Story Sent in by Lillian:
Kevin insisted on making me belgian waffles for our one-month anniversary. Who was I to argue? Waffles are great.
He lay out a whole spread at his apartment kitchen, and the morning of our one-month, a Saturday, I drove over to enjoy the waffley goodness. There was just one problem: Kevin had drenched each and every waffle in salsa.
"Salsa?" I asked him, incredulous.
"They're Mexican waffles," he said, "Spicy."
He had gone to the trouble, and so despite the ludicrous idea of eating waffles with salsa, I grabbed one, thanked him, sat down, and took a bite.
They were awful. Not just "you mixed waffles with salsa" awful, but "you mixed 20-year-old salsa with waffles" awful. I nearly puked all over his floor.
He asked, "How is it?" and I noted that he hadn't yet tried one, himself.
I spat out the waffle bite I had taken and said, "I think the salsa's spoiled. Beyond spoiled."
He gave me a frown, then said, "Well, that answers that, then."
"What do you mean?"
He took my plate and threw the rest of my waffle, and then, the rest of the waffles period, into the trash. "I wasn't sure how long salsa was good for, but I guess you just answered my question." He smiled and said, "Want to go out for breakfast?"
I said, just to be sure of things, "So, you made waffles and drenched them in old, moldy salsa and fed one to me to see if the salsa was still good?"
"Which it wasn't," he reminded me, "Ready to go out somewhere?"
I said, "I'm ready to go, but somewhere else, not involving you."
I walked to the door. He sprang after me. "What are you doing?" he asked, "I went to the trouble of making you waffles, I offered to take you out to breakfast, and you're leaving? Explain."
I explained, "Moldy, old food can make people sick. Are you five? Did you not ever learn that?"
He said, "I did, I just… I don't know."
"Me neither. Bye."
I left. He called me (I let it go to voicemail) and sent me a couple of messages. The fact that he never once apologized convinced me that I did the right thing by never seeing him again.
Seems a bit drastic, don't you think? A lot of guys can be pretty clueless in the kitchen, I myself have some pretty hilarious stories (tuna helper & Cookie Crisp cereal was a staple to a guy friend in college, not to mention the other horrifying bachelor recipes everyone else was making on that floor). Doesn't sound like he was intentionally trying to hurt you. Doesn't sound like he deserved to be dumped, maybe just a good schooling. Poor guy.
ReplyDelete^^ Way to paint "a lot of guys' with the same brush.
ReplyDeleteI would NEVER say "a lot of women are good at cleaning".
Dude's actions were pretty creepy, using the girl as a guinea pig, and claiming ignorance that old food is gonna be gross/possibly tainted is inexcusable. Failing to apologize was just the last straw - bullet dodged.
ReplyDeleteI will commemorate this day that Howie Feltersnatch called me out for a sexist comment with a fro-yo.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm going to keep the painting and frame it, because I do in fact know "a lot of guys" who are utterly retarded in the kitchen. If I said "all guys", I'd take it back. I request amendment to "a lot of guys I know". Will this do, sexism police officer Feltersnatch?
He didn't know how long salsa was good for. Heavens to Betsy. There's salsa in my damn fridge that I don't know if it's still good or not. I may look for an expiration date, but I'm not going to fault a guy for not thinking too hard about it. Thoughtless when it comes to food safety, sure. If the guy was great, celebrating minor anniversaries and making her waffles up to this point, I think I'd chill out just a bit on a single salsa mishap.
I don't know how long syrup is good for. I'll probably serve it to someone too.
Sounds like OP didn't give him the chance to apologize, she flipped out too quickly for him to barely answer. This is another one where I would really, really love to hear the other side.
Poor guy stands.
I love how OP lets all his calls go to voice mail and yet nevertheless holds him responsible for "not apologizing." Hypocrites like this DESERVE food poisoning.
ReplyDelete^ She could have listened to the voice mails afterward and noticed that he didn't say "I'm sorry" in any of them.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes me totally OP is that he drenched *all* the waffles with salsa, and didn't eat a bite until she did. If he was suspicious about the salsa--which he said he was; he wasn't just clueless--he should have tasted it himself before offering it to someone he supposedly cared about. He was totally watching for her reaction, probably laughing at her face, but hadn't thought about the health safety. Good for her not putting up with it.
