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Food-ordering neuroses- inspired by


markk

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I realized that I have a whopper of a neurosis to do with ordering food, and just wondered if anybody could top it.

I love "White Castle" hamburgers, but not when they're cooled-down; I only like them steaming hot. But because they're such tiny little things, they cool-down fairly quickly.

If you order them inside, they pick them off the grill and call your number.

But I've learned the hard way over the last 40 years that if you order a bunch of hamburgers at the drive through, and there's even one car ahead of you, he will invariably have ordered onion rings, or the fried chicken sandwich, which they have to cook to order. But when you pull up to the order board to order through the microphone/speaker thing, that doesn't stop them from filling your order from the grill, and letting the bag sit and get cold while they wait for the other guy's chicken or onion rings to cook.

So over the years I've learned that if there's even one car ahead of me, I don't place my order. I hold up my cell phone and pretend to be on it, and tell the person who keeps yelling "may I take your order?" that I need a minute or two. And only when I see that all the cars ahead of me have been served and pulled away, do I place my order.

I don't dare ask if anybody else does this (I don't think there's a padded cell that would hold two of us), but I wonder if anybody has any similar neuroses to share?

Overheard at the Zabar’s prepared food counter in the 1970’s:

Woman (noticing a large bowl of cut fruit): “How much is the fruit salad?”

Counterman: “Three-ninety-eight a pound.”

Woman (incredulous, and loud): “THREE-NINETY EIGHT A POUND ????”

Counterman: “Who’s going to sit and cut fruit all day, lady… YOU?”

Newly updated: my online food photo extravaganza; cook-in/eat-out and photos from the 70's

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Eggs...

So many things garnished with eggs and I can't stand them. If some salad has been garnished with hardboiled egg, I have a hard time eating it even after removing the egg + the leaves which were touched by the egg.

So my neurosis is to always inquire as to whether there are eggs on it, since I've found that critical info is not always on the menu...

Edited by BeeZee (log)

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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Oh yes. Good topic if you like to reveal your freakiness. And I do.

Whenever and where ever I order food my beast-of-weird suspects that just perhaps a hair or bit of spit has made its way into my food. I used to eat out at a wonderful variety of places when I lived in Portland but since I more or less moved to the country there really isn't anyplace to go. I don't actually believe that there's another persons fluids in my food, you understand. I'll snatch a Burgerville fry from my husband (hair and all), order cup after cup of coffee from my local diner (spit be damned) and enjoy Chinese take-out on our anniversary (nail clippings are yummy) without batting a neurotic eye..but the beast-of-utter-nonsense lies coiled, waiting for a lapse in my brain control. Hasn't won yet, I might add.

Shelley: Would you like some pie?

Gordon: MASSIVE, MASSIVE QUANTITIES AND A GLASS OF WATER, SWEETHEART. MY SOCKS ARE ON FIRE.

Twin Peaks

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I always order "no pickles" because, even though I don't mind the pickles, I don't care if they're there and it means I get a freshly made burger.

I always disassemble the sandwich and inspect before eating, every since I found a metal screw in a burger, and on another occasion a piece of ceramic floor tile!

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I am a classic "can I have the salad dressing on the side, please?" person. I don't like a whole lot of dressing on my salads and I find most places just drench them with dressing.

i don't know if this is one better or not, but i ask for my salads plain. . .yep, no salad dressing at all.

in college, we'd go to outback steakhouse (it was a small town) and the steak comes with a salad- i would ask the waiter what was in the salad, then proceed to ask that it not come with some of the things, like tomatoes and cucumbers, and no dressing. my friend would ask if he could replace some of the veggies in the salad with snow peas. . .so, if he did not want tomatoes and cucumbers, he would ask for a double helping of snow peas. we were weird in college.

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The only thing I can order at drive thrus is chicken nuggets... I dont like ketchup or mayo so I need to check any sandwiches at the counter for offending fluids

tracey

The great thing about barbeque is that when you get hungry 3 hours later....you can lick your fingers

Maxine

Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.

