Alexis blogs

One night last week, after getting out of class in the evening and realizing how hungry I was, I decided that I was thinkin’ Arby’s.

I liked Arby’s a lot. My love affair with the chain sort of ended after they stopped selling jalapeño poppers, but I still occasionally had cravings for their yummy roast beef sandwiches and such. So I went.

This particular location was already kind of seedy. It was kind of a rotten customer service experience from the start. I had to correct the cashier several times while he was taking my order.

Cashier: “Would you like the combo?”
Me: “No, thanks, just the sandwich and the potato bites.”
Cashier: (Pushes a button, looks up.) “Did you order the combo?”

But that was okay. Sometimes you space out and forget customers’ orders. I did it all the time working concessions at a theater. Whatever.

The total was four dollars and some change; I handed him a five. He gave me my receipt. I blinked at him for a moment and then pointed out he hadn’t given me my change. He blinked back at me, pushed a few buttons on the register, then said, “Um, I’ll have to give it to you after these next people order.”

Well, that was annoying. Oh, well. Some places require manager approval to open the register. So I waited, got my sandwich, and saw that the same people were still standing at the register, apparently still deciding on their order.

Well, that was really annoying. So I left without my change. Just a couple coins. Whatever.

On the way home I thought to myself, “Come on, guys. Don’t make me hate Arby’s. I like Arby’s. I don’t want to hate the roast beef sandwich place.”

So I got home, sat down at my desk, unwrapped my sandwich (I got chicken this time - something different), and took a big bite. Mmm, food. Food good. I took another bite.

A shadow of movement caught my eye. Still chewing, sandwich still held at the ready, I looked down at my sandwich wrapper and saw a live beetle.

I’ll repeat that, because this is kind of a long entry and I don’t want you to miss the point.

Ahem. I looked down at my sandwich wrapper and saw a live beetle.

I stopped chewing and, as I watched the beetle skittering about on the silvery paper, slowly pieced together the situation.

Beetle. Sandwich wrapper. Beetle. Sandwich. Me eating sandwich. Beetle.

You probably get the idea.

When I returned to the store, quietly explained the situation to the manager and asked for a refund, she gave it to me immediately. I didn’t have to show her the now-brutally-squished beetle I had left in the crumpled sandwich wrapper out in the car just in case. So the situation was resolved, I guess.

When I made the silent plea not to hate Arby’s, I didn’t think anything could actually happen to make me truly hate the restaurant.

Boy, was I asking for it.

Last week I purchased my very own TURKISH COFFEE pot.

I have to put TURKISH COFFEE in all caps because it is the mother of all coffees. Strong. Gritty. More potent than espresso.

Basically, you put some very finely ground coffee in the pot with some water and sugar (if you want sugar) and heat it until it’s creamy and good. You drink it in one of these little cups. It’s unfiltered, so the grounds are still at the bottom. And it’s good.

Last summer my friend Monica and I went on a long road trip to the East Coast, and a single travel mug full of TURKISH COFFEE kept us both wide awake for an entire day, and we had plenty left over.

I’ve tried making it twice using the grounds Monica gave me for Christmas, and I still don’t have it quite right. After some further advice from Monica, I’m pretty sure I’ll get it next time.

So if you know me in person, have me make you some TURKISH COFFEE, a gift from the bottom of my caffeine-addicted heart.

Here’s a recipe if you’re interested.

Ever since returning from holiday break, I’ve been fixated on learning how to cook.

Growing up, I never had to learn even the bare basics of cooking. I’d watched Mom and Dad cook many times, but I’d never really paid attention. To my eye, they simply performed some sleight of hand with pots, pans, utensils and ingredients, and out came a meal.

Oh, I knew a few things. I could bake brownies from a package using the recipe on the box with relative ease. (I enjoyed baking; the magical numbered dial on the oven eliminated such hard-hitting questions as “How high is ‘medium heat’?”)

I could do noodles. (Boil until noodley.) I could do toast. (Place bread in toaster. Toast until toasted.)

Really, that’s all I felt I needed to know. When I moved into a college dorm, I didn’t even have a kitchen. I mastered the art of EasyMac (disgusting) and ramen (unsatisfying), but mostly I just ate campus food.

Now I’m in an apartment. I have a kitchen and, by god, I am going to use it.

Mom supports me in this endeavor with enthusiasm. She’s been trying to get me cooking for years. For Christmas she bought me two cookbooks, one of them entitled Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen.

She happily answers all my phone calls with what must surely be the stupidest questions she’s ever heard. On my last shopping trip, I called her two or three times asking what to buy and where the heck it was. She successfully directed me to the seasoned breadcrumbs, even though I was shopping at a Kroger she’d never set foot in before.

So now I’ve made a few things: potato soup, ranch chicken, grilled cheese. The cookbooks have been very helpful. They speak on my level. (”To hard boil an egg…”) I still have to follow the recipes more or less as though they were the operating instructions for the mechanical device that would prevent the world from exploding.

I still get a sense of amazed accomplishment when I follow some instructions using pots, pans, utensils and ingredients, and out comes a meal. I compare it to the feeling I got in that photography class I took: shine some light on a piece of paper, dip it in some stuff, and out comes a photograph. It’s so simple!

Then again, I’m a bad photographer.