ReplyDelete^ True, and he also sent her messages-which she presumably read and did not contain an apology.
^ Reading waaaay too deeply into his psyche.
ReplyDeleteC'mon. We're talking about a guy who thought it'd be a good idea in the first place to put salsa on waffles. Let's take a step back and really think about that...
Hope no one dies from salsa poisoning over the weekend. If you do...well, you ate waffles with salsa. Darwin award to you, my friend. Nomatophobia! Out!
*throws a smoke bomb*
^ Baku, NOBODY with any degree of social intelligence delivers apologies to voice mail. They come off as insincere and it's impossible to read the other person's verbal/visual cues. It's just bad strategy. He probably wanted to deliver the apology when she picked up the phone. (I know that's what I would do in his shoes.) But since she never did, he figured it was over and so it would pointless to demean himself over voicemail to feed the ego of a trigger-happy diva.
ReplyDeleteAnd before anyone says that I'm reading too much into his psyche, I'm not trying to play Freud at all - I'm just giving the quick and dirty tactical analysis, ie, what somebody with both logic and social skills WOULD do. I don't know what Kevin's motivations were, but I know in his place I would do exactly the same thing. Also men gnerally are NOT too knowledgeable about kitchen matters; I actually once gave my first girlfriend (and myself) food poisoning when I tried to make breakfast for us. Fortunately she was a much kinder and forgiving person than the OP.
I'm on the side of this guy too, salsa on waffles is a little odd but they might have been potato waffles, actually that sounds good.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me like he was just hoping "Salsa? that stuff doesn't go bad surely" rather than using her as a test subject.
He dodged a bullet in my opinion.
yeah, they might have been potato waffles - a thing that they were not, and also doesn't exist.
ReplyDeletehttp://allrecipes.com/recipe/potato-waffles/
DeleteThe point that "a lot of guys are bad at cooking" doesn't work well when the guy offered to and insisted on making her Belgian waffles. When someone offers to make me Belgian waffles, I tend to assume they know what they're doing.
ReplyDeleteShe may have sounded a bit harsh, but to me, it's more important that he didn't once say he was sorry and defaulted to "welp, learn something new every day." I'm sure if he didn't think to apologize for feeding her bad salsa, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
And yes, I know he didn't know for sure the salsa had gone bad, but he suspected and fed it to her anyway.
ReplyDeleteAw, yes. Belgian Potato Waffles with Decrepit Salsa...tis a delicacy in Narnia and other made-up realms.
ReplyDeleteAnd forget voice mail, he messed up when they were in the same room and didn't apologize. Accident or not, that's step one when you give someone rotten food.
And are people actually reading this before commenting? I know it's her side of the story, but I don't see how anyone could read it and think he had no idea the salsa was risky. If anything, I imagined more people would think it was fake than come to the jerk's defense.
^ But everyone keeps assuming that he did it on purpose, which is completely unproven. KEVIN never admits to testing moldy food on her, it's the OP who makes that claim while Kevin simply tries to move on and change the subject. Plus, if it really LOOKED moldy, why would she put it in her mouth? It makes no sense. From the rest of the story, she sounds like a drama queen, so I wouldn't be surprised if she was exaggerating here too.
ReplyDeleteAnd why would Kevin go to all the trouble of making Belgian waffles simply for an experiment? That part also makes no sense. It's a LOT of work to do simply to test whether the salsa is expired, and he lost more money on the wasted waffles (and taking the OP out to breakfast) that he would have simply by buying a new jar of salsa.
