Dealin' With Doherty: Iron Chef Edition

I am not what you would call a "foodie."

"Simpleton" may be a better choice. "Vanilla" is certainly an apt description, in more ways than one.

I am a notoriously picky eater and am one who doesn't like to stray from the box. I like the box. It's comfortable in there.

My roommate often likes to pick what I'm going to have at a restaurant because I am rather predictable. I'm also pretty plain when it comes to food. For instance, I love vanilla ice cream... but just vanilla. No chocolate syrup or other toppings. Just vanilla. I get a cup of plain vanilla at Cold Stone, and they look at me like I'm an escaped mental patient.

The reason I bring this up is because last night my roommate and his girlfriend were watching the Food Network. They caught the tail end of Worst Cooks in America and then the subsequent episode of Iron Chef America. I had never seen either show before, so it was an interesting experience.

Both my roommate and his better half are more accepting and daring when it comes to food. They both cook, and they like to try new things. Basically, they're the Anti-me.

My roommate proposed this idea: for his birthday, he wants his girlfriend and the wife of one of our friends to engage in an Iron Chef-style competition. He, along with our friend, would be the judges as well as one other fellow.

Me.

See, this is the flaw in his plan, one his girlfriend so gleefully pointed out. I'd be the worst judge ever, mainly because I wouldn't eat anything they would actually make.

High-end food is lost on me. My dinner that night was a burrito. I cooked some ground turkey that was roughly two weeks past the "use or freeze by" date--side note, apparently turkey that has been refrigerated that long is still good because I'm not dead yet--put it in a store-bought tortilla, added some lettuce and Kraft shredded cheese, and topped it off with Cholula. That's about as gourmet as I get.

In Iron Chef America, the competing chefs are given one ingredient that they must use in every course. If I were the judge for this competition, that ingredient would have to be vanilla because I don't have anything with my ice cream for dessert. My roommate's girlfriend just shook her head in shame for me when she realized that.

As the show went on, we starting talking about what it would be like if I were on Iron Chef. It would be hilariously disastrous.

For one, the chefs on that show get 60 minutes to create like five courses. They're racing the clock at the end, scrambling madly to get everything ready before the clock strikes double-zeroes.

Me? I wouldn't need the entire hour, not by a long shot. I'd be done in like 15 minutes and would just spend the next 45 sitting in a chair... probably eating what I just made.

The chefs make these creative, exotic dishes--okay maybe they're not all THAT exotic, but you're talking to a guy who goes to Cold Stone and just gets vanilla. They're exotic to me. Last night, they had to use sausage as their main ingredient. You know what I would have made? A sausage pizza and sausage sandwiches.

Another reason why I would fail spectacularly at this show: plating. It's one of the three categories chefs are judged upon. I have no idea what it means.

I said, "What in the world is plating?" and my roommate and his girlfriend looked at me with an odd mix of pity and bewilderment strewn across their faces. They explained that it was how the food was arranged on the plate to make it look aesthetically pleasing. I asked why that was important and received shaken heads and "Oh dear lord." I bring out religion in people, apparently.

See, that doesn't matter to me because I segregate my food. I'm a food racist, as a girl I once knew so eloquently put it. She called me that because of my love of vanilla and lack of fondness for chocolate. When I admitted that I like the filling of Oreos but am not a fan of the chocolate cookie part, that's when she labeled me a food racist.

The point is that I don't mix my food. I generally eat things one at a time. I'll have all the vegetables before going on to the spaghetti. If I have mac'n'cheese with a hamburger, I'm finishing the burger before digging into the mac'n'cheese.

I'm weird, I know.

Anyway, just the thought of what I would do if I were ever on Iron Chef should be horrifying to many of you who like fine food and, well, culture, but at any rate, it would be hilarious... and probably sad. Hilariously sad.  

Dealin' with Doherty

Due to popular demand (and by "popular demand" I mean someone asked me to do it), I have decided to eschew my normal sports commentary and introduce a new feature called "Dealin' With Doherty."

Doherty is my roommate and one of my closest and dearest friends. I've known him since college and have been living with him since this past summer. He's a great guy, but he has some quirks that when combined with my own odd personality and quirks produces some hilarious results.

Now before I go any further, I must pass along something that I've noticed men and women do differently: how they treat their friends. With men, the worse they insult and treat each other, the closer they are. I'll give you an example: my buddy Lee is one of my best friends. I've known him since middle school. We played baseball together in high school and were roommates all throughout college. I was the best man in his wedding, and if I ever get married, he'll be in mine. Naturally, I insult him as much as possible. It's a guy thing.

The same applies to Doherty. We don't usually walk into a room and go, "Hey, what's up?" like normal, civilized people. Oh no, our standard greeting goes something like this:

"Well, well, well... LOOK who it is!"
"What do you want?"
"I hate you."
"Good."

If you know Doherty, you know he likes to argue a lot. Doherty and I argue all the time, usually about critically important social issues such as sports, tv shows, and women (For the record: Sara is WAY hotter than Kate in White Collar. Just sayin')

At least 3-5 times a day, our conversations/arguments inevitably devolve into the following exchange:

"You're an idiot."
"YOU'RE an idiot."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"YOU don't make sense."
"Oh my gaw--"
"Oh my gawd."

We're sophisticated like that.

Anyway, one of our latest "disagreements" involves the show White Collar, one of my favorite shows. For those of you have never seen it, it revolves around a con man named Neil Caffrey (Matt Bomer) who was captured by FBI agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay). Caffrey offers to help Burke and FBI solve White Collar crimes after being released into the custody of the FBI. It's pretty funny and has some great characters. Plus, all the cons they run to catch criminals and the history of the art and artifacts they are chasing is really interesting to me.

Doherty and I have a history of ribbing each other over our respective shows. It started back in college when he used to harass me about watching 24. Of course, he had no room to talk because his favorites at the time were Grey's Anatomy and One Tree Hill. I'm pretty sure the people at Miller Lite would side with me.

He's finally starting to come around and realize that I have better taste in tv shows. I don't know how many times he's walked in and said, "Man, (insert show name here) that's a good show!" He said it about NCIS, then Psych, and finally White Collar.

The other day, we were sitting around our apartment watching White Collar, and Doherty wondered aloud which character we all would be. The only thing we agreed was that our buddy Andrew was Mozzie. We both claimed that we'd be Neil. I argued that Doherty was Peter and I was Neil because: A. Neil is single, as am I; and B. Peter was married, and Doherty is practically married.

He didn't like that reasoning.

Doherty countered that Neil is a fashionable guy (it's true, he's always looking suave) and that of the two us, Doherty is clearly the fashion expert.

Normally, that would be true. Doherty has spent years working at the Gap (so much so that he once recognized the exact Gap shirt worn in a tv show. It was frightening) and owns more sweater vests than Jim Tressel. His girlfriend attests that he has more clothes than she does.

I, on the other hand, have a fondness for World War II-themed Hawaiian shirts, own Halo shirts-- plural, as in more than one-- and wouldn't hesitate to wear socks with sandals. (Hey, I like to wear socks and sometimes don't feel like tying shoes. Don't judge me)

Of course, when Doherty said, "And let's face it, I'm the fashion expert here!" and gestured to his body, he was barefoot and wearing Duke gym shorts and a white t-shirt that said, "Colorado: Here for the Beer."

I think I won that one.