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Hello Readers,
I started a Group on Facebook called
Fans of the blog "Things I've Noticed"
I may not have the best blog in the world, but it's better than some other ones that have a lot more fans. Feel free to join if you like. It will help others "refresh their mind" on a regular basis.
+ Atul
I did this based on my judgment and gut feel. We'll see how right I am, but notice the resulting electoral vote count, (which was unintentional). If it's a tie and it's up to Congress as the law states, then Obama wins.
Have a try on NPR's map site and we'll see who's the most correct come election day...
+ Atul
MORE ON THE ELECTION FROM THINGS I'VE NOTICED BELOW...
Tis The Season For Political Advertisements – The Quandary of Their Necessity
I’m addicted to food. I eat every day and more than 3 times a day on most days. So, I think about food all the time and I get a hunger for it. Of course, like any other person, I like to eat things that taste good (to me). I’ve grown to like a variety of things and will eat almost anything that’s vegetarian with few restrictions. I also like to try new things in food whether it’s a new restaurant, new ethnicity of food, or just a new menu item. It’s a way of getting a minor sense of adventure out of daily life. It’s funny when people like to eat only what they know they already like. At some point, they had to try what they like for the first time. My mom always says, “how do you know you don’t like it until you try.” But then she attempts to get me to “try” the same dish multiple times over the years even if I didn’t like it the first few times. I stopped falling for that.
What I have noticed about food is that some of the true food pioneers and chefs have created great-tasting flavor combinations from seemingly incompatible flavors that make no sense. I wonder why somebody tried putting ingredients such as these together in the first place…
- lemon/poppy seed
- chocolate/habanero
- cranberries/gorgonzola cheese
- pineapple/pizza
- chocolate/peanutbutter
- mango/tomatoes (in salsa)
- fruit/balsamic vinegar
- cookie dough/ice cream
- chocolate/mint
- peanut butter/banana
The people ran the risk of wasting food if the new combo tasted horrible. And the really bold ones tried out these crazy food combinations on their friends and family. They must have really valued experimentation over their relationships. But if the experiments turned out well, they may have gained more friends or more business in the case of restaurants or food producers. Perhaps in times of scarcity, people combined random ingredients for variety. Who wants to eat the same three things every week? But if you combine two ingredients at a time in a unique way, you get many possibilities.
We take these combinations of food for granted, but we should thank the crazy food pioneers who tried them out in the first place. I regularly enjoy lemon/poppyseed muffins and cranberry/almond/gorgonzola on my salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing, (thanks to Zoup! where I got the idea). Once, I had an avocado/mint/rosewater dessert which was absolutely amazing. A traditional Gujarati Indian recipe that I like combines pomegranate seeds, fried lentil seeds, onions, cilantro, and cayenne pepper powder. Who would have thought to combine lentil seeds with pomegranate? They’re both seeds but they are strange bowlfellows indeed.
What are some of your favorite seemingly weird food flavor combinations? Are there any that you’ve created?
+ Atul
There’s something about me that I can’t quite figure out. No matter where I go, people ask me for directions. This has happened not only in the U.S. in cities ranging from those where I’ve lived to cities like Chicago, Boston, and Portland, but it has also happened in Rome, Quebec City, and Paris. It’s not as bad as being asked if you work at a store when you really don’t, (and that happens to me on occasion too). But it makes me wonder.
It could be that I look like I’m from whichever city I am visiting. Is it my skin tone, my clothes, the way I walk, the way I hide my camera and my map??? Or is it that I look like I know where I’m going? Those are two possible theories. But then, there has to be an explanation for why they ask me out of all the other people who look like residents, (most of whom actually are residents). Perhaps it’s my friendly-looking face. Even then, the characteristics of my face that make me friendly looking aren’t apparent to me.
When I don’t actually know the answer to somebody’s request for directions, I don’t pretend that I do or intentionally given fake directions, (like I’ve experienced in New York and New Jersey). In some cases, I have to explain that I don’t speak the language. Then I get the disheartening, “what good are you,” look. But sometimes I have a good idea of where they need to go and in many cases I do know where to go. Then the dilemma becomes how much of my time should I use in helping the person who imposed on my time by asking me for directions?
Perhaps being frequently asked for directions happens to everybody. I have no way of knowing for sure. But I do get the feeling that it happens to me more often and in more places. If I do have a unique quality that leads to others asking me for directions, I wish there was a way I could leverage it and make a living off of it. But I think Garmin has ruined that for me. If only I was born 100 years earlier. I could have traveled the world as the global direction giver. I would live off the food and shelter given through the generosity of residents whose direction-giving burden I would have lifted.
By the way, I’m a guy who does ask for directions when I get lost. However, with a map and my sense of direction, I rarely get lost. Really.
+ Atul
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