Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

By now, I’m sure you have all heard about the woman who found the finger in her Wendy’s chili.

This image was stolen from Adrienne at Nosheteria. Thanks, Adrienne. It really adds to the overall impact of my post.

Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. The finger was apparently fresh, and there were two parts of the finger in the same bowl of chili. That would indicate there wasn’t a whole body that was cut up and dropped into the chili, because if that were the case, what are the chances of having two parts of the same finger in a bowl of chili? The article says the chili is made on site. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing they get ground beef, not whole beef parts that they grind up in the Wendy’s store. That means that the finger must have landed in the beef AFTER it was ground. If it had landed in there before, then you wouldn’t have such an obvious finger, manicured, in complete identifiable chunks. You’d have ground finger!

All of the people working at the Wendy’s had all their fingers, so that isn’t the source of the finger. If the finger was ripped from a person who is still alive, working at a meat plant, don’t you think the meat plant shift manager might have thought: Better check the meat she was working on!

Another theory I threw out was that of the aggressive cow who attacked a woman, ripping her finger off whole, biting it in half, then swallowing it down. Then the next day, the cow is made into meat. But the ground beef thing makes that unlikely, too.

If there’s a woman out there with a missing finger (and I’m thinking that’s the case, or you wouldn’t get this unlikely scenario where there are two parts of one finger in the same bowl of chili), I think she better step forward!

Who is this woman? Surely she’s seen the story! And who put her finger in the ground beef? Is she tied up somewhere?

I’m a rambling sleuth, but I really want to know what happened. It’s just such a strange story!

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So last weekend, Aaron and I decided to go to the Pink Palace Museum. I’d been years ago. It isn’t great, but that’s not the point of the story here. The point is that there is this completely disgusting exhibit at the museum right now. Maybe I’m overreacting, but blech.

OK, the exhibit is called CSI: Crime Scene Insects. You go in, and there are several little areas explaining different parts of why insects have a lot to do with forensics. At each station, there is a dead body painted on the floor with various demonstrations of how bugs are an important part of the decomposition process. The first one has a few fake morgue drawers with fake dead bodies in them. On the wall is an explanation of the various stages of decomposition: freshly dead, bloated, maggot-infested, etc. The names are prettier than that, but that’s basically the idea.

One of the floor pictures

Maybe it’s because of all the pictures I saw after the Tsunami. Maybe it’s because they found a dead body across the street in the park. Maybe it’s because this is Memphis, and there is a lot of crime. But I was really offended, and I’m not really one to get offended. Little kids were looking at these exhibits, standing on top of the parts of the floor with the photographs of the dead bodies on them. There was a woman there with a very young little girl (maybe 3) in her arms. The little girl was looking past her mother’s shoulder at us, and I kept thinking, “Why are you here, little girl? Why is this fun? Why is it cool?”

Needless to say, we left pretty quickly. Is the plan to appeal to what kids know? Sure, it’s interesting, but come on. So are many other things that are far less gruesome that teaching Memphis children how bugs help bodies to decompose. Who decided this was a good idea?!

If it were the same exhibit, but a little more advanced and for adults, I think it would be a pretty decent idea. But in Memphis, and with kids this young? I don’t know. Kids don’t even really have a concept of what death is yet… not like an adult. It just didn’t sit well with me at all.

Some links:

• The Official Site of the Exhibit
• An insane site that loads several auto-playing wave files at once. To watch them, close them all first, then play each one separately. (Did anyone even test to see if the site was working before loading it?!)
• A kid talks about what she learned at the exhibit.

I recommend not going!

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Please note that "the bagel post" has been reposted and is now accepting comments. I can’t believe the unrest waiting for me after returning from work. The people wanna talk about the bagels!!!

Oh, and while I’m here, please let me mention that yes, everything and cinammon raisin don’t really belong on the list… not really… but everything bagels are too good to exclude, and they do contain all the "right" thing, just in higher density and greater combination. Let us also add egg bagels to the list.

