The angry housewife in me

I'm not fussy really. I never clean, I never iron, I never do anything in my apartment but sleep, blog and watch TV. Consequently, I am no good housewife and nobody will ever want to marry me. However, I do turn into a ruthless & maniac housewife when I cook for friends. Having friends over for a little dinner is the best thing I know. I love it, love it, love it!

I come from a country where food is art and should be prepared and debated for hours and hours. Dinners take time and food can be discussed endlessly. The only problem with the French (yes there's only one!) is that they usually love food as long as it's French food, or at least relatively mild western cuisine. Anything else is unknown, scary or even worse: not worth trying.

Oral needs - a parenthesis

One other thing you should know is that I've had the chance to live and/or travel in many different places around the globe and unlike many of my French counterparts, culinary speaking, I've been exposed to lots of different cuisines, taste sensations (read between the lines, I'm much better than everyone else). Anything from biscuits & gravy for breakfast, piri-piri seasoned bobotie for lunch to killing spicy sea-cucumber for dinner. I love spicy food, well actually I just love food in general, well.. actually I just love everything that I can put in my mouth really (food, drinks, cigarettes, finger nails, people, words, etc...). I can eat anything, at any time, whether I'm already full or not. Any kind of food is interesting. For me, traveling always includes visits to different restaurants, reading menus for hours and buying local cookbooks.

Man with a plan

As the kitchen goddess I aim at being, I feel I have a mission on earth (I'm a goddess, remember), my mission is to reveal well hidden international culinary secrets to my fellow citizens who come to my little dinner parties.

Tough mission because it never works and I never learn.

Ok, I don't always succeed, I often mess up and some of my dishes taste like genuine dog food, but still I do put an extra effort into it and at least one could appreciate learning something about the rest of the world. WHATEVER!

The last supper

Yesterday night, I had a few friends over. The theme of the night was: the Canary Islands. Did you know that behind the tacky clapping-charter-flight-destination-façade, a fantastic food culture hides. In the small houses hanging from the slopes of the vulcanoes, big Spanish hairy mamas prepare the Mojo for their numerous children and grandchildren. The Mojo is a very salty and spicy sauce that you should eat with very salty (extremely salty) potatoes (so salty, they actually get covered by a thin layer of salt after cooking, see pic above). It's DE-LI-CIOUS even though the first taste can be daunting because of the salt. But as you eat it, your tongue and your taste buds get used to the salt and that's the moment you discover the amazing taste of this Canarian specialty.
What you should know is: don't cook this dish to people who just care for steak and fries.

What usually happens - another parenthesis

As the amazingly homey housewife that I am, I serve my guests by presenting the dish as if it were "a little something" I cooked quickly right before they got to my place while deep inside I spent 14 hours swearing "why the f### did I invite people again?". I get haunted by the stress that they won't like it or that they won't eat it, or even worse that they will get sick and vomit on my Kelim carpet. After the guests have a first taste, I usually wait a few minutes (pretending that everything is normal and that I don't give a shit about what they think) and then comes the verdict.

1)"Oh it's really good!"

or

2)"Oh my God, this is the best thing I've ever tasted in my whole life!"

are both highly appreciated comments.

When I hear such compliments, I'll just give a little shrug and a well rehearsed "oh, don't exaggerate, it's nothing really" while - deep inside - I experience a mini-orgasm.

The very last supper

Back to last night's guests: they didn't say anything and they didn't eat anything. Had a little bite, said it was salty and continued playing with their forks and knives, making cling-cling sounds pretending there was some action going on in their plates. But they can't fool Anal Annie! I had perfect control of the table situation and I knew no swallowing was taking place.

Finally, they said "well, you know, we weren't really hungry ".

That's all!

Ok, had it been disgusting, I would've understood, felt ashamed and hated myself for being so crap at cooking. But honestly, I thought what I'd made was purely orgasmic. (if I may say so...)

Shocking
So can you believe it? I mean, how rude is that? Just because something tastes different, does that mean you can't give it a chance? I know that very salty food sounds scary but if the whole population of some Spanish islands like it, there must be a reason!

They didn't get dessert.