"I was FLOORED!"

[andiesenji]

The posts about salt really strike a note with me. I bake a loaf of seeded and nut filled bread with a mix of seeds and crystal salt on the crust. It's beautiful and tastes wonderful.

One of the women in the office won't even try it because there is "too much" salt in it. However she will sit at her desk after heating a mug of water in the microwave and dissolve a boullion cube and drink that. About 100 times the salt that is in and on my bread.

I do have a few serious food allergies but I can usually work around them. One hostess mentioned the day before a dinner that she was preparing shrimp scampi. I told her that I was allergic to shrimp but not to fix anything special for me. I know how she cooks and there is always loads of other food besides the main course. I mentioned that if she was making the potatos Anna that is one of her usual creations, I could make a meal off that any time.

The dinner was fine, the other guests enjoyed their shrimp and I enjoyed the rest of the food. In fact we discussed food allergies and learned one guest was allergic to peanuts and another to lamb. Then our hostess mentioned that she had had a rash after handling the shrimp when cleaning them. I told her to get checked by an allergist because that is the way my allergy began, I only had the more serious symptoms long after I began getting the rash, especially between my fingers. Itchy and painful.

[Foodie in Vancouver]

It floors me that people can go to restaurants that serve truly mediocre food and say they go because its cheap. For only a small amount extra they could eat truly wonderful food and increase their enjoyment by leaps and bounds. There are restaurants in our city that regularly have lineups and yet their food is astonishingly awful.

It floors me that people order the same wine no matter what they are eating because that's the wine they like. It floors me how incredible food and wine can be when both are taken into consideration. Choosen with care, food can elevate ordinary wine and similarly, good wine can turn ordinary food into the extraordinary.

It floors me that so few families eat at the table, together; and fewer eat meals as a family they have prepared. That's sad.

It floors me how important food and the enjoyment of food with others is - I can't imagine a life that didn't include the frequent sharing of good food and wine with friends.

[Randi]

It floors me when someone is invited to share a meal at your house, and before they accept, they ask you what you're having.

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Ummm....I do that with friends, but it isn't to judge in advance - it's because I love to look forward to it! The anticipation is the best part! (see quote below...)

[NulloModo]

It floors me that my best friend (and roomate) can eat anything he wants, in huge quantities, never exercise, and never gain weight. Seriously, candy bars, big subs, huge orders from local Italian Delivery joints, cakes, pies, beer, etc, and never seems to put on a lb. Lucky bastard.

[Marmish]

I am amazed at how much credit I get for making simple things from scratch. I am floored that people are amazed that I cook every night. I am floored that some of these people also claim to never cook. Ever. What do they eat?!?

[Jinmyo]

Some people live to eat, then there are the rest, who eat to live...

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I've said it before so I'll say it again:

"I live to eat people who only eat to live."

[Dr. Funk]

I sat here listening to my wife talking to a friend of some 35 years who's going to be visiting next weekend. My wife told her that Friday would be a rib roast and Saturday would be roast chicken. What I heard was that it wasn't any trouble, that David would be doing that anyway. As far as I'm concerned, cooking is something I love and it is so much better with an appreciative audience. I was so glad to hear that my wife's friend is not bringing her husband as I have an aversion to ruining good meat by making it well-done.

[ladyyoung98]

either they eat out a great deal or they love microwave dinners..what floors me about that is how anybody could possibly do one or the other or both on a daily basis..of course there is another side to that...perhaps they live with somebody who does cook..mom...wife..husband...significant other of some sort..in which case they are not starvinmg...but it does floor me that there really are people ou there who really cant cook..which to me is really sad since they dont know what a truly great joy they are missing

[Wendy DeBord]

I'm always floored when a chef tells me they don't eat vegetables or won't try this or that-EVER! Even if I don't like something, when I'm cooking or baking with it I taste it. What if you grabbed salt in place of sugar? There are nuances you owe your customers to check.

I was floored today at the grocery store. They had a sale, buy one get one free on celery. I work so much that two stalks would mold long before I'd get a chance to use them so I offered the second free celery to anyone around me in the check out line. No one wanted the free celery. Then when I found someone who wanted it, they didn't even say thank-you. I'm floored that people no longer say thank-you in any public situation.

I'm floored by peoples wearing strong perfumes and colones. I'm allergic to them and for me it's like someone blowing smoke in my face. I don't care if you use them, just don't infringe on someone elses breathing. One time I couldn't use the bathroom at work until someone propped open the door to clear out the perfumes.

