How to Enjoy the Day

My family, like the typical American family, enjoys spending Sundays together after attending church. One thing that I particularly enjoy about my family is how we incorporate food into that.

The whole day start for me at about 10:00 in the morning, when my dad wakes me up. Every day he does it exactly the same way, whether on purpose of not I don’t know, he knocks lightly on the door, this wakes me up, and then says “we’re leaving in 40 minutes, there are doughnuts up stairs when you are ready”. This begins the day of eating.

Every Sunday the first meal the whole family wakes up to is doughnuts. A very long time ago these doughnuts would have been picked up from Krispy Kreme, but ever since the tragic closing of Krispy Kreme the doughnuts have been from the Hy-Vee bakery.  

The name of this meal is a hotly debated topic in my family. My father grew up in a small farm town that had a population of about 200 people and out there they call the noon meal “dinner” the afternoon snack “lunch” and the night time meal “super”.  So just about every time we sit down for a meal my mom and dad playfully fight each trying to get the most people to call it what they want.  

The next meal (lunch/dinner), during the warmer parts of the year is almost always something grilled. Typically when my dad is out getting the doughnuts before we wake up he will also pick us some steak or hamburgers or pork along with maybe some stuffed peppers on a good day. This feast of sorts is enjoyed with family friends we meet up with at church or with only our family.  During the colder months of the year we will typically stop at a restaurant after church to enjoy a meal together.

If you have read my blog before you already know what’s for dinner/supper during the football season (if not, check out that post), but that leaves the rest of the year to nice home cooked meals. My Mom will normally make spaghetti, meatloaf or something else hearty. Sometimes we are asked to vote on who’s meal was better, my mom’s or my dad’s. For this meal my favorite thing to have would be tacos, even though they aren’t really a “hearty” food.

Finally, if my dad is in a good mood he will make shakes for us before we go to bed. This special treat happens about once a month and is always well received. (428 words)          

Airlines

What I have learned from the airlines is that I am a second class citizen and second class citizens are treated differently that first class citizens. But thanks to an error by Delta Airlines I, not anyone that I was traveling with (which I thought was pretty funny),was allowed to move up to first class. It was awesome.

First of all the people are better. They are mostly from higher in society then everyone else in the plane and they have the sense not to bring their screaming child, or at least not bring them up to the first class section. Another great thing is that, unlike those animals in second class, we are in the front of the plane. This makes for a very quite and relaxing flight. Another thing that adds to the comfort is the larger seats and the complimentary blankets.

Now to the part that this blog is actually about, the food. I will admit that it was a relatively short flight that I was upgraded on, Atlanta to O’Hare, so we were not served real meals, just fantastically free snacks and beverages. While the swine were starving in the back of the plane during our wait on the run, we upper class citizens were served. Keep in mind that all of the following food was completely free. The stewardesses came around with a basket containing, what was advertised as “fresh”, fruit. I enjoyed several apples and bananas. Next she came around with a basket full of fun sized candy bars, but since we could have as many as we wanted it didn’t matter that they were only fun sized. Another option that we had was the option of the free graham Cracker type things that are handed out to the savages in second class, which I admit, even with my sophisticated first class taste buds, I still very much enjoy. The next thing that was provided to use was beverages. The Neanderthals in the back of the plane get water and small sums of pop poured into plastic cups. However we received pop in the can, it was even opened right in front of us. I am not sure why, but I think the fact that they opened it right in front of us made it seem fancier. The also served the older members of first class Champaign. When I asked I was unable to provide sufficient identification.

In conclusion second class sucks. First class is where its at, you get all of the best things along with all of the best serves and all of the best sitting conditions. Fly first class, you don’t know what you are missing. (449 words)     

Farmers

Since this whole thing is about food, I thought that I would do a little thing about how we get food. Because that’s kind of important.

Most of my family on my dad’s side comes from a small farming town in Dubuque county. About three hundreds people live there, and since my grandma and grandpa had ten kids and all of my aunts and uncles had about five kids, our family makes up a pretty big part of the towns population.

In the 1950’s my grandpa started a Feed store (I will explain what that is in a little bit) and then when he retired he gave his business to my two of my uncles. They have since opened three more stores.

A feed store is what you may see on the side of the road when you are driving in the country. They normally have a few large silver silos and trucks and large machinery sitting around them. What they do is they store farmers crop for them and then turn it into animal feed (as the name suggests). During the summer time, when there is no crop to be harvested and stored) they also sell literally tons of fertilizer for farmers to put on there fields.

Just think how bad the word would be if there weren’t people who did that stuff or, even worse, the farmers them selves. This country isn’t like some developing country where if you are not a farmer you are a warrior, so if you don’t want to die you have to farm. These people choose to do this. That means choosing to wake up before the sun comes up, and going to bed after it goes down. Most of them are very smart and could very easily be doing a job that is physically easier and be making more money doing it.

