The Cilantro Theory

Last week I sent my husband, John, to the store in search of green onions for our 4th of July potato salad. He returned home to report there weren’t any green onions at the store. I was a tad bit shocked, but as I mentioned before in this blog, our little grocery store is pretty lame. John went on to tell me that after extensive searching he picked up what he thought MIGHT be green onions. He took his choice to the cashier who informed him that no, what he had in his hands was cilantro, not green onions. (Once again, the Lake of the Woods County horticulture champion award baffles me.)

Enter now, John’s cilantro theory. In case you haven’t heard, the latest belief in the salmonella outbreak issue is that tomatoes are not the culprit at all but instead it might have something to do with peppers, onions, or cilantro. Here is how John sees it. Women, across America, are sending their husbands to the store for green onions. Said husbands get to the store and apparently none of them qualify, really, to be horticulture champion of any county, thereby mistaking cilantro for green onions. These men, trying their very best to please their wives, pick up the cilantro only to later find out that indeed they are not green onions and the cilantro must be returned to the produce case. Well, now they are “infected” with all the germs from the men who picked them up by mistake. Surely that could account for over 900 cases of food poisoning throughout the country, couldn’t it?

John shared his theory at dinner the other night. Our youngest son, Scott, just looked at us and said, “Sometimes, I don’t know if you two are a comedy routine or just nuts!” It’s a thin line to be sure.