Tastes Like It Smells

I am pretty sure that the only food that tastes EXACTLY like what it smells like - is Toast. Truly. One can never really be disappointed in Toast. Even chocolate manages to taste ever so slightly different than it smells.

One can be very disappointed in foods that have had smells added to them to make them seem irresistible, only to discover the lie when commencing the chowing down of the blander, rubbier, less tasty version of the fabulous smelly thing ordered. The usual suspects leap to mind; Taco Bell, MacDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken (I heard from someone that worked there that the secret recipe is beef fat), Burger King (what’s with the scary Uncle Louis the Molester King they are using in the commercials lately?) - you get the idea.

As some of you might know, I changed the way I eat last November to a pretty organic, refined sugar-free, processed-free way of eating. Sort of vegan-plus-fish. Macrobiotic, if you will, but using that name conjures up all kinds of misconception and crinkled brows so I prefer to call it the longer “organic-mainly-whole-foods-vegan-plus-fish” moniker. But trips back and forth to St. Louis and the subsequent emotional toll of the last several months of the cancer chronicles left me fixing with food. Fixing with drugs is so very 80’s and fixing with booze is so very [insert latest celebrity party girl name here]. Food is still so accessible, tactile and fun. And one needs it to live. Of course one does not need an entire wedge of brie on an entire baguette with an entire salami to live – but hey, it’s Tasty. The body seizing in rebellion at the assault of the dairy and nitrite portion of the Tasty after months of clean living is almost worth it. Okay sometimes it IS worth it.

I bring you to my moment of Panda Express. Smells divine when you walk by, doesn’t it? REALLY good. It never quite manages to taste like it smells, but I periodically go back, just to be sure. I went back Thursday night during my work break. I had the chowmein, the Pepper Chicken and the Mushroom Chicken in their 2 item combo lunch for $6.49. It didn’t taste like it smelled, but I was hungry and it was salty enough to make me forgive yet another time. . . Cut to today, and I’m finally able to venture forth into the world again, having spent what could have been a completely lovely weekend hunched instead over the American Standard altar, swearing to never be seduced by their smelly food ever again in my lifetime – which is probably shorter anyway, since I’m sure I threw up part of my soul along with the chowmein.

When I eat again, I think I’ll start with Toast.