From tob@cwis.unomaha.edu Wed May  5 15:37:04 1993
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Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 15:36:01 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tob Wood <tob@cwis.unomaha.edu>
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Reply-To: Tob Wood <tob@cwis.unomaha.edu>
Subject: Unconventional Wisdom #19
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Cc: Dave Manning <dmanning@cwis.unomaha.edu>, conleyja@dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu
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I just got a letter from a friend on the `Regulars' list.  He was re-reading
my .plan, and he ask me who Tenzin was in Unconventional Wisdom #19.  So
to make sense of that one, I am sending this out to everyone.

I used to work in an Indian restaurant a few years back.  The funny thing
was, nobody from India worked there.  I thought this was great.  I worked
in the kitchen (I could never be a waiter) and it turned out to be one of
the more incredible experiences in my life.

The chefs were all Bhutanese; get out your atlases, the Kingdom of Bhutan
is at the base of the Himalayas near India, Nepal and Tibet.  I got along
with these three guys right away.  I think it was the fact that I could eat
anything they could, it endeared me to them.  I don't think they believed
a white boy could eat their daily staples.  Hell, I was in hog heaven eating
great food six nights a week for free, and they found it entertaining to
see if I could gastronomically cope with whatever they whipped up.

The three chefs were named Rincin, Tenzin and Raj.  Raj was a real ladies
man who had the best grip on English.  Tenzin was an outgoing party guy
whos English seemed calculatedly incorrect at times.  Rincin was a quiet
family man who would rather demonstrate than talk about it.  All three of
these guys were a sybiotic gourmet cooking machine, and they were all
really fun to hang out with.

One night, early on, the names `Rincin, Tenzin and Raj' reminded me of that
Mother Goose rhyme `Winken, Blinken and Nod', you remember.  So when the
opportunity arose, I spoke to Tenzin about this.  We had already begun to
develop a rapport, so I figured I'd start with him.  He came over to me
and handed me something to taste.  Whatever it was, it was great.  I said,
"You know Tenzin, I think I'm going to start calling you guys Winken,
Blinken and Nod"
  So without missing a beat, Tenzin said (read in a heavy Bhutanese accent),
"What?  Dat mean asshole or someting?"
  I, of course, lost it realizing that I would never be able to explain it
to him.  I told all the waitpeople this and they liked it.

Those nicknames never did take hold.  Rincin, Tenzin and Raj called all of
the waitpeople "white donkey", while all the waitpeople were supposed to
call the chefs "brown tiger".  Usually it came out as "brown monkey" and
a friendly shouting match would ensue.  We screamed a lot in the kitchen.
We probably shouldn't have because there was this giant plate glass window
that patrons could watch through as their meals were being prepared, so
it was like being on display.  Since most people have never seen a tandoor,
we were constantly being watched.  So we screamed a lot, acting like we
were really busy and excited, when in fact, the cooks were shouting
scatological insults at me, at each other and the customers, while I tried
my best to keep up with them in French, Japanese and Esperanto.  That
kitchen would have been a linguist's wet dream.

Anyway, one of these shouting fests was how I got my nickname.  I was trying
to make a kind of stuffed bread called Keema Parada.  This consisted of
taking a ball of dough, flattening it out, putting a little Keema in the
middle, folding it back up, and then flattening it out again so that you
have this circle of bread stuffed with spiced ground lamb and vegies (it
is truly a flavor experience).  The next step is putting it in the tandoor
and baking it.  This sounds easy unless you know what a tandoor is.  A
tandoor is a circular brick oven with an inside volume about the same as a
55 gallon drum.  It is open at the top, and the 'mouth' opening is about
half the diameter of the rest of it; it sort of funnels the heat up. It's
kind of shaped like a fluted wine glass, get it?  Okay, now, the heating
element for a tandoor is a ring of gas jets that keep the temperature of
the thing at an even (now check this out) 1200 degrees farenheit!  This
sucker is hot, I'm still convinced you could fire pottery in it.
   Now to bake the breads, you flatten them, put them on this `pillow',
grab the back of the pillow and then STICK YOUR WHOLE ARM DOWN INTO THIS
BLAZING INFERNO FROM HELL AND SLAP THE BREAD ONTO THE SIDE OF THE OVEN.  If
you do this right, the bread will stick there and bake thouroughly in less
than thirty seconds.  Then you take it out with two special rods specifically
for this purpose.  Well, now that you understand to concept:
   In this particular instance, I didn't smack the dough onto the side hard
enough and it slowly peeled itself off (you really don't want to leave
your arm in there for longer than you have to, trust me).  Tenzin and the
others watched the whole thing since this was one of my first attempts (my
first attempt took a helluva lot of convincing; you naturally do not have
a tendancy to stick your arm into something the temperature of a small
star), and they all started laughing uproariously.  It was kind of funny in
a `look at stupid white boy' kind of way.  I was laughing too as we let the
bread burn away to nothing (there's no way to get it out).  Tenzin started
to good-naturedly swear at me in whatever language he felt most appropriate.
I then got into the swing of things by yelling back, "Masala!  Masala papad!
Masala papad brown donkey" because `masala' was the only word I knew.
Masala doesn't translate into English too well, but the rough equivalent would
be `flour'.  I was screaming, "Flour!  Lentil Flour!  Lentil flour brown
donkey!"   The chefs lost it.
   After we calmed down,  Tenzin put another dough-ball in my hand and
said, "Hokay Masala, you do again and fuck up this time I put YOU in."
That was enough incentive for me.  All my breads were perfect from then on,
and everybody called me Masala.

