it’s good to have a plan, because then you can be quietly pleased when everything falls into place. in this case, tuesday, the nori rolls were a perfect balance of salty and sour and sweet and umami (there is no place for bitterness in my life), “donnie darko” (apart from the arty digi-montages) was still good, and the coco loco mocha freezer (while too damn watery and ice chippy in texture) was a powerful chocolatey force. for about ten minutes into the film, the number of people in the cinema was one — me, and then sadly four teenagers arrived and took out the back row, and giggled when cherita chen gets told “go back to china, bitch”, and received phone calls on their mobiles, and giggled some more.

teenagers. feh.

having a plan with a bit of leeway on either side is especially good, because then you can duck into kmart before for a pair of new underwear, and pop into harris farm after for beans and asparagus and a tub of raspberry yoghurt.

—

completely unplanned was the sudden waking at 2.30 this morning, the lying awake for an hour before rolling out of bed and the resigned heading downstairs with a handful of pillows and “the new yorker” food issue. having over the last couple of days already read about the struggles to develop a superior ketchup and some guy’s obsession with pasta, 3am seemed a perfectly alright time to learn about the commercial production of salad greens.

here, look:

it took … until 1989 … to mass produce the first retail bagged salads. salad spinners were perfected, shredding knives sharpened, battalions of chemists subcontracted to create the perfect polymers. today’s bags are a triumph of practical ingenuity. their plastic is made up of five to ten layers, each with a different function. some are designed to make the package shiny or crinkly, others to carry print well. together, they have to be just permeable enough to keepthe bag’s artificial atmosphere in balance — the wrong ink alone can suffocate a salad. as the lettuce sits on the shelf, the gases in the bag are constantly consumed, released and replaced. oxygen, nitrogen and carbon-dioxide molecules bond with the polymers on one side of the plastic and are released on the other, diffusing from high concentrations to low. every type of salad requires a different type of bag, tailored to its respiration rate by gas chromatography and computer analysis. every bag is a miniature biosphere.

from salad days: how a lowly leaf became a high-end delicacy
by burkhard bilger

yesterday, at a luncheon in which everyone at the table turned out to be with child (way to go, my fertile friends!), what i ordered off the specials board was a grilled haloumi salad. it wasn’t just slabs of grilled salty cheese; there were lightly dressed baby rocket and mint leaves, cucumber ribbons, fresh beetroot, roasted eggplant, and on top, a dollop of herby yoghurt. there were also two bits of bread which in the end were used to wipe the plate clean.

oh cook + archie’s, i am privileged to be fed by you.