Food and Wine Snobs

I ate a bunch of Valium last night each followed my a shot of tequilla. I forgot that your body only processes one at a time and basically holds the others in escrow.When I finally woke up, I started thinking about assholes who could never admit to the joys of a fast food burger, a bag of chips or a candy bar. Yeah. Food and wine snobs.
I'm not talking about the palateless walking tragedies to whom food is simply energy. They're a lost cause. But at least they don't make conscious decisions to be pretentious. They're just boring.
I'm talking about the people who are so elevated in their tastes that they would NEVER admit to a secret craving or ingesting something less than impressive to their social group. I deal with caviar, foie gras, the best meats and fishes money can buy. My table butter is beautiful artery clogging stuff from Australia. I provide luxury. It's my job my passion and it occupies almost every waking second. When someone says "It must be great to be a Chef." I think they're thinking it must be great to eat only the finest foods obtainable. Well, the sad fact is that most Chef's have probably the worst food cravings imaginable. I used to get off work and head to 7-11 for a Nestle's Quick and a microwave burrito. Or a weed induced raiding of Taco Bell. It's not that I don't want a steak tartare sometimes (raw meat? how could you ever turn down raw, dead cow?"), it's just that I have to switch gears for a minute to regroup . Thomas Keller once said that to appreciate the very best you must experience the very worst. It's true. For me at least. I might be guilty of taking this statement to the extreme, but that's me. I'm a creature of bad habit. I love junky burgers and my favorite snack is frozen Kit Kat bars. I once heard a food critic dolt remark how people that eat that stuff don't respect their palate. Please, the only temple my body is is the Temple of Doom. I put anything I want in it. No, maybe I don't respect my own palate but I respect immensely the palates of my diners and am developed enough to separate MY personal pleasures with what I do for a dyi...er..living. I am in fact most times 2 entirely different people. Conflicting duality. It drives me insane.

Wine snobs on the other hand are another bunch. They are actually more annoying than lawyers, who's company is usually present out of shear necessity. I don't drink that much wine ( The horrors!!!!) as the sulfites and tannins give me raging headaches. I can pair it with food but for the most part I prefer to drink water. I don't like alcohol unless I'm getting drunk. I've never been a social drinker. Ever been around a bunch of snivelling wine geeks? Not people who like it, drink it and appreciate it, but the people who make this great ceremony over it. People who go on and on about the virtues of the terroir. The people who walk in with their own Riedel glasses with balloon bowls bigger than their heads. Jerk-offs who frown upon anyone who drinks anything but wine with a meal ( I don't normally drink soda, but make an exception when surrounded by these people). People who place the pomp and circumstance of drinking wine above the actual wine itself. I hate these fucks. You know the types. They're the ones with the silly misconception that "everything's better with wine."or the "Save The Terroir" bumpersticker on the back of their Escalade. My personal favorites are the descriptors; "Tarry", "hints of lead pencil" "leathery"" hints of old cigar box""smokey bacon". Yummy!! I'll eventually develop my own wine dictionary that will have less subtle descriptors. "Laurel without being Hardy""playful without being ostentatious"" hints of young girls panties" "snakelike" traumatized""sketchy". My theory is that eating and drinking are subjective. If you prefer iced tea with your meal, it will taste better TO YOU than if you if you're brow beaten into drinking what someone says you should. They've imposed a rule on your likes and have negated the rules of dining pleasure. It's about what an individual likes. I want you to drink wine with your meal too. And lot's of it. But then I love high check averages. These people have their own passions and are welcome to it, but like any like or dislike, don't shove it my face! At least they have passion in something though.

I'll flip flop in a second when it comes to well done meats and overcooked foods, but this is the nature of a truly hypocritical iconoclast. Besides, everything goes better with pharmaceuticals.