I am a big fan of food. I’d call myself a foodie but apparently that has become snobby or taboo to say so I will say instead that I want to eat all the things all the time. This means that I go out to eat a lot and have pretty strong opinions about two particular restaurant seasoning practices and my ability to choose.
No Salt and pepper shakers- Okay chef, the food is awesome, thanks for cooking it for me, but nobody is above my right to season. Maybe Julia Child loved this beef bourguignon as is but I want it salty and peppery. Not because I’m insulting anyone’s methods but because I enjoy sodium, spice and everything nice. If these shakers aren’t on the table I will be asking for them and that just makes everything more uncomfortable. Now that I’ve asked everyone knows that I will be using them, whereas if they were given to me from the get go I could shake privately.
Tabasco Sauce- Whenever my waitstaff asks the inevitable, “can I get you anything else” I have created a reflex to always say, “hot sauce, thank you”. I then gauge how I feel about a place based on what they bring me.
- Tabasco– NO! This is not acceptable unless I am being served oysters. If my food isn’t raw sea-life on the half shell, this is garbage and I will not accept it as hot sauce. It’s not even that I don’t like the taste, it just isn’t very hot and it makes everything all cayenne-y and dumb.
- Frank’s Red Hot– This is a major improvement. I love Frank’s and I will have it stocked in bulk in my kitchen as long as I live but admittedly it is not the primo best cream of the crop hot sauce. It’s cheap and wonderful but we can still do better.
A picture of the bottle with a rooster on it in case my Grandmother didn’t understand the “cock sauce” reference. - Sriracha- Now we are talking. I don’t mind that this cock sauce make everything taste like cock sauce, that is what I want. It’s fiery and magnificent and I know that a restauranteur who makes the effort to stock this in their establishment knows something about spicy food and making customers feel cared for. Sriracha means love people.
- Cholula- Oh dear god, yes. This is just my personal favorite so I feel a kinship with anyone who has it for me to douse all over my meal. If a place brings me multiple bottles of Cholula in their variety of flavors, it’s all over, I have found the motherland.
Look at that marvelous woman on the bottle. So happy to be giving me joy. - Any combination of the above sauces- Even if one of my choices is Tabasco, I no longer mind. Seeing that I have options and that someone else understands a girl needs to have choices gives me faith in people again.
Learning to be Funny 