I once said to a friend, “I love food, food likes me.” In one sentence summing up my relationship to both food and my insecurity with people. I’m bringing this up because I’m going to once again write about food. On Monday I bought cheddar curds for the purpose of making poutine. Yesterday I went to Stop & Shop to get the gravy, Aldi didn’t have any, and to buy my yearly supply of Passover Matzah. You get five lbs for $5. That lasts a long time for one person. I’m tempted to buy 10 lbs. When I got to the store I of course bought other things too; I was excited that they had Andouille sausage and U-Bet chocolate syrup on sale. Then I got the matzah. I did a mental recap before I checked out and only then realized that I hadn’t bought the gravy. I’ve never bought gravy before. LORi told me that I’d find it in the canned soup aisle. That is what I expected and where I looked at Aldi. Stop & Shop had no gravy. They did have College Inn Simple Starter Hearty Beef Sauce. A little online research taught me that there’s a great debate in Canada if poutine gravy and sauce were the same thing. I gathered from my research that it was and bought it.
When it came to preparing it, the question was how much sauce and curds to use. I found a recipe online for 2 lbs of potatoes that said to use 1½ cups so I used ½ cups for my one potato. I judged the curds by how it looked. When I added the gravy, it didn’t look like enough gravy, so I added another ½ cup. That looked right. I didn’t deep fry the potatoes; I used my air fryer. That worked out fine. It’s how I always make fries now and I love it. It turned out fantastic, better than any poutine I’ve eaten outside of the Mile End Deli. If you are what you eat this is what I’m going to end up looking like.
Poutine tastes a lot better than it looks. It looks like hell and tastes like heaven. It’s why Canadians are so polite; it’s easy to be nice with a tummy full of poutine. You are at peace with the world.
This morning I was good and filled out online forms I need for the census job. Part of it involved info about my back account so they can do direct deposit. That kind of thing always triggers my anxiety. I have no idea what my account number is or the bank’s routing number or the bank’s address and phone number. I needed my “home” branch, that’s the branch in Bayside where I opened the account 15 years ago. I had to call up TD and get the info, except for the account number. They can’t give that over the phone but the very helpful person I talked to showed me how to find it on the app. It is hidden and I didn’t see where it said, “Show.”
Now I’ll eat my culinary reward for being good, matzah brei to make your bubbe cry. I top it with ham and cheese. It looks like a sauceless pizza.
Wise Madness 