Kevin finds Moroccan Food Illogical

About a week ago I went to a Moroccan restaurant for a friend’s birthday. This was my first foray into Moroccan cuisine and the food, while good, left me confused. Throughout history cultures have had a myriad of methods for consuming their food, whether that be knife and fork, chopsticks or just using hands. Usually no method is better than the other since people modify their cuisine to fit the style (or perhaps vice versa). For example, it would be really inefficient to try to attack a steak with chopsticks, just like how it would be foolish to try to eat a bowl of ramenwith your hands.

Moroccans, flaunting conventional wisdom, have decided to take their cuisine in a different direction. They have opted for the use of hands, a fine and dandy , albeit unsanitary, option. However, unlike their smarter Indian friends, they’ve decided to eschew naan or some kind of bread-like staple. Instead, people simply bare fist hot saucy dishes without the benefit of some kind of protection. This might not be so bad if it’s just rice or a piece of sushi but Moroccans decided to go the couscous route. For those who don’t know, couscous is a type of wheat that is incredibly granular and thus really loose. This is served in conjunction with steaming hot meat (let’s stay professional here) piled on top. So as you try to scoop yourself some couscous goodness, you burn your million dollar fingers on the piping out dish all the while little bits of food is falling off the sides. By the time your hand actually makes it to your mouth, you’re left with maybe 25% of what was originally your share, with the remaining 75% becoming the tears of starving African children. OtherMoroccan dishes don’t make much sense either. For example, they love serving meat on the bone. This would be fine as finger food if it was served individually, but given the Moroccans’ love of sharing, you feel obligated to break off tiny pieces rather than taking the whole thing. So basically there are multiple pairs of hands going over the same piece of chicken, tearing off tiny pieces of meat over and over again.

No chocolate inside, just chicken and eggs

Just in case this might be too clean, all their meats feature some kind of fruit sauce that you would normally find in a dessert. Apparently, Moroccans have no time for multi-course meals (edit: in the traditional sense). Instead they prefer to lump all their meals into one dish, resulting in the b’stilla royale: puff pastry enclosing shredded chicken and scrambled egg, and topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. So basically if your local KFC and Cinnabon collided in a tornado, the result is Moroccan food. Either way, I resisted being the guy to ask for a spoon and finished my meal like a champ, sticky fingers and all.

Kevin presents 5 More Guys You Don’t Want To Be

5. Asking for knife and fork at a Chinese restaurant guy
I think everyone knows one or two guys like this. Even though they frequent Chinese restaurants regularly, they refuse or even attempt to use chopsticks. Instead, they flag down the nearest waitress and demand a knife and fork to go with his meal. More amusing than offensive, this guy has steadfastly resisted even the most minor amount of cultural immersion. A close cousin of :Knife and Fork at Chinese restaurant guy” is “Ordering the same thing every time guy.” A mainstay of every Panda Express and Safeway deli, this guy consumes “Chinese” food on a biweekly basis yet never wavers in his dedication to one particular order, whether that is sesame chicken, General Tso’s chicken, or some variant therein. Like true American heroes, these two guys tackle their local cultural forays with a dogmatic ethnocentrism that makes the whole experience rather pointless.

4. Too enthusiastic about racist jokes of other ethnicities guy
Everybody loves racist jokes, especially minorities. Look up any minority comedian and his set is inevitably racially oriented. Chris Rock, Carlos Mencia, Russell Peters… all comics working off of racists stereotypes. All this occurs on a smaller scale among groups of friends, especially ones that are racially diverse. Anyone that hangs out with me or David will inevitably discover our love of Asian jokes. For the most part it’s all in good fun and everyone has a good time. If the situation is right, even our white friend will toss in a couple of good natured ribs. When things go a little too far and the humor becomes just a little be offensive, most white guys will simply smile uncomfortably while observing from a distance. This is a pretty well understood social convention that while it might be ok to laugh with minorities as they make racist jokes, and maybe even toss out a few softballs, it’s never ok one-up your minority friends in their own proverbial house. However, there’s always that one guy who thinks he’s exempt from this convention. He might be inclined to toss out the occasional racial slur during the rowdiness and for the most part it goes unchallenged. After all, no one wants to be Overreacting guy either. But please take note, while it’s ok to laugh, it’s rarely ok to make jokes at or above the level of offensiveness your minority friend are tossing out.

