Recently a friend of mine asked for perspective on a personal topic.

What I found extraordinary (besides discovering I could actually talk about something other than food) was his motivation-

He wasn’t necessarily asking for outside opinions because he was still deciding on a direction, he was asking because he already mostly knew his opinion.  He mentioned at times like these when he was relatively confident about an idea, he wanted to ensure that in arriving at a conclusion so quickly he wasn’t missing other aspects of, or ways to view, the question.  I’m paraphrasing here, but the point still stands.

That is one of those brilliant tidbits in life that just makes you smile.

Ironically on that same day, my Mum and I were having a phone conversation about chicken fat (yes, this is a perfectly normal thing to talk about).

She was making matzo balls for a friend of hers and the recipe called for chicken fat.  I mentioned that she could just render the fat from the skin before she cooked the chicken, but she’d already cooked the chicken in broth.

My mind immediately moved on to other fat substitutions (don’t worry, it wasn’t for a kosher meal) because the fat hadn’t been rendered like I would have done it.

And then she busts out with “Wait a sec, when refrigerate the broth overnight I can just skim the solidified fat from the top and use it right?”

Me:  “Yes.  <pause>  You are a God-damned genius.”

Of course.  It’s not like the fat was guzzled up by some magical fat fairy, the molecules were still there just in a different, but still usable, form.

*grin*

Lesson learned, and applied.