Sweet!

"It's refreshing to have something live up to what they sold you," monshu said last night. And it was quite literally refreshing, because we were talking about sweet corn. Plus the salesman's claim was quite a doozy: He said it was so tender and sweet that we could eat it straight off the cob without cooking it. "We'll see about that," I said and bit right into a raw ear. Bastard. He literally made a pig out of me! Not only did I eat that entire ear raw, but the next one as well. (Ever the stick-in-the-mud, monshu insisted on having his ear boiled, and I humoured him.)

This isn't just any corn, it's a supersweet variety called Mirai　（味来）, which despite the Japanese name was developed right here in the state of Illinois. We bought ours from Twin Garden Farms in the sleepy exurb of Harvard (and by that I mean monshu went to the Twin Garden Farms booth at the Daley Plaza farmers' market). It's so tender, it actually has to be harvested by hand, but even with that extra care it ended up being only $4 for 6 ears--which makes each ear cheaper than a paleta.

I'd love to eat it all myself, but I'm not going to because it offers me a way out of my dilemma with the Koreans. (No, I haven't been back since I left those goddamn mushrooms in San Francisco.) It's perfect: A local product, yet one so unusual they probably have never had it before, and at the same time guaranteed to please them.

Leider licht!

Bugger! 100+ employees all praying that the power would stay off, yet here we are enslaved to pixels once more. Damn you Flying Spaghetti Monster! Didn't seem to throw our candidate off one bit, however; she even remarked that it was "relaxing" to do all the interviewing in natural light.

I've really got to watch myself better. I end up saying things while we're sitting huddled in the dark that I would never utter at work otherwise except in the company of one or two trusted co-workers who share my sense of humour. There I was, talking about autoerotic asphyxiation in front of the entire department right up until the moment the interviewee appeared.

Focail nua

an ceal an deabhadh an díle an fánsruth an fhleaig an fia-úll an fhleasc an fleiscín an t-idirdhealú an mheaig an phailin an staimín an t-úll gráinneach

doshannta soshannta tostmhar

fara maidir le ó thaobh

cealg cothaigh ídigh seal

Embarrassment of riches

At this rate, I'm never going to dig myself out!

It's not that Jay and Hera didn't appreciate the corn--indeed, they seemed almost embarrassed to accept it. It's that they immediately found a way to pay me back. "I have a special vegetable for you!" said Jay. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "Do you like 팥죽, the red bean porridge?" I should've known at that point what I was in for, but I was still taken back when a full tray of 반찬 arrived. And not ordinary stuff, either! Beside the 콩나물 (prepared soybean sprouts) were three other types of prepared vegetables: shitake mushrooms, 도라지 (Chinese bellflower root), and 고사리 (pickled bracken). There was another type of pickled vegetable on its own plate, but it was sour and I didn't care for it, along with a stack of nori (a.k.a. 조미김) and, of course, the red bean porridge with a side of brown sugar. "Because, you know, the Japanese, they like it sweet."

I was having the 팥죽 as an appetiser rather than a dessert, so I didn't sugar it before digging in--and discovering another surprise: This wasn't everyday porridge, but 대보름 (Lantern Festival) style, with balls of glutinous rice. Jay's mother had made it earlier and brought it by. She was also responsible for the various 나물, apparently scaling the spring hillsides herself in search of tender fiddleheads to pickle and growing the bellflowers in her own garden. Between stuffing myself, I expressed deep admiration for her industriousness!

So what next? Or should I get out now before this escalates any further?

Come for the food, stay for the clientele

Tonight we returned to Massouleh to try the ghormeh sabzi. It was--as I hoped and suspected it would be--the best iteration of that dish I've had in Chicago. But it was actually another take on the same basic ingredients that I found even more of a revelation. monshu suggested kuku sabzi as an appetiser and I was intrigued since I'd thought we'd had the gamut last time yet I couldn't call up a memory of this dish. The description was unpromising--"baked mixed vegetables and egg with seasoning"--and the appearance even more so: It reminded me of nothing so much as a block of frozen chopped spinach straight from the box. Perhaps more people would order it if they billed it as "spinach soufflé", which is essentially what it is, although with more (and more interesting) greens in it than just spinach.

Another thing I didn't remember from our last trip was the high bear quotient, both inside the restaurant and out. In particular, there was a lovely older man, cutting an elegant figure even in matching denim shirt and jeans, who sat right behind my man where I could subtly steal glances at him. On top of that, we were sitting right up against the window surveying the passing scene (with its street traffic reminiscent of Sunday morning on Argyle), and a dreamy furball came by whose effect on me was such that even monshu, worn down after another irritating week at work, noticed immediately.

Boys and girls, we have a new favourite haunt!