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cardamom key
Wednesday, May 6 2009
When we'd left Silver Spring, we'd been carrying several large plastic containers full of leftover Indian food. Somewhere along the northeast corridor, the lid had come off one of the beany dahl dishes and I'd been astonished to look down and see my foot heel-deep in the stuff. But it was Indian food, so I was not throwing that shit away. Back at the house, I'd scraped off the top layer, given that to a very appreciative Sally the dog, and eaten the rest over the next several days. Yesterday I'd bitten into a small stone that had probably fallen off my shoe, but otherwise I suffered no ill-effects.
By today, though, I'd grown weary of the leftover Indian food. Having been prepared for a party of aging Jews, it hadn't had much flavor to begin with, but after many hours of refrigeration as well as at least eight hours at room temperature, most of its remaining flavor had been replaced with a vaguely stale essence. Today I found a solution to its flavor problems: cardamom (in addition to the hot sauce I'd already been using in ample quantities). Suddenly the bland mush seemed fresh and genuinely Indian in a way that it never quite had, even when it had been fresh. It seems capsicacious heat isn't the only flavor that Indian cooks dial back when they're cooking for gringos.
Tonight was the result night show for this week's two-part American Idol elimination where we went from four contestants to three. It had been "rock week," and the two boring white guys had been especially boring and especially white, with one of them executing one of the poorest rock and roll screams ever conducted on national television. Meanwhile our favorites, Adam and Allison, schooled them on how it was done. They were also paired together and did a duet, demonstrating real rock and roll charisma. But it was Allison who was sent home tonight, leaving us with three white guys, and only one of them can rock. It was a disappointment, but such things happen. Not so for Gretchen, who took it as a personal affront from her fellow Americans. I overheard her on the phone talking to Jenny Brown saying how now she wants to move to Canada. Eight years of George W. Bush didn't make us move to Canada, but one bad result from 62 million callers to American Idol...
I stayed up late working on the iPhone application I've been developing on and off since February. I still feel like I'm faking it when I'm writing Objective C code, but I'm getting to the point where I actually know how to get things done.
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