Sometimes we eat and sometimes we have to wash the dishes. At least most of us have to. Some people never wash their plates, silverware or cookware. It usually catches up with them after awhile but of course there are those who have people who do that for them.

Everyone knows that I eat more than I report. It’s not some big secret. I try to concentrate on certain aspects of my food experiences. Things that I judge may be more interesting to you or more likely to me.

This may not be a confession, but I do want to come clean.

I went to the ballpark and ate some fantastic hot dogs and chicken wings and taco salad. I talked with some very interesting people, some of whom I had never met before, and that was great fun. It’s pretty much impossible to talk about what you have been eating without sharing a little bit about what you did and who you met. Remember? Life and food; two and the same.

I ate at a new favorite barbecue place for the third time and am going to share my experience at some future date or then again, maybe not. See, I get to choose.

I have enjoyed a couple of nights with fresh oysters popped on my grill for about five minutes. I really need to talk about my grilling sessions, not because I make anything all that fantastic, but it is a great deal of fun for me. I bought a cherry pie at the Farmers Market and enjoyed it very much, here’s a shout out to Deborah’s Homemade Pies.

I regret not talking more about seasoning iron cookware when I posted about my steak cooking. You must never use soap on them and you must season them before you use them and you have to pay attention to the seasoning and not hurt it. See? There is a lot to learn about using this stuff. Look it up on the Internet.

I want to talk about that great bread I used when I made that fried egg sandwich. That stuff is good and I eat a peanut butter sandwich made from that stuff almost every single day of my life. And I usually eat a banana.

I usually drink two cups of coffee every day.

I usually have at least one glass of plain flavored soy milk.

I claim to never eat ice cream and I don’t ever buy it at the store to bring home, but about twice a year I eat ice cream either when invited to dinner, eating out or visiting a Baskin Robbins with friends. I don’t deny myself very much, but I try to stay clear of ice cream and chocolate.

I do enjoy good beer and good wine. We had homemade pizza while my daughter was here and that made it taste all the better. I love to make pancakes for my wife but have not done it for a few weeks. Maybe tomorrow.

Enough. That is certainly not everything but it is food I remembered for one reason or another.

I need to air my feelings about washing dishes so I guess I’ll file at least part of this post as What’s Eating Bob? I am not a man of strong principles but more a man who looks around in wide-eyed wonder at this big old goofy world, to borrow from John Prine. I have no special knowledge. All I have is the desire to talk and write about the goofy things that catch my eye.

I don’t think a person has any business fixing food in a kitchen unless they are doing the dishes. Oh, I know that Bobby Flay and the rest of the crowd that goes in for “stunt cooking” don’t have to clean up their own messes, but that is not the way it should be. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Anyone who does not want to do dishes has no business cooking, which makes me think of an earlier time in my life.

When I graduated from high school I got a job as a carpenter’s helper. The pay was two bucks an hour and I caught a ride every morning with the boss, his father and another guy my age. I was eighteen years old and this was my first real job after graduating from high school. We rode 45 minutes every morning to Erie, Pa to build houses in a project. The father of my boss was 72 years old and his name was Bert. At the end of the summer the project was finished and Bert and I started putting new roofs on old barns. We spent the whole fall way out in rural Pennsylvania working on old barn roofs. I learned how to do the job and I hauled most of the new roofing up the ladder and I think perhaps more than anything else, kept an eye out for Bert. Bert knew more about what to do than I did by a mile, but I had a younger and stronger back. I was glad to play my role.

My favorite memories of Bert were when we stopped for lunch or took a break. I loved to listen to what he had to say and there was one particular saying he had that has become part of my vocabulary. Whenever it was time to go back to work, Bert would say, “There’s no rest for the wicked”, and then he would pause just the appropriate amount of time before finishing, “and the righteous don’t need it”.

When you think about it, that about covers all of us, doesn’t it?

And it is with that notion in mind that I extend my admonition to do the dishes. If you are cooking you should be expected to do your own dishes and if you are not cooking, then you should be willing to do the dishes. I think that about covers the subject.

I do have two rules I follow though. Not only do I insist on doing the dishes in my house, and on my time, but I also do not volunteer to do the dishes in others homes. That might sound cruel, and I have sometimes bent the rule, but I try to live by this.

One more thing that I must own up to is that all of these rules are arbitrary and can be changed whenever all parties agree or someone is shamed into it. Get it?

Life is not black and white. Sometimes you do the dishes in places where you had no intention of ever washing a plate or drying a coffee cup. In any event, we all need to do the dishes so I just wanted to clean up a few loose ends here.

I very much want to thank both George Huger and Abraham Whaley for all of the help they have given me in starting this blog. I would never be here without them. Thank you gentlemen. I will not forget your encouragement and technical assistance. I thank all of my family and I thank God for all of my family. I think that cleans a few things up for me. Thanks to all.

What’s Eating Bob?

I know a lot of my friends thought this blog was going to only be about me cooking because I do enjoy making food, especially for friends and family. But I really wanted it to be more about simple food encounters and perhaps the occasional weird thought I might have and feel compelled to speak out load about. Sometimes I hope, my posts will be about me eating fantastic food. Hopefully in a very expensive restaurant where someone else is paying. But if you have read any of my previous posts you know that I usually eat very simple food. And I never said that the blog was going to be about everything that Bob eats, just a few selected items that I feel like sharing.

But what about What’s Eating Bob? I suppose I could rant and rave about some stupid political candidate or position, but that’s not really me.

I’ll tell you what. I think the best thing to do is to ask questions and let someone smarter than myself (not hard to find) explain some of the strange stuff I see in the world around me.

How come the Jewish People, the Christians and the People of the Muslim faith cannot seem to come to some sort of God ordained peace among themselves when they all have such strong roots in the Jewish Bible? The book that was always refered to as the Old Testament when I was a young man.

This is a book that I have read and truly love. It is certainly one of the fundamental artifacts of the history of the world and a piece of art without peer. But even though it is a major building block of all three major faiths of the western world they cannot agree on a common understanding of it. In fact, many people of all three faiths insist that not only is their interpretation of it right but everyone else should agree with the way they see it?

Everyone picks and chooses what they want from it and ignores what they do not want to see. That is fine with me but please don’t tell me that everyone should agree with your way of seeing it. It is hard not to think that the book has caused more trouble then it’s worth.

Here’s a really simple idea.

How about every chance you get you try to sit down and eat a meal with another family. Preferably a family that believes in a different faith then you do. One who eats foods that you have either never eaten or seldom eat. Better yet, how about you invite your neighbor who you never speak to, to join you for a very casual meal of whatever you happen to have on hand.

I believe that all families all over world share some very basic values.

All cultures want their children to be safe and to have a positive future.

All people want to breathe clean air and eat safe food.

All people enjoy some sort of art or music.

Sit down and break bread with that strange family across the street. Learn your neighbor’s name and he will never be that “guy or girl” who seems so different than yourself. You just might find out that even though a person is different than yourself, they really are not all that strange. They probably like at least some of the things your family likes.

Every faith and society has extremists. These people are in the minority by the very definition of being extremist. The average person who is raising a family and trying to save money, if they can, wants their children to be safe and they want their food and air to be clean. Just start with the simple stuff.

If you love your neighbor as you do yourself that’s a beginning.

If you see that your neighbor is not really so different from yourself, it’s not too much of a leap to fulfill that admonition from the book that is revered by all three western faiths.

I guess it’s just too simple. Ok, then answer me this, why does God not make things simple for us when most of us are so unbelievably ignorant?

You tell me.

Sometimes it eats at me.