat’s pretty rank to begin with. My internal ickometer pegs it at a couple of gags past rat-kabob. And we all know how quickly your average tomcat can render the atmosphere in an apartment unbreathable. Just imagine the ungodly stench.

Screw that. I’m a man of science. Imagining stuff is for sissies. Let’s see if we can actually recreate the experience!

• 1 12-oz. can bean sprouts
• 1 small head green cabbage, chopped
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 3 cups hot water
• 1 lb. chunk Baba-Looey butt, thinly-sliced
• 5 cups plain unscented cat litter

Spread cat litter in a medium-sized casserole pan. Leave pan unattended in a small room with four male housecats, along with plentiful food and water, for six weeks. Pour hot water into litter and stir. Strain slurry over sliced donkey and let stand overnight.

In a wok, heat oil until bubbling. Toss in marinated donkey. Stirring continually, sauté until your eyes burn. Add bean sprouts and cabbage. After second or third retch, season to taste with soy sauce. Serve hot over boiled hair clogs. Call Poison Control Center immediately.

Important safety warning for extremely literal morons: This was a joke. I am not serious. Please, DO NOT REALLY MAKE THIS DISH. It would PROBABLY KILL YOU. And for God’s sake if you do make this dish DO NOT EAT IT NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU THINK IT WILL MAKE YOUR PENIS!

Boy, do I need to call my doctor and get my meds changed or what?

Anyway, it’s lunch time here at the coal mine and I haven’t had time for anything but making do with the horrors from the vending machine. In the process, I believe I have found the perfect meal for making one’s mother cry:

• One 1.75-ounce bag of T.G.I. Friday’s Cheddar & Bacon Potato Skins Snack Chips
• One 1.125-ounce package of Trail’s Best Double Salami (”Salami” should probably be in quotes)
• One 20-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola Classic (none of that Diet shit for me)
• One 1.7-ounce bar of Rice Krispies Treats

If the knowledge that the entire technological infrastructure of the world is being maintained by people routinely eating crap like this doesn’t shake you to the very marrow of your bones, then I’ve got a mountaintop villa in Iowa I’d be willing to sell you.

It’s Easter time again, which means it’s time for my secret shame. I have a problem. With Peeps®.

I know, I know… Peeps® are cutsey. They’re childish.

They’re also the most addictive thing since Philip met Morris. This is the time of year when I spend my nights cruising Walgreens, hands shaking, with crystals of magenta sugar crusting the corners of my mouth. My tastes have become so depraved that Peeps® straight from the box don’t do it for me anymore. I leave the packages open for a week, until the little bunnies and chicks get all hard and leathery. That’s when they’re best.

I’m not alone in my addiction, either. One of my co-workers tells me that putting Peeps® in the microwave for ten seconds or so makes them swell up, and when they contract again they’re nice and chewy. I can’t wait until I get home tonight.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep functioning like this, but the damned things taste so good I just can’t stop.