Just Cured - Experience Fine Foods

A young friend called this morning and opened the conversation with this question: “Can I have someone charged with abusing smoked salmon?”

After taking the heat I have for my satire on the enforcement of traffic laws, I was extremely reluctant to pursue this conversation. In the end, however, I just had to know what was on his mind. And so, I replied:

“Well, if you can’t and if the smoked salmon involved was Just Cured, you should be so permitted. What were the circumstances?”

It seems that young friend and a pal had a craving for smoked salmon and bagels as their Saturday lunch (probably breakfast for them considering their ages and their Friday night festivities). Off they went on a quest to buy bagels, followed by a stop at Findlay Market for some Just Cured smoked salmon. They went back to young friend’s apartment and polished off his half pound of salmon. They decided to save the pal’s half pound for Sunday breakfast at pal’s place — after a quiet Saturday night.

Pal carefully transported his smoked salmon home and tucked the tidy package into his refrigerator. Over the course of the evening, pal remarked to young friend several times how much he was looking forward to smoked salmon and a schmear two days in a row.

Upon his awakening Sunday morning, my young friend was greeted by the flotsam and jetsam of a night of carousing and debauching by pal’s roomie and his posse. Scattered among the detritus of a night of hard partying were bodies in various states of consciousness and dress.

As he turned into the kitchen, young friend eyed a skillet containing the congealed mess of someone’s attempt at wee hour cookery. When he removed the pan from the cold stove, young friend noticed grains of rice, bits of vegetable, some sorry excuse for a sauce and bits of protein that looked suspiciously like . . . .

And yes, there in the garbage can was a square of butcher paper still bearing Kevin Luken’s scrawled “Just Cured Smoked Salmon.”

When pal awoke some time later, he confronted roomie and his buddies. No one admitted to the late night cooking. Further, no one recalled another’s cooking or anyone’s eating the slop that became of pal’s Sunday breakfast.

Some mysteries are meant to remain so, I suppose.

At least my young friend will not have to wait long for his next smoked salmon fix — and that salmon will be on me. You see, he foolishly volunteered to assist me at the 7 Days for SIDS brunch on Sunday. I will, however, make him work for his tastes.