Fan Fiction: Competitive Erotic section

From time to time my brain conjures something so far afield that I leave it to fizzle out before it breathes fire unto itself. Sometimes it's so embarrassing I would rather nobody see it, rather not be associated with it. But sometimes it's so embarrassing and gross and weird that I'd rather just admit this is a part of my psyche that should get entertained and let the dogs run themselves out and over the hillside and be free.

Last night I read the following piece, which I wrote (big "Sorry guys" to my boys), in a Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction show in Seattle. I tied for first place. It is a tale of Jeffrey "Bloeharten" Steingarten, Paula Deen, and Guy Fieri gone wrong. You read the rest. In the voice of Jeffrey Steingarten. A good meal can leave one feeling as euphoric as a restful slumber, waking mid-dream only to drift back into sleep, into the dream of laying under a glass coffee table while Rachael Ray squats over you. As a food critic I have eaten in the top restaurants all over the world. I have sipped 800 year-old beers. My olfactory senses have run headlong into the still-beating heart of a Nile-born crocodile. Once, in Massawa on the Red Sea, an elderly Croatian eunuch who had been force-fed only persimmon and organic brown rice for 2 decades, shat into my hands a product that I can only liken to what God must use for toothpaste. Tonight was different. I was redlining a sensory overload rivaling the time I had to knife-fight a coked-up Anthony Bourdain for calling his taste in cuisine "as influential as the Ramones were to orthodontia." This night, this hazy timewarp had me reeling. There were flavors, not just something my mouth could relay to my brain, but multiple layers of taste and smell. Butters. Creams. Foams. Organ meats. Desserts. Sex. And porkfat. Oh dear... You see, you haven’t had bacon until it’s been run under the sweat-drenched breast of Ms. Paula Deen. "That's ryt, sugar, you just let mamma do the cookin', and you do all the eatin' you can handle. I loooove it when you get a hand in my mixin' bowl and go to work. Hooo hooo, my Mrs. Butterworth done sprung a leak HAWT GOLLY." Wading in and out of consciousness every time she pinched my nipples or drizzled hot clarified butter down my stomach, the booze-drenched coffee cake we’d put away was wrapping me in a mahogany haze of rum and insulin. My senses were crackling like funnel cakes in a deep-fryer thanks to the Ecstasy-infused crème fraiche I previously tongued from Paula’s open mouth. Sure, we’d gone full-sprint into Hedonism a few times, but this was something special. In the past, it wasn't unusual that Guy Fieri would drop in and hang out if he were in the area. Guy liked to do a bump, kill a few White Russians (he once actually choked a half-blind Ukrainian girl to death in Memphis), wait for things to get hot and heavy, then sort of blend into the background – as best a guy dressed like Ed Hardy’s special-needs step-son can - and Guy would tug at his vienna sausage while Paula and I hit the passion buffet. I have never figured out why he wears only one sweatband on his wrist. Paula brings tons of food and asks only that I bring half a Viagra and the Morning-after Pill. As a food critic it’s a pretty great gig. I eat great food all around the world for free, and when it comes to Paula, it’s really all you can eat, if you know what I mean. Or as she calls it, "Drinkin' from the gravy boat." My medically-induced soupbone is throbbing to the point of near pain, and she’s rocking back and forth on me like she's churning butter. At one point I'm pretty sure a testicle went in there. She’s telling me “No don’t you drop the batter on the griddle, hun. It’s not hot enough just yet. Yew hold onta that fer me, sweetloaf. When I need yer frostin', my cake'll be ready. I'm gettin' up on my third orgasm herrrrr, HOLY WAFFLE HOUSE.” I glance down to watch her stomach hit mine as she leans into me, then rocks back, separating us with a gossamer sheen of butter and Bacardi and a dark… what is that… is that chocolate syrup? I black out again and my mind goes to a previous encounter of ours. For a while we used butter and olive oil to saute our main course until she got a blue-ribbon yeast infection, which was probably kicked into high-gear by actual yeast and flour from the floor of her kitchen. For a while her crotch smelled like an old pair of Mario Batali's Crocs. Still, that was literally the best loaf of sourdough I’d ever had in my life. Now and again we mix up a batch for the diners at her restaurant “Lady & Sons.” As I come to, I see a reflection in the mirror. It's the shaved, spray-tanned, Tazmanian Devil-tattooed calf and DC Skate Shoe'ed leg of Guy, off somewhere to my left. I sit, tied to a sticky, fluid-soaked chair with my purple root straining skyward from within a cannoli, my entire carcass glistening like a honey-glazed ham. The air is thick with musk, Malibu rum, peanut oil, an odd metallic scent, and a Glade Plug-in... "Cool Serenity" I think. Paula returns from the bathroom with a stemmed glass, pouring in a Tawny Port to top off our fleshy dessert. I glance over my shoulder and see Guy sitting backwards, but slumped over a chair. His shorts around one ankle, his shoes covered in a glossy red... I take a sip from the glass pressed to my lips as my lover, Ms. Paula Deen, spits in her hand. She reaches down to twirl her fingers around the head of my GAAAA T THTHTTPTPPTTPHTHHFHFHFHFFF I spit out the wine. It's gone sour or it's drugged, I can't tell which. It has a heavy smell, like a handful of old pennies... Like an animal. Like blood. "Okay, sugar," she says, lowering herself to the floor, her sweat-matted head of lavender hair tickling my full stomach. She takes a big sip of the bloody port, spits it onto my love mushroom, and begins crunching through the cannoli. "The griddle is ssssMOKIN' hot, sugar… Let's have that batter."

