Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Apologies and Boiled Chicken Breasts

Apologies to the three people following this blog. I have been lax and I do apologize. It stands to reason that the thing that would start blogging again would be my friend Nadine. Gorgeous light of my light that she is she called me today to talk about a number of things. A minor footnote in our conversation was about food, and I thought what better way to restart this dormant blog than to convey this anecdote.

Friends of Nadine often chide her about her dinner choices. Not when she's out, though sometimes those can also at times be slightly dubious (chopped salad at Bonitas? I love you regardless). She is not a bad cook, I do not mean to give that impression, she made me a wonderful omelet once. But what she is most famous for is "boiled chicken breast". As a lover of food nothing strikes more terror in my heart than those words. What a terribly bland bit of meat the chicken breast is. It can be tasty at times, but most of the times it is just anonymous protein that depresses me to no end. Nadine is a fervent defender of her boiled chicken breast which frankly i just don't understand.

So imagine my surprise when she lectured me about my choice of dinner for tonight. As most of you realize our economy is well in the shits so to speak. As I came home I wondered, could I make dinner with simply what was in my kitchen? I could and i did. I had a steak in the freezer, and a cup o' noodles in the cupboard. And for the record do not balk at my ramen, times are tough, leave me alone. I cut the steak up into thin slices, stir fried it with some garlic, dried chilies, ground ginger, fennel seeds, Chinese black bean sauce, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. I added my paupers noodles let the sauce reduce and had a fantastic dinner.

I guess long story short, boiled chicken breast ain't got nothing on me.