F&W I'm Thinking Arby's

>>Before entering the work force, I never thought that I could ever work in a restaurant. I thought being around the same food all the time would turn me away from that food and make me a picky eater all over again, like I was when I was a child. Not to mention I figured anywhere I worked would be nasty and turn me away from wanting to eat out altogether. In retrospect, I realize I was just silly and had no idea what was really going on.

>>As of sometime in September, I have officially been working at Arby’s for about a year and a half. Certain things on the menu—such as the Reuben, the French Dip and Swiss, the Philly Beef Sub, the Classic Italian, and probably more—always stick out to me when I go to other restaurants. At that other restaurant I think to myself, “Oh, I can eat that at work.” For a split second I feel rebellious and look for something else to eat, but that familiarity pulls me back to the common option between the two restaurants and I get it. It’s delightful because while I’m eating it, I’m not just enjoying it; I’m comparing it in my head to our version. Who is cheaper? Not just in how much I am spending, but how much the restaurant spends on making the sandwich, for instance the Classic Italian at Arby’s only has a few banana peppers on it but if you got it at Subway, you could get probably three times as more. Which tastes better? Which sauce is better? Which bread is softer? Is their sauerkraut edible? How is the meat’s texture? (At Arby’s we pride ourselves on getting the meat sliced as thin as possible, which affects the flavor immensely.)

>>Sometimes the people are so unbelievable I want to scream, sometimes the hours are so slow all I want to do is go home, sometimes the rushes are too much and my brain may as well be mush, and sometimes the works seems so monotonous that after this long I can’t believe I still work there, but in the end it’s worth it. There’s that small satisfaction in the paycheck (of course), in winning the glove-ball war among colleagues for a brief moment, in telling sly jokes through the headsets’ walky-talky feature, in seeing returning customers smile as you greet them by name, in seeing the small child sweetly ask for a spoon so they can eat their Value Vanilla Shake like it’s ice cream…it’s good mood food, after all.

F&W Hand Me That Nintendo Controller

>>If only life were like a videogame.

>>In Zelda Ocarina of Time, some Lon Lon Milk hits the spot like nothing else. In Harvest Moon, you can find random berries in the wilderness in the outskirts of town and for some reason not be afraid of poison. In Earthbound, fresh eggs heal a little bit of HP when you’re in a tight spot, unless of course you wait too long, and then it turns into a little yellow chick and takes up a spot in your inventory. Unless you’re willing to just drop it off in the middle of the dungeon, anyway. Mario has mushrooms, Donkey Kong has bananas, Pokemon have bait (at least in the Safari Zone) and rare candies, Dark Cloud 2’s Toady eats weapons…

>>I say this because there are immediate positive affects to what they eat. Aside from maybe Kirby, most games’ protagonists benefit from eating. A player eats a hamburger and their life points are increased. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could eat a hamburger and not be counting calories in our head or worrying if our stomach liner can take it? In the game, your hunger is not merely tamed for the time being, but your living ability is strengthened by eating! What I mean by living ability is that you literally have more life, thus you can take more hits before losing a life.

>>We all wished as a kid that we were Mario and that we could simply eat a mushroom so we’d be tall enough to ride the roller coaster. Likewise, we wished when we were older for the mushroom effects to wear off so we could fit in the teacups at Magic Kingdom.

>>Yes: if only life were like an RPG game.

F&W Cravings

>>I am starting to believe that my stomach has a mind of its own, or maybe it’s just got multiple personality disorder. A few years ago, it was a Hispanic and constantly craved nachos and cheese, meat, salsa, and lettuce (nachos y queso, carne de res, salsa, y lechuga…), in my late highschool years it was a twelve-year-old who microwaved all their food, consuming Americanized super-processed Mexican foods [taquitos, pizza rolls (which are essentially empanadas), burritos, chimichangas, the list goes on] and pizza, and all that time I had prided myself on never really craving sweets. Perhaps this is the reason why I was under the delusion that cravings were meant to lead us toward food containing the certain nutrients the body was low on.

>>But now it’s hit. The estrogen has been full-on for a few years now, getting me past puberty, and now with nothing else better to do to my body (since I’ve not gotten it pregnant) it now sends waves through my nerves, screeching, “Chocolate! I need more chocolate!” My surroundings are of no help. I work at Arby’s 5 of 7 days a week…the shake machine has chocolate, the Jamocha Oreo Shake (medium size only) requires chocolate swirl in the cup so that chocolate is always there, there’s chocolate icing for the turnovers, those specific turnovers have chocolate filling, and there’s chocolate milk…so. Much. Chocolate. Not to mention my particular Arby’s has a CVS right next door just filled with Reese’s, Snickers, Milky Ways, and so many other chocolate bars for about a dollar…

>>So now when I have a craving, it’s an internal debate. Do I want to satiate that desire, feed the whim, or would I rather hold true to my fitness challenge?

>>…Usually the shake machine wins.

F&W And Eat Yo Brains

>>The other day, I decided to visit my family, more specifically my mother and younger brother. He’s almost six years old and has more love to share than anyone I’ve met in a good while, so his innocent presence and sing-song voice is a breath of fresh air in the midst of my immensely cluttered life. Again and again it has happened where as soon as he sees me and our hellos are exchanged, the first thing he pries me for is to show him how to beat Plants vs. Zombies. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a videogame that has become multi-platform (PC, Nintendo DS, as an app on your iDevice-of-choice, perhaps others) and obviously, this is the zombie apocalypse and you must protect yourself from the various types of zombies by planting plants, such as “peashooters” which shoot seeds, kernels, watermelons, and many other plant-related things at the opposing force.

>>What does this have to do with food and writing, you ask? The food part. Zombies eat brains. The thought seems so foreign to humanity, Hannibal Lector was frowned at for enjoying it (especially when he shared it with a young child and called it lamb), yet there are people on the other side of the Earth who eat monkey brain fresh. People write books that sell about preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Film has a broad range of comedy and horror films involving zombies. I am part of an event of Facebook called “Zombie Apocalypse Party” which is supposed to occur December 21, 2012, and I am one of over three thousand people who have responded if they are attending. (I put “maybe” because you never know if you’re guaranteed tomorrow.) There are even catchy love songs about the forbidden love between a zombie and human.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCVMuevcCvY

>>But boiling back down to the Plants vs. Zombies game—it’s a fight for survival. The plants claim to be protecting their planters (you, the player), but they benefit in being planted by their species still existing. You the planter are fighting to be able to plant another day and eat from your armed forces oddly enough. The zombies are fighting to fill their stomach. It really just comes to the fact that all parties involved in the game are hungry. My point? Play the game. It's intoxicating and fun for all ages.