The Elephant and Butter has issued a challenge to the entire office: Let's combine our various thirsts and drain this entire water cooler in one day! One day! Let's come together as one in one day! Let's reenact the classic Man v. Nature paradigm, from which so much insight has been gleaned in art and literature! Let's be the collective Ahab to this water cooler's Moby Dick! Let's forget our differences and hydrate as one humanity!

But the office largely balks. Someone says: I don't understand why we must do this. The person in charge of our budget tells me my idea is costly. And despite the impressive efforts of a few, the water level hasn't subtracted much (see photo). Perhaps history will regard my ideas more enthusiastically, more seriously, more thirstily.

The Elephant and Butter has been feeling approximately red pants. But persisting nicely. Lemons are being preserved. The Hinterland is being adjudicated. Asparagus is being researched for a free-lance project. I mean, really researched. As in: amino acids, spies, Persia, urination, and possibly even the Queen of England. Details to follow in a couple of months.

To my ultimate credit, I have decided to eat all my meals for the next month with my left hand instead of my right. This decision was made last night over a plate of Thai drunken noodles. In a flash of cognizance with no known source, it occurred to me that for practically my entire life my right hand has dominated every meal requiring a utensil. Unsurprisingly, my right hand is fantastically adept at all sorts of actions, while my left hand generally rests on the table as if miserably near-dead. Dear god, what have I done?! No hand deserves a subaltern status. So begins my uplifting project of giving my left hand a month of hot attention. 

I'm no journalist, but I'm pretty sure a meat panorama is not news.

The Elephant and Butter sent something back to the restaurant kitchen. Scallops. My threshold for salt is generally very high, but these scallops were so brackish they pickled and numbed my tongue. And they smelled amiss. I was not alone in this opinion. Churchie, the Herodetus of seafood, agreed. This is a man who has pulled dinners out of the Atlantic with his own sure hands. Churchie does not err in matters of the sea. They were completely objectionable scallops. It was the first time in my life I had I sent food back to the kitchen.

And yet, at first I hesitated to say anything. We both did. Controversy ensued. Were we being overly deferential? Were we afraid of conflict? Did we fear how we would behave once the conflict was broached with a waiter? Would we change the tenor of the birthday banquet by calling attention to inadequacy at the restaurant? Because of the size of our party, I found myself rationalizing how the scallops came to be so shitty. Cooking different dishes for over 10 people, all timed to arrive at once, is not easy. I also tried to discern what my true motivation would be for sending the food back. To get my money back? To send signal that shitty scallops can not be passed with impunity? To help the chef understand and in the future avoid the error? 

It seemed not only like an ethical quandary, but a psychological one. What personal need would be fulfilled by sending the dish back? Would I feel less taken advantage of? Would my assertiveness bolster my opinion of myself? Would my ability to engage in fair-minded, trusting conflict resolution bolster my opinion of myself? None of these motivations appealed to me. The serenity of my self shouldn't hinge, I thought, on my handling of three bad scallops. 

Practicality did not matter much, either. By the time the un-good scallops had arrived I was no longer hungry, and their cost wasn't much of a factor because in restaurants my regard for money is diminished. Still, the idea had been introduced. I could send them back or not. The decision became embossed.

In the end, I succumbed to a psychological need, but none of the ones mentioned above -- the need to show that I was capable of sending bad scallops back to the kitchen, whether I really felt it was a worthy action or not. I wanted to try it out. So, as the table discussion waged onward, I discretely hailed the waiter and told him that my scallops were extremely salty, but that I didn't want any replacements, or anything, really. I have rode a motorcycle through a typhoon. I have sat at the bedside of dying people I loved. And now I have sent something back to a kitchen. 

There aren't many marrow bones in the vicinity, it seems. I was hoping to make a demi-glace, but had to change course due to the shortage. Bordelaise and chasseur sauces will have to wait. Instead, I opted for red curry paste. It's always good to break the western sauce hegemony, I think. I couldn't decide between the Malaysian and Thai recipes, so ended up combining the two in my own erratic fashion.

5 red peppers, seeded

3 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon ginger

1 tablespoon coriander

1 teaspoon chili powder

2 teaspoons cumin

1 onion, diced

handful of pumpkin seeds, blanched (or almonds, but I didn't have 'em)

lemon

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

1 cup of water

3 tablespoons of tamarind water, if you got it

salt 

Toss it all in the blender for three minutes, and simmer the resulting slurry for 40 minutes. About three tablespoons is all you need to begin a decent red coconut curry, so the rest can be frozen in an ice cube tray, as seen above. Once you have the paste, fry some garlic, ginger and shallots, add coconut milk and paste, and vegetables. Finish with lemon, a bit of soy sauce, and cilantro. I hesitate to provide any precise measurements for the curry itself because to do so would dishonor the fact of palate relativity. Just feel your way toward a suitable confederacy of ingredients.

Joined forces with the Anxious Southpaw for a trip down to Philly to surprise a Russian woman on her birthday, but she saw us coming from about 266 miles away. Drove through one of Philly's magnificent and baffling drive-through liquor stores. Ate the brussel sprouts of a future rabbi who has perfected the skill of dancing with a can of beer on his head. Slept on something that is not to be used as a safety device. Sang puppy surprise. Came home with blood on the tracks and time traps.

Who here among us does not revel in the tactile comfort of a fine book? Recently, the Elephant and Butter stopped by Kitchen Arts and Letters, and saw some great ones. This bookstore is so advanced in its interests that it separates vegetarian books from vegetable books. Two distinct sections! Upon entering the door I noticed a pile of Franco La Cecla's "Pasta and Pizza" from Prickly Paradigm Press, which I recently read. It's a tiny book, but a real looker. Lately I've had a fascination with these sorts of small, well-tended objects. Like this one, and this one. Paper should have a good nap and tooth. You should want to rub your face on it, maybe even lick it. I predict this will happen en masse soon. I predict people will start taking the production values of their books as seriously as that of their vegetables. People will read their vegetables and lick their books, and it will be good.

Brunch at Moto began with a fine-ground coffee and flat donut, and proceeded to an arrayed 'Turkish' breakfast of radishes, olives, figs, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, sopressata. The milieu was vaguely steampunk, vaguely speakeasy, vaguely vintage motorcycle. Shortly before, across town, we had wonderful pancakes and ur-coffee. If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it makes no sense to stop at one.  The careful man girds himself with a support network of breakfasts.

Then, off to P.S. 1.

Buzz Spector stands in for my silence with his.