This story about deliberate salsa poisoning experiments doesn't add up. It makes much more logical sense to say that Kevin did something stupid in the kitchen and the OP overreacted than to assume that he was deliberately testing moldy food on her as part of some elaborate experiment.
hes half asleep
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if the boyfriend was careless on purpose, he obviously should have apologized (and didn't). But it does sound like OP was on the hasty side, she had been seeing this guy for a whole month - why not try to talk to him (really talk, not leave the guy stunned there processing what just happened) and *then* storm out angry to never return after she confirmed his true intentions? Some people really are that clueless about cooking safety, seriously.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with wolfdreams. People are seriously misreading intentions. Note that the conclusions are ALL the narrator's
ReplyDeleteFor example, he doesn't wait for her to try it first. She just says that he hadn't tried it yet. She SUGGESTING a reason for it, but he was also may not have tried it yet since he was the cook. He didn't indicate that he was trying to test it on her. He just indicated that he was unaware of how long salsa is good for. She just made him aware that it was bad. My guess is that he assumed it was probably ok, but wasn't 100% sure. And honestly, I don't think about that either. If I don't see mold(note OP SPECULATED about the mold, but didn't see any) I usually assume salsa is alright. Given that he put salsa on waffles, he's probably the same.
Honestly this just looks like a guy trying to cook for her and being clueless. And the other factors point to this. I.e. he clearly was willing to buy her breakfast so it wasn't a money issue and making Belgiun waffles is WAY too much effort to make just to test whether or not something was bad.
THAT explains his confusion at her response. He made her breakfast, made a mistake and was willing to take her out to breakfast and she accuses him of poisoning her. He asks her to explain why she was angry to talk it out and she explodes on him. He tries to call her and she ignores him. How can you criticize him for not apologizing? She didn't even give him a chance to discuss/figure out what was happening. OP sounds like a drama queen.
I have to agree with wolfdreams. People are seriously misreading intentions. Notice that the conclusions are ALL the narrator's
ReplyDeleteFor example, he doesn't wait for her to try it first. She just observes that he hadn't tried it yet. She SUGGESTS a reason for it, when it couple have been simply because he was the cook. He didn't indicate that he was trying to test it on her. He just indicated that she made him aware that it had gone bad was bad. My guess is that he wasn't 100% sure but assumed that it was probably ok. Remember, this the type of guy who puts salsa on waffles. And honestly, I don't think about that either. If I don't see mold(notice OP only SPECULATED about mold) I usually assume salsa is alright. Stupid yes, malicious no. Again notice, that she just ACCUSES him of testing it on her.
Honestly this just looks like a guy trying to cook for her and being clueless. And the other factors point this way. It wasn't a money issue since he was willing to buy her breakfast, and making Belgiun waffles is honestly WAY too much effort to make just to test whether or not something was bad. It makes a lot more sense to think that he thought it was probably ok to use.
THAT explains his confusion at her response. He made her breakfast, made a mistake and was willing to take her out to breakfast, and she accuses him of poisoning her. He asks her to explain why she was angry to talk it out and she explodes on him. He tries to call her and she ignores him. How can you criticize him for not apologizing? She didn't even give him a chance to discuss/figure out what was happening. OP sounds like a drama queen.
Eh, Team OP on this one for all the reasons given and also because only an asshole would ruin perfectly good Belgian waffles (a specialty of mine) with salsa, rotten or not. For that alone, I would have dumped him. ;p
ReplyDeleteI can see where people are coming from to be on the guy's side; when my fiance and I started dating I wanted to make him dinner one night and ended up not cooking the chicken long enough. I was devestated that I'd fed him un-(under-)cooked chicken but he laughed it off and we ate the perfectly amazing cheesecake I'd made for dessert instead.
ReplyDeleteThat said... I have to side with her. He didn't apologize, he tried to change the topic when he fed her something that could've made her sick. While she might have let him try to explain himself... the first words out of my mouth after the under-cooked chicken thing was "Oh my god! I'm so sorry! I thought I'd cooked it long enough!" The fact that his first response was more of an "eh, let's just go out for breakfast then"... well, you get the idea.
Also... I wouldn't jump a guy for it, but I'd still be extremely annoyed if he put *syrup* on my waffles for me! Yes, it's a safe bet to assume I want syrup, but I like to decide how much I use... The fact that it was salsa, which is pretty unconventional to begin with, just makes it that much worse. If I were to try that I'd most certainly want it on the side in case I didn't like it so that the whole waffle wasn't wasted... And he covered *all* the waffles with suspicious salsa... What a jerk
Exactly my problem with it. Even if he was oblivious, he still wasn't considerate enough to just have the salsa on the side. He went ahead and put it on everything. I don't adore OP, but I'm on her side.
