Oddities and Obsessions

I'm walking with an acquaintance back from a restaurant when we pass a sidewalk news stand, one of those great sprawling things with fluorescent lights overlooking eight or ten bookshelves jammed together.

I stop, naturally, because I can't remember if I picked up this month's Esquire or not and for the same reason that you'd stop if you saw a baby panda wandering the streets of LA; it's endangered, savour the moment. And I'm perusing the shelves (mindful of the MAX BROWSING 15 MINUTE signs written in marker and package-taped to the shelves) when-

"ohmygod holyshit."

"What?"

I point. On the rack, nestled between a shelf devoted to variations on Guns & Ammo and another comprised entirely of cycling magazines, is a section devoted to Literary Magazines. Lapham's Quarterly. Tinhouse. The New England Review. I stop, for the same reason that you'd stop if you saw a baby panda wandering by riding sidesaddle on a unicorn.

I think I’d heard of loquats before, but I’m not sure. They certainly don’t grow anywhere I’ve ever lived (Michigan, Ohio or Massachusetts) and if I’ve seen them as I enjoyed the beaches and tropical drinks of warmer climates, I didn’t know what they were.

Recently, I was invited to participate in a Sweet Potato recipe contest for bloggers, sponsored by the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission. The deadline was coming up quickly, and I felt serious pressure as I rejected all of the usual offerings - sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, sweet potatoes candied, or my standard sweet potatoes boiled and mashed with Indian spices. It had all been done. Thinking “Iron Chef: Battle Sweet Potato” I went all Bobby Flay on the problem, and considered a sort of hot and spicy Southwestern version of the tuber involving maybe, a sweet sticky substance like honey or jelly, and some diced, fresh chile peppers. If I had actually had the ingredients and been able to let the games begin, I might have worked through it and come up with a side dish to make the angels sing while flames shot out their tiny pink ears. Instead, I kept coming up with reasons that nothing new could possibly be invented. I thought about being sued for stealing a recipe I didn’t know about and winning the competition. I thought about the judges reading my recipe, smiling knowingly at each other, and burying it under the pile of Truly Brilliant Submissions. I gave up.

I first heard of flavortripping last summer. I read an article in the New York Times about a substance that altered tastes of reality. People were going to underground parties for the experience. At these parties they would consume Synsepalum dulcificum, the Miracle Fruit. Once eaten, the fruit tells your taste buds to taste things differently. It makes everything sweeter sweeter.

Over the last year, I was passively trying to find a flavortripping party. I expected that my band of foodie friends would have a hook-up. Alas, nothing panned out. So I decided to take my tongue into my own hands, and I sought out the mister responsible for these berries.

11 keystrokes into a search engine, yielded quick results: Miracle Fruit Man. He supplied the participants at the party covered by the New York Times. His plan was simple. If you send him 40 dollars (plus $28 s/h) he’d two-day express you 20 frozen berries.

I just wanted one.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret:  I go overboard.

Being born with an impassioned gene isn’t really all that bad, though. It allows me to focus on things so acutely and really dive into subjects that might otherwise not have interested me. It allowed me to learn how to rollerskate in the 70s, leaving all the other kids biting my dust (or maybe it was my purple satin shorts, which for a 7-year old boy is probably the fast track to neighborhood ridicule, but so what, I ask?) It’s kept me interested in my job for this long, helped me wrangle and eat my own snails, and allowed me to learn how to play a handful of musical instruments.

It’s also the reason I have found myself up to my eyeballs in pears.

Now, a pear isn’t something you always have around like an onion or a lemon. They’re a truly seasonal fruit and best enjoyed when mother nature tells us they’re ready. And because of this I don’t really think of pears throughout the year. It’s not like I find myself grilling in the middle of July and then suddenly scream out “OH MY GOD THIS RIB SOOOOOOOO NEEDS A PEAR RIGHT NOW!”  If anything I’ll scream out because my cocktail is empty. But that’s a whole ‘nuther blog.  But my point is this: when I taste that first early fall pear I know I’m on a collision course with that powerful strange facet of my personality.