culture clash

So, today is day 6 of David being gone, on his little sailboat trip to Corsica. Uncharacteristically, I’ve been bored. This means, given I don’t have real conversation I’ve been relying heavily on virtual ones. I’ve gone to my favorite blogs several times every day only to find that the authors have been lazy. I frequent about 5 different blogs regularly and it seems in the past week no one is writing. Of the 5 blogs there’s been about two new posts in the past week. This morning I found myself cursing them all and their laziness.

Then it occurred to me that I too have a blog that I haven’t posted to for several days. So, here I am. I have nothing really to say, otherwise I would have been posting. But since I can’t point out the splinter in one’s eye without noticing the freakin’ tree in my own, here I am.

Because, I don’t have anything really to say, I will do the Italian thing and talk about food and digestion.

tonight I am having trouble with both.

With David gone, the great carnivore he is, I have been eating a ton of vegetable predominant dishes. Tonight I made a stir fry with carrots, zucchini and fennel. I thought, coming off the success of fried mushrooms, that I would not add onions, as I normally would to the stir fry but rather, I would DEEP FRY the onions and add them on top like some kind of crunchy onion crouton.

Can you see the trouble I'm headed for?

I used the same recipe for the mushrooms but also added flour. I dipped the sliced onion into egg and then into a mixture of flour, breadcrumbs and salt….then I deep fried them. So far so good. I took the batches of golden brown slivers out of the oil, placed them on paper towel and dowsed them with salt. They just looked so damn good that I started nibbling on them.

Before I knew, I had totally given up the idea that these stringy salty delights would be an accessory to the stir fry, I was just eating them. You know, like you do when you go to Chili’s and order a loaf.

While I was making a feeble attempt at eating the stir fry, David called. “What cha doing?”

“I’m eating onion rings…and a little stir fry.”

“Wow, that sounds awesome.”

“I think I’m already regretting it.”

My stomach, at this point, was already turning somersaults that would have Nadia shaking in her leo.

Then Italian pal Mercedes called. Same question, “What cha doing?

“Oh, I’m eating. I made this huge mistake of thinking onion rings would be tasty and now I’m paying.”


She didn’t understand so I explained how one makes onion rings. And she promptly responded, “Jesus, you just ate a brick.”

Yes, I ate a brick that had dynamite in it that is ready to explode at any minute. She told me that I need to take something to help me digest that brick. “Or a bicarbonate with water or a tepid ‘limonata’ .”

I just find this all so funny, you know, in the ironic way…my husband, the American, having heard the recipe, was like “yeah!!! Bring it on! I can’t wait for you to make these for me when I get home.” The Italian, having heard the same, was like, “no shit you feel terrible. Look what you just ate. That’s disgusting” And then offered up warm lemonade as the solution.

Culture clash.