DeleteHe gave me a frown, then said, "Well, that answers that, then."
ReplyDelete"I wasn't sure how long salsa was good for, but I guess you just answered my question."
^These parts make me think it wasn't accidental.
^ I read that too, and I took that to mean that as he was putting the salsa on he read the expiration date and probably thought to himself something like "Hmmm, it's a week past the date - does salsa go bad?" Then he examined it, saw that it looked perfectly normal, and decided it was fine. (As I said before, dumb but not entirely unreasonable.) That would completely fit with both of his statements.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm basing my analysis on is the following evidence:
1) The salsa LOOKED perfectly normal (otherwise the OP wouldn't have eaten it). From this we can also derive:
1a) OP is prone to hyperbole.
2) Even if he didn't express it through his voice-mails, Kevin obviously cared about his relationship with the OP, otherwise why would he have called her repeatedly after she stormed out?
3) Kevin utterly lacks any motive to deliberately test moldy salsa on the OP, both from the financial persepctive and in terms of the amount of work involved. The only way it would make sense would be if he didn't care about her at all and was willing to use her as a guinea pig simply to satisfy his scientific curiousity... but again, if that were the case, why would he have called her repeatedly? The two scenarious just seem logically inconsistant with each other... at least, in my opinion.
Okay I apologise I misread the post, I missed the 'Belgian' part of 'Belgian waffles' but just so people are aware:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_waffle
Apparently they're not common outside of the UK
"The fact that his first response was more of an "eh, let's just go out for breakfast then"... well, you get the idea."
ReplyDeleteI disagree. He just sounds like he isn't the type to make a big deal of an easily fixable situation. I read it as, "My cooking turned out poorly. No big deal. We can just go out to get it instead" He probably thought it wasn't worth making a big deal about. After all, he was TRYING TO DO SOMETHING NICE by cooking breakfast. I think people who are calling him a jerk seem to miss this point.
Secondly, his putting in salsa while stupid can better be explained by ignorance than malice. Like Wolfdreams pointed out, it just makes more sense that he thought it was probably fine. After all, he seems super ignorant about cooking. I can easily see him thinking "i'll attempt to cook for her. If it doesn't work out, we can just head to a diner"
1. Salsa on Belgian waffles.
ReplyDelete2. All of them are predrenched.
3. He waited for her to try it. Did not actually try them himself.
4. Was not only unapologetic, but also a bit too aware that the salsa was bad.
5. "Explain!"
I realize that due to my job and education in mental healthcare I see more than my fair share of disturbing behavior, and that may color my view somewhat. On the other hand he is ticking off way too many checks on my suspicious behavior scale. The phrasing he used. His firm insistence that the OP was being unreasonable in her response.
Usually when people discover they have accidentally caused another discomfort they respond with an immediate emphatic reaction of some sort. The salsa wasn't the only thing off about breakfast.
Looks like you're in the minority, Wolfie. :/ Your attempts to give this guy the benefit of the doubt are sweet, but I would have thought that after all your time on this blog, you would have learned that giving people the benefit of the doubt usually ends poorly. ;p
ReplyDelete^ Point 3 is faulty. Nowhere does the story say that he waited for her to try it. Instead, the just "grabbed one, thanked him, sat down, and took a bite."
ReplyDeleteAs for point 5, it's subjective (although you did acknowledge that). If OP was being a drama queen about some salsa that was only a few days old, he is in no way obligated to show her empathy for that.
Also, I want to point out that nothing on your list addresses the most important issue: MOTIVE. In fact, every single person here who sided with the OP and took the "Kevin is a douchebag" angle also failed to address that inconsistency.
Whoops, looks like we posted at the same time Nikki! My arrow was actually pointed at Nora. (No innuendo intended ;-)
ReplyDeleteI don't mind being in the minority. At least this time the debate was civil and intelligent - none of this illogical "Ur a jackass and F U" type commentary that people sometimes seem to go for.
