Cutting out the stress

I recently read somewhere that in Japan the sound made by scissors, when spoken, is very different from in English. Whereas in English we say ‘snip’, a one-syllable word, in Japanese it is ‘choki’, with two syllables (cho-ki).

As a language teacher I find many translations fascinating. Why, for example, do different nationalities have different sounds for the noises animals make? In English, a pig says ‘oink’, but in Japan it would say ‘boo boo’. And why would a rooster say ‘cockadoodledo’, when in Latin America it can say ‘quiquiriqui’? The animals all make the same sound, so why do different cultures or language groups hear them differently? These are the things that keep me awake at night.

I was so curious about the scissors thing that I hauled myself out of bed, where I had been comfortably tucked up while reading whatever it was I’d picked up earlier, pulled on a dressing gown and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen drawer where the scissors are kept. Putting my index finger and thumb into the holes, I pulled them apart to open the scissors. ‘Cho’. So, only one syllable, I thought, the Japanese are clearly wrong. I closed the scissors to put them away again. ‘Ki’. I stared at the scissors in my hand. Opened and closed them again. ‘Cho-ki’. ‘Cho-ki’. Mind blown, I went back to bed.

Another scissors-related discovery, this time one that changed my life for the better, was a lesson I learnt from a four-year-old. As a lazy vegan I tend to live on easy plant-based meals, and stir-fries are a number one go-to for me. Rice in the rice cooker, chop a few veggies, fire up the wok, throw them all in with a few cashews, and dinner’s done. With minimal washing-up, I might add (I already said I was lazy, right?).

The only thing I hated about cooking a stir-fry was chopping the herbs. Fresh basil (or even better, Thai basil) really elevates the meal from a humdrum melange of warmed up veggies to a lip-smacking, cordon bleu-level effort that warms your heart as much as it fills your gut. But chopping herbs with a knife is the absolute worst! It’s messy, and fiddly, and no matter what I did I’d always end up with more herbs stuck to my hands than were on the chopping board. I’d tried everything, including pinching the herbs into a tight bunch then slicing into it with an extra sharp knife, which didn’t end well when I got a little too close to the ‘pinching’ bit with the ‘extra sharp’ bit and had to throw all the basil away as it was covered in blood. Eww.

So one day my four-year-old was watching me making a mess with the basil, bits flying all over the kitchen, most of it stuck to the blade of the knife or for some unknown reason in my hair. I was stifling my usual curses, aware of my son’s presence, when his little voice piped up … “Mum, why don’t you use scissors?” “Oh for goodness’ sake,” I snapped. “This is annoying enough without … hang on ... scissors? Wait a second, that might just work.” And pretty soon I was snipping away at a bunch of basil, a huge grin on my face, working away at it like I was a stylist in a Vidal Sassoon salon. A little off here, a little off there …

Now I know you’re probably wondering what I’d thought kitchen scissors were for before that. And the answer is that I’d never thought about it at all. My excuse is that I had far more important things to think about – why Japanese pigs say ‘boo boo’, for example.

Anyway, you should see me go now. I hadn’t made tabbouleh for years, just because I couldn’t bring myself to chop all that parsley and mint. Now, we eat it at least once a week, sometimes twice, and the best part of the preparation for me is the joy I find in snipping up the herbs. If my son’s around I’ll amuse him by doing a bit of topiary on a bunch of parsley, shaping it into a cat or a bird in a game we call ‘What’s that shape?’ as I snip it into a bowl ready to be mixed with the grains and tomato pieces.

I’m not quite ready to take my creative cuisinery skills out of the kitchen and onto the tv yet, but I reckon there’s a game show in there somewhere.

“What’s that shape?” perhaps?