Soy Sauce Packets & Epiphanies: The Itchy Palm Scandal...

after searching the web all week, and trying to figure out what the hell was making my hands itch like a bastard, i think i finally figured it out.

thank you to all that recommended benadryl and/or caladryl that didn't do crap for the palms. i guess i'll just have to deal with my first, and hopefully last, allergy with no assistance from anything other than a voodoo doctor.

sodium benzoate and/or sodium bisulfite. that's the crap that i'm allergic to. i think. thank god it's not the mangoes that i have been eating the hell out of, or i may have climbed a mango tree and hung myself from the vines. in case you're wondering, sodium benzoate and sodium bisulfite are used as preservatives in many food products, and is naturally found in acidic food products. my dad makes pickled sauerkraut, it's a hungarian thing, that is used as a condiment in hungarian cooking. everytime i eat it, itch ahoy!

i did find some other interesting possibilities while i was researching the possible causes on the net. here are two of the funnier ones:

the story behind ssp&e:

so i'm not sure if you're anything like me, but being the 'off the cuff cuisine' chef that i am, i try not to let anything go to waste. you know, when you bring home some bk or mickey d's, and after consuming your poor excuse for food, have ketchup packets or sauce shots left over that you throw in the door and forget about. same goes for chinese food, and you know they always give you enough sauce to put out a fire at the pentagon with your order. you throw them in your refrigerator door and forget about them. then one day you're trying to impress some last minute guests that have decided to stay at your place for dinner and all you have in your 'gourmet' kitchen are some ramen noodles, frozen veggies and some leftover grilled chicken from last weekend's cookout. the makings of a superb, on-the-fly stirfry. but wait, OH SHIT!, how are you going to make a sauce for your stirfry with no sauce? you look in the fridge and all you see is a bottle of ketchup, french's mustard (i use the term mustard loosely when describing french's), and a jar of pickle juice. oh no, what to do, what to do. then you bust open the butter holder, that invariably has never seen a stick of butter in it's life, and VOILA! soy sauce, duck sauce, hot mustard! packets, but instant chinkychow sauce nonetheless! each one of those packets, collected over time, came from a meal, inevitably eaten over conversation, an argument or during a lone lunch of self-reflection, came from a time and place in the past. as are our lessons learned. we learn through the years how to cope, how to inspire, how to teach, and how to live. we don't always remember those lessons, as we throw condiment packets in the fridge we throw life-lessons into the back of our heads, until one day we find ourself in a situation where it becomes relevant and we pull them from the back of our minds as to not waste the advice and lessons of the past. the moral of this story, and the linking of it to my blog- our life experiences are our 'soy sauce packets,' our hidden links to our experiences of our past...

e·piph·a·ny - noun - a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. [www.dictionary.com]

the epiphanies that we experience in life, questions or situations that we find ourselves in, and don't know how to resolve, can most often be solved my raking our brains in search of a 'soy sauce packet.' an answer to a question. a solution to a problem. and so this, this blog, is simply an ever-expanding culmination of soy sauce packets in my butter box, and the epiphanies that have helped to make room for more butter in my fridge...

2 comments:

Anonymous, 8:52 PM: my italian grandmother used to say that when the palm of your left hand was itchy, money would be coming to you... not the palm of your right hand... so i think yahoo or whatever is wrong... because italian grandmothers always knew everything... and if you didn't agree with them... they would make you an offer you couldn't refuse...
Anonymous, 3:11 PM: Did you know that mangos are distantly related to poison ivy, and that many field workers have reactions when picking them (due to frequent exposure of the irritating sap)?

I definitely hope it's not the mangos! (But if your mouth isn't itchy after eating them, probably not.)

Soy Sauce Packets & Epiphanies

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The Itchy Palm Scandal...

Monday, May 05, 2008

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