I cannot seriously believe some of the people here making excuses for this guy. Seriously, if you serve old food to someone, and don't eat any yourself, does that not look suspicious to you at all?
ReplyDeleteNora called it perfectly.
Nora outlined it well, I think. Point number 3--He absolutely waited for her to try it; Kevin made it before she got there. Every cook I've ever met(aside from pros) tastes the food before they offer it to someone, usually in the kitchen, to avoid embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteAs for motive...I think it was just to see if he could get her to eat it, a kind of practical joke. (Or maybe a bet...) I had a boyfriend who did similar things all the time, and it took me a while(far too long, I'm embarrassed to say) to catch on. It was a power trip, I think; part of it was not letting on that he was doing it--it wasn't laughing in my face or anything. This whole thing feels a lot like something he would have done. He even sounded like that if I challenged him.
^ Ah Cori Ol Anus... it's been far too long since I saw your erudite and scholarly dissertations here. There was a void here, a void in the shape of a man who somehow decided his username should be indicative of his rectum. Thank god you've arrived!
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone has been craving Mexican waffles thanks to commenting on this story I found a great recipe, watch out though, they're not sweet waffles but cornmeal savoury ones.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.food.com/recipe/mexican-waffles-90988
I'm on wolfdreams side.
ReplyDeletePeople are seriously reading into his motiviations
1)This is the actual quote: "He asked, "How is it?" and I noted that he hadn't yet tried one, himself."
It just says that he hadn't tried it yet. It said nothing about him purposely waiting for her to try it as a joke or a gunea pig.
2.If he was trying an immature joke, you notice that he didn't try laughing at her or respond in any way to imply that.
3.If he purposely using her as a test subject, he probably would have seen his wrong quicker. Instead, his answer doesn't process that he did anything wrong. People are reading this to mean it was malicious, but this makes more sense as him being ignorant, especially because it doesn't seem to occur to him that he did something wrong. Remember this is a guy who thought salsa was a good idea. Also I cannot emphasize enough that this is way too much effort to put in just to test something stupid like that. See point 4.
4. Again, this is a guy who thinks it is a good idea to add salsa to waffles. Stop quoting what a good cook or a knowledgeable cook would do. He obviously lacks cooking savy.
5. Stop accusing him of not apologizing when he didn't seem to have much of a chance to do so. He was trying to figure the situation out when she exploded on him, and, when he tried to call, she refused to answer. She just assumed a guilty motive. No one is saying he was smart, but his response shows ignorance, not malice.
The only reason people are concluding that he has a negative motive is that she SAYS he had one. But if you look at the evidence(filtering out her "conclusions"), you'll notice that the evidence points a different direction. It makes no sense for him to do all that out of ill will. Why bother cooking for her in the first place? Why would he seem so confused about her anger? Why was he trying to follow up with her? He actually seems well intentioned, but just ignorant
^ Momghoti has already addressed Point #2
ReplyDeleteIt's these lines right here that convinces me that Mr. Salsa did this on purpose:
'I said, just to be sure of things, "So, you made waffles and drenched them in old, moldy salsa and fed one to me to see if the salsa was still good?"
"Which it wasn't," he reminded me, "Ready to go out somewhere?"'
and
'I explained, "Moldy, old food can make people sick. Are you five? Did you not ever learn that?"
He said, "I did, I just… I don't know."'
If he hadn't done it on purpose, he would have said, "Of course I didn't! I thought it might be old, but I didn't think it went bad!" or something to that effect. The OP gave him a chance to deny it. He did not. Team OP.
I just saw the longest thread I've ever seen on abcotd and wanted to be a part of it. Hi!
ReplyDeleteThere really isn't much that I can say that hasn't been said, but I did want to mention one thought of mine.
ReplyDeleteSome people asked why he would go to the trouble of making "Belgian" waffles if he was going to ruin them on purpose. Realistically, I would guess that he used pancake batter and a waffle maker and then called them whatever he wanted.
And regardless of his intentions, he still took what he believed to be possibly expired food product and covered the entire meal in it.
Ultimately it doesn't matter what his motivation was. The OP had only been dating him for a month, he did something that could have had very negative consequences for her and didn't seem to care. She cut her losses and removed him from her life. I'd say she made the right decision.
