Ironically, for a guy who calls himself Homie Bear, given that bears have the best sense of smell in the animal kingdom, I am anosmic. Doesn't bother me too much. I don't play it up but I don't hide it either (which is why, after 9 years, this is the first I mentioned it). What happens is, at work, after I mention to the guys that I don't have a sense of smell, I'll find myself in a truck and there will alla sudden be all this snickering, and I'll ask what? and they'll be like, we was just testing you man, we been letting 'er rip all day and you ain't said nothing, I guess you really can't smell! Just the other day my good buddy Jay was fueling me up and he mentioned how gross it was, every now and then he caught a whiff of the shitter. Hmm, I said. Oh sorry, he says, I keep forgetting you can't smell. That's okay, it's not like I was just thinking I wish I could smell that shitter.
Really, it's kind of a super power, especially when it comes to changing diapers. But it means food has always been kind of utilitarian to me, a bit. Our latest book club book was Ruth Reichl's Garlic And Sapphires all about when she was the food critic for the New York Times. On the one hand, it was fascinating that she could write about food in such a rich way- the fricassaise has an oceanic flavor but the sensual succulence of the truffles held a note of a hidden brook etc etc. For me it's kinda "It was yummy" or "It was yucky." On the other hand, there's only so much food writing I can take before I need to go read some comics. Snobbery doesn't sit well with me. Recihl is not the snob, though she falls into the trap of it a bit as she dresses up in disguise to avoid being recognized as the pre-eminent food critic in the world. I liked the book- I just didn't like the world it described. Sommeliers? Not part of my world. And Maitre d's that have no time for you? Come to my world for five minutes we'll see how you make out in a coal mine buddy. Yeah. I visited New York about nine years ago, my buddy Jon who grew up in the same small town as me moved there. So there we were in the East Village just outside a liquor store or something, we had just bought a bottle of wine (undoubtedly something cheap) and were just hanging out on the sidewalk when a rich new York lady all into fashion with her little pocket dog walks by, and she did the classic snobby thing where she sniffed and said "Excuse me" in those icy tones reserved for the editors of fashion magazines and the like and I just couldn't resist- I said, "Why, did you fart?" You can't take us provincial small town Albertans anywhere.