Thursday, June 28, 2007

The Right Stuff (Food for thought!)

I am sure you have heard sayings like "All Aspirin Is Not Alike", "You Get What You Pay For", Accept No Imitations!", and, "The Right Stuff". After I describe what happened yesterday below, you'll understand why today I have new respect for these.

Regular visitors will know I have been mentioning Red Monkey Spice and jarred chopped chili peppers in some of my recent recipes. For the Red Monkey Spice I have posted the link where you can order it.

First off, the jarred chili peppers are called Sambal Oelek and I use the ones distributed by Conimex, a place in Holland and I learned a valuable lesson about them! I had gotten them at Forest Hills Foods (though they have been out of stock for over a week).

So, yesterday I went to the big Miejer store to look. You could easily fit six Forest Hills Foods into this place and their international food selection is almost as big as the aforementioned store. Sadly, I did not find the Conimex brand but found some oriental brand that looked the same.

Happy and Giddy with my (seeming) success I brought them home and made dinner, only to find much to my surprise that they were nowhere as good as the Conimex brand. Where the Conimex has such a myriad of incredible flavors to it while being very spicy, the oriental brand was just pure tasteless heat. Bleech! Were it not for the liberal application of Red Monkey Spice to my dinner last night, the flames shooting out of my mouth would have been pointless, though no less entertaining to the children I suppose!

Needless to say, though obviously I will say it, I was most disappointed! I have just sent an e-mail to Forest Hills Foods asking them to restock the Conimex Sambal Oelek. buying it locally would be much more economical than mail ordering it here, though, I will mail order it if I have to. This stuff is like the Nectar of the Gods as far as spicy foods go!

I have seen the Grail! I will never again be fooled by imitators! The following picture is what you must seek if you wish to truly enjoy any of my recipes that use this as an ingredient! You must! (Oh, add a little freshly squeezed lime juice and some fresh chopped cilantro and this makes an awesome salsa perfect for dipping tortilla chips into!)



Spicy Nectar of the Gods!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Chris,

Sambal is excellent and healthful! If I were not eating an apple for breakfast (and another apple for lunch), I would have some now!

- David

Blandishment Blog said...

WHAT are you waiting for my friend!

Dip that apple into the Sambal! I have yet to find anything it does not go well with!

Unknown said...

I would give that a try if I had some here.

- David

Blandishment Blog said...

But, my friend, there is a link there for the ordering!

Blandishment Blog said...

David, I just ordered four of the 13 ounce jars as the local grocer just is not restocking this! CRETINS!