For some reason, I happened to stumble upon a website that featured all of the national food holidays of our glorious country, which has nothing better to do than officially declare my birthday International Yorkshire Pudding Day (really?).
Believe it or not, every single day has a different food associated with it and most of them are better than Yorkshire pudding. So basically I now have an excuse to eat a different obscure food each day, you know, to celebrate.
But, that's neither here nor there. Upon researching the upcoming holidays, I noticed one that perfectly applies to the end of the school year and all of us leaving Madison for the summer. May 6 is International No Diet Day!
Now I don't know about you, but I'm going to be celebrating this holiday like nobody's business because it's my last chance to eat everything I love in Madison without being judged (or so I'd like to think). Here's a list of all of the food I've got to get in my digestive tract within this 24-hour period:
I'm start ing this binge at precisely 12 a.m., so I'm definitely going to want some late-night, stoner Pokey Sticks from Gumby's Pizza.
I'm not exactly sure how they do it, but these are quite possibly the best bread/cheese sticks I have ever had. Perfectly seasoned and garlic-ed and delivered to my house late night within a half an hour? That's an A+ in my book any day. They even have a buy-one-get-one- free deal on campusfood.com. So now that I think about it, I might as well get two. Done.
For breakfast I'm going to get up early before my 9:30 class and drag myself to Sunroom Café for a hearty stack of apple pancakes. And I'm probably going to purchase a scone with the intentions of eating it later, but I'll eat it right after the transaction is finalized. This holiday is all about celebrating gluttony, so why not?
Since International No Diet Day falls on a Tuesday, I will be eating my traditional Tuesday lunch: Special wrap No. 1 from the Lakefront on Langdon at Memorial Union - the California Wrap. Trust me, it's worth waiting for amidst the frenzy of kids rushing to fill up their salad bar cups, eat and make it to class on time.
After that, for a mid-day snack, I'll be hitting up the Chocolate Shoppe for ice cream. I know UW-Madison is famous for Babcock Hall ice cream, but I have to say that my loyalties lie with the cow place. It's amazing. That's probably a blasphemous statement coming from a proud UW-Madison student, and don't get me wrong I do think the Daily Scoop is great, but I'm probably not going to be able to walk very far anyway with all of this carb-age dragging me down.
So... dinner is for sure Dotty's. I'm going to Dotty Dumpling's Dowry and I'm getting a sampler basket. And I'm not sharing. Enough said.
So if I'm able to finish all of that, there might be a slight chance that I'll be hungry around 10 or 11 p.m., so I think I'll order some delivery Asian Kitchen. I've covered all of the other standard ethnic food groups sans Asian. In theory, I'm going to need some greasiness to end the night right and I might as well go for the greasiest (not an insult, I promise) Chinese takeout we have here. It's just awesomely comforting.
And that will mark the conclusion of International No Diet Day for me.
Everyone, when this appears in print, I will have already eaten all of this food. Don't panic! You might want to call the local hospitals and detox centers to make sure that I'm all right, but I think I will be just fine. And if I'm not and I get some sort of clogged artery that becomes an issue later in life, it is a national holiday and therefore it's all for the sake of patriotism. Oh, I am so proud to be an American.
If you want to make sure Ariel is still alive or just want to wish her happy eating"" for the summer, e-mail her at _akraut@wisc.edu.
