Houston, We Have a Smell
As you know, I'm a big fan of Impossible Burger.I've had it twice in a restaurant, and each time, it was fabulous. With burger toppings added, I could barely distinguish it from meat.
My stomach likes it better, too. No heaviness like I usually get after I eat meat.
With this knowledge in hand, I decided to make Sloppy Joe's (one of my favorite childhood comfort foods) using Impossible Burger (or Impossible Meat, and what gets capitalized here and what doesn't, anyway?).
I bought four quarter-pound patties at Target, heated up the rarely-used skillet, and started cooking.
Something. Something is wrong.
Is that a coating on the skillet? What is that smell?
It must be the skillet. That smell isn't anything food could produce.
Oh man, that's strong. Overpowering.
What does it smell like, exactly? I can't tell you. It just doesn't smell like food. It smells like something you run away from in a field.
Grim and determined, I keep cooking.
When the "meat" is cooked, I stir in the Sloppy Joe sauce.
It tastes fine. But I can't get the smell out of my nose, and the disconnect between what I taste and what I was smelling makes for a bad, bad combination.
I turned the fan on in my apartment for three hours, just to clear out the odious memories.
I'm still hoping this was the skillet. Or something. I Googled and don't find a bunch of people complaining about the smell while cooking.
Like a desperate man, I cling to hope.
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