Monday, April 11, 2011

Lunch with Friends

97?!

Ha!  That reminded me of Clerks.  (You know what scene I'm talking about, don't you?  Of course you do.)

I'm creeping up on 100 friends/readers/followers/awesome people.  That's pretty freakin' special, folks.  To me, it is.  You guys are so cool.  As soon as I hit a hundred, I'm totally going to do a giveaway of some sort.  But I'm not crafty or anything, so likely the "prizes" will be shit that I found around my house and stuck in a box to mail to you.  Cool, huh?  I know, you're hardly able to contain your excitement.

Until then, though, let's talk about lunch.  Food is one of my favorite things.  Eating makes me happy.  But I'm a picky eater, oh yes I am.  I'm very finicky and difficult, and one of the reasons I love Jimi so much is that he's managed to somehow memorize my very long list of dislikes and I'm-not-a-fan-of's and uses that information to (accurately, most of the time) help find new food and flavor combinations I'd never consider without him standing over me and saying "Try it Natalie.  I think you'll really like it.  Come on, just a bite.  Please?  For me?"  Who does that?  Well, Moms do that, but boyfriends typically don't.

I can turn any topic around to talk about how awesome Jimi is.  Have you noticed that?  I'm sorry - I'm sure it's annoying as hell.

Anyhow, back to the foods.

Since I was a small child, my favorite lunch in the whole entire world is this:



Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich  (these days its made on low sugar, low carb, whole grain whole wheat bread.  That, I assure you, was not the case back in the day.)
Kosher Dill Pickle (or three)
Chips (any variety will do, but good ol' regular potato chips or corn chips are really the best.  Today I'm having Veggie Straws - they're "eh")
A big glass of cold milk

Cookies or yogurt or carrots or some other sort of sweet something can be added, but the meal is complete with just those four main ingredients.

This is the lunch I'd come home to in the summertime, after spending my morning and afternoon swimming, swimming, swimming until my fingers and toes were all pruny and my freckles had turned dark brown and multiplied several times over, feeling that deep physical hunger that makes it feel like even your arms are hungry - the sort of hunger that comes after completely exhausting yourself.  Peanut Butter & Jelly is forever in my mind merged with pickles and milk and swimming and happy childhood thoughts.

And it's so freakin' easy.  It's the epitome of a perfect "I'm hungry and I'm lazy and what can I fix that isn't hard?" meal.

Kimmie says it's weird.  She says that peanut butter and pickles don't go together unless you're weird or pregnant.  I'm not pregnant, and I wasn't pregnant when I was 9 and decided this was the best lunch evar, better even than Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli with a side of buttered bread.  Weird?  Maybe.  But not because this is my favorite lunch.

I swear I can smell the chlorine by the time I'm halfway through my sandwich.

Peanut butter & jelly with a pickle on the side.  Not so weird, right?

What's your favorite lunch?  Has it always be the same, or did you like something as a kid that now you're all like "EWW!!! Gross!  I can't believe I ate that!!!"? (Mini ravioli and buttered bread, anyone?)

UR THOTS?

Edit to add:  I just, for the first time that I can remember in my whole life, coughed while taking a drink and the milk came out my nose.  You know that feeling when you're swimming and you get dunked without warning and you suck the water up your nose and it makes you feel like you're going to die?  Yeah, my visceral memory is now complete.

Edit #2:  And now my jeans are covered in pickle juice.  No, that's not a euphemism.

14 comments:

  1. The best breakfast that I used to have...
    Grilled cheese sandwiches with a dill pickle sliced up in the middle of the sandwich, dipped in ketchup!! It was amazing..
    I don't even know if I could stomach it now!!! But PB&J is a childhood must have!!!

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  2. My favorite summertime sandwich is White bread, thick cut balogna, colby cheese, lots of mayo, a few slices of a fresh out of the garden yellow tomato with lots of salt and pepper. I need a glass of Big Red, some Munchos and little bag of sixlets to take me back to childhood summertime :)

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  3. I wanna enter your contest and win some shit from around your house.

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  4. I love peanut butter and pickles!! Specifically, one of my fave meals is chili which I like to accompany with crackers (preferably ritz) with peanut butter, and bread and butter (or just sweet will do) pickles. Delicious! Even though I dont make or eat chili very often- I still will snack on the cracker/peanut butter/pickle combo... Ben likes this now too :) salty + sweet = yummy nom nom.

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  5. I'd say pickles + pb&jelly = weird :)

    My favorite summertime lunch is quinoa with runny fried egg, avocado, salsa and plain yoghurt. In the winter I like soups and casseroles, but now that I think about it, I really do not have favorite food :|

    Usually anything sweet will make me happy though, so I guess I'm in general a sweet kind of gal - at the moment I could live on Eton Mess.

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  6. French Fries with Brown Gravy...and a Dill Pickle; that's my fav.

    As a kid...I liked Franco-American White Cheddar SpaghettiO's and a slice of bread n' butter.

    Would definitely trade the Greek yougurt I had for lunch for either of the above...

    Hugs!

    Patty

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  7. HAHAHAHA! Oh Natalie... you never fail to crack me up :D That's a pretty damn good lunch. PB & J's is childhood served in a sandwich, pickles are freaking delicious, and to add chips and good old milk? What's not to like?! You know what's even more "i'msolazyandhungrywhatcanimakeandquickbeforeikeelover"? Take 2 slices of bread. Add a big old slice of cheddar cheese (or 2), sprinkle salt and there you have it... salty cheese sandwich. It's awesome enough it doesn't need any sides. Just some wine and you're good :)

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  8. Adriana, your comment is enough to inspire me to do the coolest giveaway ever. Just you wait. You're practically guaranteed to win SOMETHING.

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  9. And the rest of you? Your favorite childhood foods are SO much better and weirder than mine. :)

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  10. Oh yeah? Well, I forgot one until just now....

    Potato Chips dipped in Ketchup.


    Okay, I'm done now...

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  11. That one's not SO weird - lots of people do that, though I've always been a firm believer of the "ketchup only goes on hot things" rule, so the chip/ketchup thing was never for me. I never found it as offensive as, say, french fries dipped in a mayo/mustard mix. That's grounds for major gagging.

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  12. OMG @ Amy! I've never met anyone outside my family that eats peanut butter and sweet pickles, particularly with chili! Are you my long lost sister? We'll eat straight up peanut butter pickle sandwiches, too, but they have to be super sweet pickles. They replace the jelly!

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  13. White bread, American cheese, yellow mustard. And there you have Brennan's Awesome Cheese 'N Mustard Sammich.

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Please don't make me cry.

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