Since we’ve never actually identified ourselves on Ye Olde Cageboy blog, reading the various posts are a bit like peeling the layers of an onion. The sum of the parts will give you a pretty clear picture of what my associate and I are all about. And thus, we come to Skippy’s confession of the day….I’m completely mental for Food Network. I watch it all the time. If there is nothing on, I’m watching it. Sometimes I even forget to switch over to major sporting events or Presidential addresses because I’m watching Food Network. I’ve been watching it for years. And I must say, it’s done quite a bit of good and I’ve gained quite an impressive culinary education from the likes of Alton Brown (shown here), Bob Flay, Jamie Oliver, Anthony Bourdain, that fuzzy little bitch Emiril and others. Probably more by osmosis than actual study. The white noise of my daily routine includes information about fatty acids, various spices and varieties of food stuff from all over the world. In my case, it’s been effective. At the time I got married, I couldn’t cook anything to save my life. Neither could my wife. We spent our college lives living at home and working jobs while we went to class during the day. So, the first couple of years we were married, we ate whatever we could manage. It wasn’t pretty. And then we decided what the hell? It’s just us – if we ruin something in the kitchen, we’re the only ones that will suffer and go hungry. So, we honed and refined and came up with a half a dozen or so meals that we were pretty adept at throwing together. To this day, we still occasionally make a dish we have dubbed “Dirty Chicken”. It looks like a train wreck – but tastes fantastic – and it’s relatively healthy. Look for my Cageboy Cookbook coming soon!
Before we get off track – I want to get back to talking about the Food Network. And I want to say right up front that the premise of my problem with the FN is not my own. I can’t recall exactly where I read or heard the criticism – but it’s absolutely true – Food Network is making the same mistake MTV made back in the early 90’s. In the beginning, Food Network was just a collection of one “How To Cook This and That” show after another. Big time, expert chef’s breaking it down for we morons on the other end of the boob tube. Sometime recently Bobby Flay (who I don’t especially care for ANYWAY) went from being the resident grill monkey to “Throwing Down” all the time. Just friggin’ show me how to grill up a nice pork chop, you chowder head – you don’t have to run around getting in everybody’s face and challenging them to a duel. What the hell is up with that? Everything is a Challenge nowadays on FN. Nobody just cooks. Now Ace of Cakes I like. They seem like cool dudes that I’d hang out with – but here we have FN going down the road of reality programming. You are on VERY shaky ground here Food Network people! One minute MTV had awesome music videos and the next it was all Real World and Jackass. Don’t need that in my Food Network.
Seriously, I’m gonna punch out the Cageboy Cookbook – get a show – and the average schlub making Shake-n-Bake will return to basic cable and we’ll kick it up a notch – BAM!!!!
past weekend – that unusual unordinary occurrence took the form of eating at a fast food joint. Don’t get me wrong – it happens occasionally. Normally it would be a quick roll by and a kid’s meal through the drive through window if we were stretched on time. And for myself, I’ve already professed my undying love for the Subway – still fast and all the sammichy goodness you could ever want. But this Saturday we found ourselves enroute from one holiday activity to the other and knowing we didn’t want to arrive at our afternoon holiday party completely famished – we opted for the fast food that first presented itself along our road. Arby’s. Although famished, I’d like to think that I could still be somewhat objective regarding the food. In a word or two – TOTALLY AWESOME WITH A SIDE OF SUPER FANTABULOUS AND ASS KICKING DIPPING SAUCE!!! Man, was it ever good.
Kids had popcorn chicken while ma-lady and I ordered a couple of their signature roast beef and cheddar sandwiches. Now, they do offer said roast beef with bacon and that’s a perfectly marvelous idea because – as you know – there is no food stuff that cannot be improved by wrapping with bacon, topping with bacon in or some other way adding bacon to. However, we were already a little uneasy with the notion of eating fast food and didn’t want to push it. It seems like fries are unavoidable in a fast food setting (except, of course, for my beloved Subway). But Arby’s is smart. They don’t try to compete or clone the McD fries. Can’t be done, McD is the fry king and just don’t go there. Instead Arby’s stands apart – they go for the Curly fry and they shake on a very tasty, somewhat spicy flavoring. Pretty darn tasty. I REALLY didn’t need to become aware of just how tasty the Arby’s is. The other thing I like at the Arby’s is the variety of condiments – much more creative and WAY tastier than your basic Ketchup/Mustard you get at most places. Arby’s offers their standard issue barbecue sauce – which is just fine. A honey mustard – which is quite good. The unfortunately named “Horsey “Sauce” – the horseradish concoction that is a must for roast beef. And then a spicy “three pepper” sauce that is somewhere between a barbecue sauce and a hot sauce. Not quite hot enough to be a full on hot sauce and little tangier than you want a barbecue sauce to be. 
But that’s why I think those BK Whopper Virgin commercials are a bad thing. First off – I’m not sure I totally believe the credentials of the “documentary crews” in the commercial. But suspend disbelief for a moment and let’s just say that while they are certainly on the King’s dime, let’s just say for the sake of argument that the rest of the “Whopper Virgins” they are plucking from remote villages around the world are not actors named Steve from the upper West Side who is appearing in the BK commercial as a follow-up to playing “The Sofa King” on the local cable ads. Let’s just pretend we totally believe the premise – they’re out scouring the world for remote people’s who have never eaten a BK Whopper – or a fast food hamburger of any kind for that matter. Yep, these poor saps are hunting and gathering berries and crickets and everything leafy and green this side of the poison sumac. They roast it down over open fires out in the hills of 
First and foremost – welcome back Magic Mookster! Some fine, fine ranting, my friend. You know what? Unknowingly – and probably completely by accident – you’ve started a theme here at Cageboy.com – Ugly Kids. To pick up on Mookie’s fine post – Yeah, fix that kid’s face. In fact, I bet they have fixed that kid’s face. I bet that little F looks like George Friggin’ Clooney nowadays. But whenever the marketing team at “Desperately Seeking Cosmetic Surgery International” thumbs through their photo files, they know that the horribly disfigured visage of lil’ Skippy is the face that launched a thousand donations and therefore they go to the well again and again on poor lil’ Skippy The Mutant. But as I said, I have high hopes it all turned out for the good for the little split-face bastard. He’s probably got some model girlfriend now and lives on a beach in Brazil somewhere. God Speed you horrific looking SOB!!!
