Salt of the Earth

I would venture to say that Go and I's relationship was first built upon a large mound of salt.With him, when it comes to food, everything must be salty. All meat must be marinated for him to truly enjoy it. His favorite foods: green olives, kipper snacks, anchovies, capers, popcorn, pretzels, salty cheeses, salty crackers, salt and vinegar chips and just a good old plain spoon full of salt never disappoints. Just kidding but the salty list continues. I mean, I really like salty food myself; I was known to sneak a nibble of dried play dough back in my day, but he hardly likes anything unless it's salty.

If you've been a reader of this blog for awhile I've already established that I was a creep dog and had my eye on him a couple of years before I officially met him, right? "Art History Boy." Is this ringing any bells? Well, after finally officially meeting him and discovering that he and I lived on the same street, I made it my mission to get him to ask me out on a date. This was tricky for me, as I had also made it a rule never to be The Pursuer, but always be The Pursued. I turned my nose up towards aggressive females! As if! So uncharacteristically, I went out on a limb, made a cake with homemade chocolate frosting, called his apartment and invited him and his room mate Ethan over for dessert, which was also uncharacteristic of me--to appear the slightest bit domestic. I've come a long way, people. So even though I was uncomfortable, I made that cake, the frosting, the phone call, they accepted and came over. With trembling hands, I cut the three of us big, fat slices. We all sat around at my ghetto mustard yellow kitchen table upon my mustard yellow plastic chairs and took our first bites. Splat! Out came Ethan's bit right back onto his plate. Splat! Out came mine as well. All I could taste was salt. And lots of it. "What did you do?" Ethan exclaimed through a pinched face. I jumped up, went over to my recipes and discovered I had put in like 4 times the amount of salt the frosting recipe called for. Mortified, I turned around and looked at Go. Surely I had just blown the mission. I had for sure scared the guy off with my salt frosting. But his plate was completely empty. He licked his fork and asked for seconds.
"Are you serious? Pff. Shut up." (I really have a way with men, don't I? I should write a book.)
"No, really. That was good. Is that ok if I have some more?"
"But, it's so salty! Here. I'll scrape the frosting off for you."
"No way! This frosting's good," he said.
Ethan looked at him like he was crazy. He did not ask for seconds and I don't blame him at all. Go finished off his second helping in minutes flat. Didn't even flinch. He might have even asked for thirds. He complemented me on my baking and ate every morsel, salt frosting and all. And thus began our love affair that was built upon a mound of salt.

As is tradition, this weekend we are celebrating Thanksgiving a week early with (half of) our old med school buddies who will be making the drive all the way from Pittsburgh. I can hardly wait. (Jacksons, you will be sorely missed.) Since we're hosting that means that we, of course, are cooking the turkey. This will be our first turkey ever. Go's reaction to this: "Hey, see if you can find a good recipe for a salt brine! We really need to brine it first. "

Ringgers, I hope a little salt won't scare you off. My Thanksgiving issue of Bon Appetit magazine arrived and suggests a salt rub instead of a brine...Go couldn't be more pleased.