Farmers help to feed the country, as well as give America a very valuable material for export, corn is Americas second largest cash crop behind Marijuana (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1053757/pg1). (349 words)  

Frozen Pizza

The unsung hero of food…frozen pizza

How many times have you been sitting at home in need of a meal, but been too lazy to make something of go somewhere to eat? And how many of those times have you turned to frozen pizza to give you a cheap and delicious meal? My guess is, if you are anything like me, the answer is “a lot”.  Have you ever just sat back and thought about how many times frozen pizza was there for you when no one else was?

Frozen pizza is a pretty remarkable thing if you think about it. You take it out of your freezer hard as a rock then you just put it on/into your pizza cook device and within twenty minutes you have a hot pizza with melty cheese and fluffy crust. Speaking of pizza cooking devices, I feel compelled to tell you about the one my family use because it is so simple and it works so well. Our pizza cooker consists of a spinning pan (this is what you set the pizza on) and a stationary part that goes over the pan. This stationary part has metal wires in it that are coiled and somehow get really hot and cook the pizza as it spins around underneath it. This works better than the conventional ways of cooking frozen pizza because, in an oven, because, in my opinion, it helps to make the crust softer as well as helps to give the cheese a more even melt pattern. One last reason that I think my way is the best way is because is so simple a toddler could do it. There is not hassling with preheating and forgetting to turn the oven off, it automatically turns off when the timer goes off.  

Cream Puffs

Somehow, for the first seven teen years that I spend on this planet I managed to never eat a cream puff. You can imagine my excitement when I tried my first one ever and they turned out to be arguably the best thing that I had eaten this month.

For those of you who, like my old self, have never had a cream puff, what it is is it is a round ball of flaky goodness that incases a cool cream center. When bitten this cream center explodes in your mouth and gives you a blast of unparalleled flavor. The only problem with these cream puffs is that when you get them from the store, like we did, you have to wait for them to thaw out before you can enjoy them. The time that it takes to let them thaw out can be compared to the time that it takes for something to finish cooking in the microwave, by that I mean that it seems to take longer than it should.

When my dad first threw one at me (not to me, at me) and said “try it”, I was hesitant because I didn’t really know what it was. I had heard about them and how good they were, but I didn’t really know. When I held it my hand for the first time it felt cold, my teeth hurt when something really cold touches them, this was concerning because I knew that based on the name there must be cream inside, this cream I assumed would be cold. My fear was that it would explode in my mouth and cause me some pain, however the fear was misplaced for when I bit into it and it turned out to be wonderful.

One thing out the experience that I am slightly embarrassed by (other than being scared about eating a cream puff) is how long it took me to figure out why was why the cream in cream puffs tasted so similar to the chocolate pies from Kathy’s Pies that I so much enjoy. I told my family about the observation that I made and I was immediately laughed at. I soon realized why. Apparently chocolate pies are not called “Chocolate Pies” but are instead called “Chocolate Cream Pies”. Then I came to the realization that the cream in cream puffs and the cream in chocolate cream pies was the same cream! Needless to say I felt pretty stupid. (410 words)

Parker’s Finger Cleaner

I have another business idea to propose to you people.

For me, the worst part of eating a bag of chips of eating at KFC is the fact that you can’t use your phone after you finish. You can, but not with our smearing the grease and oil from whatever you ate all over the touch screen of your phone. Not only is this extremely inconvenient, but it is also a security risk because people can now see the dots or lines of oil and grease on your screen thus giving away your pass code or dot pattern for android users. Something must be done about this problem.

                        

When I was trying to think of some way to accomplish this goal I had to keep a few things in mind. First of all, no one wants to have to wash their hands or anything like that, this new thing had to be mobile, and it also had to be functional. Another key thing is the ability to accessorize it and let me make money off of these accessories. I think that I came up with the perfect solution.

I would call my new invention Parker’s Finger Cleaner and it would be shaped the finger of a glove. In side this finger shaped thing out be grease on oil absorbing substances. Admittedly, I do not know if the technology is in existence yet, perhaps I am doing the same thing that Leonardo DiVinci did when he thought of the helicopter hundreds of years before it was actually made, just with a much less important and less complex idea. Assuming that the technology is out there or it will be in the near future, I will continue on with my explanation. Around the finger part will be size adjusters as well as a battery pack that will power the climate control part of it. Parker’s Finger Cleaner is very simple to use. Simply slide your dirty finger into the finger part of the glove (or out the finger part of the glove over your finger depending on how you like to think about it) and then adjust the size adjusters until it is nice and snug. Then, in an up and down motion, slide Parker’s Finger Cleaner on your finger. When one finger is clean just readjust it for your next finger until all of your fingers are nice and clean. If you find that your fingers are to warm or cold while you are cleaning them all you have to do is use the climate control settings to make you digits the perfect temperature.

Now to the big money maker. The accessories. I will have assorted carrying cases, and perhaps even a phone case with one of these built in. Another accessory idea is different cases for the products themselves. The hope is that there can be as many cases for my products as there are for phones, the only difference is that I would figure out some way to insure that third parties couldn’t make them as well. This would insure that all of the profit when to me. (519 words)