Well, it was going to take something big to bring me out of my blogging coma. And tonight it hit. I stopped by the OPAS office today and Terri gave me a couple of tickets to an event that was being held at the Brazos Center tonight. I guess it still pays to still live in the same town where you have connections. Anyway, the event was a Taste of Home Road Show. Taste of Home is apparently a very famous cooking magazine. The night was supposed to consist of a trade show of sorts with free "trade showesque crap", food samples, etc. Well, I talked a friend into tagging along (sorry Yvette!) and off I went.
I knew I was in trouble when half of the parking lot was filled with Buick LeSabres, Pontiacs and various other assorted grandma sedans, the other half with Toyota Four Runners, Cadillac Escalade and other essential "rich soccer mom" SUVs. I entered the building cautiously and was nearly leveled by the estrogen wave the surged across the threshold. I was, undoubtedly, the only male (straight or not) under the age of 35 in the building who was not unwillingly dragged there by a persistent mother. All males between the ages of 35 and death were partnered with a spouse, and let's face it, they had an even smaller chance than the pubescent boys, to escape the experience. Yet there, there I was, a 20-something male who had unwittingly entered into the estrogen abyss.
And now, several comments about what I found once entrenched, for your reading and my writing pleasure. First, the creepy people from Calvert roaming around (or sitting, following a childhood dream of becoming a mannequin) in Victorian garb were nightmare inducing. Really people, is the freakish mannequin painted in neon yellow and placed on the back of a bicycle not enough to set your city apart in the annals of history? I seriously doubt Calvert even existed in 1800, and what's more, these people were having FAR too much fun prancing about in these ridiculously over-the-top and historically inaccurate costumes. I half expected them to bust out in a chorus of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman, or at the very least a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells. Alas, it was the first in a string of disappointments.
The food samples were negligible, though I will give props to Square One for the 1/2" square of bread pudding (AMAZING!) and the 3 snippets of lettuce, sliver of avocado, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing salad. Both were delicious, but who decided that salad and a sticky/flimsy dessert product were wise choices for samples? Though I will say that the toothpick chases that ensued were entertaining to watch. Then there was the HEB table featuring the oh-so-difficult to make tortilla, bean, salsa cheese, pre-cooked chicken tortilla rollup. "That's not difficult to make" you say. I would agree. But Harriet did not. (Imagine a moo-moo and thick accent) "Ethel, come here and listen to this, these are so easy to make." Ethel came, listened, and Rhonda the HEB employee had entirely too much fun explaining this gourmet taste sensation to the growing crowd. OH MY GOSH, do people really need to LEARN how to make this? It's not rocket science, people.
Then there were the jewelry salespeople. "Why would a jewelry store be at a food show>" you ask. I asked myself the same question, and the explanation as ridiculous as the question. Which really leads to the GEM of the evening, the actual "cooking show." Let me take this opportunity to comment in general about cooking shows, which until tonight I had only experienced via the wonder of the television tube. I really feel like the cooking show phenomenon is intriguing. There are a few cooking show hosts who I enjoy watching. They are funny, witty, original and manage to show me different techniques and offer intriguing cooking secrets. But the vast majority don't really teach you anything. Armed with a recipe and even the most basic of kitchen knowledge and cooking skill, most people can end up with something that is at least edible if not the most beautiful to behold. Like so many other things I've noticed, even in the cooking realm, people expect and "need" someone to take them by the hand and lead them step-by-step through a process. I won't get off on a tangent about what this speaks about and how this negatively affects our country as a whole. Maybe a new entry.
Anyway, all this to say that cooking shows are really not that useful, and this one was no exception. Perhaps if the host cook, whose stage presence, public speaking skills, and personality unfortunately did not match her impressive credentials, were more interesting I could have swallowed the rest. Her cheesy jokes, which I will give her were pre-scripted, were almost more than I could handle. How do you fix a broken jack-o-lantern? "A Pumpkin Patch" and the list ensued. But the thing that really got to me was the fact that the ENTIRE event was a giant commercial, and not really even a disguised one at that. The jewelry (I told you I'd get back there) that she wore was from the jeweler booth. The paper towels she used were "Viva" which could never be stated without a follow-up "We clean up your crap" or however it was their jingle went. Every other sentence was a plug for a sponsor. If this thing was so sponsored why were the tickets still $10? She stumbled over the slogan for the local Toyota dealership, the local newspaper (don't get me started on their representative who hosted the event and had the microphone crammed so far down her throat that we could hear her stomach digesting the on-the-spot prepared food that ONLY she got to taste.) But the crowning jewel of the evening was the first of several hundred plugs for the grocery sponsor. You guessed it, HEB did the honors. Well apparently no one had rehearsed the script with her, nor had she done any research about the companies whose names she would proclaim hundreds of times during the course of the evening. "And tonight all of the groceries you see me using tonight were provided by "Heb" (rhymes with web). Audience "H.E.B." Quick, but not quite quick enough recovery "HEB!" IDIOT! You should maybe know how to pronounce the name of your major sponsor.
I left way before intermission knowing all too well why the sea of hands threw themselves into the air as the "hostess wonder" asked "how many of you are first time attendees at a Taste of Home Cooking Show?" No one in their right mind would go back for "seconds."
that's all.
