Cooking And Eating....“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es”

               I PURCHASED A LARGE CAN OF SARDINES, PACKED IN TOMATO SAUCE, WITH CHILI & GARLIC......WHICH CONTAINED 'LUNCHEON FOR THREE' FOR LESS THAN 3 BUCKS!  I'LL WAIT FOR A FEW HOURS FOR POSSIBLE SIGNS OF SCOMBROID HISTAMINE POISONING, HOWEVER, HAVING NOTICED A LINGERING  PEPPERY, METALLIC TASTE IN THE CANNED CADAVERS....... Scombroid poisoning  

300 calorie lunch: tuna strips in dark, toasted sesame oil, laid across some small spinach leaves, drizzled with raspberry dressing and shredded, stinky-ripe, Roquefort Cheese...and a 'side' of honey-roasted pecans, almonds and cashews.... it seems peculiar that when mold grows on cheddar cheese, it is...usually....tossed to the trash.....yet.....food connoisseurs will shell out big bucks for 'moldy Roquefort and several other cheeses, riddled with blue veins of mold.......this  microscope-photo is of the 'good/tasty' mold......It's always handy to have a good binocular microscope on the kitchen counter.......

Dinner at Alsace last night, 8 years ago, in celebration of a friend's b'day.......borrowing the birthday boy's glasses, I attempted a reading of the artsy menu......but, finally, decided to just choose an entree at random, with a finger swipe over the list of culinary presentations.........This brought a French/German Fusion version of CHICKEN CORDON BLEU to me.....a microwaved and overcooked, tough, dry and unidentifiable, un-pounded or tenderized concoction that hardly "burst" with pleasure...... a toppled over and separated mess of salty prosciutto, salty , rubbery/leathery fowl and salty bechamel sauce with salty emmenthal cheese, accompanied by a messy pile of salty au gratin potatoes!........Everyone else seemed to like the fare, so I said nothing, contrary to my usual critically expressive 'style'.....I'm not returning to the place....artsy-fartsy as it is....I want really good food, especially if I 'go out' to get it!........Coi...

                                                       ANYONE FOR A HANDFULL OF GUMMIES?  

Coriander, large leaf parsley, and spinach omelet, with 4 aged cheeses, sliced scallions, shitake mushrooms, red bell peppers and chopped marjoram, thyme and beet greens....iron-skillet cooked in butter and truffle oils......with a pair of deep-fried semolina puffs, filled with savory herbed clotted cream and topped with peppery cilantro, brushed with walnut oil......some 'dribbles' of hoisin, mixed with oyster sauce and aged, powdered La Chinata smoked paprika, coarse-ground peppercorns and turmeric....... 5:00 supper.......with cardamon expresso...and cardamon bun.....

I have a set of a dozen beautiful porcelain dessert plates....but, have never eaten from them because the decorations may have lead in the enamels......and, the manufacturer 'warns' of the danger of food 'contamination' by lead, cautioning us that the plates are 'only for decoration'..........This morning, I spoke with an oncologist, who said "just don't eat hot or runny foods from them....only pastries and 'hand' foods......... A consolation! I can have a creme puff, served on the beautiful plates, that have long-languished, in boxes, in the basement, behind the water heater for 36 years! .....black pariahs, covered with gold, silver....and lead! In more naive times, American homes were supplied water.....my own, included....through heavy LEAD pipes' so, how much more dangerous could a scone on a plate be?

 WITH A SIMPLE SAUCE OF WATER, CORNSTARCH, SOY SAUCE, RICE VINEGAR, POMEGRANATE JUICE, GARLIC AND SUGAR....IN WHATEVER PROPORTIONS SUIT THE EATERS.......HERE, PRESENTED IN A 3"   ANTIQUE SILVER WINE-TASTING CUP WITH HANDLES AND REPOUSSE FRUIT........WITH A PAIR OF EBONY CHOP STICKS, FOR SPEARING, THEN DUNKING  THE EGGROLLS......

  a subsequent breakfast, this morning, as i glopped some of the leftover stew onto a roasted seaweed rectangle, then folding it and anointing this with shaved, frozen tomatos.....                           this experiment was not particularily delicious, as it was far too salty for my palate

 the "low-calorie" Thai option or the "high-calorie" French option?    

