Dear Mr. Giant
Historical note: “Sad Bachelor’s Dear Mr. Corporation COVID Thanksgiving Extravaganza 2020!”, continued!
Dear Mr. Giant,
I was late getting to the grocery store for this pandemic Thanksgiving, and by the time I did my shopping, the vultures had descended. The shelves were bare, the toilet paper aisle was bloodstained, the employees were cowering behind their masks. But I knew I needed something: I needed a vegetable casserole-like item so that I had some sort of greens to go with my feast of salt, fat, salt, carbs, salt, protein, salt, and carbs. I looked and looked: and nothing. None of the classics. No creamed spinach. No pearl onions. No collards. No kale, even. No kale! It was like we’d gotten a half inch of snow here in Portland! The store looked like the Cratchitt house from Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol.
But then, there it was, lurking in the back, hidden behind an unrelenting mass of frozen potatoes and boring-ass carrots: your very own, artisanal, Simply Steam Broccoli & Cheese Sauce Sauced. Why is it Sauce Sauced? My feeble mind can only detect one sauce, but maybe your Giant mind can discern the layers of Sauce that Sauce the Sauce? If I meet the Buddha on the path to saucelightenment, do I have to Sauce him? Is that how I will be able to truly understand the Sauce Saucing?
But I digress.
Questions about Saucy Sauculence aside, this package of broccoli was actually very nostalgic. I am a gardener, and I grow most of my own vegetables over the summer, and I cook them with care, only giving most veggies the lightest blanch. My sainted grandmother, however… she was an amazing cook, and I miss most of her dishes almost every day - with the exception of her broccoli. That amazing woman would sock broccoli in a pan and boil it until it was brown and mushy. Her broccoli was, hands down, the worst vegetables I have ever eaten. And until this day, Mr. Giant, I have never had broccoli like that.
So thank you for your Saucy Saucetacular Sauced Broccoli in Sauce that has been Sauced Saucestravaganza. It wasn’t tasty, but it did make me feel close to my family on this pandemic Thanksgiving.
Yours in Sauce,
Alex Parise
[Originally published 11/26/2020]
