arugula
>People are often surprised to learn that English is my native language. I suppose being born in Vancouver and living there for twelve years before the Exile isn’t a sufficient precondition for having some mastery of the language, not when you have brown skin and black hair and the stylishness of Bill Gates in his late twenties.
Christ, people, you think I’m FOB?
– although a few allies have commented that my speech is bookish. Like, is that a bad thing?
It’s true, however, that I occasionally stumble over pronouncing some words that I’ve read but never heard enunciated, or fail to remember how they sound. In my limited recollections, one event in college shines. In Sudikoff 212, I said to the prof: “I don’t mean to harangoo” — rhyme with kangaroo — “you.”
“You don’t mean to what?“
“Uh.” My eyes narrowed. “Aitch. Ai. Ar. Ai. En. Gee. You. Ee.”
“Harangue?”
“Yeah, that’s the word. Never, uh, heard it said before.”
He laughed. I grimaced.
Eleven years later, I’ve had similar mishaps with language. Inventory — apparently, it’s “in-vin-tor-ree” and not “in-vent-ory”. And then there’s the matter of “arugula”.
I don’t think I even heard of arugula until last year; perhaps I didn’t pay attention. I like greens, but one green leafy edible is much the same as another. Except iceberg lettuce. Which tastes like ass.*
What finally caused me to pay attention was the wild boar bolognese at Restaurant Zoe. At the time, the preparation included a pasta rolled with arugula, and the spiciness was delightful.
A few months later, an idea for a salad lit my mind, but I wasn’t sure what green stuff to use, until I wandered through Trader Joe’s produce department. “I will use,” I cried out to anyone who would listen, “arugula.”
“A what?”
“A-roo-goo-la?”
She looked at me, puzzled. I spelt it out.
“Oh, a-roog-yoo-la.”
“A-roog-oo-la.”
“A-roog-yoo-la.”
“Fuck it. I like the way I say it better.” Over the next five days, though, I chanted the word under my breath wherever I went, whether at work or at home, alternating between the two pronounciations.
I think I’ve got it now.
*If you must ask, how do you know this? You’re much too young to be reading this weblog. Please go here and never return. Bye.
bad sommelier. no biscuit. or crackers.
>A friend — let’s call him Robert — told me a story of — well, I don’t remember all the details, and my notes are lacking. I don’t even remember the name of the restaurant in question, which is just as well, since Robert told me that that part of the story was not mine to tell. “But you can tell the rest of the story if you like. Just no identifying details.”
Oh, alright.
So once upon a time there was a sommelier, and he was useless. How useless? Utterly useless, and crass besides.
One day, a fine woman took her clients for dinner to the restaurant at which this sommelier served. They ordered entrees. She asked for a bottle of wine. The sommelier arrived.
“Sure. What can I getcha?”
The woman arched a brow. At least, I imagine she arched a brow, even though Robert neglected to tell me this detail. And if she didn’t arch a brow, surely she winced, because who wants to work with sommelier who doesn’t bring ideas to the table?
He had no ideas.
One of the clients, I think, mentioned what they were eating, and that perhaps a red would be called for. “Great idea,” the sommelier said brightly. “Er.”
They pushed, prodded, and finally it dawned on him to bring a 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, Washington State. But before he did, he turned to the woman.
“You’re cute. I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating crackers.”
*
In the months that my food blog has been gestating, I gathered material for some ten posts. So excuse the flurry of posts, please. I don’t intend to make a habit of it.
so. let’s start.
>”What the fuck are you on?” she did not ask, but it amounts to the same. Instead, she said, after we were seated by the window, after I ran my fingers across the bright white tablecloth, my eyes briefly lighting on the sky outside, clouded and reflecting the sheen of the sun, before returning to look at hers, then her lips, then her nose: “I’ve never met someone who experiences food the way you do. When you really enjoy food, your face changes to bliss. That doesn’t happen often.”
No? Am I so picky? fussy? I don’t know if that’s true even if, over the years, I’ve been developing a taste for good food and wine.
Foie gras. Litchis. Ketchup potato chips.
These are some of my favourite foods. I have a taste for oddities, the sweet, the strange, things that give pleasure and delight.
*
I have no idea where I’ll be going with this blog. To some extent, the intent is to get my friends off my back, these “friends” who’ve been asking, “Why don’t you write about your culinary adventures?” And I say, “One day, one day,” delaying with the thought that, well, I have nothing to say, or write.
We’ll see.
