Most days I eat lunch at a civilized hour. Usually sometime after two o'clock. This is remarkable to many of my coworkers, who are starving madmen by noon, and swarm out of the building like so many prowling sharks at twelve on the dot.
Don't bug them, they're eating.
They had to kill an old lady and several orphans who were in the way, and they shot way more possum than they could possibly swallow.
Growl, snap, rip, tear.
The sound of teeth crunching bones, and hungry maws sucking the marrow and juices off roast haunches, is heard throughout the downtown, and the reek of scorched meat and browned fats fills the air.
Today I had a number of meetings - scheduled by the nooners, for times of their convenience.
Their convenience. Not mine. Their time.
I pride myself on being flexible, and I distrust those people when their blood sugar is low.
Which meant that I had precisely twelve minutes for lunch before the next big meeting.
On my way out to grab a sandwich, I remarked to a coworker that it was going to be either liverwurst and pickles or tuna salad, so as to really get even with that bunch.
In consequence of that remark, he spent ten minutes discussing the merits of gehakte leber.
Rich, greasy, delicious gehakte leber.
Which reminded me of a recipe I first posted on September 13, 2007
GEHAKTE LEBER
Chopped liver.
One pound chicken liver or somewhat more.
One onion, chopped coarsely.
Quarter cup rendered chicken fat or clarified duck grease.
Three hard-boiled eggs, chopped coarsely.
One teaspoon paprika. Or more. It's up to you.
Generous pinches salt, pepper, cayenne, dry ginger, and mace.
Add the grease to the pan, heat it up a bit and add the onion. Sauté till the onion is lightly gilded, then add the chicken liver and seethe till cooked. Decant contents of pan to a bowl, add the eggs and the spices. Work over with a large fork, or a round-bladed chopping implement (such as used to be widely sold before electric mixers and laziness were invented).
Once the ingredients can no longer be separated, even though they may be identified at sight, the chopping should end - it will now be a grainy-textured gunk.
Serve with rye bread, melba toasts, small pickles. And sherry. Make small talk.
Or simply flake out in front of the teevee late at night with a box of crackers and smear it on thickly. You should always keep the sherry bottle on the floor next to the chair in the teevee room for just such occasions - you would not want to wake up someone in the next room with sounds of dissipation.
Note that this isn't Savage Kitten's recipe, but mine. Hers is better. All I know about it is that she is generous with the schmaltz.
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AFTERWORD
I didn't have lunch till about five minutes ago.
No, there is no gehakte leber in this neighborhood - this isn't New York.
What I did have was inedible. Not inedible the way gehakte leber is inedible, meaning that you should not try to 'ed' it, because of what too much will do to your stomach and the levels of uric acid crystals in your feet near your big toes, nor inedible like a one-pound steak, which will give you acid indigestion and gravid bowels, or even inedible like a big juicy bacon cheeseburger drenched in hot sauce, but just inedible.
Not to be edded under any circumstances.
Inedible, punkt.
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FOG CAUSES FITS
When I woke up on Tuesday the fog was thick enough to cut it with a knife. Much much later it had disappeared. My late lunch in Chinatown wa...
3 comments:
Sorry to hear that. Surely there must be good sushi nearby somewhere?
Unfortunately, for us, sushi is now out (no fish). As is chopped liver, along with anything w/ refined sugar, or nightshades. Add (our very basic) kashrut to that and we're looking at pretty limited menus.
Decent sushi is available till two o'clock. At twenty past three, however, it's all gone. The ravenous sharks have et it all.
I am profoundly sorry to hear about your dietary limitations - for me, sticking something tasty into my mouth goes a long way towards making everything seem golden.
Gout and gas are my only stumbling blocks. Oh, and raw bananas (an allergy).
But gehakte leber only once in a blue moon, bananas at no time in the last ten years, and avoiding all beandips, are very minor matters. Hardly worth quibbling about.
Although chopped liver is is gross enough, I was seated next to a person on BART that had the distinct, un-mistakable odor of cat food on their breath. Fancy Feast, I believe by the scent. I bet that a can would make two adequate sandwiches.
R
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