by Horia Varlan via Flickr

This afternoon I was chatting with my colleague on the way to pick up a work trolley when he met a guy (let’s call him Andy) he kinda knows at work. I asked who he was and my colleague (let’s call him Tom) said that he bumped into Andy at Coles.

Anyway, at Coles, Andy said to Tom that he was grocery shopping for his wife, and Andy asked Tom this – “What kind of sugar is the best?” (pause for effect).

Tom said, “Brown, because it’s not processed”.

Andy asked, “Can you show me where I can buy it?” (pause for 2nd effect).

We laughed and then I said I had a similar experience, 12 years ago, when I first came to Melbourne. I had absolutely NO idea how to cook, and NO idea about food either. Heck, I was even squeamish about touching raw meat the first time.

So mum over the phone gave me some simple instructions on basic ingredients, and the first thing I did after class was pop over to Coles. First ingredient was garlic.

I didn’t know what garlic looked like. And worse of all, there were NO label on it!!!

I stood there for what seemed like forever, wondering if that thing I picked up was garlic, or ginger, or some nut. Finally I plucked up the courage to ask this elderly Aussie lady whether she knew if it was garlic. “Well, Chinese food uses a lot of garlic, don’t they? Yes, these does seem like garlic”, she said.

Embarrassed at my ignorance, I thanked her and took the plunge, paid for it, and worked it out later that it does indeed smell like garlic.

Moral of the story – don’t diss someone for not knowing something supposedly any kid should know.