to the tune of "jingle bells"
holiday's getting near
and i'm just thinking 'bout rest
but men are thinking about beer
and women think about sex
it's true that we sell more
than pink pleather mini skirts
but the average broad who walks in the store
just wants it where it hurts. oh!
chorus:
monday's hell, tuesday's hell
when will the holidays end?
wednesday's hell, thursday's hell
teeny boppers setting trends. oh!
friday's hell, saturday's hell
if you want to dress like a whore
crotchless panties, and nippleless bras
and you betcha we've got more!
there's a wench who wants some bling
so get her sweats from PINK
she's got a 4-carat ring
doesn't ever have to think.
her issue of right and wrong
in her grossly privileged life
is whether or not that slutty little thong
will make her a slutty little wife. oh!
(chorus)
SLT* as a whole
was made to show more skin
and encourage playing a role
french maid? yes, you'll fit right in!
very sexy makes men roar
with animal print and lace
and a tacky gold ring at your back door
so he can feel like an ace! oh!
(chorus)
now i want to make it clear
i don't hate our clientele
only when they call me "dear"
then i wish they'd go to hell.
or when they like to treat
us like servants of some kind,
then i want to knock 'em on their feet:
"are you out of your freakin' mind?" oh!
(chorus)
as you can see, retail has sucked out my soul.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Requiem for a Reptile
my faithful and loving, albeit cold-blooded (haha), companion of 16 or so years, Progonoskes, passed recently.
he will be sorely missed by his loving and aging mother, somewhat missed by his lethargic tank-mate, Mercutio, and thought of fondly by his younger distant cousins, Kandinsky and Escher.
his feline step-siblings will be deeply grieved when they grope around his tank with their paws expecting to find potential turtle-sushi. Mimi has seemed especially out-of-sorts, rolling around on the floor in front of the tank with what seems like prolonged agony (or itchiness).
as it is, he was a good turtle. his most endearing trait (besides his aversion to white people) was his inability to catch fish on his own. his surrogate-mother, Natasha, often had to hold slimy live flopping fish in her hands so that he could eat one. she will probably not miss this aspect of his life.
requiescat in pace. or in my freezer. for i have yet to find a spot where a dog or a bulldozer might not dig him up, and where it is legal to bury a pet. but i will. mayhap i will take him with me to niagara and throw his small coffin-box over the falls. it would be fitting for a guy who spent 95% of his life in the water.
he will be sorely missed by his loving and aging mother, somewhat missed by his lethargic tank-mate, Mercutio, and thought of fondly by his younger distant cousins, Kandinsky and Escher.
his feline step-siblings will be deeply grieved when they grope around his tank with their paws expecting to find potential turtle-sushi. Mimi has seemed especially out-of-sorts, rolling around on the floor in front of the tank with what seems like prolonged agony (or itchiness).
as it is, he was a good turtle. his most endearing trait (besides his aversion to white people) was his inability to catch fish on his own. his surrogate-mother, Natasha, often had to hold slimy live flopping fish in her hands so that he could eat one. she will probably not miss this aspect of his life.
requiescat in pace. or in my freezer. for i have yet to find a spot where a dog or a bulldozer might not dig him up, and where it is legal to bury a pet. but i will. mayhap i will take him with me to niagara and throw his small coffin-box over the falls. it would be fitting for a guy who spent 95% of his life in the water.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Electronic Leash
my family has been overseas for the last few weeks (or months or years, depending on the family member) and today, the loneliness struck me like my cat head-butting a pillow...which is to say, not very hard, but it sure was fun to watch.
there is a sex in the city episode where maranda torments herself with the idea of dying of an accident alone in her apartment, with no one to find her until weeks later, and of no one to feed her cat. today i felt empathy with that fear, NEVERMIND the complete lack of logic behind it---i don't live alone, i have classmates and work colleagues, and my cat has an automatic feeder with 3 lbs of food just in case.
