Random Bits

So I've been watching a lot of DIY shows recently - since most television is crap nowadays. And cooking shows - be it how to or goal/prize based. I love the baking ones, just because bakers are crazy, but I've also seen a few of actually teaching people how to make things, and not to be intimidated by the mysterious implements in the kitchen.

I find this funny, because, well, I don't cook. Pretty much at all. It has never been something I enjoy, and while I can make a few dishes, and am able to follow a recipe and have it mostly turn out okay (although my mom was of the "if you must add salt, add less than half that a recipe calls for" camp, so I grew up adding very little salt to anything). Some things I just don't cook with. Onions, I hate. Unless they are pureed and unknowable I can't stand them in food. I pick them out. I pick them out of stews, sauces, just about anywhere they are visible those suckers end up on the side of my plate. Tomatoes have to be... non-chunks of tomato. Sauce is okay - sparingly, but not salsa.

Salads are never dressed. To me there is nothing worse than oily or icky salad dressing. I like my salad to TASTE like salad - plain, unadorned, naked.

Which brings me to the evil that is cilantro. Now, those that can, LOVE cilantro (also known as coriander). Most people have no taste-aversion to cilantro, and don't understand when I can tell immediately when fresh or dried cilantro has been added to my dish. It permeates the whole dish with a soapy taste.

It is very complicated and has to do with the chemistry of cooking, but I would no sooner eat anything with cilantro in it than I would willingly consume my bath soap for dinner. Some folks say they can *smell* a soapy odor, I don't generally smell it, but I sure can taste it. It makes dining out at a Mexican restaurant difficult, since cilantro shows up in anything from the table guacamole to your entree.

I know. Weird. But you know what? My whole family is the same way. I never encountered cilantro until I encountered it in a restaurant and couldn't eat what they served me since I couldn't verbalize what was wrong with it. I've since learned to ask if anything has cilantro in it.

But yeah, food shows when someone adds cilantro to a dish make me wince a little bit - because my gut reaction is "ew, ick - it sounded good right UP TO THAT POINT!"

Once a month my mom has a monday evening meeting, which starts early enough she is not home for dinner. My dad is left on his own for dinner, and three times in the past eight months he's callen me out of the blue and taken me out to eat. Someone wants to buy me dinner? I am *so* there!

Tonight, we tried a new restaurant. It's only been open a couple of months, and I found it extremely, grating-on-the-nerves loud. It was difficult to hear the wait staff. The staff was responsive and good at their jobs, and the food was pretty good (I had the gnocchi with spicy italian sausage and peas - the spicy italian sausage was mildly spicy). BUT - they served the table bread on a cloth napkin no plate or basket under the napkin. It was served with extra virgin olive oil in a communal dish. They did not give us bread plates, so the crusty italian style bread hunk littered the table with bits of crust as we tore it apart, and since there were no bread plates, the dipping oil got absolutely everywhere. We finally asked for plates so we could salt and pepper our own pool of oil (I despise pepper, and my dad has restricted salt intake). The salt and pepper were on the table, ground up and divided into a little dish, so you had to pinch it with your fingers to do anything with it... No shakers, no spoons, so your own oil covered fingers were the best control you had over the condiments.

They had *no* herbal teas without caffiene. Overall it was a vaguely uncomfortable dining experience, from the tight tables, loud atmosphere (and if it is loud on a monday night when they were about 80% full, what must they be like on a swinging Saturday?). And quite expensive (yay dad for taking me out!), it was just less $70 for the two of us, including taxes and tip. He got a glass of wine and an antipasti with his entree - I had bottled water (I wanted hot tea, but I can't have caffiene that late!) and just an entree.

As we were leaving, the couple sitting next to us were just ordering dinner and as they got the bread, the woman leaned over and asked her date why there were no plates for the bread.

Something tells me they will be tweaking their modus operendi over the next few weeks as people become more familiar with them - and start complaining about the less than stellar bits of the dining experience.