ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike were talking yesterday about people with weird eating habits. For example, when Mel Kiper Jr. eats pizza, he takes the cheese off it. So naturally, they had to bring Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay, a notoriously picky eater, into the discussion.
One of my brothers is a picky eater as well. He is a meat and potatoes (and barbecue) kind of guy, and won’t eat much of anything else. But he looks like Anthony Bourdain compared to Michael Kay!
We have discussed Kay’s limited palate here before. In fact, my most-read Subway Squawkers blog post ever is about Kay’s food weirdness. One example from that article: when Kay and his wife Jodi Applegate went on a trip to Italy, they went on a hunt for chicken parmigiana, one of the few foods Kay will eat. (Chicken parm is not an authentic Italian meal; it is an Americanized version of Italian food.) Kay ended up losing weight on the trip, making him pretty much the only person to come home thinner after a trip to Italy. (An aside: my picky eater brother pretty much only ate pizza when he visited Italy!)
But that is just the beginning of Kay’s food weirdness. As he told Mike and Mike, Kay has never eaten a condiment, or a banana, or fish, or an egg. (I hate eggs myself — I find the smell and taste nauseating. But at least I have tried them!) He mostly eats steak and chicken, and will also eat bacon. He has never had a cup of coffee, although he does like the smell.
Kay will not eat salad dressing, or tomatoes, but will eat plain iceberg lettuce. (Boring!) If he eats a caprese salad, we will not eat the tomatoes, so he is basically eating a mozzarella salad. Since he is avoiding carbs, if he eats pizza, he skips the bread, and only eats the cheese, making him a perfect person to hang out with Kiper!
When Mike and Mike asked him why he wouldn’t even try these things, he responded: “I’ve never really tried dog poop, and I know I won’t like that.” Huh? Not even the same thing at all. Except for eggs. Eggs are awful.
Also, while wife Jodi is a bit of a foodie and likes to try new restaurants, Kay doesn’t. However, he does claim he can find food at any eatery, since “every restaurant has steak.” First of all, that isn’t really true. Second, steak at a diner or at one of those all-you-can eat buffet steakhouses is not exactly the same as steak at Peter Luger or at Smith and Wollensky. Quality counts, too!
After hearing all these food rules, Mike Greenberg dubbed Kay “the Babe Ruth of eating quirkiness.” And that was without even hearing about how Kay won’t eat soup. He hates the slurping sound. Kay insisted that he wasn’t OCD, though; just “quirky” about food.
Hmmmm. Given Kay’s food hangups, I wonder if he is the one behind the lousy food choices at Yankee Stadium. Would make about as much sense as anything else!
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