A housemate charged with making dinner started assembling an unlikely assortment of ingredients out of the pantry - it really was past time to hit the grocery store - but, undaunted, he combined them and came up with something that looked surprisingly appetizing. Then he proceeded to eat it right out of the casserole dish that everyone was going to be served from. I don't mean he was testing it to see if it needed anything. I mean he grabbed a fork and dug in. It made me realize I have some conflicting beliefs about double dipping. I've lived with some pretty outstanding cooks, and I've seen them taste the sauce and put the spoon back in plenty of times and thought nothing of it. It's like taste testing canceled out the germs, which is ridiculous. If the cook puts the spoon back into the pot uncleaned, of course any germs on that spoon are not canceled out. Yet, the housemate's actions made me immediately start looking for my keys to go for takeout. Germs acknowledged! Then it occurred to me that the difference in perception of the double dipping behavior might not have anything to do with germs, but more to do with the type of cook implied by that behavior. A taste tester cares deeply about the end result, and seeing that behavior is a good sign that the dish will taste good (germs bedamned). Whereas, my housemate is the sort of fellow who will eat anything that doesn't run away fast enough. Who knows what that thing tasted like, regardless of how good it looked?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Double Dipping
A housemate charged with making dinner started assembling an unlikely assortment of ingredients out of the pantry - it really was past time to hit the grocery store - but, undaunted, he combined them and came up with something that looked surprisingly appetizing. Then he proceeded to eat it right out of the casserole dish that everyone was going to be served from. I don't mean he was testing it to see if it needed anything. I mean he grabbed a fork and dug in. It made me realize I have some conflicting beliefs about double dipping. I've lived with some pretty outstanding cooks, and I've seen them taste the sauce and put the spoon back in plenty of times and thought nothing of it. It's like taste testing canceled out the germs, which is ridiculous. If the cook puts the spoon back into the pot uncleaned, of course any germs on that spoon are not canceled out. Yet, the housemate's actions made me immediately start looking for my keys to go for takeout. Germs acknowledged! Then it occurred to me that the difference in perception of the double dipping behavior might not have anything to do with germs, but more to do with the type of cook implied by that behavior. A taste tester cares deeply about the end result, and seeing that behavior is a good sign that the dish will taste good (germs bedamned). Whereas, my housemate is the sort of fellow who will eat anything that doesn't run away fast enough. Who knows what that thing tasted like, regardless of how good it looked?
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Attack of the Robot Lawyers
I've been noticing a creepy trend in ambulance chaser ads. Okay, a creepier trend. The attorney is always carefully posed, mannequin-like, and throughout the impassioned speech about how, for a fee, he is totes on your side, his (or sometimes her) head moves back and forth like a metronome, but his body does not so much as twitch. They move just like animatrons from Disney World.It's Skynet, I'm tellin' ya.
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