Angel Food Update

Part of the Angel Food is 10 prepackaged frozen meals (The Senior Citizen Special). The meals are in plastic boxes, and have three compartments - main course, greens, and a mystery compartment which has so far included garlic bread, applesauce and boiled carrots. The quality of these meals, so far, has a very high variance.

The first tested the limits of edibility. It was advertised as "Chicken in Barbecue Sauce, Greens, and Applesauce." After consuming a large part of it, I was convinced that it was in fact "Barbeque Sauce with a Splash of Chicken, Something Green That Normally Isn't, and an Applesauce/Previous Mystery Green Stuff Infusion."

Five days later, when my hunger overpowered my discouragement, I selected another prepackaged meal at random. The label read "Parmesan Chicken, Greens and Garlic Bread." Once again, I was surprised, but this time, pleasantly. The chicken was tender, the pasta tasted like pasta, and the garlic bread...well it was pretty much a glorified cracker that didn't even smell like garlic. But on the whole, my low expectations combined with the meal's adequacy produced pure delight. The greens were still inedible, but looked vaguely bean-ish. That was yesterday.

Today, the third meal was opened, this time by Mario. It was "Roast Beef, The Inevitable Greens, and Boiled Carrots." He started off with the main course, replying "eh" when I asked him if it was good. He was almost done when I suggested he try the greens so that he would have something edible to wash it down with in case they proved again to be unpalatable. He grabbed a good forkfull of greens and bravely shoved it in his mouth. His face immediately turned upside down. The greens were apparently the only part of the meals that guaranteed consistency. After the initial surge of facial turmoil, Mario put on a very serious face and sat motionless. I ventured a guess: "are you trying to swallow?" He nodded dumbly, and continued to sit there. I could feel his gag reflex throwing a fit all the way across the table. To help him, I started laughing at him as hard as I could. It was a battle of pride against the body's instincts, and was almost up to Stephen Chow physical comedy standards. Finally he gave up and spit it back out into the greens compartment. Poor guy, he should have swallowed. Now I'll have to remind him of this failure every day of his life.