The Munchies

                                Open Invitation

I can prepare wonderful meals, but I don’t like to cook for myself.

I’d like to make a yummy meal for you, but first I need to know:

if you’re a vegan, a vegetarian, a pesco-vegetarian, an ovo-lacto vegetarian,

of some other semi-vegetarian persuasion,

somebody who thinks that it’s not a meal without red meat,

or basically an omnivore;

if you keep kosher or halal or Hindu beef-avoidance;

if you’re on a strict all-hors d’oeuvre diet

(it’s a one-percenter thing);

if you’re lactose-intolerant, a Celiac sufferer,

or have some other food allergy,

diagnosed, supposed, or imagined;

if you like your sauces hot, medium, or mild;

if you adhere to some natural-health,

low-or-high-carb, macrobiotic, paleo, Dukan, Atkins,

or other New Age diet or wonder-food fad;

if you require eggs, poultry, and swine meat audited as cruelty-free;

if you have such strong personal preferences or dislikes as

wanting to have plenty of salt on everything,

liking fish but not shelled seafood,

being unable to stand eating anything green in colour,

loving spuds cooked any way except mashed,

– I can’t understand it when people hate brussels sprouts, by the way,

(I think they’re divine with soy sauce and melting butter –

or marge); 

or … the possibilities are endless.

Okay, maybe I’ll just skip making dinner;

you’d probably rather get some takeaways

and eat them without me being around.

                         Souls and Soup

I made a monster soup a few days before keying this.

Starting with an oil-and-wholemeal-flour roux,

I added

salt, black pepper, stock, soy sauce,

onion, garlic,

split peas, barley, split red lentils, brown rice,

powdered mustard, cumin, turmeric, and cayenne,

cut-up carrot, Chinese turnip,

mushrooms, brussels sprouts, and chestnuts,

and wholemeal-flour-baking-powder-and-egg dumplings.

On the soup’s third day,

after I’d reheated it twice,

the flavours of all the ingredients

had blended thoroughly together

so that it was just about impossible

to isolate the flavour of any one,

even with the vegetables.

This reminded me of one of my conceptions of spiritual reality.

I think that it’s likely

that if the soul or spirit

does outlive the body

it enters a sort of spiritual soup

in which it, as an ingredient,

loses its individual flavour,

merging all that it is

with the universal

spiritual-energy broth,

as it were.

Of course, I could be wrong.

                  Selecting Hot Sauce

I’d been at Martin’s house

and a mutual acquaintance had been raving –

not about Kaitaia Fire,

a New Zealand made brand of hot sauce –

but about how wonderful his taste was because he used it,

and sneering disparagingly about anybody

with the horrendously bad taste to like Tabasco,

his voice dripping with sarcasm.

He reminded me of my mother,

and anything that reminds me of my mother

turns me off so thoroughly

that it drives me directly into avoidance behaviours,

so I left.

I had enjoyed Tabasco sauce for most of my adult life,

but at age 64 I decided to try Kaitaia Fire.

After using it for a few days I performed a mental analysis.

Tabasco has the advantages of a simpler recipe,

with no ingredients with numbers after them,

as Kaitaia Fire’s recipe does.

Kaitaia Fire, however, uses certified organic chilli peppers.

I also liked the taste of Tabasco better,

and it is noticeably hotter –

an important factor with hot sauces.

Being Kiwi-made, though, is desirable for many reasons,

and after mother’s milk they’re all acquired tastes anyway.

The most telling factor, however, was the price.

I both use hot sauce every day

and occupy the price-sensitive segment of the market.

I didn’t like Tabasco’s flavour four times more than Kaitaia Fire’s

and it isn’t four times hotter,

but it costs about four times as much.

  

                          A Man of Refined Taste

When it comes to salmon fillets and new potatoes

roasted with dill and chives and served with asparagus on the side,

all I can say is, ‘More, please.’