3. Jesse
Yeah, I don’t want to be him either

2. Overplays inside-joke he’s not part of guy
“I love inside jokes. I hope to be a part of one some day. ” –Michael Scott, The Office. Inside jokes are a fundamental ingredient in any good friendship dynamic. They are inherently funny with very little set up and can be tossed out frequently as long as it’s situationally appropriate. Given their popularity and the overwhelmingly positive response among those “in the know,” some people might be inclined to force themselves into an inside joke they’re not really a part of. Often times they may hear the joke done once or twice but without fully understanding the back story. Thus, armed with an incomplete understanding on the inside joke, they’ll toss it out at random. This, of course, results in awkward silence or perhaps a pity laugh as the rest of group wonders who this guy is. Don’t be that guy.

1. Being named David guy
Historically, being David has been cushy. A biblical story here, a statue there, pretty good. However, if David was a stock, the opportunity to sell high has long passed. The current crop of Davids has been disappointing to say the least. The slide began with David Duke, born 1950.
After graduating LSU, he decided to dabble in politics and race relations by starting a local chapter of the KKK, eventually rising to the level of Grand Wizard.

Feeling this wasn’t douchey enough, he left the KKK in 1980 to form the NAAWP. Yep, the National Association for the Advancement of White People. Unwilling to settle for racist, Davids decided to enter the entertainment arena as well.

Born 2 years later than his fellow David, The Hoff has enjoyed a long and fruitful career making horrible television, songs, movies and anything else that was meant to entertain human beings. His last television outing was apparently “epically ironic guy”, being one of the regular judges on America’s Got Talent. Clearly, nows not a good time to be a David.

Kevin is convinced all white people love white meat

In my 23 years on this good Earth, I’ve come to know quite a few white people, almost more than I can count on my two hands. And while they may all be unique in their education, religion, and politics, there is one unifying trait that is universal: they love white meat. I’m not sure what it is about the breast but white people can’t get enough of it. Today I conducted an informal poll among 8 white people in my vicinity and the results were clear, 100% of gringos love breast meat. This seems to be a distinctly Caucasian preference because all my Asian friends shun the white meat for their dark, succulent brethren. So why do white people love white meat so much? This is truly perplexing. There are several aspects of meat in general that we can examine as possible reasons.

1. You get more meat when you opt for white
I suppose that could be true but I’ve noticed that many white people will choose white meat regardless of quantity provided. This is apparent in buffet situations where the supply is infinite so it only falls upon personal preference.

2. White meat is healthier
This is undeniably true since the deliciousness of dark meat is mostly derived from this fatty goodness. But roast chicken is already pretty unhealthy, or fried chicken. So when your chosen food is already so unhealthy, might as well go with what you like. By this logic, when people choose white meat, its for taste reasons and not health.

So that leave taste, which is a personal thing. I think the reason I love dark meat is the reason people hate it. I love the juicy, fatty, succulent deliciousness of a drumstick. Oddly enough, whenever someone said they opt for white meat, they always explain by saying they hate the taste of dark meat, rather than providing evidence of white meat’s supposed goodness. Truly odd indeed.

