I've always been certain - absolutely certain - that my favorite herb was rosemary. It goes well with the take-no-prisoners style of cooking that I like to eat; subtlety, in food, bores me, and I latch loudly onto indications that it's an Italian herb, and so part of the molecular structure of the blood that courses though my veins. Or something. But, and this has been indicative of a trend, just about everything that I'm making this week involves thyme: lemon/thyme/olive oil cookies (to which I've added mini chocolate chips), Jamie Oliver's grilled fillet with creamy leeks and white beans, Nigel Slater's chicken with garlic and herbs, and a lentils and bacon recipe. So I feel like the misguided boy in the romantic comedy who thinks he likes the hot girl but really likes the geeky one, or I assume that rosemary is the body-building beach stud who kicks sand on the 99-pound weaklings (bay leaves, maybe, or asafoetida, or any herb that doesn't hold up to direct fire), and I actually prefer the one with "smaller leaves."
What's your favorite herb (or spice)?
About Me
- Lore & Ipsum
- I'm interested in language, grammar, cooking, rhetoric, discourse, design, taxonomies, food, conversation & interaction analysis, girl things, cognitive science, finding a job, and large bodies of water.
9 comments:
Herb Tarlek - I loved that show.
rosemary absolutely is the pretty girl of herbs. and that's okay - she's an excellent match with potatoes who are totally the jock of the veggie world. rosemary has it's place and it's moments of glory but it's never been my favorite herb.
personally, I've got a big crush on fresh basil (especially if you grow it yourself) because it makes everything feel (yes, that's right - feel, not taste) like summer.
but if I had to go for a dried herb I think I'd go with cumin. earthy and distinct but not over powering.
wow, all of a sudden, I'm hungry.
and mark, I agree with you. wkrp was more awesome than people understand.
Can asafoetida be called a wuss when it smells so awful? So fetid, I guess? It outstinks most other spices I can think of, but then I guess that stinky power does weaken in cooking.
I once wrote in the middle of the Pittsburgh Whole Foods a story about a girl named Asafoetida.
So my favorite spice is garlic, I guess -- is that a spice? Or, in liquid form, ginger. There is an Asian restaurant in Yeovil whose cocktail list is more than half ginger-containing. This makes me happy.
But I wanted to tell you of my discovery of a new branch of mathematics: Bogglenatorics. The question is, given only a list of words that have been found on a Boggle grid, are there other words that must be found on that grid? The generalized version is useful for image-compression algorithms.
samnw: an attempt to call a hobbit, interrupted when a meanie claps its hand over the speaker's mouth
I think that remark was good for comment compression.
I tease because I love!
But really: garlic? Isn't that a little jejune? (D.C. al fine*)
*probably improperly used, yet another reason I'm not a concert pianist
What I mean is something like this: If you have found "stew" in a Boggle grid, "wets" must be findable in that grid. And "wet." This is kind of a trivial example of the findability of one word entailing the findability of another. Can we find less trivial examples?
Suppose for instance that the 4 x 4 grid contains "north," "brow," and "secessionist." Then:
There is only one w, o, r , t, h, n, and b. (Otherwise there aren't enough letters to make "secessionist.")
The "orth" form a string.
The "w" is adjacent to the "o."
Therefore, the word "worth" must also be findable.
This grid is possible:
inwb
sors
ithe
ssec
It's like retrograde analysis, except for Boggle.
svawnybi: cross between a Swedish cygnet and an Indian spiritual leader
(took too long to leave the comment; now it's ixhri: feeling irie, except with a sore throat)
I think bogglenatorics is one of the most brilliant things I have read in a long time.
boggleo-whatsit makes my head hurt.
my favorite herb is butter.
your narrative about rosemary et al made me smile and laugh aloud, though, dear l&i. and perhaps to yearn for your cooking.
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