The Church of Steve Cont'd...

So on previous posts, I've talked about Tomatoes, Dried Fruit, and then Pickles. Now it's time to talk about something that I kind of like the taste of, but I can't stand the texture. So without further ado:

That shalt not partake of Apricots / Peaches

This might also be the mushy fruit rule. To explain this better I going to take you back to when I was young. My parents had apricot trees, and I actually used to eat Dried Apricots a lot. What ruined it for me was seeing the nasty apricots that fell from the tree and became mush. Every time I eat something mushy, my brain goes back to nasty apricots on the ground, just sitting there rotting.

Although we didn't have Peach trees, they're really close to apricots and they tend to be really mushy. Again....I know this doesn't make sense, because I like other mushy fruits....like bananas. I don't know why one works and the others don't, but they only consistent fruits are apricots and peaches so they have to be banned by the CoS.

Carter moment of the day:
So Carter is trying to learn how to climb the stairs....but he's kind of lazy about it. It doesn't matter if he's fully awake or tired....he'll get halfway up the stairs and then he gets pissed. The funny thing is that he is excited and then he magically hits a step halfway up that turns all that excitement into rage at the fact that there are still stairs left up and down. I'm sure he'll make it up all the stairs eventually, but I've never seen him get so mad about something. He literally sneers at you, until you pick him up. It's funny to see him start to get some personality....hopefully this doesn't become a trend.

The Church of Steve Part 3

Tomatoes, Pickled Anything and now dried fruit in fact in commandment form:

Thall shalt not dry up fruit and partake thereof

I don’t hate all dried fruit. Actually I really like Banana and Apple chips and Fruit Leather. The Church of Steve is pretty forgiving on a lot of its rules and membership is more of agreement to the majority of the rules. In a situation like this where you have to draw the line is taking a delicious fruit like grapes and you remove the plump juiciness from a grape and you are left with something that can just like pickles sit on a shelf for years, looks like dried up rabbit poo, and doesn’t taste at all like the fruit it came from.

Now raisins are probably acceptable for a good standing in the CoS although I personally don’t like them, I have at times eaten them and enjoyed them. I don’t like when they ruin things like Oatmeal Cookies, Carrot Cake, Rice Pudding, etc. The problem that happens when you combine them with things like that is that they try to regain some of their former grape glory and become soft again. If you ever watched a Zombie film or better yet if you’ve watched or read Pet Cemetery, you know that once something is dead (dried), it doesn’t come back too well when you try to bring it back. When you bring them back what you are left with is a freakishly disgusting mutant raisin that is shriveled yet soft and it sneaks up on you. Once one of these hit your molars and squishes moist raisin guts all over your mouth, the vomit reflex isn’t far behind.

The most disgusting and sure way to lead to excommunication from the CoS is to partake in the bowel regulatory practice of prunes. There are other options for your fiber now a days, so take some Metamucil and be regular. Many Scandinavian friends of the CoS will be going to Hell for a traditional Christmas Prune Soup. This is the only food that while on my mission to Finland I was not willing to eat. I tried it once and nearly yakked. It’s meant to be a dessert but it quickly becomes a bulimic’s best friend because once this hits your taste buds the texture, taste, and smell will do everything a finger or two down your throat provide.

The Church of Steve Part 2

Thall Shalt Not Pickle

Pickled Beets, Pickled Cucumber Slices (I think they call those Belly Achers), Pickled Herring…..honestly Pickled Herring, think about that for a second. You stick raw fish in a solution that will somehow make it 'OK' to eat. All you’ve done is transformed the fish into a stinky soggy mess that tastes terrible. People eat this stuff. I can understand why people eat foods that are pickled, but pickled fish or any other non vegetable food, is just completely disgusting.

Ok so back to pickles, although I can understand why people like this food, it completely contaminates the other food it touches and that is why I hate pickles. Because I hate them they are officially against the Church of Steve.

