Assorted Nonsense

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.