"ritual is a sign of a weak mind" Articles / Date: Apr 12, 2007 - 11:40 PM I have been remiss, my dear readers. I have let my preconceptions steer my actions for lo these many years...and have no one to blame but myself. I have been denied a particular pleasure for over two decades, due to...well, due to lack of a desire to change. To wit: Something a friend of mine (bless her twisted, bizzare soul) said on another forum had been rattling around in the back of my head all day today. Namely, this story's title. Nothing I was really heavily cogitating on, mind you, yet it still struck a nerve, or perhaps a neuron, in just such a way as to not fall into the abyss or forgotten aphorisms and other minutia we encounter every day. Time passed, as it is wont to do, and I found myself on the way home from work, when my wife called. She asked me what I was doing, and I informed her I was on my way home. She was trying to bait me into going out to dinner, but I had little interest in it, so I diverted by telling her I was going home early, but had to log back in remotely to finish a few things (true, though they could have waited). At that point, she dropped the matter, but suggested that, since it is supposed to snow quite a bit tomorrow, and we both might be working from home, it would be good if I stopped at the store and picked up some supplies, since we're low on groceries and...most importantly...out of coffee creamer. I agreed, and found my way to the store. While there, I happened to remember I'm out of A1 sauce, and I have some breakfast steaks just begging to be fried up and served with a luscious helping of said condiment. So, I made some quick mental notes of my plan of attack, added a few items to my list, and went into the store. As I stopped in front of the A1, I happened to notice that it was right next to the Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce. I immediately remembered that my wife had asked me on Easter if we had any, because she was making Bloody Marys for her and our guests. We didn't have any, and...as far as I could remember, never had. Then, I began to flash back to my youth. See, growing up, my brother and I were served much steak. It was one of the cheapest and easiest ways for my mom to keep two growing teenage boys fed during the long cold winters up in the mountains. Every fall, she'd buy a 1/4 cow (actually a 1/2 cow, split with her best friend) and it would all go into our freezer chest, to be doled out over the course of the winter, since the nearest real grocery store was 60 miles away, and often would be inaccessible for days or even weeks at a time. Over the years, my brother and I developed habits of taste. He was a Worcestershire man, and I was an A1 kind of guy. (only for the cheaper meats, though...the good cuts were oven grilled and served with their own reduction). As time passed, things like our sauce of choice came to define the rivalry we held. He, staunchly on the thinner, more European sauce...and me firmly in the rich and robust American A1 camp. Now, it's not that either one of us disliked the other sauce, it's that we simply chose each as a symbol of how we were different from each other. Years passed, and we lost touch, then became closer friends than in years past. Yet still we carry these sauce preferences with us. Flash back to present: As I put some A1 in my basket, I though to myself that it would be silly not to have some Worcestershire sauce on hand for the occasional cocktail, so I grabbed a bottle. When I was putting away the groceries upon returning home, it occurred to me I hadn't tasted Worcestershire sauce since sometime well before I graduated high school, so I opened the bottle, dabbed some on my finger, and tasted. Wow. Awesome. It came flooding back to me how much I loved it, and in an instant epiphany, I realized how much I had been cheating myself over the years out of simple habit born of sibling rivalry. I plan on putting some in tuna fish sometime in the very near future, and on those same breakfast steaks as well. Summary for those with a short attention span: I just bought Worcestershire sauce for the first time in, oh, 22 or more years, and can't believe I've waited this long, because I love it. This article comes from Frennzied Thoughts http://www.frennzy.net/newblog/ The URL for this story is: http://www.frennzy.net/newblog/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=222