The day my friend Karen recommended that I try an Alsatian fish dish with cream sauce, and sauerkraut on the side–well, let’s just say I had a strong reaction of certainty I wouldn’t like it. If anyone else had suggested it I wouldn’t have even considered making it–but Karen and I like lots of the same foods. We were college roommates, and then shared an apartment later. And we both have family roots in Central Europe so maybe some of our tastebuds are genetically programmed.
One early adventure: when we were broke college students, after the rain she showed up with a paper bag stuffed with mushrooms she had picked! and informed me we were having Czech cream of mushroom soup for dinner. I thought I was going to die. Or, that maybe I was going to die, or at least get excruciating stomach pains and wish I was going to die. But Karen is wicked smart, exhaustively thorough, and she was absolutely certain she knew this mushroom from lifelong mycological field identification with her father. We didn’t die, and it was delicious.
Dinner Plate 