Did Yoda really mean to mix up his words? Maybe he was just a little green dyslexic animal who regurgitated what he saw on his Dagobah soap operas. There. I’ve just dated myself. Personally, I think I put the sexy in dyslexic. Going to have a t-shirt made with that line, I am. Patent pending. I’ll sell it to Urban Outfitters. I’ll be rich! Have you ever watched one part of a VHS so many times that you wear out the tape? How long can you manage to suck on a hard candy before you just have to bite into it? I can always judge how well I’ve slept by how big the drool puddle is when I wake up.
There’s a wee digression for you. Shall we take a break? I can wait…..no I can’t. I found out during my week in Crete that perhaps, just maybe, redheads don’t have quite the patience I had hoped for. I mean, I didn’t wrench off a tree limb and start pounding someone into a bloody pulp, but I definitely needed a few “Serenity now” moments. Ah, the idea of beating someone senseless with an olive branch makes me laugh funny ha-ha. It’s almost depressing how excited I got at the sight of fava beans and spring peas growing in the wild. After all my years as a chef, the fact that I get so worked up by seeing these things exist naturally; It’s a sad reflection on the state of the world and how detached we are from our food. We spent a day with one chef, foraging in the hills for wild greens and herbs that we ate that night. Another day found us watching the chef of a seaside restaurant diving for sea urchins and octopus that we would eat, fresh, moments later. It makes me start to realize that I became a chef not just to learn how to cook, but to be closer to my food. We’re spoiled: we get to see fruits, vegetables, meat and fish in their entirety. Or at least in larger wax-treated boxes. I have spent hours trying to convert small groups into bone-in chicken-ites, but there will always be those who love that boneless, skinless chicken breast. You know, the one that you individually wrap in aluminum, and throw in your freezer, so you have a tasteless brick of frozen wannabe poultry to help fend off intruders? Or maybe you live in a safe neighborhood, and just use it when you power-walk in the morning? The possibilities are endless!
But I’m getting off topic. As a chef, I get to see things as they should be, more or less. So when even I become so taken by wild almonds and beans growing in the hills of Crete, I get scared for the rest of the world. Crete has a deep-rooted connection to their land, but you can already see this beginning to wear away at the edges, namely the scattered cities along its coast. “From dust to dust” is more than a line in Sunday church….we are part of the earth, and when we begin to lose that connection, we begin to lose part of ourselves.
And just so I can make this a more traditional random sandwich (Mmmm….randwich) rather than an awesome open-face sandwich that you proceed to drop on the floor, fun-side down, I shall end with this: I wish my pen caps were flavored. And had some whitening power as well. It would make my chewing habits so much more rewarding. BicFresh pens? C’mon!
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