#thoughts as i was putting plant based cream cheese on my bagel this morning

[ssahotchnerr]

thinking about bau!reader with a food allergy/sensitivity/preference 😭

aaron making sure the precinct you’re visiting is conscious of it. they bring in food? he’s immediately asking what’s in it — better yet, before food is brought in he brings it to their awareness, letting them know straight away.

the bau kitchen — aaron’s big on reading labels. he makes sure there’s a separate shelf of allergy free items, it’s always stocked and is strict on the fact that no one contaminates it - i.e. someone mindlessly puts something away on that shelf, oh boy everyone’s gonna hear about it. in the fridge, items are marked with masking tape with your name on it.

he carries safe snacks on him too <3 you mention you’re hungry - he always has something at the ready and he whips it out outta nowhere. and if you are allergic to something, aaron asks you frequently if you have your epipen on you, and has one himself too 🥰 and if the team is going out for food, or it’s just you and him, he preemptively checks the menu to make sure there’s something you can eat <3

[foodlegend]

Philadelphia

I feel like the thought of Philadelphia is better than the eventuality. Don’t get me wrong, slathered (what a gross word) on a bagel? Woof. Pair that with some smoked salmon? Pret a Manger! It’s a classic combo and I’m not denying it. But living with an open tub of Philadelphia at home and feeling the weight of having to have it every day before the worm turns? It’s a pressure. The ticking clock before the Philadelphia water turns to mouldy wine. How many sittings does it take to cream a tub before it’s bone dry? Depends on your palette knife. There’s no decorum when it comes to cream cheese. You know how with Marmite (it’s a bit like Marmite) there’s an understanding that it’s a scant spread situation, like a delicate varnish? If you were to go in fearless with Marmite bystanders would presume you had never applied anything to toast before. It’s like that bit in Big Brother where someone murked Sree into putting raw bacon into a housemate’s sandwich because he’d never worked with rashers before. The recipient of the sandwich responded WTF as you’d imagine and Sree was unfairly placed under the nation’s microscope as the one adult who had never seen, let alone MADE, a sandwich before. Poor Sree. Anyways, what I’m saying is you can go crazy THICC with Philadelphia and onlookers wouldn’t bat an eyelid - even an alien could come to town and decanter a whole Philly oval relief, un-spread, on a piece of bread and you’d be all “…and?” 

I wanna say Philadelphia is like Polyfilla but I’ve never worked with that medium. It’s less a taste and more a feeling. A cooling agent. Touching the cold wall on a hot day. Facemask feels. Imagine upending it out of the tub and pressing your hand into it really slowly with the negative of your fingers rising in pleasing full-bodied form between the gaps of your digits. Mmm…tangible, calming...relief from the rat race. A reason to be put on earth. It’s the photoshopped cottage cheese, all cellulite eradicated. It’s not a loose mass, there’s a backbone there. You could probably pick it out like a briquette and attack it like a crisp, for a brief time period before the wet weight drifted in your grasp. The feeling to spoodge out a tub with a wooden spoon and plop it into a pan…to make some tragic recipe as instructed by Philadelphia propaganda. Not that I have, nor will I ever, but I can picture it leaving a slug trail on the side of a sauce pan on descent and standing there motionless watching it bubble at the base. I could imagine getting splinters in my tongue gumming the residue off the wooden spoon. Pleasure ist pain. Choke me, Daddy. 

I guess I’m just bored. Bored of having Philadelphia on boring brown Co-Op own brand bread. Toasting gives some integrity to the performance but on having two slices in the morning, I’ve already upped and left my body before finishing the emotionless transaction. If there was a way to absorb it contactlessly I probably would. Could just not have it, couldn’t I. After all this is day four after I rescued it from the reduced section of Co-Op but baby’s on a budget.

I hate Co-Op. Yet I find myself there most days, wandering around in my mental dressing gown, confused as to how I got there. As lifeless and uninspiring as I find the environment, it has to be said that Co-Op radio is almost unwavering in its high grade - and often resonant - tune selection. Pretty Woman by the big O, Take Me Out by Franz F, I Believe In You by Kylie. These are just some of the recent hits. Songs that shake you out of the monotony of trudging the aisles and make you want to swing your basket. Low key on some perfect pairings that lift one’s eyebrow at least and spirit at best, a soundtrack that makes you appreciate that you’re there…in the moment, by the Muller Rice. That feels like a legit feat to feel something, anything, in Co-Op. Occasionally they wield the axe a little close to the bone. For instance, I almost lost it recently when, on a somewhat low ebb, I saddled into Co-Op on a Friday evening solo mission on a reduced hunt to be greeted by the DJ dropping “Dry Your Eyes” by The Streets. What the fuck. What selector thinks it a reasonable decision to spin kitchen sink sombre bombs in one of the stalest surrounds you could wish to find yourself in at 6.30pm on a Friday night? Keep it light, for the love of God. Filthy Gorgeous by The Scissor Sisters. That kind of thing.

I picked up a reduced “Philadelphia with herbs” in Co-Op for 70p (RRP £1.99). A day later I’m wearily peeling back the foil and waging it onto some toast. All I can see is the Philadelphia is thick with chives. “Pfft” I think to myself, “Philadelphia with herbs? More like Philadelphia with CHIVES”. Oh well, carry on with my day and think nothing of it. Next morning I’m back in the standing up position smearing it on with aplomb. I’m reminded for the first time since the day prior of how chive heavy the spread is…like ten flecks a penny, I’ve not seen this many chives since I don’t know when. Since never? Since I looked at a chive plant next to a cress plant and thought…meh. I’m laughing in my head at this point, early morning delirium. “PHILADELPHIA WITH HERBS!? MORE LIKE PHILADELPHIA WITH CHIVES!!”. Haha. I’m still chuckling in my head as I reach for the tub. It seems entirely feasible at this point that this is a dud batch, a freak chive breakout edition that slipped the net. Wait, are chives even a herb? Aren’t they part of the onion family? This makes it even more obtuse. Maybe I can write to Philadelphia and get some free Philadelphia. Maybe the Metro will do a piece about my hardship. I’m reaching for the tub to inspect it for further signs of error. Is this a meme? The reduced sticker on top of the tub obscures most of the lid so I swivel my head to inspect the side of the vessel and my eyes fall on one crucial detail. The name on the side of the tub that was masked by the reduced sticker on the top. The title read…



“Philadelphia with chives”

 Oh. 

 Lol. Why did I think it was herbs? I’m writing this here to save myself the horror of accidentally relaying this story to anybody in real life. It feels like a weight off. Thank God. I just swerved that ever happening. Imagine if I was halfway through telling my neighbour that chive/herb tale, every moment regretting it like treading out onto ever thinning ice, and then others starting tuning in and asking me to tell it from the top. Imagine if the audience doubled at every utterance of the word “chive”. Imagine being in a job interview and being asked three words to describe yourself and the only words you can think of are “Philadelphia”, “herbs” and “chives”. Then you just say them because you can’t pluck anything else. Then you’re forced into recounting this story before a panel of four stone faced interviewees. And they’re dragons. On Dragons’ Den. And it’s on Britain’s Got Talent and everybody in the audience, both on TV and at home, are doing THAT Amanda Holden reaction face. Frozen. Forever. 



Phew.

 Swerved it.