It's a secret

Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone but I have been known to watch the Food Network and (gasp) get menu ideas from many of the shows. My taste in food is just, if not more so, eclectic that my taste in music and we always like to try new things.

I have a friend that I have not seen in quite sometime that had the same meal every Monday. While I can't remember what the fare was on Monday's I do remember that every Tuesday his family ate Tuna Casserole. Every stinkin Tuesday, Tuna Casserole. Every Wednesday it was the same thing, every Thursday, every Friday, well you get the picture; there was no variety in his life. He couldn't wait to travel for work, if nothing else just to get away from the Tuna and frequently when he was stuck at home, he would not go home for dinner. Can't blame him.

But getting back to my secret. Because I attempt to prepare a rather large variety of meals we sometimes have to go on treasure hunts for some of the ingredients. Many of the hosts on these shows seem to take it for granted that just about any local grocery store, anywhere in the country carries all of the necessary items to cook just about anything but it just ain't so Ethyl (that name always reminds me of the Ray Steven's song The Streak, you know, put your clothes on Ethyl).

So, we go hunting.....we used to go to Wild Oats, they had some things, we found a few Oriental food stores where we could pick up a few things, then there was this little Mexican tienda for our chorizo; for God's sake we used to have to go to Cost Plus just to get our peppercorns. Then we found out that a Whole Foods store opened up across the river (where they grow copious amounts of corn and the population wears corncob hats) so, we have to go there during our great ingredient quest.

We found broccolini there and we were hooked so now we sneak across the river every once in a while. Our route is carefully planned to avoid detection, it's like a blitzkrieg, a surgical strike. Our last incursion involved rapini and tamarind. I can't remember what I'm going to do with the tamarind but I know it was for a Thai recipe. Oh and the rapini with hot Italian sausage turned out just fine (served with whole wheat pasta with shallots and garlic) but it turns out I did not have to cross the river to get it, while looking for some Italian parsley for the pasta, there it was, right it front of me, here in town, rapini. Now if they would only get some broccolini.