STORY TIME: At my old job, they had a giant box of these, which were dutifully bought from Costco every 3 months by moi (as the only girl in the office, it quickly became my job to do the shopping, obvs). Since I was too poor to afford breakfast, I would eat one of these every morning. After a few weeks, I made the mistake of looking under my desk, and it was like a fucking oat field. A delicious, corn syrup-coated oat field.
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These bitches just don’t know nothin bout coffee.
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This post has been two months in the making! Again, not because I had to do any sort of wrangling to get the answers from my interviewee, but mostly because I’m a lazy asshole who interviews people and then forgets about it for 2 months. It occurred to me the other day that Caissie probably mostly did the interview because she was thinking that I would be a responsible blogger and post it right away and she could talk about her book and then people would read how funny she is and buy it and oh god what if my laziness kept her from selling all of her books and now she’ll never make it onto the bestseller list and she’ll be forced to write jokes about Real Housewives forever! So to make up for it, I was going to go out and buy 5 copies of her book to make myself feel better, but they didn’t have it at Barnes and Noble, and, well, we all know what happened to Borders, and I ended up paying $15 for a French Vogue instead and pretending I knew enough French to know what the heck was going on. So, I’m sorry Caissie!!! I hope I can make it up to you with this picture of a fancy lobster dinner.
But onto more serious things. this series is mostly about having the chance to delve into the food-related psyches of my favorite Twitter people, and, I have to admit, I was super excited about interviewing Caissie. For those of you who don’t know her, she is not only an amazing writer and hilarious jokester, but also ridiculously sweet and nice and I may be obsessed with her in a perfectly healthy, non-stiletto-in-the-eye kinda way. When I ever get enough money move to New York, she will probably be nice and be like, yeah, sure, we can totally hang out once, and then I will try to call her and hang out all the time, and she might invite me to her house to be nice, and I will probably stay too long and she’ll be all, oh man, it’s getting late, and I’ll be like, yay let’s be BFFs! Interview time!
Who are you?
Who am I? I’m the kind of person that can be sent into a tailspin by that kind of question. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who are any of us? I’m just a person. A woman, I guess. Wife, mother. Chatterbox. Prius driver. Mostly white. Allergy sufferer. Is any of this grabbing you?
What do you do?
Most recently, I wrote a Young Adult novel, Jane Jones: Worst. Vampire. Ever. I also work in television. I’ve worked for lots of shows. Currently, I work on a late-night offering by Bravo called Watch What Happens Live! hosted by Andy Cohen.
What is your first food memory?
Whoa. I just searched my brain banks and my earliest food memory is from some church picnic at some lake where everyone was given one of those little boxes of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yeah, that place used to have a whole name and not just initials! I loved the coleslaw. I think because the cabbage is diced so finely and the dressing is basically candy juice and you eat it with a spork. Lotta things in this world have changed, but that coleslaw never has. I still eat that junk.
What is your strongest food memory?
My parents eloped on New Year’s Eve, which ultimately turned out less romantic than it sounds, but while they were still married, my dad’s parents would always have the whole family over every New Year’s Eve to celebrate, and they would order in “Chinese Food” from Singapore. Singapore being the name of the fanciest Chinese restaurant near where I grew up in Massachusetts. I call it “Chinese Food” because I’m pretty sure the Chinese Food I grew up with bears little to no resemblance to what one would eat in China. We all know about the studies that say the Chinese live longer and never get diseases and can lift small cars and balance on the heads of pins with their eyes closed. Well, I don’t think they’d be able to do any of that junk if they were dining on takeout Pu Pu platters of beef teriyaki and fuschia-stained pork and mountains of fried rice. It was almost like Christmas all over again, opening box after little white box and oohing and aahing at the contents. Everything felt as golden as a chicken fingers on those nights.
It’s funny though, now that I’m thinking about it, this probably only happened for eight years or so, at the earliest part of my life. My poor little childhood arteries! Every once in a while I will eat that stuff when I go home for a visit, and I’m sure it’s because I’m trying to recapture that feeling. It never works, but try telling my lizard brain that.
If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Probably chili. I never get sick of it.
What food terrifies you/makes your stomach turn the most?