I was also floored today when in a tightly packed restaurant someone attempted to pull strings with the owner to be seated before all of us that waited so patiently. (Thank goodness the owner didn't act on that request or he'd have lost alot of business.

I'm floored when I make an elaborate holiday meal and my relatives show up hours late with-out calling.

I'm floored when my relatives show up for a family meal and are so starved that they can't wait until I cook the meal for everyone............or aren't willing to eat an appetizer.

I'm floored when my relative throws a scene in my home over where their children sit at a holiday meal. Especially given that I have limited room or valuables I don't want small children eating on or over.

Oh boy........I could write a book about bad manors relatives have floored me with.

[designchick88]

I'm floored by those new meals that you pour from the plastic packet into the crockpot. I guess to eliminate the tedious minimal chopping and, um...ingredient measuring? that go into crockpot meals.

To me there is nothing simpler than throwing some crap (not literally) in the crockpot, turning it on and when you come home, voila, dinner.

Why would you purposely spend more money than the fresh, unadulterated ingredients would cost you to buy something gross and processed to put into your crockpot? Do people really think that's good for them? If something comes out of a plastic packet fully assembled and dosed with chemicals and salt, no amount of crockpot cooking is going to make it healthy.

Sorry if anyone here uses those things, don't mean to offend. I just saw the commercial the other day and thought, well, yet another horseman of the apocalypse is upon us. The Homestyle Bakes things were bad enough, this I just don't get.

[purplewiz]

I am amazed at how much credit I get for making simple things from scratch.  I am floored that people are amazed that I cook every night.  I am floored that some of these people also claim to never cook. Ever.  What do they eat?!?

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You just reminded me...I'm floored by the number of people who state PROUDLY that they don't cook. I didn't know that was something to be proud of.

Marcia.

[Syrah]

I am amazed at how much credit I get for making simple things from scratch.  I am floored that people are amazed that I cook every night.  I am floored that some of these people also claim to never cook. Ever.  What do they eat?!?

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I totally agree with you. People act like they are so amazed and almost envious (but still never seem to change)

[Pan]

It floors me that people can go to restaurants that serve truly mediocre food and say they go because its cheap. For only a small amount extra they could eat truly wonderful food and increase their enjoyment by leaps and bounds.

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I have yet to have the pleasure of visiting Vancouver, but I'd have to believe that there are plenty of really good inexpensive restaurant there, too, so that what you're describing may be more a function of taste than frugality. Am I right?

[Kevin72]

Add me to the "picky eaters" list. People who won't try vegetables or even anything new to them at all. I have a group of friends that I periodically lose my mind over and invite over to eat and at the end of the evening it's a bunch of plates with different items laying there untouched on them. I made roasted pepper fritters last time they were all over and one of them painstakingly picked all the peppers out of theirs', only after initially refusing to eat them.

All-time knock-me-on-the-floor event was a job interview last spring. I'm in training and development and I interviewed at one company and got asked back for a second interview. This time I was supposed to do a training presentation. They give a list of suggested topics--one was "favorite hobby" and another was "cooking demonstration". Oh, I had them now!

So I decide to do a gnocchi demonstration. I bring Play-do to imitate the dough and show them how to roll it into dowels, cut it, roll it off the fork tines, etc. Then I make my own batch of real gnocchi right before I leave, bring it along, and offer it for them to taste at the end.

The woman who I was interviewing with, my prospective boss, refused them. "I don't like gnocchi." She said dismissively. Apparently my lower jaw needed to be closer to the floor, so she added, "My husband and I just got back from Italy and I didn't have one good meal there."

I couldn't resist. "You must not have eaten at the right places!" I sputtered. We got into a back and forth for a while before I realized this was a job interview and I gave up. Got a rejection letter a month later and I was happy to do so.

[Shannon_Elise]

I am with those above who are floored by how much credit they get for making things from scratch. I am a dessert fiend and personally refuse to use cake mixes, I have the time to make things from scratch, it is just as simple most of the time and I know what is going into my food, so why wouldn't I? Also, I can't get it through some people's heads that baking my own bread is not an ordeal for me. I am not saving any lives here, it's just BREAD! Yet always, the fact that I bake french bread and have a sourdough starter living in my fridge is always met with astonishment.

