Yeah, but is it tasty?

I'm not a big gamer, but for the last few weeks I've been following Simon through Metal Gear Solid 3 and acting as his spotter. MGS plays like an interactive film, which I love, and divides itself pretty fairly between things that make perfect sense (e.g. if you blow up the enemy food supplies, the soldiers you encounter will be weaker) and things that are perfectly absurd (e.g. if you eat the glowing mushrooms, all the batteries you're carrying will be recharged.) I really recommend the series for jumpy types like me who tend to panic when things charge out at you: much of MGS 3 focuses on survival and sneaking around rather than on direct firefights. The radio game's main method of transmitting information to the player is through often-hilarious radio conversations with NPCs back at headquarters, and if you're curious about whatever new food the PC Snake has just caught, you can just dial up Paramedic. She'll happily reel off a veritable encyclopedia entry on Garials or Russian Inkcaps, while Snake just wants to know how the darn thing tastes.

I'm also not a big cook, but every now and then I get the urge to make something, and the results can be a little...hit-or-miss. Oftentimes I leave it to Simon and his barely-functioning nasal passages to finish the leftovers since he can't taste much anyway. Such was the case last week when the amount of spice in the chicken curry left my mouth in pain. I thought I'd heard the last of the Disastrous Thai Chicken Curry of '12 until Simon brought it up today and then asked me what the leaf in there had been. "Uh, that was a bay leaf. It's just there for flavoring, you're not supposed to eat it." Naturally, he already had...sigh. I quickly went to look up what happens if you eat a bay leaf, and we proceeded to have the following conversation.

"Well, it says here that it's not toxic, but it's not exactly good for you..."

"Hey..."

"...they're just really crunchy. 'The sharp edges may be painful to stomach linings, intestinal walls, and mouths'..."

"Hey."

"...but they're a good source of antioxidants. What?"

"But is it tasty?"

"...Snake."

"What?"

"(sigh.) Yes. The Yahoo!Answers entry says it should taste pretty good."

"That's all I needed to know."

Why do I have a feeling I'm headed for Snake and Paramedic cosplays next?

--Veronica--