May 27, 2008
Last night Gabriel and I were feeling a mite peckish after a long hard day of not-cleaning the house. Natuarally the only possible outcome was to cook a feast.
We had duck breast browned in butter, and finished under the broiler. Green beans with bacon and carmelized shallots, and mushroom couscous.
We paired it with a lovely 2008 Miller highlife.
My house still smells delicious.
February 24, 2008
Firstly, this might be an aside, but here is a picture of Sting’s sex lair:
More importantly is this:
I’ve read that most children don’t begin to develop moral gray area until they are around 10 or 11. Until that time, they are likely to deem stealing wrong, regardless of the motive (i.e. it is no less wrong to steal to feed a starving puppy than it is to steal for personal monetary gain).
When I was just 10, I had a friend named Alice. She was older than me, and therefore very cool. One fine sunny southern-california lunch-time, I offered Alice some of my turkey sandwich.
“No thanks,” she shook her head.
“Are you sure? It’s really good.”
“No. I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat meat.”
No meat? This had never occurred to me before. My favorite foods at this time were eggs bacon and hashbrowns all mashed up together on toast, turkey sandwiches, double-meat double-cheese burgers from tommy’s with nothing else on them but ketchup, and delicious wonderful hot dogs. No, not eating meat was inconceivably weird. Life without these foods seemed to me like no life at all.
“Why?,” I finally asked.
“Because I love animals.”
Shit. This had also never occurred to me. I love animals, I thought to myself. With an absolute lack of moral gray area, my path was clear. And that was the end. That was how I became a vegetarian.
14 years later, and I am planning to study abroad. A summer in the southern Balkans to be specific, including a homestay in Skopje, Macedonia.
I was thinking about it, and I realized there was no way in hell that I was going to sit at my host family’s dinner table, and either actually refuse to eat their food, or sit their pushing lamb around on my plate, half heartedly pretending that I’m “not that hungry”, while my tummy angrily rumbles otherwise into the awkward silence which would inevitably envelope the table. Not to mention the irreparable harm I would be doing as an ambassador. Americans act lousy enough when it comes to foreign relations. The least I could do for each and everyone of the American citizens who are actually courteous, diplomatic, and basically awesome is to represent them as such. No. I may still love animals, but fuck ‘em. The time has come for me to man up, and eat the damn sheep.
So, here and there, I’ve been tasting meat. After 14 years, it seems like a good idea to take it slow.
Today at breakfast, something wonderful happened. Today at breakfast, bacon happened.
We were at the Parkside cafe, toiling over the crossword, cursing Will Shortz, when my companion offered me some of his bacon.
I thought to myself, man up, and eat the goddamned sheep, lily.
I took it, looked at it, took a deep breath, and popped it in my mouth before I could back down. It was smoky, and crunchy, and salty, and perfect. It was bold and masculine, and I wanted more.
“What about this part?,” I asked, pointing to the shiny, flaccid, and pale part of the bacon.
“That’s only for advanced bacon eaters,” he told me, looking comfortably smug in the role of bacon master.
“Fuck that,” I replied, and ate it. It was soft and subtle, but still smoky. Where the other piece was salty and crisp, this was creamy and yielding. The same, but different. Like kissing girls instead of boys.
Heaven, thy name is bacon.
