enter the dragon lady
the domestic minx
11 Comments
Waving Black Pepper under my nose used to make me sneeze.
These days it is likely to send me into a spontaneous paroxysm of martial arts arse-kicking.
Curiously enough, it was our local Chinese restaurant...
"Would you like some cracked black pepper with that?"
As the lurking pepper grinder of gargantuan and disturbingly penile proportions hovered mere centimeters from my crab and sweetcorn soup, I turned with narrowed eyes to face the perpetrator of what has become my most loathed restaurant utterance.
Had it not been for a quick defusing smirk from The Man there would have been some trouble, I tell you.
Big Trouble in Little China.
With sounds of guzheng setting the scene, a swift somersaulting of my lithe and nimble figure would have taken me from the chair and onto the table Bruce Lee style, swiftly snatching the offending pepper grinder from the waiter's hand while flipping him over chop-chop in order to work some kung fu vengeance on his pepper grinding ass.
Enter the Dragon, baby.
Do you want some cracked black pepper with that? Well, do ya, punk?
Lucky for him the shit didn't go down. It was touch and go.
Because I am seriously pissed at the cracked black pepper lark. 大規模 (Big Time.)
Maybe I eat out too much and am seriously jaded, but it has become endemic, ridiculously predictable, and oh so terribly passe, for the black pepper option to be offered at each and every restaurant, at each and every course.
It is not uncommon to find waiters wandering about with vacant expressions, pulling at their own chest like a Chatty Cathy doll, endlessly bleating the black pepper line.
"Would you like some cracked black pepper with that? Ack
"Would you like some cracked black pepper with that?" Ack
Enough already with the pepper. Find another condiment!
I'm serious.
Step away from your pepper grinders.
And woe betide the next unfortunate who wanders over waving their monstrous phallic symbol near me and my creme brulee.
"Aiiyeeeeeeeee-hah"
My doctor has told me that Black Pepper is not really the source of My Frustration and that I can't blame it for my Issues.
He has suggested I stay away from all condiments until I have the anger management thing under control. I'm limiting my flavourings to innocuous sprinklings of basil, parsley and Chinese Five Spice.
The pepper grinder has been put in a high place where I can't reach it.
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Reader Comments (11)
Now you're scaring me Martial Arts Minx...
Cold coffee will do it for me...
I am gonna bust a cap if I get another lukewarm latte!
AGGGHHHH!
Cold coffee!!
It is from Hell!
Let me deal with that evil spawn!!
Fantastic! By far the best black pepper / condiment rage blog post I've read in quite a while! :)
Hi SF!! x
It's not looking good for the grinding monkeys!!
We need to rise up against this type of insidious condiment exploitation!
Rage Against the Machine!!
Mais, le black pepper, ce 'est pas un aphrodisiaque ??? Si hein ? Coquine !
Mais oui!! Vous peu de minx, Violette!
Ceci explique pourquoi il est offert dans de telles rectifieuses formées phalliques!!
I actually quite like pepper...it's spicy. I don't get out much though. Most of the restaurants in which I dine these days have pepper in tiny greasy fingerprint ridden shakers or tinier ridged paper packages.
When I do go out to a swanky establishment, I enjoy making the person who offers the pepper from the giant penile shaped containter grind it for a long, long, long time. Far past the acceptable few seconds. If you offer it...in such a sexually charged container...you'd best be ready to perform to my satisfaction.
Snap goes my pepper whip.
xox, M
Oh yes, certainly.
I thoroughly enjoy a bit of black pepper and more than my fair shire of grinding...
It's just that it's all become so..gratuitous...
and common...
A bit of earnest grinding is more my style.
Perhaps I should adopt your attitude Ms M, and call their bluff - make them work for it, yeah...
Crack that whip, Pepper Girl!
Whip it good!
xox
Oh No!! Chinese retaurants were the last bastion of do yourself seasoning. Not that you'd want to salt chilli crab or pepper your sechuan beef, but you know what I mean.
I can assume this establishment did not have laminex tables?
This is what drove me to the edge, Thinista!
We go to our local Chinese for a bit of down home fluorescent lighting, red and white plastic tablecloths over, yes, laminex tables.
I fear they're trying to be part of the Costes crowd having recently introduced a chillout mix to the chilli crab while still retaining the same decor. (ouch)
Now they're doing the pepper mill too.
I really could not believe it was there!
Outrageous and sad on so many levels.
Not to mention, wrong.
There's nothing else for it, you'll have to start driving out to country towns to get a decent chinese :(