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What to do?

I know this has happened to you, it happens to me, you buy a bottle of wine for a decent sum of money (not Two Buck Chuck), you get home, open it and it is... bad. Or off. Or a bit sour.

Do you solider through and drink it even though your forebrain screams that a headache is in your future? Do you feel embarrassed about your wine choice and store it in the kitchen to turn to vinegar? Do you pour it down the drain?

Or...

Do you take it back to the store and ask for your money back?

I have the hardest time with the last option. Today I bought a $10 bottle of wine from the local Ralphs, got it home, opened it, poured a glass, and...

Taste. YUCK!

It tasted sour, it was bubbling (non-sparkling wine should not bubble), and the wine was just off. Sigh.

Too late to return the bottle to Ralphs and then the embarrassment set in. Well, maybe I shouldn't have bought this wine... Maybe I should just pour it down the drain and recycle the bottle.

No, tomorrow it goes back to Ralphs so I can get my $10 back.

There, that is what I should do about bad wine.

I am always stunned when some tells me that they "Forgot to eat." Are they serious? Did they really forget to eat and their blood sugar did not remind them? Or were they just to busy or otherwise engaged to eat even though their body was saying "Hello! hello. hellooo..."?

I never forget to eat. My blood sugar, when it drops, always informs every other part of my body that it is TIME TO EAT in a way that is very hard to ignore or forget to listen to. I sometimes am too busy to eat, but due to my blood sugar dipping, I have to listen before too much time passes.

Tonight, I put some chicken and potatoes in the oven to cook about 6:30pm, thinking it should be done by 7:15pm, giving me a few minutes to eat before departing for the Salon. But I timed it wrong, as when it was time to leave, the food still needed another 15 minutes in the oven.

I turned off the oven, left the chicken and potatoes in the oven, and walked over to the salon. The first thirty minutes at the Salon was fine, as I normally eat dinner around 8pm, so my body was used to the time. I ate a few grapes which buoyed up my blood sugar. By 9pm, I was feeling the lack of food. By the time my turn to present had come and gone, my tummy and head were announcing to me it was time to eat. No room for forgetting.

I left at 10:20pm to walk back home, fish the chicken and potatoes out of the still warm oven, ate a drumstick and potato, and felt human again within 10 minutes. Human enough to return to the Salon and hear the end of Summer Darling's acoustic set.

I don't know about you, but I do like leftovers. Only for one more meal beyond the original meal.

When I shop for food or go out, I only like to get enough for whoever is eating (usually just me) and then maybe one other meal, though maybe not. I am not the sort who likes to make a big pot of _____ (fill in blank) and then have it to eat all week or box it up and freeze it in little portions for later. I am the sort who like to shop every day or two for the fresh food I will cook now. Whatever is leftover, I prefer to eat within 24 hours of the original preparation.

Part of this I-only-like-leftovers-for-one-extra-meal-thing is a variety issue, I get sick of eating the same thing, but the other part of it is my yeast / mold food allergy. I can make something that is perfectly allergy free, but if it is older than 24 - 36 hours then the yeastie beasties have had time to colonize and I will react to a previously safe food that is now a day or two older leftover.

Mostly it is a variety thing. As I mentioned the other day in this blog, I like leftovers for breakfast. If I have the leftover for breakfast or lunch, then bye bye after that.

All that being said, for dinner tonight, I ate the root roast and half an artichoke leftovers from last night. It was tasty.

Someone close to me has a very strong prejudice against all things vegetarian, both in terms of vegetarian food and people who choose to be vegetarian. It is the kind of prejudice that in an otherwise intelligent, education, and liberal-minded person that is rather odd.

I have watched this person tease vegetarians without awareness that their behavior is making others uncomfortable. This person also is very resistant to going to any vegetarian restaurants and eating a vegetarian meal at someone else's house, to the point where it makes said dining decisions difficult and fraught with interpersonal missteps and bafflement to other folks who don't know about the prejudice.

I live in Southern California, vegetarianism has been going strong in these parts for over 30 years. This person has been shopping at health food stores for at least 30 years and is not afraid of a whole grain or tofu or ...

As I watch this person being willing to eat any number of ethnic foods that are very challenging to the "typical" (whatever that is) American diet, such as lengua tacos, menudo, catfish larb, as well as vegetables & legumes of all sorts, all the while turning down any and all opportunities to go to a vegetarian restaurant, I remain surprised at the strength of the prejudice.

Last week, by dint of who knows what, I was able to convince the said individual to go to lunch with me at Udupi Palace in Artesia, which is a great South Indian pure-veg restaurant. For the first 15 minutes, the person tried to convince us to decamp and walk across the street to Ashoka the Great a non-veg Indian restaurant with a meat-ful buffet.

After a delightful shared lunch of idli, sada dosa, and an eggplant curry, the person declared that they did like the coconut chutney that came with the idlis and dosa. And declared later that they thought I was taking them to Ashoka the Great and felt a little deceived, even though I had thoroughly explained beforehand what the Udupi Palace entailed.

Later I was frustrated as I thought about the whole thing, not just this incident but a series of them over years. I wondered how a person who I otherwise respect can have such an odd, out of place prejudice to the point of disruption about a food type / style, esp. when the person is so willing to try other new foods.

As I wrapped my head around it, I realized that prejudices, be they mild and odd or strong and hurtful are many times without explanation even to the person whose prejudice it is. Some folks say prejudice is based out of the unknown or out of fear.

As the food allergy / gluten-free girl, I completely understand when a person can't eat something due to making one ill. I kind of understand pickiness. If you don't like a food, then you don't like it.

But I guess I am having a harder time with an irrational food prejudice that transcends "I don't like it" into something else entirely. The part that is hard is that the prejudice is so at odds with every other stated preference of the person. Most of all, it is hard to watch a person descend repeatedly into an irrational prejudice and be unwilling to examine it.

Last week's trip to the Udupi Palace was a ray of hope. A hope that maybe the prejudice can be held up and examined, and maybe one day put away.