The (Not Always Good) Foods I Loved in 2020

It’s been a hell of a year, hasn’t it? Plagues and politics, a landscape so barren that we believed the dolphins had come back to Italy. 2020. A decade from now we’ll look back and think, how did I survive that? Or maybe we’ll be even worse off. 

I try not to think about it. I’m young. I’m healthy. I follow the mandates, wash my hands, I’ve learned how to cook and bake better than I ever have before, and you know what? I get the hype. There’s something immensely refreshing about making your own food with whatever ingredients you find around the house. I made sourdough, yes. I also made a ramen burger. Then I made them again because they didn’t pan out so well the first time but damn if they didn’t taste good.

I’ve perused my fair share of recipes, so I’m not gonna give you a list of instructions and pretend I invented the thing. That’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me. I’m gonna write a list you might agree with - or you might not. It’s all in good fun.

So without further ado (adieu?) - and bearing in mind that I’m new to this writing thing - here’s my top 10 list of foods that got me through 2020, and some bonus context.

ONE

• January 1st: BBQ mini-weenies & cold beer

I started this year off with a bang - or more precisely, bangers doused in medium-hot BBQ sauce my friend Touchdown picked up at what he called a “sketchy slaughterhouse on the same block as a crematorium, and this guy with an eye patch said it was the best barbecue sauce he’d ever put in his mouth so I bought it.” 

And that sketchy butcher was right, guys. It was sweet and tangy and spicy all in one! I usually wouldn’t suggest that you listen to a sketchy butcher, because Touchdown is the luckiest man alive and the rest of us are bound to the laws of this hellish plane, but just this once I’m gonna retract that warning. The sketchy butcher gave good tips, including directions to a pretty Roman-styled art museum across the street from a packed bar with “beer that absolutely fucks”, as Touchdown paraphrased it. 

That night we ate those delicious mini-weenies and drank beer that truly did fuck. We decided it would be our year.

TWO

• February 14th: Spaghetti carbonara, heart-shaped cupcakes, & boxed wine

My friend Carhead’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day, so the five of us ganged up and put together something almost nice. It turns out that Tom, our buddy that works in some sort of tech, makes a mean carbonara. And I say that with my whole chest, it’s mean. It’s delicious, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve only ever been able to handle half a plate before my gut starts roiling. Not that you’re here to hear about my digestive issues.

Anyway, we picked our way into Car’s apartment while he was at work and whipped him up something special. I tried to make the cupcakes, but I made a fluke with the recipe and they didn’t really cook, and that’s about when I found out Touchdown was a great baker. Friends for eight years and I was still learning something new. It’s crazy.

He and Tom and Wingman shooed me out of the house to get something to drink. Guys, listen, I’m the last person you want to let pick the drinks. Give me free rein and I’ll pick the cheapest vanilla champagne anyone’s ever tasted. I’ve done it before. I think the guys secretly enjoy bullying me about it. Oh, you can free climb but you can’t pick a good drink? I’m not omnitalented. I have flaws.

I actually walked by the art museum on the way to the only grocer’s I figured wouldn’t be packed with panicked boyfriends searching for something their ladies would like. I didn’t realize how pretty it was, or how textured the pillars were - my mountain-climbing side speaking. 

A guard locking the place up waved at me when I walked back with my shitty boxed wine. I waved back.

And yeah, my friends hated the drinks. 

THREE

• March 17th: Socially distanced Arby’s reubens & more boxed wine

You don’t really realize what you have until it’s gone. The guys and I all got together through Skype, because it was all that Car could get on his off-brand laptop, and we Doordashed (Tom used UberEats, the traitor) us some Arby’s reubens. Wingman started on about how they weren’t actually Irish and they don’t celebrate in Ireland or something, his dad told him so, but Wingman does that about a lot of stuff and you just gotta nod and smile and know that you won’t retain it even if it’s interesting. It’s not his fault. We just aren’t bright guys. (And some of it’s not entirely true, but hey.)

When we finished the sandwich and the curly fries (best fries in fast food, am I right?) we all opened up some website and started doodling maps. We may not be bright, but we are boring. 

“Anybody got a pencil and paper?” Car asked at one point. We told him he’d have to buy a new computer soon.

FOUR

• April 20th: Fresh bread but not weed-infused, sorry guys

April and May is when I really got into making stuff by myself. I’m not a professional chef, the fuck-ups with Car’s heart-shaped cupcakes (they weren’t even meant to be heart-shaped, Touchdown is just a softie) prove that pretty well. I wasn’t seeing my friends outside of a screen at that time, though, and I wasn’t going to my gym or anywhere that people would be, really. 

So I did what literally everyone else was doing: I made home-made sourdough.

That shit’s hard.

But delicious.

But hard.

The first batch into the oven was on April 20th. I kneaded it for what felt like a million years which is really saying something because I’m an athletic guy, my hands are pretty well-developed (weird thing to type,) I’m not bothered by the work. This was insane.

And worth it. I shaped the most beautiful loaf I had ever seen in my life. I took a picture, it was so beautiful. I’ve never taken a picture of uncooked food before. I popped her into the oven and watched her rise for a few minutes before sitting down with a nice, cool Gogurt, because I’m an adult with needs. The timer dinged and I pulled her out of the oven and… 

She was ugly. How did this happen to my loaf? She looked like the devil! Like God’s hidden sin! Like a corpse-laden battlefield!

Tasted pretty good though.