in all seriousness, what brought this to my attention was the fact that my land-line phone has not rung in 4 weeks or so, and my voicemail and answering machine are not flooded with messages beseeching an ingrate (me) to call a worried, doting mother (mom). by now there would be at least 20 messages and infinite number of calls, given that if my mother does not speak to me for 48 hours she panicks. she imagines gruesome scenarios and calls me, and my best friends, EVERY HALF HOUR...until the constant ringtones---rather like aural chinese water torture---wears me down into obedience. i used to dread the persistent repetition of the first eight bars of pachelbel's canon (my fault; i really should change that ring), but now, it would be music to my ears (HA! ok, i am officially ashamed. so ashamed that here ends this post).
there is a sex in the city episode where maranda torments herself with the idea of dying of an accident alone in her apartment, with no one to find her until weeks later, and of no one to feed her cat. today i felt empathy with that fear, NEVERMIND the complete lack of logic behind it---i don't live alone, i have classmates and work colleagues, and my cat has an automatic feeder with 3 lbs of food just in case.
in all seriousness, what brought this to my attention was the fact that my land-line phone has not rung in 4 weeks or so, and my voicemail and answering machine are not flooded with messages beseeching an ingrate (me) to call a worried, doting mother (mom). by now there would be at least 20 messages and infinite number of calls, given that if my mother does not speak to me for 48 hours she panicks. she imagines gruesome scenarios and calls me, and my best friends, EVERY HALF HOUR...until the constant ringtones---rather like aural chinese water torture---wears me down into obedience. i used to dread the persistent repetition of the first eight bars of pachelbel's canon (my fault; i really should change that ring), but now, it would be music to my ears (HA! ok, i am officially ashamed. so ashamed that here ends this post).
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Panty Grimoire
recently i began trading the work of my gifted and talented hands in exchange for money. i speak not of organ, nor of calligraphy, nor of cooking nor even bookbinding. i speak of that glorious position known as Panty Stocker. i actually believe the true title is "sales support." in any case, i imagined it a task which i would easily master, and to tell the truth i fold panties with the best of them (or, given my many years of origami practice, perhaps i AM the best of them)....and yet the one aspect which i failed to examine, the one minute obstacle that thwarts my inevitable conquest of All Things Undergarments, is Panty Identification.
as far as i know, there is no such thing as a Panty Guide (audubon missed out on a ground-breaking opportunity). there is the VS catalogue, of course, but that seems to be more of a "various half-naked women" guide than a true Panty Guide. or three-quarters-naked women. anyways, you see the point. how can any woman fully claim her womanhood without being able to cook, do laundry, and EASILY identify and sort all manner of panties? how could i have lived so long, and WORN panties my entire life, without appreciating every quality of each individual panty species? they were all created unique, but equal, and it is their diversity that strengthens them. for example, their shapes:
string bikini
regular bikini
low-rise string, and low-rise regular, bikini
hipster
low-rise hipster
brief
high-leg brief
v-string (thong)
boy thong (a WHAT?)
thong
boy short
girl boxer
girl short
boy boxer (okay, i was just joking about these last two)
their sizes:
xs, s, m, l, xl (disappointingly straight-forward)
their material combinations:
cotton, polyester, lace, spandex, mesh etc etc.
their colors and graphics:
from sophisticated black to innocent white to blushing pink to bright-orange ruffles on the butt of cerulean plaid (i kid you not, check the next time you visit the store).
their COLLECTIONS:
this stumped me. a lot. pink, angels, sexy little things, very sexy, body by victoria, pout. er. um. since every collections has a separate panty with every single possible variable factor (oh yay, combinatorials!) that means that i should familiarize myself with approximately 203987626 different panties. in truth, i just now made up that number. in further truth, i would not be surprised if that number were entirely accurate. who would refute me?
i found myself longing for a logical categorization of all...panties, for lack of a better description. "crotch-cover" came to mind as another description, but as some panties lack crotches it is ultimately faulty. the possibility of substituting other common terms was effectively discarded because of nomenclature issues. panties it is, and this is the Partial Panty Grimoire, installment 1 (further installments pending).
1) pout: a collection formerly known as "lifestyles," geared towards the early to mid 20s demographic. therefore every panty is plastered with cupcakes and butterflies and ruffle/plaid combinations....)
