Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Food reviews from a sickbed

As I contemplate spending day number three lying on my couch, watching vastly improved daytime television (thanks, GO!), and dozing, I can’t help my mind drifting to all the food I currently can’t eat. I am so hungry, yet drinking half a glass of juice in the terribly greedy amount of time, of say, half an hour leaves me feeling absolutely disgusting. While I hope to return to the world of chewable food in another day or so, I also know full well it’s going to be a few days I can eat the food that I started craving almost the minute I was told I couldn’t eat it. Yep, my two favourite food groups – cheese, and chilli.

It’s funny – you get to the point in your life where you think you’re right on track to fulfilling your career as a raging alcoholic, but after two days off the piss, it’s cheese you crave, not a drink. Hell, it’s not even like I actually eat cheese all that often – but remove my ability to enjoy a delicious platter of David Jones’ Foodhalls finest, and I’m not a happy camper. Remove my access to Sriracha, Tabasco and all inherent varieties, and my mood improves none at all.

Luckily, one kind person has delivered me a stash of supplies to keep me going in my temporary home imprisonment. So, in the interest of ensuring others who get struck down by food poisoning/gastro/other various bodily complaints, I’m going to review the foods I would not ordinarily buy, let alone eat.


Triangle Juice:
The thing about Triangle Juice (or Preshafruit, as the company actually likes to call it), is that it’s quite cute, and as such, appealing. In this particular 350ml of triangular juice packaging, I found an apple and strawberry combination which tasted every bit as fresh as the label suggested it would, but wow! So, so, incredibly sweet. Unless you are a two-sugars-in-your-coffee sort of person, I would not advise drinking nor purchasing said juice. I am guessing it is popular in Queensland.



Tiger flavoured Gatorade
I’m not kidding you, the label actually says TIGER! In large letters, forfeiting pretty much any ability to market the product as something relevant to your tastebuds at all. However, I’m sure that if it was trying to appeal to your tastebuds, it would be very successful and indeed impress many a persons tastebuds. Some would call this cheating, some would call it sporting prowess. I mean, delicious taste. Hmmm. Anyway; if you add a couple of ice cubes to it to thin it out a little, it fares quite well as both food replacement and rehydrator of rather sick people. As with any sweet drink, it just gets sickly and horrid after awhile.



Gatorade Lemon-Lime
You know how any time you eat anything blue coloured, it doesn’t have a described flavour, just ‘Blue’? Well, this drink makes me believe that sometimes the same thing has to happen with ‘Yellow’. This beverage is indeed very yellow, in both colour and taste. Again, thin it down with a couple of ice cubes to make it drinkable in useful quantities.



Vitamin Water
I kinda figured these drinks would be a lot like the Gatorade varieties, just with different packaging. This was largely because the ‘flavours’ of these drinks were named ‘Super-V’ and ‘Triple-X’. Now, far from the contents of these bottles being filled with strippers, as the name might suggest, they were indeed filled with something vitaminy. Super-V was actually quite nice, a light lemon flavour, and a little less sweet than the Gatorade. Triple-X however, tastes exactly like a 500ml bottle of cough syrup, and I suspect, without any of the benefits. I think it just exists to trick dirty old men in trench coats into drinking it, just to make the rest of us laugh.



Campbells Condensed Chicken Soup
This was the one item on the shopping list that I asked for, and somewhat insisted upon. I had childhood memories of being a bit crook, and eating a bowl of this soup, and somehow everything being a bit better. My conclusion, is that child memories are fucked. There’s nothing remotely nice about this soup as an adult, it’s pretty much the equivalent of eating clag with extra salt and some chunky bits.



LaZuppa Microwavable Creamy Chicken & Vegetable Soup
This soup was everything I expected the Campbells Condensed to be, but with bloody excellent peas. Marketed as a delicious and healthy convenience lunch, I currently recommend it as a highly enjoyable sick food. It may also double well for a standard lunch, depending how much you like bloody excellent peas.



Salada biscuits
Ohhhh, Salada! How I’ve missed you from my life! How has it happened that I’ve gone this long without your delicious, dry, crunchy wonderfulness? The salada is a truly under-rated biscuit! Perfect with vegemite (which I am hoping to broach tomorrow with success!), with butter, with cheese, or just by its lonesome, the Salada is surely the king of the plain cracker world. I heartily recommend it, regardless of your dietary requirements. I am almost certain that it will fix any kind intolerances you might have, from lactose to gluten. Trust me, I’m a doctor.



Unfortunately, that’s about it from the food assessments for me for a few days. Other interesting factoids I can comment on from the comfort of my couch are: I have a bat-tree outside my window which also acts as a doorbell; Digital TV has vastly improved Australia’s televisual landscape; My fish are boring as fuck and are free to a good home.



Good evening and good health.
The Rantolotl.

2 comments:

Kipper said...

Try instant miso - it's the ultimate convenience comfort food.

punchmonster said...

Ah yeah, instant miso's a great idea! It actually tastes like something you'd like to eat!

Although i still recommend large doses of alcohol - it seems to fix pretty much any ailment i ever have ever. Simply drink yourself unconcious, wait for the ensuing hangover to leave, and VOILA! (or VIOLA! if you're feeling musical), the illness has gone!

Although keep in mind the hangover might hang around for the same amonut of time that the original illness would've lasted....shhh =P