Zoodles. That’s what Akemi calls the above-pictured dish. It’s the disrespectful vegan version of spaghetti in which pasta is substituted with zucchini strips, yielding a culinary catastrophe that is both disgusting in appearance AND flavor yet less starchy and calorie-laden. In fairness, that would have also been the case had she substituted shoelaces instead.
My review: “It tastes like dirt.”
Her review: “Why do vegan people lie to me?”
Why? Because they’re evil.
Sadly, Akemi had to fly solo on this one as I opted for the less-healthy salmon burger and roasted broccoli.
Fortunately for her, we had a big lunch today at Fable. Akemi enjoyed her meal but found the air-conditioned room way too cold for her shorts and t-shirt ensemble, so she improvised a shawl using our napkins:
Seriously, I felt like I was out with my kooky aunt, the one who’d go shopping in her bathrobe and slippers.
Yesterday, Akemi was going through the old medicine cabinet, tossing out expired pills belonging to “the former administration”. Every so often, she would present me with a bottle and inquire about its contents. Selenium. Magnesium. Milk thistle. And this –
After I explained what it was – and what it did – she drew the following helpful diagram as a future reminder:
Finally, today Akemi was inquiring about the phrase “born with a silver spoon in their mouth”. She wanted to know: “Why silver and not gold? Gold is better, no?” Well, yes. I didn’t have an answer for her outside of the fact that the alliteration of silver spoon sounds so much nicer. She wondered if there was a similar phrase to suggest someone born to simpler means: “…like born with Mcdonalds plastic spoon in his mouth?”
Hmmm. I don’t know. Doesn’t ring a bell.
Anyone?
Hey Joe…I know it’s been a while since I commented on anything, but I felt the need to chime in. Why does pasta need to be vegan-ized? There’s nothing in it that’s non-vegan. It makes no sense! What do vegans think pasta is made with? Pork flour and gelatin? WTF?!
I love Akemi. She draws adorable poop. 😀
It’s silver spoon because really rich people have real silver utensils not gold ones.
Just try explaining the phrase “he’s a keeper” to her. Haha I said that to one of my french friends (about her adorable niece) and she asked what I meant by it and then why that’s a phrase. After about 20 minutes of trying to explain she gave up wanting to know and decided (thankfully) that I meant it as a compliment.
As for the opposite of born with a silver spoon all I can think of is “from the other side of the tracks.” But “born with a spork in his mouth” would work.
Zoodles is too adorable a name for something so icky. And vegans are evil. Why? Because They’re never satisfied. I’d be evil too if I could never have fish, poultry, bacon and dairy products.
~Trish
Yeah, my parents tried to get spaghetti squash past me in my teens & twenties. Didn’t work.
You will probably ban me from your blog, but I really love zucchini finely shredded as a pasta sub.
And tell Akemi to copyright that phrase… Maybe simplify it to “born with a plastic spork in their mouths”?
Akemi – you go girl! To the point as always.
Well, according to my so-called-sister-in-law, the opposite of being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth is to be a ‘hick’…of which she calls us when she is in one of her rants. {{a two year old is better behaved then her but I digress}}.
And as for the zucchini spaghetti, when seasoned correctly, it is very good.
Wealthy people used silver utensils because silver is antiseptic. Aside from just being ostentatious.
The drawing on the cap looks like lumpy space princess.
Yeah, I’m with Trish: the best idiom for that — that is actually a real idiom — would be “from the wrong side of the tracks.” But I was thinking the same thing as others with “born with a spork in his mouth”. No one says that, but they should.
There are lots of colourful ways to say someone is currently of lower means, ranging from the polite (“he’s fallen on hard times”) to the vulgar (“trailer trash”), but aside from “wrong side of the tracks,” I can’t think of another one that gets across the idea that the person was born into those circumstances.
@ Lou Zucaro: Doesn’t pasta have egg in it? Vegans don’t eat eggs.
I know next to nothing about making pasta, by the way. I’m just going by what I’ve seen MasterChef contestants do when they make pasta. Seems to me there’s always a mound of flour, which then has its top hollowed out like a volcano, and then inevitably they crack an egg into the crater.
@Kathode
Only if you’re making egg noodles. Regular pasta is just flour, water & salt.
I have tried the zucchini as pasta thing as a paleo substitute. it’s not the same. I like the name zoodles though… Nice one Akemi.
I looked up phrase finder for the origin of silver spoon phrase. They speculated:
“It has been a tradition in many countries for wealthy godparents to give a silver spoon to their godchildren at christening ceremonies. ”
Sounds good enough to me.
hope you’re all well.
cheers, Chev
The “former administration” comment had me laughing out loud! I wouldn’t call those Zoodles either though, since Zoodles are awesome. They’re animal noodles! You get to go hunting with a bowl and spoon!
Great, now I can’t get the song out of my head.
Oh, and I went to see “Godzilla” tonight. The only thing bigger than the monsters is my sense of disappointment.
