I shouldn’t let another moment go by without mentioning the coolest thing I did this weekend. I went to a seminar at Adam’s Fairacre Farms called “Getting to Know Tofu.” I had to drive all the way to Newburgh to get to it, as I had missed it when it was at my local Adam’s last week. I missed it because I went on a date with a guy who later emailed me saying, “I don’t want to lead you on.” So let that be a lesson to you ladies: if you have the choice between tofu and a man, take the tofu! It may be a bit slimy, but you can keep it in your freezer for up to six months! (As I learned at the seminar.)
I loved this seminar. Before going to it, me and tofu were friendly acquaintances. You’d find me chunking it up to add to some ramen, or maybe throwing in a stir fry. But now that I’ve really gotten to know tofu, I am prepared to make at least 3 new dishes by mashing it into burgers, freezing and crumbling it into fried rice, and blending it into corn soup. The woman who introduced the crowd to the soy by-product that is produced by straining pureed beans and adding a coagulate was named Irma Chang. I’m not sure what made her qualified to teach us about tofu, but she had this great accent and staccato delivery that made me giddy each time she said “tofu” with the accent on the “fooo”. Even though she greeted suggestions from the audience with stony silence, she loved the idea of teaching us important life lessons.
For instance, if you buy a pound of tofu on Monday, and use half of it to make fried rice, you’re going to want to put the remaining tofu in fresh water and refrigerate it to use on Tuesday. But on Tuesday, if you have friends invite you to dinner, you’re going to want to change that water and use the tofu on Wednesday. But if on Wednesday, relatives show up out of nowhere and take you to dinner, and you don’t want to waste that tofu, what you do is drain the water, cut the tofu in small pieces, put each piece in a plastic bag, and freeze them until spring. (Or so.) She was really big on the idea of freezing things in individual serving sizes, including oatmeal, which she does by making the entire container at once. I can’t even imagine how big her freezer has to be to do that. The oatmeal talk came up because she suggested using it as a substitute for ground beef in her mushroom tofu-burger recipe, which this vegetarian only realized was made with ground beef after trying a bite.
But let me get to the best part of all. Free seminars bring out a strange crowd. I wasn’t by any means expecting it to be singles night at the Roxy, but I held out a small glimmer of hope of finding the next Mr. Noelle Tannenbaum in the audience. (I’m looking for him EVERYWHERE now.) But instead, I only found the world’s hippest couple that side of the Hudson, a bunch of old granola types, a 95-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man in a skirt. Let me say that again: a man in a skirt. No, he was not en route to a Scottish festival, or even wearing a utility kilt. He had draped his waist with an ankle-length orange-patterned piece of fleece, and tied it with a brown belt. I could not tell if there were pants or any other vehicle of modesty under the skirt. When he got up to stand near the front (with his wife!) to hear better and take copious notes, the 95-year-old woman turned to me and said, “is he wearing a skirt?” I nodded, glad not to be the only one who thought something was amiss, and also glad that for the first time in my life, I had a reason to bond with a nonogenarian.
And yes, from now on I promise, pinky-swear that I will carry a camera with me at all times. Maybe he’ll show up at the next seminar, “Make a miniature indoor Fairy Garden.”
