I'm so tired of hearing about ...

I don't know about you people (yes you, there in the back row! you too!), but there are certain food phrases and ingredients with which I'm totally fed up! (Pun intended ... heh).

First of all: ciabatta bread. There isn't a bread that's more "now," more "it," more "hot" than ciabatta. Why? What does ciabatta bread have that's missing from a French baguette, a hoagie roll, a kaiser roll, sourdough, rye or even multi-grain bread? Oh, of course. It's Italian! And it's spelled different than it looks — looks like "see-uh-bat-tuh," pronounced "chuh-bah-tuh." Fancy! Must be good! I don't know about you, but this bread really just goes against my grain. (Heh. There it is yet again!)

And then there's ranch. Now, don't get me wrong — I LOVE ranch. It's one of my very favorite salad dressings of all time. Of the garden-variety (punnery once more! heh!) salad dressings that all restaurants usually have — vinaigrette, bleu cheese, French, Italian, Japanese (a regularity here, in not where you are) — I would usually choose ranch. I like that it's creamy and ... well, ranchy. But fuck. There are bacon-ranch burgers, ranch chicken sandwiches, ranch bread ... bread! It's overexposed and half baked! (Zing! Does he ever stop?) Time to pull back on the use of ranch.

The same goes for mushroom-Swiss anything. All the major fast-food restaurants seem to have a mushroom-Swiss sandwich of one kind or another — and often it also includes ranch! Ranch-mushroom-Swiss burger! Arg! Swiss used to be exotic for the American palate. We used to only know American, cheddar (mild, medium and sharp). Swiss was "fancy" cheese, for that deli sandwich you ordered. No one really had it in their homes. And you can't seemingly have mushrooms unless it comes with Swiss. But why not mushrooms and goat cheese? Or Muenster? Frankly, my dear, I don't give Edam! (Heh! Ze punster strikes again!)

And, finally, the ingredient that I despise the most for overuse and overexposure and over-everyting.

Chipotle. I curse thee, chipotle, with every fiber of my being, with every ounce of my soul. Foul pepper, thine name be "chipotle!"

And I blame Bobby fucking Flay for the rise of the chipotle. No one outside of the Southwest or Mexico knew what a chipotle was five years ago. They just knew "hot peppers." The more knowledgeable know they were called chiles, and that there were many varieties, though most only knew of jalepeños. So why is chipotle so hot? (Punditry at its finest, ladies and germs!)

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• One of the Chamorro words for "food" is "inakpa'an."