My friend Mike once broke a tooth on a Buffalo wing. Snapped a big chunk off one night when he chomped down on a fatty, bony, Buffalo sauce-drenched chicken wing. But you know what? Mike just kept right on eating. With his new fang he looked like a bear who just woke up from hibernation, stumbled to the river and scooped a salmon out, then started gnawing viciously on its raw belly, pink guts spraying everywhere.
No, there wasn’t anything more important to Mike at that moment than finishing that delicious Buffalo wing, not even if it meant infecting exposed roots, cracking more teeth, or spraying sauce all over the table. He was in the The Any Food Requiring Moist Towelettes And Napkins Zone. His eyes stared straight ahead, his sticky, coated fingers balancing and turning the wing an inch from his face, Mike didn’t stop until he had turned the wing into a needle-thin bone and tossed it on the scrap plate. Then he leaned back on his chair gasping for air, bright red chicken wing guts smeared all over his mouth and fingers.
When I tell people this story they usually nod their head and say something like “Were the wings any good?”, or “I love Buffalo wings.” But this makes sense, because who really cares about Mike’s tooth? He’ll get it fixed. The point here is that wings are delicious. In fact, any food that requires moist towelettes and a stack of napkins is delicious. Ribs, rotisserie chicken, chili cheese fries? Delicious, delicious, even more delicious. All requiring a stack of napkins and some moist towelettes.
We know these foods are great because of what happens whenever you’re out late at a bar, and somebody orders a pitcher, and then somebody else raises their eyebrows, looks around the table, and goes “Wings?” If this happens, no matter what you have to say: “Ohhhhhh….no, I really shouldn’t.” Then you let another really long pause just hang in the air as you slowly purse your lips and allow a very thin smile to reveal itself on your face. Then very quickly give an exasperated ‘I give in’ laugh, a head shake, and an “Alright, I’m in!”, and you’re done! (To show decisiveness and finality, it’s also recommend you toss your menu into the center of the table and tell a really long story about some hot wings you once ordered that turned out to be much hotter than you expected.)
So there you go. Messy, sticky, saucy food is great. You order it, you polish it off, and then there are three ways to use the moist towelette and napkin combo at the end:
Method #1: Use the napkin first. Draw off all the extra sauce and random fried crumbs, and then clean up real nice afterwards with the moist towelette. Perfect!
Method #2: Use the moist towelette first. Rub that towelette until it turns red and cleans off your fingers, then dry off with the stack of napkins. Perfect!
Method #3: Here napkins are used pre- and post-towelette. The idea is that they first remove all the big crumbs, then the towelette comes in to clean everything off real nice, and finally the napkins return for the big dry-off. Perfect!
Whatever your style, one thing’s for sure: When that handful of Wet-Naps and stack of napkins arrives at the table, you better get yourself ready for a great night.
