thus, he was left to go through life as Bren on.
naturally, he was displeased with said situation, and he was on a constant search for a letter to replace the "d". in one moment of extreme desperation, he even resorted to stealing a "t" from an uncle of his. he had seen the name Brenton on a pack of crackers, and he thought it would be a good fit.
unfortunately, a second uncle showed up and stole it back. rather than returning the "t" to the original owner, the second uncle sharpened it into a short dagger, which he would brandish at anyone who tried to recover the pilfered letter.
poor Bren on was in a state of absolute despair when our paths crossed, and i afforded him every crumb of pity i had to offer. he even attempted at one point to steal a letter from me, but he gave up after i questioned if he would really want to go through life as Brenfon.
i decided that i would do everything i could to help this troubled soul find peace, and i began by getting to know him better, until i was acquainted with all his greatest hopes and dreams.
turns out he had always wanted to be an actor. not in movies or on television, but right out in front of a live audience on a theater stage. problem was, every time he tried to even go in for an audition, a door would be slammed in his face.
i walked around for a while, contemplating his predicament, and wondering what i could possibly do to help so pitiable a character. this is when i realized that there were several theater companies in the area, and a few of them listed the works of Shakespeare as a specialty.
i was struck by a brilliant idea.
me: if you use a marker, you can turn one of the "n"s in your name into a second "o".
Bren on: uhm... okay...?
me: then you can rearrange the letters to spell Oberon.
Bren on: uhm... why...?
me: stage actors are a notoriously suspicious lot. they won't dare turn away anyone with that name.
he smiled and nodded in enthusiastic agreement... that is, once i was done explaining who Oberon was.
then he ran off in search of a Sharpie... and i woke up.
___________
as i mentioned a couple posts ago, i wanted to talk a bit about the magazine that was the source of the German apple cake recipe. i recently added a magazine subscription and a cookbook to my culinary library.
i was an avid fan for many years of America's Test Kitchen, but i stopped watching after Christoper Kimball's departure from the show. it just never felt the same with him gone. however, i was perusing the magazine aisle on a recent trip to the supermarket, when a familiar face caught my attention on the cover of a new (to me) food magazine.
i was vaguely aware of him having moved on to some new endeavor, but i do not spend much time keeping up with the programming on public television these days. we get both the public radio and public television broadcast from Vermont up here in Montreal, but i do not own a tv, so i was not aware that he was back on the air... with a new magazine to boot. enter Milk Street (named for the street in Boston where this new company is headquartered).
i want to make every single recipe in this issue... except the savory bread pudding, because soggy bread is never my idea of a good time. i have been known to gag at the sight of french toast. pretty much.
random fact: my paternal grandfather was Indian. naturally, i have zero connection to the culture, other than a ridiculous fondness for the food. there is an undeniable Indian influence on Caribbean cuisine, so i was raised with a lot of those flavors being a common part of the food we ate. however, i recognize that those dishes are not—for lack of a better term—"real" Indian cuisine.
as a result, i greatly appreciated the article about crisscrossing Mumbai "In Search of the Real Butter Chicken", and i am really looking forward to giving the accompanying recipe a go. advance apologies to my ancestors who i will (undoubtedly) offend along the way.
then there is that cookbook.
for the uninitiated, Maangchi is a Korean-American cookbook author and one of my absolute favorite YouTubers. she also gets extra points for being a New Yorker. it should be noted that she is one-thousand percent responsible for the presence of gochujang (Korean chili paste) in almost every dish we make these days. i have learned so much and been inspired to try so many new things from watching her videos, and her new book is more of the same.
as soon as it arrived, we sat down together and flipped through the whole thing. you know that you have a good cookbook when you instantly start planning all the dishes you want to make. many of the recipes are updated versions of dishes she has made on her YT channel over the years, like this Galbi-jjim (braised beef short ribs). is it wrong to want to lick a page?
my absolute favorite part of this cookbook is the guide to shopping for Korean ingredients and kitchenware.
there are many more pages like this, filled with all the basic information you will need when shopping for all the parts you will require for your next Korean meal. i only wish this section of the book was a handy field-guide size that i could take on trips to the big Asian market across town... or even the small Asian grocery store directly behind our building.
i sense a future filed with culinary mis-adventures that will make even the king of the Fairies proud.
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