What I eat, apparently

So at some point recently, a legion of lazy carrots invaded my fridge. They refuse to leave. So, inevitably, I’ve been attempting to figure out things to do with said carrots. I find raw carrots by themselves bland and boring, and cooked carrots by themselves are mildly repulsive. Nonetheless, the part of me that is descended from rabbits recognizes the value in eating carrots, as also does the part of me that wants to put off having to get glasses for as long as possible. Thus, I find ways to eat the carrots.

One excellent means of sneakily getting carrots into my stomach is the Vietnamese garden roll. These also serve as a vehicle for peanut sauce, one of the top nominees for the Best Sauce of All Time.

Anyhow, I boiled up some delightfully wormy (like, resembling worms, except incredibly appetizing!) noodles, shredded some lettuce, sliced up some tofu, and attempted to slice carrots without hurting myself. I failed at the latter task. Sure enough, that knife decided to get awful friendly with my left index finger. So it goes. Nothing bad at least, kudos to me for being lazy about sharpening cutlery!

Anyhow, after a sloppy assemblage, my dinner looked like this:

I had a bunch left. I set them down for one brief moment, and suddenly these strange beasts emerged from the ether, as if by Garden Roll Magic. They approached timidly, with that tiny glimmer of hope that these strange tubes might be a disguise for a chipmunk, or possibly a sparrow, or the rare wild sighting of small brown digestible pellets. But alas, disappointment was met by all but my tummy.

Anyhow, the peanut sauce is awesome, you should make it and dip things in it. It’s easy!

-1/4 cup peanut butter (chunky is always fun)
-1/4 cup hoisin sauce
3/4 to 1 cup water

Boil until saucy. Add crushed peanuts if you are also saucy.

P.S. The recipe calls for a dash of sesame oil, but I always forget to add it. Tastes good either way!

So every time I’ve eaten green papaya salad, I’ve gotten sick to my stomach. The first time I ate it was when I’d up and decided to make it myself, not long after having discovered the fabulous joys of Vietnamese salads. See, I was at this party, and this dude Chad burbled on to me in glowing terms of the fabulous merits of shredded papaya, and it’s salad-like uses. So I sought out the papaya in all of it’s shredded goodness.

I was so excited that I forgot to rinse it.

I downed a bunch, and ended up missing work the next day due to the viciously uncomfortable swelling my stomach was experiencing. Only lasted a day at least, and kept me from eating green papaya salad again until a year or so later. That next time, however, was from an actual restaurant. Thusly, the weird bloat only lasted a few hours, and was milder.

My problem is that if something is delicious, I’ll still want to eat it no matter how sick it makes me. This also gives insight to why, every year as a child, I was always ill in early November, having free reign on my Halloween candy.

In any case, I made some more green papaya salad last night, it was quite delightful and the best part? Not a bit of sickness.

It really is the sort of salad that you just want to roll around in!

I’d post a recipe, but you can just google it instead, for I am full of lazy!