Archive for the 'Random Thoughts' Category

Are you a slightly obsessive/compulsive eater? I am. I want my last bite to be the most delicious. During meals, this just means saving a bit of the tastiest thing on the plate… but even in a 100% tasty snack, I want the tastiest bit to be the last bit. When it comes to baked goods, that buttery top crust is it… and when it comes to muffins, there’s often a nice bonus, like cinnamon crumble or granulated sugar. Here’s how it goes:

Step 1: Unwrap the muffin.

Most muffins come in paper and it is never the tastiest part, so we remove it. If you’re lacking in plates/napkins, the wrapper may help contain things during the eating process.

Step 2: Turn muffin upside-down.

Yes, this is what you do. Do it confidently. If some cretin laughs at you for having an upside-down muffin, laugh back at them, because they definitely have some inferior taste lingering in their mouth, since they clearly don’t know how to consume muffins properly.

Step 3: Bite and/or Pull apart.

Things get a little strange, here, depending on where you got your muffin, how big it is, and how crumbly it is. If your muffin is small enough and will hold together, go ahead and start taking bites, from the bottom (which is now on top). If you prefer to tear off a chunk of the muffin, that’s fine. If you’re muffin is particularly crumbly, for example, a corn muffin, or a Coffee Cake muffin from Dunkin’ Donuts, you may want to leave the upside down muffin in the bag it came in, and tear off chunks.

Step 4: Top Consumption.

When all you have left is the best part, you may choose to switch to biting, if you’ve been tearing off chunks to get through the bottom. I leave the muffin upside-down, even if I start biting, because, once I commit to something, I’m in 100%. Depending on the muffin, the middle may even be better than the edges, so plan your bites/chunks accordingly.

I realize that some establishments sell muffin tops. While I do see the point, and might even feel some validation that, since muffin tops exist, I’m not the only person who feels this way about muffins, I think it’s the lazy way out and I will only buy such a muffin top if the discount in price correlates to the amount of muffin deducted. And, since I am now accustomed to the tops of my muffins as pure tops, with no bottom crust, I would have to eat it the same way as I would a normal muffin, first removing the bottom crust.

Warning: Cupcakes are an entirely different animal… as most of them are frosted and must be treated in much the same way as cake. This process is complicated and involves small samples of the frosting, the cake, and the combination, to determine if one is a better candidate for final bite status. If the cake is good, but the combination is clearly better, you can approach it like a muffin. Check for frosting stickiness, though, to avoid a mess, when turning it completely upside-down.  Oftentimes, a cake is best when you have a little bit of frosting with each bite (In a traditional cake shape, any edge or corner slice which has frosting on more than one side necessitates careful pre-planning of each of your bites to achieve this. It can become a complex three-dimensional geometry puzzle). If the cupcake falls into this category, it may be possible to just bite through it, keeping it upright, however, cupcakes are notorious for being over-frosted, so you mustn’t be afraid to remove some frosting.

The Doritos Locos Taco from Taco Bell intrigued me. Not because I’m a huge fan of Doritos, I’m not, and even when I do indulge in Doritos, it’s either Cool(er?) Ranch or one of those other weird flavors they put out a year or two ago… and not because I’m a huge Taco Bell fan, I do like Taco Bell, but my usual order there is a Chalupa, or maybe a Cheesy Gordita Crunch, and if it’s a meal with a taco, I usually get a soft shell. It seems kind of silly, then, that I would be so drawn to this new Dorito-taco-thing, but I was.

The first problem with my Doritos Locos Taco experience was the drive-thru cashier. He gave me a moist towelette. It seems like a nice gesture, sure, but he handed it to me before he even gave my card back, and said, “You’re gonna need this, for yo’ fingers, trust me.”  This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, I suppose, Doritos leave stuff all over your fingers, so why shouldn’t a Dorito-taco-thing? Unfortunately, this immediately put me on the defensive, because when a normal person needs a moist towelette, I might need several. Then there was the wrapping. It had a paper wrapper, like any other taco from Taco Bell, but then, there was a paper sleeve. Was it just there for Doritos branding? Maybe, but then why was one end closed and the other open? Was I supposed to gradually push the taco out the open end of the sleeve and take bites of the exposed end? Perhaps… and that’s what I tried to do, which resulted in a disastrous mess wherein all of the vegetables exploded out of the taco and all over me. Looking back, I’d say the sleeve might be some strange, and not well thought out, finger protection device… as if Doritos dust was toxic or embarrassing or something. The moist towelette could’ve taken care of some Doritos flavored fingers, but not the cheese, lettuce, tomato and drips of meat-goo that actually ended up on me.

Lesson learned. Accept the moist towelette, toss the paper sleeve, get Dorito-ey fingers, eat taco without explosions.

Oh, and it didn’t taste bad… it was kind of exactly the combination of Doritos and Taco Bell that I expected. No surprises.