Chris and Barb's food shopping consists of fast food or microwavable dinners.
Agreed perish the thought he would do something that requires a modicum of effort.
This. Chris and Barb genuinely never buy fresh groceries. When they lived in 14 BC before the fire the fridges were 'blocked off' and unused. I'm 100% sure the rental had a fridge but Chris really can't cook anything that doesn't come from a can and Barb won't. It seems that even when Barb did cook it was canned rather than fresh from the meals Chris has mentioned, canned greens with pasta and canned/bottled sauces. Barb never cooked from scratch. Chris learned to cook some simple meals in high school but without the groceries to make the food I'm sure he's forgotten those skills.
When they got to the rental microwave meals and cans or fast food were a lifetime habit and it never occurred to them to buy some nice fresh foods. I think I remember Chris saying he preferred canned meatballs to fresh ones. His tastebuds have been warped by the high sodium levels in the canned food, instant meals and fast food he's consumed so that explains why.
The only time they sort of eat cooked meals is when they go out to a restaurant and get doggie bags or stuff the chicken and stuff in their pockets. Otherwise it's all McDonalds and Hungry Man dinners.
I will never understand why people will buy frozen dinners because you just have to defrost and it won't go bad, but not snap frozen veggies that are really cheap and almost as good as fresh.
The secret to cooking is it's not hard, an needent take a ton of effort, I make bread quite a lot as I like my bread fresh an the smell of a fresh loaf is to die for once a month I maker a massive batch of dough portion it up into loaf tin slices and then freeze it the night before I want the bread I take it out the freezer let it thaw and bake it take about a Hour in total if you don't include cooking time.
Hell I made a pasta sauce last week took me what maybe 10 minutes an that was from scratch (Garlic an Herb cream cheese sauce, with mushrooms an Italian salami).
Part of the reason I think he eats fast food an ready meals is a perceived lack of waiting, he wants his desires filled immediately no haggle. His idea of cooking an fungible time he perceives the effort an time required to do do something as simple as the pasta I posted above seem like hours of effort. It's simpler to spork a plastic lid a few times crank the microwave to three minutes an fantasize about China / Sonic till the ding brings him back to reality.
I am not ragging on Chris for having microwave meals an tinned goods in the house, hell I have soup, baked beans, an a few other tings I can only get tinned in the cupboard and I know I have a microwave meal in the freezer for the odd time I come in at 3am an haven't passed a Kebab shop on the way home, but to live off that kind of meal an fast food alone makes me shudder. When I eat a ready meal I never enjoy it it's just that my body requires food and I am either to drunk or tired to care about quality.
I am one of those people. I often eat a frozen dinner with some fresh veggies on the side. Fresh veggies are if anything, more convenient then frozen. Other fresh stuff is a lot more work than throwing a stouffers in the microwave.
Although for me it is mostly just the type of veggies. I prefer lettuce, peppers, cucumber, broccoli and/or mushrooms. Which don't have good frozen forms.
Flash frozen Veg can be as good as fresh if you don't let it stew in the freezer for months
(there is a whole chapter on why this is bad in the Geeks cookbook about how the cold kill's of sugars an ensimes after a while) the biggie as you said is Mushrooms, I dry mine I buy or pick wild I have a food dehydrator but you can do it in a fan oven if you can get it at the right temperature
consistently enough you can rehydrate them with a little water or better yet a little water an olive oil.
Here is a tip for kiwi's, If you live by the sea an it's a clean water spot you can take sea wead fresh from the water, wash it off in some fresh water dry it off an fry it to make some delicious crisps that go great with beer an are naturally salted. Also you know
Nori? The sushi sea weed? the vast majority comes from outside of Japan an a huge chunk of it from the UK (
about 40% of world production if I am remembering right) so you can grab your bass rod, a few odds an sods from the kitchen an have really fresh sushi with minimal effort.
BTW I am not doing a Chris VS me comparison, Every one can cook good food from scratch if you pay more than a moments notice.
I think the selectivity might create the unreliability. He has become so good at blocking things out that once they are blocked out they are gone forever. And he probably is perfectly happy not to try very hard to remember them.
But if there was a wiki which documented me as closely as the CWCki documents Chris I would probably refer to it from time to time. I dont' remember the details of my life as closely as the CWCki documents Chris'.
That's a interesting point, I agree he is highly selective an also has poor recall of events but he also twists what he chooses to rember what he does in a way that makes him either seem right or in the way he chooses to recall the events at that time an it get's more unreliable as time goes on.
The thing is I think he does use the wiki as a aid memoir when it's needed (he checks the forum often enough) I would kill to have something as documented as the wiki at times an I am a guy who keep's a Journal, an notebooks an diary but when looking back at some of them I find little notes I have jotted down that are inconsequential today but the meaning of them without context baffle me (
12:40 JTT Banjaxed, I have never had a client that could be abbreviated or a sever / workstation that could be called JTT but I know from banjaxed it was fucked beyond repair) he not only has had the last ten minutes of his life documented in detail but a lot of events prior to that documented with sources other than Chris an his iffy memory.