Soup to go

It has been a full year since I worked either full time or part time in the service economy.. With a child in my house and demands of full time employment that are often too stressful to ignore, the restaurant world has changed from an employer to a shopper's delight.  While my income level has significantly dropped without tips to help live, I have equally spent probably way too much in restaurants during the same time frame.

So where to go..?
What is this site to be?

I have been studying the hits lately. This site is still visited quite a bit, which surprised me once I took a look back.

I went through the annals of SOUP ON MY FLY... It began in 2007 prior to me being married. Prior to fatherhood.. back then I was complaining about the growing narcissism of people. Little did I know how much more clear that would become. As I read through the archive, I recalled each and every story with vibrant colors. They stuck in my mind since I wrote them down, including the now defunct Hawaiian restaurant in New York that offered up live streaming of girls in bikinis..

Those were the days.

But what days now?
Soup on my Fly is a cool little creation, if you ask me. And those who know me will also attest to the fact that over the years I've had too many websites to keep a handle on. I feel like a father on Maury Povich.. stretched too thin, and then suddenly I remember I have another website I forgot to update in a year or two. (IT has happened.)

For those potentially interested in some other of my work, visit http://nightterrornews.com/, a site that focuses on the strange and unusual, weird and bizarre. I am especially proud of this recent article. 

But Soup. On.. my ......Fly. What should it be?
Well there are too many cooking sites out there. I'd never compete with FOOD.COM or the like. And the FOOD BABE has completely dominated the war against chemicals and GMO, and I follow her sternly in that path..

I have an idea for my little site. I have a notion that it will attempt to explore some of the attitudes of the food industry, and some grown up problems within it. I will also .. perhaps.. attempt to begin an exploration of how I found health after ten years of horrid decisions in my 20s.

A grown up Soup on my fly?
With the music still included on the desktop version. Perhaps just expanded a bit in selection.

I will work more on this. I really enjoy having this website and don't want to see it become insignificant and defunct like so many others I followed from 2007 through about 2012, when suddenly all of the food and restaurant sites I followed suddenly gave up. (Perhaps when they quit the service economy.)

More to come.
Stay tuned.
Please?

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I highly encourage everyone who hasn’t seen FED UP to watch it..

Suddenly, after my viewing, I feel like a very irresponsible parent..

Here I am, a lover of food and cooking my own meals.. but at the same time in a constant battle with my child about how he should eat. He is about to turn four—and I worry some of the bad habits have already become too ingrained in him to change.

However, after watching FED UP, I am just angry.
Purely angry.

Some day in the future, a generation—maybe my son’s—will look back in anger at the previous for making the world a very sugar-addicted unhealthy place.

The link here:
http://fedupmovie.com/


And it’s on iTunes



And if you really REALLY want a challenge, take it on the site: http://fedupmovie.com/#/page/fedupchallenge

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The chain (restaurants) that bind us (up)

If you haven't been to the OLIVE GARDEN lately, and enjoy consuming a reckless amount of unhealthy chemically processed foods, then have they got the deal for you: Imagine the task consuming never ending pasta for a month. And salad. And bread. And toilet-cleansing Coke products. For seven weeks! And for just a mere $100!

Could it get any more heart-ending than that?
Before your palpitate into oblivion, there are some problems.
First off, the website is having more problems than Healthcare.gov. Lots of 404 errors and endless timeouts trying to sign up for the body fat increasing deal. 

But 1000 lucky folks bought the pass in just 45 minutes--a sellout promotion for the Darden restaurant. They still own this one, unlike their former friends at the Red Lobster.

For those 1000 people, they are about to enjoy this, based on 7 straight days of pasta for 7 straight weeks, as the pass allows them to enjoy, and from the Olive Garden's own website (I picked Chicken Parm because that's my favorite--when it's not from the OLIVE GARDEN):

• 30,380 calories
• 1,323 grams of fat
• 77,000+ milligrams of sodium
• Only 196 grams of fiber.

You'll need to increase the fiber to release the toxins of such high amounts of life-ending pasta dinners.

Oh, and those numbers are conservative, as they don't feature the fun of the high fructose bread and insane amounts of sodium-leveled salad dressing.

So eat up.

Enjoy..

See you in 7 weeks, lucky 1000.

Here's to you, troopers 'til the end!

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Return to the battlefield

For reasons unknown to me, I was asked back to cater an event after many years in virtual retirement. And I accepted.
It was good to be back.. but what amazed me is how little anything changes. Same menu.. same curtains.. same rug.  Sure, some of the more obscure things alter over time, but the big deals in a restaurant remain the same. And the customers? That's the same, too..

Let me preface the next part of this post with this this word of caution: I quit drinking this year. Full flat out quit drinking.. (an occasional glass of wine if I go out, but my consumption dropped 99.9% compared to how I was a bit of ago.) And months not into my quitting, my health has improved dramatically, along with my mood, and my mental presence. I sort of abhor what alcohol did to me, and what it robbed from me. I may talk a bit more in the future on SOUP ON MY FLY, but that will be it for now.

But... the people tonight at the wedding party sure didn't discover what alcohol has been doing to them. People younger than me looked about ten years older than me.. The bellies all were concealed at first. But after a big dinner of high fructose and salt, a few inches popped out. When the drinking games began and the dancing turned into a sloppy drunk fest of shoes flying and arms flailing, the guts burst from the underbelly like a volcano of liver spots.

It was brutal..
There were a few girls who, I thought, were fine. Attractive, I would even say.. A few hours into the wedding reception, their were attempting to stand up with a drink quivering in their hand.. they went from a size 0 to appearing pregnant. Their liver swelling up while they ingested more and more alcohol.. as though it was the end of time. They partied like it was 1999--while the awkward DJ actually played the Prince song.

