My journey to the mound of meat started with a bang.
I woke up this morning, completely unaware that I was going to experience the meat mound later that morn. Yes, I was naive. Yes, I was bright-eyed.
Alas, when the sun shone bright in the sky, I never thought I would see a molehill of ground goodness before me. Birds chirped in the trees, calling out to miles of meat unminced. It was a day for rain; but alas it did not. I prayed for rain, but God mistook my prayers for mounds upon mounds of meat.
I began my day. A normal breakfast I did have. Butter of the most perfect peanuts with banana and bread of the healthiest wheat. I sprang into action. My job! Oh, how I love it! A professional poster! But I was not prepared for the Instagrammable bovine innards I was to meet.
In recent days, I watched my favorite man: Meatloaf. Mr. Meat, as a former leader of this country once called him. Mr. Meat, an incredible man. A visionary of voice. His performances as a 70 year old man made me smile. Mr. Meat can achieve, so why can't I?
This morning, I felt like Mr. Meat. But it was not the Meatloaf of his hit 1993 album Bat Out of Hell 2, for which my life is indebted. No, it was the Meatloaf of his Celebrity Apprentice meltdown aimed at prolific and famed actor Gareth Busey when the aforementioned was falsely accused of stealing Meatloaf's paintbrushes.
Like Meatloaf singing the Rice-a-Roni theme song, news from San Francisco hit me with a cacophonous clamor. Not accepted to the halls of a great university? And for reasons of luck? Chance? My top school? Because of politics? We are still on our road to meat.
I was wished well. But I questioned. How could this happen? How could I, who would do anything for love, be minced out of the admissions process even though my application was unroastable?
I stopped. And you want to know something?
"Sometimes I pray to the god of sex and drums and rock 'n roll."— Meatloaf
And sometimes I do. And what's better than sex and drums and rock and roll? Soup. And what's great with soup? Meat.
My mother called, asking if I wanted the gift of broth. I said yes, and she went off to Brent's Deli. Off to Northridge she went, to the superior Brent's to the one in Westlake, if I may say so myself. Northridge, home of Congressman Bradley Sherman. Northridge, a place slightly better than Van Nuys. The home of the Harvard of CSUs. A place where dreams come true.
The soup? A delicacy of my people. The mish-mosh. A mish-mosh of meat? No. Rice, noodles, carrots, chicken...I felt like Meatloaf about to start one of his best performances ever, stirring up the crowd with thrusts and hoots. But what was this mish-mosh missing?
Yiddish words are funny. In the old country, they would send you to the czar if you suggested the mish-mosh. Not a mentsch! But this was the mish-mosh, and with the mish-mosh comes one other thing: the kreplach.
My mound of meat.
Oh, the kreplach. How wonderfully plump, of what salacious design. A doughy outside, boiled to perfection. An inside of the finest minced mystery meat known to my culture.
My depression from the bad news out of the bay stirred my hunger. But as I took a look at this puffy pastry, I realized...this was a mound of meat.
I had never seen mounds of meat like this before. Mounds and mounds. Piles of beefy pellets. A face's worth of fleshy cow. Meat, meat, meat. I had the meat.
"Some days it don't come easy." — Mr. Meat
Things were not easy. I was horrified by the meat. I had never seen so much meat. Incredible. Meat!
The soup was alike much matzo ball soup I have had before. The taste, perfectly fine, but it did not raise me to the highest notes of Meatloaf's register. The carrots, a little poorly cut for my advanced tastes. The noodles, slimy. The chicken, very much a disturbance upon my tongue. Like Meatloaf's pants right before a split in the middle of a 20 minute performance of a classic hit, I was wholely unprepared for what this Meat was going to do to me.
Yes, it was a most unpleasant soup. An average viscosity.
But I took one look at that mound of meat. That mound of meat. Oh, you mound of meat!
Perhaps my life is not so bad after all. Perhaps, with such luck in the deli aisle, I can have luck on my other graduate school applications. My top school, taken away by politics. Meat, given to me by deli clerks.
My life had come full circle. Here I stand, in front of a mound of meat.
"I would do anything for love."
Soup Score: 4.2/10
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