Saturday, October 13, 2012

Breakfast

“But as for Queequeg—why, Queequeg sat there among them—at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle.  To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding.  His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him.” 

I am the cook. 
I make chicken soup. 
I don’t know how other people make chicken soup. 
I assume they make it badly. 
To make it the right way, you need hen fowl and beef long ribs. 
You can’t get that in San Francisco, because of the lack of Jews. 
Maybe if I were Chinese I would know where to go.
Long story short, I spent $100 on two chickens and some beef short ribs from Bi-Rite.
The chickens came with their heads and feet.
The butcher at Bi-Rite said, The heads will give it lots of flavor.
They threw in some extra heads.
The heads had eyes in them.
To make soup you have to boil the meat, skim off the scum, then add the vegetables and simmer for two to three hours.
Then you have to pick out all the bigger pieces of meat and vegetables, and pass the
broth through a sieve lined with paper towels.
The broth was gelid, because of the feet.
I had to really push down with a spoon to get it through the sieve.
I thought about pushing down on one of the chicken eyes, which were no longer on the heads.
I thought about it exploding.
I held onto the sink and retched a little.
I never saw an eye.
I wasted a lot of soup.
I froze the soup I didn’t waste.
The soup tasted good.
I am the cook.
I kill things, I cook things.
The world is a love poem to me and my family.
Everything we need is supplied to us, at great cost.

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