An overly-opinionated and under-informed rant from a guy who either loves or hates everything, and compulsively blogs about it.
I’m one of those guys who isn’t a foodie, but loves food. Give me tacos, or give me death! I can finish an entire pepperoni pizza and am still hungry for a bacon cheeseburger and fries. The only reason I’m not a total fat-ass is because I run half marathons and do some boxing. Otherwise I’d be as physically obnoxious as I’m obnoxious in every other way.
Since I’m not exactly discriminating in what I eat, I eat just about anything. When I was a kid I hated yogurt, but now I don’t care. Anchovies? Sure, bring ’em on. Olives? No problem. Living in New York City I sometimes find myself in foo-foo restaurants where I have no idea what I’m even eating. But I go for it anyway, devouring everything as long as there’s plenty of it.
Life was awesome in my food world until I encountered arugula. Seriously, folks, WTF is this stuff? It looks like the mulch landscapers pack into bags after weeding your lawn — and tastes like it, too. Not only is this pungent plant hard to chew, but the leaves are pointy, for chrissakes, as if the thing is violently defending itself all the way through your digestive tract.
Worse still, arugula has infiltrated our entire menu. At first the weed was sneaked into salads, where iceberg lettuce aficionados like moi could instantly sniff it out and avoid. The hysterical craze has since spread, arugula making its way into otherwise perfect meals like lasagna and Chinese food. Nowadays you find the scourge everywhere, from pork sandwiches to pizza.
Trying to figure this shit out, I did some research: did you know that the alleged benefits of arugula include boosting the immune system, improving eyesight, losing weight, and reducing the risk of heart disease? Not only do I call bullshit, but I’d settle for compromised immunity and vision, getting fat, and even enduring a myocardial simply to not have to eat this crap.
Having the scientific name Eruca sativa, it’s also call “garden rocket,” which is more accurate because the peppery plant sends me straight to the toilet at light speed. New to me but not the world, crazy people from South America to the Middle East have historically used arugula to make liqueurs, dressings, oils, and no doubt weaponized poisons for torture and war.
None of this would bother me that much if my wife wouldn’t be obsessed by arugula. She’s not only slipped the foul herb into every meal, filled our fridge full of juices and extracts, and lined our medicine cabinet with soaps and shampoos, but she’s planted seeds of this sulfurous menace in our garden — and guess who has to stand our there in the humidity watering it?
“I know you don’t like arugula, dear,” she announced the other day, words as sweet to my ears as if she’d just said how much I do like BJs.
“That’s great, honey,” I replied, hopeful she’d finally substitute the annoying plant with something infinitely more satisfying, like Doritos.
“Take a look at the salad I just made — I’m experimenting with kale!”
OMFG.
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