The Mickey D. Special

            I guess I’ll never be known as a gourmet, but I do enjoy eating different sorts of foods.  I also am partial to regular meat and potatoes meals, I really like liver and onions, but especially when I am somewhere new and looking at an unfamiliar menu, I try to find something ‘different’ to order for lunch.  Most of the time when my selection arrives at the table I am pleased with what I have asked for; occasionally the food has a new taste that really tickles my palate.  Sometimes it does not.  When this occurs, even though it is not a gastronomic delight, my self-made rule is since I am going to have to pay for it, that I will eat it anyway.

            At many Korean restaurants they serve a dish called Bugogie.  This is not what it sounds like, but rather a small earthenware bowl filled with rice and various other ingredients baked and served piping hot with an egg cracked on top just before it is brought to the table.  The egg sizzles and cooks while you are stirring it all together.  It’s quite good.  There are a number of different styles of Bugogie, but on the occasion I am remembering I ordered Sea Food Bugogie.  I was thinking about sea food such as shrimp, crabs, and scallops, and that it would taste good with fried rice.  My sisters, sitting across the table from me asked me if I was sure that was what I wanted.  Surprised at their question, I answered yes.  When my Bugogie arrived and I removed the lid I was surprised to see other types of seafood than what I have been expecting including slices of squid and what appeared to be the arms of a small octopus which looked exactly like what you would expect the arm of a small octopus to resemble.  I carefully ate around all the parts which did not look appealing.  I finally tried a bite of the octopus and found it very chewy and not too tasty.  This was not one of my best lunches.

            Then there was the time I ordered Gnocchi.  I saw where my daughter-in-law wrote that she had the best Gnocchi in Southern California at a restaurant near Los Angeles.  I was unfamiliar with Gnocchi, but during a visit there while dining at a restaurant called Olive Garden I saw Gnocchi Soup on the menu and decided to order it.  The Gnocchi turned out to be something like a dumpling, and was very good.  I enjoyed it.

            Last Saturday my two sisters and my nephew and I drove out to Elk City in western Oklahoma to visit the place where my Mother’s family homesteaded property in early days in the Oklahoma Territory.  We spent time at the library copying some of our ancestor’s obituaries and visited my great grandfather’s gravesite.  We then began looking for a place to eat lunch.  After rejecting Pizza Hut and Sonic we finally found a Mexican style restaurant which all agreed would be satisfactory.  At the table I began looking at the menu, saw all the familiar Mexican style dishes:  Burritos, enchiladas, tacos, tamales.  I looked at them and then looked for something ‘different’ which I found.  It was called the Mickey D. Special, and consisted of grilled jalapenos, grilled onions, and sliced avocado.  Now that looked ‘different’, and without giving it a great deal of thought that is what I ordered when the waitress returned, and that is what she delivered to my place at the table.  There was no meat, no rice, no refried beans; just grilled jalapeno peppers, grilled onions, and half a sliced avocado.  Hmmm, I thought; maybe I have made a mistake, especially when my nephew was delivered a plate containing rice and refried beans, and eventually some sizzling Fajitas.  Resigned to my fate I dug in and began.  Luckily the jalapenos had most of the fire cooked out of them, the onions were sweet and tasty, and the avocado sort of topped everything off.  It was not my very best culinary experience.  My nephew eventually shared some of his Fajitas which helped to ease the hunger pangs.  On the way back to Oklahoma City I told the old joke about eating ice cream after consuming jalapenos, but everyone thought I was serious, and I had to tell them I was just kidding.  So far the Mickey D. Special has not disagreed with me, but I am not straying far from home.