Fuck You, Broccoli

month

August 2012

1 post

Anonymous asked: Dear farmers, grocers, restauranteurs, etc: Honeydew is just unripe cantaloupe. It's the celery of the fruit world. Stop holding out on us and give us more fucking strawberries.

July 2012

16 posts

A brief word on Shiitake mushrooms

Oh, Shiitake mushrooms. What can I say about a fungus whose name comes from the word for excrement combined with the word for bodily discomfort? Not much. 1/10. Just the thought of you gives me the shit-aches. image via wikipedia

Capers. Satan's little BB's

The following is a true story: Picture a strapping young man, fresh out of college, sent to the store with his nubile young girlfriend to pick up a number of last-minute items for some family dinner (what the hell, let’s call it Thanksgiving - one of those fancy meals where the cook shows off and no one cares because they’re so sick of being with family already and all anyone really...

Anonymous asked: Fact: red leaf lettuce is actually brown leaf lettuce that hasn't left the store. The fluorescent lights and fake thunderstorms are part of an intricate system to maintain the red leaves in suspended animation.

Shallots: Onion's sexy little sisters

Oh, shallots, you babies are the exception that proves the rule. Little interlocking layers of heaven. All the good things that onions do, plus you’re smaller, only come in one color and you don’t make me cry. And no one even attempts to serve you raw. I would seriously have hot steamy sexual relations with a shallot if you only had a more conducive shape. But you don’t. ...

Hearts of Palm, a.k.a. Little Zombie Celery...

Yeah, that pretty much sums you up. I don’t get you at all. Are you the heart of a palm tree? A palm leaf? A palmetto bug? Because I’ve seen all three and I never saw anyone gnawing on any of them. Except for termites, or maybe the occasional beaver on vacation. I’ve been to all sorts of produceries over the course of my life, and I’ve never even seen you outside of your...

Eggplant: What fresh hell is this?

Eggplants, you are the swollen, uncomfortable conflagration of a squash and a distended placenta. The color of a fresh bruise (or a festering bedsore) on the outside and of hardened smegma on the inside, you manage to be simultaneously slimy and mushy, no mean feat. For me, it’s your overall squashyness that sets my teeth on edge with every bite. Like biting into an apple but finding a...

Collard Greens - the definitive recipe

1 bunch collard greens 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened 3/4 cup sugar 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 large eggs 2 cups milk chocolate chips 1 beer Preheat oven to 375° F. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. In a separate mixing bowl, mix butter, granulated sugar, vanilla...

Anonymous asked: What is the difference between all bad tasting spices? I give you props if you can answer. 😝

Water Chestnuts - Edible boredom

There are some adjectives I find myself throwing out here a lot, when it comes to the vegetables I don’t like, but also don’t find completely inedible. Benign. Inoffensive. Lackluster. Tasteless. Bland. To name a few. Mix all those descriptives together, then add lackluster and bland, pointless and stale, and ta-dah! We’ve got ourselves a water chestnut. You look like so many...

Avocados: Vegetables in Fruit's Clothing

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this one is probably going to upset some people, but fuck it. Avocados are gross. You smell weird, you taste like suet, and you have a negative texture oddly reminiscent of what you’d find behind a sewage facility in Oz. I don’t like your mushy, scabrous insides. I don’t like your lumpy, grotesque outsides. I don’t like the avocado-colored...

Rutabagas: Surely you're joking

Rutabagas, you are another one of those vegetables that if I hadn’t seen you myself, I would insist didn’t actually exist. I mean, really: you’re a root vegetable that looks like a clod of dirt, are almost impossible to wash yet have one of those shapes that makes a person almost guaranteed to slice themself when peeling, and at best tastes like a mushy turnip? I don’t...

Anonymous asked: WHAT ABOUT VEGIMITE... It's like... charcoal semen with a hint of bastardly salt and claiming to be a healthy Austrailian version of Nutella... No comparison. It's a fucking disgrace and just tastes and looks like it belongs in whale fat. Haha

Onions. This will only end in tears.

Truth be told, I’m mostly on board with onions. You make stews taste all stewy, you’re awesome caramelized on top of burgers or mashed potatoes, and when you’re battered and deep fried, it’s like God himself came down riding a rainbow-farting pegasus and started scattering gold doubloons and schnauzer puppies all over the populace. 100% pure win. But like all good...

Lentils, or Why We Can't Have Nice Things.

Dear Lentils, I get it. You’re nutritious and packed with protein. You cost like two bucks a silo. You keep forfucking ever. You’re like Nature’s Perfect Food, except for one, small, niggling detail: You taste like a road accident. Not a drive-by, minor-injuries, share insurance cards and get on our way accident either, but one of those haunting ones that lingers, like when a...

