Tag Archives: triffids

I Went To Meat… And Beyond!

11 Nov

November 12, 2019

I was in my local Dunkin’ Donuts (or DD as they like to be called nowadays, to the ire of Daredevil fans everywhere). It was strangely derelict-free.

Dunkin’ D has joined the growing trend of fast-food restaurants that serve meat-that-isn’t-meat. Surprise! It is some sort of plant based thing, made from, I don’t know, algae? Plankton? Triffids?

Triffids. It is made from Triffids.

They’ve got a lot of nerve calling this a sausage. Anyway, I had no intention of trying one. I’m a real man. Real men eat real meat, whether it comes from a cow, coyote, or crow. That’s real eating right there. This plant-based abomination? Save it for the Bernie Sanders supporters.

But if there’s something I like as much as real meat, it’s a freebie, and this D Donuts was giving out free samples of this sandwich, little pieces of plant-based “sausage” on a little piece of bagel with a little piece of cheese. About the size of a quarter of a sandwich. So I tried it. What the heck? The worst it could do to me was give me severe stomach cramps.

If this tray was full of free arsenic sandwiches I would have taken one.

The first thing you have to know is that the color is deceptive. On the outside it is a brownish-red, but on the inside, all green. Yes, this is green on the inside. Totally unlike meat but very like something plant-based.

But how does it taste? It tastes absolutely unlike meat. Completely and totally non-meat-like. What about the consistency? Again, nothing like meat. It was like eating leaves that were pressed together. Not chewy but not falling apart. Honestly, it was OK. Just not meat.

Bottom line- would I eat it again?

It will never be my first choice, or my second choice. Not my third choice either. But if ever found myself in a situation where there was no other place to eat for miles around, and there was nothing else to eat but this, I would eat this. The taste was OK, whatever it was, with a hint of spice. Triffid never tasted so good.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Happy, Skipping, Pylons of Fear

17 May

May 17, 2016

pylons-skipping-gif

I found that gif floating around Facebook. I’d like to take credit for it but I can’t. I can’t even take full credit for the story I’m about to tell, but here it is.

When my brother, the long-lost Allan Keyes and I were little tykes, we’d often be bundled into the family car to take a trip through the wilds of New Jersey to see our relatives, an aunt and uncle and cousins. It was a chore. We rarely wanted to go. And being rotten little kids we were never too well behaved on the ride. 

New Jersey is known for a few things: toll booths every three yards on the highway, The New York Jets, and those endless miles of electrical wires stretching pylon to pylon all the way down to the horizon. So any trip on the highway was accompanied by an almost non-stop view of those metal monoliths. During the day they looked kind of boring and industrial, but at night they could be eerie with all the lights on them, sometimes blinking on and off.

Anyway, my brother and I were young and stupid and probably very annoying to the adults in the car until one day my Aunt told us that the pylons were monsters that move when you’re not looking at them.

I know what you’re thinking- Doctor Who totally ripped off the weeping angels from my Aunt. She should Sue. (Ha! See what I did there? Two of you will get it.)

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Anyway, we’d calm down and look anywhere but out the windows and then, suddenly whirl around and try to catch them moving. We never did, but we kept trying. Did I mention that we were young and stupid? I was 24 years old! NO, no, just kidding. 

As soon as I saw that gif online, this is the story that popped into my head. Crazy thing is… it’s true. The Pylons. New Jersey. All of it. It’s all true.

EP7-175875-1377-1378-01

Meanwhile, they say New Jersey is the Garden State, but did you notice that they never tell you what’s growing in the garden?

Triffids. New Jersey is full of triffids.

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PS: Happy Birthday to Saarah!

 

 

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