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MC, HOST, CORPORATE, COMEDY, SEATTLE, GEOFF, LOTT

Eatin' Out - BrownBag Café - Not a Frittata

Kirkland's famous - and famously packed - BrownBag Cafe is a hub of breakfast dining. Breakfast is served while it's open, which is for the daylight hours. They have SUPERIOR baked items, using their breads, rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. in each of their dishes that call for it.

But something's seriously awry with their egg maker.
Seriously.

Today we went in for some late fastbreaking. Parking lot crammed-packed like The King's death colon. But worse. The next-door Shari's must feel like a blind spot. But it likely gets overflow from those who won't wait the 20+min for BrownBag's deliciousness...

But today... oh boy... uh...
Yeah, I try and get lowest-carb that I can, when I can. Higher protein, throw in some veggies and I'm happy. Intrigued by the Tomato& Avocado Frittata, I steered from my craving for the Fruit Omelet. Don't cuss it down, the Fruit Omelet is a sweet, savory egg party I'm all-for. But I was dumb and listened to my wife about what SHE wanted to try some of, and got the Frittata, which still sounded good.

It wasn't. A Frittata looks like this:
Heat the ingredients, throw the eggs in with those, stir a little, top with cheese, broil, BOOM...

FRITTATA

I was handed a scrambled egg topped with 1/4 a sliced avocado on top of enough room-temperature 1/4-inch-diced tomatoes to start a street-fair Salsa Kiosk. There may have been some dill havarti wiped on it, also. This is a VERY simple dish to create, and apparently, get wrong with a lazy sous chef in a hopping kitchen.

Thumbs-up for the BrownBag Cafe. They have great food, 95% of the time. Not everything's gonna be a home run, fair enough.
Stay away from any Frittata. Omelets rule (Fruit, or Spinach-Bacon-Mushroom).

And, as a man, I'd like to thank whomever is hiring the serving staff.

Still no excuse for F'ing the Frittata. NADA FRITTATA, just food pile.

My wife took one bite and said "Eh, you're right, there's nothing there." Oh good. It's nice to know we can agree that I got breakfast-screwed.

Tomato-Avocado Frittata = No.

The Best Thing I Ever Ate

There's a show on the Food Network, a.k.a. Fat-E! (I love the Food Network), called "The Best Thing I Ever Ate."

The best meal I ever ate was at Café Juanita in Kirkland, WA. The head chef, Holly Smith, is going to be on Food Net's "The Next Iron Chef." Well-deserved.

A few years ago we went there for Alicia's birthday dinner. It was a 5-minute walk from home, so the wine wasn't going to be a factor. Sweet.

When I go out to eat, I try to order something I cannot come close to making at home. Usually I order the healthiest thing on the menu, but if we're going white-tablecloth and I've gone so far as to wear a shirt with buttons on it... well... let's order-up.

So I ordered the Milk-Braised Wild Boar. Not something I was planning on ever working over in the crock-pot, so let's see what's-what with a Crazy Pig.
AMAZED by it.
Tender. Perfectly seasoned. It's the only thing I ever ate where I thought... "This needs absolutely nothing. It is perfect." It was a hand-sized piece of tenderloin luxuriating in a shallow pool of savory cream. It fell apart with a look. Unbelievable.

The other best thing I ever ate were my wife's Pecan Chocolate cookies she made last year while I was off in Las Vegas doing comedy for 10 days. She froze some for me in case I wasn't able to gain a full 10 pounds over the holidays, being on the road. Thems were THA BIZ.

So there you go. Thought I'd share that with you.
The worst thing I ever ate was crow, and some humble pie. Never did like the taste of it.

