Soup’s Back On
Blog in Your Soup would like to thank our intrepid editor for ghost posting in our absence. While Doug was enjoying some of the best sushi Charleston has to offer, I was teaching art to incredibly enthusuastic teenagers in Huntington–and “living” on cafeteria food. Yum. Anyway, I share with you some of my thoughts from the road:
1. Cafeteria food still sucks. Marshall University has an impressive new cafeteria, courtesy of none other than coal and timber baron Buck Harless. It has a large open kitchen, overflowing with top-of-the-line equipment: commercial stoves, grills, ovens, mixers, even a salamander. Yet they turn out the same ol’ high fat, high starch crap most every day. I’m being serious–they often served the same meal two days in a row. Now, from time to time the mashed potatoes and chicken gravy were tasty–but as the lunch ladies brought out each load of hot buttered starch in $200 All-Clad pans, I couldn’t help but think about how the food could be so much better. And ya’ know, cafeteria food just does something to the gastrointestinal tract that science can’t explain. Readjusting to home-cooked food wasn’t easy, either. But after some serious time on the thunder bucket, I’m back to normal.
2. Chinese food in Chinatown is mind-blowingly wonderful. Yeah, I know this sounds really obvious, but I wasn’t prepared for how good the food at Wo-Hop (a 24-hour basement Chinese restaurant) was going to be. I had a Hunan pork dish, crispy fried and candy coated for the enjoyment of all. (Curiously, the walls were covered with signed headshots of D-list celebrities. The only one I really recognized was MSNBC’s Rita Cosby.)
3. It nearly hurts to say this, but as much as I love Sitar of India here in Charleston, Nawab in Huntington is a little bit better. The sauces have more flavor, color (and ghee) to them, and the garlic naan was too beautiful to eat. (The basmati rice at Sitar is superior, though.) Regardless, it’s remarkable that we have two Indian restaurants of such quality in this area.
4. I usually don’t get too fussy about things like hair in food, because it’s usually my own. But at a Taco Bell in Allentown, Pennsylvania, I found a long black hair in my chicken burrito that clearly wasn’t my own. I pride myself on not being overly squeamish, but the thought of it still grosses me out a little bit. But hey, at least it wasn’t short and curly, I keep reminding myself…
July 27th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Welcome back to the gazzblogosphere. But, like, what’s a salamander, kitchen-lady-wise? And Wo-Hop’s in Chinatown a la NYC, right, not SF or some back alley in Huntington?
July 29th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Pretty good stuff by the teens, Josh; I hope you learned a thing or two about painting. Anyway, nice beard. I see I inspired you more than I could ever know.
July 29th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Morgan, you know my Commander Riker beard kicks your Clapton Unplugged beard’s ass.
To answer D’s query, I was in the NYC incarnation of Chinatown — smell, knock-off purses and all.
And a salamander is every home cook who wishes he or she was something more’s dream. It’s a dedicated, NASA-hot broiler that works pretty much like an upside-down grill. You can use a salamander to put a dreamy sear on a steak, fish, a burger, you name it.
Needless to say, it was never employed in the preparation of reheated, nasty-ass pasta dishes.