However today I have only have kudos for odd, original and wonderful George. George is easy to overlook, nerdy engineer, overweight, pants too short, in fact he rather looks like a Tweedle Dee of the new millenium. George doesn't talk, he expounds, usually stroking his scraggly beard and staring off into space as if speaking to an invisible alien audience.
George first got my attention when, in a discussion of our favorite beers, he let slip that he once entered a national home-brew beer contest and his stout won first place, beating even Guinness which was entered as a baseline. I knew then that still waters ran deep with this man.
Recently we started a book club at work, our first book being Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman. When we announced the title at the company meeting George exclaimed, "Hot, Flat and Crowded, that would be biography of Paris Hilton I assume. Count me in."
Last week it started to feel like Autumn in the SF Bay Area and George announced that it was rice cooker time. OK, I was interested. On Monday an hour before lunch he proudly carried his rice-cooker into the lunchroom and began his conconction of miso soup, smoked tofu, and squid. He was delighted when I admitted to fishing out all the tentacles for myself. "First come first served and let the devil take the hind end" was his response.
Every day George creates a new dish, usually distinctly Asian, but sometimes a veritable mixed-metaphor of cuisines such as his miso soup with mussels, shrimp, seaweed and tortellini. Sounds weird but it was quite tasty. On Friday he made brown basmati rice with shrimp balls, scallions and bok choy.
George says his wife doesn't like his cooking. She thinks it's too weird. I think he's rather ingenious.
