Cooking With Scissors
by Maggie Van Ostrand
These are not your mother's days of shiny can openers and good
looking utensils. Instead, as a defense against the frustrating
packaging from the supermarket, what do I take every time I go into the
kitchen? A toolbelt, that's what. And that includes the most important
household implement: Scissors. I can no longer open food packages
without them. Some days, a flamethrower would also come in handy. Or a
visit from Edward Scissorhands would be effective.
What is the
stretchy material that meat comes wrapped in anyway, some kind of
terrorist revenge for knocking off bin Laden? The plastic covering
doesn't tear like it used to, happily surrendering the contents for your
meal. These days, it's so pliable that when you push hard on it with
your finger, it just stretches indefinitely. You could use the size it
stretches to as a car cover. That's just the soft stuff. What about the
stiff stuff?
Try opening a new package of batteries for your
handheld mixer. Sure, you can fool with it till your hand explodes, but
you'll never get the box open without a pair of scissors and, even with
a pair, shards of the hard plastic covering will slash your fingers
till they bleed like a victim's neck after Dracula's hoovered it. They
can call this "childproofing" if they want to, but it's a lot easier on
the grownups if they just put iron mittens on their kids.
Without
a pair of scissors, how could anyone open a package of cheese? Sure the
label says "tear here" but you can try to tear it for ten minutes
without getting anywhere. Old standbys like using your teeth to yank it
open don't work either, not on this kind of packaging, not even if the
manufacturers have thoughtfully added a nick in it to indicate the
precise spot that's tearable. Time to reach for the pliers, one pair to
hold the package and another pair to drag the top part till the veins on
your forehead stand out like Mitt Romney at a Dog Lovers Convention.
The
way to tell if your chicken is done cooking is no longer squeezing it
for tenderness, just make a cut in the fattest part with your trusty
scissors and take a gander. If your recipe calls for parsley, no need to
get out the cutting board and a sharp knife. Just hold a bunch over the
pot and clip clip clip till the amount called for falls into the pot.
Same with any vegetable that's easily sliceable, like stringbeans,
cubing chunks of potato (not to mention the cooperative parsnip),
mincing garlic, or dicing sliced onions right over the pan. Quick. Easy.
And there's no cleaning up your cutting board.
Screwdrivers are
the only way to pry open stiff plastic produce lids, even when the
manufacturer supplies a special strip you're supposed to pull on to
successfully open the box. If the thin strip accidentally hurls itself
off your hand and into the soup, just tell guests it's a thick celery
string.
Another conquered irritation is when I can't read that
tiny print that tells you what you can die of if you eat the contents of
the package. That list is so long, it'd be simpler just to eat the
packaging itself and get it over with. Of course, we all know that the
government doesn't tell us what's really inside. We must use our
common sense. If your tomatoes are the same size as a pumpkin; they're
probably shot up with a bunch of steroids left in the locker room by a
famous athlete. Ever wonder why some produce is still fresh after a week
or two in the refrigerator? Try peeling back the top layer with the
side of your scissor and you may well get a skin of plastic coating. How
did you think they make the veggies last so long? If the public knew
the means by which a long shelf life is achieved, we'd probably get
ourselves a patch of dirt somewhere and grow our own stuff.
Hammers
do the same job as a trash compactor and you can smash a recyclable can
even flatter by imagining it's a member of congress.
Don't
forget that the Second Amendment gives us the right to bear arms, and
nowhere do we require more armament than in our own kitchens.
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