Gwen's blog

Current Events

May 3, Houston: The big one -- the Inprint reading -- occurs at the Alley Theatre on Monday, May 3. Do not miss it or you'll be sorry. I'm not kidding -- I'm going to say the craziest, most intellectual yet hilarious stuff I can think of, and I'll be sharing the stage with the ultra sexy Oscar Casares, too.

June 24, Houston: I'm one of the peeps scheduled to read at Poison Pen, at Houston's famous Poison Girl bar. Besides me, everyone there will be ultra, *super* sexy. Come see me and drink!

June 26, Washington, DC: I'll be reading at the American Library Association conference. Come on down.

My other blog: Go read my the Houston Chronicle parenting blog (or my ChronMomBlog, as I like to call it) and make sure my kids won't resent me more than other kids resent their own parents.

Buy my new novel, Lone Star Legend. Already did? Well, buy a few more for your friends, then. :)

Friday, July 07, 2006
Things I Have Eaten for the Love of Asians

Meaning, things I have eaten at the urging of my Asian boyfriend's family and friends.

1. Fish heads.
2. Fish fins. Fish toes, fish brains, fish beaks. Fish cartilage.
3. Fried blood.
4. Chicken feet.
5. Green soy milk.
6. Stuff that looked like delicious custard but turned out to be weird eggy stuff.
7. Crawfish that I had seen alive, trying to escape the sink.

No, I'm really just kidding, because I am a half-Mexican who grew up with Mexicans and therefore I'll eat just about anything, anyway. Except eyes. But intestines, pig heads, and cow tongues are all fair game.

On Father's Day, we had pizza and Shiner Bock with my dad for lunch. Then, for dinner, we went with my boyfriend's parents and had duck, whole fish, and an awesome $200 Alaskan King crab. The crab had been alive in a tank when we ordered it. It was about two or two-and-a-half feet across. They cooked half of it with black pepper flavor and half was ginger scallion. My favorite was the black pepper. But the best part of all was when my boyfriend's parents found out it cost $200. Their dentist son (not my boyfriend, but his brother) told them. The dad said, "I don't know why you spent $200 on this when it tastes the same as a $35 dungeoness crab would have." The mom said, "$200? Oh, no. See if they will take it back!"

(Asians reading this are nodding or rolling their eyes, but I'm always delighted by my boyfriend's parents and their crazy ways. I love other people's parents when they do things that annoy their kids.)

Speaking of Food

My boyfriend and I divide our friends in two categories: those who will eat at Chili's, and those who will not. We will not. We won't eat at Chili's, TGI Friday's, Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday's, or that other one. Unless we're starving, and even then we'll still snottily critique the entire meal.

We are not food snobs, who only eat the best food. We're worse - we're food bitches. (That means we like the best food but also eat Jack in the Box tacos.)

Trashy Phase

I'm back in my trashy/slutty phase, which seems to happen every summer. That means I wear full makeup and big earrings, and my hair turns blonder. I explained this to a natural blonde friend who was visiting from small-town Louisiana. She sort of wrinkled her nose as I said, "And then more highlights, and then blonde roots, and blonder, and blonder and blonder! Until I look completely trashy and awesome like Kirstie Alley, or like that waitress over there."

Also, I cut my hair shorter again. But not because the long hair was too trashy. On the contrary - the long hair got heavy and wouldn't stay big. I like big, Texas hair, as my British coworker enjoys pointing out. Hell, yeah, I do. What's the use of being born in Texas if you're not going to have big, bleached hair? Dude.

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8:33 AM #

Comments:

 My God!

Now I want tacos de tripa.

Sad.


# posted by Blogger LC : 9:30 AM  

 Hehehe, Food Bitches, I love that. I'm a food bitch too.


# posted by Blogger La Brown Girl : 11:36 AM  

 This post has been removed by a blog administrator.


# posted by Blogger La Brown Girl : 11:37 AM  

 Now that I live in the boonies, I'd give anything for a Chili's or a Red Lobster. We actually do have an Applebee's, but I'm not a fan.

