Food: An easy way to Embarrrasment

I would like to share with you a memory I have about a place that serves pizza in particular. They don't serve the thick crusted traditional pizza you find in a place like Pizza Hut. No this place served the most bizarre pizzas with thin crust. I'm talking about CiCi's Pizza. This place has given me a few pleasant memories, of course I say that sarcastically. My worst date memory is largely due to CiCi’s Pizza.

When I was in the eighth grade I was really into this girl with blonde hair like the sun, her name was Katie. I was a rather shy kid at this time and she was definitely an out spoken girl. So I figured going on a date with her should be easy since she would be the one doing all of the talking. I decided I would take her out to eat at an exquisite place like CiCi's. It was quite a financial strain for me but hey this girl was worth every dollar. So when I finally gathered enough nerve to ask her on a date sure enough she said yes. I was ecstatic. So as lame as this may sound I had my mother drive us over to CiCi's for our date. I was already thinking she was going to be mine forever. Well my mom dropped us off and we went in. It was packed with people, which was no surprise since it was a Friday. There were families with kids playing in the kid's zone and other couples conversing with each other. The CiCi's atmosphere was set for love.

I paid for our meals like a gentleman and we went through the buffet line. The line first started out with salads and dressings then moved on to breadsticks and tomato sauce with some various seasonings. Of course they had Hawaiian pizza, Barbecue pizza, and A-1 pizza (okay I made that one up) but I was feeling rather adventurous so I decided to try some Hawaiian pizza. After the pizza I ate some of their cinnamon rolls. I think they have some of the best rolls I’ve ever tasted. Now, I need to explain that I just got back from a month long trip to Honduras so I was still getting adjusted to living back in the states. Getting back to the date we found a nice secluded spot in the corner to eat. We ate our food mostly in silence with some awkward glances, one of us decided to start a conversation. At this point the date started going really well I was having fun and more importantly she was having fun, when all of the sudden I felt like I had to fart. Since this was a date and our first time at that I didn't want to let it out and have her either: a.) hear it and think I'm a slob or b.) smell the potpourri if you catch my drift. So after what felt like an eternity with grandfather time I decided to let the bad air go.

Fortunately for me it wasn't a trumpet nor was it a silent killer. Unfortunately for me it was a lot more than a standard fart. My mind couldn’t comprehend what I just did. Once I realized what I did I began to slowly creep to the edge of the table and she took this as me saying let’s get out of here. I trying to play it cool told her I just need to go to the bathroom but I'd meet her outside. CiCi's bathroom just so happened to be at the opposite end of the exit. So I raced to the bathroom and sure enough I did exactly what I was hoping didn't happen. I think it was the cooked pineapple in the pizza that upset my stomach and one too many cinnamon rolls. While I was panicking about my current situation the spawn of Satan walked into the bathroom and began slamming and kicking my door screaming for me to let him in! This kid was relentless and even after screaming to him that I was going to go find his Daddy he still wouldn't stop.

I remember as soon as I opened the bathroom door I was praying, "Dear God please don't add shame to my name." Like I said before at CiCi's the bathroom is on the opposite end of the exit. Oh and by the way I did have a nice little brown spot on the bottom of my shorts. So as fast as I could I collectedly walked to the exit. It felt like I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Of course my date was waiting for me outside and this is where the tension grew. “Is everything alright”, she asked me as if to say I can tell something is up. “Yeah I’m cool I’m just going chill by the wall”, I told her trying to play it off but freaking out in my mind’s eye. She started feeling really awkward after this which only made me feel more awkward than before. I called my mom like a baby telling her to come and pick us. We didn’t say anything else to each other that night I just whispered good night to her when she got out of the car. Then shamefully I told my mom the whole situation and she said, “I thought I smelled something.” I shot a glance at her only to see a smile as she jokingly replied, “You’ll never forget your first date now!” Thanks mom.

As you can imagine after that date Katie and I rarely spoke to each other. I didn’t talk to any of her friends because they thought I was just creepy and weird. To this day when I see CiCi's pizza or hear the name the experience, play by play, comes back into mind. Food does have an influence on the way we think. I still get embarrassed whenever I go back to CiCi's just thinking about that day. I will never have another slice of Hawaiian pizza again. Just the smell of pizza can bring back some of those emotions I had that night. Of course in retrospect I can laugh about it, but I can remember those exact thoughts that went through my head when I was in that bathroom. Every food we eat will affect our emotions in a good or bad way, and in my case it can bring back some crazy memories. Now whenever I'm praying at the dinner table for this food to nourish my body I don't just run through those words, no sir I mean every one of them. I guess I have CiCi's Pizza to thank for that.

Food....Superhero or Masked Vigilante?

