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Mar. 13th, 2002 07:03 am
On Mike and "White" food
I was adamant last night that Mike needed to cook. He decided to make spaghetti.
I should have relented immediately.
Spaghetti should be easy. You heat the sauce (assuming you're not making your own, which Mike doesn't know how to do), you cook the pasta, all is well. Yes?
Obviously you don't live with the whackjob known as Mike. He feels he ought to add spices to the sauce, to "improve" the flavor. The problem is, Mike has never bothered to learn several things:
1) How spices interact
2) How much is too much
3) Why cilantro is rarely used in large quantities.
My spaghetti tasted like someone had placed a small amount of the proper spices in with heaping cups of cilantro, oregano, and of all things, curry.
The curry begs explanation.
In some ways, Mike is, like his father, UltraChinese, which is to say "more frugal than any human has a right to be." This means he takes bay leaves from the store-bought Madras Curry jar and places them in the Bay Leaves jar, making ALL the Bay Leaves taste like curry, and NONE of them taste like Bay Leaves. Then he uses these befouled leaves in cooking. Not me. I have my own, highly secret, well-hidden stash of bay leaves I don't allow him to see.
Anyway, he used these leaves in the sauce. And of course, I can't say "Stop this!" because he won't believe me -- in his strange, warped opinion, the sauce tastes better.
I know I'm being a snob, but sheesh!
I should have relented immediately.
Spaghetti should be easy. You heat the sauce (assuming you're not making your own, which Mike doesn't know how to do), you cook the pasta, all is well. Yes?
Obviously you don't live with the whackjob known as Mike. He feels he ought to add spices to the sauce, to "improve" the flavor. The problem is, Mike has never bothered to learn several things:
1) How spices interact
2) How much is too much
3) Why cilantro is rarely used in large quantities.
My spaghetti tasted like someone had placed a small amount of the proper spices in with heaping cups of cilantro, oregano, and of all things, curry.
The curry begs explanation.
In some ways, Mike is, like his father, UltraChinese, which is to say "more frugal than any human has a right to be." This means he takes bay leaves from the store-bought Madras Curry jar and places them in the Bay Leaves jar, making ALL the Bay Leaves taste like curry, and NONE of them taste like Bay Leaves. Then he uses these befouled leaves in cooking. Not me. I have my own, highly secret, well-hidden stash of bay leaves I don't allow him to see.
Anyway, he used these leaves in the sauce. And of course, I can't say "Stop this!" because he won't believe me -- in his strange, warped opinion, the sauce tastes better.
I know I'm being a snob, but sheesh!