Mmmmm, completely worth having to listen to the smoke alarm go off!
All of us, even those who would consider themselves to be in that strange group of “normal people,” have something that truly sets us apart from everyone else. We all have at least one trait or preference that would make the average person think we need to be fitted for a designer straitjacket. I could list all of my personal weirdness on this blog and likely achieve a year long posting streak… and I’d be tempted to do just that since I completely own most of the things that make me unique.
Sorry, I can’t call the kettle black…
But there is a critical mass to the amount of weirdness most people can stand from other people, and at some point you will go from being considered adorably different to being a complete freak who needs to stay away from civilized society. No worries, though, I’m not here today to towel-snap you with my freak flag… this post is merely dedicated to one of those quirks that keeps me marching to the beat of a different subwoofer. And that oddity would be the fact that I love burnt food… the darker the better!
Cookies? For me!?!? Why, thank you!!!
I’m pretty sure I owe this taste for culinary overdoneness to my dear mother, who is to cooking what Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was to Chicago. I like my fried chicken, steaks and hamburgers black. Toast and cookies…. extra, extra, extra crispy please. The longer something’s been sitting under that heat lamp, the better! At least I never had to worry about getting some crippling form of food poisoning from undercooked meat.
Botulism brought down the communist empire, not Reagan.
I love Cheez It brand snack crackers, and it was always a treat when I’d find one of the chips that had obviously been left in the factory oven too long and had one of its sides blackened. So tempted was I by the tastefulness of these rare crispy edged mutants that I realized it would be easy to make my own batch by simply throwing a bunch of Cheez Its in a pan and burning them myself in the oven! So what if it made the house smell like burnt ass for a few hours and made my sisters cough and gag…. damn, those things were good!
Burn, baby, burn!
I used to occasionally mention this fascination on my Millionaire message board back in the day, and got the strangest of virtual looks from those who are obviously above the rich taste of scorched edibles. I was so sure this burnt Cheez It fascination was one of the truly unique things about me until I happened to be shopping in the snack aisle a couple weeks ago and found this…
Food of the demons!
Could it really be….. a box full of….. pre-burnt Cheez Its!?!? Well, they’re definitely not as dark as I would have destroyed made them back in the days when I had an oven, but they’re a hell of a lot better than a box of plain, unburnt crackers! But what really blew me away was that big yellow banner on top of the box… extra toasty Cheez Its were apparently their “#1 Requested Cheez It® Flavor!” Could it be I’m not really as strange as I think I am when it comes to preferring what goes in my mouth to be thoroughly cooked?
Unfortunately, all of my fellow burnt Cheez It lovers didn’t also have the good sense to boycott Facebook… hey, I’m still unique after all!
Apparently the Cheez It suggestion line was getting flooded with people who also loved those oddball burnt chips just as much as I did, demanding that they leave their crackers in the oven just a bit longer. And even at that, it still took “years” for the corporate vice president of Cheez Its to give the thumbs up to making a slightly more burnt version of the snack favorite. Nevermind that Cheez It, like every other salty snack brand, continually grinds out completely ridiculous new flavors all the time that people born with taste buds would never want to touch, let alone request… like ketchup and mustard style potato chips, chocolate covered Ritz crackers, or spicy possum flavored Doritos. For once, a company actually listened to its consumers rather than the trained monkeys they employ in the product development department who apparently got their business degrees from the University of Sally Struthers…
That animal sciences degree really came in handy at the company picnic.
So here’s a salute to Extra Toasty Cheez Its and to realizing you’re never as weird and unique as you think you are. And the idea that maybe, just maybe, the powers that be at our beloved WordPress will one day have the same customer service epiphany that Cheez Its had when it finally decided to give the customers what they wanted…
It’s about #$@^&* time, bitch!!!
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I’m going to have to look for some of those extra toasty Cheez Its! I’m usually not a fan of well done food but burned cheese is strangely delicious. Do your sisters share your love of extra-toasty food? I wonder if I’m setting my kids up to like burned quesadillas because they’re the one thing I always burn!
I’m not sure that they do, so maybe I am just really weird. If you kids like the burnt quesadillas, I’d bet they’d develop a strong like for them! See what the squirrels think of extra roasted peanuts…
I don’t think the kids are liking the burnt quesadillas just yet. Maybe after a few hundred more they’ll be disappointed on the rare Taco Tuesday that I manage to NOT burn them! 🙂
I like my hot dogs burnt. Does that count as weird? Shit, I hope so.
