Welcome to Taco Night.
Personally I’m going to go ahead and say potluck tacos are my favorite meal these days. I convinced my family to have Christmas Tacos a few years back — complete with festive red shells, green guac, and white sour cream — and this year on my birthday we did it again. There’s just something I love about everyone hunched over their messy plates on the couch, rogue lettuce scraps in their hair, salsa streaks on their pants, and meat juice sliding down their forearms that makes me smile.
I guess I love all foods that no one can eat gracefully:
1. Powdered donuts. Does your local town fair sells greasy bags of these deep-fried deliciouses like mine does? After you pop a tiny powdered donut into your mouth make sure you don’t exhale or you’ll get a nice white streak down your fancy shirt.
2. Samosas. Deep-fried triangles stuffed with spicy handfuls of potatoes and peas don’t lend themselves to fine dining. You’re in there with your hands, there’s no starting point, and chances are the greasy innards are going to tumble all over your sari. That’s the way we like it.
3. Corn on the cob. There are two ways to eat your corn on the cob. First, there’s the Typewriter Method, where you cut back and forth along the entire cob, and then there’s The Big Twist, where you do not move down the cob until you’ve done the complete chomping twirl. Either way, if you did it right you should end up with little bits of corn in your teeth and butter-drenched fingers.
4. Sticky Ribs and Chicken Wings. By the end of a plate full of wings you should look like a lion who just dug into a zebra face-first. For bonus points make sure you’re dining with your Perfect Chicken Wing Partner.
5. Melting ice cream sandwiches. Squeeze those foamy black cookies together so the ice cream drips all over the place. Just try eating one without getting a smear of vanilla on your nose and big chunks of cookie sticking to your fingers.
Yes, it’s time to get over yourself.
We’re saying big words, fancy suits, toss ’em out the window, brother. We both know behind those collared shirts, business cards, and trendy haircuts is a straight-up ugly hairy animal. Yes, I’m talking about you, Caveman Carl and Jungle Jane — because the fact is plain: past your scraggly mane we’re all basically the same.
Messy foods bring us closer together. They remind us we started out as messy eaters and we’ll probably end up that way, too. When we fill the middle years with relaxed expectations, big laughs, and fun nights, it means we skip the show, pass the pretenses, and jump all the way into the deep end of
AWESOME!