Finger Licking Good

I forgot, I forgot, but tomorrow I may be cursing my lack of focus. On Friday I bought a tray of chicken thighs and didn't get home until an hour later. Didn't have a insulated bag with me, I was forty-five minutes away from home, the chicken was a good deal, I put it in the backseat with the air conditioner on blast.

Today is Sunday, I pulled the package out of the fridge and cracked open the plastic. It's one step beyond fresh, a bit ammoniated, just a tad. I am taking the chance, god forbid that ten dollars of chicken gets tossed. Well. Here is thought process numbah one: I have worked in many restaurants, it was an interesting job with interesting night people, transients, travelers, and transsexuals. If you ever could guess what happened to your food before plate and garnish, you would buy a plot of land and raise goats as an appealing alternative.

Believe me, for I have worked in some of the fin-eer restoorantes, bwana. It isn't true in every case, but always remember, the owner is in a business to make money, and little, little, dear reader, goes to waste unless you work the wee wee hours and witness dishwashers throwing out the bins of dirty dishes into the dumpster because they are dog tired, overworked, and aren't stoned anymore. Ergo, you also would be surprised at what won't kill you, and therefore I am resurrecting the chicken.

Thought process secundo: who on this planet truly has refrigeration? India and Mexico, for example, dress their palates in vibrant, bacteria-killing spices designed to distract your sensory systems from the fact that the basic ingredients were really fresh once, however not all at the same time and not today. Not only that, let's go beyond refrigeration. Close your eyes, but not for long otherwise you couldn't read this, brother and sister, and it's possibly relevant. Tell you what, Google "Indian toilet" to find out. After my initial reading, I went into the bathroom and kissed the toilet paper. You won't look at munjoo patal samosas the same again until you check out the kitchen to make sure it isn't a kidnapped indentured villager working off a bondage debt. Check see if their fingernails are short.

Anyway, I disbelieve that there will be an outbreak of salmonella from this one toe over the line chicken. Anything growing is now dead and mummified with a poultice of curry powder, cinnamon, ginger, garlic and onion and smells terrific. Mmmmm. Come on over! Really, the curry recipe is direct from a Vietnamese friend in Chicago who also introduced me to shrimp paste. Meat is very scarce for most people so nothing goes to waste; to cover any oddities promoted by jungle temperatures, you saute it in a mixture of lemon grass and this shrimp business. Far as I know, it hasn't killed anyone. They still sell it in the Asian markets, it's just that I'm not buying any. Raw shrimp are salted, dried, ground, rotted and formed into cakes, maybe I'll try it again later.

It's after six o' clock and other people in this building are cooking Sunday suppers. Today I visited Dad who had a conversational fixation with transsexualism, he's eighty-three and began by asking me if I knew what a blankblankblank was. He watches the Christian channel and apparently there was a report on sex change operations. I am not going into it, it was squirmy and fortunately I was able to quickly distract him with fruit on the bottom yogurt shopping questions; facing funky chicken for dinner is nothing in comparison.

You have a lovely evening--kiss someone or something, even if it's the toilet paper. Good night, good peaceful night.