There’s a noni tree in front of a house just a couple of blocks away. We walk past it almost every morning.
One day this week, the light was perfect, as was this little bunch of fruit.
Lots of people believe in noni’s healing powers.
I’m agnostic on that. But this photo is pleasant on the eyes! As usual, click for a larger version.
Fair warning: Vegans and vegetarians should probably just skip this post.
Looks great, doesn’t it? Well, looks can be deceiving.
We had friends coming over for dinner last night. The recipe sounded wonderful. Lamb shanks, slow cooked in red wine with fresh rosemary and garlic, along with a couple of small onions, a leek, thyme, a little more garlic, mushrooms, baby carrots, and a little chicken broth. Lamp shanks aren’t cheap, but we decided to splurge. I got everything into our big, cast iron Dutch Oven mid-afternoon, put it in the oven, and prepared for the wonderful aroma to fill the house as it simmered slowly for several hours.
Instead, after it had been in the oven for about an hour, Meda and I both looked around and asked, almost in unison–“Does that smell bad, or is it just me?”
The cooks nightmare. It did smell bad. Not “bad” like totally food poisoning rotten, but “bad” like “oh, man, what is going on?” Bad like, “What do I have on hand for a Plan B menu on very short notice?”
First, though, there was the “doubt your senses” stage. After all, I don’t think I had ever cooked lamb shanks before, so I didn’t really know what they might smell like. The recipe described a wonderful smell. What we had was the wonderful smell of garlic, onion, and red wine with a sour “something’s wrong” smell wrapped around the experience.
I tried my best to recover. I had trimmed a bit of fat off the shanks before browning them, but I tried adding the juice from a fresh lemon, figuring that if the smell were from a bit of extra fat, perhaps the lemon juice would cut through it. I think it did help, marginally, which unfortunately added to the “doubt your senses” inertia.
Okay, I admit it. I made a big mistake. Instead of just shifting gears to Plan B, which I figured could be a simple pasta sauce with a little sausage and garlic, I instead thought something along the lines of “oh, it doesn’t smell quite as bad as it did earlier.”
And then, by the time our friends arrived, it was now too late to run away. So we powered through.
Meda’s salad was outstanding. We heated some peas as well as a little french bread. And that wonderful looking lamb was served over brown rice, which was a nice counterpoint to the “cooked until just falling apart” texture of the meat.
To tell the truth, it didn’t taste bad. But it was a little like the durian experience–you had to get past that off-putting smell in order to reach the not-too-bad taste of lamb.
I confess to a few furtive glances around the table to see if anyone was turning green or facing any bodily rebellion. Luckily, that didn’t happen, we made it through the meal, much of the lamb was consumed, and no one got sick.
This morning, though, Meda marched me to the refrigerator and instructed me to do an olfactory assessment of the leftovers. Short version–I don’t think we’ll be snacking on those leftovers. Instead, we’ll be letting Safeway know their “100% natural” imported lamb was officially judged to be on the wrong side of fresh.
My post earlier in the week about the great anchovy shortage drew quite a few responses and comments, so I thought I would provide an update.
One person who commented reported ordering anchovies from Amazon.com. That caught my attention because the last time I tried to order any food products, Amazon gave me its “we can’t ship these to Hawaii” rejection message. So I decided to give it another try.
This time, as an experiment, I put in an order for a case of 25 2-oz cans of Cento anchovies. I’m not sure I’ve had these before, but I buy Cento crushed tomatoes whenever I find them at a reasonable price. They make great pasta sauce, and have lower sodium than major brands that advertise themselves as “no salt added”.
In any case, the Amazon price was $42.25, or $1.69 per can. That’s at least $1 less per can than I’ve found locally any time recently. And Amazon offered free shipping. So I made the order, expecting to have it rejected by the Amazon system. But to my surprise, it was approved. Today I got a message that the order has shipped.
So our anchovy needs are covered, at least for a while.
Amazon says if I were to place a standing order for the same item, they would drop the price by 15%.
Caution–don’t try this at home!
Meda just got back late Friday night after several days in Chicago. She was tired, a little jet lagged.
On Saturday morning, still a little tired, she turned her attention to the kitchen, which under my watch had apparently not been restored to the appropriate level of cleanliness.
She noticed bottles on the counter. There was the small olive oil bottle, now empty. We buy olive oil in a larger bottle, and then transfer to this small bottle for everyday use. Not far away, on the counter, was another square bottle, label not showing, that appeared to hold a bit more oil waiting to be transferred. Right color, right bottle shape. So, being in clean up mode, she started pouring from the large bottle into the smaller one. As she started pouring, she got worried that the consistency didn’t seem right, so she called across the room to me.
“Is this the right bottle,” she said.
I looked up, and let out a cry of pain as I recognized what was happening.
“No!”
Not soon enough to prevent a shot or two of fine Bushmills Irish Whiskey from being poured in with the dregs of the olive oil.
Somehow I don’t think this is going to result in a new “whiskey ‘n oil” fad, although I might use the concoction to marinate some chicken for the grill.
