4 Worst Food Decisions

I made yet another poor life decision this week involving food. And it prompted some thinking about my history of poor food choices. So I started making a list of the 4 worst food purchase and food preparation decisions in the history of Rich Boehmcke. Here they are in descending order.

#4 Jelly Would Have Been Better - Sometime around 10th grade

This was a time in my life when I was probably feeling a surge of confidence. I was into sports to some degree so I was hanging around a lot of guys that were going to the weight room and eating ridiculous things.

This inspired a certain courageousness and whimsy in me that was probably misguided. I remember being in my kitchen on one particular day. There were fresh cold cuts in the fridge as usual so I took the roast beef and made myself a sandwhich. I was bored with the usual condiment selection. Then I remembered there was Skippy peanut butter in the cabinet.

I thought I was being clever, I thought I was being a guy, carefree and oblivious willing to eat anything. And to be honest, the first time I actually enjoyed my PB&Beef sandwich. Perhaps I was so enamored with my incredible creativity and whimsy (lots of whimsy back then) that my taste buds completely shut down.

That is the only possible solution I could come up with.

But the second time I made this my taste buds were not fooled, nor was my judgment. Here’s a tasty morsel for you. PB&Beef in addition to having an almost entirely unchewable texture also tastes awful.

#3 The Non Stick Non Bake Pan – Fall 2005

I was living in a studio apartment my last semester in college. My living space consisted of a mattress on the floor, a walk in closet, and an oven just slightly larger than a shoe box. Most of my home made meals consisted of chips and salsa and a cheese quesadilla. But with graduation impending, I felt the need to branch out and prepare something more grown up.

I had this large nonstick pan which I used to cook my quesadillas. I don’t remember what I was cooking on this particular day but it was something on the stove in that pan.

I realized I didn’t like the way it was cooking, not fast enough or not even enough. So I heated up the oven and put the pan into the oven thinking that would do the trick. Great idea Rich!

Not so much. About 15 minutes later I noticed a faint chemical smell. Like a tiny needle of sent had jabbed itself into my nostril and then disappeared before I could process it.

But then I was overcome by the incredible stench of ammonia. What the hell was that? Where was it coming from? I opened the oven and BAM. The wave was unbearable. I quickly opened the door fearing I was going to die of toxic gas inhalation.

I pulled the pan out and put it on my stove. What the hell did I do wrong? Was I not supposed to bake this pan? I thought all pans could go in the oven. Was this not true? Where was my pan instruction manual?

I paced around my room contemplating whether or not to eat whatever I had “made.” My better judgment prevailed and I decide to throw the whole pan out in the dumpster.

So with an oven mitt on I took the burning, stinking pan out into my apartment’s parking lot, looked around for any sign of witnesses and threw the pan full of chemical warfare casserole into the dumpster and ran back into my apartment.

I then spent the next hour peeping out my window because I was sure either
A. Someone had called the cops
Or
B. The dumpster would burst into flames.

Neither happened, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t try to bake another thing until, well...

#2 The Potato Chip Incident - April 15, 2009

I bought some baby potatoes recently (Their so cute!) and decided to roast them with some olive oil and rosemary. Great idea right? So I sliced them up nice and thin, seasoned them, and laid them out on a pan to bake in the oven. Beautiful little white slices of potatoes dressed up and ready to party.

I put them in the oven on 400 degrees and promptly forgot about them until later on when I smelled them. Oh goody! You know your food is almost done when you can smell it.

Apparently, your food is also burnt to a cancerous crisp when you can smell it. I had a sheet full of black potato chips. And not chips in the tasty football game snack kind of chip. These were a pack of charcoal chips.

I was distraught. Had I wasted all of these potatoes? No, I wouldn’t let it be. So I started eating some of them. While they were crispy they were also terrible. Absolutely awful. After several I decided this was not a good idea. So I stopped and threw the rest out.

A half hour later I realized this had been a HORRIBLE idea. My chest was in pain. I felt like I had swallowed a handful of ninja stars or an Isuzu. I needed a Tums Cocktail or Zantac 836.

You know those x-rays you see of people who have a giant medical instrument that accidentally got left inside them when they were sown up after surgery? That’s how it felt. This awful pain in my chest just above my solar plexus, like one of those charcoal chips had torn a hole in my esophagus on the way down.

The pain lasted for 2 days. I no longer slice baby potatoes so thin.

#1 The Worst 36 Dollars I Ever Spent - Thursday April 30, 2009

Despite years of evidence to the contrary, I continue to think my skinny pale frame is capable of building and packing on muscle.

I attempt to do this by consuming ungodly amounts of protein in shake form throughout my day. This requires me to regularly purchase protein powder. And like all the things, if you buy it in bulk, it is considerably cheaper.

Protein powder usually comes in 2 pound containers in standard flavors like Chocolate, Vanilla, or sometimes banana or strawberry. The largest size is usually the 5 pound container. So I try new brands based on what is cheapest.

So last week I purchased 2 different 5 pound containers of protein powder from the Vitamin Warehouse. One was chocolate flavor, one was vanilla. Neither of which I had tasted from this brand before.

Eager to see if I made a good decision I brought them home and made a test vanilla shake to see if I had made a bad decision.
And in fact, I had made a bad decision.

It was horrible. No. Horrible falls short. There are things that taste off. There are things that taste bad. And there are things that taste wrong, like they go against nature. Wrong like a donkey wearing culottes kind of wrong. Against nature, inappropriate, unfathomable. This “vanilla” shake was such an abomination.

It tastes like grounded up aluminum siding. Even just thinking about the taste of that shit makes me never want to do another a second of physical activity in my life.

But unfortunately I must continue to work out and consume it because I have about 96 more aluminum siding shakes to drink.

Hey… I wonder how they’d taste with a PB&Beef?