But when I asked my wife what she wanted, she merely asked for my roast chicken, some homemade buttermilk biscuits, and some spinach lightly sauteed in olive oil and garlic.

Sometimes, even with a pantry stuffed to the brim with all sorts of strange spices, and in a head with all sorts of ideas on how to combine foods, what you need are the classics, which should never be totally abandoned even as you try new things.

On that note, happy holidays everyone.

I think the basics of my lack of use come down to tea.  As in, I have some strange genetic quirk that keeps me from being able to taste it.  The strange thing is that I can smell it just fine – but I can’t taste it on my tongue.

Mind you, this is extremely useful when it comes time to take care of a sore throat, actually – it tastes like water, but soothes my throat.  But as I was drinking some tea to prepare for a night of karaoke (which was frustrating, because two different people took songs I wanted to do – a maneuver I call the “karaoke cockblock,” if you forgive my French), I was thinking about how I seldom do this when I cook.

Of course, I cook with herbs all the time.  But I always cook with them in rubs, in crusts, and in mixing with other ingredients to make broths.  I never allow them to simply warm up and smoke their flavors through the foods I’m working with.  And really, given just how much I like several herbs that are good for such moves (like rosemary), I figure that this ought to be my next experiment.

I figure my first attempt will be chicken – relatively affordable, and rosemary chicken is a delightful dish.  I might even try fun with rounds – pound the chicken flat, put on a layer of sundried tomatoes and one of mozzarella cheese, then roll it up, slice it into rounds, and bake it with some olive oil and the aromatics.  That would be a fine meal, I think.

Anyhow, it’s a start.  In the meantime, I just finished another cup of tea – always time for one more song.

So tonight, I think I’m going to combine that experience with my fondness of Chinese food.  I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten a scallion pancake with an order of sesame chicken or sweet-and-sour chicken.  Well, waffles use very similar batter to pancakes.  You add brown sugar to the mix when making sesame chicken or sweet-and-sour chicken; why not add maple syrup instead?

Ideally, I’d love to get a genuine Belgian waffle maker; if there’s one thing the Belgians do right, it’s make waffles.  (I’ll leave it to someone from Europe to go into detail about the things Belgians don’t do right… made the mistake once of asking a French person that question, and got an hour-long harangue about Belgians).  That said, I do have a fairly competent waffle iron that at least has deep wells like a proper Belgian waffle maker.  I hope to mix in some scallions, and maybe just a touch of sesame oil, to the waffle batter, and we’ll see how that comes out.

I’ll go with sesame chicken tonight – I think that simply swapping the brown sugar with maple syrup will be an easy substitution that’ll call the original flavors of waffles and syrup to mind while staying true to the flavors of the base dish.  This should be a fast dinner; I have high hopes for it.