Rancid
Minced beef is a wonderful foodstuff. I couldn’t turn it down when my friend offered some to me. She’d over-stocked in the supermarket, and had left the sealed package in the fridge for a few days with a view to feeding it to her dog. I took it off her hands, and threw it into my own fridge, intending on turning it into something yummy some night.
The days passed, however, and the hectic weekend denied me any chance of cooking at all. When I did finally fish the meat out of the fridge, I saw to my dismay that it had turned a funny grey colour, bordering on green. I peeled back the sealed cellophane and had a sniff.
Women develop a highly effective survival technique when they become pregnant, and it stays with us. We can sniff a product, and instantly judge from our queasiness levels as to how nourishing it will be for our growing foetus. I can smell a rotten sausage from five miles away, as the actress said to the bishop.
This minced green beef, now six days past its sell by date, didn’t smell too toxic at all! Then I remembered a fact I’d learned. Apparently the curry was invented to use up stocks of rancid meat. Enough spices and pungent herbs can disguise even the dodgiest of foods.
I emptied the meat into a dish, then added curry powder, cardamom, cumin seed, chile powder, ginger, worcester sauce and of course, oodles of salt and pepper. I kneaded it all together, and made home-made burgers out of it.
The Accidental Terrorist picked up his burger and took a large bite.
“Jeeeezus!” he exclaimed. I went pale, and squirmed a little.
“Is it ok?” I asked breezily.
“It’s feckin’ delicious!!! Did you make these?”
“Yep!” I said. “Did you know that curry was invented to disguise the taste of rancid meat?”
“No” he said, and took another large bite.
I did my part. I gave adequate warning. I know you’d love to hear that we both spent the remainder of the evening fighting for toilet-bowl space, but we didn’t. Not even so much as a ‘hot ring of fire’ the next morning.
My granny would be proud of my frugality.
The tag challenge
I’m finding myself with spare time suddenly but with nothing much to say. Then I decided that it is very rare for a blogger to post a post and use all of their tags at once (Bloggers such as Brian F and Stupid Irish Daddy are disqualified for lack of imagination of course). This is my challenge, and I’m giving myself an award for it. You can have one too if you can do it.
What is both strange and unusual is that marijuana is illegal. This subject is taboo, but it’s just something to think about. Once one partakes in the activity of having a spliff, one is immediately part of the chain. One is working hand in hand with the drug-lord and his artillery, and my philosophy is that this is unfair burden on us stoners. It’s a little known fact that weed is quite benign, that it’s worst effects are the munchies and diminished brain capacity, but we accept this, and we take responsibility for it quietly and with a few giggles thrown in.
Working the daily job is not easy. Neither is dealing with the family and it’s shortcomings. My weakness is that I would like to sit back and be able to put up with the tripe on the box and find it humourarse. Sometimes it’s nice to listen to music or glance at the uncategorised pleasures of this life and be inspired to write new poems and things. Contrary to public rantings, weed does not generally make us want to take up smack or turn bi-polar.
That’s all I’m saying because this is supposed to be a quickie.
Here’s my award.
Do you want it? I’d offer it up for general grabs but seeing as memememe is one of my tags, I have to name names.
(You know you want it)
Fairy liquid
A friend of mine from school had a father in the advertising business. She told me that if a product label shows a photograph of something, then the ingredients of that product MUST contain that something in its pure form. For example, a bottle of orange squash with a photo of oranges on its label, means you’re getting a product with real oranges in it somewhere.
The cheapie washing powder I use has a photo of a baby on its label. If washing powder is made from lye, and lye is a bi-product of human fat… I’m adding two and two and starting to feel sick.
On a different note, if you’re finding yourself with some yukky brown overripe bananas and you’re unsure what to do with them (hold that dirty tongue of yours, ma), here is the most delicious, cheap, and easy to make banana bread I’ve ever tasted. I found myself trapsing in a zombie state into my kitchen at 3am this morning for a quick taster (just to make sure it hadn’t gone off).
