Hello Fellow Travelers!
A favorite Christmas gift is the I-Pad which offers many types of entertainment to each of us. My son has an I-Pod so he already knew how to operate the I-Pad (Thank You, Rose!). My patient spouse just treats it as a larger version of his phone. A television program we watch together is, "Top Chef" we've watched it since it's beginning season.
Back in the Stone Age I was a serious foodie. I trained under serious chefs, partnered in a catering company back when food was important. I sampled all "important" restaurants that opened in San Francisco and restaurants that claimed to be "important" in the Bay Area (Hint: The greater the view, the more disappointing the food. You can set your watch by it!).
If you don't watch "Top Chef", it's the classic reality cooking competition. Several young, visually compelling competitors cook their brains out for a chance to scoop up $250K and bragging rights to being deemed, Top Chef. The show has been on seemingly forever and, to keep it interesting (and fairer) after the program you can watch the most recently ejected "cheftestant" cook head to head with the reigning champion in a culinary death match they call "Last Chance Kitchen". The Head Judge, Tom Colicchio deals with the judging alone, it's very fast and if you want to see it immediately following the show you can see it online.
Last week in the "Last Chance Kitchen" Chef Tom, as he is known, challenged the two warring chefs to make the tastiest dish using Offal. For anyone that needs clarification; offal is culinary for guts. Tongue, kidneys, liver, heart, stomach, intestines and so on. I've cooked my share of offal. (Making pate was my job as an apprentice chef. If you haven't sauteed chicken livers in shallots and cognac at 6:00AM you haven't cooked.) Cooking garbage that hunters throw to their hounds when they field dress their kills is nothing I want to cook, smell cooking or, God forbid, taste. It's all guts and all kinds of gross. It smells disgusting as it cooks, no matter what you add. It looks like it smells and tastes like it looks - nasty! Menudo, pate, haggis all use some type of offal.
How are these seemingly disconnected circumstances connected? And, more importantly, what do they have to do with me? As soon as I saw the competitors and understood the competition I knew who would win and I didn't need to watch anyone cooking the guts or plating the guts or judging the guts. Who could make that offal less awful? Who cares? You might be a Kitchen Stud for eating those sweetbreads and tripe but at the end of the day you still ate thymus glands and stomach. EEEEWWW! So, my patient spouse is insistent I watch this crap on the I-Pad. I am repelled and explain why but my refusal to watch the "battle of the offal" resulted in much unhappiness disproportionate to a viewing situation.
One of the odder by-products of having the large tumor removed from my brain is I can't tolerate any kind of arguing and foul language is, well, foul. Discord of any sort is unbearable to me and I will do almost anything to avoid it. Ordinarily, I happily watch any stupid thing put in front of me, anything to keep the peace and patient spouse knows what makes me laugh. Guts are something people may or may not have not something you cook or eat. So when my usually patient spouse kept shoving my son's I-Pad in my face and I wouldn't watch the chefs cook/eat/judge offal, he got all pouty and muttered something along the lines of, "You don't have to be like that!"
Oh no he didn't. I took offense. Be like what? I never get angry or lose my temper but those are fightin' words! Because I feel as though I go through hell every day and having to watch anyone cook guts is less than boring; it's actively unpleasant! No amount of culinary expertise is going to mask those vittles! And the smell! My Lord, the smell! Why on earth would my beloved ever believe I would benefit from watching two chefs cook guts and a third chef judging/eating the guts. I like to believe that as a society, we Americans have risen above eating offal or even considering how to cook it. Maybe knowing how to cook guts is an easy way to separate the chefs from the boys. I don't know. I do know offal can be found in hard-to-completely-avoid foods (Although I do my best) like hot dogs and balogna.
I know I don't need to see/witness or observe anyone doing anything with offal. Ever. Maybe it is a small thing but when I think of all the stuff I actually care about (what college my best friend's son selects, my sister-in-law, my sister-in-law's dog, Abbey, my brother-in-law's dog, Boomer, who dressed for the NFC championship, who will next send cookies and what kind will they be...cookies taste like love. The same can't be said for offal.) watching people who can reach dizzying heights with food get reduced to who can cook guts the best, (and believe me, there's no best here not even better just gross!) my head hurts at the waste of talent and potential. Like sewing a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Or putting lipstick on a pig. Actually, the makeup on the swine sounds kind of fun but then you'd have get close enough to the pig to put the lipstick on it and then you'd smell the pig and barf, so while the saying conjures up a compelling mental image the real application isn't practical or advised.
