Loafin' Around

Meaty Tales From My Youth

Eric the Straight White Guy regaled us recently with tales of a meatloaf gone awry. Due to the use of regular rice as opposed to Minute Rice, his loaf had a bit more crunch than he bargained for.

My meatloaf has a distinctive haggis-like quality, 'cause I use lots of onions and oatmeal for filler, as opposed to crackermeal or breadcrumbs. I forgo the usual sheep's stomach that a haggis needs, since a) they're hard to find, and b) who in their right mind would stuff food in a sheep's gut?? I'll give the Scots their due for shortbread, whiskey and the deep-fried Mars Bar, but offal is a bit much to swallow. Literally...

I do "ruin" my meatloaf by putting on a sizable layer of Heinz catsup on top, letting it bake on top so it's thick and tomato-ey. If I've got a few extra packets of Whataburger catsup around, I'll use that, since they have the best catsup on the planet. I called up their customer info line asking why I couldn't buy their special blend of catsup in bottles, like you can with Long John Silver's Malt Vinegar, and they told me they'd rather have me come in and buy their fries instead of putting their catsup on Mickey D's fries. They make a good point...

Eric's tale of crunchy meatloaf was good, but the funniest meatloaf story I've heard came from my friend Rockhauler. His dad was making meatloaf one day, and while assembling ingredients, he accidently picked up the wrong can. Instead of adding in a can of evaporated milk, he poured in a can of sweetened condensed milk. Rockhauler says it was so bad that even the dog wouldn't eat it. That, my friends, is some bad meatloaf!

Here's some good Meat Loaf. Back when I had a full head of long hippie hair, I could pull off a pretty good Meat Loaf imitation. About a dozen years ago, I really wanted to dress up as the characters from the "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" video for Halloween. I've got a friend who, IMHO, could do a great imitation of Karla DeVito. I don't think I could have asked her to squeeze into all that white Spandex while maintaining a straight face and pure motives, so, sadly, it never happened. I still think we would have won the local costume contests by a landslide...