I bet the blonde looks great. In the summer, I'm all cleavage and trashy sandals even though I'm supposed to be respectable faculty.


# posted by Blogger Kaijsa : 3:34 PM  

 Gwen, your trashy slutty phase always seems to coincide with my vaguely-gay possibly-skateboarder phase, where the ironic tee shirts, inappropriately-sized jeans and naturally light-blonde tips on my hair come out.

I am jealous of werewolves, who at least turn into something people envy.


# posted by Blogger Mike : 6:49 PM  

 I can't wait to see the short blond hair!


# posted by Blogger ShoeGirl : 8:35 PM  

 Removing posts just makes me curious. And for all you people reading the comments (Brie -- who saw it anyway) the blonde does look badass.


# posted by Blogger olive & rose : 2:21 AM  

 ewwwwwwwww, to the fried blood. FRIED??? the rest is pretty normal if you live in CA, grew up on a farm where nothing is wasted, love Mexican food and are married to someone from another country where they waste no part of the animal including reproductive organs. The only thing I will NOT try so far from my husbands country are fried chicken brains mixed with over easy eggs on bread, it just turns my stomache typing this. smells nasty too. They LOVE it. The brains come in little containers like egg cartons but clear plastic. it just makes me sad to see them sitting there waiting to be fried up.
crawfish are so yummy tho gwen! did you so love them?
Ok what is the reasoning behind the Chilis theory? I do not prefer them so am curious about the theory.


# posted by Blogger pixielyn : 11:16 AM  

 BG: Food bitches, unite!

Kaijsa: Chili's tastes just like Applebee's to me, though. But I feel sorry for you. Also: Yay for trashy faculty!

Mike: I bet Superman and Spiderman and them are envious of *you*.

Rose: Almost always, when a comment says it's been removed by author, it's because the person accidentally double-posted their comment. If I ever remove a comment (happens rarely), it'll say "removed by blog administrator," and I'll put an explanation right afterwards.

Pixie: Ew, fried brains... with eggs! Bleh. I do like crawfish, but it made me sad to see them boiled alive that day.

Chili's and the others: The food is just bad, and no one working there seems to care. If you are foreced to eat at those places all the time (because, say, you live in a small town), then you don't really notice. But the minute you start eating good food, you wonder how the hell Chili's and them stay in business. It starts to make you mad. Last time we did one of those, we were out of town, desperate, and went to TGI Fridays. Tad's baby-back ribs were horribly overcooked. I don't even remember what I ate. But it was bad. We were like, "WTF? How do people eat here?"


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 7:58 PM  

 Hi Gwen,

I'm married to a Mexican(from Texas) and his friends had me eating fried gutts in a taco--and I liked it! I also like cow brains with scrambled eggs.

But I was raised southerned (my dad's from Tennesse)which means basicaly I'll eat anything fried!

I've hadn't done it yet, but summer time I usually put in the blond highlights. What's the good of living in California if you can't be blond at lest part of the time?

Janice~


# posted by Blogger Janice : 3:16 AM  

 I am trying to find a food category for me...food slut, food strumpet, food trollope, food tart, food floosy--cause we do eat at Chili's from time to time, but we also eat at Ibiza, Fish, Ruggles, Hugos, Kams, and the oh so delightful Irma's on Chenevert (where I am proud to say that Irma nods at me from time to time and has been known to come to my table and ask my guest, "Mija, why aren't you eating your beans?")


# posted by Blogger Yvonne : 7:35 AM  

 Gwen,

You're so right. All those superheroic types just want to be totally normal. Normal and bland. Normal, bland and boring like me.

Say, on a completely unrelated note, how do you type out the sound you make when you're crying so hard it sounds like you're choking but you're not, you're just crying so hard?