A favorite Christmas gift is the I-Pad which offers many types of entertainment to each of us. My son has an I-Pod so he already knew how to operate the I-Pad (Thank You, Rose!). My patient spouse just treats it as a larger version of his phone. A television program we watch together is, "Top Chef" we've watched it since it's beginning season.
Back in the Stone Age I was a serious foodie. I trained under serious chefs, partnered in a catering company back when food was important. I sampled all "important" restaurants that opened in San Francisco and restaurants that claimed to be "important" in the Bay Area (Hint: The greater the view, the more disappointing the food. You can set your watch by it!).
If you don't watch "Top Chef", it's the classic reality cooking competition. Several young, visually compelling competitors cook their brains out for a chance to scoop up $250K and bragging rights to being deemed, Top Chef. The show has been on seemingly forever and, to keep it interesting (and fairer) after the program you can watch the most recently ejected "cheftestant" cook head to head with the reigning champion in a culinary death match they call "Last Chance Kitchen". The Head Judge, Tom Colicchio deals with the judging alone, it's very fast and if you want to see it immediately following the show you can see it online.
Last week in the "Last Chance Kitchen" Chef Tom, as he is known, challenged the two warring chefs to make the tastiest dish using Offal. For anyone that needs clarification; offal is culinary for guts. Tongue, kidneys, liver, heart, stomach, intestines and so on. I've cooked my share of offal. (Making pate was my job as an apprentice chef. If you haven't sauteed chicken livers in shallots and cognac at 6:00AM you haven't cooked.) Cooking garbage that hunters throw to their hounds when they field dress their kills is nothing I want to cook, smell cooking or, God forbid, taste. It's all guts and all kinds of gross. It smells disgusting as it cooks, no matter what you add. It looks like it smells and tastes like it looks - nasty! Menudo, pate, haggis all use some type of offal.
How are these seemingly disconnected circumstances connected? And, more importantly, what do they have to do with me? As soon as I saw the competitors and understood the competition I knew who would win and I didn't need to watch anyone cooking the guts or plating the guts or judging the guts. Who could make that offal less awful? Who cares? You might be a Kitchen Stud for eating those sweetbreads and tripe but at the end of the day you still ate thymus glands and stomach. EEEEWWW! So, my patient spouse is insistent I watch this crap on the I-Pad. I am repelled and explain why but my refusal to watch the "battle of the offal" resulted in much unhappiness disproportionate to a viewing situation.
One of the odder by-products of having the large tumor removed from my brain is I can't tolerate any kind of arguing and foul language is, well, foul. Discord of any sort is unbearable to me and I will do almost anything to avoid it. Ordinarily, I happily watch any stupid thing put in front of me, anything to keep the peace and patient spouse knows what makes me laugh. Guts are something people may or may not have not something you cook or eat. So when my usually patient spouse kept shoving my son's I-Pad in my face and I wouldn't watch the chefs cook/eat/judge offal, he got all pouty and muttered something along the lines of, "You don't have to be like that!"
Oh no he didn't. I took offense. Be like what? I never get angry or lose my temper but those are fightin' words! Because I feel as though I go through hell every day and having to watch anyone cook guts is less than boring; it's actively unpleasant! No amount of culinary expertise is going to mask those vittles! And the smell! My Lord, the smell! Why on earth would my beloved ever believe I would benefit from watching two chefs cook guts and a third chef judging/eating the guts. I like to believe that as a society, we Americans have risen above eating offal or even considering how to cook it. Maybe knowing how to cook guts is an easy way to separate the chefs from the boys. I don't know. I do know offal can be found in hard-to-completely-avoid foods (Although I do my best) like hot dogs and balogna.
I know I don't need to see/witness or observe anyone doing anything with offal. Ever. Maybe it is a small thing but when I think of all the stuff I actually care about (what college my best friend's son selects, my sister-in-law, my sister-in-law's dog, Abbey, my brother-in-law's dog, Boomer, who dressed for the NFC championship, who will next send cookies and what kind will they be...cookies taste like love. The same can't be said for offal.) watching people who can reach dizzying heights with food get reduced to who can cook guts the best, (and believe me, there's no best here not even better just gross!) my head hurts at the waste of talent and potential. Like sewing a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Or putting lipstick on a pig. Actually, the makeup on the swine sounds kind of fun but then you'd have get close enough to the pig to put the lipstick on it and then you'd smell the pig and barf, so while the saying conjures up a compelling mental image the real application isn't practical or advised.
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