Those acquainted with my nickname ("fratboy," as much for my juvenile sense of humor and the state of my apartment as for my penchant for breakfasting on cold pizza, over sink, in boxer shorts) will get a good laugh out of hearing that I joined a daylong Laotian cooking class. I made fast friends with an Australian tour group and earned the dubious distinction of getting all of my ingredients to end up the same color.
No matter what step we were on, the instructor kept coming over and peering into my wok with an utterly hilarious, and equally inimitable, look of "How did you manage to do THAT?" Upon completion of the first of five dishes, I noticed that mine had brown sticks floating in it. There were no brown sticks in the demonstration version, and there were definitely no brown sticks on the ingredient list.
Five sweaty hours later, I had produced a soup the color of monks' robes, a perfectly edible pork casserole, and a downright delightful green salad. The brown sticks remained a mystery until tasting time, when it became apparent to me that I'd burned the lemongrass, a feat normally only achieved in lemongrass's natural habitat, and then only during the war.
No comments:
Post a Comment