{"id":629,"date":"2012-11-20T20:35:32","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T04:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/?p=629"},"modified":"2012-11-20T20:35:32","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T04:35:32","slug":"if-i-tell-you-the-truth-will-it-be-okay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/if-i-tell-you-the-truth-will-it-be-okay\/","title":{"rendered":"If I tell you the truth will it be okay?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m about to admit something that will probably take me down a notch in the eyes of the three dozen people who think I’m a bona fide foodie.<\/p>\n

Here goes: I don’t like truffles. Not the chocolate ones, I love those. I’m talking about the ones that pigs sniff out. I don’t like truffle oil, either. I think it smells like poop. And as someone who lived downwind of both the mushroom factory growing up in Capitola, CA, and the cow barns at UC Davis, I know what poop smells like.<\/p>\n

The problem is that when I go out for a meal somewhere nice, I inevitably see something I’d want to eat if only it wasn’t polluted by truffles, truffle salt, or truffle oil. Yuck. This happened last weekend when Mr. Right Now and I went to Portland for the weekend and had a nice Saturday night dinner at Clyde Common<\/a>. There were a couple of dishes that looked good but for addition of truffle something or other.<\/p>\n

And even if I manage to convince my dining partner to avoid trufflized food, the table next to me may not oblige. So I can smell the truffle-osity wafting at me from the white truffle salt popcorn.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Not a bit of truffle anything to be seen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Being in Portland, the home of the original bacon maple donut from Voodoo Doughnuts<\/a>, I will also admit that I think bacon has jumped the shark. I like bacon and eggs, and a good BLT is a treat. But bacon doesn’t belong on or in everything, particularly not desserts. I’m sorry. Stop it already. Same thing with salting sweet things. I like caramel well enough by itself, and most of the salted caramel seems to have way more salt than necessary. I’m guessing Jack in the Box is developing a salted caramel shake. With bacon. That means the trend is done.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I want to talk about salt and pepper. Every savory recipe calls for salt and pepper to taste. Unless it calls for soy sauce or tamari and pepper. And while I understand the theory that salt enhances flavor, I believe the requirement to put\u00a0 salt in every recipe is based on the over-salting of everything, particularly in America. Our taste buds are used to salt, ergo, we use more salt. But I like the naked flavors of food — the taste of a green bean, the taste of butter and sugar melted together and turned to caramel. I don’t think everything needs salt. And I don’t think pepper is a necessary addition to every food, either. It has a warmth to it when the flavor infuses the dish. But too often you just get a chunk of pepper corn, a hit of spice that exists here in a dish, but not there.<\/p>\n

I once made that suggestion on a radio show to Greg Atkinson<\/a>, one of the big foodies of the Seattle area. I was on the other side of the airwaves, but I’m sure he had a gobsmacked look on his face. He essentially told me I had no idea what I was talking about. I felt a little cowed, but a few years on, I’m still sure that I’m right. Sometimes, a little salt and pepper are a good thing. But sometimes, you don’t need one, or you don’t need the other.<\/p>\n

And you never need truffles. Except the chocolate kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m about to admit something that will probably take me down a notch in the eyes of the three dozen people who think I’m a bona fide foodie. Here goes: I don’t like truffles. Not the chocolate ones, I love those. I’m talking about the ones that pigs sniff out. I don’t like truffle oil,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,477,167,427],"tags":[524,97,488,525],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-glorious-food","category-mr-right-now","category-recipes","category-restaurant-reviews","tag-clyde-common","tag-greg-atkinson","tag-portland","tag-voodoo-doughnuts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/landguppy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}