We’ll have to ask Oscar Meyer if a lot of people write in to them requesting burnt wieners…
Good idea! Once you go burnt you never go back!
Absolutely. Set that oven to broil!
*sizzle*
You would LOVE my son’s barbeque. Unidentifiable crispy critter with barbeque sauce. Mm mm good.
My mouth is watering as you speak…..
Gonna be looking for these…thanks for the share…btw I don’t have Facebook either. There are more of us.
I am surprised how many people I find who comment about not having a FB account on other blogs, but rarely find a blog that isn’t linked up to both it and Tweeter. YAY for us old schoolers, and hope you find the burnt Cheez Its!
Ugh, I hate burnt food. My dad on the other hand loves it. As a kid, apparently he used to burn toast and then crumble it into his porridge.
I guess at least that explains where I get some of my oddities from…
My favorite way to burn toast is to smush in the middle, giving dark, toasty edges and a crisp charred middle… and I was so darn sure that made me unique until a lady I work with noticed how I made toast in the break room and commented that her son made toast that was as well. Crumbled, burnt toast crumbs are the best! You dad had fine taste!
I think the only reason he doesn’t eat his porridge that way anymore is because he doesn’t eat porridge much these days.
I will honestly say my only familiarity with porridge is from the Three Bears story. It doesn’t sound like something I’d like to eat, whatever it is!
Oats cooked in milk and/or water.
You should post your address so that I have a home for that one batch of cookies that always gets forgotten until it’s like smoky charcoal. 😉
If I posted a picture of the cookies my sister made me for Christmas, they’d look a lot like that one I found on the internet… and of course, she did it intentionally knowing that’s how I like them! I would probably eat them!
You could get a steady supply of burnt things and provide a public service. Win-win!
You get amazing things to try in America. (snot fair!) 😀
Snot Fair was one of those failed Cheez It flavors. Not everything we get is good… 😉
There are certain foods I like a little bit burned as well. However, biscuits/cookies are not one of them! There’s nothing quite like a little burning on the outside of a sausage, however.
I wonder if it would be possible to have crispy chileh? I did come across a burnt pizza while I was looking for those images and wondered what you would have thought about it! 😉
I’m the same, kinda, I like my toast well done and usually overcook most things to make sure all the little bacteria are out, that’s my excuse anyway, because it sounds much better than just being absent minded and forgetting lol
Crispy bacteria! Yum yum!!! I’ll have a bowl of that, please!
Preferably on burnt toast right? lol
I’m not particularly a fan of burnt food, but I definitely seem to possess some rather…unique qualities. Hence the name Quirky Girl. 😛
Quirkiness is awesome. Life is far more exciting when you’re not an exact clone of everyone else around you. “Normal” is so overrated!
True. And people don’t seem to realize that “normal” is just an average of traits. I doubt anybody out there is 100% normal… and if there is, then they are ironically enough unique!
My father likes burnt food, but that trait is not genetic apparently. Burnt = thrown out for me.
That’s more for the raccoons and possums…
I haven’t had a toasty Cheez It, but I do love the more well done versions of the Premium brand of saltine crackers. When I would get a sleeve of those in our regular pack of 4, it was like I had received a special treat! YUMMO!
YES!!!! The ones where the edges are all burnt down one side! And the same goes with oyster crackers, which I eat straight out of the bag since I’m not a soup or chili fan…
I love burnt things too – and they are so easy to cook…
It’s very easy if you aren’t impatient….. or overly hungry!
LOL!
My hubby is a burnt freak when it comes to meat and cookies, the blacker the better! Yuck! give me a Med. Rare please! But then he bitches when I burn the grilled cheese,??
I guess the more Carcinogenics in the blood the better !!
Hey, you gotta die sometime! May as well go with a bunch of delicious burnt food in my belly…
Well I sure hope your teeth are healthy, you don’t want to have no teeth and to try to gum sharp burnt cookies!! good luck with that!!
Ha! One of my favorite treats used to be eating spaghetti raw out of the box. OK, my teeth have since told me I can’t enjoy that anymore…
LMAO
My family always makes fun of me because my idea of toast is bread that’s slightly crunchy but still mostly white.
I think there should be a honey mustard and onion Cheez-Its