This is a food facility, not your doctor's exam room...

Tuesday, July 2^nd, 2013

3:18 p.m. local time

Contrary to “popular” consensus, I am not a nazi in the kitchen. Or anywhere else, for that matter. But still, that being said, I do have just a coupla' rules when you're in my kitchen/dining room. And when I say “my kitchen”, I mean, if I'm working it, by myself?, then it's mine. Even if you own the place and have hired me to work it, as long as I'm working it alone, as I said, it's mine. For the time being.  And that's not really a bad thing, since, if it's "mine", I'ma' take care of/clean it like it's mine, too, see?   

I digress; I have a coupla' rules in my kitchen/dining room. They're not harsh, unreasonable, or even authoritarian. They're just courteous. No big deal, right? Well, come to find out, some people just can't handle that. The first rule I have is no comparing, under any circumstances, food to excrement. Nobody wants to imagine the latter while indulging in the former. And if you're bound and determined to do such comparing, please take yourself outta' my kitchen and back to high school, have fun being a sophomore again.

The 2^nd (notice how I didn't use the term “number 2”, 'cuz, I'm serial here about the whole excrement reference thang...) rule, following logically on the heels of the first, is you ain't need to be discussing bodily functions at the table. There is a time and place for that, and while cooking/dining is neither. The downside of course is that I have people very near and dear to me who almost relish the opportunities to relate their bowel habits to everyone with in earshot, and if you're all at the table together, “earshot” kinda' goes without saying.

So why is it that grown ass adults, strangers I've just met like literally hours ago, are all wanting to tell me about such while they're traversing my kitchen during breakfast this morning?! Yeah, I made oatmeal!, SO?! That does not give you poetic license to describe to me in ANY kinda' detail how well it “cleans out” your insides! Check it; I'm your cook, not your doctor. Hear the difference? You can tell your doctor any ole' whatever about any of your parts and functions you want, in fact I'll cheer you on. But as your cook, most of the time?, the most I wanna' hear from you is that you enjoyed what I put on the table. I can take constructive criticism, so if something didn't meet your expectations or whatever, fine, write it down on a piece of paper and I'll be sure to burn-I-mean-file that.  If you absolutely insist on informing me of your "habits", then come tip time, you can pay me what you'd be paying your family physician, and not what I'm earning here.  

But I digress. Again. Here's this person whom I only remembered his name because it's one of those old world names you never hear anymore (for good reason), and he's launching into a litany of how oatmeal has benefitted his colon!  Dude!, I love my children more than life itself, and I don't even wanna' know about THEIR intestinal anything! The look of terror on my face must not have registered with him, because he quickly joined his colleagues at the table, and then they all joined him in sharing history making bowel movements they've had courtesy of oatmeal!!! LOUDLY! Clamping my oven-mitt clad hands over my ears and shouting “I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! LA LA LA LA LA!!!” actually accomplished nothing, they all remained painfully oblivious, and as I was in the middle of two different pans of fried eggs over easy, it wasn't like I could run screaming outside into the drizzling rain. Nope, I hadda' stand there, enduring the audial onslaught of vibrantly described bodily funtions; gas; high colonics; diverticulitis; enflamed tissues and topical ointments; etc, while continuing to cook eggs to order and serve up yet MORE oatmeal, which of course only drew more guests into the fiendish conversation! It was beyond hideous, it was quite literally hell on earth.

I may never serve oatmeal again. In fact, for this group?, I think I'm gonna' start loading every single dish I can with cheese. Yeah, uh huh, lessee how verbal all you Chatty Cathies are when you're all blocked up... My kitchen, my game, I win.