It's Greek Festival weekend around the corner. I chose to eat calamari for lunch rather than go to the David Mamet movie in Pasadena. I wasn't feeling so great yesterday and this seemed like less effort and possibly more pleasure.
The festival seemed underattended, maybe because thunderstorms are predicted (freak city) and last weekend there were some shootings at another church festival a mile away.
I headed straight for the calamari. $5.00 for a gigantic tray of small doughnut size rings. But, yuk, I didn't like them. They were overflavored, obviously bought that way in the bag. And you know how people complain that calamari is rubbery? One of these pieces snagged on my tooth and then slapped back at my lip just like a rubber, uh, band. Dumped that.
On to the pastries. Since I knew I'd eat them all myself, I chose three I knew I liked, and let the charming lady who was putting them on my tray choose the fourth. MISTAKE! She chose that big rectangular thing in the hot dog tray, which tasted like a tortilla that had met fry bread and taken a dive in the big honey river. ick. dump that. Still have three to go.
Attitude is everything.
6 comments:
Calamari cooking is an art. Five seconds too much and you get that texture. It will always be bait to me. When I lived in SF it was the cheapest bait because almost nothing ate it you could eat.
There is a greek food festival next weekend about 10 miles from here.
The Greek Festival still sounds like the right choice, though there would have been popcorn at the movie.
But if I were there I'd retrieve that big rectangular thing in the hot dog tray from your garbage. Especially if you had some good coffee around. How was the baklava?
I agree that truly yucky food should be dumped.
Some people say "I paid for it! I can't waste it!"
I can. I figure said food will be destroyed whether it goes in my mouth, the trash, or a compost heap. Not that I waste large amounts of food (I'm the Leftovers Queen), but why eat something you don't like? Life's too short!
fearless, can you believe there was a restaurant in San Fran in the 80s that ONLY served squid? It was called squid. I used to wonder what the customers looked like. Can't imagine it lasted long.
Linda, Jon said the Mamet film was very artificial. I've actually not eaten the spun gold pastry yet, but the other two were quite good.
Namowal, I always think of that Woody Allen quote, which I'll probably get wrong-- wait here it is intact from Annie Hall:
There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.
Love that sentiment (suffering's too short-lived). That looks like the pastry I loved years ago in Greece that looked like shredded wheat (on the left). Isn't Mamet a little depressing, anyway? Funny about the squid restaurant!
My favorite Mamet movie is "Spanish Prisoner".
Hope you got lucky on the next pastries. I love filo dough. (Have no idea if I spelled that right.)
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