ALL SIDES

Food blogging hasn’t been working out for me, and I think I know why. I only feel compelled to write about a meal if it’s exceptionally good or exceptionally abysmal. The good meals tend to disappear before I think to ensnare their souls in my Charged Coupled Dungeon, and the bad ones don’t even deserve such a fate, so all I’m left with are these limp and soggy words with which to describe my repast. Alas.

Last Tuesday I bought a cabbage at the Derby St. farmer’s market (my favorite such market). I think I intended to use it in a plate of beans and rice and salsa and tortillas (I don’t know if it still counts as a plate dinner without the meat. In Mexico, I believe vegetarians are mythical beasts, even more so those of us who eat meat but are simply too cheap/lazy to buy it). That, of course, entailed about 14 slivers of cabage, which left me with the better part of a head to ponder.

After exhausting all avenues of aesthetic appreciation cabbage can afford, I was left with the core dilemma: What, exactly, does one do with the better part of a head of cabbage? This is how many of my meals begin. Okonomiake came to mind, but it always sounds better than it actually is. Boiled with corned beef? Requires corned beef, an adventure in itself. Stir fry? After watching a true wok master handle a true wok over a true flame last night at Sunflower, I didn’t feel up to vain attempts at wok hay with my gas stove and poorly-seasoned wok.

So: simple, tasty, ego-preserving: coleslaw! The luscious vinegary bride of barbeque, salubrious salad of the South, the loneliest paper cup on your plate of fish and chips! Coleslaw gets abused in many hands, to my mind, hands that grant fat an unfair advantage over the acid. Southerners have it right: coleslaw is only as good as its ability to cut crisply through the broad and deep flavors it so often accompanies, and two parts mayo to 1 part cabbage does not achieve that end. I usually still use mayo in mine, but only so much.

Of course, one can’t just eat a plate of coleslaw. Well, I can’t. Since bbq would be even more of an adventure than corned beef, I decided simple pinto beans and some cornbread might combine with the slaw to form dinner, much the same as Voltron might form if two members of the team were hung over. My slaw came from Bittman, adapted with some mayo. My beans were, well, just beans. Boiled. With salt and bay. The corn bread came from The Gift of Southern Cooking, a wonderful-seeming tome with intimidating ingrediants like lard and field peas. I wouldn’t mind feeding lard to others, or eating it with them, but I don’t think I can eat it by myself. The cornbread recipe thankfully negelcted to include any, but it did suggest cooking the cornbread in a cast iron skillet, creating the perfect excuse to finally buy a piece of Lodge cookware. This set me back all of $10.

Anyway, I’m tired of writing about food, so just know that the story had a happy ending in the form of beautifully crisped corn bread and some fine slaw, a good meal of sides that well befit a Thursday.

Addendum
After actually reading that article on wok hay, and recalling the merely average nature of my stir fry, I suppose the guy at Sunflower may not have actually been a true wok master. If he was, he was saving his mastery for more desrving customers. He did have a cool wok though, and an industrial range with two settings: high and RAGING INFERNO. Some day, I will learn to use my wok.