Belly-Shirts and Pushbuttons

So this weekend was E's big moving day.

The boy is wickedly brilliant, and he's off to get his PhD. Unfortunately he is doing so three hours a way from yours truly and smack dab in Middle-of-Nowhere, PA.

Which leads me to ask:

How do you know you're in the middle of rural Pennsylvania?

When a guy with the physique of Barney from The Simpsons is standing in line at Walmart in a crop-top Steelers shirt (which just BARELY covers his man-boobs) and a pair of flip-flops, and no one is batting an eyelash.



How else do you know you're in the middle of rural PA? When your apartment's stove actually has PUSH-buttons on it to control the burners. Tee hee. Like the kind of buttons you find on an old 1970s blender, or the radio of a 1957 chevy, those buttons that for some reason when you're 7 years old, you just LOVE to find reasons to press because they just feel so weird and cool against your fingertips.


[E's pushbutton stove]

And yes, I know all you chefly people out there are going, OH NO! ELECTRIC PUSH-BUTTON BURNERS GIVE YOU NO CONTROL OVER THE SUBTLE VARIATIONS IN HEAT! And no, they probably don't. But I must say, they sure as hell cooked up a perfectly-colored pancake--ones that were, in fact, better than those cooked on *my* stove. And WHO THE HELL CARES REALLY WHEN YOU GET TO PRESS BUTTONS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE TUNING AN OLD RADIO!

But anyways, what does all this have to do with food? Well, clearly the image of the sweet-ass crop-top Steelers guy was intended to get your mouth all salivating as you imagined squirting foofy vegan whipped-cream all over his body and then licking it off... Slowly... Ever so slowly. <---Food-related.

But more importantly, it's food-related because it marks the temporary absence of my food buddy, my E, my most favorite person in the world to cook for.

While we were whipping up a stirfry on Sunday night (and then when we found ourselves stuffed in his kitchen again, flipping pancakes Monday morning), it dawned on me that it was going to be one of the last times we'd be sharing a home-cooked meal with one another for a long time.

I mean, E and I have spent the last year or two taking turns cooking nearly every single weekend. I'm sure you've noticed many of his recipes scattered throughout my food-blog. And whenever I've made some *absolutely* fantastic random dish for lunches for the week, I'd inevitably pack up a bit into a container and bring it in to share with E for lunch. And occasionally when E whipped up a particularly fantastic stirfry for himself, he'd save a little nibblin' of it for me to try out for lunch as well.

So although I am *so* very happy for him, so very proud of him, and so very envious and excited for him to get to feed that voracious and brilliant brain of his...

I'm gonna miss him.

I'm gonna miss standing in my kitchen, dicing up vegetables while he watches Seinfeld in the other room. I'm gonna miss playing with Ms. Rubes (his cat) while he sets off the fire-alarm in his apartment with a stirfry he's grilling up. I'm gonna miss sitting down next to him and sharing a nice, warm, home-cooked meal.

So to him I say:

WAY TO SUCK, PHD-BOY! =)

Now please join me in getting back at him for moving 3 hours away, by repeating the following, in unison, after me:

"Now that you are three hours away from your girl..."

[Now that you are three hours away from your girl...]

"We are all driving up to the city..."

[We are all driving up to the city...]

"To shag her foxy-assed brains out..."

[To shag her foxy-assed brains out...]

"(One at a time, of course...)"

[(One at a time, of course...)]

"(Otherwise that might get a bit too cluttered...)"

[(Otherwise that might get a bit too cluttered...)]

"(And a little bit confusing...)"

[(And a little bit confusing...)]

"And there's *nothing you can do about it*..."

[And there's *nothing you can do about it*...]

"Except to make a three-hour trip to come kick our asses..."

[Except to make a three-hour trip to come kick our asses...]

"And since it'll be 300 against 1..."

[And since it'll be 300 against 1...]

"And you're one of those pansy-assed vegans..."

[And you're one of those pansy-assed vegans...]

"We wish you the best of luck with that."

[We wish you the best of luck with that.]

"Amen."

[Amen.]