1. From an early age I remember my mom cooking meals for the family. Some of these meals were ethnic course while others were ideas that she conjured up from a recipe book. There are three particular meals that she used to make that stick out to me. They were stacked up enchiladas, cheese quesadillas, and banana pancakes. She didn’t start making stacked up enchiladas until I was in high school. She came up with this one largely due to me being a growing boy and a lot of her meals during that time were not really filling me up. Her cheese quesadillas were so good that many of my friends use to come over not to come see me but to have some of her homemade quesadillas. Man talk about getting jealous! She made her banana pancakes for me only during the summer, never during the school year. These pancakes were thin and filled with roasted bananas. I would always end up eating like 10 of these before I did anything else for the day.
In the last few years she hasn’t cooked these meals, I think a lot of it is because she is really busy with her classes (she is a teacher). Now it comes down to getting some good ribs and potatoes for my birthday. Even now on family occasions she doesn’t do much of the cooking this is usually done by my grandmother on my father’s side. Looking back at these enriched dishes that she use to conjure they really did have an influence on me. I remember getting excited and enlightened if I was feeling a lot of stress during that time. They have shaped my appreciate and respect for my mother knowing that she use to have killer spatula ready to blow me out of the dinner table.

2. Its true food can have an influence on your mood or what you think at a particular moment. To this day I would never eat coleslaw because I remember seeing a kid in elementary school vomiting it out onto the gym floor where our cafeteria was. I was sitting across from where this kid was sitting and with my curious George mentality I looked over to the vomit to see how it looked like. It looked exactly like the coleslaw on my tray: it didn’t change! This is why to this day I can never eat coleslaw because it brings me back to that fateful day thirteen years ago.
I remember a lot of the meals we had during junior high. My favorite meal was curly fries mixed with crispy chicken strips. If I didn’t get this then I would get the triple stacked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Our pizza wasn’t too bad in middle school I think this was largely due to my pizza experience in elementary school was terrible so it could’ve only gotten better. In high school our pizza got a lot better we actually had smooth cheese and crisp edges. I ate a lot of pizza during high school luckily I never became a pepperoni face like many of my friends did. Of all of my food experience I have to say that junior was the best. Those curly fries with the chicken just couldn’t be beat.
Nowadays I make my own meals but their usually something simple like ham sandwich with macaroni salad. If I have the ingredients then I may end up cooking a steak with some asparagus or make an omelet. My favorite meal I make by far is my hamburgers. If I ever get to the point where I don’t need any more money and I’m doing nothing but being bored sitting at home then I will open up a place to make these burgers.

Is my favorite meal really the best meal?

There are many courses of meals that we all have experienced. Some have been good nutritional meals that we didn’t really enjoy all too much and others have been great meals that could in the long run kill us. The types of foods we eat generally are reflected in our appearances. Those who eat unhealthy meals full of sodium and salts will generally be obese people while those are follow the food pyramid and strive to eat healthy are usually lean and fit. Unfortunately not all of the foods that I like are healthy for me. I enjoy many types of pasta full of sauces that give me that feeling of being bloated once I’m done eating. My mom makes a great spaghetti pasta that has cheese on the top and a layer of ground beef just below the cheese. She puts the cheese on the top because this is a great way to let it melt over the beef and pasta. Cheese is an excellent topping for spaghetti. I love making hamburger patties covered in teriyaki sauce and putting some bacon covered in barbecue sauce. One of the best hamburgers I’ve ever tasted but again one of the unhealthiest things for me to eat. Many of my favorite meals are rather unhealthy for me if eaten to an obscene amount. As for my not so favorite meals I have a difficult time in deciding because I don’t really have any particular meal or course that I dislike. I know the two things that would give me nightmares would either be cranberries or spinach. Luckily for me I don’t get too many of my favorite meals since I’m away from home and I don’t have enough money to make any of these meals. As for telling what type of food a person eats by the way they look well the old saying you can’t judge a book by its cover gives it some justification.

Hello world

Hello world! I'm excited to be living. Since I'm going to writing my personal inner thoughts in this blog then maybe it would be beneficial to the audience that they understand who I'm as a person. I'm almost a senior at USI, I'm going to be a 6 credits shy once the fall semester comes around. I'm ready to get done with my undergrad so I can go ahead and get out into the corporate world. I've heard many sayings that once you leave college your ready to get back into it. Of course to my current mind frame this sounds ridiculous, but I'm sure that I will begin to miss school once I'm out. So I've decided that after about a year or so I will go back to college of course to expand my horizon and better myself. Like everyone I'm searching for that way to leave my mark in this world. I know this may sound cheesy but hey whats the point to living if we aren't striving to better ourselves. To those reading you may be thinking..........okay so this guy is an overacheiver. Is this true I don't like to think of myself as this but maybe to a certain degree. I believe its more important to enjoy the race we run rather than just sprint to be sure we finish. More than anything I want to have fun at the same time.