Adventures in kale

The Hero and I recently ventured into a farmer's market run by Amish individuals, where we marveled at the assortment of fresh produce and meats, the yummy breads and pastries, and the somewhat unflattering haircuts on the part of some of the young men. 

We had agreed to branch out a bit and buy some foods with which we were not very familiar, which included most green things. But we would also get a few standbys, like ice cream, which we are SURE is related in some way to most green things and therefore reasonably healthy.

I wandered to the section of green things and, after much pondering of the list above the counter, decided to go with kale. This decision was made mainly because a) I was vaguely familiar with kale as a food source, and b) see a).

Kale was also the only leafy green listed on the sign that I had any firsthand knowledge of, having brought some home from the grocery store once. (In that instance, the Hero opened the refrigerator door and yelled up the stairs to me, "What is this weed you brought home?")

I wasn't entirely sure, however, what kale looked like, so when the young man behind the counter asked what I wanted, I gestured vaguely in the direction of all the greens and said confidently -- it is very important to be confident, and failing this, to SOUND confident -- "One bunch of kale, please."

What I received could best be described as a bush. But since it is important to be confident, and failing that to LOOK confident, I did my best to look as if I totally carted home bushfuls of kale all the time.

"Who do we know who would take some of this kale and still like us?" I whispered frantically to the Hero. At least I hoped it was him I was whispering to. It was hard to see around the bush I was carrying.

When I attempted to put it in the refrigerator upon our return home, it was like trying to stuff a small pillow inside. It billowed out to one side, and when I successfully got that side stuffed in, the other side billowed out.

Happily, it did not take long for the kale to be consumed, thanks to some pitying neighbors and the vegetable's tendency to cook down to about 1/73 of its original size. Had it not been consumed, the bush could have fit into a toothpaste tube (carry-on size). 

This experience has me all fired up to make a return trip to this particular establishment -- perhaps next time we'll come home with a bush-size container of ice cream.

A corpse flower by any other name...

A rare event at the U.S. Botanic Garden this week has turned our thoughts to murder (it doesn't take much, given the number of mystery stories and movies to which we subject ourselves). Visitors there were able to witness the blooming of the titan arum, affectionately known as the "corpse flower."

The giant corpse flower blooms irregularly and emits a smell that -- well, had the Germans been able to harness it during WW II, they would have won hands down. It is variously described as the "smell of rotting flesh," "a horrible, fetid smell," and "not unlike a typical teenage boy's bedroom*."

Offensive as its smell may be, we see hidden potential in this flower. It offers the PERFECT opportunity to cover up the fact that you have a body buried in your backyard, if this is the case.

Although our neighborhood does not have a formal watch program, several residents faithfully and diligently keep an eye out for any suspicious happenings or characters. Incredibly, the Hero and I, despite being highly suspicious characters (for one, we do not own a dog), we have never aroused anyone's suspicions. Yet.

On the contrary, we play an important, albeit self-appointed, role in helping to keep the neighborhood safe for all residents. This role is to: 

1. Notice when any resident has not been seen for a while.

2. Figure out where the body is buried.

It may be that the Hero and I have overly active, morbid imaginations, fueled by the consumption of many more fictional mysteries than is healthy. In any case, when we notice that a neighbor seems to be missing, we usually see no reason to immediately jump to conclusions that are perfectly reasonable and logical, such as that the person is on vacation, or caring for an ill relative many miles away, or searching for a new neighborhood where the Hero and I do not reside.

So we are left with the conviction that a grievous crime has been committed, and our crime-detection instincts go into high gear. Who killed the person? Why? Did the criminal leave behind any clues, or possibly any chocolate that should be rescued?

But mostly, where did they hide the body?

"Does it look to you like So-and-So's garden has been dug up recently?" I might ask the Hero when we are in crime-detecting mode.

But our gardens are all quite small, and it would be difficult to go about burying a body without detection, not to mention that at least one of the roughly 697 dogs in the area would be likely to sniff it out and uncover it.

More likely, the body would disappear into the large forest behind our house. But with so many people -- and all those dogs - regularly walking the trails, this might be difficult as well.

Enter the corpse flower. What better way to disguise one's dastardly deed than by having a rotten-flesh-smelling flower nearby?

Of course, there would be obstacles. Obtaining the flower, which grows in Sumatra. Getting it to bloom just when you need it most. And making sure you are far, far away when it does bloom. But we're sure that enterprising criminals could find a way around these difficulties.

So beware, potential criminals. If ever we spot titan arum in the area, we'll be on to you. If the smell doesn't chase us away first.

____________________

*According to several parents of typical teenage boys.

Would you like something edible with that?

For those cooks who would like to be a little more adventurous in the kitchen but need some assistance to do so, there are websites that guide you, step by step, in creating your own version of a number of different dishes. With these tools, it is remarkably easy to create a dish that tastes remarkably bad. 

But this is an important step to being adventurous! All your major chefs have had at least one majorly bad culinary experience; it is called "meatloaf." So learn to view failure as your friend. It may be the only one you will have left after serving your real friends your meatloaf.

