November 4, 2007

Minute With Manic
November 4, 2007

Blogger Name: The Gang's All Here!
Blogger URL/link: whitneygang.blogspot.com
Blogging Since: May 2007

So, Featured Blogger for November 4, 2007 is none other than The Gang’s All Here! Let’s get started, and I’m kinda on this food thing here, so I’m gonna ask some food-related questions.

Manic: First of all, what do you think about milk and spaghetti? Is that not the grossest thing E V E R? Like my sister will eat spaghetti for dinner AND drink a glass of milk with it. That to me is just so gross. To me, I just imagine a stomach full of white curdly milk and chunky red spaghetti sauce all mixing together with stomach acid. Nasty. What is a nasty food combination to you?

Gang: Yes, spaghetti with sauce and milk are truly nasty. But since I really don't love red sauce and rarely drink plain milk, it doesn't affect my life. But peanut butter on pancakes, smothered in maple syrup? Now THAT's gross. And coincidentally, it's also The Boss and The Gang's favorite Saturday morning treat, made better only by the addition of bananas to the pancake batter. Eeeew.

Manic: OK, yes that is kind of gross, but the milk and spaghetti thing is grosser. Incidentally, the one thing in the kitchen I’m really good at making (aside from reservations, of course!) is pancakes! I use cinnamon, vanilla extract and loads of chocolate chips in mine. I tried to sneak bananas in one time but Diva busted me on that. Favorite junk food of all time to eat?

Gang: Cheetos. Lots and lots of Cheetos.

Manic: OK, hold on here a minute, you’ve got like four kids, right? Do you let them eat Cheetos in your home? Like on the couch and stuff? I am a bit of a mean mom when it comes to the orange family of foods. I NEVER buy Cheetos for my kids, or Doritos or Cheese popcorn or puffs because that stuff just does not come out of furniture!

Gang: Well, I could eat them till the roof of my mouth turns raw from the crunch and salt. And I'm not a Cheetos snob - I'll eat baked, generic, whatever! I also love Combos, Bugles, Herr's Salt and Pepper chips, and popcorn. Now there's a perfect food: popcorn with real butter drizzled over it and lightly salted. MMMMMMMMM! Yes, I'm a salty, I confess. Carbs are my friends.

Manic: I used to be solely a salty, but now as I’m aging, I throw in the chocolate thing too. I used to hate chocolate. I’d always choose like Skittles or Sprees over a chocolate bar. But I love carbs too. ‘Cept they unfortunately don’t love me back. And the popcorn with real butter at the movies – my kids love that, but I try to deter them from getting the butter. It totally makes their tummies ache afterward!

Next question! You may have read some past entries where I have vomited in odd places, like a taxi perhaps, or a garbage can at the train station. Do you throw up often? I personally hate throwing up, but sometimes it’s a necessity. Have you ever been in a place where you needed to throw up but couldn’t?

Gang: I don't throw up often; in fact it's been about a year. I hate throwing up. I gag fairly easy, but I'd rather dry-heave my way out of it than actually throw up. I do NOT get that train of thought that says, "I know I'll feel better if I just throw up." Who really thinks that?!

Manic, raises hand timidly, “ME!”

Gang: And yes, I've been stuck, needing to hurl and not having a place to do it – just about every morning at work when I was pregnant with Shaggy.

Manic: Yeah, but that kind of puking is EXPECTED! I was talking about like the time I went on a cruise with my parents and I got really drunk. Then the next day we had to go on one of those tours of an island, and we were walking along a beach, and I had to puke. I could have puked and just tossed it all up in the ocean except a co-worker of my dad’s and his family was with us. That was one of the worst days in my life. You need to puke, and it’s coming out, and you have to force your body to make yourself re-swallow your vomit. Ooh, I’m making myself sick thinking about it.

Gang: Yeah, well, I didn't really feel too comfortable tossing my morning pastries into my circular file in front of my boss!

Manic: NOT THE FILE CABINET? OK, that IS gross! At least it was cuz you were pregnant and not drunk. You weren’t drunk, were you?

Gang: Next question, please.

Manic: What’s the nastiest thing you’ve ever had to eat, and you can’t say that foi de gras duck innards thing. Because that’s just a given. Who likes THAT crap? And I use that word literally!

Gang: I think the worst thing I ever ate was bad seafood. Now that was some heaving and gagging to behold. But last month, The Gang was at an "all you can eat" Chinese buffet and Dr. Doolittle REALLY wanted to be brave enough to try sushi (not even the raw fish kind). He even got it as far as on his plate and to our table. But none of us could do it - just the thought and the image that the word conjures. Ugh.

Manic: Ooh, there are probably quite a few readers “booing” you right now. I think many people love sushi; however, sushi in A CHINESE RESTAURANT?? They do that? I am not one of those people who crave sushi. I mean, I like it, and have been to a sushi house before, but after like trying the fourth different kind of eel-roll-thingy, wrapped around some raw chunks of Nemo, I started to feel a little iffy in the stomach myself. Really, I do have to agree with you, eating raw fish is just nastified. Why can’t we cook it up a little, maybe fry it, stick it between two buns and call it a Filet-o-Fish. Do you make your kids eat stuff they don’t want to?

Gang: Yes!

Manic: Why?

Gang: What other revenge do we moms get in this life? Legally, that is?

Manic: I don’t know, that’s kind of cruel! Like that scene from Mommy Dearest where she makes her daughter eat that meat (Go to 1:39 on the video, or -5:00):



But then again, there are different levels of cruelty, like the fact that I don’t buy my kids Cheetos is pretty mean. But, I don’t really like my kids bawling their heads off at the dinner table, clamping their mouths shut while Mr. Manic tries to unlock their jaws to toss in a veggie. So, what’s the point of making them eat something they don’t want to?

Gang: My utter amusement! Seriously though, I do make them try new things and things they swear they hate. And occasionally I even make them finish them too. I like my kids to know that they should be willing and open to trying new things - and food is usually a pretty safe risk. Especially if it's on our table, and even more so if I made it. And I always remind them that they might just like it. You know what, sometimes they do!

Manic: Unless it’s sushi! Well, this has been fun; what do you think? Feel like puking yet?

Gang: Nope! I've got a giant loaf of banana bread baking in the oven right now and it's cinnamon-y goodness is completely obliterating any negative imagery that this interview has initiated. Plus, I'm still kinda cracking myself up about the revenge bit.

Manic: Mmmmm… sounds yummy! Hey Gang, thanks so much for playing Minute With Manic! BTW, I love cinnamon bread! Can you invite me over?