FIVE

• June 19th: Ramen burger

I don’t live in California, so I didn’t know that the ramen burger was a thing. Picture: I’m browsing the internet one day on call with my friends. Tom is talking about how he’s been thinking about New Year’s day on the steps of the art museum, and how he’s been on their website for a week. Wingman’s asking him all these questions. I’m just hunger-scrolling for something fun to make. By this point I’m… not quite proficient, but I know now that you’re supposed to butter the pan.

I discover the ramen burger. Oh, she’s beautiful. And I have the ingredients! Who doesn’t have ramen on hand, right? So I say, “Hey guys, I’m gonna make this fucking burger,” and they all say, “You’re a dipshit.”

I make the burger. The ramen does not hold together quite the way it was advertised, so I’m really eating a semi-noodle burger, but it tastes damn good.

They laugh at me for a bit and then we all start asking Tom about the art museum.

SIX

• July 4th: Bomb pop ice cream cake

This was also super hard, but I made it. The entire time I was talking to Touchdown about window hinges, which sounds like a spectacularly boring conversation, but I was pretty engaged. He told me that Wingman told him that those glass laser things in spy movies are real but very much not legal, at least not the ones as powerful as in movies. It was interesting. Not sure any of it was fact.

My cake looked kind of blobby but also kind of pretty. The weirdest thing was that it actually tasted like a bomb pop? All in all, highly recommend.

SEVEN

• August & September: I just experimented with cookies

I’d been trying some pretty elaborate recipes for cupcakes and cakes and steaks and, you know, chicken and stuff, and I’ll be honest in saying that I was starting to get a bit tired of it. That’s when Carhead suggested something simple. “Back to your roots,” I believe were his exact words. He was wrong, you know I started with bread, but I appreciated the suggestion and searched the web for the best cookie recipes I could find.

Turns out that people like their cookies crisp? I’ve always preferred a thick one myself.

I made them for me and the gang. We’d planned a trip to that art museum I keep mentioning, wearing our masks and properly distanced, but we decided that if it was closed or too full that we’d come back the next week and just have lunch in the park, which was probably a better idea to begin with.

But it was open! Man, do you know how hard it is to pronounce some of those Italian names? The German ones? Don’t get me started on the Polish ones. We tried, though, giggling like schoolchildren the whole time.

Carhead’s always been good at memorizing layouts, so he knew the place after one round without looking at the map. We quizzed him and he aced it. That’s part of the reason he’s called Carhead, actually. In his childhood someone had meant to call him Gearhead for his impeccable ability to memorize the innards of a car after very little reading and even less work. 

We didn’t actually eat in the cafeteria. Something about eating indoors through all of this feels weird. So we sat on the steps again and peeled through the backpack. I’m happy to say that my chocolate chip cookies were a hit. The oatmeal-cinnamon ones? Not so much.

EIGHT

• October 31st: Mummy dogs

We’ve come full circle now. We started the year off with BBQ mini-weenies and we’ve nearly ended it with what we usually call “pigs in blanket” but when the wolves howl and the Frankensteins groan, they’re mummies. Simple recipe, but the highlight of any Halloween party.

We didn’t actually have a Halloween party. Here’s where I make my confession.

I started this list genuinely. I just wanted to tell you my favorite foods month-by-almost-month. My name isn’t important to this sort of thing, really, and I don’t think anybody will read it. But I need to tell someone or I think I’ll implode.

We visited the art museum after the sun had set. The guard locked up when he always locked up, a ritual I’d checked up on frequently since February. Tom and Wingman had this little device that I had to place on top of the building, so I climbed one of the pillars from the side and stuck the thing to it, and there was a pretty gnarly alarm that ended after one ring. It wasn’t ideal, so we hurried. Touchdown was our good luck charm, or we might have left altogether.

Carhead went in. It was pretty brave of him; he’d be the one caught if the police showed. He grabbed about three paintings and a small statue and we made out. The interesting thing about all of this is that on our way out people didn’t bat an eye. We were just a group of dudes wearing masks, one of us carrying a guitar case. 

We were right, back in January. This was our year.

NINE

• November 27th: Turducken

All you need to know about my Thanksgiving dinner is that it was a very weird amalgamation of almost-similar flavors that are totally different, actually, but they work? It wasn’t a bad deal, honestly. I didn’t really do the whole “stuff these things into the turkey’s ass” that turducken is advertised as, because I’ve never really tried to cook a whole turkey. My mom used to do that before she passed. I cut the thing into slices and layered the final product with the chicken and the duck.

It’s the first time I’ve ever tried it. I don’t think it’s for everyone, but I’d definitely recommend giving it a go! You never know what you might like!

TEN

• December 31th: BBQ mini-weenies & cold beer

Here we are again. My friends and I haven’t hung out a lot since the second wave hit. It seemed kind of irresponsible, so we’re back to Skype calls on the rare occasion that nobody is stuck with family. Touchdown’s been the most present, Hanukkah finished before the rest of our holidays really started, so he’s contacted each of us when we’re available.

It’s done now. 2020, you gave us a run for our money, I’ll tell you. I’ve decided to top you off the way we started, with a crock pot full of mini-weenies and an ice cold beer, and I’m hoping beyond hope that this’ll somehow keep you contained. I don’t think that it will, but I can hope.

Thanks for listening to me talk about all the shitty foods I loved this year, guys, and Happy New Year!

• WRITTEN & POSTED BY AN ANONYMOUS USER