NON-ALLITERATIVE TUESDAY: FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Non-Alliterative Tuesday: no obligations, no rhyme, reason or methodology other than that it's something relevant to food and goings-on in Kitchen Toro...

The money's tight these days and while that can mean peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, $1.69 cans of soup, and shiver, Ramen, lately it has meant cheap fast food. Most specifically the sad, sad, song of the Taco Bell ringing.

It's not that it doesn't taste good necessarily but the Bell can take a toll-- if you know what I mean. Okay, enough with the bad puns--the last time I ate this much Taco Bell we had to come up with a catch phrase, "Never again. For a month." It was lunchtime off campus senior year of high school, an hour which meant freedom from the school cafeteria within the constraints of a low budget. That meant the bean burrito and the 7-layer burrito-- almost every day.

We said never again, but with little money to explore other options besides pizza, we ended right back up at the Bell a month later, as we knew we would. Similarly, there's little money right now and a lot of Taco Bell. I'm the first to chastise others for being lazy and not making a homemade meal, it takes a few minutes and generally it's less costly than eating out but even I have to face the fact that sometimes you're just tired of grilled cheese sandwhiches or peanut butter and jelly and it's just easier while running errands in Greenpoint before class to just pick up some fast food so you're "Good to Go."

Oh for the love of all that's healthy and holy, the Bell's ad campaign has infiltrated my brain-- help! If it's not Taco-time it's another era of pizza-eating. Strange contrast though, tacos and pizza by day, gourmet food by night. This time around though it's been the Spicy Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme. At more than $3 a pop it may soon be time for a return to the under $1 menu. Hel-lo bean burrito.