Tonight I created a new kind of food! Soon it will bring doom to all.
We're all familiar with the experience of buying more vegetables than you can use before they start to go bad. I bought a big load last time and actually did pretty well. But the other night I noticed my remaining vegetables were starting to get rotten patches, and decided I needed to do something. So tonight, in honor of the arrival of fresh vegetables, I combined all my remaining vegetables into one super-dish.
Except I was tired and low on creativity, so I just sort of threw them all in the Cuisinart and pureed them, then added some oil and spices and cooked them. Not bad in and of itself, but the vegetable content of the resulting substance was roughly one part mushrooms and three parts spicy peppers. Of those peppers, there were a couple of what Fresh Direct calls "Long Hot Peppers," half-way between Jalapenos and Habaneros in terms of spiciness. There were also about 20 jalapenos and a dozen Habaneros. And bear in mind that I did not core, seed, or otherwise diminish the spice capacity of any of them. So the dish is sort of a greenish-brown mud that is more spicy than a flock of flamenco dancers.
It's not altogether untasty, though. It's now in tupperware in the fridge and I'm debating what, exactly, it is. Right now I'm between "pasta sauce" and "dip." I have people coming over tomorrow to play board games. I might test it out on them.
In related news:
I have a new God, and it is Fresh Direct's sour kosher pickles. Their regular kosher pickles leave much to be desired, but the sour ones, oh man. A big mass of vinegary deliciousness in every bite. The brine just drips out of them as you eat. They mess up your shirt and you don't even care.
Now, some might say that my new-found God has its disadvantages. What do the pickles have to say about how we ought to behave? What are our origins? Where are we going to? On these questions the pickles are silent. On the other hand, unlike some other gods I could name, my God is close at hand. I know where to go to find them and speak to them at any time, they comfort me in my times of need, and they always answer my prayers (provided those prayers are of a vinegary character). And whenever I feel lost and lonely in the absence of Their briney presence, I know that my God is only a credit card charge and a delivery away.
I'm slowly coming around to the idea of pickles. I've still never eaten a pickle and liked it, but I've discovered in myself a profound love of pickled baby corn. I was eating it out of the jar at some point and exclaiming in ecstasy over its delicious briny sourness when Jacob asked me to tell him again why I don't like pickles?
I'd like to come up with some way of eating a pickle without having to buy an entire jar -- what if I got the wrong kind and they weren't good?? -- but since I don't much hang around in delis it's proving difficult.
Yeah, delis would be the place. If you lived in New York it'd be easy. This city has its own weird food culture that's completely different from the general American food culture. For example: No cheap mexican places, but lots and lots of cheap pizza places. You literally can't get a Burrito for less than $8 around here, and Mexican places are few and far between. But you get three pizza places on a block serving slices as big as your waist for $2.
The other big thing: New York is a hot dog town, and very much not a hamburger town. You can get a hamburger if you want, at a dinner, but there aren't really very many hamburger places. Hotdog places are everywhere, though, and they all have saurkraut, even the street vendors.
Obviously, the hot dog/hamburger thing is academic for you and I, but it's still interesting. As a side note, the great thing about those street vendors is that they almost all sell big, tasty, filling Bavarian pretzels for a buck, and they're all over the place so, if you ever feel like a big pretzel, you're no more than a block or two away at any time.
And now, the point: There's a huge Jewish culture in the food here, hence the availability of single Dill pickles all over the place in delis, in grocery stores, convenience stores, etc. You can also get Knishes everywhere, which are really tasty but probably not vegan (they're a sort of soft bread with mashed potatoes baked inside. I'm guessing that milk goes into the potatoes at some point).