Tuesday, October 30, 2007

I Feel Like Nigel Tufnel These Days...

My lab partners in my Biology class and I got the go-ahead to do our group report on the subject we chose-- food allergies. We chose it because we had experience with it-- with family members, or, in my case, personally. I've mentioned before that I have celiac disease, an autoimmune condition that is triggered by wheat gluten.

It's entailed a lot of changes, diet-wise. I've mentioned before how I pretty much lived on sandwiches for long stretches of my life. I missed sandwiches.

Fortunately, I discovered that there are brands of bread made of non-wheat ingredients. They're dense and taste a little different from regular bread, but hell, it's bread, and I'm happy to have sandwiches again. There's just one little thing: the bread is small. You can see in the picture at the top that it's much smaller than the cold cuts and cheese. It's left me feeling a little like Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel. It's a complete catastrophe. I'll have to talk to my road manager about it.

15 comments:

Mob said...

Your poor little sandwich!

If I were in your situation, I can picture myself carefully shaving down each ingredient to fit the bread, because I'm crazy like that.

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

Give us this day our gluten free bread, amen.

Joe said...

Clearly, like Nigel, you refuse to fold your cold cuts. I would probably trim the cold cuts, precisely, with a butcher knife so that they fit the bread, and then would save all the scraps for cooking into an omelet later on.

deadspot said...

Your sandwich is in danger of being crushed by dwarves.

Foofa said...

That is one of my favorite movie clips of all times. You have to keep folding. It's a tragedy. Next thing you know you'll have pimentoless olives. The horror.

SkylersDad said...

Rebel JY! Put the meat and cheese on the outside around one piece of bread.

Stick it to the man!

bubbles said...

Is this what they mean when they talk about "sweating the small stuff"?

Funny video. I'd never seen it.

vikkitikkitavi said...

City of the Big Shoulders, indeed! You should come out to LA, where the wheat-free bread is as big as the smog clouds!

Traveling Matt said...

yeah, i found out 2 years ago that i have celiac's but it isn't bad enough for me to change my life... especially since i am already allergic to everything else under the sun. i would starve to death if my doctors got their way.

Distributorcap said...

rice cakes!

The Idea Of Progress said...

Just don't let it affect your performance.

Barbara Bruederlin said...

It's a ready made excuse for failure of performance though, isn't it? Great choice of clip!

Splotchy said...

It's just amazing that I never tire of this damn movie.

Tenacious S said...

You'll rise above this problem. You're a professional. Nice seeing you the other day.

Johnny Yen said...

Mob-
They have 12-step plans for stuff like that...

Monkerstein-
Hallelujah, brother Monkerstein!

Bubs-
You are the man with the plan!

Unfortunately, I'm allergic to eggs, as well (and pork). I lead a culinarily complicated life.

Deadspot-
But my sandwich goes to "11."

Natalie-
As fate may have it, I was discussing olives with a bartender at work-- specifically our mutual love of olives. His complaint was that he hated pimentoes. I was aghast-- that's my favorite part!

Skyler's Dad-
It's encouragement like that that keeps me going on!

Bubbles-
Either that, or Nigel is dumb as a post.

Actually, you've got to see the whole movie-- he is dumb as a post. One of the points of the movie was how people were looking for meaning and enlightenment from guys for whom music was a way to get drugs and girls.

Vikki-
That could get me to visit LA.

Monica-
As I type this, I'm reeling from inadvertendly consuming wheat gluten. My face is burning up, I can hardly breath and in a couple of hours my digestive system will be churning up. And that's after taking an antihistamine. I have a couple of other food allergies, but this one is a pain in the ass.

My doctor is happy with the things I'm doing-- my cholesterol is great, lipids, etc. except my blood pressure is slightly high. I consume too much salt. The main culprit is hot sauce. I've been putting a herlculean effort into moderating its use lately.

Distributorcap-
As I've told friends, I eat, sleep, drink, dream rice cakes. My son even kids me about it-- "Another day, another rice cake."

Idea of Progress-
Which kind of performance?

Barbara-
Thanks! It's a great lead-in to when the manager has his melt-down and quits. I didn't know until years later that Tony Hendra, the guy who played him, was a gifted comedy writer. He had a hit book a few years ago about his unlikely friendship with a priest, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul.

Splotchy-
I was talking to some younger people recently about that movie; it's amazing that you really don't have to contextualize the movie for the time. Music stars keep being self-absorbed and stupid.

TenS-
Can I show you my custom-made amplifier? It goes to "11."

It was terrific to see you guys too the other day!