So many foods make my knees knock. I’m not very brave when it comes to seafood or exotic or rich fare. At my first job, I was talking to my boss at a cocktail party (it was a cocktail party on a jet, if that sets the scene any better) and he scooped up some hors d’oeuvres from a passing tray for both of us – caviar on toast. Well, I’d never had caviar before, so I just stood there holding it, and I remember feeling like I had to keep blabbing so that he would realize my mouth was far too busy to eat at that moment. Eventually he became distracted by something, and I put it up to my mouth to try to bite it a little, but I couldn’t fully make myself, so I kind of just licked it a teeny bit and recoiled, and of course he turns back at that moment and says, “Did you just lick that caviar?!!” Then I was forced to admit that I was a bumpkin and thus began my Eliza Doolittle-like re-education. Except my boss never fell in love with me and when it was all over, I only returned to being a half-bumpkin.
What’s the best birthday cake you’ve ever had (on your birthday, of course)?
I don’t think I’ve actually had so very many birthday cakes, actually. I’ve seen a picture of a cake my aunt made for me when I was maybe three. It was in the shape of a panda. And not, like, a laying-down flat panda — it was a three-dimensional, sitting up, sculpted adorable panda. Like a stuffed animal made of cake and frosting! I vaguely remember not wanting anyone to cut it. I’m sure it was eaten, but I don’t recall if I had any or how it tasted. Still, that’s probably the best one.
Fries or side salad?
Until they invent a delicious fried salad, I choose fries.
If you could pick anyone to be on your lunchbox, who would you choose?
My third grade lunchbox was awesome. It had Barry Gibb on one side and all three Bee Gees on the other. If I could get that lunchbox back, I would just go on using it today. I chose Barry, by the way. They also had the same lunchbox with Robin or Maurice on one side. I would like to meet the kid that chose a Maurice Gibb lunch box. If such a kid ever existed.
In a three-way battle to the death between Rachael Ray, Sandra Lee and Paula Deen, who would win and why?
In a well-publicized incident, Paula Deen took a ham to the face! I also firmly believe that if Paula Deen were ever to accidentally slice any part of herself off in a kitchen accident, that sheer culinary curiosity and hedonism would force her to, rather than seek immediate medical attention, season her own fresh flesh and taste it. My money is on Paula.
If you were to be slapped in the face with a fish, what fish would you choose?
I’ve already stated my fear of seafood. Can it be a Muppet fish? Like, if Lew Zealand slapped me in the face with one of his boomerang fish, I’d be into it.
What kind of food do you think James Lipton saves in his beard?
Gross. Um, eggs?
Anything else we should know about you?
This is pretty much all there is.
If you don’t already, follow Caissie on Twitter, read her blog, and buy her book. DO IT.
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Everyone’s got a list of favorite sandwiches. These five moments, between two slices, are mine.
My dad makes ours with burnt-to-a-crisp bacon, crunchy iceberg lettuce, heaving slices of beef tomatoes, hunks of Wisconsin Cheddar and a fat dollop of Ranch dressing, between two toasted slices of whatever bread is in the fridge. Claussen pickle to serve.
Over the years, my dad has totally slacked off on cooking. This is something many of my friends have experienced with their own fathers. What we’ve gathered is that our dads are, in fact, pretty decent chefs. But for some reason, they rely on meals made by others, and when faced with the absence of another party’s food-fixing skills, our dads have honed their snack-making abilities to near professional standards. My dad can smoke a mean Thanksgiving turkey, and he runs the BBQ like a Weber King, but Mike seriously excels at making snacks: Eggs with random leftovers and plenty of butter in a pan are fried into a dish that is both terrifying-looking and tastes terrifyingly delicious. When my brother and I were younger, our mom would go on a rare but deserved vacation to California to visit her sister. We knew that for a week, our homemade cuisine would consist of cold cereal, Bagel Bites and professional-grade, homemade snacks. Mostly, though, we looked forward to our one special dinner venture to the combination Kentucky Fried Chicken-Taco Bell-Pizza Hut. KenTacoHut, as we lovingly called the fastfood trifecta, was a haven of choice. And since Mom only went out of town once every 200 years, our dad figured it’d take more than a singular visit to KTH for childhood obesity to settle in. We ate fried chicken, on cheese pizzas, complete with intermittent bites of nachos. We slid through what seemed like miles of germy, colorful plastic kid-tunnels and ball pits until we thought our stomachs would explode. So you can probably guess my disappointment when, after experiencing the rare but unforgettable food of KenTacoHut, my dad resolved to use the week my mom went on vacation to make legitimate dinners. We complained until he blew our fastfood kid minds with a BLT: Lettuce that was both water-logged and crisp. Smoky bacon. Hefty slices of cheddar that became part of the bread, which was toasted to golden perfection and buttered on the underside. We even ate our tomatoes. In no time at all, Mike Handelman made his kids more adventurous eaters by taking them out of the combinatorial fastfood ballpit. I’m eternally grateful.
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