# posted by Blogger Mike : 11:23 AM  

 Every couple years or so we go to one of those places out of desperation. and instantly regret it. The last one was a TGI-Friday's, where, I kid you not, the marinara sauce was, as far as we could discern, made out of ketchup. The whole time we just sat there saying to each other, "wtf?! Why did we come here?! This is digusting. Let's never eat here again."


# posted by Blogger kate : 8:34 AM  

 There are some things on the menu at Chili’s that are passable. In particular, I like the some of the salads, black bean burgers, and those oh-so-yummy southwestern egg roll things. Bennigan’s and Applebee’s… I agree, not so good. I haven’t been to a TGI Fridays in sometime, so I can’t say.
The trouble with these restaurants is they try to do a little bit of everything. I compromise by avoiding those ‘everything foods’ and stick with what is core to a so-called American restaurant: salads, sandwiches, burgers, grilled chicken, etc. There are other restaurants that do the tex-mex, steaks, barbeque, fish, etc. sooo much better that I do not tempt the lords of food karma with them in a Chili’s.


# posted by Blogger R.T. Lemur : 4:14 PM  

 I forgot. Olive and I went to Bennigan's in Beaumont, but wait wait wait. We hung around the hotel room until 11ish and then decided to go get dinner and go party (?). At 11, apparently, everything is closed. We went to the hotspots, which closed at ten. The suggestions we got consisted of both Jack in the Box and Cheddar's. Bennigan's seemed a worthy opponent but they were, alas, only serving appetizers. We gorged ourselves on Mozzarella Sticks and Potato Skins, and promptly fell asleep. It was against the will of everyone involved, for the sake of survival, so surely it doesn't count? I'm only telling you because we took dirty pictures there. I don't want to be lynched on flickr when they go up.


# posted by Blogger olive & rose : 12:10 AM  

 Janice: The more I think about it, the more I realize that the cow brains turn me off because they're mixed with scrambled eggs. I can only eat scrambled eggs if they're doused with cheese and chile.

Yvonne: I like trollope. Go with that.

Mike: If you were Spider-Man, you'd be even sadder, because you know that the minute you became him, you'd get an awesome girlfriend and not be able to spend time with her. So, be happy that you're normal and alone. :)

Kate: I think y'all are us in an alternate universe. That's exactly how we do it. Once a year, WTF, never again.

RT Lemur: I think you're right. Stick with the American foods. Last time I went to Chili's (emergency - I was in Cedar Park, Texas), I got chicken tacos and they were completely nasty. How the hell do you mess up chicken tacos? Ask Chili's.

Rose: I'm sorry y'all had to go to Beaumont. I've only been there once:
http://www.gwenworld.com/diary20041220.html

However, I'd say that dirty pictures negate the bad food. Where else *would* you take dirty pictures but a chain restaurant?


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 8:28 AM  

 Apparently, I'm a "food bitch" too. I only eat the best food and yes, Jack & the Box tacos. Also, James Coney. But I also hate Chili's. I mean hello, we're not in college anymore!


# posted by Blogger MissCathee : 9:35 PM  

 Oh yeah, have you eaten those duck eggs? You know, the ones with the embryo duckling inside with the few stray feathers...You crack open the top and suck the juice and take a spoon and dig out the egg. I usually give the duck to someone else.


# posted by Blogger MissCathee : 9:37 PM  

 MissCathee: Yes, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Gwen: You forgot about Bennigan's, Red Lobster and Cheddar's. Oh, and Joe's Crab shack--that place tries to play off their crappy frozen seafare for something much better.
Any one who frequents those venues deserve to get bad service and worse food.


# posted by Blogger Datty : 11:49 PM  

 Datty: Don't forget Luby's. I agree about Red Lobster, except I have to admit their biscuits are da bomb.

Funny, these places like Chili's, Bennigan's, Red Lobster, etc....are places we all ate at when we were younger. Looks like we become food-bitchier with age.


# posted by Blogger MissCathee : 8:54 PM  

 My daughter who is also half Mexican too like you, also dosn't eat eggs either.


# posted by Blogger Janice : 11:39 PM  

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