Color Me Blue – or Blue-ish Green

We’ve just completed a paint job on our house.  We went whole hog (see more about whole hogs in this recent blog).  After 20 years, it was a needed, but it wasn’t a fun experience.  I have new respect for painting contractors, especially ones who routinely deal with home-owners who have seriously strong views on color.  In fact, our contractor said that some folks won’t use a color if they don’t like its given name.

We ended up with “Silhouette” siding, “Crackled Leather” window trim, “Reid Brown” and “Warmed Cognac” on the overhang.    We needed warmed cognac – and lots of it – by the time the colors were picked.  In fact, I’d consider painting the whole house in cocktail colors and toasting with a matching stiff drink when each color went on!

This agonizing over colors made me think of the importance of color in food.  Andy thinks this may be an existential issue – though neither of us has a clue what existential means (see today’s Andy’s Corner).

Perhaps my thought process was precipitated by the eggplant fritters I made for our blog on North Louisiana.

Normally I’m fond of anything blue-ish green – or aqua – or teal – but the blue-ish green in these fritters just isn’t appetizing.  Don’t ask for a scientific explanation as to what caused the color change because I have none.  But I did experiment and figured out that using baking powder instead of baking soda cured the color change.

If blue-ish green doesn’t work for food, what colors DO make us salivate?  Red and orange are great eye candy 🙂  Dark green (especially as in overly-long-cooked green veggies) not so much.

My mother was a great believer in fancying up every color-needy dish with some sprigs of fresh parsley – definitely a bright green!  In fact, at her funeral her grandson placed a few bunches of parsley atop her casket, as the finale to the joke we all made about her unbounded affection for the green stuff.

I must have inherited a bit of that tendency, because Andy has to constantly remind me that using cilantro (I’ve branched out) and parsley on almost every dish gets very repetitious and boring.  But I refuse to give it up totally.  Take for example our recent meal of jook, inspired by our daughter Sara’s love of all foods Asian.  Had we not enhanced it with a little cilantro, a few sliced green onions, and a dab of – yes, reddish-orange hot chile sauce, it would have been pretty sad looking.  And, might I add, that bowl of jook was a huge hit with us.  It’s incredibly simple, tasty, and healthy.

My Bestie Carolyn just introduced me to a salad which is the perfect color combination to appeal  – red beets, orange carrots,  bits of golden raisins….and even a touch of parsley to get the bright green in there too.  It is absolutely delicious and even keeps well (both taste-wise AND color-wise) for a few days.

Click on Continue Reading for the two recipes.