Keyword: Coconut

Poor Ben has no decision-making abilities when I am around. He had to have some in the years before I moved here, as his exes did not cook and he had to eat somehow, but my presence apparently raises a white flag in his brain. This isn't the worst situation in the world for an alpha like me, but when I am tired or distracted by support mobilization strategies pertaining to international community development, nothing is more infuriating than a hesitant silence.

Did I forget to mention that he's very picky? And extremely xenophobic when it comes to food?

He does have his moments of brilliance, though. Just last Sunday we were watching a "Survivorman" episode filmed in Costa Rica, which involved surviving off of delicious coconut milk. Ben's eyes became fixated to the television, to the point that his computer game grew impatient with him. Ben loves coconut; I'm thoroughly convinced that he could eat his weight in haystacks in a single sitting. After a minute or so he asked, "Can we have dinner with coconut in it?"

Sure! I whipped out my laptop and went straight to Epicurious's Advanced Search to look for dinner, keyword: coconut. Coconut shrimp it is!

"I don't like shrimp."

Of course he doesn't. I am sure that there are plenty of Thai dishes that I can use.

"I'm not so sure about Thai food."

I am getting closer to throttling him. At least I found a delicious-sounding crab sauté with spicy coconut sauce. He has eaten crab several times before without complaint.

"I don't remember if I liked crab."

You bastard.

At this point I decided to just plan the coconut-based dinner for midweek, and just use my own judgment so he could neither protest nor convince himself that he wouldn't like it. To tame the experience I radically gutted the recipe. Goodbye turmeric, chiles de árbol, cloves, coriander, anise, and cumin. Crab legs were exchanged for crab cakes (partially for a more innocuous look, but mostly because I am poor). I also threw in a tablespoon of curry powder and a little hot spice blend of my own for some kick, and some diced green onions for color.


Everything turned out beautifully. The spice was punchy enough to distract Ben in case he didn't like the crab (he loved it), and the end result was neither Thai nor shrimp-laden. The coconut was unfortunately too shy a presence among the spices, so tweaking is definitely in order. It was a grand first try, all the same. I personally had a difficult time putting my leftovers away once I got full, but it was almost as good as an early lunch the next day.

Hopefully now Ben will remember that he likes crab.