What else floors me is that "the enemy of good food: Sandra Lee" continues to have a show on the Food Network. Granted the network has downgraded severly since its inception, but come on, from David Rosengarten to Sandra Lee. No wonder disgusting products like Homestyle Bakes line the shelves. It is being drummed into the populations heads that this stuff is real food. My sister is a married mother of two small children, she works at an oral surgeons office two days a week, while taking care of her two and seven year olds the rest of the time. It took only a few times of making a pork roast and baking cookies from scratch for her to realize how much better doing it yourself is. She is a former box dinner person, now she serves dinner with pride instead of simply setting it down on tv trays.

Another thing that bothers me is that salt (and pepper) situation. I have encountered so many people that say "I can't cook, I try, but I can't". My first question is always if they have salt in their cupboard, and most of the time the answer is no (along with no pepper). How does one eat without salt and pepper?

Shannon

[Carlovski]

Abra, your post reminds me of certain family members    who say they don't salt things at the table but buy loads of prepackaged mac 'n cheese, Homestyle Bakes, canned broths and sauces, etc ad naseum.  I asked why last time they visited and the response was "for health". I said if you don't have high blood pressure it's OK to salt to taste. 

I didn't bother saying that can of tomato sauce you just added to your soup has about 1,500 mg of sodium, so of course it doesn't need any salt. You should see how much salt is in the Stove Top stuffing    that was served one night.  I try so hard not to comment, so hard. But it worries me to feed that to my toddler.

I don't think people read labels and assume most of the salt is added at the table. This kind of illogical "diet" really floors me!

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I know a few people like that - they have looked on in horror as I liberally season things as I cook, and I have had to search right to the back of their cupboard to find some salt to put on my potatoes, but these are the same people who use copious amounts of ketchup and buy salt drenched ready meals. Maybe I do go a bit over the top with some seasoning - but I bet I actually eat less salt then some people who think they don't use salt.

[jgm]

I'm always amazed that the "casual" restaurants my husband and I go to, actually believe that we want to participate in birthday parties for perfect strangers. Now, truthfully, I do wish these people an extremely happy birthday, but I don't really want to participate in the celebration. I just don't understand why all of the servers have to neglect their own tables to go to the other side of the restaurant, and clap and sing, and yell and cheer at the tops of their voices, while insisting that everyone join in. I also don't understand why the owner believes that such intrusions are acceptable to other diners.

One of the most disastrous meals in a restaurant I've ever had, was when I ordered a hamburger and salad at a local place in wihch both are truly wonderful. Our waiter kept getting pulled away from his duties to celebrate birthdays all over the restaurant. I finally called him over and told him if I didn't receive my salad before I finished my hamburger (having discussed the tardy salad with him on three other occasions) I would not pay for either, and he wouldn't be receiving a tip. He made it to the table with the salad in his hand just as I popped the last bite of burger into my mouth.

Then he began offering me free ice cream (supposedly to make up for turning the rest of the meal into a disaster), which I didn't want. After turning it down (literally) 11 times, I told him if he offered it one more time, there would be no tip and there would be a complaint to the manager.

I really don't understand how restaurant management can put rowdy, noisy birthday celebrations over good service. Our poor waiter was pulled away from his tables so many times, it's not a surprise that he couldn't keep track of what he was doing. Here's hoping he got a job working for someone who understands how to maintain customer loyalty. Much as I love the hamburgers and the house salad dressing there, I eat there only about once a year.

The other thing I don't understand is why people won't at least try mainstream food that others readily eat. (The term "mainstream" means I don't have to eat a still-beating cobra heart.) My husband won't eat sour cream, avocado, yogurt, or anything made with them. (Or at least he thinks he won't. I've been known to bury sour cream and yogurt cartions deep, deep into the trash.) If you've tried something and you don't like it, I will respectfully refrain from asking you to eat it. But refusing to even taste it makes no sense to me. And it nearly gives me heart failure to think about where I'd be if I'd never tried that strange-looking vegetable, the artichoke, which I happen to think is proof that God loves us.

[StudentChefEclipse]

I'm always amazed that the "casual" restaurants my husband and I go to, actually believe that we want to participate in birthday parties for perfect strangers.  Now, truthfully, I do wish these people an extremely happy birthday, but I don't really want to participate in the celebration.  I just don't understand why all of the servers have to neglect their own tables to go to the other side of the restaurant, and clap and sing, and yell and cheer at the tops of their voices, while insisting that everyone join in.  I also don't understand why the owner believes that such intrusions are acceptable to other diners.

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My family is on notice: we will celebrate my birthday in public only when the entire remainder of the public has disappeared. Possibly onto those alien spaceships from the To Serve Man episode of the Twilight Zone.

[designchick88]

The woman who I was interviewing with, my prospective boss, refused them. "I don't like gnocchi." She said dismissively. Apparently my lower jaw needed to be closer to the floor, so she added, "My husband and I just got back from Italy and I didn't have one good meal there."

I couldn't resist. "You must not have eaten at the right places!" I sputtered. 

No kidding. We went all over Italy last year and I can't think of a single BAD meal I had there, and we weren't eating in places that I would consider to be fancy or well-known. That would have floored me too. Maybe she and her husband are the kind of people who go overseas and only eat at the same chain restaurants you can find over here. Aren't you glad you don't have to work with this woman?

Edited November 8, 2004 by designchick88 (log)

[Pan]

The Accidental Tourist?

[rosebud]

When we went to Italy as a wedding trip, my very observant DH decided that the Italians were different from the French in that the Italians would serve you bad food, if you wanted it. The French resist that notion. As a consequence, there are many "touristy" places in Italy which will gladly serve you bad food. It didn't take much knowledge to avoid those places.

In Venice, we stayed in a hotel recommended in Fodor's guide. Fodor's also highly recommended the restaurant attached to it. When I wrote to make reservations for New Year's Eve, I was told that the hotel wasn't connected to the restaurant. By the time we got there, we found out the much-vaunted restaurance had been converted into a WENDY'S

That was were we had to go for our morning "continental breakfast." Had the worst cup of capuccino in all of Italy. We didn't go back again.

To say we were "floored" is an understatement.

[jgarner53]

In fact, when people ask me why my food tastes so good I usually tell them it's salt. They never believe me, because they all know that salt is evil.

Hear hear! My sister's one of those anti-salt people. Her kids all love coming over to my mom's (or when she sends something over) because her food tastes good. Because she uses salt.

I am floored by people who don't like chocolate.

Add me to that list of people who are floored by the incredulous "You MADE this?" comments around desserts, especially. Now, granted, I'm in pastry school right now, but even long before that, I'd bring out a loaf of homemade bread, or cake not from a mix, and people would just be stunned. Same thing happened the first time I made puff pastry. But even really simple things like a pie can get stunned looks.

I am floored that pre-packaged food companies seem to believe (and sales would bear this out) that we are too busy/uncoordinated/afraid of knives and/or spoons to scoop out or slice our own "slice 'n' bake" cookies. OK, so you don't make homemade cookies. Fine. But is it really that hard to open the plastic tube? Now you can buy the dough pellets and "make lasting memories" (really, no shit, it's in the ad) with your kids as you lovingly take the pellets and place them on the cookie sheet together. Awww. We needed this?

[slbunge]

It floors me when some people respond with a bit of a turned up nose to baked goods or other home-made food as a holiday gift, housewarming gift, host/hostess gift.

As if another thoughtless trinket is more appropriate.

I'm also floored when people avoid home-baked treats brought in to work for a birthday in favor of grocery-store donuts and such.

[Kevin72]

No kidding. We went all over Italy last year and I can't think of a single BAD meal I had there, and we weren't eating in places that I would consider to be fancy or well-known. That would have floored me too. Maybe she and her husband are the kind of people who go overseas and only eat at the same chain restaurants you can find over here. Aren't you glad you don't have to work with this woman?

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Before I had even made it to the elevator I was asking myself "Can I work for someone who doesn't like Italian food?"

[designchick88]

I am floored that pre-packaged food companies seem to believe (and sales would bear this out) that we are too busy/uncoordinated/afraid of knives and/or spoons to scoop out or slice our own "slice 'n' bake" cookies. OK, so you don't make homemade cookies. Fine. But is it really that hard to open the plastic tube? Now you can buy the dough pellets and "make lasting memories" (really, no shit, it's in the ad) with your kids as you lovingly take the pellets and place them on the cookie sheet together. Awww. We needed this?

Agreed. DH and I were commenting on that the other day. The first thing my mama ever taught me to make, when I was about 6 years old, was chocolate-chip cookies. DH said it was the same with him (he still makes a mean batch of chocolate-chip cookies). I remember asking my mom for a tube of the slice-and-bake cookie dough when I was a kid and she looked at me and said, "why would we need that when we could make our own cookie dough?" I thought that was a good point, still do.

Now, you don't even need to get out the knife and possibly get your hands dirty holding on to the cookie-dough log. I really don't think the "lasting memories" a child will have of placing dough pellets on a cookie sheet could possible match the memories I have of baking cookies with my mom from scratch. Everything I know about cooking started with that experience that day.