On these websites, once you pick the dish you want to make, you are prompted to make a selection among many choices for each ingredient. For example, for a grain salad, you are asked to first choose one type of grain from several types like farro and quinoa*, then vegetables (here you can be a little creative and choose more then one, but you are strongly recommended to limit your choice to three), then dressing ingredients. 

The dressing ingredients could be a minefield if you, like me, did not pay much attention in chemistry class when acids and bases were explained, or if you were like some other individuals in chemistry class, mainly male, who were more intent on simply causing explosions.

Then it is on to herbs and other aromatics (meaning, in cooking, "things that taste horrible on their own but somehow make other things taste better, unless, due to advanced age, you cannot taste anything at all"). At the end of the process, a recipe magically appears with all the ingredients you chose, along with the proper quantities. 

While there are some safeguards in place to keep you from making a horrible mistake, we think more could be done. If you make a particularly bad choice, for example, it could prompt you to make another, more suitable choice, like so:

Are you SURE you want to do this? Just askin'.

This may not be a good idea. 

You don't much care for your friends and family, do you?

Warning: This combination may spontaneously combust.

We will not be held liable for unfortunate or unwise combinations resulting in illness, disembowelment, or just plain disgust on the part of those eating it.

Well, we warned you. Don't blame us.

This may help other would-be cooks avoid the situation I found myself in, wondering idly as I mixed the grain salad ingredients, What idiot called for both red onions and chives in the same dish?

 Ohhhh, THIS idiot....

My idiotness was confirmed sometime later, after I was feeling proud of the success of my first try at cooking farro. Then I found out why it had been so easy.

"Farro is an idiot-proof grain to cook," a website declared. 

Which explains EVERYTHING.

*It is regrettable that everyone, even some top culinary folk, has been referring to quinoa as a grain, when in fact it is actually a seed closely related to the mustard seed, the sesame seed, the ketchup seed, birdseed, etc. Seriously, it IS a seed, and the fact that it is being mislabeled and misrepresented is the REAL reason the Aztecs forecast the end of the world recently. "Someday," they told each other, "this great seed which has nourished our people for generations will be sold in large bags at Costco and be called a grain...and then will come the end." Fortunately, of course, this was not the case, and there are likely to be no permanent effects from our misguided conceptions concerning quinoa.

Happily ever after...or was it?

We have all been told that Cinderella and her Prince, who in the story is never named, lived happily ever after. But consider: Cinderella's defining feature was her Very Tiny Feet, feet that were smaller than any other woman's in the whole kingdom. So small, in fact, that her glass slippers had had to be whipped up especially for her by the Fairy Godmother. No store carried Very Tiny Shoes.

Would Cinderella, after she and the Prince were settled in at his castle, have been satisfied with ONE pair of shoes, even if they were custom-made? Of course not. Here we join the Prince and his beloved on a morning soon after their fairy-tale wedding...

Cinderella, opening her eyes and smiling at the sun streaming in the castle window, swung her feet round to get out of bed. And shrieked.

Instantly the Prince was alert. 'What is it, my sweet? Has a mouse terrified you? Dreams of your awful stepmother?"

"Worse!" She cried. "I have no shoes, Prince."

He blinked. "No...shoes?"

"I have but these glass slippers. They cannot be worn every day!"

The Prince did not understand shoes very well, and this confused him. It was a feeling he would soon find himself becoming well acquainted with now that he was married. 

But he gallantly offered to go throughout his kingdom -- surely he would not have to go that far -- and procure some shoes for his beloved. 

Grateful, the Princess handed him a list as he prepared to leave. "As long as you're going," she said shyly.

The list said she needed:

Morning shoes

evening shoes

Afternoon shoes

Midmorning shoes

Slippers

Riding boots

Deck shoes

Rain boots

Going-out shoes 

Staying-in shoes

"You need all...of these?" he said, seeing his plans for a midmorning hunt evaporate.

She shook her head. "Goodness, I need LOTS of others too! But these will do for now."

And so the Prince bravely set off for the nearest cobbler. 

"I need, uh" -- he looked at the the list and then thrust it at the cobbler  -- "these shoes. In a Very Tiny Size. For the Princess."

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," the cobbler said regretfully. "We don't have any Very Tiny Shoes, nor can they be made. My fingers, you see" -- he held them out -- "are too big and clumsy to work in so delicate a size."

The Prince tried another cobbler, who regretfully told him that he, too, was unable to fashion such dainty items.

And so it went, throughout his kingdom. No one knew how to make such a Very Tiny Shoe.

The Prince had slain dragons, he had once been thrown into a pit and left for dead, but that was nothing compared with THIS.

Finally, exhausted, longing for his simple, dragon-slaying days, he found one pair of Very Tiny Shoes and snatched them up. He had no idea which one on the list they matched. Nor did he care. He crawled into the castle, parched, and croaked out, "Here are your shoes, my sweet."

She smiled, took them, and asked, 

"Were they on sale?"

