Eat

Don’t despair, eat. It’s probably not the most healthy thing to say, but food is a balm for me, especially carbohydrates. I am drained by humanity. People are disappointing and taxing, rueful and mean, bullying and boring – this is just the truth. There are those with potential to be heavenly however, so these few and far between but fabulous friends keep me in the game. And the rest of the time, I just eat and keep going.

Here is my most disgusting and shameful treat, one I turn to when there is no one and nothing else. Perhaps it should be kept under glass for me with instructions to shatter it when all becomes too much to bear, but honestly it doesn’t keep well, and you’re better off if at least the perishable parts of this meal are reasonably fresh.

You need a good, thick cinnamon raisin bagel to start, sawn in half but not toasted, the dense, airless bready interior raw and soft, the glossy chewy exterior sticky and studded with raisins and cinnamon. Try to cut it evenly, that is all I ask, as for whatever reason, this vastly improves things. Do it with a good knife, possibly with a sharply serrated edge, as bagel injuries are common among non chef types like myself. Bread and knives can conspire hurt you so don’t be unwise.

Take the raw halves of the bagel and slather generously with cream cheese. I do prefer the kind sold in bricks. It’s dairy density mimics the bready density and might as well go big with it. I will make the cream cheese layer almost as thick as the bagel. I mean what I say.

On a plate, arrange the bagel halves prettily and then open any size doritos you like. i tend to be a big grab type of girl. Also, I wouldn’t do a cool ranch or alternative flavor doritos for this recipe. Nacho cheese works best, in my experience. Pour the entire contents of the bag over the cream cheese so that the cheese powder coats the cheese making a kind of compound cream cheese. If you want, you can also drizzle a bit of gulden’s brown mustard onto this, but I generally don’t do this. Eat as a kind of dip at first, using the doritos to scoop up cream cheese in efficient mouthfuls. Then when there is nothing else that can be done, make a sandwich of the bagel halves and shove additional chips into the deepest center. It makes for a crisp, cheesy surprise with each bite. I know this sounds really fairly disgusting, but oh my god it’s delicious. There is something to the pairing of nacho cheese and raisin, the odd mole note of cinnamon, the fatty whiteness of cream cheese and the comforting quality of bread baked in circles. It’s a basic and revolting childish sort of snack that has little nutritional value and no true comestible merit but how good it is and how much I have needed these flavors and textures in hard times.

Make no substitutions. Its got to be this, or nothing.

5 thoughts on “Eat

  1. “i tend to be a big grab type of girl.”

    I had suspected this all along.

    My food solace is either Hot Fresh Now Krispy Kreme where I eat at least four of the dozen before I’m fully out of the drive through and try not to get the glaze all over the car but it’s really sort of already hopeless by that point.

    or

    Wrap freezer cheese sticks (the kind intended for bad marinara sauce) with biscuit-tin crescent roll triangles and try and figure out some sort of average of the baking instructions that makes everything melty and greasy. I will demure on how many I can consume before I get tired of them.

    It is a wonder I am not as big as a house.

  2. I think … I just found the first meal I’ll have when I get back to America.

    I just find myself slurping marinara or avocado and Kewpie mayo when I’m in a pinch.

  3. The food that allows me to get through every day and sweep aside thoughts of the deterioration of human society is the Glazed Old-Fashioned Dount I procure almost every day from my local Wawa convenience store. There is something in it’s soft, inviting, glazed sugar coating that reminds me of joy & happiness in a world seemingly devoid of them some days.

  4. gawd you are delicious. engaging as the snakes leading along carbohydrate intake as delectable ingestion and combustion i was riveted. thank you.

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