Being evil, and therefore not too interested in the fiddly bits, I'd purchased a neat little packet of spicy stuff labelled 'Spicy Thai Beef', which explained all the thingies you needed to buy. Apparently, this involved beef, some strange stuff called 'green onions', and a pepper. It said to use red peppers, but they were expensive, so I substituted a cheap-ass green one instead. So sue me. Also, basil. I'm not sure about this basil stuff, but apparently it's important. Lastly, beef, which I again indulged my sense of laziness for and acquired pre-cubed beef instead. Pre-cubed! Amazing! Like they stuffed the cow through a giant bovine shredder or something!
All seemed to be going as planned, with that happy sizzling stir-fry sound coming from the Wok of Power. It all smelled, well, like stir-frying beef and vegetables. Then I added the Spicy Thai Seasoning(tm).
It's common knowledge that anything supposedly spicy and foreign which comes in little pre-mixed packages, just add water and soy sauce, is but a pale shadow of the real thing. This is probably good, because this stuff was so hot you could have cooked other food on top of it. The real thing must be capable of killing the uninitiated at ten paces.
Mmm. Spice-a-riffic.
So, now I will learn to cook! For myself! On the Wok of Power! However, I will not be cooking one, specific type of meat, namely, pork. Not because I have suddenly been Born Again into a pig-worshipping religion, but because pigs are icky. Having driven through states where there are mind-boggling quantities of pigs, I can only say, good grief those things reek. The landscape in some rural areas is festooned with festering pools of decomposing hog waste, like wretched boils upon the land. It's not conclusively proven that hogs are responsible for all the environment's woes in some areas of the Carolinas, but then, pigs are a big industry there, y'know?
So, I must, I feel, do my part to reduce this blight upon nature. Since I'm not close enough to rig up a pneumatic cannon to fire cylinders of frozen hog waste through the windows of prominent food-industry executives, I shal simply have to content myself with not eating the damn stuff. Er, with the exception of that big ham I already have in the fridge. Which I'll probably have to eat, y'know? But after that, no more damn pork. I suggest you do the same, for two reasons.
1) I told you to.
2) Drive to North Carolina. Smell yourself some hog waste. Consider, very carefully, wether you want to eat something capable of producing that. It's not merely unpleasant, like cow pats, but it is, in fact, vile. Dangling someone upside-down over one of those pools would be more than sufficient to torture information out of them. Someone ought to suggest it to the CIA.
Of course, those of you who are already vegetarian can just continue doing what you were doing before, only more smugly.
Pikers.
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Remember, kids, only users lose drugs.
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