Some Thai Food

MITHRIDATES
Thailand is one of the truly great food countries in this world of ours. The 28 cent meat on a stick from a street vendor for breakfast; the $4 Chinese feast happily devoured by the only white guy in a hole-in-the-wall in the coolest Chinatown going; the Laotian smorgasbord for dinner last night. Thailand — and especially Bangkok — is food heaven.

So, why, on the afternoon of my last day in country, am I penning my travel memoirs over a $4 Big Mac Set at McDonald's? It's definitely not that I'm sick of Thai food. I was sick of Indian food after two weeks there, but with apologies to my Hindu friends, Thailand is simply a superior food destination, with more tasty culinary diversity in a much smaller country. So why am I here? You got it. It's the ambiance! Attached to the Westin Grand Sukhumvit on Soi 19, my delightfully bright red corner booth overlooks the chaos of swanky Sukhumvit Road. The air-conditioning slowly allows my shirt to dry after a day of touring through the capital on foot. The music is of the Thai elevator variety, but it's really quite soothing.

Bangkok isn't the only place where Mickey D's provides an oasis for a weary American. McDonald's is by far the cleanest, friendliest, and overall nicest place in all of Athens, Greece, for example. In addition to the creature comforts, the ubiquity of McDonald's is reassurance of the continued dominance of American culture around the world. Those golden arches in their legion in every corner of the globe remind the world that we're still here, we're still loud, and you still frickin' love us!

I mean, sure, sitting on the floor at Vientiane Kitchen was more authentic. But then again, with all due respect, authentic Lao would probably be sitting on the shit-covered floor of a mud hut eating a bowl of rice. This clean, comfortable booth all to myself is authentic American - and it's wonderful!

But here we are after two weeks in one of my favorite countries. Over the next several episodes we'll discuss food, of course, but also elephants and roosters; Buddha; the most dangerous activity in Thailand; language; friendliness and sleaze; Thai massage and Thai "massaaaaage"; boys, girls, and that 3rd kind unique to Thailand; martial arts; dung; sweat; and the remarkable transformation of Bangkok from grimy, sleaze capital of the world to kickass cosmopolitan destination. Stay tuned!

"Domino’s Launches Line of Bread Bowl Pastas"

WHITECOLLAR REDNECK

So Domino's is rolling out a new line of pasta bread bowls. This will certainly help them win back all those customers who stopped ordering from them because they couldn't get enough carbs, I suppose. Seriously, how fat a motherfucker do you have to be to not only want to eat a whole meal of pasta, but to also eat the container in which it came? My outrage is only partly feigned here.

The Thin Mint Is the Best Cookie Ever Made

PHUTATORIUS
It's that time of year again: the days are getting longer, the great, bracing bulwarks of snow on either side of our driveways are shrinking in size (it's almost imperceptible, but it is happening), the sun is shining upon us, and the Girl Scout Cookies are out.
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Holy crap! The Girl Scout Cookies are out! They'd set up a table in the Harvard Square T station: it took me completely by surprise on the way home from work Wednesday night. I stopped, did an exaggerated double-take, bought five boxes.

Now I know I'm prone to enthusiasms, and I know, too, that it's probably not best to write when I'm jacked up on mass-market baked fundraiser goods and a lemon flavor-injected Big Gulp. Even Wordsworth, that great Romantic poet, made sure not to commit his "spontaneous overflows of powerful feeling" to writing without first "recollect[ing them] in tranquility." But I'm sorry — I've got to say it:

The Thin Mint is the best cookie ever made. Seriously. I love the Oreo, and I'm wont to observe, in moments of weakness, that when Nabisco Doubled the Stuf they halved the distance between man and God. I don't mean any disrespect to Mithridates, whose hometown gave us the Fig Newton. That's a good cookie, too. And pretty much anything with a Keebler Elf on it gets a gold star from me (especially the Fudge Stripes). But the Thin Mint is far and away the best cookie you can buy.

It's so simple. It's so perfect. The blend of chocolate and mint can't be matched — not in the Mint Oreo, not in your York Peppermint Patties, not in your chocolate chip mint ice creams and their several hundred variations ("grasshopper," etc.). The Girl Scouts have it down, and I have to tip my hat to them, notwithstanding they're a quasi-fascist organization that does nothing to prevent or forestall the transformation of its members into that most cruel and abased form of human being, the teenage girl (yeah, I'm still bitter).

Wikipedia tells us that, notwithstanding its strictly seasonal availability, the Thin Mint is the third best-selling cookie behind the Oreo and Chips Ahoy (Chips Ahoy? Are you frickin' kidding me? They're like sand cakes with chocolate jimmies in 'em.). It says something, doesn't it, that people hoard up boxes of Thin Mints and scalp them on eBay? It says something, too, that it's "Cupcake Day" here at work, but I'm not in any kind of condition right now to partake of any of the several plates of homemade offerings folks have brought in, because I packed away half a sleeve of Thin Mints walking to the office from the parking garage.

Now the philosophers might disagree with me, but I'm the kind to believe that perfection can be enhanced (that's why I'm always going back to edit these blog posts). On that score, I recommend that FO readers put their Thin Mints in the freezer before eating them. My mother taught me this trick. They're cold, they're crunchier. I won't say it's the only way to eat a Thin Mint, but it's surely the best.

In summation, I declare today that the Thin Mint is the best cookie ever made in human history. I will challenge to a fight and beat down to the ground anyone who says otherwise.