Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Bacon bits (Houston > Athens)

Despite bacon bits and a crying baby, I arrived safely with my sanity intact at Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Athens on Tuesday morning.

Although I try to be open-minded about food, I fail to understand the appeal of bacon bits. (My brother vehemently disagrees, as do the food critics who seem to automatically rank higher all dishes containing any bacon products.) Perhaps my aversion to bacon bits stems from the trauma I experienced in third grade when I thought it was severely uncool to bring packed lunches to school; cafeteria food often included baked potatoes topped with butter and bacon bits. Without a doubt, those small, dry, bright red chips were not related to any part of any pig.

Furthermore, as other bacon bits-bashers can certainly relate to, those buggers are really difficult to remove. For example, tracking down and picking out bacon bits from a salad is a time- and labor-intensive project, even after which there may be a few pieces lurking beneath an innocent-looking spinach leaf or cucumber slice-cum-accomplice.

After Manolis, Alex, and I took a train from the airport to Manolis's house in Kifissia, a northern suburb of Athens, to drop off my bags, we picked up Carina and headed to a nearby cafe. Fortunately, lunch did not involve any bacon bits whatsoever.