On the Menu

Bagels

I will never forgive my family for creating my bagel/bread addiction, which I blame for my excess 40 or so pounds. Sorry, Gumnicks, but it's all your fault.

My dentist told me I have TMJ and should give up bagels because they are hard on your jaw, and I said, "I'm sorry. I can't do that." That is just not a sacrifice I am willing to make. (Granted, I have cut back greatly in recent years, less because of my jaw and more due to the fact that the bagels of today are about the equivalent of 5 pieces of bread. But I still love them and always will.)

I think the addiction originated in Houston when we lived in a Jewish neighborhood and near a particularly good bagel shop, maybe? Maybe it sounds like a stereotype, but I think that is how we were exposed to the start of the bagel craze. We got them a lot, especially on Sunday mornings after church, and that was a nice way to segue into Sunday afternoon. Many of us did butter and cream cheese on our bagels, which today grosses me out a little. I am strictly cream cheese now.

You might also enjoy this entry on Mondegreens. 

Buckeyes

Or indeed, peanut butter and chocolate combined in almost any form!

Cheese Deez

Take a slice of bread, and put some slices of cheese on it. Melt it under the broiler. Enjoy the contrast between the bubbly, crispy top and the steamy-moist underside. Yum! 

Dough Balls and Lumpy Quik Milk

When we were kids, I enjoyed taking a piece of white bread and smooshing it into the tightest, densest ball possible and eating it. Also, I would purposefully dunk a spoonful of Quik into the milk and not stir it, but wait until globs of Quik bubbled to the surface, then I ate them with a spoon. (and I actually admit all this!)  

[edit] Ice Cream Almost everybody loves ice cream, but Gumnicks are genetically blessed to be able to hear the frequencies of sound emitted by ice cream, which are outside the range of hearing of normal people. I can’t keep ice cream in the house, because sometimes I wake up to hear it calling my name in the middle of the night, and then I have to have a bowl of ice cream for breakfast the next morning.  Unfortunately, the ice-cream-obsession gene is passed through the mother. Thus, the Swanson children are both afflicted. They do not forget it is there. Kenneth will ask for it for breakfast. It's dairy, so that makes it okay, right? Bob does not understand this problem and is most unsympathetic. (He is confounded by the candy-obsession affliction, as well.)   I have found that the frequencies it emits are capable of mind control if the ice cream is good enough!  Even the most high tech machines on the planet cannot pick up the sound!

Peanut Butter Spoons

I’m not sure why Mom didn’t like for us to enjoy peanut butter in its purest form—right out of the jar on a teaspoon. Maybe she thought that after we finished licking the PB off the spoon, we’d dip it back in the jar for some more (which we probably would). Or maybe she didn’t like finding saliva-coated spoons lying around on family-room furniture. Or maybe she thought that if we got tired of licking the PB off the spoon, we’d let one of the dogs finish it off (which we also probably would).

This topic gives me an idea for a new page: Top 10 Lists! 

May I concur that the peanut butter spoon remains a delicacy in the lives of Gumnicks even today. I have a jar of peanut butter and a bag of spoons in my office at work, no kidding. It's right next to me right now.

A great variation of the peanut butter spoon is the peanut butter apple. Take an apple, a jar of peanut butter, and a knife^[1]. Bite the apple. Scoop some peanut butter out of the jar, smear it on the bitten part of the apple. Bite the peanut butter smeared part of the apple. Repeat until apple is gone.

Peanut butter is perhaps nature's most perfect food and can be used in just about any recipe to improve the taste of the final product^[2]. It's true. It is the best thing to happen to mankind since ice cream and bagels. And we're not the only ones who think so.  

Notes