Friday Routines - A Day Late - 2/14

Happy Valentines Day! 

Friday routines got all side tracked and discombobulated yesterday.  

I'm taking a writing course from the Gotham Writing Workshop.  Which I highly recommend if you want to “learn the craft.”  Any hew…in this class you get two chances to submit a “big fat paper” and have your classmates critique it…pretty cool, you really get to learn a lot from having your work critiqued and critiquing…. any hew again…cut a long boring story short.  I worked on my big fat paper all day yesterday since it is due in on Wednesday. 

Now.  Tonight, my son Luke is taking ME out to dinner.  We’re hitting Michael Anthony’s (an island fav) and the Picky Palate will have a few things to say about that tomorrow or Monday. 

Cooking wise I've been tearing through my new Simply Ming cookbook and made Curried Ginger Chili Oil.  Which I used in a chicken stir-fry (no pics since the vultures ate it all) and a stir-fried flank steak (ditto with the vultures and pics).

I also made my own Chili Paste.  Now Ming’s recipe called for red jalapeños, but I used green ones and dare I say was lucky to get those! 

It was like pulling teeth to try and get Mr. Produce Guy to check for a box of the damn things…I asked him politely if there were any in the back.  The conversation went like this….

“Excuse me…uhm, there're only two jalapeños left.  Do you think you have any more?”

“Nope.”  Mr. Very Busy Produce Guy said

“Ah, well, will you be getting more in?” 

“Nope” 

“You mean you're never going to get any in?”

“Not sure”

I am now beginning to get annoyed.  I’m not going to name the store, but they pride themselves on service. 

“Okay, ah…tomorrow?”

“May be if he ordered them.”

Okay, that’s about enough…At this point I want to say.  Look Buster, I’m the freakin customer.  I’m in this freakin store ALL THE TIME.  I could run right over to your major competitor and shop, but I don’t.  I am a loyal customer now get in the back and ask your  manager when the bloody jalapeños are gong to grace these shelves again…. but I didn’t…instead…

I said…. Well, okay then. So it’s just these two jalapeños left in the WHOLE store?” I waved them in front of him.

“Some guy came in yesterday and bought twenty pounds.”

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere…It's not a jalapeño blight affecting the entire world crop of jalapeños. “He was having a jalapeño eating contest.”   All right, so now I know it's just some fool and his friends who aint’ gonna feel too good today after chomping on the little cylinders of fire.

“Oh, really?”  I’m trying to engage Mr. Produce Guy in polite pepper talk.  “Wow, that’s a lot of jalapeños.  I only need one pound.  So you’re not sure if they’re coming in tomorrow?”

 This is really buggering up my progress through my Simply Ming book and right about now I want to start stacking the bell peppers so snappy there can have a good ole woman’s look for a stray box of jalapeños.  I stood there in his personal space waiting for him to decide all by his lonesome that it might be a good idea to go in the back and check just when we might expect jalapeños again…. that’s if he wanted me to leave the produce section.

He got the message and toddled back, after a few minutes low and behold…a box of jalapeños was in his hands with what I thought a sort of sheepish look.

“I guess he ordered them and didn’t tell no body.”

“Guess so, go figure.” 

I took my pound of peppers, mumbled under my breath a few annoyance laced thoughts with words I won’t print and went home to make my chili paste.