A Lansing Food Critic’s Opening Statement
I don’t like the term “picky”. I prefer that my “picky-ness” be described as a low tolerance for mediocrity. Talk to my wife and my colleagues and they will tell you that I am a man of simple taste. The number of things I eat in a week can be counted on one hand. Now you might think to yourself, “Sean that is a boring way to live!” I don’t care. I love the simple routine, and I like eating the same things all the time. Once I find something I like it takes me over a year to try something new. What if I try something new and it is not as good as the thing I normally have? If we all eat 3x per day, then that means we get 1,092 meals per year. Then I just wasted one of my allotted eating windows on something adventurous like the time I ordered crab rangoon nachos at one of our team lunches (Yes, it was as bad as it sounds).
I am notorious around the office for eating three things on repeat: 1) A salt bagel with tomato and rosemary cream cheese from The Daily Bagel (the best establishment in Lansing), 2) tuna (in sandwich or bag form) and 3) PB&J. Today, I will be unveiling my world famous PB&J recipe and what goes through my mind when crafting this masterpiece every Monday and Wednesday.
1: Lay out your materials
What is life without order? Step one involves getting one piece of paper towel, a plastic knife and the grape jelly from the fridge. Once I get back into my office, I remove the two pieces of bread I brought from home and lay them out on the paper towel. Then I pull out the natural Jif peanut butter from my filing cabinet. You can’t miss it, it’s right next to the holy water.
2: Apply ingredients
Apply that Jif to BOTH pieces of bread covering the full surface of each piece. Maybe you’re thinking “is that too much?” Impossible. Before you plunge the knife into the jelly jar make sure to wipe off both sides of the knife on the RIGHT piece of bread. The next step involves carefully getting little snippets of jelly from the jar to the piece of bread on the right. I take about 8-9 pencil eraser sized chunks of jelly and distribute it evenly. Not the comically huge erasers for sale at the yearly Scholastic book fair. I am talking basic Ticonderoga. Then take the piece on the left and officially construct the sandwich.
3: Grace
No matter the size or seriousness of the meal, always offer up a prayer of thanks:
Bless us, O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.
4: The most important step
Before digging in you MUST remove the top crust. It is disgusting and if left on the sandwich it will completely ruin the experience and you might as well just throw it away.
My colleagues have requested that I conduct food reviews around Lansing because of my prestigious palate and incredibly detailed way of judging a dining experience. So, stay tuned for that! To build the hype, here’s the strict criteria I will use to tell you if the food I try is worth you burning some money on:
Stuff on top
Meat (if any)
Sauce
Taste
Smell
Packaging
Neatness/Look
Heaviness
All of these culminate to the final question: Can this meal look me in the eye and justify occupying one of my 1,092 precious yearly meal slots, or is it just crab rangoon nachos in a different costume?
Bone-Apple-Tea!