Cooking and The Dark Arts

     My grandmother sent me a heretical cookbook.

     It looked entertaining at first- bright colors, entertaining recipes, pretty girl on the front. (I'm easily entertained.) It's intended to be for those absolutely metal viking warriors and insane college students who're on the Paleo diet,(I'm not, but if anyone reading this is, you guys are incredible.) The Paleo diet is intended as a return to our neolithic roots by cutting out most refined products and all grains, so some of the recipes in there are interesting to say the least. I mean, they have a bread recipe. Without using grains. That's not the magic of cooking anymore, that's meddling with dark forces better left alone.

     See, I feel strongly about cooking. There's a touch of magic in a hot soup on a cold day, and I swear by the (emotional) healing properties of chocolate. There is subtle warmth in honey and a breath of distant exploration in ginger, and there's a little spice called caraway that reminds me of nothing less than whispered secrets in the deep dark night. My family's been cooking for generations now, and along the way we've figured out a couple of tricks, a basic knowledge of what to throw in the cauldron and when. That's the basis of good cooking, knowing how to combine the impressions left by food into something that is more than the sum of its parts.

     With that in mind, I had to look at the heretical cookbook. Its dark secrets of shortcuts and alternatives to cooking the dishes I know and love was more than I could ignore. Some recipes I could look at and accept, like the bread recipe. It uses coconut flour, which I guess isn't a grain and is therefore safe from being modern. Some recipes were alluring in their simplicity, like the almond flour scones. (Those of you who've never had almond flour, it tastes like the butter of sacred cows came down from the sky and had a baby with flour.) All was well until I made the mistake of turning to the 'Poultry' section. Paleo cookbooks tend to know their way around meat, so I though I was safe. No such luck.

     Deep within the poultry section of the heretical cookbook, past many safe and wholesome recipes, in a place where man(woman[anthropomorphic aliens]) should never turn, was a recipe for Pad See Ew, the deeper, darker brother of Pad Thai. It's a noodle dish, tastes much like a rich Pad Thai made with beef, and something about it was very wrong. It took me a moment to realize that the noodles in the example photo were very orange. It took me another moment to look over to the recipe. But by that time, it was already too late.

     Pad See Ew is a noodle dish, and this was a grain-free cookbook. Looking back, I should have seen the warning signs from the start, but at the time I was led by my tongue more than my good sense. The recipe substitutes carrot slices for noodles. This is just about as heretical as cooking can get, but I've seen the recipe and there is no turning back. Between my own curiosity and the lure of something this new, I will, at some point, cook Pad See Ew. I will commit heresy against cooking. And I don't think there's any way I can stop myself. At this point, I'm not even sure I want to stop myself. And that scares me more than anything.