Tom Tuerff's Glob -- er, Blog, or something

DWEEZIL AND BASIL

In the ongoing botanical freak show that is the flower boxes in my back yard, next to the schizophrenic corn that came out of a pepper pod (or so it seems -- see below, and thanks to all who've commented), I am now fascinated by the basil I have growing in the box next to the corn and pepper.

I planted seeds from one bag of basil, and have produced several healthy plants. However, while both are clearly basil, they are different varieties. One produces a kind of rounded, billowy leaf, and the other a flatter, smaller-sized leaf.

I tasted both of them and they have a slightly different taste to them.

Again, all the basil seeds I planted came out of the same bag.

Now I know that in the world of seed factories, it's probably possible that the mentally-challenged person they use to scoop stray seeds into open basil bags could have made a boo boo. But if you've ever bought basil (honestly, I had no intention of alliterating so much) seeds, you know that you can't just buy "Basil." Well, you can, but if you do you're not trying hard enough.

Basils, apparently, are like fine wine. The object is to find a basil that tastes nothing like basil but in fact "reminds" you of other things. You know how prissy wine bozos will slosh a bunch of bordeaux or pinot or escargot and then spit it out and say, "This wine has a fine apricot flourish, with hints of cow chip and turpentine?"

Well, it's apparently the same with basil. There's Cinnamon Basil. Mint Basil. Licorice Basil. Sweet Basil. Basic Basil. Basil Rathbone.

The point is, each variety of basil tastes a little different.

This morning, I sampled both basils in my box. (Now THAT's a euphemism I have to remember.)
I found the rounded one to be a bit strong, heady, with a faint hint of, oh, what is that flavor...oh yeah, BASIL.

The flatter one, however, did indeed smack of licorice and that pesky BASIL FLAVOR that seems to pervade these silly plants.

I picked two more leaves, one from each plant and headed inside to get Janice to do a taste test. She was sitting on the couch reading the paper.

I held out the two leaves to show her the difference in their shape, which she took note of.

Then, I said: "Taste these, and tell me which one you like better."

The problem is, another being in the room did not understand that "Taste These" was a suggestion to my wife.

I'm speaking of course of our dog, Dweezil.

In a split second, Dweezil leapt on to the couch and in mid-air, ripped half of the billowy basil from my left hand and greedily munched away at it. We all started laughing and I, dumbstruck, kept holding the leaves out, so Dweezil sampled the other one.

Then he looked up and smiled at me like "Can I have the rest of that?"

Well, what was I to do? I did what any good dog owner would do.

I asked Dweezil which one he liked best. He just stared at me, as if to say, "It's edible and tasty, dumbshit. What else is there to know?"

Our household was now erupting in laughter as the Dweez grabbed the rest of the leaves from my fingers and chowed down.

I told Jan to sneak out back later and try the basil. I can only hope that Dweezil doesn't equate the green growy things in the back yard the munchy leafy stuff he had today, but that remains to be seen.

Or eaten.

TT