I’ve always enjoyed the Jurassic Park movies, especially the first one. Jeff Goldblum’s character told the park creator, “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” I think of that quote quite often because I see so many examples of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
In general, most Texans love their fried foods. We deep fry our potatoes, fish, squash, pounded steak, and the list goes on and on. Most Texans believe if it can be battered and deep fried, so much the better. Nowhere is this more evident than at the State Fair of Texas. Every year, the Dallas news media provides an in-depth preview of all the new deep-fried foods available for our culinary explorations.
Perhaps we should blame the guy who first put a wiener on a stick, battered it up and deep fried it to create the corny dog. We love our food on a stick. However, there are those misguided souls who try to mimic that great culinary invention by poking a stick in almost any food to facilitate the deep frier.
A couple of years back, vendors at the fair came out with deep fried Snickers bars, deep fried potato salad and even deep-fried Twinkies. Now, I find there are some new deep-fried delicacies including Deep Fried Nutella Custard Stuffed French Toast and Deep-Fried Chicken Cordon Bleu Stuffed Waffles. Hmmm! I actually sampled the “Texas Twinkie” and was validated in my opinion that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
I love Halloween because that’s the time of year when everything comes with a pumpkin spice alternative such as coffee creamer, candles, donuts, and lattes, to name just a few. Don’t get me wrong, I love my pumpkin spice because not only does it smell good, it also reminds me that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner, complete with those sumptuous pumpkin pies.
Sadly, I recently saw another example of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” It seems that Kraft has introduced a pumpkin spice flavored macaroni and cheese. There’s a pumpkin spice flavor packet in the box as well as a packet of cinnamon to sprinkle on top. They recommend that it be served in a coffee mug. I’m sure there are some people out there who will simply love this new variation of our favorite go-to side dish, but not this boy.
I wish Goldblum’s revelation were limited to food, but obviously it is not. I love watching reruns of old shows like Father Knows Best, Andy Griffith, Gilligan’s Island, and Leave it to Beaver. These were some of our favorite shows as kids. They came on TV as soon as we got home from school and were actually our de facto babysitters while Mom prepared dinner.
You can imagine my shock and dismay when I recently turned on the ME network, the official repository of all the old television shows, to find someone had the audacity to colorize the old black and white Dick Van Dyke Show. I imagine some young television editor thought this would be a good idea and someone believed them.
Sacrilege!! It just goes to show that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