Do you prefer white meat or dark meat

	I am White and I prefer White meat
	I am White and I prefer Dark meat
	I am NOT White and I prefer White meat
	I am NOT white and I prefer Dark meat
View Results

Free poll from Free Web Polls

Kevin debunks 2 myths about medical school

1. Medical students are really smart

There seems to be some kind of general assumption that you have to be really smart to do medicine. Not true. Medical schools come in all shapes and sizes and with that, different entrance requirements. While the kids over at WashU are probably phenomenal test-takers and would be considered “smart”, the average med school is quite different. People come from all walks of life and while we’re certainly not dumb, most of us really aren’t that smart. The majority of medical students would not hack it in physics, mathematics, even engineering. Hell, looking at averaged VR MCAT scores, most of us are bad at reading as well. Unlike some other fields, medicine doesn’t require its applicants to be the sharpest knife the drawer, only the eagerest. Those who have academic deficits can more than make up for in volunteer work, perhaps save a few African babies. So what people lack in intelligence, they make up for in good ol’ fashion gumption. This isn’t really a bad thing. Medicine is ultimately a service industry and intelligence alone isn’t always enough (unless you’re a neurosurgeon, then it’s probably good enough). But regular people out there: your doctor may be smarter than the average Joe, but that doesn’t mean he’s a genius.

2. Medical school is difficult

The materials covered in medical school are not difficult. Everything is mostly memorization and regurgitation. Rarely do you have to take what you know and apply it to a truly novel situation. Perhaps this will change in second year but so far, it’s been pretty mundane. That’s not to say classes are not time consuming. Memorizing a lot of random facts takes a decent amount of work, but then again so is laying bricks and neither is really that challenging. A lot of my non-medicine friends really believe medical school is the pinnacle of academic rigor and honestly I don’t have the heart to tell them otherwise. Instead, I play into their assumption and pretend I’m just busy all the time with work. Sometimes I’ll tussle my hair up a little bit before approaching some non-medical friends so I look a bit more frazzled (ok not really but I’m willing to go this far if they catch wind of my ruse).

Musings: Med School Seating Chart by Maturity Level

Musings: Chinese Restaurants

David and Kevin’s Musings – A Visual Series

Comic: Hard of Hearing

Comic: Oops

Kevin Contemplates the Diet of the Little Mermaid

Following David’s intrepid exposé of Harry Potter, one can’t help but wonder what questions remain unanswered from the movies our beloved childhood. Should Aladdin go to jail for stealing bread? Is Winnie the Pooh’s honey addiction merely a stepping stone to black tar heroin? All the signs point to yes. But one question has dogged me until this day.

What did the Mermen eat in the Little Mermaid?

What a hottie

Looking at Ariel’s heroin-chic physique one might guess a subsistence of cigarettes and self-loathing but of course we all know you can’t smoke under the sea. The next thing that comes to mind is the wide assortment of aquatic plants at their disposal. So are the Mermen a bunch of kelp-hugging vegetarians? You might think so but looking at King Triton that simply can’t be true. Without the necessary high protein diet, a person simply cannot maintain such a physique without the help of BALCO.

Ladies, got your tickets to the gun show?

Thus, Triton must eat meat. While the film features a wide array of oceanic fauna, most of them appear sentient. Can you sink your knife into Flounder or toss Sebastian into the steamer? I didn’t think so. Finally we come to krill. While technically an animal, this tiny Sebastian is far too small to be capable of sentient thought much less performing spontaneous yet surprisingly well-coordinated musical numbers. Looks like we have a winner (or loser if you’re the krill.)

Common fare at any seafood restaurant

To find out how much of these tiny critters Triton must wolf down on a daily basis, I did a little digging into the daily diet of Blue Whales. According to one article, a single Blue Whale eats roughly 40 million krill per day (about 7715 lbs) to satiate a recommended 1.5 million calorie a day diet. With these figures, I surmise there’s about 0.00357 Cal/krill and each krill weight approximately 0.000192 lbs. Then assuming Triton maintains a 2000 Cal/day diet (pretty low given his body size), he would need to eat 10.28lbs of krill per day. A pretty ludicrous amount given that a single human being eats less than half of that (4.7 lbs). But I guess it’s not outside the realm of possibility.