The Tale of Two Peppers
By Sally Bishai (05/28/06)
The other day, I decided to make dinner for everyone. Now, I don't have the biggest repertoire of delectable dishes stowed away in my grey cells, but, I do have a few, and one is fajitas a' la Sall. Chicken, got it. Onions? In the house. Peppers? Nope, so I went shopping, and snagged the last bag on the shelf. Not half an hour later, I held two orange peppers in my hands. One looked perfect and smelled great, the other was somewhat wrinkled up, and wasn't my first choice.
Deciding to go with the perfect-looking one first, I made an incision. (It was very clean and professional-looking, maybe I should have been a surgeon!) I was very surprised, and quite repulsed, to see that it was totally rotten on the inside. I never would have guessed it from the perfect exterior!
Disheartened and depressed, I turned to the other one. One wouldn’t be enough, and I didn’t have too much faith in the way it looked, but away I went. Score another perfect incision for Dr. Sally! Nothing rotten, so I got to cutting it into strips. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that the less-than-perfect pepper tasted quite sweet, and very lovely.
Where am I going with this? To suggest a movement of mediocre chefs everywhere slicing peppers open before they buy them? Hmm, no. That might take some time, and we wonders of the kitchen are always in a hurry. (And the store manager might have something to say about it, too.)
Rather, the whole Affair of the Fajitas made me think how some people can have a perfect exterior—from face to figure to teeth to house to car—and being less than pleasing on the inside. Others may be a bit rumpled, wrinkled or soft, but be the sweetest things out there.
That’s not to say that all hotties are beasts inside, and that all beasts are treasures inside, but in any case, always remember not to judge anything by looks alone!
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