To review, the correct bagel types are plain, sesame, poppy, salt, onion, garlic, and egg. Other less traditional yet acceptable types are everything, pumpernickel, and rye.

Cinammon raisin was the first flavored bagel I recall being added to the bagel lineup. It’s an option, but it will not impress anyone. It’s the bagel you get for your kid who thinks bagels seem "weird." Kind of like the drumstick of the chicken.

And my opinion stands on wheat, blueberry, chocolate chip, cranberry orange, spinach, asiago, and all the rest of that bullshit. I’m also standing firm on my cream cheese position: plain or lox. No strawberry, no walnut, no "veggie," or any of the rest of it. In the past, I’ve stopped into the dark side a few times with roasted red pepper, artichoke, and olive, but I knew at the time that it was, in fact, an incorrect choice. It was palatable, but not the real deal.

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I’d heard They Might Be Giants were doing kids’ songs, but I hadn’t listened to any of them yet. Just came across this video on Boing Boing done by a high schooler. It’s just excellent! Take a look and a listen.

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Growing up, I would often end up in a restaurant with my dad, and he would tell me, "This is the right thing to order here." My most specific memory was on Oxford Road in Atlanta, right next to the main entrance to Emory. There was a sandwich shop there. I think it was in that building with the silly top; the one that’s been a Dominoes and a million other things. I don’t know if it’s still there or not.

Anyway, he said that I should order turkey and cole slaw with Russian Dressing on Rye. He said that was the right thing to order, and the people working there would know I knew something about sandwiches. I remember feeling like a little bit of a badass ordering that. I was probably in the range of 12 years old.

So today, on AskMetafilter (a site I adore), someone is asking about good bagels in London. And someone posted this comment:

Correct bagel types:

• Plain
• Sesame
• Poppy
• Salt
• Onion
• Everything
• Cinnamon Raisin

Incorrect bagel types:

• Sun-dried tomato
• Blueberry
• Jalapeno
• Pesto
• Anything not listed under "Correct bagel types"

Another person pointed out the obvious exclusion of Garlic, another important bagel flavor.

Does it make me a snob that I am *so* with this person on this point?

I grew up eating bagels at The Royal Bagel at Ansley Mall in Atlanta, GA. It was owned by a Jewish woman from New York named Rose and her husband. It was there my whole life, and I have never had a bagel that good since.

Over time, The Royal Bagel became a fascinating cultural institution. It was where people in my neighborhood went on weekend mornings. It was a Jewish place, and because of its location, it was a gay place (for gay men, not gay women… that was Decatur).

I remember that over the years, the employees changed from being my friend Molly’s two older sisters (kind of a family atmosphere) to a really hopping gay Mecca, with a full expansion into the next shop’s space. The guys working there at the end of its royal reign wore t-shirts that said something like "Bagels fit for a Queen." Excellent! And Rose was always still around. She probably didn’t know me, but I knew her.

The bagel flavors there were the ones mentioned in the correct list (including garlic), and the cream cheese flavors were plain and lox. It was perfect. There was no way to perfect that combination.

The Royal Bagel isn’t there anymore. Instead, there’s an Einstein’s up the hill. It’s a sad replacement, and yet, when in Atlanta, that’s kind of where we end up… trying to reclaim those wonderful bagel moments of the past.

By the way, I’m not the only one who remembers the Royal Bagel. And here’s another description from Creative Loafing, the local Atlanta rag:

Royal Bagel — Now that bagel franchises blanket the city, it’s tough to imagine loyal customers driving halfway across town to line up at this small Ansley Mall bakery that was among the first to offer the breakfast staple when it opened in 1974. Hung on until 1997.

The take-home message? Shop locally, and order the correct bagels… PLEASE! No wheat, no blueberry chocolate chip, no walnut spread, no bagel pizzas, and no bagel sandwiches with lettuce and turkey and other wrong things. Please, people. It’s not snobbery. It’s being cultured!!
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Update: I’m reposting this hoping that the comments will miraculously work. If you wanted to post before but couldn’t, try again.

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