Here is another problem with Pickles….there is something wrong with a food that can last forever. I don’t know exactly what the shelf life on them is, but it’s long. I mean that is the whole reason for pickling things, but I think we had one jar of pickles the whole time I was growing up. Then Kenna and I got married and well we have had one jar of pickles for as long as I can remember. I don’t think I’ve heard people eat pickles and say….”Wow these pickles are bad.” No, they can eat pickles out of the jar that have been there for over 25 years.

Case in point last summer at the annual Gordon 4th of July festivities, my grandma brought out Ketchup from her storage. Let me preface the next comments on this post by saying I really love my Grandma and she is amazing. Ok, back to the story, my grandma brought out brown ketchup. This is a bottle of ketchup that had never been opened and it was brown with age. We switched out the ketchup for a normal healthy red version. Here is where I bring back the pickles. A bottle of pickles was brought out from the same storage and probably bought around the same time. Everyone ate the pickles, why because pickles can be older than my Grandma’s first food storage installment (we’re talking pre-war here and I'm not talking about Iraq, Vietnam, or even Korea) and yet somehow they are still good. You could get a pickle caught in your teeth and rediscover it months later when you finally floss and it would still taste the same.

All of this adds up to the second food in hell being pickles. As a pretty combo, I’m pretty sure they can pickle tomatoes.

The Church of Steve Part 1

The Beginning

Let me just start this off with a little background, as long as I can remember back when I was a young boy I was able to create a list of 3 foods that I didn’t have to eat if they were made for family meals. Rather than forcing me to eat food I didn’t want to eat, my mom would say. “Is this on your list?” The list was something that she would write down by our fridge and it couldn’t be updated on a whim because when it was first instigated if I saw my mom making meatloaf and I didn’t want to eat meatloaf I’d update the list to say meatloaf and voila I got to eat something else while the family had disgusting meatloaf (just a side note, I absolutely love meatloaf now….in fact I could eat it every day. It’s funny how tastes change). Ok, back to the story…..the list had a waiting period on it. I can’t remember how long it was, but we’ll just say it was 24 hours after an update to the list I still had to eat a recently added food. Why was this list so important, well because if you didn’t have something on the list, then you had to eat it without complaint.

Now that I’ve got the background set, let me tell you about the most disgusting food memory I have ever had to eat in my life. I can’t remember the exact types of food that I had on the list besides the old standbys of meatloaf, lobster…that's a different story entirely, and maybe a few other very specific things, but they were always very specific things that we had for dinner at one time in my brief life. It wasn’t until my mom made Baked Tomatoes stuffed with Tuna Fish that I really started to hate entire groups of food.

So Tomatoes baked and then stuffed with Tuna Fish….if you think that sounds good you need to get examined….in fact I asked my mother about this tragic moment in my life and she even said it sounded gross, but back then I guess it must have been an experiment. Basically, the tomatoes became really soft in the oven and then you would add tuna fish to them after you empty out the insides. What you have left is a mushy pile of goo that didn’t mesh with Steve’s Palate.

From that day on, I had Tomatoes and I’m pretty sure Tuna Fish for a little whileon the list. Tuna Fish eventually got pardoned as it was not the main offender in the dish, but Tomatoes have never been the same since. I can eat things made with Tomatoes ie Ketchup, Tomato Sauce, Salsa, etc., but I rarely eat tomatoes because the squishy insides still remind me of that soggy dinner I had to eat.

Once again I’m breaking rule 2 of the blogging rules setup only two days ago…..I think that rule 2 and I are going to have a lot of problems in the future. I will continue this history of the Church of Steve on upcoming posts, but Commandment numero UNO in the church of Steve is:

Thall Shalt Not Partake of Non Processed Tomatoes!!

I’m pretty sure I envision one of the foods they serve in Hell as baked tomatoes, and everything is made with the mushy seedy guts of tomatoes.

More rules to come.....but if you don't like Tomatoes, you should seriously consider membership in the Church of Steve