IT

It seems like cauliflower has been on many a food-blogger's mind lately, including two of my favorite foodbloggers - Cookiecrumb, from I'm Mad and I Eat, and Ilva, from Lucullian Delights. It's actually been on my mind lately as well! I've had a head of cauliflower waiting in the crisper drawer for several weeks now, calling out to me daily to be used:

Miiichhhhellllle...please use me...
...ppplllease...
I'll be delicious....
...I prrromissse...
...Just come a little closer...
...I'll whisper how delicious I can be in your ear...
...all the ways you can cook me to your heart's content...
...ppplllease......
...Just a little closer...

Perhaps if my mother, eager to discuss them with someone, hadn't encouraged me to read Stephen King novels with her when I was a teenager...or perhaps if I hadn't loved them so much that I devoured every word and let my spongy teenage imagination swell and grow with the creatures I imagined from the stories I read (psyching myself out to the point where after I read the novel IT, I was afraid of the shower drain and any sewer grates until I was nearly 22 and ran away from the very loud flushing sound of the toilet every time I was alone in the house and had to use the bathroom - come on, you know you've done it too...right?), I just might have reached in that drawer sooner and pulled that whispering cauliflower out.

I've since stopped reading Stephen King novels, as you can guess, although I do still love a good suspenseful scare on occasion. As it was, the poor cauliflower sat in that drawer, crooning out to me every time I opened the refrigerator door, reaching ITs white flowered "fingers" out of ITs greens in a beckoning curl, and just waiting until I reached my little pink fleshy fingers into the drawer to get IT...so that IT could grab me and pull me down into the drawer to be devoured at will.

But then along came the Kokanee salmon.

Knowing that salmon is a pink-fleshed fish, although these babies have the palest peachy flesh possible, I decided that roasted cauliflower would be lovely with it, and steeled myself to suck it up and brave the call of that scary white vegetable.

Wondering what the hell to do with a cauliflower that didn't involve steaming it (read: Boring!), I turned to the spice drawer and my memories of what other bloggers have done with it. I knew that Gluten-Free Girl had roasted hers, so why not do that? I opened the fridge door, took a deep breath, held it, and listened...at first, just crickets in the background...and then I heard ITs high little voice...

Miiichhhhellllle...please use me...
...ppplllease...
I'll be delicious....
...I prrromissse...
...Just come a little closer...
...I'll whisper how delicious I can be in your ear...
...all the ways you can cook me to your heart's content...
...ppplllease......
...Just a little closer...

Yikes! IT was definitely still there! I debated putting on a leather glove or something in case the thing had grown teeth over the last several weeks, but decided that, being 28 and outweighing the thing by nearly 100 lbs, I could probably take IT. Cradling my trusty Wusthof 8" Chef's Knife in my left hand, I reached down (making sure the path behind me was clear in case I needed to run away quickly for my escape), and slowly opened the drawer...I could hear ITs shallow breath and see just a bit of IT there in the dark of the back of the drawer...

Miiichhhhellllle...please use me...
...ppplllease...
I'll be delicious....
...I prrromissse...
...Just come a little closer...
...I'll whisper how delicious I can be in your ear...
...all the ways you can cook me to your heart's content...
...ppplllease......
...Just a little closer...

Strengthening my resolve with visions of deliciously roasted and perfectly caramelized cauliflower, I tightened my grip on the Wusthof, and ripped open the drawer! I grabbed the cauliflower, greens first, and threw it out on the floor far away from both the fridge and myself and into the light of day.

There IT stood, covered now in a bit of dog hair from being tossed carelessly onto the floor (whoops...should have considered that before throwing it so haphazardly), looking not quite as scary as I had imagined. Breathing a sigh of relief, I stood up, closed the fridge and approached IT. IT actually looked rather harmless out in the light. But I picked IT up carefully, cautiously, and rinsed IT clean before putting it on my cutting board. With a final sigh, I chopped IT up into pieces, drizzled and tossed IT with olive oil, salt and pepper and put IT in a 400F oven (Who's the boss now scary cauliflower?!! He he he).

IT came out beautifully; soft, caramelized, and delicious. When IT was finished, I tossed IT with a bit of sweet Hungarian paprika and chopped parsley, and enjoyed every last bite next to my the gorgeous flesh of that tender fish...mmm... (And dear Tanna was concerned about taking pictures of her beautiful bread at 4 am; at least her bread didn't have its own personality! Now...what was that song she was singing?...)