An INGTET Story: The Bridal Shower

ut(Before I say anything else, I feel that I should mention that I love that the acronym of this blog, INGTET; it sounds like a musical group with ING number of people... quartet, septet, ingtet. In fact, I may use that for a music-related something-or-other in the future. That is all.)

Several years ago, a good friend of mine got married. Let's call her JJ. By some lapse of judgment, all of us close friends of hers thought that it would be just fine to have JJ's bachelorette party the night before the very properly Martha Stewarted-out bridal shower being thrown for JJ by her mother's friends. We, of course, got tanked and sang karaoke at the party, and ended up all sleeping at our friend KB's house. We woke up with horrible hangovers, and there wasn't enough bathroom or hot water to allow us to all bathe that morning. We all left KB's house together (looking like hags and likely smelling we had vomited on each other all night) and headed for JJ's mother's suburban and perfect house, and to JJ's mother's friends' very perfect and proper bridal shower.

The kicker to the situation was that none of us had really eaten that morning. We thought that we'd arrive at this very lovely bridal shower and all would be put right with brunchy type fare. When we walked in the door, we were handed mugs of some kind of tomato soupy stuff that tasted quite good... but there was only about half a cup of it for each of us. I can't speak for anyone else (maybe I can, really), but I was so desperate for food that I was on the verge of passing out.

When we finally sat down for brunch, I was so happy that I was almost drooling.

And then it was put in front of me.

Egg soufflé.

One version of egg soufflé with mushrooms, one version of egg soufflé with cheese.

I was so disheartened by this that I almost started crying at the brunch table... the brunch table where sat all of my friends, JJ's mother, JJ's mother's perfect friends, and where a little river of kosher salt flowed down the middle of the table. With very watery eyes, I began to perform my well-practiced push-the-food-around-the-plate-because-it-makes-it-look-like-you're-eating-it routine.

Then I saw them. In a basket nearby were dozens of mini-muffins. "Mini-muffins," I thought. "These mini-muffins are what will save me."

I had a momentary relief as I reached for the basket. I pulled it closer to me. I saw yellowish muffins with little flecks of brown in them. Some kind of corn muffin? Hm, ok. I pulled one onto my plate. I tore it in half. The brown flecks were walnuts. I sank down into my seat.

I pushed the eggs around my plate some more. Their aroma hit my nose and swirled my stomach. And then the icing on the cake rolled around. (Heh, cake would have at least been something.)

KB, who was sitting sort of diagonally across the table from me loudly said, "PR! Are you not going to eat your eggs, 'cause I'll eat 'em!"

The room went sort of silent, and all eyes turned to me. All the Martha Stewart perfect eyes. Someone asked, "Are you allergic?" I can't honestly remember what I said. I may have said yes. I think a few of the other friends who knew what was going on deflected the topic somehow. KB reached over to switch plates with me. I yielded. At least the eggs wouldn't go to waste.

Lesson learned: If you're throwing a party and aren't publishing the menu, don't assume that everyone will like it. If you're attending a party and are super fucking picky, eat something small first and then whatever you like on the menu will be a bonus. Assume nothing, save face.

Pecans & Walnuts.

Reason: Taste, Texture & Minor Food Reaction.

Normally, I'm a nut for nuts (Come on! You saw that pun coming!), but in doing my research on this topic, I learned that walnuts and pecans are not true nuts, but members of the drupe family (single-stoned fruits like peaches, plums, cherries, etc. which I quite like). I was about to write off my problems with them as a problem with nutty drupes (make your own pun), when I discovered that almonds, my favorite non-nut, are also of the same classification. So I guess I don't get to get off that easily.

Walnuts and pecans taste bitter to me (though walnuts are especially so), and their weird not-quite-solid texture is a let down... but, that's not all.

I can't say that I'm allergic to these nuts. Allergy would include anaphylaxis and all of the not fun times thereof. These nuts just give me a sort of itchy and slightly bumpy feeling on my soft palate. I'm calling it a minor food reaction, but it's enough to keep me away from them.

This leads me to one of my favorite "I'm not going to eat that..." stories.

Melons.

Reason: Taste and Texture

I thought about listing each melon as its own separate entry, but that seemed a bit gratuitous. Seeing as how I can only come up with hard and fast complaints about 3 melons (though I don't like their distant cousins, squash/cucumbers, either), I thought it best to condense my rants into a single post.

Cantaloupes/Honeydews: There's something just not quite right about them. In this case, it's less about texture than taste. There's a weird metallic element to those two, and while I have tried them , I've never been able to get past that. The thought of eating cantaloupe with salt on it just adds to the atrocity.

Watermelon: The opposite is true with this one; I think their taste is something I could handle if it wasn't for the feeling of eating a mouthful of sand. What's more, I love the idea of watermelon and how it fits in to summer funtimes, and for that reason, I really wish I did like watermelon. However, I hate mealy tomatoes. The same feeling is extended to the watermelon.

Of all of the food items that people promote to me like it is their personal mission to win my conversion and thus garner all the brownie points in heaven, melons might be number one. As the blog grows, I might have more to add to that.

Bananas.

Reason: Smell, taste, texture.

I had a colleague last year who handled his banana (folks, these are literal bananas) every day at lunch. He'd remove it from the peel one piece at a time and it would get all over his fingers while he sort of played with it as he was chewing up the last piece. When he talked, there was banana goo all in his mouth. Someone eventually brought his handling of the banana to his attention and he stopped. I very much liked that colleague, but I did not like his bananas. I am guessing my dislike of his bananas is largely based upon my intense dislike of bananas in general.

I can remember eating banana chips on my cereal when I was a little kid, but I can't remember ever liking actual bananas. Everything about them is revolting to me (even though I have a room in my house that is painted almost a banana yellow... I prefer to call it "mustard" because I am definitely going to eat that). They just goosh through folks mouths while they eat them and then there are the mouth sounds which are... unsettling.

I appreciate the nutritional value of the banana, and I realize that they are a vital food crop both to national / international economies and diets around the world. That doesn't mean I can stomach them. I prefer to get my potassium elsewhere... like from a vitamin if I have to.