I've observed, throughout my life, that most animals....including humans.....have a 'routine' for eating food......and 'get it the way they like it' or just settle for any caloric configurations, on a cycling, addictive repetition. I must not have ever utilized a 'standard recipe' for even the simplest of fares;.......the downside, occasionally, is an epic failure...which I will, usually, eat anyway.....or a 'dish' that, after a hundred permutations and combinations, is not as tasty as an earlier 'trial' version....similar, but still...different......An example is my breakfast, this morning.....the hundred or so ingredients involved in producing what looked like so many other takes on 'most of the ingredients' was a 'fold your apron and leave the kitchen' experience.....Fortunately, I was not serving this experiment to anyone else....and....it still tasted far better than most Restaurant Fare.......it was that trickster po...

Observing....particularly on TV, in 'food' ads and social media.....the 'fattening of Americans'....I have a suggestion to 'front-end-loaders': how about some mechanisms that slow down all that caloric consumption......one of my favorites is a bowl of dried fruits....just a couple....perhaps an apricot, a pear, fig or date, and various bits and pieces of candied fruit, a few walnuts, pecans or other nuts and a couple of small bittersweet chocolates....not to total more than 3/4 cup!... eaten , with a pair of eyebrow tweezers, one at a time, over a period of several hours.....rather than shovelling serial palmfulls of conveyer-belt junk into ever-hungry, unsatisfiable gullets.....

  https://www.specialkneadsandtreats.org/?s=BACON+CAKE

So much for my sushi cravings this morning.....every teddy bear likes a flour burrito, filled with leftovers! This plain-looking 'roll-up' is packed with two dozen 'secret' ingredients, with it's 'flavor profile' directed by hot yellow Indian curry and jalapeno peppers, whole-leaf cilantro, scallions, spicy purple fingerlings, black-eyed peas in diablo sauce, sweet corn marinated in sourwood honey and tabasco puree, chopped pan-friend chicken with thyme, rosemary, orange sea salt and red curry, diced home-made pickled orange beets, curried lady peas and spicy okra chutney......rolled tightly in a bland-appearing camouflage of a Mexican flour tortilla, browned a bit in a hot pan 'painted' with walnut and truffle oils......Now....to make a sherbet from the leftover honeydew melon....hmm....... and another....without the beets, scallions, black-eyed peas or okra....for a visiting friend with far blander palate pleasing particulars than me......and.....

Re=watching the latest round of MASTERCHEF, GENERATIONS (season 14, episode 14).....I TOOK THE JUDGES SUGGESTIONS TO HEART......AND,  YESTERDAY, ...CRANKED OUT THIS HOT, SPICY CONCOCTION FOR A VERY LATE AFTERNOON LUNCHEON.....IT HAS CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA, SCOTCH BONNET PEPPERS, MAYTAG BLUE CHEESE, SLICED SMALL POTATOES, A BIT OF EVERY HOT CONDIMENT FROM MY FRIDGE AND CUPBOARD, CHOPPED 'GREENS' FROM MY BACK YARD, THAI COCONUT CURRY, FIG JAM, CILANTRO, PARSLEY AND BASIL.....ROLLED IN A HOT PARATHA, COOKED IN AN IRON SKILLET WITH SOME CRUSHED GARLIC, & TOASTED SESAME & AVOCADO OILS....THEN SLICED AND SERVED IN A WOODEN BOWL...TO BE CONSUMED, SKILLFULY, BY ONE THAT IS ADROIT WITH UTILIZING LARGE BAMBOO CHOPSTICKS.....I'D WAGER THAT GORDON, AARON, JOE AND 'HOT PALATE' SEAN WOULD BE REACHING FOR GLASSES OF WATER AFTER WOLFING DOWN EVERY MORSEL OF MY 'DISH'!

  THE STILL-BLOODY, FUNCTIONALLY-EXONERATED  LIVERS ARE, FIRST, DUSTED WITH YELLOW CORN FLOUR AND STONE-GROUND CORN MEAL, MIXED WITH DISSICATED GARLIC POWDER, SEA SALT, COARSE-GROUND BLACK AND ORANGE PEPPERCORNS, DRIED ONIONS, GRITS, ROSEMARY, CHERVIL AND CILANTRO....ALL DRIED.....THEN FRIED IN HOT AVOCADO OIL UNTIL CRISPY..OUTSIDE... & MEDIUM-RARE..INSIDE.....LASTLY, GARNISHED WITH THINLY SLICED CHERRY TOMATOES....... VARIATION #2:  COOKED TO 'MEDIUM' AND SERVED WITH KETCHUP FOR THAT 'BLOODY SACRIFICE' LOOK.....