“I think I may have hurt myself.”

January 2nd, 2010 → 3:41 pm @ admin

3


 
Yesterday's dinner was the hottest food I have ever eaten. I really wish to emphasize this. This was the hottest food I have ever eaten. Ever eaten. Hottest. Yes. It has been 17 hours yet I can still feel its burn. Hot.
 
 
Years ago, when the Cleveland weather would descend into the season of malevolent gray, a group of us would go to a Korean restaurant in Lyndhurst. There we would all get a "bowl of hot guts".  Why certain experiences make us try to act like characters from Bukowski, with less vomiting, I will never know. It just sounds adventurous! Tripe in a Korean restaurant in a suburban strip mall! Adventure comes in all shapes and sizes and on a day with two feet of snow and ice, strip mall adventures assume the recommended serving size.
 
 
In a cast iron bowl they would bring a simple dish consisting of intestines with a warm broth and various vegetables. Each spoonful would bring heat, building steadily while you found yourself sweating profusely. The season's bulky clothing would be doffed and blood would return to your ears and nose for the first time since November. It was a wonderfully effective way to overcome the chill of winter.
 
Years have passed and that restaurant was replaced by another that does not have the foresight to sell intestines to the suburban crowd. We are all the poorer for it. And since its demise I have sought to replace that experience. Nothing has shown itself as a successor.
 
 
New Years Day is a wash of a holiday. Those who spent the preceding evening in the throws of debauchery live through it in pain, soothing their wounds the best they can. Or not, and they are just a drag on the others around them. The civilized among us, like myself, up bright and early the next day to find most of the world shuttered. The wife and I sat about the house, staring at each other until the need arose to visit the local used bookshop. There we met the interesting group of people that wait until the new year to buy their calendars. "You see, the savings are tremendous!" we were told. They swoop in like buzzards around the calendar display trees, spinning them wildly while giggling at odd shots of small dogs and the ever-present horror of Mary Englebright. Sure, all the ones that caught your attention in August are gone but think of all the money you have saved when you walk through the door with a half off, dog-eared Dilbert calendar.
 
 
After we escaped with our new calendar–don't you judge me!–we needed food. In the parking lot of the book store is a Japanese restaurant that, for whatever reason, does not do much for me. I cannot put my finger on why exactly this might be. The food each time I have eaten there has been pretty good and I always leave telling myself that I should return more often. Then the next possibility arises and I find a way to weasel out of my vow. This time, however, I screwed up my initiative and we went! And it was closed.
 
 
But the switch was thrown in the wife's head: noodle bowl. Once that flicks on there is no stopping it. So off we went to the local Thai place, Thai Orchid. It is a fine restaurant that, interestingly enough, used to be across the street from the Korean place mentioned above.
 
 
Their menu is the standard Asian restaurant layout. Food is segregated by what type of beast was sacrificed in its manufacture. Each of the spicy dishes is rated by a one, two, or three pepper system of heat. And it is here where I made my miscalculation. I have often ordered their three pepper dishes and, while there was a bit of heat, it really was not what I would term hot. Which leads us to the specials page. This page was obviously done in-house and eschewed the signaling peppers for asterisks. On this page was a duck entree. I love duck especially when the skin is crisped as the description foretold. So I was sold. There were five asterisks next to this item.
 
 
Let me take you through my thought process. Those five asterisks were simply a typographical error. Nowhere on the menu was there anything with four let alone five marks on their Fujita scale of heat. This was obvious. But it was really, really wrong.
 
 
We ordered and after a short while the food arrived. It was beautiful. The duck was the very picture of perfect preparation (Please note that you can sing this sentence to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's Major-General's song in Pirates of Penzance. You are welcome.) I scooped out a small portion of white rice and a couple pieces of the duck. The first bite should have warned me. Duck is a tremendously rich and fatty meat. Therefore, any thinking person would tell you, that if you feel excessive heat in the meat of duck then whatever is around it is deadly. I have proven myself not a thinking person.
 
 
I pressed on. The vegetables and sauce, upon further inspection, were mostly peppers and their accompanying anger made flesh. Water was guzzled and bare rice was devoured. It was when I my water had gone dry that I realized what I had done to myself. My mouth, esophagus and upper stomach were ablaze. I noticed I could count my pulse by the oscillation of the agony emanating from any of these areas. The lack of water to chill them even for a minute was becoming a very prominent feature in my worldview. Frantically I looked about and caught the attention of the host who took pity upon me and filled my water glass and then left the pitcher. When I am King I will make him an Ambassador for sure.
 
 
Did this stop me? Please note the reasoning skill shown above. I kept going and and going but soon I uttered the words that the wife has parroted unto me ever since: "I believe I may have hurt myself." It was a moment of weakness but it was as real an oncoming truck right before you hit it. I will "own" it as my squishy-headed countrymen are fond of saying in grave and resolute tones. My weakness claimed the higher ground and my triumphal march through the duck of pain was halted at mid-distance.
 
 
So, where to go from there? My interior cavities were angry and growing impatient with my inaction to quell their plight. Water does nothing to such chemical burns. Starch does little but my bowl of rice lay empty, mocking me. The only thing to do is to order the ginger ice cream I noticed on the specials sheet, right below the item that brought me to this state.
 
 
Maybe it is just me but the past six months seems to have brought with them an explosion of ginger. You can finally get really, really good ginger ale at normal grocery stores. Candied ginger is everywhere and found in a stunning number of varieties. We live in the age of ginger and I am fine with that.
 
 
Our server returns, either to mock me in my failure or out of sincere concern for her restaurant's reputation if I were to keel over from my self-inflicted injuries, I do not know which, and we order the ice cream. They are out of the ginger but they do have coconut. Ah, coconut, the fruit that gave scientists the idea for fibreglass. Coconut, the fruit God hid inside a nearly impenetrable shell such that man need never encounter it. I ordered it anyway and without a moment's hesitation.
 
 
The fat of the ice cream fixed things. Now I was able to breathe regularly without serious pain. That is a good thing. I recommend it. But, the greater question remains: Is this a replacement for the HB o' G? Possibly. I did not feel the chill of the air and have not since. This may still be shock and a hammer to the toe could have been as effective. I will let you know. See, I made sure I took the rest of my duck home. In the refrigerator it sits, waiting for me to find the courage to finish it. And I will. For science!
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