Rob Commits a Take Out Faux Pas

In my line of work, something like this is bound to happen. In fact, it’s happened more than once.

Tried out a newish pizza joint the other night: 360 Pizza at 2222 and 360.. The pizzas were excellent, especially the Pennybacker with artisan pepperoni. It was a very well made pie. Of course we couldn’t finish everything, so the trusty old take out boxes materialized.

One thing I wanted to try was the Italian-style cheese cake with caramel sauce.. So several hours later, I went in to the kitchen and opened that box. A bulb had blown out in the kitchen earlier that evening so the light was a bit low. I took out the cheesecake and what appeared to be the caramel sauce on the side. I poured it on, although I was a bit surprised by the rather thin consistency of the normally thick sauce.

I settled into my lounger in the living room and took the first bite. Yccch. I suddenly realized that instead of caramel I had poured a similar colored vinaigrette that had been meant for the salad. Of course, at this point the entire cake was soaked with vinaigrette. Bummer.

But not to be deterred, I poured off the excess vinaigrette and proceeded to dab the cake with paper towels hoping to eradicate the last vestiges of the dressing. Thinking I’d done a pretty good job, I then poured the caramel sauce onto the cake. One minor problem. The cake had absorbed the dressing and there was no way to get that out. So the next bite, a mix of caramel and vinaigrette was even worse. I finally gave up and let my black lab have at it. He thought it was great (but then again, he thinks everything is great).

I must go back soon and try the cheesecake again, this times sans the vinaigrette. Doh!!!

Another incident preceded the cheese cake episode by several years, yet was no less repugnant. I had taken home a couple of Sweetish Hill’s delicious brownies. They were on the front seat of my car which I later loaned to my youngest daughter Lauren. Of course, she ate the brownies and left a burger on the seat. She slammed on the brakes to avoid a collision sending the burger hurtling onto the floor of the car. In the process it became separated from the bun. She cleaned up the bun et al., but in the dark missed the burger. I went out of town for a few days (this was in the middle of Summer), and returned at night to the house to see the car parked in its normal spot in the driveway. I was very hungry, and peeked in to see if the brownies were still there, and to my surprise, there was what appeared to be a brownie lying on the floor of the car. Not thinking at all, I picked it up and took a bite. OMG!!! It was a petrified burger with the most horrid smell and taste.

My next move was to lurch behind the porch and well… use your imagination.

The result of my unmitigated craving for a Sweetish Hill brownie led to my undoing. The mind does indeed play tricks. Of course, this story was told and retold to all my kids’ friends only adding to my angst over the whole event.