IT'S TRUE, MARY HAS MOVED TO TOWN...

I was a bit skeptical when I read my friend, Tom's post about a new Hamburger Mary's opening in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. All of the others are located in much larger cities or areas with much larger gay populations. You can find Hamburger Mary's in places like San Fransisco, Palm Springs and West Hollywood. But to my surprise, it's true! Mary has moved in to Iowa.

Andrew and I were heading to Home Depot last weekend and decided to check out the location that was advertised on the website to see if there actually was a building under construction. Much to our surprise, there was a building. It even had a "Hamburger Mary's" sign on it, AND it was open! Huh? The first I'd heard of it was on Tom's blog. We'd seen no advertising leading up to it's opening.

We'll definitely check it out and give it a try. Having never eaten at a Hamburger Mary's, I don't really know what the menu is like. If it's good I'll support it. But, I must say, if it's not, the fact that it's a gay owned and markets to the LGBT community probably won't be enough for me to go back. Although, for those reasons, I do hope it is good and does well.

If any of you have been there before, give me a heads-up on what you think about it.

HE'S GONNA KILL ME FOR THIS...

I'm not really sure what his fascination for this thing is. Apparently his Mom had one as he was growing up.

For me, a plain old box grater works just great and when you're finished with it you just toss it into the dishwasher. No mess, no fussing with taking it all apart just to clean it. Plus, by the time you take this thing out of the cupboard, search through the utensil drawer for the correct blade, assemble all the parts, plug it in, cut the cheese into blocks small enough to fit into the hopper, then begin grating the cheese, I could have the cheese all grated and the box grater into the dishwasher. Job done.

about two years ago he decided life without one of these electric chopper/grater things like his Mom has would just not be worth living. So, he searched eBay until he found it. Exactly like his Mom's. Circa 1972. Oh my God, it was even in it's original box! (Proof that no one actually uses these things.) Fast forward about 6 days and it had come home and had it's own special place in one of our lower kitchen cabinets.

Last night we made tacos for dinner. What do you usually have with tacos? Grated cheese. I chopped the tomatos, (he actually let me use one of the new Wustof knives I got him for Christmas. nice!) and got the grater out of the drawer and began grating the cheese. He turned from the stove where he was frying the hamburger and saw what I was doing and said, "you just will not use the Moulinex, will you?" Huh? Truthfully, it never even crossed my mind.

Now, I like my modern conveniences probably more than most other people I know. If there is a gadget that makes a task easier and more fun, I'm all over it. But, If it creates more work than doing the task manually, I can't be bothered.

One example in our house is the dishwasher. I will pack every dirty kitchen item from the can opener to the giant stock pot into it. If there is a dishwasher available, I don't do dishes by hand. I hate doing dishes. Andrew thinks that's silly. He'll wash all the pans by hand because they just take up too much space in the dishwasher, whereas if I have to run the dishwasher twice in one day, I'm totally cool with that.

Oh well, if it makes you happy, sweetheart, use your Moulinex everyday if you like. But If I'm doing the clean up, it's going into the dishwasher.