Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
The Friday morning spew
Comments to my Pad Thai post jogged a few memories.
Alton Brown mangling the recipe reminded me of a horror Karen and I witnessed during my Stanford days. One evening, Karen and I went out with her parents to a Chinese restaurant off Castro (Castro in Mountain View, not San Francisco). Now, for ages I’ve had a bad habit listening in on conversations at nearby tables. As I grow deafer, this becomes more difficult, but back then I was pretty damned good at it. All time favorite: overheard in a North Beach Italian restaurant . . .
A boy and a girl are out on a date.
Boy: No, they don’t speak Spanish in Argentina. They speak Argentinian with a Spanish accent.
Me (to my date): Whereas here in the States, some people speak English with a Stupid accent.
Nope, never scored with that date. Even took her to Beach Blanket Babylon afterwards, but she just wanted to be friends. Anyway, back to the Castro:
An obvious Stanford undergrad (high school Student Body President gavel stuck up his ass, silver spoon dangling from mouth, feet hovering two inches above the ground when he walks because he’s so unencumbered with intellect) (and people ask me, So who do you root for when Stanford and Cal have their big game?) sat at the table next to us with his obviously Midwestern parents. He was showing his parents how to fold a mu shu pancake.
Words fail me. Imagine (A) an air of quiet authority verging on superiority, combined with (B) a Jerry Lewis degree of ineptitude, and you’ll have some idea why Karen and I and her parents were nearly in tears. Because, you know, I had to draw their attention to this spectacle.
***
So Blue Gal is allergic to shrimp? Good thing you’re telling me now. I nearly killed a dear friend with shrimp.
Joyce and I became pals at Berkeley. When we first met in one of our chemistry classes, I was still with GFv1.0, she had a steady, and I was principled enough not to think of her That Way even though, damn, she had Cover Girl looks like you wouldn’t believe. I remember when my brother came to visit me in the dorms and Joyce breezed by, he looked at me afterwards with new respect.
Flash forward a few years. In med school, when Karen and I lived in married student housing, we had Joyce and her new boyfriend over for dinner. The menu, as best I can recall, consisted of mushrooms stuffed with diced shrimp and other crabcake-like ingredients, barbecued shrimp, some other non-shrimp-related item (a Caesar salad, perhaps), and a raspberry dessert — raspberry crepes, perhaps.
Midway through the stuffed mushroom appetizer, Joyce asks what’s on the menu.
“Stuffed mushroom, barbecued shrimp –”
She blanches. Even the word shrimp has that effect on her; either that, or the mushrooms have already hit. Yup, I diced the shrimp so finely that she hasn’t realized she’s eating shrimp. She spent the next ninety minutes in our bathroom.
She recovers in time for dessert. “So, what’s for dessert?” she says, trying her best to smile.
“Raspberry crepes.”
This time, her boyfriend blanches. “I’m allergic to berries.”
“Okay,” says I, “you could just eat the vanilla ice cream–”
“No, no, I’ll be okay. My throat swells up a little, that’s all.”
So all through dessert, I’m watching this guy, wondering if our paring knife will be sharp enough to perform a cricothyrotomy.
He did okay, but I’m not sure Joyce ever trusted me to cook for her again.
***
V for Vendetta opens tonight. If all goes as planned, I’ll be there. I’ll try to post a review this evening.
D.
I sure hope V opens here in Brandon. If it does, I think that may be my Saturday night…
Also:
A friend of mine, way back in my Air Cadet days (and maybe someday I’ll have to post some reminiscences on that topic) tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate a girl in his high school who had succumbed to a peanut allergy. He did CPR for half an hour or so before the paramedics took over, IIRC, but she died. On his way back to class the vice-principal gave him hell for missing a lesson. Somehow he didn’t punch the VP, but I think it was because a friend restrained him rather than any self-control.
Food allergies are scary, and there seem to be more of them afoot these days than ever before.
Jeez, Pat. What an awful story.
re: mu shu pancake.
My brother so perfectly fits this description of assured yet dim-witted authority in an exotic restaurant. We visited him in college and he took the family to a Morrocan restaurant. (Sit on floor, eat with one hand–so many opportunites for lectures) At the end of the meal, waiters come with silver tea pots of mint tea. They stand above you, while you sit on floor, and pour thin streams of tea into little teeny cups.
My mother looks up and says, “Bet you guys are really good at writing your names in the snow!” Hee.
How can you tell when a Republican’s dead?
The answer is up to you. Come see the contest that I’m hosting, especially if you’re an active blogger. That means you, too, Doc.
Your shrimp story reminds me of my best friend’s wedding reception. She hired this fancy-schmancy ridiculously expensive caterer and the food was wonderful. One of the best items on the buffet was the lobster ravioli. in the middle of dinner our friend, Jen races out the door with her boyfriend, Bob. Apparantly Bob was really enjoying the ravioli until he found out it had lobster in it. Since Bob is very allergic to lobster they had to get to the emergency room in a hurry. By the time they arrived at the hospital Bob was puzzled because he felt fine. Jen and Bob sat in her car in the Emergency Room parking lot for an hour waiting for Bob’s throat to swell up. When it didn’t, they returned to the reception and informed the bride that she may want to have a word with her caterer. Sure enough, the caterer fessed up to using imitation lobster in the ravioli and refunded a huge hunk of her money, part for the cheap ravioli and part for her silence. So the caterer had to pay up because they did NOT almost kill someone.
KariBelle, what a great story! Thanks.
JP, I’ve left one, but I’ll try to think of a few more.