And the Prince -- that great slayer of dragons, rescuer of cruelly treated princesses and cats stuck in trees -- cried. 

Yes, I'm sure he did.

But perhaps they DID live happily ever after...as soon as the Prince got Cinderella her own credit card. And as soon as he made sure the cobblers learned how to make Very Tiny Shoes. 

And when he never, ever had to go shopping again. 

To list or not

A Female Relative asked a Tiny Person in the family, whose birthday is approaching, whether she had a list made out. The Tiny Person was not sure what this meant.

"You know, a list of what gifts you would like," the Female Relative explained. "Like at Christmas."

"Oh," the Tiny Person said, her voice brightening. "I'll get right on it."

When it comes to gifts, there are two groups* of people: those in the List camp, and those in the Freewill Offering camp.

List people prefer to exchange lists of gift ideas among themselves, believing that in this manner they can present, or receive, a gift that is truly wanted and useful to the recipient.

Such a practice, however, is regarded by Freewill Offerers as the height of greediness. They prefer a gift that comes entirely out of the giver's imagination,** a gift that the recipient will display appreciatively until such time as the item can be safely thrown away without the giver's knowledge, owing to its hideousness or utter lack of usefulness or because the giver, working without benefit of a list, has given the recipient the same item for the last three years.

It can be difficult for members of each group to understand the benefits of the other method of gift giving. Individuals in the Freewill Offering group, for instance, if forced to offer specific suggestions for things they would like, are likely to grumble and complain and turn out something like the following;

1. Happiness

2. Joy 

3. Peace on Earth

To which the list asker is likely to reply, "So, you want Santa, eh?"

I personally keep a list year-round, as you never know when you might be called upon to offer ideas to someone who simply insists that they must get you a little something for, say, May Day. I have never been called upon to use the list in this fashion, but theoretically speaking it could happen.

The Hero is acquainted with the location of my list, and has on occasion, when it has not been updated, frowned and inquired why the list is blank.

Despite the fact that he came into our marriage squarely in the Freewill Offering camp, he has gradually come to see the advantages of a gift list, both for the giver and recipient. How else would he have ever received the Air Hogs Heli Replay Radio Control Helicopter set he asked for one year, which provided so many happy hours of enjoyment on Christmas Day and which also provided the perfect excuse to not have to help clean up after the gift giving was over?

And without my lists, how would he have been able to successfully avoid that terrible quicksand that husbands, in particular, are so apt to fall into: the Perils of Unwise Gifts?***

The optimist side of him will likely always be a Freewill Offerer, but the pragmatic side will continue to seek and write lists. And now, if you will excuse me, National All-or-Nothing Day is coming up on the 27th. I must get on my list right away, or I may wind up with nothing.

*There is actually a third group, the Passive-Aggressive Scrooge group, whose members insist that they do not want any gifts, do not NEED any gifts, and then are quite put out when they do not get any gifts. 

**or basement

***This basically includes anything that husbands think their wives should have.

Close encounters with shaving

The Princess has just returned from several days at the beach, where she had the arduous task of deciding which of the many ice cream establishments to patronize -- and in what order. She has survived the ordeal, however, and now returns to tales from her and the Hero's earlier trip to San Francisco.

As a child I only vaguely understood the purpose of a razor, and it did not occur to me to wonder why I never saw my mother or other individuals of a female persuasion shaving. One day I furtively took my father's straight razor and raked it across my face, as I had seen him do many times.

Somehow I had missed the part about using shaving cream first. This pretty much destroyed my razor curiosity.

Until recently.

In San Francisco, arriving a few days ahead of the Hero, I discovered an entire store for men that was devoted to shaving. The Hero did not believe this when I told him.

"They HAVE to sell something else," he said. "Probably cigars." 

So we visited the store when he came, not so much to shop as to see which of us was right. We learned that 1) the store is indeed dedicated solely to shaving, and 2) the staff of the store are fully convinced that shaving is an extremely high art form, and 3) the staff are whacko.

We waited until our fourth day in the city to go to the store, which in retrospect may not have been wise. The Hero does not, in general, believe in shaving while on vacation, and after a few days without a razor resembles a wooly mammoth from the neck up, only woolier.

This sight sent the salesperson into high gear. He whirled us from one display to another, describing his products with ever-increasing intensity and pitch, occasionally staring at the Hero's beard as if mesmerized by a charming but deadly snake, until we thought he was going to grab a $500 razor and attack the Hero's beard right then and there.

Thinking it would hasten our escape, the Hero finally admitted that he uses an electric razor. This only sent the salesperson into another frenzy of explaining the products suitable for such a lifestyle, however disdainful of it he might be personally. There MUST be a way to get at that beard!

Before he could fling himself at the Hero and beg for a chance to shave him, we made our escape. We thought for a moment he might try to follow us, and we fled for refuge into a nearby shoe store. HERE was something I could understand.

I felt some pity for the salesperson, and wish him solace among his beloved razors. And someday, better luck with another wooly mammoth.