don’t get your salad tossed in front of a hungry pitbull

i learned something new today…

…which mom always said if you live a day you DON’T learn something new you truly wasted the day.

so i guess for all you that read that sentence but didn’t know that, you get a freebee today.

for the rest of us it’s a journey. some of my journey’s have taken me to odd places (the permian basin, oklafuckinhoma) where the only food that seemed worth a shit at the time and place was hooter’s. going to hooter’s in many women’s eyes is like going to a strip club, but better lit. in reality, it’s kind of the opposite – if you roll solo to a strip club you are instantly popular…because going there solo makes you look half creepy and half lonely – and that latter quality converts to dollars in their industry…

…the former quality is just kind of expected, but never mind that now.

when you roll into hooter’s solo (as i tended to do on business trips) they kind of leave you alone. they still chat and flirt a bit, but they ain’t jumping in your lap like a strip club. why? because it’s not their gig, for one…and for another, your tip on a $15 basket of wings is gonna be pretty much the same whether they shove their tits in your face or not. me being the friendly sort, i tended to get a decent amount of attention, but mainly for educational purposes, like when the pregnant hooter’s girl in tulsa, oklafuckinhoma taught me how to “properly” eat the flapper part (spoiler – it doesn’t resemble fellatio nearly as much as you’re hoping) right before i almost got arrested for grand theft auto…

…but that stories been told.

normally i would just sit at the bar, ’cause i always feel bad taking up a table in a crowded restaurant just for me…especially since i’ve never been in a hooter’s where the smallest table didn’t seat four. and at the bar i learned something new watching the cooks, which cook in an open area perfectly viewable from the bar – the art of salad tossing.

(again, this isn’t going to be the perverted bit you’re hoping for)

for a while i was all over their cobb salad, which had three types of lettuce, hard boiled egg (which i’d have them omit), diced tomatoes (see egg comment), bacon, two types of cheese, and fried chicken…along with croutons which, thanks to high-acidity rockstars rotting my back teeth, might as well have been rocks since i cracked not one but TWO teeth on them. since that would be a third “hold the…” on the order i stopped ordering the salad since i feel three omissions is just getting a bit douchey in your ordering. but i always marveled at how the whole thing was perfectly covered in ranch, without a dry leaf, until i sat at the bar and watched them make it – they would put all the ingredients in a big-ass ziplock bag, pour in dressing, seal the bag, and toss and spin that fucker for a couple minutes until everything was nice and dressed, as it were…

…brilliant!

so i started doing that at home recently and have liked the results (don’t know why it took me so long). i do it at the shop, too. but today’s lesson? don’t do it in the kitchen when budnik’s in the kitchen, especially when you have a habit of tossing him treats and scraps, ’cause if it’s air born he thinks it’s his…good thing i can catch quicker than him, huh? almost lost my lunch…