Snow Peas, a.k.a. Little presents for people you...

Okay, this is the part of our show where I admit that the whole pea thing eludes me. Nasty, green-tasting ball bearings of suck whose only redeeming feature seems to be how nicely your frozen cohort can serve as an ice pack. Then there are the offshoots (pun intended? Maybe. Do you really give a fuck?). Sugar snap peas, where the outsides are crunchy and the actual peas are dessicated nubbins...

June 2012

23 posts

Sprouts: The Devil's Pubes

Sprouts, I don’t know how to break this to you, but you are a nasty excuse for a vegetable. You’re basically what we get when beans go bad, and when you factor in that beans are never good to begin with, that’s a lot of low to limbo under. I imagine it’s pretty difficult to simultaneously comprise no taste and all aftertaste, but somehow you manage it. Worse yet, you have...

Anonymous asked: I'm reading about you on other websites where they say that you're emblematic of what's wrong with Americans because we don't eat enough vegetables and exercise enough. I assume that if you could say one thing to them, it would be that they should go fuck themselves, so what would you say if you could say two things to them?

Celeriac: A Po(o)p quiz

One of the above images is a celery root. The other is an elephant pie. Which looks more tasty? (hint: this is a trick question) Seriously - Celery root? I get why we eat carrot root and onion root and potato root: because no one with a grain of meat in their taco would consider eating the greens. But celery itself is perfectly… well, edible anyhow. Who would keep going and eat the...

Anonymous asked: Brussels sprouts to me look like cabbage patch abortions.

Anonymous asked: Can we make Funyuns an honorary vegetable? They are nasty. Not fun.

Parsley: That crap on the side of your plate

Parsley, parsley, parsley. Are you even a vegetable at all, or just a weed disguised as a garnish? You’re not pretty enough to make anything look significantly better - I can’t recall ever seeing you in a vase, not even in that chichi Real Simple, where they’ll stick fucking anything in a vase (driftwood! tumbleweeds! organic dryer lint!). But you’re not tasty or filling...

Kohlrabi. More proof that unpronouncable =...

Quick: What do you get when you cross a cabbage with a radish? Diarrhea!!! Hahahaha, okay, actually the answer I was going for was kohlrabi, but I can see how the punchline is pretty applicable. Kohlrabi, it’s truly astounding how you managed to combine all the wilty limp dickishness of cabbage with all the bitter exhaust of radishes. Plus you look just like one of those...

Burdock root get the fuck out of my sushi

Now I’m already well on record about scheming, deceptive vegetables that hide by looking like something you’re not. But dammit, burdock, there are veggies that sort of resemble other yummier things, and then there’s you, who look thisclose to carrots and even have the same carrotty crunch, but hooooooolymotherofgodwhatthefuckdidIjusteat? Like those Bugs Bunny cartoons where...

meimcounting asked: Bay leaves. WTF? Single most useless spice ever. They do nothing, they cost money, and you have to fish them out. They are the good luck charm of cooking. Please discuss!

Blah blah blah string beans blah

I am really, really trying to work up the motivation to write this post, but frankly, green beans, string beans, haricots verts, whatever the fuck you’re officially called, I’m a bit flummoxed. I don’t know what it is. I don’t like you. I think you taste rubbery and feel wormy, and vice versa. I don’t like the way you droop when you’re heated and I don’t...

Anonymous asked: Are you certain it's not spelled Hicama?

radicchio, endive, escarole, and arugula: the four...

I know I’m running out of produce so it’s probably foolhardy to go lumping whole categories together again, but radicchio (the red menace), endive (the french disease), escarole (the Dutch holding company responsible for Big Brother and Toddlers & Tiaras), and arugula (the bowel rocket) are collectively the worst thing to happen to saladkind. When I was a kid, salads were...

Jicama - Deceptive little fuckers

First off, anything that you have to look up how to pronounce (or how to spell, if the first time you ever hear the name of something is from a harried waiter who really really needs to make it known that he doesn’t care whether or not you know what that thing in your salad was) is already suspect. Secondly, if you start with the letter J, and yet also start with an “H”...

Anonymous asked: Dandelions? Nettles? Why are we being told to eat weeds and why do they cost so much?

An open letter to the Person Who Invented...

Dear P.W.I.W.J., Wheatgrass is grass. It tastes like GRASS. What, are you stupid? Sincerely, Everyone with a brain (or a tongue)

Sweet Potatoes are neither Potatoes nor Sweet....

