Fresser

O.K., that's the appetizer. What about the main course?

Everybody knows that eating spinach puts color in your cheeks. Remember this when you forget your rouge, ladies.

I ate spinach pancakes while growing up. Now I'm strong like Popeye, but I have his skinny biceps as well. Conspicuous by her absence is a skinny girlfriend named Olive Oyl. And were she here, would she be "Extra Virgin?"

I once ate cold chili straight from the can.

A little graciousness goes a long way in situations like this. Once I was careening down the highway when I received a phone call. From Nature. Pulling off the highway, I stopped in front of a bar and hustled my then 33-year-old body inside. "Diet Coke, please," I asked of the bartender. "May I see your I.D. please?" he asked. I obliged, hopping about one leg and trying to ignore the urgent call from my bladder. "Do you have a newer I.D.? The latest I.D.'s have holograms on them. Da' Mayor's office is really being strict about this," he explained politely. "I really appreciate you're being understanding." "Look, I'll be honest with you," I stammered. "I just want to buy a drink so I can use the bathroom!!" "Oh! Go ahead!" he laughed and waved me toward the bathroom, which, at this point, looked to me like Shangri-La. After answering Nature's call, I waved good-bye to the bartender and said, "I'll say 'Hi' to Da' Mayor for you!" Everyone laughed.

Parents will tell their kids almost anything to get the munchkins to cooperate. When I was a wee sprout, Mama Fresser would sit me down after bathtime and wield the mighty Q-Tip to clean out my ears. I was squirmy, so to get me to sit still, she would peer in my ears and exclaim, "Oh, look--you have a garden in your ears!" Digging about a bit, she would announce, "Oh, we have carrots! Potatoes!" "What else? What else?" I would squeal excitedly as she pulled produce from my ears. "Onions! Here's some cauliflower and potatoes." Cabbage was a popular crop to pull from my ear canal as well. Cucumbers, however, were curiously absent, as was any sort of fruit. I guess there was no room for a pineapple in there. The funniest part is that a few months ago, Mama Fresser and I laughed about this goofy ritual when I blurted out, "Mama, you were pulling carrots and cauliflower from my ears when I was a kid and you wondered why I wouldn't eat my vegetables!"

Welcome aboard the Good Ship eGullet, Linda! At the risk of sounding self-promoting, here are a couple of threads I've started on ethnic traditions and/or phobias: Yankees reluctant to try Southern food The anthropology of poultry Bagel or danish? We're pretty candid about matters racial, religious, cultural, et cetera and how these matters relate to food. Frankly I think this is what makes eGullet so interesting.

Once when chatting with some Mexican ladies, I translated "milk" not as leche but as jugo de vaca. They all squealed, "Ewww!!!"

How's this, Duck?

Not if we talk about her dancing with a ham in each arm. ← I'd gladly dance with Katie atop the bar. Everyone thinks I'm a ham anyway.

Surely y'all remember the frozen fudge popsicles known as "Fudgesicles." Well, in the West Rogers Park section of Chicago, home to such luminaries as Rabbi Ribeye and Baby Fresser, these frozen treats were known as "Fudgicles." This dialect seems to have migrated north, for Milwaukee residents Laverne & Shirley often quarreled over how to pronounce the treat's name. Laverne called it a "fudgicle." She was right.

Saturday is Shopping Day in the Fresser household, so Mama Fresser and I were schlepping down the grocery aisles when a new display caught Mama Fresser's eye: a Krispy Kreme donut display. Now we're not big sweet-eaters, but Mum couldn't resist plucking a small package of bite-sized donuts to nosh on later. When that moment arrived, Mama announced, "I want a Krispy donut!" "Mama, it's not a Krispy donut--it's a Krispy Kreme donut!" "That doesn't make any sense," Mama Fresser replied. "How could Kreme be crispy? A Krispy donut sounds better." Such inscrutable logic is the hallmark of any argument with Mama Fresser. I've heard other creative mispronunciations of company names as well. One girlfriend's father used to call a popular coffee-and-pastry shop Dunkie Donuts. There are bound to be others out there...

I do! I do! ← Me too!! ← Remember: you ASKED for it! I was fond of sawing the top off a fresh pineapple and dicing up the fruit inside. So I sat at my desk with a paring knife and sawed off the pineapple's plumage. Then I cored up the pineapple--sharing it, mind you--and enjoyed a juicy citrus snack. But I still felt a carbohydrate craving, so it was off to Vendo-land for a bag of buttery microwave popcorn. Mighty tasty stuff, but the butter and salt needed to be washed down with a sody pop. So I quaffed a Pepsi and went back to work. Soon I felt a heavy rumbling in my belly as all the foodstuffs mingled and digested. A vicious case of the vapors, you might say. So I struck a Napoleonic pose with hand tucked inside shirt and waddled to the bathroom. I thought I was alone in there, so I closed the stall door, doubled-over like a pocket-ruler and let rip. I mean RRRRRIIPPPPPP!! This was the Fart to End All Farts. BOOOOOMM! You'd have thought a plane just broke the sound barrier. So, naturally, I was proud of myself. "What an atomic fart!" I blurted proudly and loudly. "A nuclear fart! That was ballistic!!!" Just then I heard a rustle from the stall next to me. Rustle-rustle. I was not alone. I didn't know who was in the stall next to me, and I didn't want to find out. So I washed up and fled the crime scene.

