As I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen yesterday evening, I realized something. I hate cooking! Cooking sucks! Sure, I have occasionally been charmed by gadgets such as the apple slicer and I enjoy eating new recipes that turn out tasty and delicious, but I still hate cooking. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate standing in the kitchen for an hour chopping and stirring and measuring and flipping. I hate being confused by recipes that say to squeeze the juice out of grated ginger when no juice seems to appear. I hate cleaning a dozen measuring spoons and measuring cups and dirty bowls when I’m done. Drive-throughs and pizza delivery are popular for a reason.
Still, I managed to cook some of my bok choy and ginger using the recipe for Stir-Fried Shanghai Bok Choy with Ginger from Epicurious.com. I started by peeling the ginger with a spoon over the trash can as some of you advised. And DAMN, you were right, that stuff if potent! As soon as the skin came off the aroma was overwhelming but it smelled—AAAAAH, GINGER IN MY EYE! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! None of you warned me about THAT! Ginger is a dangerous spice, practically a controlled substance. You might want to wear safety glasses when peeling ginger because it—OMG! I DID IT AGAIN! AAAAHH! AAAAAAHHHHH!!
Anyway, when my left eye stopped watering, I was able to mix the rest of the ingredients into the stir-fry sauce and chop up the vegetables. As I was about to start cooking the bok choy, I started to worry about what would happen if I didn’t like the taste of it. I’d already risked my vision and the tips of my fingers when peeling and chopping stuff for this meal. I wanted it to be edible. So I pulled out come celery and carrots to add to the mix just in case I needed to pick out all the bok choy when it was done.
There was no need to worry though because the result was delicious. I don’t know if it was worth an hour in the kitchen though. Bok Choy tastes like lettuce or celery or what you’d expect a leafy green vegetable to taste like. I don’t know if I’ll get bok choy again in the future, but at least now I know to be careful around ginger.
