I haven't posted anything here in many, many weeks, mostly because not much has been going on this summer. No, that's not right. My lack of blogging probably has more to do with the fact that in the three months since my last post we have: decided to move back to Oklahoma, started a new job in Oklahoma, prepared a house to be sold, sold a house, searched for a house, bought a house, made 10 trips back and forth between St. Louis and Stillwater, had a new baby (#4), and begun packing to actually complete the move. So get off my back about the lack of blogging, OK?
Given the circumstances, what could possibly motivate me to blog again? Dinner, that's what. Tonight, the family enjoyed a very nice little corned beef brisket that the wife prepared in the slow-cooker (an excellent tool for those times that you have four children under 6, including a three-week old). The corned beef, of course, was accompanied by rye bread, horseradish*, and mustard.
This got me thinking: I never eat rye bread unless it has corned beef on it. And I'm pretty much not interested in corned beef unless it's on rye bread with mustard and horseradish.** (Unless, of course, it's in corned beef hash, but that's a whole different story.) These foods do not occur individually in my universe. Other foods? I don't need corned beef to eat sourdough, or whole wheat, or brioche. And I certainly don't need rye to eat a ribeye steak.
Naturally, this raises two important questions. First: what other foods match this description? What else is out there that I only eat in combination with another specific food? At this point, I can't think of another one. But, believe me, I'm not giving up the search.
Second, and the real subject of this post: what should we call this phenomenon? I chose the title above in reference to "diatomic" elements like oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, which don't naturally occur as single atoms. But that's not a very precise analogy, since I'm not talking about only being able to eat rye two pieces at a time. Perhaps a better name would be "Q" foods, since the letter "Q" usually only occurs with a "U" following it. Clearly, though, given the common practice of referring to barbeque as "Q", the risk of confusion is high.
As you can see, I'm in for a long night of tossing and turning.
_______________________
* For mom and dad only. Boy #3 tried a bit but then attempted to scrape the taste buds off his tongue.
** Perfectly illustrated by the fact that I made a special trip to the grocery store before dinner tonight to buy rye bread and horseradish.
