I decided not to react to this startling information, not being sure that I had heard correctly. When this statement was shortly followed by insane cackling, I was much reassured. Either she was throwing out some old dairy, or channeling an evil co-worker. We seldom have old dairy.
An exception sometimes being cheese.
My apartment mate is not lactose intolerant. Which is unusual for a person of East Asian ancestry. One might naturally expect that as someone of European heritage ("so white he glows in the dark"), this blogger himself would be the primary consumer of milk, butter, and cheese in the household. Or, conversely, if white describes a modern day urban American attitude, that I would abjure such things and sing the virtues of tempeh, tofu, and wheatgrass instead. Unless I had the allergies which so many middle-class white people have, in which case no dairy, no wheat, no soy products, no peanuts, no citrus, no chilies, no sugar, no salt, no mushrooms, no corn oil, no meat products, no shellfish, no spices....
Just a little steamed "organic" broccoli or a wedge of lettuce, please, with some all-natural third world funkadelic oil-substitute which is sustainably harvested by artistic and sincerely spiritual rainforest dwellers.
And perhaps a drop of wholesome cider vinegar.
NO MILK. NO BUTTER. NO CHEESE!
She drinks the stuff, I merely dump it into my coffee or milk-tea. Or my mixture of strong tea with dark roast, though I more often drool the sweetened condensed milk into that.
We share the cheese -- sometimes she eats cheese every day -- and the butter is her favoured cooking grease more than mine. For a total bomb, bacon-wrapped shrimp sauteed in butter.
She would add oyster sauce to that, I'd jazz it up with Sriracha.
In truth, both together are a wonderful mixture.
Squeeze of lime, and I'm good.
"Ces crevettes au beurre à l'ail au jus de citron et au persil, sont-ils de Trader Joes?"
'Mais non, mon ami, ils sont d'Amazon!'
Mais le fromage est Français.
We don't eat together any more, haven't done so in years. But we've remained keenly interested in good eating and enjoying new comestibles. And besides a tempestuous loathing for wheatgrass, tempeh, and the methodology that Caucasian neurotics use for preparing tofu or broccoli, we don't have any food-hangups.
Too many people nowadays are batshit crazy when it comes to food. Apparently her on-again off-again boyfriend is 'salt-sensitive', in addition to having an irritable digestion and goobus ideas about cuisine.
I've avoided the issue of dietary loopiness in dates by not actually having any dates. It has been a great and somewhat bittersweet blessing to not worry whether someone can or cannot, or will or will not, eat good and interesting food.
But imagine the potential disaster!
Say for instance that I asked a charming petite, elfin even, blonde who was half my age, out to dinner. Let's also posit that she actually had a decent personality, no matter how unlikely that is, because the chances of my inviting a brainless dingbat out on a date are absolutely zip.
Unfortunately I just assumed that she was sane.
Without ridiculous food freakery.
A fellow eater.
We go to a Chinese restaurant which has live fish in tanks along the wall. Plus wonderful steamed oysters, killer red-cooked pork belly (東坡肉 'tung po yiuk'), and stirfried pea sprouts (炒豆苗 'chaau dau miu').
Then all hell breaks loose.
"They're ALIVE! Don't tell me they kill animals, and I'm allergic to shellfish, they make me break out in hives, no sex for you, meat is murder that was a sentient being, this place is filled with bad karma, oh my god my aura is like quivering, I can smell the torment here, you should ONLY eat vegetables do they have salads, the only salad dressing I can stand is balsamic blueberry what do you mean they've never heard of it was this sustainably farmed you're so last century did I already mention no sex why is everything here animal protein perhaps they can do some steamed soy-free tofu if I ask, you speak Cantonese explain to them that gluten and soy are baby killers and we demand rawtarian food that woman has the same handbag as mine that bitch and I've NEVER seen this vegetable before so I'm so NOT touching it you're a bad man!"
Yah, you bet. I am a bad man. That fish will be deceased very soon, and very delicious. Stop belly-aching about the damned oysters; they give me gout, but do you see ME complaining? We should have TWO orders, and Tung-po Pork is a culinary masterpiece; Su Tung-po, after whom this dish is named, was way more sentient that the pig we're going to eat ever was. Please celebrate that, even if you've unfortunately never heard of him. Trust me, an absolute genius. And if you won't touch the pea-sprouts, then I guess garlic stirfried longbean is out too, huh?
How about fish-fragrance eggplant?
She'll probably insist on being taken home NOW!
Before I can even have a single bite.
An epic disaster.
Yes, this hasn't happened yet.
There's a trade-off
I actually enjoy eating with other people. But it's a very rare occurrence, unfortunately. If only every one else weren't so weird about it.
As far as I know he has NO food problems.
Well, except a fear of butter.
Melted butter.
He's male, though. That's quite unfortunate.
More a frat brother than anything.
And he'd bogart my style.
Major competition.
If you read about a strange fellow offering random young ladies bacon on the street in San Francisco sometime, that won't be me.
But I sympathize. Good lord yes I sympathize.
Might even spring bail for the man.
I feel for him.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment