one of the great things about blogging is that you can really learn a lot about yourself. you do new things so that you can blog about them and in the process you expose yourself to experiences you may never have had, and are forced to come up with opinions on them so you have something to write about.
my name is liz and i have learned that i do not like the taste of the nfl. (read my post from last year for a full breakdown of the event).
i can't blame the freestore foodbank. after i met with them, i was really inspired about all the efforts they put into the event and the hard work they do to make it both fun and significant. when i went this year, i noticed they had made a number of changes such as making the freestore foodbank theme more prominent, doing away with the donation table, and the restaurants seemed to have quite a bit less food on hand so much less was thrown away. in fact, i didn't actually see any food get thrown away. i observed the green dog table packing away their leftovers. and if anyone else threw food away, it happened discreetly. that was great.
my one moment of joy was getting the last miller high life. it is the champagne of beers after all.
and it's really a worthwhile event. it raises a shit ton of money for hungry people. bengals fans get to meet their favorite players. lots of good food is available and the alcohol is free flowing. it's just not for me. it's too crowded. loud music is thumping in the background. a lot of the food is cold-ish or warm-ish or dried out or over or underseasoned. jean robert's chicken was a dry, bland waste of food. i love jean robert normally so this is not to knock him... it's just the nature of this kind of event where you prepare food ahead of time and leave it out. the scallop prepared at the midwest culinary institute table was so chewy and gummy that i had to spit it out (and i'm not a food spitter outer).
dojo was excellent but it's an ice cream cart so there's not a lot to mess up. the green dog blt was yummy. pretty much everything else was somewhere on a scale from unmemorable to kind of gross. i will not take the time to individually insult restaurants that i know can make much better food on their home turf.
this is how kieran feels about taste of the nfl
on top of that you have unnecessarily loud, thumping music... crowds of oblivious, geeked up bengals fans (and i don't give a shit about the bengals)... piles of uneaten food and plates and cups and silverware everywhere. there is nowhere to sit and your eardrums are screaming for a break. fluorescent lights beat down on your pupils. the decor is mid-90s convention center chic. do you enjoy a modicum of personal space? too bad. people are spilling drinks on you and shoving things in your face and jostling you. they ran out of anything but miller lite 2 hours ago. the cocktails taste like kool aid. you can't even get drunk enough to pretend to have fun because the line for the bar is so long.
the taste of the nfl is a fun night for a lot of people that raises a significant amount of money for a great cause. i totally support it. however, i never want to go to it ever again. yes, i know i am a complete asshole. i don't know what to say. it's just not for me.
5 comments:
Give me your tickets next year!
Hahaha... I'm pretty sure I'm not getting invited back next year. Of course, I said that last year so who knows.
Actually there is a lot to mess up with serving gelato out of our mobile cart. Gelato is about as hardcore food science as you can get. There are many considerations we take (time of day, setting, cart/room temperature and humidity) when serving our gelati from Dojo Cart. Also, each flavor of gelati and sorbetti scoop differently depending on ingredients.
Sorry you had a bummer time. Dojo had a blast providing over 300 free samples of our gelati to guests.
And who knows, maybe next year at Taste of the NFL we will bring Coconut.
Great read, Liz. You're not an asshole (well, maybe you are in "real life," I don't really know!) :P
What makes your posts so fun to read are your (sometimes brutally) honest impressions; your no-nonsense take on your surroundings; your biting humor and wit; and your obvious passion for all things edible.
If the folks at Taste of NFL decide your take isn't to their benefit and deny you tickets next year, it's their loss.
Thanks Liz, one other thing you discovered, its much harder to be honest than you would imagine it to be.
But I'm glad you were. I'm sure there were tons of people who had a blast. If you never do anything you have nothing to compare it to and I think you've kicked around enough to know what you like.
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