Don’t Do It

There was an oddness tonight at supper. I had found a new recipe that would make use of two items taking up space on my refrigerator shelves, a head of broccoli and a chicken breast. The recipe: Chinese chicken and broccoli.

It looked good, and I followed the instructions to a tee, even though it seemed that there was an awful lot of cornstarch used, at not one but two steps in the recipe. But hey, what do I know, eh? The authors were both Chinese and they looked so happy and trustworthy … .

However, when it was finished the food was filled with those big gelatinous globs of cornstarch that I not only detest but am made nauseous by.

People talk about certain “mouth feels” that disgust them, but a cornstarch glob repels me from the moment I set eyes on it. God forbid one would ever get as far as my mouth. I don’t know what the world record for distance emeses is, but in that instance I have no doubt that I could hit thirty feet without a problem.

And I don’t know how it is in your house, but in my family it is considered bad form when the cook throws up from looking at the food they’ve prepared.

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From The New Yorker

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Last Friday we visited a park belonging to the city of Montrose that is 22 miles away, and is at an altitude of 9700 feet. It lies on the shoulders of Storm King mountain, south and slightly east of us. Its name: Buckhorn Lakes.

There are two small lakes, a bunch of picnic tables and some fine views of the Uncompahgre River valley and the San Juans. People do fish there, but we had gone to check it out, have a picnic, and get away from the heat in the valley. Once you reach the park there is a maze of old roads, many of which require 4WD vehicles, but just about any car can make it to the park. Our Subaru had no problems, although the last three miles were rocky, bumpy, and the road was narrow. Not quite 4WD territory but slow-driving for certain.

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Let’s talk about CardioPulmonary Resuscitation, or CPR, for a minute. There’s a very thoughtful piece in the New Yorker dealing with what the author refers to as a “brutal” procedure. It’s worth a read, because if you enter a hospital for any reason, and you suffer an arrest, unless you specify something different your body will be probably subjected to CPR by default. Which may not be what you want at all.

When I had a stroke a couple of years back, my treatment in the emergency room had already cleared the vessel blockage that had produced my symptoms, but I was admitted for observation. I felt fine and was back to my normal self. But when the nurse came around to officially admit me to the unit, I made sure that Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) was clearly noted on my chart and wherever needed. Why? Because the statistics regarding doing CPR on persons my age are so dismal that having someone pound on my chest and shock me would be akin to elder abuse.

One anecdote doesn’t prove a thing, of course, but I’m going to relate one, anyway. I was a junior medical student on my surgery clerkship, rotating through the county hospital. One of the patients on the service I had been assigned to was an octogenarian woman with well-advanced dementia. This was in the dark ages, when DNR guidelines weren’t talked much about as yet. At least not where I was, or to me as a student.

So when the woman suffered a cardiac arrest, my resident ordered me to begin chest compressions while he rounded up the defibrillator and the CPR cart. On my very first compression of this woman’s chest, I could feel the snapping as her ribs broke away from her breastbone. And that was the end of things. Everything stopped. Being so inexperienced, just for a moment I was afraid that I had done the procedure incorrectly and had indeed killed her.

The surgery resident quickly calmed me, and assured me that there was actually nothing that could have saved this poor soul, and that was my eventual takeaway. But the emotional charge of that first thought of mine hung on for the longest time, and it was not a good feeling to have.

But keep this in mind … it is often the default to begin CPR in hospitals, unless we do something to prevent its happening.

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While putting together our first caprese salad of the season, the tearing of the basil filled the air in the kitchen with that wonderful aroma.

I swear, if there was a cologne that smelled like basil I would wear it. The only problem would be that I would probably have to fight off “foodies” all day long, as they would be drawn to the scent.

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(The disclaimer first. If I mention a product on this blog by name I get nothing out of it. No money, no job offers, not even a coupon good on my next purchase. It’s not that I wouldn’t prostitute myself if the offer was a good one, but I’ve never received any. Turns out that it’s quite easy to maintain your virginity when no one is after it.)

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From The New Yorker

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Teaching myself how to cook, which is a project I’ve been involved in ever since my first wife gathered up the Le Creuset cookware and headed for the door, has not been made any easier by the fact that Scandinavians are born with only 25% of the taste buds that other nationalities possess.

You all know how evolution works, right? Over long periods of time a species drops what it no longer needs and acquires characteristics that improve its survival chances. Taste buds were one of those “no longer needs” things. Living in a cold country surrounded by cold water and basically living on hake and herring … well, who needs a broad palette of receptors?

Normally the taste buds include those for sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness, and savoriness (umami). Extensive research has shown that Norwegians have no umami receptors at all. Which works just fine when your spice cabinet contains only salt and pepper, but puts you at a disadvantage out in the larger world. For instance, there are very few Norwegian foodies. Online you can spend months and months watching videos of people cooking Chinese, Korean, French, Latin American, Jamaican … but Google Norwegian cooking shows and see how few sites come up. It’s a bit sad.

But what can a guy do but soldier on and pretend he knows what he is doing and what he is tasting? When a plateful of coq au vin or a wok-ful of General Tso’s Chicken taste to him pretty much the same as a bowl of cornflakes.

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