Crab dashi and tofu with other stuff

 

Here's the thing: I encounter in daily reading paeans to Coffee, the active man's god. He kickstarts the morning of achievers. Novelty mugs with pity sayings affirming this connection, this affection, this addiction and rejecting all humanity until this morning ritual is complete.

Ha ha ha. So funny.

And each time my own body corrects the imagery to something spectacularly dull. To ease myself comfortably into a brand new day with no chemical reaction in play. The correction is any dashi and cubes of tofu. That's it. The mental picture is incredibly simple. Especially when the dashi is already made. And the tofu is already made. So right there easier to make than coffee.

I take my coffee black, no cream, no sugar. No Siree. 

        Would you like anything else?

Sure. I'll take a Danish.

        The thing made with sugar and dairy? 

Yes. That thing. 

The man drinks his coffee and eats his Danish, loaded to the maximum on caffeine and sugar and duly jazzed up ready to attack the day with fierce fiery gusto, he first dashes to the bathroom and storms into a stall, shoves down his pants and blows doughnuts with accelerant out of his butt with explosive force leaving a backsplash pattern on his backside cheeks and a spray of brown dots on the bottom of the toilet seat. Every morning. Don't talk back to me, I SAW this. Everyday.

For over twenty years. 

So how did I get from a simple vision of two prepared things to this bowl crammed full of stuff and much darker?

They were there. 

In fact a lot more is there that I left out for various reductionist reasons; mushroom, zucchini, onion, shallot, scallion, chives, garlic, regular cabbage, noodles. 

I added six of the seven magical Asian flavor elements in minuscule amounts. I added vegetables near the end of their usefulness that do not usually go in a thing like this but so what. Things that I do need to use or they are wasted. So then, pineapple, of course. But will you ever see that in a recipe? Okay then, with asparagus? Well, okay then, but all that with Napa? 

This is light and it is sweet. Enough substance to be satisfying. As if I had just eaten a proper easy meal. 

Wait a second, I DID just eat a proper easy meal. Instead of a coffee and donut. 

Care to hear something odd? 

Sure why not?

I have a very strange sleeping schedule. Actually, a schedule does not exist. I go until I plop down and sleep. Sleep happens in seconds. I feel energy drain, I am down, in seconds asleep. And other times I try to match normalcy and lay there unproductively awake in the dark. This pattern causes me to see a lot of sunrises and sunsets. A lot of them. Every day, actually. Both sunrise and sunset. 

And when I do it's just marvelous.

Me and my drink that is anything but coffee, and God. 

It is the show of the ages. Endlessly spectacular. Even my one tiny sliver. I ask God, while he is here in the open, who has watched billions of these, how he continues finding them fascinating. I am. But I have only seen thousands. He told me, "Hold onto your hat. I watch through your eyes. Through everyone's eyes. Everyone. Everywhere. Places that are not Earth. 

Bloody hell. Thank you, God.

        Thank you, Bo.