Mix Pix: Nix

Today's topic is: travel food.

As my readers are aware, I spent much of this summer in the car. My personal philosophy of car travel is:

1. Eating in the car cures everything (sleepiness, boredom, irritation), and

2. Calories consumed in the car don't count, so

3. I can eat things in the car I would never eat in real life.

Like Slim Jims.

I love Slim Jims. They have just the right balance of salt, spice, and grease. My car eating habits are such that the Slim Jim looks healthy to me; at least it has protein! But I would never think to buy Slim Jims to keep in my home. They are strictly travel food. Imagine my excitement last week when I found a Mega-Sized Slim Jim in a gas station...it was about 18 inches long and had the girth of a cigar. I couldn't finish it. I think Sven had to shoot the second one...it had a decidedly shifty air, as though it was planning to hawk the good silver. We simply couldn't have it in the house.

I have become totally disillusioned with snack mixes, the other mainstay of my travel diet.

It seems that every snack mix I buy contains roughly the following:

72% boring food item that I really don't care about

26% tasty food items that are okay

2% good stuff.

(The above formula does not apply to Cracker-Jack, which is now 99% caramel corn and 1% honey roasted peanuts.)

Chex Mix, the gold standard of snack mixes, has really let me down. I remember when I was a kid, when you had to make your own Chex Mix from the recipe on the box, Chex Mix seemed sophisticated and mysterious. Lawry's Seasoning Salt and Worcestercestercestershire sauce? On cereal? With peanuts? Whoa, are we at the White House? We loved the Mix, because it was so cosmopolitan.

Nowadays, not only can you buy pre-made, bagged Chex Mix, you can buy it in various varieties, savory and sweet. You can get Traditional, Bold -n- Spicy, or Cheese Lovers; you can also get Sweet -n- Salty, Peanut Lover's, Chocolate Lovers Turtle, and Lawn Clippings -n- Pebbles. Chex Mix has really let me down, though. My last bag of Sweet -n- Salty promised "candy coated chocolate pieces" (translation: blank m&m's). At the very bottom of the bag, amid the crumbling remnants of the wheat Chex, I found three brown candies. That was it. Those could have gotten into the bag by accident. I don't think they should list something as an ingredient in the mix unless there is a sporting chance of you finding it when there is still "mix" to be had.

Gardetto's Mix, on the other hand, is the Cadillac of snack mixes. It doesn't delve into the namby-pamby world of sweetness, it's all about the savory, baby. Surprisingly, Gardetto's is made by General Mills, who also makes Chex Mix! Huh. Gardetto's has pretzels, but it also has bread stix, sesame bread stix, and rye crisps. Yummy.

On this last trip, I discovered Planter's Trail Mix. I will give this one my highest recommendation. Salted peanuts, almonds, and cashews, with raisins, dried cranberries, and, of course, Chocolate Coated Candy Pieces. No pretzel filler. CVS Drugstore brand trail mix was good, too. Real M&M's in that one!

At last! I know what I'm doing next summer...

An Inconvenient Food

I confess: I love tacos.

I mean, who doesn't, right? Who doesn't love the crispy shell, the warm, succulent meat, the crisp lettuce, tangy tomato, and melty cheese? What's not to love about that?

I'll tell you what's not to love about that: dignity. One cannot consume a hard-shell taco with dignity.

Today, our school cafeteria featured hard-shelled tacos for lunch. I recieved a glop of meat (two dollops = one glop), two shells, and a thimble of cheez. I have not misspelled "cheese." What I received was, in fact, cheez, a yellow, tasteless, soft substance that is impervious to the elements and chuckles audibly when sprinkled on food.

I carefully spooned a dollop of meat into the first shell, said a prayer, and took a bite.

KABOOM!

As I'm picking bits of taco shell out of my Andy Rooney-like eyebrows, the question occurs: who thought this was a good idea? Let's take greasy meat and assorted condiments, put them inside something so hard and brittle it barely holds together, and then make it large enough to require at least 8-11 bites to consume in its entirety. It sounds like a joke. A hidden camera prank, perhaps.

Wouldn't bite-size taco shells be neat? Just a mini shell, enough to hold about a teaspoon of meat, that you could load up and stuff in your mouth all at once? That would be great. And the time it would take you to build each taco would stop you from wolfing the whole thing down so quickly.

Of course, you can do soft tacos. Wimp. But here in Texas, we know the way tacos ought to be done. If you're in no danger from shrapnel when eating with a friend, it just ain't tacos.

I can't wait to see if my afternoon students are picking shells out of their eyebrows, too.