Nothin' But Sides (StumpJumper)

I love Boston Market. Seriously. I'm not the typical bachelor who lives off of ramen (not that there's anything wrong with ramen!). I can cook. Really well. ZombyBoy will back me up on this. Subsequently, I don't need a place like Boston Market in order to eat real food. I go to Boston Market out of pure, unadulterated, love.

Back In The Day [TM], Z and I shared an apartment. This lasted for about three years after he and his wife divorced. There are two things that he and I both do frequently and well: watch movies and eat. Combining those two activities, well, is just special. Pretty regularly during that time we would both be in the mood to just sit around on our lazy butts and throw a DVD in. To round out the evening we'd get food.

One of our favorite places to get food was the Chineese place up the road. We both love Asian food (I'd kill for a good Vietnameese spring roll right about now) and ZombyBoy had worked out the system. Next door to the Chineese restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall dive bar. We'd go to the restaurant and order food, walk to the bar and slam a few shots chased with a few drinks, walk back to the restaurant to pick up the take out, and drive home just as the buzz was hitting. Let me tell you, we had this down pat. It was a system and it worked. As great as it was though, the Boston Market trips were better.

Every once in awhile we would mix things up my getting the food from Boston Market. Usually this meant that we were celebrating something. Or, at the very least, the day became a celebration just because of Boston Market. What was so great is that ZombyBoy and I are both close friends of Excess. When we would go to Boston Market we weren't getting dinner, we were grocery shopping. Those handy little containers that they give you keep food fresh for days. We'd get dinner for three nights and lunch for two days, all in one trip. What was best about these little food orgies is that we rarely got any chicken (does anyone remember that Boston Market used to be Boston Chickes?). Nope, we'd usually just get side dishes. Nothing but sides. We'd get a couple of tubs of their mac and cheese, which is quite possibly the best mac and cheese in the world. We'd get loads of corn bread (damn, can we throw down some corn bread), a couple of buckets of stuffing, some mashed potatoes and gravy, some potato salad, some macaroni salad. You name it, we got the big dishes and usually ordered two. Then, of course, we'd throw in a couple of cookies for good measure. You might think that it's impossible for two guys to spend upwards of $60 at Boston Market and buy nothing but sides, but you'd be wrong. It isn't just possible, it's mandatory. Damn, those were good times.

Don't ask me what made me think of Boston Market today. I drive by one several days a week. It's right by the mall/strip mall/movie theater area of Akron/Cuyahoga Falls. I see it all of the time and I drive right by it. For some reason I started thinking about Boston Market this morning and now I have a craving. I think I'll go to Boston Market this weekend. My girlfriend is going out of town and so I plan to work out like a maniac and play a boat load of Soul Calibur 2. I think that a little Boston Market will be just the thing to round out the weekend.

Good times...