The Anti-Foodie: Boise, ID

One evening when our friends Steven and Joanne were over for dinner, comments were being made about David's many food issues.  In an effort to semi-defend him I said, "He's just not a foodie".  Steven said, "Yes he is.  He would drive his motorcycle all the way to Boise just to eat at Popeye's Chicken."  And I immediately realized Steven was right.  David is a foodie.  A Crap Foodie!  Or as I now think of it, an Anti-Foodie, like the Anti-Christ only with food.  He stands for everything that is the opposite of what traditional foodies stand for.

In my mind foodies are interested in quality ingredients, whole, organic food and they are open to trying a lot of different things - squid and brains and quinoa.  For David, it is the opposite.  The Dollar Menu?  Absolutely.  Pesticides?  Bring them on.  And there is a long list of things he will not eat.  Like onions in any form, cooked or not.  Lettuce, forget it and if it even so much as touches anything he is going to eat, it is over.  Almost all vegetables are out of the question.  Strawberries or anything strawberry flavored.  He will eat spinach from a can but not raw or when I wilt it from scratch. He is more interested in Pop-Tarts and Spam.  Hot and Spicy Pork Rinds.  Frozen Pizza and Kraft Mac & Cheese.  Ranch Style Beans with cut up Earl Campbell's Hot Links is a staple when I am out of town.

And he WAS planning a trip to Boise.  He had brought it up more than a few times.  Boise happens to be the nearest city that has a Popeye's Chicken.  One of the main things he misses about living in the Dallas area is proximity to restaurants and in particular, fast food.  Popeye's is at the top of his list along with Jack-in-the-Box, Sonic and Whataburger, all places we do not have here.  To drive home how much he misses it...Boise is SEVEN  HOURS away.

So with his 50th birthday approaching and my general aversion to purchasing gifts for people who aren't lacking anything, I wanted to do something different.  I decided to drive him to Boise for chicken.  I started looking at what there is to do in Boise, as it is so far that we will have to stay overnight, and saw that The Zac Brown Band was going to be at the University there so I bought us tickets.  They also have an Escape Game.  I enjoyed that so much in Nashville and thought it would be right up his alley so I booked that too.

When I told him that for his birthday we were going to Boise and presented him with our travel itinerary and tickets (including the address for Popeye's), he was very excited we would be there more than one day.

 

I don't hear anything but David swears he hears angels singing.

He tells me before we leave that he plans to eat there 3 times.  Once on Friday night, the day we arrive, once on Saturday, before the Escape Game, and lunch on Sunday before we go home.  I inform him that I don't plan to eat there even one time but as it turned out, it didn't work out for either one of us.  We arrive in Boise and check in to our hotel and have just over an hour to get to the concert.  Popeye's is across town.  By the time we get there we really don't have time to go to a second place for me so, trying to be the good wife and considering this is his birthday trip, I suck it up and we go in.

David orders his favorite chicken strips.  He is almost giddy.  I try not to eat meat other than fish and fortunately they offer both shrimp and catfish.  However, I am weird about the possibility of food poisoning, something I have had multiple times, and it takes me a bit to weigh the options.  I go with the shrimp. Fingers crossed.

 

This photo is blurry because I am laughing.  Eating with David is a lot like eating with a small child.  He can watch me take food out of the oven or off the stove and put it on a plate and he will immediately try to eat it and burn his mouth.  Every. Time.

 

See?  It has been "SO LONG".  He couldn't wait.

My shrimp is terrible.  I ate about half only because my expectations for options at the concert are low.  In my mind, the first stages of imminent, unavoidable food poisoning have begun.  David ordered a 5 piece but they gave him 7.  He ate them all.  In the car on the way to the concert, he is regretting that decision.  "They were just so good," he says.  But he is miserable.  He's lucky I have Tums in my purse.

We never ate at Popeye's again.  He said the 7 pieces were the amount he might have expected to eat over the whole 3 days so he got it out of the way all at once.  We did make the pilgrimage to Sonic and Jack-in-the-Box, both for breakfast.  And we did find one other place he was quite happy with on a side trip, more on that next time. 

 

We Escaped at the Escape Game (with 30 seconds to spare in a 2 person team, something the worker said is very hard to do) and I thankfully escaped another trip to Popeye's.  Two wins in one day. 

If you are ever in the Salt Lake City airport Terminal B, you can swing by Popeye's.  Maybe you will see me there trying go soak up the smell for when I get home.  It's better than any perfume I could buy as far as David is concerned.  But soaking up the smell is all I will be doing.  I definitely won't be eating.  Even if you are buying.