A peek inside my brain: a foodie quiz

Quite a few folks have commented that they don't understand at all how I think. Sometimes, the context is my fiction and the ideas in it. Other times, the comments arise from my fascination with high-end restaurants, weird events, loud rock and roll, and other topics on which I've written.

Well, as I've said many times, I'm a helper. I want to help folks understand, so I pondered the options and realized that the perfect solution might be a variant of the Cooter Preference Test.

I had to take this test (and I do mean the test, not the band of the same name) as a college freshman. It consisted of hundreds of questions about preferences. You know the type: It's raining, so would you rather be outside playing in the storm, solving quantum mechanics in your basement lair, or taking advantage of that hole you drilled in the bathroom wall to take pinhole photos of your female cousins showering? Like that. (I had a hard time choosing between the second and third options on that particular question.)

The people who administered the test (the Cooters? who knows?) had given the same battery of questions to thousands of professionals in various fields. They then correlated (real heavy math stuff, not just a quick glance and a proclamation) your results with those of the various professionals. The result was a list of occupations whose practitioners' preferences matched yours.

In case you're curious, the test said I matched best with preachers, then therapists, and then artists--which is why it makes perfect sense that I've spent my career as a computer geek and businessman.

Building a test like that is a ton of work, but fortunately, we have only one correlation target--me--and I get to pick the number of questions, so I've simplified the quiz to one target area--food--and only a few questions. I'm also violating all good testing practices and making this simple for you to grade at home.

Take up your pencil and paper.

There is no time limit.

Let's begin.

At the Fleur de Lys restaurant in Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay casino, Chef Hubert Keller has reinvented the hamburger with his "Rossini" Fleurburger. The following questions concern this dish. Each question consists of a statement and then three opinions on the statement. For each statement, choose the opinion that most closely matches your own.

On the restaurant's menu, the Fleurburger appears to use Kobe beef.
(a) I hope it's real Kobe and not Wagyu, because the American stuff is great but the Japanese is insane.
(b) What a waste of money; any decent ground beef would make a perfectly fine burger.
(c) Kobe or Wagyu, the resources people are spending on those cows are an insult to the world's starving masses.

The Fleurburger sits in a shallot and truffle brioche bun.
(a) I hope they browned the inside with French truffle butter.
(b) As long as the bun is fresh, I'm good.
(c) Had the staff invested the same time and energy in helping feed Las Vegas' homeless, fewer Americans would be starving.

Sitting atop the beef in the Fleurburger is a slab of sauteed foie gras.
(a) I hope the foie covers all the beef and that they didn't sear it too long.
(b) Foie gras is gross, pure fat and nothing more.
(c) The torture we inflict on our animal cousins, those poor geese, is cruel and inhuman, and we must stop doing it.

Covering the foie gras is a layer of shavings of black Perigord truffles.
(a) If it's not truffle season, I hope they're keeping the truffles fresh and not stinting on the portions.
(b) I can barely taste truffles, so they're a waste of money.
(c) Imagine the good we could do if America invested all the money from a year of truffle indulgences in improving our education system.

The dish comes with two kinds of house-made mustards and three varieties of high-end salts.
(a) I hope they have the pinker Hawaiian salt, because I love the tang that one adds.
(b) Three kinds of salt is just silly.
(c) We're raping the environment to harvest salt for dishes like this one even as our world disintegrates from our indulgences.

Though they don't appear on the sample menu online, typically a large helping of truffle fries accompanies the burger.
(a) I hope they sliced the potatoes frites style and fried the beautiful sticks in duck fat.
(b) Truffles are wasted on fries; all you need is potatoes and grease.
(c) Our population is swelling like pufferfish poised to attack, and yet we're eating all this red meat and fried food.

The price of the Fleurburger also isn't on the online sample menu, but typically it runs about $75.
(a) What a bargain; in New York, they'd hit you for a hundred easy.
(b) You could eat just as well at Hardees almost ten times for the same money.
(c) Make a salad and donate the rest of the money to feed the world.

Put your pencils down.

Here's the scoring guide:

- If you answered (a) to everything, your thinking matched my own. You have both my congratulations and my condolences. When we next talk, we can compare dieting notes and discuss what types of stents we're hoping they'll use on us.

- If you answered (b) to everything, you think the way I once did, before I discovered the joys of high-end food. Do your budget a favor, and stay the sensible, grounded person you are.

- If you answered (c) to everything, you think like the person my liberal soul tells me I should be--but never will be. I know you love your Prius; mine is on order.

- If you answered with more than one letter, stop fooling yourself that you can have it every way and take a stand on something.

I hope this quiz has helped.

Oh yeah: I've eaten the Fleurburger four times and try to get to it each time I'm in Las Vegas. The thing is freakin' awesome!