[whiteperil] Sean: And I'll send you letters / And come to your house for tea

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Posted by Sean:
And I'll send you letters / And come to your house for tea
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1211170410.shtml


   It's interesting that Alice should [1]tag me with something
   food-related, given that my stomach is having more trouble than the
   rest of me adjusting back to life in the States. I'm not sure my
   answers will say much, but here they are.
   Whatâs your favourite table?
   My father made a beautiful oak trestle table for my parents' dining
   room. (It is the table itself we're talking about?)
   What would you have for your last supper?
   My mind would probably be too distracted for me to enjoy really good
   lamb or venison or beef, so I'll say vegetable tempura, which is
   heavenly when the batter and frying oil are perfectly prepared.
   Whatâs your poison?
   My favorite whisky is probably Laphroaig 10. Not a particularly
   highfalutin choice, but the one I reach for most. I like them peaty.
   I do most of my drinking in merry, boisterous crowds, though, and I
   find that vodka and tonic (the well vodka wherever I am, unless it's
   particularly nasty) is both tasty and non-staining when my arm gets
   jostled. I had a nail-biting near miss with a negroni the other night
   that I don't care to repeat.
   I like wine, too, of course, but I'm no geeky oenophile, and I
   generally find that whatever group I'm in has at least one person
   who's far more informed than I am, so I just go along with whatever he
   or she recommends we get.
   Name your three desert island ingredients.
   Peppercorns, sweet red bell peppers, unsalted butter.
   What would you put in Room 101?
   I guess it would be cheating to count strawberries, since I'm
   physically allergic to them.
   I find the texture of globe onions repellant, though assuming Julia's
   like everyone else I know, she likes them and wouldn't mind having to
   eat them in my place.
   Oh, and watermelon. I adore pink and green together, but I'm
   sorry--fruit should not be corky. (Don't bother telling that good
   watermelon doesn't have a corky texture. Yes, it does.)
   Which book gets you cooking?
   This may surprise some people, but in my case, Jane Brody's Good Food
   Book. Yes, I think Brody's too high-strung about nutrition and
   unproven dangers to health, but she genuinely seems to believe food
   should be enjoyed, and her approach in adapting recipes is often
   designed to bring the flavors of the star ingredients to the fore.
   Whatâs your dream dinner party line-up?
   I like large gatherings for parties, but not for dinner. Too many
   people makes lively shared conversation and pleasurably wicked
   confidences difficult, especially if several are new acquaintances.
   All of that is a roundabout way of saying I like dinner parties with
   close friends.
   What was your childhood teatime treat?
   The Pennsylvania Dutch make great sticky buns, with lots of nuts and
   moist yeasty cake and enough syrup to make the entire population of
   the Northeastern Seaboard diabetic.
   What was your most memorable meal?
   Hmm. Probably when I was eleven and we were visiting my Auntie June in
   England, because it was the first time I realized that my parents and
   family elders thought I was ready to start being introduced into the
   adult world in public. No, I wasn't given a cigar and two glasses of
   port...just permission to order a main that came with artichokes and
   then after-dinner coffee. I like to think I still have my youthful
   energy, but I'm grateful I had the kind of family that still believed
   grown-up pleasures were something children should be taught to aspire
   to.
   What was your biggest food disaster?
   3 May 2001. Atsushi and I were giving a party over the Golden Week
   holiday for a few dozen friends in the afternoon. At about 10:00 a.m.,
   I was julienning carrots for primavera sauce and lopped off the tip of
   my ring finger. I didn't cut it off at the joint or anything, but
   there was blood everywhere. Emergency room, painkillers, huge bandage,
   stern admonition from doctor to keep hand elevated above heart for the
   rest of the day. Luckily, gay guys know how to pull together in a
   genuine catering emergency, so we had five or six friends who finished
   my prep while I tried to be useful with one hand and an addled brain.
   Whatâs the worst meal youâve ever had?
   Let's see. There was the Christmas dinner hosted by the owner of the
   bar that was kind of my local in Tokyo two years ago. It was oyster
   season, so the restaurant gave us its special ten-course oyster-themed
   prix fixe party menu. Have I mentioned that I can't eat shellfish?
   There were oysters in everything: oyster miso soup, oyster stew,
   oysters au gratin, raw oysters on the half shell, grilled oysters--it
   was like the Spam episode in Month Python, only with oysters.
   I ended up snagging the two or three pieces of tuna and yellowtail
   sashimi that had found their way to the table, and then for the rest
   of the dinner subsisting on shochu and oolong tea and the occasional
   shiso leaf. When it was over, I collared my best friend and marched us
   to a little dining cafe in the middle of the gay district, where I
   demanded servings of their chicken karaage and steak-cut fries before
   they'd managed to get us sat down at a table.
   Whoâs your food hero/food villain?
   Nigella or Delia?
   No offense to Nigella, but she's always going on and on about how
   sloppy and casual and unstudied she is while cooking, and see how I
   made this lovely soufflé by just pitching some eggs and flour into a
   ramekin and shoving the lot into the oven without getting so much as a
   smudge on my cashmere twinset? Just wait for your friends to arrive,
   pluck the perfect complementary wine from your little wine cellar, and
   there--instant party!
   The problem is, a lot of cooking is engineering, and while it's not as
   hard as running a nuclear reactor, it really isn't as artless as all
   that. I haven't seen anything Delia Smith has done in the last decade
   or so, but from what I've read and watched of her, she's good at
   breaking down complex recipes into series of manageable steps and
   combinations of compatible ingredients.
   Vegetarians: genius or madness?
   Hold on--when I swallow this mouthful of steak, I'll tell you.
   I don't make a practice of passing judgment on other people's dietary
   choices. I'll only note that, IIRC, lack of milk and meat aren't good
   for children's early development.
   Fast food or fresh food?
   You will not get me to apologize for my once-weekly trip to Burger
   King for a Whopper w/ Cheese combo with the largest fries and Coke.
   There's nothing quite like it to give you that pleasurable feeling of
   being at the very tippy-top of the food chain.
   If I eat that way every day, though, I start to feel clogged up and
   crave steamed vegetables and rice for a few meals. And as Alice said,
   some very quick meals are among the most wholesome and satisfying. I
   love buttery scrambled eggs on toast with some black pepper as a light
   dinner, and it takes ten minutes if that to prepare.
   Who would you most like to cook for?
   Uh...my mother cooked most meals I ate until I was eighteen, and my
   father worked to pay for the ingredients, so I guess it wouldn't hurt
   to return the favor. I think they order in or eat out most of the time
   now, though.
   What would you cook to impress a date?
   I'm not sure "impressive" is what I'd aim for. It seems to me that a
   better precedent to be setting with date food is "luscious." Maybe
   grill up lamb chops and rinse the pan with a glass of wine? And make
   some mashed potatoes, which are one of the best-tasting foods
   imaginable when fresh from the ricer and fortified with butter and
   cream.
   Make a wish.
   I wish for development of more and better GM crops, and for less
   sanctimony and skittishness on the part of governments about
   introducing them.

References

   1. http://www.themadhousewife.com/?p=1586#comments