Wasabi Prime: Mixed Plate: Happy Junk Food of July!

Today's a holiday. Well, if you're in the good ol' US of A, it's a holiday. We're such independent-minded spirits, we like to celebrate in true American style by drinking copious amounts of beer before blowing stuff up, and of course, junk food. So, keep all them fingers from gettin' all blowed-up, goodly Americans -- it's the Fourth of July!

If a Filet o' Fish were from an actual fish, it would be freaky - Illustration by Wasabi Prime

You probably already saw some of these little scribbles before. They were inspired by Twitter conversations about freaky fast food choices, but with the caviat that it still won't make us lose our taste for the unholy drive thru lane. And that's kind of all-American, our independence from common sense. We don't care that ocean critters don't actually come in filets of pressed fish-flesh in perfectly square shapes, or that the sauce they douse it in is probably a third of your calorie intake for the day. We don't care that there is no anatomical part of the chicken that is a "nugget." As Americans, we laugh boldly in the face of sanity -- I'm the first person to admit that after watching Super Size Me, while I wasn't craving a burger, during the rolling end credits of the movie, I said out loud that I still want French fries. God bless American persistence.

Chicken nuggets as actual chicks -- cute or disturbing? - Illustration by Wasabi Prime

It's obvious I didn't really have a big Fourth of July BBQ post ready -- that would have meant doing the BBQ in advance, pretending it was the Fourth and having it be all timely for the holiday. That would imply I'm prepared and on the ball. You don't know me very well if you thought that. Instead I thought, hey it's a holiday, no one's reading blogs on their one precious day off. Everyone's busy eating way too much food, right before the fireworks shows jar them awake from a massive food/booze coma. I'm likely making sure we're ready with the garden hose in hand, as where we live, there's hardly any fireworks laws and Duvall turns into the DMZ for a night. It's kind of a cool free fireworks show, with the added excitement of your house catching on fire from an errant mortar. America loves its independence so much, they'll blow everything up before letting anyone else take it away.

Microwave burritos don't have it as good as the free range ones - Illustration by Wasabi Prime

So aside from enjoying bad food that tastes good and the questionable logic behind liberal fireworks restrictions, what else can we celebrate about being all-American? Oh yes. Corn dogs. The invention that revolutionized the highly complex method of eating a hot dog, and still managed to find an excuse to add an element of deep frying. American ingenuity at its finest, and one of my childhood favorites. With any luck, my lifelong appreciation for highly processed foods will ensure that I'm as well-preserved as Roy Roger's horse, Trigger. Yee-haw, America, and happy Fourth!