Serve Me, Puleeze!

I was just thinking about what foods I prefer to have someone else make for me. I'm a very good cook, I actually did it professionally for a while. I don't mind making many things from scratch, and I believe in trying to make most things at least once. I've made bagels and pies, smoked brisket, ribs for many hours (until I smell like I've been smoked too!), put up preserves, pickles, all that stuff. Bread and jam are two things I don't make any more because we don't eat enough of either to justify it, and besides, for this compulsive overeater, having a couple of loaves of fragrant bread sitting on the counter is just asking for trouble! I don't know about you, but after all that kneading and proofing, I start to think that I deserve to eat that whole crusty sucker by myself! I still bake things, usually containing chocolate, but only for occasions where most of it will be eaten by others.

Ok, as you can see, when it comes to food, I can go on, and on, and on. Back on topic, chick: Like good bread and jam, I now prefer to buy what others have made, usually of the highest quality, but sometimes I have a junk food fix outside my home. My disease is not so much what I eat, as how much. My compulsion thrives on quantity. So, despite all the talk of portion inflation in restaurants, eating out sometimes is a good way to limit my quantities: ie, I have a craving for french fries. So, occasionally we will go out for a medium sized portion of really good, hand cut fries. I don't own a deepfrier. That would be like a pyromaniac with a Zippo collection!

Also, for all my talk about healthy eating, I don't particularly like making tossed salads. Maybe it's something about an enjoyment vs. effort ratio: Salads are generally good, but do they make me salivate? Not really. So, that's something I'll gladly pay someone else to make for me.

Tofu is also something I will pay someone else to prepare for me, usually in an Asian restaurant. It took me a long time to tolerate tofu, like 10 years, and then another 10 to actually start liking it, and now I crave it, but I still like others making it for me: the gentle cloudlike soft tofu contrasting with spicy chewy minced pork in ma po tofu, or the firm tofu that was first fried in blocks to give it a chewy rind at my local Vietnamese joint. The other bonus is the tofu usually comes with vegetables I'm not very familiar with, like pak choy or chinese broccoli (guy laun), so I'm learning how good they can be too.

Other things that leap to mind:

certain deli sandwiches involving multiple meats, cheeses and olives (see the pyro rule) or that will topple if I try to assemble and jam into the home pannini press
mussels or any seafood that comes with the head still on (cowardly carnivore)
slice of pie
good hamburger
crepes
gazpacho
a beautifully made cappucino
pizza from Grimaldi's in Brooklyn (an original)