Basal vs Basil

Ok, we all know the difference between Basal and Basil, right? Basal, refers to a Basal thermometer that you use when you are tying to determine if you are ovulating. Been there done that. Basil, refers to a herb used in cooking. To the untrained chef, Basil is Basil, and that is where someone is likely to get hurt.

Let's go back, way back, to the time that I made a certain dish. I'm not even sure exactly what it was that I was cooking, but I think it was some kind of gourmet soup. The receipe called for a cup of whole basil leaves. I looked in the cupboard, but didn't see any bottles of spices with whole basil leaves in it. I did, however, find a spice bottle marked basil leaves, but they weren't whole leaves, they were chopped all fine. I thought, "Well, a cup of basil is a cup of basil, right?" Not so, Mon Fraire! But, I didn't know any better, and it sure smelled good! The whole house smelled like basil. Yum, yum.

So, there we were, at the dinner table, getting ready to dig in. I commented on how awesome the soup looked and smelled, and couldn't wait to taste it. I took my first bite. I said, "Yes, yes, this is some really spectacular soup!" Then I took another bite, and I was like "Hmmm... this soup is quite good..." Then on my third bite, I began to think back to when I was cooking it. I started back-tracing my ingredients in my mind, and I stopped at the ingredient to add that whole cup of basil leaves. I started to realize... slowly... and then rather quickly, that a cup of chopped basil leaves might not really be the same thing as a cup of whole leaves. You know, a cup of whole leaves could have a lot of air inbetween them. After taking a few more bites, having a hard time choking it down, and Tammy too, who was trying hard to pretend that it was the best soup she ever had, I suddenly announced that this soup wasn't good at all. But, I couldn't bear that it be wasted, and I asked Tammy what we could do to salvage the gourmet soup. I can't remember what she said, but the soup stayed in the refrigerator for at least a week, untouched, before I threw the whole batch in the trash!

Now, whenever I eat something with basil in it, I get wisked away to that un-magical day of eating gourmet basil soup. I wonder if I got some sort of basil poisoning, and still have traces of it running through my blood stream. Every time I bite into Stouffer's Lasagna Italiano, I instantly detect a hint of basil, and as I chew, I accidentally bite into one of the basil seeds, and all of the sudden, the gourmet basil soup gushes out into my mouth! Yuck!