“the former administration” 😀
Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl. Everyone who saw her liked her, but most of all her grandmother, who did not know what to give the child next. Once she gave her a little cap made of red napkins. Because it suited her so well, and she wanted to wear it all the time, she came to be known as Little Red Riding Napkin. 😛
“I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth
The north side of my town faced east, and the east was facing south”
I once watched a documentation on Silver. They said that, at one time silver was so hard to get from the ground and process that it was MORE expensive and rare than gold. At that time only the SUPER rich had silver spoons. Other folks who gold. That is where I heard the saying original from.
Zoodles. That’s what Akemi calls the above-pictured dish. It’s the disrespectful vegan version of spaghetti in which pasta is substituted with zucchini strips, yielding a culinary catastrophe that is both disgusting in appearance AND flavor yet less starchy and calorie-laden.
i always suspected that stuff wasn’t all they claimed.
I love all te exchanges with Akemi! More of this please!
Most dried pasta is just flour and water. If you buy the cheap stuff there’s no egg in there. Why torture yourself with zoodles when you can have lovely flour and water!
Yes, I’m afraid The Who beat Akemi to the “plastic spoon” saying by nearly 50 years. The irony is that when the first plastics were invented they were probably worth more than silver! Aluminium certainly was. We’re lucky the saying didn’t end up being “Born with an aluminium spoon in his mouth”!
Well, I’m off to Provence, France for a week of holiday today. A week of eating, sleeping and lazing by/in the pool. Can’t wait!
I love Akemi – she’s like a Japanese Sofia Vergara. 🙂
das
I thought Godzilla was alright personally, Maleficent wasn’t too bad either.
Although we’re getting close to the next anime season which starts in July, I’m quite looking forward to this Girls und Panzer OVA which covers the Anzio battle the anime somewhat skipped over.(They only really showed the end result lol)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dorXNMdvap0#t=43
And although it’s getting a movie sequel, I hope they eventually do a second season next year.
Zoodles, love the name! I get cold easily and bring a jacket into every restaurant (or grocery). I’ve never thought about making a shawl out of the napkins. Nicely done!
I’ve heard “born with a plastic spoon in their mouth” but “spork” sounds better! Down south I’ve heard “poor as a old church mouse”. “Trailer Trash” is a common saying too.
Akemi has a wonderful grasp of the English language! She makes me think about phrasing. Love to hear her stories. Thanks for sharing!
Zoodles, yet another sign of the Apocalypse.
I miss spaghetti. Oh, I can have pasta, I can’t have tomatoes. Sometimes I just get sad about my spaghetti-less existence.
My kids play on a web app called Zoodles.
I do like to have zuchinni with tomato sauce while my family has their pasta. I ate that before I ever considered going gluten-free. I don’t cut it like Zoodles because I’m not trying to approximate pasta, but enjoy zuchinni for what it is. I cut it into chunks and heat it in the sauce just enough to get a steamed zuchinni texture.
I use spaghetti squash sometimes, but I don’t just put tomato sauce on it after I bake the strands loose. I fry it in a pan I got dirty from cooking medallions of kielbasa or something similar and I use plenty of and bacon fat because you have to work hard to get flavor to stick to it.
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I’ve always taken “born with a silver spoon in his mouth” to not just be referring to someone born rich, but also their complete lack of need to have ever pondered basics of life in other classes such as having to at least be aware of where your food comes from. To them, it’s just been there since day one and it might as well not even come from anywhere, it’s just that granted that it’ll always be there.
I think the lower class equivalent of that in past times is more along the snarky line of “thinks money grows on trees”, but for kids raised on modern times where food will mostly always be there in decent quantities, but poor quality, the spork thing works because it encompasses that.
Akemi is so cool. You should start keeping a list of fun names for that restaurant, food truck, or bakery you are going to open one day for Akemi to show off her culinary skills. Zoodles would be cute. And a restaurant named Peasnatch would be classic.
When Akemi says “Why do vegan people lie to me?”, I bet she means they make up dishes that look good and they say it tastes good, but it don’t.
“the former administration” hehehe!
Have you guys already tried tofu yuba noodles as a pasta replacement? I bought the pre-flavored Hoda Soy ones from Costco and they’re super tasty. Not Italian style though.
Yes, that’s it exactly. Must be. It can’t be explained any other way. 😀
And I agree, making food that pretends to be another dish, but is nowhere near as good as the original is Evil!
It’s been a busy long weekend here. On the home-front, I repainted our front-door (to compliment the new siding color), buffed and polished the corroding brass-works on the front-door (which itself took twice as long as sanding and painting the door), and installed a new door knocker and kick plate. Then for fun I installed the oil pump, wire wheeled the exhaust manifolds and finished painting the engine components on the Corvette project, as well as something completely different in the form of running the grill for the church picnic today.
Up for tomorrow afternoon is installing a new hands-free car radio in Jackie’s Fiero. I thought there was something about a day of rest somewhere in there, but I’m forgetting what it looks like! 😉