Sweetbreads sautéed in lemon-and-caper sauce

are something I’d like to eat once more before I die.

My summers belong to home-made gazpacho and ceviche.

Few things can sate me with a sense of well-being more

than a multi-course Neapolitan feast

centred on spaghetti alle vongole posillipo.

Enchiladas verdes and beer are, well, enchiladas verdes and beer.

Perhaps the greatest pleasure my mouth has ever experienced

was soft-shelled crabs sautéed à la meunière

accompanied by several glasses of Pouilly-Fuissé.

Still, from time to time the gastronomic sensation I crave above all

is a hot dog – preferably one cooked earlier and given time to age.

Fucken hot dogs, eh?

I can become excited at the prospect

of a pig-in-a-blanket hot dog from the hot bread shop

that I can take home and spread dijon mustard on each bite,

and although I’m fiercely anti-American, I sucker far too often

for US-style hotdogs from the 4Square’s warmer cabinet,

with mustard, sauce, and melted cheese,

although sometimes, if I can contain myself,

I might take it home and add relish

or maybe a forkful or two of canned sauerkraut.

Just what the doctor ordered.

Fried corn dogs on a stick, however,

do nothing for me.

         Strawberries and Flavoured

Like most people, I suppose,

I really do enjoy

wrapping my laughing gear

around fresh strawberries –

the fresher the better.

It was especially fine when I had some vines

growing in the back garden,

back when I had a big house.

What I have no idea about, however,

is how many people also share my indifference-to-dislike

for strawberry-flavoured stuff –

ice cream, jam, compote, preserves,

pie, syrup, milkshakes, tarts, fizzy drinks,

cheesecake, pancakes, and such.

It’s been that way ever since

I was just a wee boy.

I think it’s because the flavour of fresh strawberries

is, to me at least, just about exactly right,

and adding sugar to them simply ruins it.

   Small Cabbages From Belgium

It continually astounds me

how many people

aggressively claim

that they just can’t stand

to eat Brussels sprouts,

one of my favourite foods.

           When Goyim Discovered Bagels

When goyim discovered bagels

they couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I ate bagels for Sunday brunch every week

when I was growing up,

and sometimes at other times, too.

The stuff in the middle of the table to put on our own bagels

was always the same:

cream cheese, lox (smoked salmon to some of you),

sable (smoked black cod to most of you),

and sliced tomatoes and bermuda onions.

I skipped the onions because they gave me gas.

No capers or any of that other café la-di-da,

and certainly none of the abominations that

that fast-food monstrosity advertised

back when I watched TV.

The bagels were always fresh – baked that morning,

and never, never, toasted.

Toasting a bagel is an admission that

it’s an inferior-quality bagel, stale, or both.

I’ve had to engage in confrontations with café staff

on this issue in the past,

back when I could afford café bagels.

Despite being Jewish,

I grew up in a town in which

most of the people had either been born in Naples

or their parents or grandparents had.

Don’t get me started on subs.

                    Avocado and Chicken

I made myself a dinner

composed of a mashed avocado and some leftover chicken

with chopped tomatillos and jalapeños

folded into some frozen chapattis.

I didn’t know whether avocado

is a wonder food

that would cure all my ills

from cancer to meningitis

to being overweight to having a bad attitude,

or if it was one of the five foods I should never eat

according to the facebook advert I never click on.

I did know that the chicken had probably come

from some cruelty-oriented factory farm,

but since I’d bought it as cold, cooked

wings and drumsticks

the day before,

I told myself that I wasn’t adding significantly to demand,

and since the bird or birds was or were already dead

I was showing respect by taking it into myself as nutrition

rather than letting its carcase be disposed as rubbish.

The tomatillos came out of a can

and the pickled jalapeños out of a jar.

However healthy or unhealthy this meal was,

it didn’t kill me or cure me.

However ethical or unethical it was

is beyond my ability to judge,

the ethical complexities being what they are,

and death being, well, death.