Things don't change..

I saw a few people of local yocal fame that I knew from my late teens. Don't get me wrong, I am suffering the widow's peak of male baldness beginning, but when your nose is turning a bright shade of near purple and their bellies are protruding so far that they most likely can't even see themselves in their vicinity when they urinate, it just looks worse.

And that is that.
Along with chicken, turkey, and fish that ... sort of seemed extra fishy in the late summer.

It was good to be back, though.
It revived my deep pain of not having a restaurant, and made me convinced that serving food to people is both a blessing and a curse at the same time. It's yin and yang..

I dislike wedding rehearsal dinners. I enjoy being a server at funerals.. I  don't hate wedding, though.. I actually love them.
They sort of remind me of what I love and hate about life: Watching people in love share a special moment (though eating cake off of each other's noses gave me the creeps) ...and watching people drink themselves into oblivion reminds me of how many ways we can poison ourselves with manmade chemical concoctions.

But it's good to be back.

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The new menu

What do you want on it?

Food..?

Drink.. 

Humor?

Stink..

There's so much to eat and so little time.

It's been some time since I blogged here on the SOUP, but I am ready and poised to knock em and sock em again..

While my experiences in the restaurant world have been confined to attempting to find something on menus palatable for my three-year-old son to devour, I have not lost the love..

I think a little conquest back into the server world is in order..

But before that occurs, here's a run down of what I have been doing since you last read my text..

I still work full time in a job unrelated to the food world. And I miss the food world quite a bit.. But forays in restaurants are only to eat as of late.. But that's less and less. I am making a ton more home cooked meals on my own.. I plan on utilizing this website as a way to tell you how I do it and what the finished product looks like.

I do fear, though, becoming just one of those typical food sites. There's enough out there that you don't need me telling you how to eat.

But I will offer this concept: The one ingredient diet..

It's less a diet and more a lifestyle.

And I am attempting, every day, to stick by it.

My idea for this began about a year ago when I realized how much I was sitting. And sitting.. and not moving. An unhealthy sedentary lifestyle  was not what a body needs. On top of that,  my food choices were just about horrible.

My beer intake was on par with my wine. And fast food..

So I figured it was high time to alter the course of my overweight destiny.

Since achieving a new found dislike of the alcohol I once cherished, and eliminating most if not all (sometimes) of the pre-made frankenfood, I lost nearly 20 pounds and can see my feet once again at urinals. But even better: I feel good. I get tired, sure.. But who doesn't? We aren't all superhumans who never get a little sick or cranky. For the most part, I really feel better.

Little bread.. pizza on occasion.. Fried foods only if I do it myself in coconut oil.. And the rest from scratch. My own sauces.. my own concoctions. My own ideas.

I am not a health expert.. Any advice I offer is not medically proven. But I don't think it's unsound..

A few nights ago, I made tacos with kale and red cabbage.. Last night fried shrimp with a fresh basil, tomato, and brown sugar topping..

I will begin my best to share what I know and how I know it..
With that, the new and spiffy SOUP ON MY FLY will still feature the biting humor, the tales from the grind, and quite possibly an occasional story of night or two banquet serving. 

If I do it. If the mood is right.

Until then.. I'm 34 and still bake my own bread.

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Twists and turns no the path of life

A few months ago I said I was re-entering the restaurant world.
I did, sort of.. For a time at least.
For a few personal reasons, my return to serving was brief. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but things did not work out.
I am taking a different path, a new approach, and hoping you'll stick around a bit longer here on SOUP ON MY FLY.
I have some ideas for this site.. I expect to unveil some changes soon..
New posts..
New thoughts.
New stories.
New menu..
We are the same site... but being redesigned like a menu in a chain restaurant.
Hope it works out better for us than it did Ruby Tuesday..

STAY TUNED..

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Let there be soup on your flies, too

We are on Facebook.
I know chances are, you are too..
So come on .. it's one click. Just like us.
Or ignore it...Like a bad menu item at your least favorite chain..

www.facebook.com/souponmyfly

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To serve man

SOUP ON MY FLY began as a way to document the non-exciting life and times of a server in the modern restaurant world. I tried to impact lives with thoughts about what it means to actually 'serve' to others.. the weird folks you meet along the way.
I was joined when this site first started by lots of others doing the same thing.
And now, I have come to notice, that they sort of have fallen away.. Their websites linger without updates, stale content just waiting to be deleted by whatever server the information is hosted on.

In 2011, I had a son named Ayden. I decided at that time to step away from the heat and go into submission.. My main job, which I don't blog about, still exists. Catering/serving/bartending was always my secondary employment--but so often took up the most mental thought time.. Now, three years and some days after Ayden was born, the need for supplementary income has taken shape, and a new job is born: Serving again.

There is some natural guilt, though. I will be working as part of part time as I can--being a father and being a husband are really the most important jobs I have, and they are two jobs that mean a lot more than throwaway cash.  There is a delicate balance, one I intend on balancing and succeeding in. And if the second job doesn't as well for me as it did before I had a child.. it's off. Over. Kerplunk.
Either way you'll hear about it.

So expect more content.. I don't want to let SOUP ON MY FLY get too cold..
Maybe I can turn this sucka into a book one day.
It worked for other.
Maybe me?

Serve away Merril!
We're coming back.

TO SERVE MAN

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Soup is on the pot.. more to come

A new part time serving job awaits .. More to come on that.
I'm getting back into the game after two years of retreat..
Let the stories begin.

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So..............

I want to have a good truck. What y'all think of that?

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