"It is the government's fault, they've eaten everything."

My Webpage

garden state motorcyle association

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After giving it some thought I might have one not-quite-a-neurosis. I won't order chicken/tuna/egg salad sandwiches from any restaurant. While taking my food service manager's class years ago they explained that most of the complaints of food bourne illness were a result of off temperature ______salad sandwiches. Having already poisoned myself once, I just decided not to take the chance.

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After giving it some thought I might have one not-quite-a-neurosis.  I won't order chicken/tuna/egg salad sandwiches from any restaurant.  While taking my food service manager's class years ago they explained that most of the complaints of food bourne illness were a result of off temperature ______salad sandwiches.  Having already poisoned myself once, I just decided not to take the chance.

This is not a neurosis...
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I order everything "no lettuce" at downmarket places, where lettuce is used to line the plate. Old plate liner lettuce stinks and is usually slimy and gross. Also has lettuce ever made a basket of calamari better? chicken finger? hot lettuce eeeeewwwww....

does this come in pork?

My name's Emma Feigenbaum.

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For much of my life, I was told I was allergic to mango. I had no basis -- other than my general distrust of everyone and everything -- to doubt it. So I just didn't eat mango. A little while back, I discovered that the mango-allergy claim was false. I'm not allergic to mango. I can eat mango morning, noon and night with no ill effects.

But here's the thing: when ordering in a restaurant, I still won't eat mango. And because, at any restaurant above the level of a diner, I'm opposed in principle to asking for alterations to dishes, that means I never order dishes with mango in them. If I get a tasting menu and there's mango in a dish, I pick the mango out. I have no idea why this is the case. I fully understand that mango is harmless to me. I like mango. I'll eat mango if there's mango around the house. But I can't seem to get past my lifelong history of believing I had a mango allergy.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I always order "no pickles" because, even though I don't mind the pickles, I don't care if they're there and it means I get a freshly made burger.

This strategy used to work at a lot of fast-food burger places back when pre-assembled burgers in a chute were the norm, but today most of the chains use a different procedure. They cook the patties and then place them in holding trays. When an order comes in, they take one of the patties -- which may have been in a holding tray for ages -- and assemble a burger. So everything is assembled to order. It's just not cooked to order. The only way to guarantee a freshly cooked burger at most of the chains today is to ask for it straight out, and to be willing to wait. Burger King, by the way, officially accepts this as a "have it your way" special order. The correct way to state it, in Burger-King-ese, is "off the broiler."

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Side Salad dressing and please don't get irritated if I salt my food. It's not that you're a bad cook. I just have a thing for salt and since my blood pressure is low, it's not an issue.

Blog.liedel.org

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For much of my life, I was told I was allergic to mango. I had no basis -- other than my general distrust of everyone and everything -- to doubt it. So I just didn't eat mango. A little while back, I discovered that the mango-allergy claim was false. I'm not allergic to mango. I can eat mango morning, noon and night with no ill effects.

<snip>

I'm not allergic to mango, but when I was pregnant with my youngest, everyone on my block in Carolina, Puerto Rico brought me grocery bags full of unripened mangos from the trees in their backyards because locally it's the custom to eat them with salt if you're pregnant. To this day, I've never eaten one like that, but they thought they were helping me out. I appreciated their kindness but I got to the point where just looking at a mango would make me nauseous. Sometime close to term, I got a call from relatives who were on the island visiting other relatives on the Southern coast. They wanted to see me on their way back to NY so they stopped by on their way to the airport. When they arrived, my cousin says to me "Sandrita, I have a surprise for you" and he hands me a bag full of green mangos. I'll leave to your imagination what happened after that.

After many years (around 7) I finally had mango again by making a smoothee with some very ripe ones I got from a roadside stand up in the mountains. I fell in love with them again.

Now that I live in PA, I rarely see/smell a mango that resembles the ones from PR, but I purchase them for my mom and she makes me eat a slice. I'm 57, my mom is 83, and she still thinks I'm her baby. <smile>

Sandra

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