236th email

From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Thursday September 17th, 1999 4:11AM
Subject: Food

Dear Stacey, let me tell you about food here. It is very colorful (sorry colourful) and very sweet.

Kinda like a Children's Pop Band.

Which is coincidental as that’s the new show I’m working on - A cabaret sketch show with a South Californian Pop band of Mormons who recruit with anthemic ‘join us’ enlist’ ‘be part of our army’ style songs.

Kinda creepy, hey.

Kinda made me hide all the accelerants…

Kinda made me warn the F-B-I.

Kinda made me hate myself.

(See, had my first day at work today – so many dangers and warning signs. Most notably the lead singer wanted to take my to a shopping mall as he wasn’t sure we had them in Australia. I shit you not.)

Anyhows; back to the food.

Early this morning I wandered downstairs to the Breakfast Buffet. It was stocked with long life items, I suspect. Kinda like a World War Three bunker smorgasbord (And Dom - please stop saying ‘kinda like’ it’s so annoying and seemingly linguistically contagious – see Buddy, with such a weak immune system you’re only a few steps away from local phrases like ‘You know what’)

Anyway, off topic. So there I was at this buffet. I had supped on a few small glasses of syrupy Pineapple juice and watched globs of cream float on top of my bottomless brewed filtered coffee.

So with such a coating of bravery I decided to man up and try the hot food.

Canadian Bacon was first. Crisp and stripped – not bad. But I had to intervene before some eager host drowned it in sweet syrup. Now this is confusing to a salt-lover like me. Why confuse the taste? Why ruin the delight? Why make everything sweet? Why is everything so childish?

So with this thought, I protected my wizened shoelaces of sodium and ventured to the Omelette bar.

Here a nice looking helper offered me any omelette. And with this offer they waved their hands over the orchestra of ingredients like Vanna White (Sorry, trying to USA fit in - Ms White is the letter turner in The Price is Right here – a US Adrianna if you will)

Greedily I looked at the items in front of me. Could this be my salvation? Could I construct an item without intervention and with low levels of sugar?

Yes. Yes I could. I believed. Yes I damn well could!

ME: I’ll have the tomato (pronounced tomato), the mushroom, the onion and –

I hesitated; there was an ingredient in front of me. It was bright orange and grated. It glistened with water and looked crisp and fresh.

ME: Carrot. Is that grated carrot?

With this enquiry (pronounced enquiry) the Omelette maker looked at me with the expression of someone who was recently insulted because an observer had momentarily forgotten what gender they were:

HIM/HER (Not sure): It’s cheese.

I blinked. Cheese? Really? It’s so orange. Not Red Leicester. But Orange. Carrot orange.

ME: Cheese?

HIM/HER: Yes cheese. American Cheddar.

ME: But it looks so orange?

HIM/HER: That’s because it is orange.

ME: But it looks fake orange.

HIM/HER: How dare you.

ME: It’s got food colouring, right?

HIM/HER: I don’t know.

ME: So do you have orange cows in America now?

HIM/HER: Don’t be stupid.

ME: Sorry.

HIM/HER: Man, next you’ll be upset that the butter is white.

ME: The Butter is white!?

And it’s true the butter is white.

See here in America they colour their cheese orange and they bleach their butter white. Not sure why but this and this alone makes me feel like an Alien.

Fuck, I really miss you and would welcome kissing your lips – for I’m sure they’d be the best thing I’ve tasted in a week.



Hungrily

Dom.