ReplyDeleteSeñor Kramer Says: ¡Estas galletas belgas me están haciendo sediento!
ReplyDeleteOn purpose or not, he passed up the immediate chance to apologize. Team OP.
Eriu, I beg to differ. Motivation matters a TON. We've all done stupid things that can have harmful consequences, but it makes a world of difference to me whether it was done maliciously.
ReplyDeleteBaku-chan, I get the impression from those quotes that he was on defense mode(and trying to avoid he rage) rather than doing it on purpose.
I mean, righful or not, she was really insulting(i.e.calling him a five year old) Plus SHE SEEMS PRONE TO EXAGGERATION. Do you honestly think it was moldy? NO
Just because he said, "i did' doesn't mean he put much thought into it. Think of almost any stupid thing you've ever done in college. I.e. having a few beers and driving. (a little buzzed but not drunk) You technically know the consequences but you assume everyone will be fine. Not smart, but not malicious
tommyD. I can't emphasize this enough. He was shot with a sudden outburst of anger. This doesn't allow for conversation. If he didn't feel like he did anything wrong on purpose, this wasn't a "omg I'm sorry" scenario. HE DID TRY AND TALK
^ I agree 100%, but apparently we're in the minority. Don't worry about it, it's actually something to be proud of. For example, when I'm investing, I just turn on the TV and do the opposite of what the analysts tell me; that's how I beat the stock market every year. ;-)
ReplyDelete^You have my axe
ReplyDelete(And Mexican waffles)
not really, whether he was negligent and didn't care when told or if he was intentionally malicious both have the same outcome for the OP. Her health and well being was put at risk by this person. She determined that continued interactions with this person would likely bring about more such occurrences and she decided that was not acceptable.
ReplyDeleteEriu, Yes it does matter because she left him because she thought it was INTENTIONAL. That was what the fight was about. NOT STUPIDITY
ReplyDeleteWhether or not she should date someone who is that bad with cooking is a separate issue.
Secondly, the outcome regardless of intention wouldn't have likely been food poisoning, but rather "Eww, this TASTES SPOILED" and spitting it out. If you can tell its spoiled, you don't continue eating it. (just like when you accidentally take a sip of spoiled milk). Plus we are assuming alot. If he thought it was spoiled he wouldn't have used it. Its more likely that he knew it was there for a while, but figured that it looked fine to use.
Churro, I agree with the worst case, but the best would be a guy who is bad at cooking but wanted to attempt good gesture who actually tries to talk rather than get absorbed in her drama.
My dad actually tried cooking for my mom when he first met her and it was disastrous. Should he have not. No, it was sweet. In the story, you can tell he actually had a back up plan for it turning bad by how quickly he was prepared to just go out for breakfast. (e.g. instantly tossing it in the trash and quickly suggesting that they head out instead)
Try looking at him with the mentality: "I'll try cooking, but, if it doesn't turn out well, no big deal. We'll just go out for breakfast instead"
@Ashley - Thanks for the recipe! I have a baking phobia, but other than that I love cooking so stuff like this is always appreciated. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! I'm not a baking person either, but cooking is so much fun and more straight forward.
ReplyDeleteAnd if my cooking was ever a disaster I'd do what Mexican waffle guy did, throw it away and just go out.
Waffles and salsa?! Geeeroooss! If this story is true, then the moldy salsa waffle guy is, at the very least, selfish, inconsiderate, and not very bright. Run away, run away!
ReplyDeleteYes, the fellow did try to do something nice by offering to take her to breakfast, but when the OP said "are you five? Did you not ever learn that?", that made me think that this gentleman has the life skills of an infant. I mean, not everyone can whip up a banquet fit for a Roman emperor, and not everyone can be a Top Chef contender, but for crying in Manhattan, you don't have to be Emeril to figure out that old food is poison. You just have to be an adult. How did this guy make it to a grown-up age group without learning that old food is rotten and can make you sick? Holy Roman Emperors, the guy needs a keeper! No, he needs a nanny!
ReplyDeleteDon't mess with wolfie!
ReplyDelete