The Innocent Honesty of a Child
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So the other day I cooked dinner, a stir-fry with various separate ingredients that I intended to bind together by simmering in tomato sauce. However, I hadn't paid enough attention to what I had on hand, and the can of tomato sauce turned out to be a can of cut tomatoes in water. The result was a fairly bland soppy mess.

Each ingredient (wieners, broccoli, bacon, tofu, eringi mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, the tomatoes, etc.) tasted okay on its own, but it felt disconnected and haphazard, and overall was a disappointment. As we ate I explained to 8½-year-old Anthony what my intentions had been, and when I noted the un-unified thrown-together result, he said, without the slightest hint of malice, “yeah, like pig food”.

(I couldn't help but laugh despite the overwhelming desire to cry at the veracity of the statement. Fumie said that she thought it was a “Veggie Festival” (野菜祭り), but I think she was just trying to make me feel better.)


All 6 comments so far, oldest first...

Offspring will still be food critics, even when they hit 20- I know!

— comment by Northern VA on July 13th, 2011 at 6:34pm JST (12 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

That dish sounds VERY Japanese Yoshoku. You had me salivating until the tomato sauce part… (I couldn’t think of any tomato sauce that would go well with tofu…) On the other hand, some of those Japanese ‘western’ dishes are extremely delicious. Mentaiko pasta, curry rice, cream stew and J-croquettes come to mind. If you ever get the dish to come off the way you like it, please include a photo.

— comment by Ron Evans on July 14th, 2011 at 12:01am JST (12 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

Intrigued by the inclusion of wieners and bacon in stir fry.

— comment by David Kindler on July 14th, 2011 at 12:37am JST (12 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

Should have added an egg yolk mixed with a little bit of cream…

See you soon,

Luc

Chez Luc

— comment by Luc on July 14th, 2011 at 7:24pm JST (12 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

I never use prefab tomato sauce for stir fry, but just like you a can of peeled tomatos in their own juice. It has to simmer for at least an hour, but the resulting sauce is better than anthing else. Still, the Wiener Würstchen and the Bacon seem odd. You could have added them at the end.

— comment by Daniel Cutter on July 14th, 2011 at 8:08pm JST (12 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

No wallpaper-sized photo?

— comment by Andrew Shieh, Sunnyvale on July 20th, 2011 at 4:58am JST (12 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink
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