I'm Unsophisticated And Stuff

I just re-read my last blog post and I feel I must apologize for it.  It was horribly boring and was not at all packed with the usual, copious amounts of sarcasm.  Therefore, I am returning to my roots and "giving the people (my 1-2 readers) what they want".

I went out of town last weekend on a much needed girls' trip.  We went to the North Carolina mountains and got to shop, drink, relax, drink, eat, drink, laugh, drink, and drink.  There were seven of us from the neighborhood and we had a lot of laughs and even got to see a little snow. 

Of course, as always happens when a bunch of girls get together, everything that was planned was planned around the next meal.  Where it would come from.  Who would cook it.  When we'd eat it.  It's all we could talk about.  It's all we wanted to think about.  So, one day we ended up going to a lunch place where part of the group had been the previous day before the rest of us had arrived.  They described the menu as "eclectic" but very good.  Usually an "eclectic" menu means that they are going to have a bunch of weird stuff that I will not recognize.  This place was no different.

We walked in and it smelled wonderful.  It was a cozy little place with funky decor.  I began to get nervous. 

I'm not cool enough for this place, I thought to myself. 

She's not cool enough for this place, the other patrons seemed to be thinking.

Still, we went to our table tucked back in a little room and began opening our menus.  The first thing I noticed was that there seemed to be an exorbitant amount of dishes that featured tempeh.  The one that stood out the most was an avocado tempeh melt.  I hate to admit that I was not entirely sure what tempeh was until I looked it up for the purpose of typing this story.  Tempeh is basically a soybean patty and is not exactly that "out there".  I mean, it's a topping option at my favorite pizza place, so how weird could it be?
But when it's the main ingredient in several menu items, I begin to get irritated.  It's almost like the menu is saying,

Tempeh is so normal that we use it as a base in many of our dishes.  If you don't know what it is, your palate is not sophisticated enough, you boorish hillbilly.

I don't know about you, but when I see a menu item that is a "melt", I am hoping to receive something horrible for me.  Tempeh and avocados?  Who are they trying to impress?

So, as I began pouring over the menu I became less confident I would find something that I would recognize and, consequently, would want to eat.  I saw an appetizer - the always popular plantains with mango yogurt (WHAT??!!  Ever heard of nachos, people?).  I wasn't really that hungry, so I skipped past the appetizers and looked toward the main dishes.  I scoured through all kinds of words I didn't understand like "aioli" and finally landed on fish tacos.  That seemed fairly harmless, but I am so unrefined that I really don't like to eat fish in my tacos.  I'm a beef kind of a girl.  Fish makes a dish more distinguished.  The assumption you would make if you looked at this menu is that only a common redneck would eat chicken or beef in a taco.  But, I was happy with my choice so now it was time to tell the waitress (In a place like this, I'm sure the word "waitress" would be frowned upon,  They probably call them "waitperson" or "cuisine attendant") what I would be having to drink.

I asked her for a diet coke.  You could practically hear the music screech to a halt and all conversations cease when I made this request.  She looked down her nose at me and told me that they did not have Coke products, but they only had Zevia colas.  Naturally, I had never heard of a damn Zevia, but I ordered a "Zero-Calorie-Zevia".  This was supposed to be the closest thing they had to the barbaric Diet Coke that their simple-minded patron (me) had requested.  I was growing more and more disgusted with the pretentious menu. 

And then it happened.

As the others at my table were skeptically ordering their Zevais, I noticed another drink option that had been kind of set off from the rest in order to make it stand out.  It was "Organic Carrot Juice".  And it was $4.00.  Seriously?  Organic carrot juice?  I shouldn't have been surprised that they had organic juices.  I mean, this place was dripping with organic and vegan and farm-raised and non-antibiotic-eatin' things.  But seriously - WHO DRINKS CARROT JUICE?!!  I have watched enough Looney Tunes to know that Bugs Bunny does.  Anyone else?  Anyone?  Anyone?!!

WHO has EVER ordered that?!  WHY would you order that unless you just want your friends to think you are soooo cultured? 

It gets worse.

Right beneath the place where it had Organic Carrot Juice it had a blurb that announced the you could get it with ginger for seventy-five cents more.  A bargain if you ask me! 

So, let me get this straight.  Not only am I going to be a complete douche bag for ordering freakin' organic carrot  juice, but I am now going to shout from the rooftops that I am an even bigger A-hole by demanding they add ginger to it?!  How pretentious could this place be?  Or, I am just a simple-minded imbecile who has no culture and no palate?

Places like this are so annoying to me because they just cannot be normal.  They try way too hard to be so genteel and sophisticated which makes them a total turnoff to me   They want me to know what a dolt I am because I do not regularly eat what they are offering.  They tell me I am also probably killing innocent animals, melting the glaciers, and raping the land just by waking up in the morning.  Why do I even get out of bed?

Maybe I am just too simple.  Maybe not wanting a tempeh melt makes me weird.  Maybe ginger is what makes organic carrot juice the drink of choice for the fine folks in the Carolina mountains.  Maybe the Diet Coke executives run sweatshops overseas and the good people at Zevia are building elementary schools in Somalia.  Maybe I could learn a few things at a place like this.

Or maybe I should have a coke and smile and move on.