Regularly, my sainted wife and I
watch television shows about cooking. In
case you didn’t know, there are shows about making meals from scratch,
grilling, barbequing, baking, and even using-up leftovers.
There are programs about cooking
competitions with kids, adults, and celebrities. And many of these shows occasionally provide
not only entertainment, but also valuable knowledge.
For instance, I have learned that
you can make your own buttermilk with regular milk and vinegar. Or that you can substitute the herb savory
for sage.
While this may not be critical to
the nation’s security, it is important to anyone trying to replicate some of
these lip-smacking recipes.
During the early spring drinking
season – otherwise known as St. Patrick’s Day – I usually make a corned beef
brisket.
A brisket is a tough cut of meat,
akin to a cordovan penny loafer. The
trick is to cook it slowly with the appropriate additives, such as vinegar,
beer, and some concoction called pickling spice.
Pickling spice is a
conglomeration of cinnamon, allspice, mustard seed, coriander, bay leaves,
ginger, cloves, black pepper, cardamom, and mace. I learned this from watching cooking shows.
A quick trip to Tallmart proved fruitless as
they don’t carry pickling spice. Of
course you can order it on-line, but it is clear there is no room on the store
shelves for 37 different types of hair gel, but not one small plastic bottle of
pickling spice.
So my sainted wife and I began
selecting the appropriate ingredients to make a batch of our own. For your information, a bottle of pickling
spice costs about $2.50. All the
ingredients sold individually goes for about $37.
A trip to a dedicated supermarket
proved productive.
Just recently my sainted wife
visited some doctor who informed her she needed another product to fill up our
bathroom medicine cabinet more quickly.
It seems as though she has
excessive oil on her eyelids. Not
excessive enough to lube up the riding mower, but enough to warrant buying
eyelid wipes.
The box indicated it is “for
daily eyelid hygiene.”
If I woke up with my head sewn to
the carpet I would never guess there was a special product to prevent
“irritation to the eyes.”
Thinking back to those
informative cooking shows, I decided to peruse the ingredients list and simply
replicate it.
Water, PEG-80 Sorbitan Laurate,
Sodium Trideceth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, PEG-150 Distearate.
Sodium Lauroamphoacetate, Sodium Laureth-13, Carboxylate, Sodium Chloride,
PEG-15 Cocopolyamine, Quaternium-15, and citric acid, were exactly what I read.
All this may actually be country
well water; I really don’t know for certain.
But I digress.
Not being sure how to pronounce
these $7 words, I had no clue where to buy them or who to ask for them. The 13-year old kid down the street who sells
weed in the town couldn’t pronounce many of these ingredients either.
It was at this time I remembered
an old saying that holds true to this day.
If you can’t dazzle them with
brilliance, baffle them with BS.
How true.
