Reading the recipes in Martha Stewart's magazine LIVING (January 2009), the recipe my eyes fell on first was:
HONEYED TOFU on UDON WITH CUCUMBER RIBBONS
Cutting to the chase, I read HONEYED RIBBONS.
I'm as much a vegan as you are, certainly more of a vegetarian than you'll ever be, and I can starve myself with the best, okay? I know how to do liquid.
In my real life I also know what tofu is. I even tried to feed it to my children back in those days when they actually were children. The recipe suggested I fool the little darlings by frying the tofu and serving it with homemade ketchup. "They'll think it's french fries." What these people didn't know was MY children ate THEIR french fries with homemade mayonnaise, thank you very much, a holdover from those years I lived in Brussels...where people eat their french fries...nevermind.
I blanked on Udon...maybe it's Japanese lettuce or those bean things they give you while you are waiting for sushi? One day I'll bestir myself to look it up, so that I'll know what I'm talking about the next time I am at a dinner party and the subject turns to udon.
I'm okay with cucumber, but not okay enough to eat it anymore. I've put my time in with cucumber, and that time is over.
So, reading this recipe I was left with Honeyed Ribbon.
There is ribbon candy. It shows up at Christmas, if it shows up at all. Last time I had some was when I was five years old, and lived on Welcome Street in Peabody, Massachusetts. And that was in what is now known as the last century.
Honey I eat every single day of my life, but would never add it to ribbon candy, which I recall was ghastly. So, this recipe would not be happening for me.
I moved onto the next recipe: Lamb Chops with Citrus Sauce and Baby Mache Salad.
Baby mache? Paper Mache...Baby Sache...Mache Sache, for the closets....