Does post-restaurant behavior count? Once a girl and I had pizza and then went to a movie. While we sat in the lit theater waiting for the movie to start, she pulled a pack of dental floss from her purse and started to floss her teeth. Yes. Right there in the movie theater seat. I wanted to crawl into the seat crevice and hide. In fact, if she had not driven us that night, I would have gotten up and left.

I hope the food was catered by Taco Bell.

Investment wankers are known for their bratty petulance. In Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street, Michael Lewis described bankers as "(A) jungle full of chest-pounding males." Had I been in possession of a winning Lotto ticket, I would have retrieved said stale bagel and hurled at the banker's head, shouting, "Take that, you overdressed fool!" Sans ticket, however, I probably just would have stared at the ill-mannered fool, shaken my head and left the room.

Perhaps you could stop by the Stoking the Fanny Furnace thread and lend your, ah, wisdom.

Right on target, Moose 'n Squirrel! In 1999, at the University of Chicago's Latke-Hamentaschen Symposium, professor of neonatology William Meadow stated, "Remember Fats Domino? It can be revealed here tonight that to avoid anti-Semitic prejucide in the R&B industry he had his name changed; it used to be Shmaltz Domino."

Funny you should mention, Katie... "Does your car smell like cheese?" Apparently automakers think this is a bad thing. A poster in a Chevrolet service department posited the above-listed question, accompanied by a man with a pained-looking expression and a healthy chunk of Stilton. Apparently mold and other contaminants in a car's ventilation system can lead to a musty, cheesy scent inside the car. So carmakers recommend cleaning the ventilation system with a handy-dandy solution that they provide. Now my own Fressermobile smells nothing like stinky cheese (or even Velveeta, for that matter) but I'm fastidious about keeping my car's interior immaculate. But maybe there's a market waiting to be tapped here. Miss your favorite Italian deli? Try hanging a provolone wedge from your review mirror and you'll think you're back on Arthur Avenue. Can't afford a trip to the Champs Elysees? Stash some Epoisses in your Renault's glovebox and you'll feel like Jacques Chirac as you motor down I-95. In fact, given the choice between one of those cardboard pine trees and a gouda wheel, I'd pick the fromage to hang from my rearview mirror anytime.

I have at least ten witnesses to this feat. From TWO different occasions. Plus, there's the guy that I bazooka-belched when he had the misfortune to cross my line-of-fire. Wanna hear about the time I ate a whole pineapple, a bag of microwave popcorn and washed it all down with a can of Pepsi?

Some things I've done on the job you just won't find on my résumé. Year ago, on a job I'd rather forget, a kind co-worker named Chris offered me a half of his orange. I thanked him and proceeded to snarf it down. He had turned away for a second, and when he turned back, he blurted, "Fress? What happened to the orange?" "I ate it," was my innocent reply. So that got everyone wondering: could the Mighty Oriface eat a whole orange in one bite? Everyone crowded around as I peeled an entire orange and flexed my chiseled jaw in preparation. Then I opened my jaw wide and wedged the orange inside--no easy fit, mind you. It got stuck about halfway in, so there I stood in front of six co-workers with a citrus fruit sticking out of my face. Undeterred, I corkscrewed the orange in some more and tried to clench my jaw shut. An orange Niagara Falls cascaded down my chin as chomped on the juicy fruit. Then I shoved the last of the fruit in my mouth, chewed and finally thrust out my arms in a Nixonesque "Double V" as I swallowed the rest of the orange. People were apopleptic with laughter. But the best was yet to come. Five minutes later, after everyone had calmed down (somewhat), a guy from the next department came over to our fax machine. I greeted him. With a loud, spontaneous belch. "Hi, Lynn. Could we help you with something?...BRAAAAPPPP!!" A foggy orange cloud enveloped the poor dude. He then looked at me askance through clouded-up glasses and said, "Uh...hi, Fress." Months later, Chris's then-fiancee came to work, looked at me wide-eyed and asked, "You ate a WHOLE orange in one bite???" Years later, I'm still famous for that trick. The orange-eating, that is. Not the belch.

Not hot grease--just pancake syrup. You're right about the spatula, though.

This is what you get for dating Hannibal Lecter.

Had I written the script, this scene would have continued thusly: You've never had anyone give you the Aunt Jemima Treatment? The name's Bond Girl, pal--not Bondage Girl! Ya-Roo, you're HYSTERICALLY funny!!

Yet another hulking male joins the PMS Cravings thread... Let's give a big Sisterhood welcome to Marsellus Wallace!