Deep thoughts after a trip to the grocer

There comes a point when you get a bit tired of eating out and even Asian cuisine starts feeling a bit boring especially for their childlike aversion to the green stuff. While veggies are readily available in supermarkets, albeit individually wrapped asparagus make me a bit skeptical, it is difficult to find them served as side dishes or main courses at food centres. One dish stands out and it's called Baby Kai Lann, a long thing green leaf that looks suspiciously like something from the cabbage family. It comes stir fried, drenched in soy sauce with fried onion on the top. Clearly not fine cuisine and in any case the only one of its kind.

So, armed with new found energy I headed out today to buy food and prepare a home cooked meal for my hubby. I was full of enthusiasm and determined to buy exotic looking produce to transform in a Mediterranean style delicacy, a sort of West meets East.

However I had not considered the difficulty of finding an ingredient labelled in any know language ( or at least known to me). So, all too ready for excuses, I decided to opt for the first time, for steak, boiled potatoes and a salad. The leafy green stuff was relatively easy but then I moved to the meat counter. Endless rows of strangely named cuts of meat appeared and not only were the names unheard of but also they looked different than usual.... right! Just a regular steak anyone? And then I see a little booth covered in red flags with a banner and the words "wagyu beef". I had heard of this prized beef from Japan but never really thought too much about it as the meat in the UK is superb anyhow but....I am not in the UK any more so I ambled close to the stand and peered at the display. The first thing that stands out is the marbling of the meat, I have never seen anything like it. It makes me think immediately of juicy, melt in mouth, buttery, caramelised goodness and I pine for a small morsel falling madly in love with the idea of a BBQ and a glass of good Shiraz and then I look at the price and I think immediately ....savings! so I move on and get myself a steak from good, traditionally corn fed US beef and think to myself "it's just as good..... ha!".

I remember reading about wagyu beef and as far as I know it is supposed to be fed on beer and massaged daily with sake' or maybe it's the other way around but in any case there is a lot of booze and the cow must be really a happy cow and permanently drunk.

Silly me! I thought cows were supposed to eat grass but after feeding them protein derived from sheep carcass back in the '80s (thus making cows carnivorous....frightening thought that brings to my mind images from Jaws!) and bringing into this world mad cow's disease all for the sake of a quick buck regardless of the consequences, I guess being a little tipsy most of the time just takes the edge off being turned into a freak by human madness.