Fruit........?

So today I am going to be discussing a topic that, in my opinion, a lot of idiots try to weigh in on. That is the debate over whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.

There is something you need to know when trying to determine the classification of a tomato, and that is the fruit is both a scientific term and a culinary term, while vegetable is only a culinary term. The definition of the word “vegetable” is any part of any plant that is used for food (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vegetable), so by this definition a tomato is a in fact a vegetable, but so is every fruit. The scientific definition of “fruit” the developed ovary of a plant, so basically anything with a seed (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fruit?s=t). The culinary definition is any sweet tasting plant part. This is what throws people off. A tomato is not sweet, but is does have seeds so it fits both definitions. So now we have to look at the definition of vegetable, and according to that the tomato is a fruit. I have considered the evidence and while both definitions make a good argument it is my professional opinion that the tomato is a vegetable.

So naturally upon learning this my t question was “then how the @#$% is a banana a fruit if it doesn’t have any seeds in it?” I was able to determine that the bananas we eat have been selectively bread to produce smaller and smaller seeds because that’s what the consumers want. When you take a bite into a banana you can see small black dots organized in a circle around the center, those are the seeds.

One thing that I am still unsure about is how seedless watermelon is considered a fruit. I have always thought of it as a fruit, but according to the dictionary definition it is not. I did some fairly extensive research trying to find the answer to this question, but with no success. So if anyone knows anything about this topic and would like to enlighten me, please feel free to. (361 words)

Lazy Day "Meals"

Let me just start off by saying that none of these are going to be actual meal, by putting the word “meal” and “lazy”, for me, that means just a large snack. A snack that is suitable for just sitting in front of the television all day. So here it is.

Breakfast-I think that this one should be beyond obvious…cold cereal. Maybe if you are feel motivated you can go put a pop tart in the toaster for a warmer meal, but for the most part cereal and milk and you can listen to my favorite cereal eating song right here http://youtu.be/u5_aFc2bWiM.

Lunch-this is one that I am particularly proud of discovering. My mom finds this cheese at Sam’s Club (I would like to apologize that I can not recall the name) that comes in this one pound block and is already individually sliced and the slices are separates with a thin piece of paper. Once you have the cheese now all you need are some Triscuts. My favorite kind to uses is rosemary and olive oil. What you are going to want to do is to put some of the cheese on to the cracker then eat it. Through out years of testing I have concluded that to get the ideal cracker to cheese ratio you must fold the slice of cheese into fourths, this gives you a smaller piece of cheese that is about the same size as the cracker. After one pound if cheese and a box of Triscuts you will be full until dinner time easily.

Dinner-one word-leftovers. My personal favorite would have to be spaghetti, pop it in the micro wave for a few minutes and *snaps fingers* you have a delicious piping hot plate of heaven. (302 words)     

Drink Mixing

I believe I have discovered a new fad that drink companies are doing.

Throughout the years I have begun to notice a change in the types of juices and drinks that have been available to me. Perhaps I have just never noticed this before and it really has been going on since before I was born. The difference is that drink companies are beginning to mix their drinks with different types of fruit juices, my favorite being mango juice.

I first noticed this while I was trying to purchase an Arnold Palmer (for those of you who live under a rock it is a delicious mix of lemonade and iced tea) when I noticed that they were out of it. So naturally I started to look around for the next best thing when I stumbled upon a beverage made by the company Arizona. This beverage was half ice tea, like the Arnold Palmer that I had wanted, but rather than having lemonade it had mango juice. Thinking that it would have an interesting flavor to it I decided to give it a try and then immediately fell in love with it. The only way that I can think to describe it is as being a less harsh taste than Arnold Palmer. If AP (Arnold Palmer) was a mountain, than this new drink would be a grass covered, gently rolling hill.

Then it couldn't have been a week later that I had just woken up from a very restful slumber at my, at that time, dear friends’ house. Their mother greeted us that morning with pancakes and this strange orange juice concoction. When I tried it I was blown away and had to ask what it was. The answer was orange juice, banana juice (I’m not sure how you can get juice from a banana), and strawberry juice (again, not sure how that works) and apparently you could just buy this stuff at the grocery store! Then she showed me the other bottle that they kept in their refrigerator, this one was mango and orange juice and it was my favorite of the two.

