tales from an ordinary world

2002-06-23b

If I had to live the rest of my life only eating one "class" of food, I'd choose nuts. I have my father to thank for this - he always had a jar of peanuts in the cupboard, for those rare between-meal moments when he might be a little peckish. On slightly less common occasions, he'd have mixed nuts, or smoked almonds, or something else. I adore nuts. Chocolate, for instance, is so much more enjoyable when it's got nuts in it, especially dark chocolate with roasted almonds. Peanuts, pecans, pistachios (I'm not sure about these printed ones, though), hazelnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, macadamias, walnuts, and last but not least, cashews (especially "dry roasted" cashews). Chestnuts are ok, although I never tried them as a kid. It wasn't until they started selling them in the city during winter, and one of my girlfriends would buy them every time we passed a street vendor, that I tried them. In small doses, they're fine, but I can't see myself gorging on them as I could, say, with cashews. Does coconut count ? I know Mavis always screws up her face at coconut stuff over here, because they often mean dessicated coconut, which is quite distant from "the real thing". And then there are pine nuts, the "little addition" of the 80's, when everything seemed to have pine nuts in them. Fortunately I've recovered from those days, and have come to appreciate pine nuts under less overbearing circumstances...

A house without nuts in the cupboard is a house without food.