2003feb10. Mail.
your hard/soft manifesto speaks my heart and soul, i tell you. i definitely think your manifesto could use some official lashings for the bread makers out there too. their cavalier use of nuts has become most unbearable. no need for a nut in there. i’ve lived by these same rules ... all the while calling it a polytexural problem ... simply to say that the candy bar “chunky” is my worst nightmare. wb
ah, finally! someone has articulated my feelings toward nuts! i must say, i am not anti-nut, completely, but i STRONGLY agree with the isolated nut provision. Nuts should be solitary,(with the exception of case-by-case dish examinations) to be used at the eater’s discretion. ANY dish containing nuts, in ANY form or trace should be declared and demarked clearly, before the point of purchase or consumption. NO EXCEPTIONS. NO EXCUSES. NO NE NUTTE.
-co
Used to loathe walnuts ... good for nothing bitter things. Why would anyone willingly put one in their mouth? That is, until I discovered this (I challenge you to try it): walnuts and blackberries. Together. Blackberries must be ripe and room temperature. The ones that come frozen work well because those are usually harvested ripe. Just try it. You will retract everything you’ve ever said about walnuts. For some reason, the combination just goes, transforms the taste of the walnut, and makes you say “This is what Homo sapiens were meant to do.”
I’m with you on the nut manifesto. Unless they are completely pulverized to dust and integrated in such a way that makes texture changes imperceptable, no nuts in my bread, cake, brownies, ice cream, sauces, stuffing, pasta, cereal. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, “Damn they ruined a perfectly good _____________”
LIla
I actually had to physically restrain myself from exclaiming AMEN! out loud when reading your “No Hard Things in Soft Things Manifesto.” You left out one area I find particularly impossible to deal with: Nuts in cookies. Why, why, why, does every recipe on the planet have to ruin Chocolate Chip cookies with the addition of walnuts. Why add something hard and crunchy to something that ideally should be chewy and soft. I cannot tell you the years of frustration I’ve had dealing with this.
--Shawn
Yeah, nuts in cookies, another damned nut mystery to me. If you want nuts in anything, bring a small bag along with you and sprinkle ’em on, to avoid the heartbreaking scene of seeing yet another anti-nut coalition force troop member carefully picking apart his chocolaty chip cookie in a brave and yet neverending attempt to rout nuts and nut clusters from their fortified hiding encampments. Seriously, put the cookie in the microwave, and then jam your stupid nuts in.
“Years of frustration” – I hear your pain, brother. Unless you’re a sister. “Shawn” could be a girl’s name. Really any name now, could be a boy’s name, or a girl’s name. Anything goes in this mixed-up world of ours. Let’s all just sit back, set an illegal “marijuana"-type cigarette alight, and think about that. Pray that there are no nuts in that. Which reminds me of a conversation I had two days ago with a young man on the streets of our fair city:
“Got some green bud with some big white rocks.”Everything soft has to have hard things in it.“Nope.”