Just in thyme

WARNING: IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT BUGS IN YOUR FOOD, YOU SHOULD NOT READ THIS BLOG. IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT BUGS IN OTHER PEOPLE'S FOOD, YOU REALLY SHOULD NOT READ THIS BLOG.

Well, now that we have the wussies out of the way, the rest of us can make jokes about them behind their backs. Ha! Just kidding.

You no doubt noticed the title of today's entry, Just in Thyme. Unfortunately, they weren't just in the thyme. They were in the cilantro, too. I am talking about bugs. Bugs in our herbs. Bugs in our spices. These bugs are not very nices! (My apologies to Dr. Seuss. At least I didn't title this story A Thyme for Rhyme.)

We've had them before, these little cigarette beetles that look like miniature wind-up cars with wings. We had made a thorough purge of our pantry last year, and hadn't seen any of the bugs since. Though I admit I have never quite felt safe in my own kitchen.

And, it turns out, for good reason. I opened the jar of thyme yesterday and noticed -- I have very keen eyes for this sort of thing -- that the thyme seemed to be moving. Now, for those of you new to cooking, moving herbs are not a good thing. Any food moving is not a good thing. Either it is not dead yet, or someone has come uninvited to the party. With great presence of mind, I shrieked and clapped the lid back on before anything could escape, then threw the jar in the garbage can and piled every heavy object I could find on top of the garbage can. (Fortunately the thyme jar did not break when I threw it, or this story would be a lot more graphic.) My quick thinking no doubt saved the rest of the world from a Cigarette Beetle Invasion.

But now I had a dilemma. Never mind that the new dish I was trying out wouldn't have any thyme in it. I wasn't hungry, anyway, and Joe wouldn't be either when I told him. If the bugs were in thyme, where else might they be?

Donning gear designed for nuclear waste removal, I went through all the other herbs and spices and anything else the bugs might be interested in, which according to my prior research is pretty much everything in our house, including non-edible things, although they don't seem to show much interest in items made of cast iron.

Have you ever looked closely at the contents of your herb jars? I don't really recommend it. It's kind of like inspecting an egg roll. There are an awful lot of unidentifiable parts in there. And if you have a suspicious mind, as I certainly did at this point, EVERYTHING in the jar looks as though it is moving.

In the end, I threw out the cilantro, as it too had been invaded by adult bugs, though they didn't seem to be moving. Cilantro must have some sort of sedative effect. Or maybe the beetles overate and were taking a siesta. I quarantined the basil, poppy seeds, and Italian seasoning in Ziploc bags, because they looked suspicious, and threw out five more herb jars that did not look suspicious. They merely looked capable, at some future point, of becoming Beetle Bed & Breakfasts.

I looked at the spice cabinet we had just bought a few days before at an antique shop. "How could you?" I said to it reproachfully. "I rescued you from obscurity in that dusty store, gave you a thorough cleaning, and put you in a place of prominence on the kitchen wall. I lovingly placed each jar inside you and entrusted them to your care. I gazed at you with devotion each morning when I got up and each night before going to bed. And now, after all this pampering, it turns out that you've been harboring criminals. I've had to kick out half your tenants."

But I couldn't really blame the spice cabinet. Without going into too much detail, I know the life cycle of these bugs, and they didn't just appear in my jars a few days ago. But I will never be able to look at the cabinet again in quite the same way.

Almost the worst part of it (what can be worse than bugs in your food, you wonder) is that these beetles are kind of cute. Really. Under different circumstances, I'm sure we could be friends. Maybe even keep some for pets.

As for the recipe I was making? It will be a long, long thyme before I can ever bring myself to make it again.