2) sexy little things: slutwear. no, seriously, a superior described them to me as "avant-garde lingerie." which immediately evoked images of grossly thin women wrapped in saran wrap and newspaper and ornamented with Cheerios. but luckily the sexy little things collection is conservatively avant-garde, and the white products are quite popular with brides. this collection probably bears the most ribbon, lace trim, beads, and sequins. perfect for drag queens.
3) angels: lingerie for the innocent adult. panties in pastels, doily-type lace, lots of bows and flowers.
4) very sexy: if angels is for the innocent, very sexy is for the corrupted. animal print galore, although i can't help but wonder: who is aroused by a zebra? very sexy also has an abundance of gold ornamentation---rings, links, chain---and the combination of the two is rather like watching a zebra wear gold chain necklaces. oh, the zebra stripe print is rarely in black and white, so imagine a zebra, dyed purple, decked out in bling. this is very sexy indeed.
4) body by victoria cotton "hi-leg brief": middle eastern granny panties. by which i mean the majority of middle eastern women that enter the store make a beeline for this panty table, pointedly ignoring the mostly-naked models and suggestive lingerie leering at them from every angle. this particular panty also attracts grannies.
5) pink boy thong: a thong built solely to train preteen girls to the sensation of string up one's butt, similar to acclimating a foal to the bridle.
6) boy short, girl boxer: two separate panties, each inflicted with gender-identity confusion. these are panties, i am sad to say, that i cannot yet identify without checking the label.
so perhaps i am still yet a Page of Panties, yet i sense squire-hood not far off. my heart yearns for further mastery---oh to be a knight of knickers, or a queen of questionables, or an overlord of underwear---but i fear that to delve too much deeper into study would require too much money, and kill too many braincells, than i can afford to lose.
as far as i know, there is no such thing as a Panty Guide (audubon missed out on a ground-breaking opportunity). there is the VS catalogue, of course, but that seems to be more of a "various half-naked women" guide than a true Panty Guide. or three-quarters-naked women. anyways, you see the point. how can any woman fully claim her womanhood without being able to cook, do laundry, and EASILY identify and sort all manner of panties? how could i have lived so long, and WORN panties my entire life, without appreciating every quality of each individual panty species? they were all created unique, but equal, and it is their diversity that strengthens them. for example, their shapes:
string bikini
regular bikini
low-rise string, and low-rise regular, bikini
hipster
low-rise hipster
brief
high-leg brief
v-string (thong)
boy thong (a WHAT?)
thong
boy short
girl boxer
girl short
boy boxer (okay, i was just joking about these last two)
their sizes:
xs, s, m, l, xl (disappointingly straight-forward)
their material combinations:
cotton, polyester, lace, spandex, mesh etc etc.
their colors and graphics:
from sophisticated black to innocent white to blushing pink to bright-orange ruffles on the butt of cerulean plaid (i kid you not, check the next time you visit the store).
their COLLECTIONS:
this stumped me. a lot. pink, angels, sexy little things, very sexy, body by victoria, pout. er. um. since every collections has a separate panty with every single possible variable factor (oh yay, combinatorials!) that means that i should familiarize myself with approximately 203987626 different panties. in truth, i just now made up that number. in further truth, i would not be surprised if that number were entirely accurate. who would refute me?
i found myself longing for a logical categorization of all...panties, for lack of a better description. "crotch-cover" came to mind as another description, but as some panties lack crotches it is ultimately faulty. the possibility of substituting other common terms was effectively discarded because of nomenclature issues. panties it is, and this is the Partial Panty Grimoire, installment 1 (further installments pending).
1) pout: a collection formerly known as "lifestyles," geared towards the early to mid 20s demographic. therefore every panty is plastered with cupcakes and butterflies and ruffle/plaid combinations....)
2) sexy little things: slutwear. no, seriously, a superior described them to me as "avant-garde lingerie." which immediately evoked images of grossly thin women wrapped in saran wrap and newspaper and ornamented with Cheerios. but luckily the sexy little things collection is conservatively avant-garde, and the white products are quite popular with brides. this collection probably bears the most ribbon, lace trim, beads, and sequins. perfect for drag queens.
