ADD ONLY TWO

On a food page someone asked if you could add only TWO things to a bowl of rice, what would it be? For me that was easy. Salt fish and chili paste. That's gusto right there. The person with whom I share the apartment, being Cantonese American, would probably say Spam and a fried egg. Very Chinatown. And of the question must also be asked whether roast duck qualifies as one thing. If so, the options have increased enormously.

Same goes for potatoes. Which neither of us eat very often.

We both remember that famous painting by Vincent van Gogh entitled 'The Potato Eaters', in which a small group of Brabantish farmer types are at dinner, and nobody looks very excited.
Last night's after-returning-home-snack was fried stuffed rice noodle roll. Kinda like a rice noodle sheet lumpia with interesting Chinese Vietnamese stuffing. I took some of the segments and crisped them in the skillet, and added a sploodge of hot sauce. See, it was cold outside, so a fried snackiepoo was ideal. And life requires hot condiments. That's just the way it is. So there was rice, after a fashion. With porky bits and cilantro, some crunchy salt pickled vegetable I think turnip, and hot sauce.

Technically the rolls were breakfast foods, pobably.
If you don't add hot sauce to your breakfast, you might not be truly alive.

There you are, sculling across the mountain lake, catching trout and salmon and bream, or blackmouth bass, and you head toward the nearest shore. You build a fire, prepare spits for shoving the gutted fish on to and grilling them, and you discover that you forgot to put the jar of chilipaste into the boat. You lose all appetite, what's the buggery point, this isn't a meal at all, you are bereft. It's forty miles to the nearest town. They're all Caucasian Republicans there. There won't be any hot sauce or chili paste there either, because they're all white rednecks and don't touch that kind of stuff. Fercrapsakes, they still go to church! The parking lot outside 'Big Bobs Baptist House O Worships' was packed when you tootled through the setllement. Pick-up trucks, station wagons, and tractors. Conveyance for the whole family.
Like they were having a Sunday morning ho-down or sumpin'.
It's tragedy, is what it is. Heartbreaking.
So sad. So sad.

Okay, I'm resolved to never ever visit the wilderness.
No hotsauce, and only Uncle Ben's.
Bloody primitive!


Their morning coffee is probably black sludge from the night before.
The newspaper is written with words of one syllable or less.
Men and women wear dresses from Sears Roebuck.
Dammit, there is banjo music!


You've seen stuff like this on late night teevee.
Burma Shave and vaseline.
Forsooth.


No Jufran Banana Ketchup either! Dang!


They've likely never heard of Trader Joe's.
Or Piggly-Wiggly.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================