Relishing the 4th of July

Friends, I currently feel as American as I have ever felt! Like so many of my fellow Americans, guess what I ate for lunch?!?

AND corn on the cob, baked beans and potato chips!

For those of you who have been reading this blog since the start, I know you have been anxiously awaiting me to get back to beer! It's true, I've been neglecting it for the past couple of months. Mostly because I couldn't justify drinking something that has so many calories, yet tastes so awful. So, I had this sad little can of Simpler Times Pilsner sitting in my refrigerator since about May! But what better day to embrace a Simplier Time than the 4th of July?

I figured that since I like Early Times, maybe I would also like Simpler Times.

I have no shocking revelations for you. Beer tastes bad. Pilsner, in particular, is some yucky tasting stuff. But I drank the entire can, all by myself.... I believe this is the 3rd time in my life I have put down an entire beer. Which equals out to 0.16 of 1 beer per year, for every year that I have been of legal age to drink. I hope that is the most useless statistic that you encounter today!

While I didn't enjoy the beer, at least it followed the usual pattern I have come to expect, not only for beer, but for any of these foods I have been working on. The first sip is always the worst. But the last sip, you get pretty much used to anything.

However, beer wasn't the only crazy (crazy for me, mundane for the rest of the USA) part of my lunch! To introduce my next concept, I suggest you watch this short video from my childhood... a PSA with a message that apparently imprinted itself upon my very young mind, and dictated my eating patterns for the next 30 or so years...



First of all, talk about Simpler Times!!! Someone really thought it was crucial to dedicate a whole PSA to warning children against the evils of condiments?!? Well, it sure worked on me! I don't think I touched anything that could be considered a condiment until I was at least 25 years old! And the condiment battle is one that I am still fighting, although at this point, I do believe I have defeated pretty much all of them, amazingly!

I bring this up because I ate something today I have never eaten before. On my hot dog was ketchup.... mustard..... and..... relish! Now, in very recent days, I know I have encountered a little mustard on a hot dog, but as for ketchup and relish? Never! And as for all three TOGETHER? DEFINITELY NEVER! As a child, I only ate hog dogs plain... maybe with some cheese on them if I was getting wild. As an adult, I learned that I enjoyed a little BBQ sauce on them. In recent years, I discovered the joy of a hummus dog (I know it sounds weird, but try it! It is delicious!). And today, I finally understood why on Earth people put a ketchup, mustard and relish combo on their dogs. Because it tastes fantastic! I loved it! It makes me want to mourn all of those hundreds of naked hot dogs I ate in my youth!

I'm off on my Exotic Summer Vacation tomorrow! I'll do my best to post a little update from destination, and reveal the location of my vacation. One hint.... for the first time since October, I'm actually going someplace besides NJ! Amazing! :-)