A Kabobble Is Not Lunch On A Stick. I Know Lunch On A Stick.

Happy WTF Wednesday, folks! I saw these odd things at an unnamed local supermarket (coughASSOCIATEDahem) and when I tried to take a photo my phone exploded, so I'm using a stock image. Meet Kabobbles, your child's first foray into the strange, exotic world of food on a skewer. Or not.

We had this cookbook for kids when I was little — just cute illustrations, no photos — with a bunch of solid ways to introduce young'uns to textures like quiche and tofu and flavors like sesame oil and mustard. My personal favorite which actually involved no cooking at all: Lunch On A Stick.

Side note: if my mom is reading this right now, she's super-excited. She took a lot of pride in crafting these and has been asking when I'm going to write about Lunch On A Stick since I started writing this column about three years ago. Do you remember what that book was called? It was blue, maybe?

Very simply, one stacks cubes of "actual" cold cuts and "real" cheese interspersed with mini Kosher dills and cherry tomatoes on a long bamboo skewer and serves it on a plate decorated with squiggles of mustard. Kosher salami and muenster cheese were a favorite. Do I still occasionally assemble these and make smiley faces with French's yellow? I do. What I don't do is mash soggy room temperature popcorn chicken and processed cheese food on a pretzel stick that will probably snap in half, then brag that it comes with a smoothie that left the blender months ago. Furthermore, "Kabobbles" takes longer to say than kebabs. It's literally easier to just say "kebabs." They're not scary, they don't need a funny name. Actually if they're going to feature old popcorn chicken and Velveeta (they also inexplicably come in a pizza version) maybe the less their name resembles kebabs, the better.

And with that, I'm off to the Halal cart outside to get reacquainted with kebabs. You watch this ad where they don't know what a platypus is.

More straight-up oddities for lunch on Food Republic: