Yes, Virginia, there is something beyond the Martini.

Asparagus is now in season in the Pacific Northwest. You’ll find the freshest stuff at your neighborhood farmers market. I think it’s best lightly steamed and served right away. Don’t dress it with sauces or creams. It’s so good it deserves to stay naked.

And by the way, did you ever wonder why eating asparagus makes your pee stink? Surprisingly, there isn’t a clear-cut answer. It could be a genetic thing, a chemical thing, or a combination thereof. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

And, yes, this is a blog post about what I’m eating for lunch today.

Once upon a time there lived a man who worked on the second floor of a three-story suburban office building. This building was nestled among other similar buildings into a grouping called an office park. The office park was up a cul-de-sac off a frontage road to a major interstate freeway. Everyone drove to and from the office park whenever they needed something, including lunch. On the frontage road there was the usual variety of brand-name eating establishments that specialized in cheap food prepared quickly. Sometimes the man would notice other office park workers driving their cars the quarter mile down the frontage road to pick up lunch at the drive-thru window of one or another fast food eatery, then bring it back for consumption in the office park. To the man this seemed an absolute disgrace, but that is another story.

One fine sunny autumn day the man decided to walk the quarter mile or so to the newest of these lunch-in-a-bag shops. The idea of being able to walk a short distance, pay a reasonable sum for a bit of lunch, and walk back in good time intrigued him. The man had not ventured into this particular shop before though he had long ago stopped in at other shops of its particular brand and come away somewhat satisfied. But on this particular day it became quite clear that things had changed.

The man ordered what, in the vernacular of the time, was known as a sub, sub being short for submarine sandwich. One guesses that it got its name from the elongated and slightly rounded shape of the bread which made it look a bit like a small submarine (if submarines were made from bread). The ordering of the sub was a complex process, for there seemed to be thousands of possible combinations of bread, cheese, meat, vegetables, and spreads to choose from. Being a vegetarian, the man tossed aside the meat variable immediately to focus on the other pieces of the puzzle. While waiting in line, the man felt like a foreigner as he carefully eavesdropped on the other customers’ orders. He recognized a coded language between customer and worker but was unable to decipher it. The man was at a disadvantage and required a good deal of help in making the appropriate choices. The cheese part was the easiest to decide as there were only three kinds. There were six choices of bread, over a dozen choices of vegetables, and three or four choices of spreads and oils. In the end, the man was unsure of what he had ordered. The total came to $3.05, a suspiciously low figure.

The man carried his lunch-in-a-bag through the parking lot and up the path to his office park, admiring the little white-tailed birds that flitted about near the construction site that used to be a small woods. As he walked, the man noticed that his lunch did not weigh heavily in his hand, another indication that lunch would not be overly filling (the first being the bill of sale). Back at his desk on the second floor of the three story office building in which he worked every day, Monday through Friday, he unwrapped his lunch. A look of disappointment formed on the man’s face. While his expectations had not been great, this sandwich filled him with surprise. The sandwich appeared, indeed, to be a little submarine made of bread, however, what exactly was inside it? To the man, it looked as though he had ordered a sandwich made of bread and shredded lettuce with a bit of tomato here and there for color. The man dug deeper hoping to uncover a secret cache of cheese. After much spilling of lettuce the cheese was found, however, the cache proved meager in proportion. It was, in fact, a smaller amount than a mouse might consider a fair snack. The man resolved to never again patronize this brand.

The man returned to his work fortified not by what he had eaten but by the disappointment of his experience. He had gained valuable knowledge and had confirmed his suspicion that the eating establishments within walking distance of his office on the second floor of a three story building situated in an office park off the frontage road of a major interstate freeway were all crap.

See more progress on: Matt’s in the Market

This tempting little bowl of mostly nutritious and/or harmless food, found in a variety of supermarkets for an attractive price (too attractive me thinks now), is an abomination of package design. What you get, other than 1762mg of sodium, is a cardboard surround with a dishwasher and microwave safe No. 5 plastic bowl inside. The plastic bowl is sealed in plastic film which requires a knife or sharp edge to open. The plastic bowl also has a thick peel-away seal much like a yogurt tub. Under this lid is the dish’s inner sanctum where a bed of dried rice noodles (rice, water, tapioca starch) lies in want of hot water. But there is also a slightly mysterious plastic package along with the noodles, which upon further examination and reading of the cooking instructions on the cardboard surround proves to be the seasoning and oil packets. There are three of them neatly wrapped inside another plastic packet, which means the oil and spices are buried five layers deep. That’s more secure than Tylenol. I wonder if nuclear waste is so well contained?

Perhaps worst of all, this is a “product of Thailand,” which means a series of smog-belching Asian factories stamped out the packaging materials and their contents, perhaps putting them all together as well, to be shipped across the Pacific Ocean on a gigantic cargo vessel, hauled to a food distribution center, trucked to my local supermarket, and put on sale for a couple bucks so I could have something to eat for lunch at my desk while continuing to perform my “knowledge work” without stopping. Sheesh.

My particular complication has to do with what I eat and what I don’t eat and how best to communicate this with others. I’m often called a vegetarian, however, this would be false. I eat fish. In fact, I love fish. I especially love sushi. How can one eat raw animal flesh and be a vegetarian? But because I don’t eat beef, pork, or poultry, I must be a vegetarian, right? If I explain that, technically, I’m a pescetarian, it simply draws a request for further explanation. (Unfortunately, there are no hyperlinks in the real world.) So, I usually start off by saying something like, “I don’t eat meat that comes from animals with feathers or hooves.” Often, meat-eaters, you know, normal people, still have to think that one over. I’ve been asked, “Does that mean you don’t eat chicken?”

Sometimes I wonder if people even think about where the food they eat comes from. The reasons I don’t eat “from feather nor hoof” do not have anything to do with animal rights, or “animals are people too” etc. It’s a matter of taste and health for me. And I don’t begrudge those who feast on the cornucopia of animal flesh that nature provides. Eat and let eat, I say. And that applies to me, too. Let me eat what I eat and don’t ask me to give you the whole history first, though if you’re reading this, I suppose I already did just that.

Groupe Danone’s stated mission is to “help people around the world grow, live better and get more out of life through tastier, more varied and healthier food products ­every day.” I guess they plan to do this by offering drinkable yogurt to kids in Mexico. Groupe Danone claims to be the number one supplier of fresh dairy products and bottled water worldwide, and the number two supplier of biscuits and cereal products. Breakfast anyone? Besides LU, Groupe Danone also owns Evian, Volvic, Fontvella, Stoneyfield Farm (sigh), Danone (of course), and Lea & Perrins among others.

I guess this should come as no surprise to anyone who knew that Ben and Jerry’s sold out to Unilever four years ago. Alas, they are but part of a trend. ConAgra, HJ Heinz, General Mills, Kraft, Philip Morris, one by one they are gobbling up my favorite brands.

We started out with some delicious rolls of some kind. The name escapes me (but they were sans carne). Fresh vegetables and sesame seeds? wrapped in rice paper and served with a delicous peanut sauce. I ordered the ginger tofu, which was perfectly stir-fried and spiced in a very subtle way. The tofu was surrounded by expertly cut and cooked vegetables (sorry I can’t be more specific but my food vocabulary is thin and my memory a bit hazy.) Susan had a curry tofu, similarly prepared to mine but very different in flavor. It was also excellent. The portions were perfectly sized for our appetites. The food was resonably priced but the alcohol was expensive! But considering the quality of the food and service, it was well worth every penny dropped. We got out of there $50 lighter, which ain’t bad.

It’s not often that I continue to think about food I ate days ago. I may have even dreamed about that tofu last night. We’ll be dining at The Green Papaya again. Go if you can.