Now that, as you may know by now, I have a job in food sales I know how much of what we sell and I was surprised to learn that we sell just as much regular orange juice as we do orange juice mixes, and for good reason. I feel that they taste better and also the addition of new fruits to the juice adds nutrients that otherwise may have been missing. So as someone who works in the food business I would say to give this a try and get on board with the new fad.

If this was a thing before more than just a few years ago please let me know so I can delete this post and not feel stupid.(479 words)

Wendy's Review

Today I thought that I would shake thing up a bit and do a review of the newly redesigned Wendy’s on 42^nd street.

Before the remolding this eating establishment was about even with any other Wendy’s I had ever been to in my life, but their game was really stepped up. They completely tore down the old to make way for the new, at first this was a little bit scary because nobody knew if they were closing down or going to reopen, but when word got around it was a very big relief. The scariness came from the fact that that Wendy’s is one of the few places that is close enough to our school (I am not going to specify what school because of the predators on the internet) that you can go to, eat at a conferrable pace and return to school with in the lunch period.

One of my favorite additions they made to the Wendy’s is the drink machine. This is a shiny box that has a touch screen allowing you to pick for dozens of different types of pops. Not only does it make the drink getting experience much better, it also helps to add to the modern atmosphere of the restaurant.

Speaking of the atmosphere, I need to talk about the improvements made to it. They added a small area to socialize or drink coffee while watching television and enjoying the non existent heat of the fake fire place that was installed. They also put in a fogy glass wall type of a thing between the area where you wait in line for your food and the dinning area.  

Now that I am thinking about lines I have to talk about the way they redesigned how you order and wait for your ordered food. Before (and this is the way that it is in many fast food restaurants still) you would stand in line and there would be lines to your right and left. Once you ordered you would just sort of stand in between the lines as you waited for your food to come. Wendy’s took more of a subway approach, once you have ordered your food you move down a counter and you from into a waiting line, rather than just a waiting jumbled mess of people.

I think that the remodeling was a very good idea. It gave a new, more modern look to the place, gave it a better flow and even improved my drink getting experience. It is safe to say that this had made me want to eat more Wendy’s.(439 words)

Break Time Meals

So today I will be discussing the less gourmet side of food…break time food.

This type of food must be easy to prepare using only the limited tools provided to you in your break room, this food must be something that can be prepared quickly (because you don’t have a long time on break, normally), and like always it must taste good. I will now tell you a little bit about what I like to eat.

My first break time love was a microwave bacon cheese burger. This treat heats itself up in just two minutes and costs only one dollar and twenty five cents. This was introduced to me by fellow coworkers on my first week, but after a little bit my microwave bacon cheese burgers got old. So it was time to find a new meal.

Next I found what would end up being a very big mistake. I discovered the microwave Monkey bread. This was a family size monkey bread that cost an arm and a leg to get, six dollars and forty nine cents. When I took my first bite I thought I was a genius for finding this great tasting meal, but that was short lived. When working an eight hour day, illegal as it may be, we receive a twenty minute break. When you take away the six minute cooking time you are left with four teen minutes to eat a family size meal…and I regrettably did. The rest of the day I was just praying that I would throw up just to make my stomach ach the rest of the day. Needless to say I never tried that again.

Next I found the healthiest thing yet. The Cesar Salad Kit. For a mere three dollars and fifty nine cents you get a bag that is full of lettuce, has a packet of Cesar Sauce, croutons and some cheese. Although I did have to take some harassment for my friends about eating salad for lunch, it is very delicious. But to much of a good thing can get old, so once again I was forced to find something new.

Then I found what I am on right now. My self and a group of fellow employees all pool our money and buy milk to put in the break room refrigerator and also to buy some assorted cereals. This always allows us to never have to eat the same thing twice in a row.

So if you want my advice on what to eat at work find some buddies and pool your money. (431 words)    

My Brushes with Death

Through out my life I have had several brushes with death because of the substances I have ingested.