Then again, for a free-range animal, crow tastes like garbage.

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We Can All Agree On Food That's Free

In the kitchen at work, which has two vending machines and - if you're quick - a "surprise buffet" known as a refrigerator, there are some randomly-donated food items.

Somebody left a plastic freezer-bag full of "snack mix" on the counter for general consumption. Made almost entirely from cereal, it features multicolored rings of cereal, chex-type cereals, and cranberries.

Those dark spots are the cranberries. It's fuzzy because I was stifling a Vomiggle, a cross between throwing up and vomiting.
This picture was taken at 2pm. This bag's been countertopped since the morning.

Free Food.
Workplace.
No way should this have gone so long.

I work in a very diverse work environment, with people from as far away as Iowa. But this attempt at sharing should be pointed out as a shameful excuse for emptying the cupboards. Either somebody's kid is wondering where all the breakfast went, or somebody's kid just got their car-seat cleaned out.

Chex -like cereal, which I tend to love.
Frooty Loops, which I understand the appeal of.
Cranberries, fantastic through the mid 1990s before faltering around 1999. Did we have to let them linger?

So let me explain this to you, in case you're thinking of "brightening up" the workplace with a donation of free nibbles.

DO THE RIGHT THING...
Candy. Chocolate. Cake, Pre-Cut. Pizza, always good. Donuts will rocket you to sainthood in Accounts Payable.

Just a primer. People are pigs, they'll eat what's there even if you dropped a donut, sprinkles-down in baby diapers. Just run it under the Purell and eat up. Don't drop the randomly assembled burnt popcorn, lime Tootsie Rolls, and a barrette in the breakroom and then pat yourself on the ass for a job barely noticed.

What a shameful attempt at impromptu workplace catering. That second handful tasted terrible.

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Further Proof That Being Nice To People Is Often Too Difficult

I give everyone a fair chance.

Really, I do. I have few expectations of anybody's behavior, other than thinking that they won't try to hit me or pee on/at me, or at least not until I've paid them.

Sometimes, people just strike you funny. Socially awkward. They call themselves "outdoorsy," while you know they hike a lot because nobody wants them at their party. That sort of thing.

Maybe they say inappropriate things or act in a way that makes other people uncomfortable, squirmy, dumbfounded, or grossed out. They don't see it that way, and nothing is going to turn them around.

Fast forward to now.
Then hit REWIND to about 30min ago.

I sat down at my desk after a brief trip to the kitchen to make a small bag of popping corn, 100-calorie mini-bag of Kettle Corn. Not great, just needed a small nosh before I get on the roads and kill somebody by way of low blood-sugar.

As I get back into my office, a guy, whom we'll call Wordy, is in my seat. I say "Oh hey, I'm back, can I get that from ya?" Very cordial.
He says "Oh sure, just keeping it warm for you."

I jokingly reply "Alriiiight. Weird." I don't know the guy other than a few meetings and emails to and fro.

I sit down with my bag of corn, and he moves to my right with the group he's working with at another desk. I grab a few kernels of corn and start back doing what I was doing at work on MySpace, and believe it or not, that happens at work, too!

About, oh, heck... 2 minutes later, Wordy circles his group, makes his way around me, grabs my bag of popcorn and begins to stick his hand in it. So I say "Uh, you're not going to put your uninvited hand in my popcorn, right?"

His response?
"Hey, I'm giving you material! How are you gonna write blah blah blah..." I tuned Wordy out mostly because I was shocked at the forwardness and lack of boundaries. It was like something out of "The Office," but unfunny.

"You're giving me material, well I'm giving you a bag of popcorn, bon appetit!" Still trying to be fun about it, but still a little miffed at this basic stranger sticking his hand into my snack.

Not that I wouldn't share, but I wasn't going to interrupt their convo to offer corn.
Nor should their work be interrupted for a guy with corn needs that overshadow his manners.

So we go back and forth while he's trying to make it look like I "don't get it," and that "everyone in the midwest shares," I shouldn't be at all upset about having to share. I keep saying "Wordy, it's about boundaries. You don't stick your hands in people's food, right?"

By the way, a lot of people in the midWest live very near to corn, and I am hearing more and more reports about the proliferation of ignorant, slow-talking, chain restaurant-eating idiots that live between the Rockies and the Mighty Miss'ssip Rivah.

Bottom line is, my corn, like my boundaries, were violated, and then there was an attempt to make ME feel like I should just accept it or admit I'm being an ass's hole.

Stranger's hands in my food, and I'm "missing the point."

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but that guy is a f*cking re-nard.

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