My Food Rules Will Change Your Life

WHY?!?!

I incited a PB&J war this week on Facebook, and I'm damn proud I did. It made people THINK — think about their revolting food habits, the likes of which include double-dipping the same knife used in the peanut butter into the jar of jam/jelly/marmalade. Because mankind often disappoints me, I was chagrined but not totally shocked to see that at least half of the respondents to my informal survey admitted to partaking in this noxious habit.

Besides this grotesque insight into the human condition, I also learned quite a lot during this social-media-driven Condiment Insurrection (if that is, indeed, what peanut butter and jelly are considered — I've never been quite sure). My open mind graciously embraced the pragmatic nugget that one can use a spoon for the jelly. So simple, so obvious ... so beautiful.

I also tapped into the omniscience of the information superhighway and found such innovations as this:

As a result of these life-changing revelations, I've become moved to share my own trade secrets in the digestibles domain. These rules have served me well over the years (only one visit to the ER for food poisoning!), and I believe they will serve you well, too — or at the very least make you glad you don't live with me. Acquiesce to my culinary demands, because I love you.

1. Pure maple syrup ... ALWAYS.

Hello, losers!

2. Do not violate sticks of butter.

Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. I redirect you to the image that appears at the top of this blog post, because I WANT you to be sickened, to swoon at the nastiness, to succumb to this abomination that has infiltrated dinner tables and backyard barbecues and even RESTAURANTS. Someone meticulously churned and emulsified that concoction to the point of perfection, and there you go screwing it up with your dirty, foul silk strands. Is it not possible to show that butter some respect and simply slice off what the layperson calls a "pat"? Or to premix it with a dash of cayenne pepper and wield a pastry brush to gently but firmly smother the ear before rehusking it and throwing it on the grill?

If you've ever retrieved a salted quarter with your bare hands and mashed it into your vegetables, grains, or any other unwitting members of the food pyramid, then callously returned it to the refrigerator like you don't even know its name, you need to be doused in a vat of ghee. Please, for the love of God, invest in something like this and keep it in your purse/manbag like you would ChapStick:

3. Keep the A1 away from that ribeye.

If you ruin a well-made burger or porterhouse with steak sauce or other condiments, you deserve to eat cube steak or Steak-umm for the rest of your sad, pathetic days like these boys from the Sunnyvale Trailer Park:

4. Don't make your implements feel like dirty whores.

There is no acceptable excuse for reheating leftovers in the microwave, stirring the dish halfway through, then using that same utensil to consume your meal.

Actually, you shouldn't be eating leftovers anyway. Your mouth knows and will think you're a jerk.

5. Reject the yogurt yuck.

And now you're going to put this spoon in your mouth. Whatever.

Along the same lines as Rule No. 4, refrain from stirring fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt with a spoon and then using that same spoon to eat the yogurt.

You know what yogurt looks like when you tear off that thin aluminum cover. It's watery and curdy and you have to look away as you stir it into a creamier, more palatable concoction because it's visually overwhelming. Why would you reuse the same implement that was tainted by that initial mutation? New spoon, please. Don't think you get a pass if you're eating one of those fancy Greek mixtures that say "yoghurt" on the label.

6. Stop being a whipped-cream snob.

Fresh whipped cream is always best, but Reddi-Wip and Cool Whip also have their place in society. 

You may not agree, especially after reading this guy's "horrifying" 12-day experiment with Cool Whip. But you can't do this with fresh whipped cream:

7. Whole milk only in coffee. 

Not half-and-half, not skim, not Coffee-Mate "creamer" — whole milk. I have no justification or or statistics or science to back me up on this. It just is what it is.

8. Olives deserve to die. All of them.

You can stuff olives with gorgonzola and jalapenos or drown them in Tanqueray and vermouth and try to pass them off as a vital mixology ingredient, but they're still olives. There is no nature-versus-nurture debate worth having here.

9. Dear Hardcore Eye-talians ... 

... Don't be scared to break your spaghetti in half before placing it in the pot of boiling water. There's nothing wrong with cutting your cooked pasta with a fork and knife. And fry your meatballs.

Trust me on this. On all of it.