The Need to Write, The Need to Hate

I’ve been getting annoyed a lot recently, not that me getting annoyed is in anyway anomalous. I am someone who gets annoyed: whether a person (or group) is being a jerk or too nice (in a an ostensibly genuine but upon closer inspection not altogether genuine way), too loud or too soft spoken, too dumb or too erudite, admittedly there’s a thin tipping point in my book where something goes from just right, to just not. But I’m not a hypocrite–(or at least not an unknowing hypocrite, we’re all hypocrites after all) I’m annoying too.

But getting annoyed is not, you know, a trait I’m interested in nurturing. I’m self-aware enough to know that an over abundance of getting-annoyed-ness has more to do with me than with the world around me, that I have some power in getting annoyed less and that getting annoyed less would probably have the effect of, rather intuitively, me being less annoyed, which seems pretty good.

So I’ve done a bit of science on this situation. Having a predisposition to getting annoyed, I’m going to need somewhere to channel this propensity. And that’s where you, neglected cilantro hate blog, come in: nothing is more reliably, even comfortingly, annoying than cilantro, and unlike say republicans hellbent on stopping health care reform, cilantro being you know an herb, as opposed to near-half the American population, seems like a healthier, easier and altogether more fun place to direct my annoyance.

There are other reasons, too, why I’ve come to think revisiting this blog might mitigate this annoyance phase (don’t we all live in phases? I know I do.). Principally, I very much miss writing and not just writing, but writing about something that is so uniquely mine, not the hate of cilantro–we’re a large, vocal group–but the whatever unique blend of memoir, personal philosophy and of course cilantro hate encounters this blog evolved into. In no uncertain terms: my blog is way better than ThisIsWhyYou’reFat, however fun it is (I guess), but rather than be annoyed with how much better my blog is, it seems a better use of time to write my blog than be annoyed that other people are writing (popular) stupid ones. With that I bring you….

The Week in Cilantro Hate:

1.) Thank you Vanessa for your tip on McDonald’s’ new salad, the Southwest Chicken Salad, which features cilantro lime chicken and some sort of Ranch dressing with cilantro in it. Now, call me a snob if you will but Ranch dressing isn’t my first choice, and McDonald’s chicken belongs in a group (with say haggis) of “meats I don’t want to eat” (As a side note, I’m dabbling in veganism at the moment), but McDonald’s: consider yourselves removed from my cilantro safe-restaurant list, a blow certainly as detrimental as Fast Food Nation, Super Size Me and Food Inc. combined (oh wait, McDonald’s is doing better than ever?)

2.) This morning I had a falafel platter at Miriam in Brooklyn that came with a green tahini sauce. I of course asked if it was green from the addition of parsley or cilantro. “Both,” said the waitress, “but you really can’t taste the cilantro.”

“But, I really hate it.”
“So do I, you can’t taste it.”
“Is it on the side?”
“Yes.”
“Cool, I’ll try it.”

Guess what? I couldn’t taste it. I didn’t eat much of it, but I really didn’t taste it. This leaves me wondering if there was actually cilantro in it or if the amount was so small that even I couldn’t taste it (this doesn’t seem likely, haters know even the slightest amount is totally egregious). In any case, the waitress was surprisingly right, and it was great to not be annoyed.