Obamenu (Everything Salad)

When I walked into the central hall at Utrecht Central Station today around 6 pm (noon in Washington DC) I thought “oh no”. Even more people than normal were standing around, focusedly staring at something. Usually, this can mean only one thing: there are major delays and everyone is waiting for news to appear on the large information screens.

But today isn’t a usual day. Today the United States have a new president. Everyone was watching the inauguration on a larger-than-life TV screen.

Finally, finally, finally the world might get a chance to recover from eight years of bad decisions, worse policies and plain crazy actions. It was about time. To celebrate, I had a US-inspired meal tonight. Wanna hear my Obamenu? Here, I’ll tell you:

• Burger King Chili-Cheese Nuggets
• Everything-salad with a side of corn chips and a glass of iced tea
• Chocolate

For me, the everything-bagel is the quintessential American food. Sure, you have burgers and hotdogs and popcorn and coke, and all of them bring associations with the USA. But none of them capture my idea of “America” as well as the everything-bagel. The belief that more is more, bigger is better, and conventions are meant to be flouted. Want a bagel with just sesame seeds? Pah. With poppy seeds or onion flakes or caraway seeds? Why stop there? Much better to have them all. And on a bread that was brought to the country by a religious minority. As a play on the theme, I created an everything-salad. There were walnuts, crispy bacon, chopped hard-boiled eggs, creamy yoghurt-mustard dressing and chives. Oh, and salad leaves, of course. Nice. Very nice.

The cheese nuggets, on the other hand, were a mistake. There was a cheese-like substance, there were green bits and there was a faint trace of heat. Other than that: nothing. No flavor, no crunch. Blah. Luckily, the chocolate was a winner. Originally meaning to bake chocolate chip cookies, I changed my mind when I realized I was going to be home alone tonight and might very well finish the entire batch. By myself. Even a new US-president isn’t worth that many calories, so I stuck with just a few pieces of Green and Blacks organic Maya Gold. Yum. Or, if you will: Oba-mmmmmmmmmm.