Saucy

Cause it's a sauce!

I may have Kelis' Bossy in my head as I write this, and probably that means nothing to you, but needless to say (or perhaps needful as you can't see me), having that song bounce through my head as I think about the culinary arts promotes a giant grin on this here face of mine.

Sauces for the meat, m-meat is on the grill.

Yeah, I'm weird.  You knew that when you came here to read my stuff though.  Really, you have no one to blame except yourself.  Except mayhaps for me.

Sauces!  Lately labels bother me at grocery stories.  This isn't a funny bother like street signs that say perplexing or hilarious things inadvertently as the people in charge of producing them seem to hate grammatical form.  This is more of a "ergh, what is that?  I eat that?" kind of bother.  It gets to the chemical compound list, the preservatives and the like and then I get gun-shy of this whole eating thing.

Take potato chips for example.  Original chips say that they are comprised of potatoes, oil and salt.  Add on a flavor and all of the sudden the list is 5 times as long.  All to make it taste like a dill pickle.  If you could get dill pickle chips in Australia.  Which you can't.

At any rate, labels terrify and bewilder me.  We're so focused on making food last that we deneuter it and add things so it won't biodegrade.  That's what food is supposed to do.  Vegetables are supposed to grow, be green, then ripe, then overripe, then spoiled, then go in a heap and eventually turn into really nice dirt so you can produce more food.  Meat is supposed to become rancid if left to long and start to decompose.  Food has this nice way of taking itself out of the picture and, whilst so doing, promoting the growth of more food.

Because we like to eat food when we want to eat it, we add preservatives and all sorts of things.  Like cream for example.  Most cream has a bit of bleach in it so that it can stay on the shelf for a few days.  Appetizing, no?

Instead of buying sauces which have numbers and lists that I don't understand, I'm trying to make some things.  I made tartar sauce from scratch and some tzatziki.  Both are quite easy and made from ingredients that you may already have.

Tartar sauce
Start with a small glug of virgin olive oil, add some mayonnaise (yes, we will learn how to make mayonnaise soon too), a bit of hot mustard (I'm also intrigued to make mustard), some dill weed, pinch of chili powder and a finely chopped dill pickle.  Delicious, easy and made by you.  Fantastic with home fried and breaded fish and oven baked potato wedges.  We prefer the purple potatoes.

Tzatzkiki
Pour the juice and rind from one lemon into a bowl with a clove of very finely chopped garlic.  Sprinkle with pepper and a bit of salt.  Chop up a cucumber into small pieces, add to mixture.  Add natural yogurt to this until you reach the consistency you desire.  Serve with pita chips, grilled chicken, souvlaki, whatever you like.

I just want to know, when things are so easy to throw together, why do we let someone else do it for us?