My first near death experience occurred in the fifth month of the fourth year of my life. On this day, according to the account of my mother, I had happened to find my way into my parent’s room where my father had irresponsibly left his bottle of Calvin Klein Obsession open and with in my reach. As a preschooler should be, I was curious about this strange liquid that smelled good. Throughout my short life I had learned that if something smelled good then it usually tasted good, so based on that logic I took a swig. I quickly learned that everything that smelled good did NOT taste good so I when to the kitchen where my mom was and asked for a glass of water. I didn't finish the glass so I handed it to my mother and she took the cup and smelt the cologne and quickly asked what I had been drinking. When I told her she promptly called poison control. The operator at poison control instructed my mother to call Calvin Klein who for some reason has a nurse on call 24/7. The nurse told my mom to give me orange juice and keep an eye on me to make sure that I didn't die. I end up fine, but it is now a “funny” joke in my family to talk about how I received brain damage from drinking cologne.

The second time that almost died, I didn't really almost die, like many times my mom over reacted. The story goes like this. In the year of our lord 2011, my mom started getting some very delicious gummy vitamins. Not only do I like things that taste good, but I also just want to best for my body. So I figured that I could do both by eating a large quantity of vitamins. I consumed an estimated fifteen vitamins, it would have been more but I was caught in the act and stopped by my mom. She told me that contrary to my belief, eating large quantities of vitamins is actually dangerous and then called poison control again. Lucky, according to the lady a poison control, the vitamins were of very poor quality and didn’t contain any of the vitamins that can be dangerous in large quantities.

In these stories I never really came THAT close to dying, but I could have and I didn’t and now I am thankful for every day. Thank you for your time. (437 words)      

Billion Dollar Idea

So today I am going to talk about an idea that’s so incredibly great I could potently be the world’s youngest billionaire. I am about to post this in good faith that no one who reads this will steal my idea…so please don’t steal my idea.

Here is my pitch.

I don’t know about you but my second favorite part of eating cereal is drinking the delicious milk that is left in the bottom of the bowl and that absorbs all of the delicious flavors of whatever cereal you have been eating, like the rich honey flavor when eating honey nut cheerios, of the amazing fruity flavor the results from Fruit loops. So now just imagine a world where you can get a jug of this milk with a bright label on it that reads “Parker Steffen and Companies Flavored Mild Co. Inc.”. That world could be reality, if I get the funding that I would need that is. Think how easy it would be to create, all you would have to do would be make a partnership with Kellogg or another large cereal manufacturer, create large tubs of mild and soak cereal in them. Then after that the soggy cereal could be sold to farmers to feed their animals with or something of that nature, so basically you get to make money twice. Then just think how easy is would be to sell, according to a recent survey that I conducted both my mom and my sister said that they would buy this product.  So the economics are there, the demand is there, now you are probably wondering “but Parker, what about the health risks? Surly this delicious sounding idea may be bad for you.” You may be somewhat right, but you have to ask yourself, how is this any different than feeding children sugary cereals every day for breakfast? The only difference is that Parker Steffen and Companies Flavored Mild Co. Inc. would give kids about the same amount of sugar, but also with the benefits of milk like calcium, vitamin D and many more.  

So you now realize that this a billion dollar idea because it’s healthy…ish, the demand is there and it would be easy to profit from, but now you want to know what my business plan is. Well here it is. I like the philosophy of 50 cent, he says “get rich or die tryin’” and that is exactly how I plan to run my business. My plan is to be in a grocery store in every state in the continental U.S. by the end of year one but aggressively advertising and paying to put it in stores. Yes, this will cost a lot of money but the potential pay of will be well worth it.

Now that you know what I am all about, I am looking for an investor who wants to give me twenty five million dollars for a 2.5 percent stake in Parker Steffen and Companies Flavored Mild Co. Inc.. For those of you who are good at math you will know that asking for this means that I value this idea at exactly one billion dollars. If you would like to join me in business simply contact me. Thank you, God bless.  (544 words)