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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Thursday, February 13, 2003

The Boy Who Cried "Orange!" Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was convinced he could identify evil in a single glance. He would go out into the woods and point at poisonous mushrooms and say "Good!" Sometimes he would point at poison ivy, others at stinging nettle, sometimes he would walk right past a bear and say nothing. The people of his village were confused by his strange behavior. No one ever called him the Village Idiot because the town crier had decided that term applied only to the former mayor. The little boy liked to point at the former mayor and say "Evil!", much as he did whenever he, like his father before him,  encountered broccoli and other strange vegetables. The townspeople were amused by this behavior for a few months. Since they had no rightfully-elected mayor and the town elders, loyal to the boy's father, had decided that his offspring was better suited to preside over town council meetings than his main competitor - who was a fully-grown man with a disturbing tendency to speak in incomprehensible complete sentences! - they simply went along with the ordinary lives, going to work, to the ballet, and sailing on pretty little boats with enormous silvery sails. But one fateful day, while the little boy walked through the woods, a great ugly bear went on a rampage and ate the village's bank and everybody standing in line there. So the boy pointed at the bear and said "Evil!" The editor of the local paper - and, indeed, many of the citizens of the village - were impressed by prodigious clarity of thought coming from such an infante terrible. With unanimity, they decided that that this mayor was the only one who could ever protect them from that evil bear. But the bear ingeniously eluded the biggest steel traps the boy mayor could spring.The elusive attention of the mayor shifted to a wasps' nest whose queen had stung his father, another former mayor rejected by the town's citizens. The father of the boy couldn't understand the basic transacions of purchasing bread at the market. That troubled the villagers, because they seemed to desire bread, as though they needed it to survive just another day, how silly. "That wasp nest is EVIL!” the boy shouted and, at first, the townspeople just laughed as they chewed the bread the previous mayor had provided. Then the boy rammed a stick into the wasps' nest and rattled it as hard as he could. The wasps came out and swarmed all about him, stinging at the air and anything they could see with their compound eyes - which is quite a bit of angry stinging! The editor of the village newspaper was impressed by the spectacle, but pointed out to the boy mayor that the word "EVIL!" loses some of its impact with repeated incantations. Better, he told him, to assign a color to the visions of bear-maulings you seek to project. The boy mayor was confused and had some difficulty understanding what the editor had told him. He asked his nanny what was meant by that and her eyes set firm, like a tiger spotting a headlighted deer. Resolute, like the eyes of Mister God himself did when he made a bush burn for gratuitous special effects (The villagers know he did that prior to engraving a set of rules in stone with his heavenly Dremel. It is very important that the school children study those rules for eternity, which is longer even than a sermon or detention! The alternative is UNTHINKABLE) "Color code it for the townspeople!" the nanny said, breathlessly. "Good and Evil - that's too abstract, kinda like David Byrne's Brazil CDs a few years back - the ones with nicely-formed Rio beach buttocks on the cover...Choose bright aggressive colors for "Evil" and avoid any mention of "Good" colors...lf you want to be the mayor a long time - the best approximation of Dick Whittington the current village Consitution allows until some of the village elders 'pass on.'" she summarized, as the batteries on her personal vibrator gave their last gasp of agreement. The boy pondered this parting wisdom, and cried aloud "ORANGE!" The townspeople ran in circles, envisioning the bear. Then they began to sing the fight song of the local high school, which has gigantic cracks in its foundation, but still had the best football team in the county. Meanwhile, the bear took a lazy walk in the woods, looking for honey. "ORANGE!" the boy shouted again, and pointed at the wasp nest. The townspeople charged it and many got stung, but many more wasps were killed than villagers stung. "That is GOOD", he thought, nearly aloud, but he couldn't imagine any color... (to be continued) 9:15:51 PM    comment []

Almost there: A little soupy in appearance but, if it follows the lead of the original recipe, it will thicken up during chilling. Cilantro has not yet been added. That will happen either when it cools to room temperature, or, better, in the morning when it has chilled and solidified in the fridge. No bacon was added, making this a vegetarian dish. The sauce hits you first with the coconut, a few seconds later with the curry, then a lingering and slowly building heat from the jalapenos. That's nice. With a little bit of luck that flavor spectrum will be preserved after chilling. 7:23:24 PM    comment []

Intermezzo: Before the potatoes were added. It outgrew the quasi-wok and had ro be transferred to a stock pot to be simmered in the cocunut milk (no soymilk added) a few minutes. 7:14:39 PM    comment []

The chopped ingredients pose for one last group photo before final assembly. 6:01:04 PM    comment []

A mango to me is an alien fruit. I never used one in a recipe until about 10 years ago - it was one of those things the store kept for "other people". In Ohio, they seemed not to exist at all, "mango" was just a word. My epiphany came at the Food Lion after moving to North Carolina when one of the checkout girls, on her break, walked over to the cash register where one of her friends was ringing me up. She takes a bite out of the alien fruit and says, "This is the best mango I've ever tasted - it's so sweet!" My God, people actually eat those things! My first attempt to use one in a recipe was a near disaster. I had no idea that the pit was long and flat. I eventually got the fruit off of it, but I had peeled it first and it was a slippery and dangerous job. Here, from Southern U.S. Cuisine is a better way: How to cube a fresh mango Without peeling, cut the fruit from the cheeks, as described above, score flesh into squares about 1/2- to 3/4-inch in size, cutting to, but not through, skin. Gently push the mango cheek inside out, pushing fruit cubes up and apart. Cut chunks from the skin to serve. (The skin can cause irritation, so it should not be eaten.) The "described above" technique is this: Cut fresh mangoes lengthwise, along the pit. Once you learn to locate the mango pit, the rest is easy. The long, 1/2- to 3/4-inch-thick pit runs the length of the fruit between the two plump cheeks. After determining the location of the pit and allowing for its 1/2- to 3/4-inch thickness, cut through the mango lengthwise down the side of pit until its fleshy cheek is cut off. Do the same for the other side. This worked pretty well, with some minor modifications. There is some juicy mango flesh on the sides of the seed which can also be cut off and peeled. Also, I found it easier to cut each "cheek" in half lengthwise and peel away the skin by sliding a knife under the fruit on a flat surface. It's easier to get the seed out with the skin intact. The skin, well, it puts up a good fight no matter when you take it off. 5:17:02 AM    comment []