Man vs Food

After a month of non-stop writing, I feel a bit guilty for not having written anything since Monday. But it’s been one of those weeks where my brain just hasn’t wanted to work in a way that is capable of stringing whole sentences together that are worth reading. I think I need a holiday.


Last night I was introduced to the wondrous TV show that is ‘Man vs. Food’. Basically a guy travels around the USA finding the massivest meals he can, and taking on restaurant challenges to eat them. I watched him attempt to eat a 7 ½ pound hamburger in under an hour. Having just eaten dinner myself, it seemed even more sickening, because with a full stomach I couldn’t even contemplate the idea of someone attempting to eat a burger that big. The fact that we had a Greek food banquet for dinner and probably ate a couple of pounds of food ourselves seemed insignificant compared to this burger.


What really got me about the show was the part of the episode that introduced me to a dish I had never heard of before, and something that convinced me that the higher the population gets in a country, the more willing the people become to eat anything they can dream up, no matter how bizarre or sickeningly fatty.

That dish was ‘Chicken Fried Steak’.
Someone takes a piece of steak, coats it in flour and deep fries the sucker until it’s crispy. Then it gets slathered with gravy and voila - your deep fried dinner is complete.

I can’t believe someone came up with a dish like that. Who in the world decided that steak was something that could do with deep frying? Of course, I would definitely eat it – how could I not when my love of unhealthy food is so great? It’s still pretty gross though.


The fact that the guy on this TV show is able to find so many enormous meals is amazing. I don’t think food like that exists here in Australia. Sure, we have restaurants that advertise that they serve extra-large meal sizes, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so fantastically huge as some of the things he eats. The only thing I can ever recall coming across that was big enough to rate as a dish on that show was served at 'The Great Australian Ice-Creamery'. It was called ‘the kitchen sink’ and was basically a 9 litre ice cream sundae. It had every flavour and every topping, and they served it in a mini sink-shaped dish.
Now that is a challenge that I definitely couldn’t do – I struggle to eat a regular serve of ice-cream, so 9 litres would never, ever happen.



I may have to rethink my idea of a trip to the US, because there's a very good chance that with junk food available to me in sizes like that, my trip could end with a heart attack rather than a flight home.

I think I’ll just have to watch the rest of the Man vs Food series so I can enjoy my love of junk food vicariously while it clogs someone else’s arteries instead of my own.

The Perfect Pets

A little while back there was a cat kind of stalking my house. The previous owners of the house had warned us that there were two cats that always strolled around as though they owned the place. I thought that was unlikely, as I'm pretty sure strolling can only be done on two legs, not four - but it turns out that they were right - we do have two strolling cats. It's a bit like having a pet, only way less work because I don't have to feed them or clean up after them. Also, I don't have to worry about where they are at night or get cat hair on everything, which makes them the perfect pets for me. I have even given them names. 'Fatty' for the fat Calico one, and 'creepy' for the creepy sort-of-black one that always stares at me with crazy eyes. I did briefly think about calling him Crazy, but Creepy seemed a little nicer.

About a week ago I was looking out my front window trying to out-stare Creepy when I noticed that there was something else running through our garden. It took me a second to spot him because he was ducking in and out of the trees. It was a boy of about 6 or 7 years of age. He was running around, playing some sort of imaginary game that involved ducking and weaving and I think possibly shooting things. He was there for about a minute or so and then he ran off back to the neighbours yard.

I've seen him about 3 more times since then, playing his strange imaginary game in our front yard and I've decided that 3 visits is enough for me to add him to the pet roster along with Creepy and Fatty. He needs a name to join the roster, and I've thought of a few, but nothing that seems right so far.

Initially I though I could call him Ducky, because of all the ducking and weaving he does around the trees - but that reminded me of the guy from that TV show 'NCIS' and he's a bit too chatty for a boy that runs silently around the front yard.

I thought of Johnny, because generic little boys in books are always named Johnny - but that seemed a bit too generic for a pet name. That is also why I discounted 'boy' - because there are too many dogs called 'dog' and cats called 'cat'.

I'm at a bit of a loss for a new name, so until I can think of something more appropriate, I'm going to call him Dough, because it's a bit like calling him John Doe, but marginally more interesting.

All suggestions are welcome.