The Emerald Rose

More in my ongoing “in my life, and times” catagory. Enjoy, and let me know your thoughts, you see, they really do matter and don’t let anyone tell you differently!

Ready to eat, let’s go sit down first and chat a bit and get to know each other first. If you’ve read any of my “blogs”, and there are at least 700+ published now, well you already have an inkling of the insider , of “”ME”. But I’ll recap for you. The reason I come here is because it’s really like life,…..it’s a Buffet, and it is always changing,….just like all of our tastes and our whole history of life’s functions. Somethings you love, but you never expect on a Buffet, or your eyes or something tells you “Naw,…I’ll skip this one for right now.” But take my word for it this may be the greatest taste you’ve ever had,or WILL have. But that pretty well covers the current definition of “Life”, so don’t miss out for a silly reason!

Well let’s chat about the “buffet” and what you think., OK? Great!

I am a simple eater, Peanut Butter and Marshmellow Fluff, or Bologna and American cheese are just as good as a hand cut two inch fillet, medium well, and a Baked Potato. My biggest failing is vegetables, to para-phrase W.C. Fields, “I never met a vegetable I really liked!” Nuff said on that. Being Irish, Meat and Potatoes rule the world! Fish n’ Chips come in a close second, an then back to the list above. I’m still walking the earth, relatively healthy, had a Triple Bypass CABG (Coranary Artery By-pass Graft) in 2009, But I still keep reverting back to the above.

The other night I was just sitting watching an old tv re-run and started thinking about life and what we do with it. The more I thought about it the more it challenged me, I needed to find a metaphor to explain it more fully. All. Of a sudden, like most ideas when you start mulling them around a specific word of phrase comes to you, so I put it in the back of my mind and then this morning having breakfast with my wife at the local Mexican place, Don Pedro’s that does one of the best Sunday breakfasts around these parts, and POOF!!

The word Buffet came back, so here I be 6 hours later in a local place called the Craft Bar, down the street pecking away on the iPad. (I have to admit a little soft music on my ear- phones attached to my cell phone and tuned to some really relaxing New Age music, my favorite genre, and a glass of iced Pinot Grigio,…..the creative spirit flow through my fingers to the keyboard and then on to the screen to become a. “Draft” of a blog.

When I run the wine glass down to empty, and let the ice melt and sip it clean as well, it’s time to hit the “draft” button on the software and it’s there for me to continue thinking about until additional data is sufficient that I resurrect the “draft” and either finish, add more and update it to the “draft”, or upon re-ending the base, either adding some corrections of not, until I am no longer enthralled or inspired by the topic, my word-crafting of it,  or the “whatever”, ….and just hit the “DELETE” button til the next thought that I develop, and do it all over again. When I finally like it, good, bad, or indifferent, it’s time to hit the “PUBLISH” button and commit it to the ether layer , and to you the reader to judge/enjoy or doze off to sleep. But back to the Buffet. And it’s rationale.

Next there are the “categories” and the specifics in that section just like the real thing. At a buffet we eat it’s our eyes, and/or our memories and our expectations from prior experiences with that particular item.

Since my wife says I’m “a picky eater”, here is my self assessment of me. I like beef, and I hate beef, I like chicken, and I hate chicken, I like some vegetables, and I hate others.

What does that mean? For example take beef. I know for a fact since I did took a semester of cooking classes with a four star chef, and picked his mind at every class to answer MY questions, most of the flavor component comes with the FAT on and in the beef. Highly “marbled” beef is more tender than “lean” pure beef. I give you Hamburg as an example. Folks I call the “health Nazi’s” belief that , and rightfully by the way, the less “fat” is in multiples of ten to the taste versus the “healthiest ness” of the beef. Unless you are doing a Filet Steak, or a “Chateaubriand”, and then lean and cooking control and preparation make the real make it or break it difference. BUT for the common “Hamburger/Cheeseburger to be great the ratio of fat to beef should be no less that 80% beef and 20% fat, (a walking heart attack, BUT a burger to savor with flavor can some times be 70/30!). I’m not going to the buffet to lose weight or be a Healthy person but to enjoy the food and savor the tastes. (Same thing applies whether you are at an “All You Can Eat” Buffet, a local “Greasy Spoon”, or “the creme d’la creme” $80 dollar a plate “thing” you could never get at home, and are willing to pay extra for the “talents” of a well trained Chef, versus a “cook”following a recipe formula, printed on the wall or laminated with product pictures as a guide!) That is why I am not a “Chef”, but my son, who passed away in 2017, my Nephew, and my Godson, all chose to be “chefs” based on the fact that two of the three worked for me in an Irish Pub I owned and let them experiment and test ideas.

In fact this past week my Nephew Dan won the “Throw down Championship in Boston Massachusetts and only 1/10th of a point off the MAXIMUM point score possible and is moving on to display his talents in Chicago! I’m so proud of him!!!

My Godson has gone on to start develop and own a “Boutique” restaurant on the Island of Nantucket in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and spends the winter in Tuscany developing his skills, and learning EVERYTHING he can about cooking and food, the old way!

One last food rant. Chicken is chicken by any other name EXCEPT REAL Southern Fried Chicken, but creativity and product knowledge and experimentation can create REAL wonders, other than that I’ll Take Southern Fried any day!

That is what makes the “Buffet of Life” so much more rewarding! Life can be a bag of crushed Potato chips, or that which melts in your mouth, and whose taste goes to your mind as the unequivocal “BEST of the Best” you’ve ever had, anywhere.

With life you also have choices, and they can make the difference between “dumpster-diving” for Dinner, or snapping that perfectly starched white napkin open in your lap and looking at the high end of the “Reds” on the wine list. What falls in between and what makes the difference is what you do with your life.

Not all people are sommeliers, or Dijon trained Chefs with a hundred pleats in their Chefs hat,……but it is what you “eat” and “learn” as you grow and fight your way to “ACHIEVE” in. Life OR at the “The Buffet” of life.

No one will ever fault you, as long as you gave it your best,….tried, and kept your word and your honor in life,…..everything else is just an “also ran”!

Sometimes you are dealt a different hand than you expected, sometimes a mistake is a “FATAL” one, per someone who does not understand what it COST you, what you “GAVE to the world, and how much you believe in the “final reward”, where your Judgement will be made on how you lived your life, and how you “Picked out the items” on the Buffet, and used them, and how you made lie for your fellow man better!

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July 21, 2018