_ _ _ _
Quick side anecdote:

I didn't have any hair on my right arm for about a year.  It was from
sticking my arm in the tandoor all the time.  You can pick a tandoori
chef out of a crowd because he won't have hair on just one arm.
I female friend of mine at the time noticed my arm and said, "Tob, it's
not very macho to have no hair on one arm."
I said, "Oh yeah?  Well how macho is it to stick your arm into a 1200 degree
blast furnace over a hundred times a night?"
I don't care about macho, but I'm glad that shut her up.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Tenzin and I developed an easy going, dart throwing, beer drinking friendship,
so when he opened his own restaurant, I was really happy for him.
It was called Tenzin's Asian Cafe, and it was so small that it only sat about
16 people.

One day me and Scott (my roommate) went down there for lunch.  Scott had never
met Tenzin, but had heard me talking about him all the time and was up for
some culinary adventure.  We went in, sat down, and eventually Tenzin came
out and greeted me with a hearty ,"AhH!!  Masala!"
  After introductions and small talk Tenzin asked, "Hokay, what you want to
eat?"   We didn't know, since (we found out later) that he only had two
menus for the entire place and the other four people there were using them.
Scott found this rather dubious, but I thought it was cool.  Tenzin went on
to say, "It hokay, for you Masala I make anything you want."
  I said, "Great!  What's good?"
At the top of his lungs he screamed, "EVERYTHING GOOD IN MY RESTAURANT JA DAH"
This reduced me into uncontrollable guffaws as we drew the attention from the
other table.  Scott was getting really nervous now.
  Finally Tenzin said, "Hokay, I just make something.  What you want drink?"
Scott timidly ordered a Pepsi, and I asked if he had any mango lhasi.  Tenzin
said, "NO!  You want mango lhasi, you make self, you know how", and he dragged
me into the kitchen.  I made my drink (for recipe, email me) and went back to
my table.  I told Scott that Tenzin was the only one there.  He was cook,
waiter, cashier, dishwasher, host, everything.  We thought this was great.
Soon after this, Tenzin stuck his head out of the kitchen and yelled, "Masala!
Come here!"
I went into the kitchen and he proceeded to make me prepare the other tables
lunches!  It was all stuff I knew from working with Tenzin before, but Scott
and the other table could see this happening and the looks on their faces
were precious.  I got done with my stuff, threw it on some plates with saffron
rice and a samosa, garnished it with cilantro and Tenzin took it out to them.
I went back to my seat.  Pretty soon Tenzin came out with our lunches.  He
put them down in front of us and we stared at it questioningly.  I voiced
both Scott's and my thoughts, "What is it?"
   "NO WHAT IS ITS!!  YOU JUST EAT MASALA JA DAH!!!" he bellowed.
Scott was scared.  I was used to it.  I grabbed a fork and dug right it.
It was spectacular.  Scott finally tried it and thought so too.  To this day
I still have no idea what it was.  I think it was chicken, but it was better
than any chicken dish I've eaten since, and I have eaten a hell of a lot.
Twenty minutes later, Tenzin came back out carrying a pot.  He came up to
us and without asking, he plopped some different unidentifiable stuff on
our plates saying, "You try.  Is good."    He wasn't lying.  He went over
to the other people and did the same thing.  You could tell they were
frightened, but they tried their best to humor him.
  At the end of our meal, the bill only came to about six dollars.  Scott
was so impressed by the whole experience, that he gave Tenzin a twenty and
told him to keep the change saying that the whole thing had been unreal.
Surreal is more like it.

And that is why you should always eat anything Tenzin makes, but never
ask any questions.

See ya next time,

Tob


...............................................................................
:I am a clueless newbie.    More info via `finger'        tob@cwis.unomaha.edu:
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