It is asparagus season.

I like asparagus.

Here is a picture of the cream of asparagus soup I made from scratch.

Some people taste soap, right? I may be one of the “soap tasters.”

I mean, I eat cilantro. And when I eat it, I say to myself, “umm, this is good, what with all the cilantro in it.” But something tells me I’m not tasting what other people are tasting when they ooh and ahh over their guacamole. I’m terrified to think that I could very well be deluding myself. I may hate the stuff.

My girlfriend describes the taste as very “fresh’ and “green.” I find it almost metallic, like eating the bottom of a cast-iron skillet.

So I could be like one of those wretched colorblind people trying to look at paintings; I just don’t have the equipment, perhaps.

A couple of days ago, I made mayonnaise.

That’s not a euphemism—I literally made mayonnaise. I was bored and I thought, “what can I do today” and “make mayonnaise” was the first thing that sprung to mind. This is what happens when you don’t have a full-time job.

It’s a strange thing to make—mayonnaise. Firstly, because no one does it—you can buy it in a jar for cheap and it’s perfectly delicious. And secondly because of the strange alchemy at work in mayonnaise production—turning a series of wet ingredients into a solid. You think, “holy crap, it’s mayonnaise” when you see it start to form. Basically, it involves whipping a thin stream of oil into a little egg and egg yolk. There is also salt, lemon juice and mustard. It’s easy if you own a food processor. I own a food processor.

Here is what my mayonnaise looked like:

How did it taste?

Like Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. Maybe a bit fresher-tasting. A bit creamier, I suppose. Maybe I could have thrown in a touch of sugar to give it that extra something. But, ultimately, it was very tasty. And remember—as the Buddhists will tell you—it’s the journey that’s important, not the destination. I had fun making my mayonnaise—living in the “now” and making my mayonnaise.

And then I made a very delicious potato salad from the mayo.

It looked like this:

Actually, it still looks like this because it’s sitting in my fridge right now. I used the recipe from The Joy of Cooking and added halved cherry tomatoes. I also added fresh dill because, for some reason the Joy of Cooking recipe didn’t included fresh dill which makes me think that the Joy of Cooking editors are psychopaths.

Because, you know, they stuff huge amounts of food down those poor geese’s necks and the farmers that do it have to do it everyday and they get no time off because the geese develop a sick loyalty to their force-feeders and won’t eat unless they’re fed by the same person every day.

I think I’ve had foie gras about three times in my life.

I’m trying now only to eat organic meat, which is hard because what random Thai restaurant serves organic meat? (none). Also, it’s expensive—sometimes three times more than regular meat, and being desperately poor, it’s tempting to just buy the cheap stuff.

But it’s nice to go to the farmers market at Grand Army Plaza and see the pig farmers and look at the cute pictures of their pigs playing happily in the fields—not stuck in some concrete cell biting the tail off his neighbor and squealing in agony. You look at the picture of the happy pigs and you think, “yeah, I could eat that.” But still, pigs are very smart, so it is sort of like eating your dog.

Man, pork is delicious! There’s a very good porkchop being served right now at Restaurant Sorrel on Carlton Street.

Here is a big lump of foie gras:

It turns out that despite what my blog says, I was back in Brooklyn for Halloween. I wasn’t able to do anything festive, though; I didn’t go out, didn’t dress up. But I did think to myself, “won’t it be cute to hand out candy to all the kids in my enormous building who will inevitably drop by my door.”

So, I went to Duane Reade and bought one of those big bags of Snickers.

I was home by about 6:00. I actually carved a tiny pumpkin that I had bought earlier and placed it outside my door so the kids would know I was jazzed up to hand out candy. And then I waited.

No one came. The only thing that happened was that some kid stole my jack-o-lantern.

And I was left with this big bag of Snickers to contend with. So, I’ve been slowly making my way through this Snickers bag for the past two weeks and have finally finished. It’s been a steady diet of Snickers for me. I can’t say that I’ll miss the ol’ Snickers Diet; I felt like I might have gained some weight.

As a post-script, when searching for a Snickers image for this post I found this picture:

So let’s talk hamburgers…

If you go into a pub/restaurant, there’s a good chance that there will be a hamburger on the menu. If the menu, in an attempt to fancy-up the joint, says, “made from 100% lean ground sirloin,” you might as well just turn around and leave. That burger’s no good.

You see, a decent hamburger really can only be made from one thing: ground chuck, straight from the shoulder of the cow. And the meat needs to be pretty darn fatty, something like 10 to 15% fat. Otherwise, you’re going to get some dry, tasteless puck that you’ll have to quietly endure as you watch you’re friends devour what looks like a pretty decent Ruben.

Chuck, people! Sure there are exceptions—I think the people at [Shake Shack](http://www.shakeshacknyc.com/) mix skirt steak with the chuck, [Peter Luger](http://www.peterluger.com/), I’m sure, uses their amazing porter house steaks, probably a well-marbleized sirloin would do, but why waste you’re money? The chuck is sitting right there.

Maybe they shouldn’t even serve a burger at pub/restaurants—they’re invariably way too big, served on some monstrous 5-inch high bun; who needs it? If you order it rare, you’re biting through 2 inches of cold, pink flesh (too much).

My latest feeling is that burgers should be kind-of small, loosely-packed, greasy, and delicious…

If you go into your fridge and pull out some mustard, and you happen to notice that your mustard has won a gold medal from the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, it’s a good time. All condiments, in my mind, are improved if they’ve won some [obscure medal](http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/exhibits/panam/food/medals.html). Like A-1 steak sauce—it’s actually pretty terrible stuff, but it’s won, like, four medals so that makes it OK in my book. The more obscure the medal, the better; for instance, I’d much rather have the medal come from the Royal Viennese Tasting Institute than from Good Houseskeeping. Also, the older the medal the better—if the beer you’re drinking is still flaunting the fact that they won a medal in Paris in 1862, great. A sliver medal is better than a gold medal; you want to say, “keep trying mustard, you’ll make Gold someday.”