Letter to the Editor

Dear Biju Thomas,

WTF?

I recently bought your book "Feed Zone Portables" and was very excited to try out the recipes. I had a number of issues that drew me to your book.
1. I'm always hungry.
2. I'm always on the go.
3. I'm a hungry athlete.
Your book seemed written just for me.

As a matter of fact, when I opened to the picture of you standing over the hot stove, I knew you had written this book just for me and that we were destined to meet- for these few reasons:
1. You're hot.
2. You appear to be in good shape.
3.  You can cook. Enough so that people call you Chef Biju.
Hi, my name is Carrie and we're supposed to get married and you will be all hot and handsome while cooking my food.

However.

There are a few things we need to get sorted out before this relationship can continue any further.
1. In the first chapter you address the question of whether I need to be eating all this food to begin with. Maybe it was your co-author, but regardless, I'm offended. I have a fast metabolism! I work out! And if you're cooking it for me, of course I will be eating it!
2. When you say fresh Thyme leaves, you should specify that I should remove the twiggy part of it. I won't even go into the hardship this caused me. Shame on you.
3. Sticky rice. Let's talk about that. My rice is not sticking together. I bought the kind you told me to (except it's the brown whole grain kind) and prepared it how you suggested. I wouldn't call it sticky, Bob.
4. Ok, my biggest beef. This alone has me second guessing our relationship. Let's address the section on how to wrap these scrumptious portables.

First off, individually wrapping each square of rice cake is incredibly wasteful, but I see the utility in it so I'm willing to let that go. For now.

Second, when you say "Fold the two open sides of the foil into triangle tabs as you would to wrap a gift." WTF do you mean? I know how I make triangle tabs to wrap a gift and it certainly does not provide the security and closure that you're suggesting. My triangle tabs require scotch tape which I thankfully own, otherwise my rice cake would end up on the floor of my jeep while dodging deer on the river road tomorrow morning. It probably still will...sticky rice....

Which leads me to my next point. The photos you provide to illustrate how this origami should work are clearly lacking in any, well, clarification. WHAT TRIANGLE TABS?!

You go on to say "Tuck the triangular tabs at each end underneath the wrapped edges." Above is a terrible photo of you seemingly doing just that. And to top it off, the next photo is of your cute little bundles stacked on top of each other- no scotch tape involved.

I tried this with the mushroom thyme breadcake (yeah, that one, the one with the thyme leaves). I gave up after annihilating 2 sheets of paper foil (Why not just aluminum foil?).

I tried again tonight with the (ahem!) sticky rice.

I don't think we can be friends anymore. We are obviously struggling with some severe communication issues. When you come up with a better way to speak to me, you just let me know.

In the meantime I will just stare at you cooking and taste your scrumptious recipes... while eating them from a bowl.

Regards,

Carrie