Martha's Living is all into briny turkey, though the November cover features a turkey grilled in Texas, the WaPost wants me to crush the bird's backbone, and Gourmet is offering a maple-glazed bird. Every autumn the home and food mags twist themselves inside out to do something "fresh" with America's own gobbler. But some of us say, hey, it's a large fowl, so roast it like a chicken, already. Big whoop.
Appropriately, the beast is not my assignment this Tgiving---I am working my mind around a new approach to sweet pots, sticking to the same old, same old for mashies made from Yukon Golds, and pondering a creamy leek gratin dish (from ?? ) instead of creamed onions with sherry/bourbon/brandy or whatever. The leek recipe is too rich but will do, once I am finished making it simple, stupid. And I am building a crunchy offering from a base of Belgian endive.
So I was fondling the B.E. the other day in my local Sunflower Market when my red pencil eyes noted the labeling above the endive basket--"Belguim endive." Now this is so wrong. First of all, the glorious country of Belgium is spelled incorrectly. But, more to the point,-- Do we say France toast? Or England mustard? Or Spain onions? Come on! ( OK, Vienna sausage...)
But when I gently asked the produce guy to correct the label to read "Belgian endive", he looked at me as if I were the village crank, ( testy older dame, more like,) and said, "It's that way in the book." "Well in that case "the book" is incorrect," said I. He waved the little sign around a bit, huffed and puffed, and then graciously waved me off. ( I didn't go into the pronunciation of endive, honest!)
Of course he didn't know with whom he was dealing....I asked the checker to show me "the book," where, voila, "Belgian endive" appeared. So.........On my next visit to the store, I wandered over to the endive to eyeball the sign. Same one, unchanged. Armed and dangerous, I whipped a Sharpie out of my pocket, plucked out the label, turned it over, wrote the veg up properly, reinserted the label, and sidled off.
Off the subject, but still--- If you happened to be in Lowe's in St Pete, Florida this October and wondered who had unplugged all the Christmas singing merry-go-rounds and talking Santas, wonder no more.
( Thanks to http://www.belgianendive.com/ for the pic.)
Yes, well, many Floridians apparently do not have much truck with folks north of Gainesville...
Posted by: Foodie | November 25, 2007 at 06:58 PM
OMG, I LOVE that you did this!!
Your "grocery" story ranks up there with a funny thing that happened to me in Florida...a cashier asked me where I was originally from. When I answered, "Rhode Island," he said to me, "Oh, I've never been to that island before, is it nice?"
Posted by: Wicked Good Dinner | November 24, 2007 at 01:05 PM
Must be in the genes, Johnny!
Posted by: Foodie | November 24, 2007 at 12:05 PM
Good for you re: the holiday noise at Lowe's. I used to charge through Costco in Seattle turning off the TVs they had at the end of almost every aisle blaring commercials.
Posted by: John | November 23, 2007 at 02:17 PM
Love that Nancy G--what a hoot!
OY Emily--she's writ(h)ing..
Posted by: Foodie | November 17, 2007 at 10:49 PM
One day in London our mutual friend Nancy G. corrected some grammatically incorrect graffiti. I am so glad there are people like you two around.
A brochure for Emily Dickenson's house I picked up in Mass. misused the word it's too. No word if she's turning over in her grave.
Posted by: KathyF | November 17, 2007 at 02:46 PM