I’ve said it before, and I’ll no doubt say it again: Potatoes are awesome. Sweet things are doubly awesome. Sweet Potatoes, however: You are not awesome, not potatoes, and not particularly sweet to boot. You are what my eleventh grade English teacher would call a misfuckingnomer (I may be paraphrasing). I don’t know if there’s technically a difference here, but you...

With a name like Squash, it has to be crap

..Say it loud and it sounds like you’re farting… say it slow and it sounds like you’re sharting… Squaaaaashhhhhh. Oh, Squash. You are so pretty on the outside, redolent of Thanksgiving and harvest festivals and that great feeling when you break out the new fall wardrobe for the year. But then oh my god inside you what the hell is that holycrapaaaaaaaaaaa! And I’ve...

Anonymous asked: Sunchokes are perfect for those times when you want the earthiness of a potato, but crunchier and with a hint of navel lint. The silver lining on the homogenization of our food supply is their eventual eradication.

Sunchokes: Nope.

WTF is a sunchoke? Outside of Top Chef, I’ve never even heard of you. I’m pretty sure you don’t exist. Or you taste like freshly-grilled unicorn with sapphire pixie dust coulis. Whatever. Call me when you’re at the Piggly Wiggly, maybe I’ll take another look.

Anonymous asked: So what happens when you run out of vegetables to rant about? It'd be a shame for you to give up the blogging, as leafing through your bitter hatred for all things vegetable is one of my new-found favorite ways to kill a few minutes.

Leeks. Dirty, dirty leeks.

So here’s how my moms taught us to cook leeks: First, cut off the green tops and throw them away. Next, cut off the thick hairy bottoms and throw them away. You should be left with a few D-battery-sized stubs, if you’re lucky. Take those truncated leek nubbins and slice them lengthwise. Throw out the two outer layers. Now wash out all the sand in between the remaining layers,...

Iceberg Lettuce - the bland eating the bland

Bergie, I’d like to take a moment aside, and talk about a little TV sitcom called “Coach.” It starred Craig T. Nelson as the head coach of the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles. Here’s a little taste of the opening credits, for you young ‘uns out there. Now I never saw “Coach.” I only know all this info from reading wikipedia. None of my friends ever...

May 2012

31 posts

Rhubarb the red-pulped rhizome

Let me start this with a hard-earned truth: VEGETABLES HAVE NO FUCKING BUSINESS IN DESSERT. Carrot cake is an abomination. Broccoli brownies are a duplicitous, vile insult against all that is good about humanity. And rhubarb pie - even strawberry rhubarb pie - you are pure, unadulterated evil. Let’s start with your texture: stringy and fibrous, like celery, but in a blood-red color that...

Anonymous asked: What's your take on those water chestnuts dudes who always show up in Chinese food?

Anonymous asked: So you finally decide not to be a fat slob for a moment and order a salad. And you're eating it with a light dressing, and you're thinking that hey, it's not so bad. The crisp lettuce and fresh tomatoes are almost pleasing. You even give the purple cabbage a pass as it doesn't seem to be making things worse. Suddenly, your mouth is stabbed with a rank bitterness. As you fight...

Anonymous asked: Your forgeting a certain little motherfucker called mushrooms.

Celery, a.k.a. Rabbit Floss

Celery, you are one polarizing bitch. You’re bitter, you’re stringy, you wilt under the slightest bit of heat, you get stuck in people’s teeth, and have an aftertaste that can crumble sheetrock. Plus you last juuuuust long enough in the fridge that people stock up on you planning to eat or cook with you later, then come up with a better idea Every Single Time until you end up a...

You say Okra, I say pustulent slime pods

Well, I’ve been doing this for weeks now and we’ve finally reached the nadir. Pardon me if I feel the need to “go medieval” on this next vegetable’s “ass”. Okra, you foul, putrid excrescence. Born from slime and glaucous goo and only edible by the definition of the word which means “non-toxic.” You boast the color of nuclear waste and the...

Anonymous asked: Dude, really, 4/10 for Brussels Sprouts? Go and taste one, please. If you survive, come back and tell the tale. Other than than, loved your blog :) kudos

Turnips - the vegetable of last resort

Turnips, I don’t know how the hell you managed to make the transition from garden refuse to food. I sorta get why someone might try nibbling the green bits. They don’t taste good, but neither do most of the other leafy greens shooting up, and hey, if it’s grabbing some of the stuff the rabbits eat or taking on a mastodon with a pointy stick, I can see where a resourceful guy...

Anonymous asked: Umm... isn't kumquat a fruit? I double checked on wikipedia, which says that it is, so it must be true.

carolinerussock asked: Daikon. Putrid smelling giant ghost radish. Go.