Assorted Nonsense

Chatted briefly with my mother this evening. I was making a homemade cornmeal pizza at the time, and looking forward to making some chocolate balls later. The cornmeal pizza was fairly healthful (all the cheese notwithstanding); the chocolate balls less so.

We got to talking about weight. I told her I thought chubby people seemed happier than skinny people. I have no scientific evidence to back this up, it was really a foolish assertion to make. And yet my life’s experience seems to bear this out. Which is just as foolish an assertion to make. And yet, dear reader, it is far from the last foolish assertion I will make in this post.

I told my mother, “Mom,” I said, “It seems to me that to be happy you have to be large. Which is why I’m feeding my family large slabs of homemade cornmeal pizza, and then later copious amounts of homemade chocolate balls.”

“Son,” she said, “You’re an idiot.”

I beg your pardon, actually she was just thinking that. What she actually said was, “So what you’re telling me” — idiot — “Is that in order to be happy you have to be unhealthy.”

I hadn’t actually thought of it like that until she said it. But the truth of it hit me like a bag of potato chips in the face. Which is to say it didn’t hurt much or leave much of an impression. “That’s it exactly Mom,” I told her. “I’ve known lots of skinny people and they’re all miserable sods” (another ridiculous assertion). “Whereas all the large people I know are full of joy, among other things.” The conversation soon drifted into other areas as my mother gently and without too much difficulty steered her idiot son toward more benign conversational material.

But the idea has taken seed, which is why my immediate family and I are going to eat our faces off this Christmas season. And I’m not talking pan fried fish here (although there will almost certainly be some of that… Arctic Char… hmm). No, it’s Chocolate Balls and Cherry Surprises for us. Turkey with lots of gravy and stuffing. Cherry Cheese Cake, Jell-O Pudding Pie, and Harold Squares. Red wine and beer. Potato Chips and Strawberry Wine.

We will be large. We will be happy. Life will be short, but grand.

Burp.

Some foods have to be right the first time you try them, or you may never properly appreciate them.  I have a friend who hates potatoes.  It’s so sad… and I know why.  It’s because when she was young her mother fed her mashed potatoes.  But not just any mashed potatoes… lumpy mashed potatoes.  A true culinary tragedy.  And now my friend cannot appreciate any potatoes.  Sadly, she will never know the glory of a baked potato baked in olive oil to perfection, and served with bacon bits, sour cream, and a smidgeon of butter.

I recall the first time I ever consumed Pad Thai.

A friend brought me to some now defunct Thai restaurant near Yonge and Eglinton.  She insisted that I try this noodle concoction called Pad Thai.  One bite in and I could not believe that I had lived to the ripe old age of twenty-six without ever tasting that TASTE! To this day I’m not exactly sure what the ingredient is that gives Pad Thai that particular perfection… coriander, maybe?  Just not educated enough in the culinary arts.  But it was (and I have never used this word to describe anything ever before) divine.

There’s an establishment where I work that serves something called Pad Thai.  Okay.  I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is it ain’t Pad Thai.  And I pity the people who try it and think, “THAT’S what all the fuss is about?”  Like my potato-deprived friend, they may never learn the delight that is true Pad Thai.

If you are prejudiced against Pad Thai and potatoes or any other food, I urge you to cast aside those prejudices and try the foods you don’t like with an open mind.  And keep trying until you get the real thing.  If you don’t like seafood, for instance (talking to you here, sis) because your salmon has always been overcooked or your mother (sorry mom) inadvertantly fed you those horrible frozen Captain Highliner disgraces, hie thee to a supermarket and pick up some fresh fish for a change.  Salmon, Rainbow Trout, or if you’re lucky, some Arctic Char, maybe.  Baste it in a nice Teriyaki sauce for half an hour first.  Don’t overcook it.  And serve it with a nice baked potato and fresh green beans.

Hmmm…. fresh green beans.

Let me know how it turns out.

… from the tortured mind of one Paul Gorbould….

Here’s a blast from the past — an old post from Tuesday, November 30, 2004.  It’s from an old blog I used to have that predates even my CBC Workerbee blog:

You know, I think of myself as a fairly grown up guy, reasonably mature, self sufficient, yadda yadda yadda. And maybe I am all these things in several respects of my life. Okay… two or three respects. All right, I can dress myself, that much at least I can do.

But recently I realized that I’m not at all mature or reasonable when it comes to chocolate. I have a secret addiction, a secret shame. When nobody’s looking, and I’m all alone… I dip into the chocolate chip cupboard. The cupboard with all the baking supplies. There’s a little cup with a cover on it in which we keep chocolate chips, the semi-sweet kind for baking. And it’s important to keep these chocolate chips, or there would be no baking, at least no baking with chocolate chips in it.

Which is why it’s such a bad thing when I dip into these chocolate chips. Which I don’t do very often, understand, certainly no more than eight, nine times an hour. Did I say hour? I meant day… yeah, that’s it. Okay, maybe I’m not quite that bad. But who am I kidding, it is bad. A sweet tooth that may well lead to NO teeth some day. But tasty, darned tasty, and better than smoking or alcoholism I would think. Except for the trans fats they’re probably loaded with… you know what, I don’t even want to look at the ingredients. As long as the chocolate chips have chocolate in them, that’s all I need to know.

So the other day I dip into them when Lynda’s downstairs. Suddenly, uh oh, she’s coming up stairs and I’VE STILL GOT THE CHOCOLATE CHIP CUP IN MY HANDS! There’s no time to put it back. I clutch it to myself, turn my back to Lynda, and kind of huddle in the corner of the kitchen. Lynda says, “So Joe, I was wondering… hey, whattaya doing, what’ve you got there?” And she comes over and I sheepishly show her the chocolate chip cup. And of course I’m still kinda chewin’ on a few chips. It was like I was a little kid again, caught red-handed. But she’s a good wife, a good friend. “Don’t eat them all,” she said. “I don’t want to be all out when it’s time to make chocolate chip cookies.”

And if that isn’t reason enough to restrain myself at least a tiny little bit, I don’t know what is.