Austin360 blogs > Bottlecaps & Wingnuts > Archives > 2005 > July > 12
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
The quest for fish sauce
Typically, I believe that if the H-E-B at Slaughter and Manchaca doesn’t have it, then by God, it sure doesn’t need to be in my kitchen.
But I was cooking dinner for Shannon on Monday night and I wanted to impress her (she has recently suggested that my cooking needs to expand past the chicken-‘n-taters stage).
The recipe was Thai Shrimp and Pasta and it called for all sorts of things that I’d never even seen. My local H-E-B did what it could, coming up short on three items: Boston lettuce (huh?), grated ginger root (eh?) and fish sauce (fish what?).
I’m the type of fellow who doesn’t like to quit on a project once I get going, so I bucked up and went to the Whole Foods megastore … and it wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was a very impressive operation.
Once I got there, I headed straight for the “walk-in beer cooler” that Statesman coverage has marveled so much over and, sheesh, it’s not all that. Sure, I could see my breath in there — kind of a weird feeling in July — but the selection doesn’t even match the Whip-In.
I wasn’t particularly thirsty, but just because I could, I bought a Sol (which I fondly remember from my honeymoon) and drank it while I shopped.
The produce guy said they were out of Boston lettuce, but got on the Internet and found a substitute that he recommended. Then he showed me how to peel and grate my own ginger root — all while treating me like I was a four-star chef instead of a semi-lost redneck drinking a Mexican beer in the early afternoon.
I was determined to find the fish sauce on my own, but I had to ask for help again. And again, the staff was impressive — it can’t be easy to walk every customer across that big of a store on a beeline to whatever oddball food item they request.
I can understand how the place could be an absolute madhouse on the weekends, but I left feeling good about it.
And the Thai Shrimp and Pasta?
Wasn’t too bad. Even with the fish sauce.
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