Dear GayWay #1

Dear Sir GayWay:

I've been reading this blog ever since the very beginning, but have been too shy to post until now.

(I'm even not sure how to address you. What is the proper honorific? Do you prefer Lord? Or Reverend? Or Your HighGayness? I don't want to offend.) (I already know to approach and retreat from your throne by never turning my back.)

I made a rice dish over the weekend, and it involved a lot of suffering because of the chopping of Italian parsley. A lot of suffering. And I can't say it added anything except green speckles. Much too much suffering for the payoff. (Though I was delighted that it wasn't cilantro.) (Of course, if it had been cilantro we wouldn't be having this conversation, due to the putridness.)

It seems like you would know about this, and you also seem to Know People who would know about this. (Like that Crafty Lass—she knows stuff.)

How do we chop Italian parsley? Do we use a scissors? Do we use a knife? Do we go one leaf at a time? Do we use or discard the stems? Do we pluck the leaves and roll them up like a little cigar against our thigh like we did that one summer in Cuba?

Can I just go to Penzey's?

Signed,

Doubting Every Blink


Dear Doubting E. Blinker:

My heart is filled with pride that you are out in the world, snipping the fresh grasses and plants to enhance your simple peasant fare.

(And you may call me whatever you'd like, all of you, until you cross a line. You will know it, believe me.)

My own beautiful herb garden features a bouquet of beautifully growing Italian parsley. I disagree that there is no taste there: when people don't taste the parsley, they are not using enough, or they are using some dreadful dried variety (your request to go to Penzey's is denied; last time I checked, the joint had no greenhouse out back to supply you with plantlings). If you've had a good tabbouleh, you know how important the parsley can be.

You are correct, of course, to be using the Italian flat-leaf parsley. The curly-leafed parsley, of supper club fame, tastes as if cilantro and mint had a love child and forgot to wipe off the bitter afterbirth.

Chopping the parsley couldn't be easier. Simply trim off the particularly large and woody stems, bunch the leaves on a cutting board, and use your very best knife skills with a large, sharp blade. You should be able to get a nice uniform chop, from very fine to rather coarse, depending on the requirements of your recipe.

As for Crafty Lass's opinion, I don't give a rat's ass. She has her own blog, and a perfectly lovely one, but I'm sure she's busy trying to figure out how to make honeydew foam for her hoisin-spiced pineapple pancakes.

I hope that I've been a help to you. I would remind all my readers that their questions, regarding cooking or other essential elements of life, can be answered using the simple form found on this page. And, if you think perhaps you don't have it in you to compose so, ahem, comprehensive a missive as did Ms. Blink, Polonius reminds us all that

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble D.E.B. is mad.