3) angels: lingerie for the innocent adult. panties in pastels, doily-type lace, lots of bows and flowers.
4) very sexy: if angels is for the innocent, very sexy is for the corrupted. animal print galore, although i can't help but wonder: who is aroused by a zebra? very sexy also has an abundance of gold ornamentation---rings, links, chain---and the combination of the two is rather like watching a zebra wear gold chain necklaces. oh, the zebra stripe print is rarely in black and white, so imagine a zebra, dyed purple, decked out in bling. this is very sexy indeed.
4) body by victoria cotton "hi-leg brief": middle eastern granny panties. by which i mean the majority of middle eastern women that enter the store make a beeline for this panty table, pointedly ignoring the mostly-naked models and suggestive lingerie leering at them from every angle. this particular panty also attracts grannies.
5) pink boy thong: a thong built solely to train preteen girls to the sensation of string up one's butt, similar to acclimating a foal to the bridle.
6) boy short, girl boxer: two separate panties, each inflicted with gender-identity confusion. these are panties, i am sad to say, that i cannot yet identify without checking the label.
so perhaps i am still yet a Page of Panties, yet i sense squire-hood not far off. my heart yearns for further mastery---oh to be a knight of knickers, or a queen of questionables, or an overlord of underwear---but i fear that to delve too much deeper into study would require too much money, and kill too many braincells, than i can afford to lose.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Grandma, What Hairless Legs You Have
for those of you who don't know, i am short. as in, less than 5 feet short. in my immediate little family of 4, only my brother currently breaks the 5 foot mark (well done to you!) at one point both my mother and father could boast of this goal, but they have been afflicted with skeletal shrinkage due to old age. stack the three of us on top of each other and a single male giraffe would still look upon us with disdain. such is my family.
i have been helping my parents paint their house for the last few days, and with the exception of one day when i conned a long lanky friend into helping out, "painting the house" also means "scaling a three rung ladder repeatedly, developing excellent calf muscles." it's not that we have tall ceilings; we're just that short. though inconvenient, this was doable until...
THE STAIRWELL. yes. regular three-rung ladders don't work well on stairwells. my father's first suggestion, of course, was to basically construct scaffolding for the whole house---thank goodness my mother has some sense of reason. nono, i said, we can do it, we just have to find stuff to prop up under half the ladder so we don't send paint flying down the carpeted stairs. and so i did one side (story to come later) and my father did the other.
this is how i came to stare at my father's calves for minutes on end (stabilizing the ladder). and then i noticed: he doesn't have much hair. okay yes, he's bald, but i meant on his legs. he has some of course, but not tons. why does this matter?
well, my mother's legs are completely hairless. she doesn't shave, she doesn't Nair, nothing. her legs are the mexican hairless cats of the leg world. a natural phenomenon. my legs, on the other hand, if not subjected to frequent shaving, er....well, i'll spare you the description. if i lived au naturale, i would be hairier than my brother. i thought i inherited leg hair from my father; now i know i am wrong. as far as i know, i am the hairiest person in my entire family. just call me chewbacca.
now, the other half of THE STAIRWELL painting experience---my half. the half that is titled: Conversations With Death.
right. so, i'm climbing the ladder to tape the ceiling, no big deal, la-di-da, but the higher up THE STAIRWELL i get the more freaked out i become. i'm fighting this, of course, because i don't want my father to have to do too much---ah, nobility---but you know, my hands are sweating, my legs are shaking, my mouth is dry. all symptoms of paranoia, and then here's the kicker: i see Death.
i hate, loathe, abhor, detest, consider an abomination, would vomit at the sight of, would throw pygmy goats at, would wish a plague of boils upon, people who ask me "why are you afraid of heights?" hello! look at me! i spent 99.9725% of my life less than 5 feet above the ground! it's like throwing a pagan witch into the southern baptist convention and asking, "why are you uncomfortable?" or giving a rhinoceros snorkeling gear and freeing it in the great barrier reef. or releasing an ostrich on the tundra. ah, i see i have developed an "animals of the african savannah" theme here. you get the point. "oh, but humans adapt! that's how we have survived as a species: high adaptability!" yes, i'm sure. throw me on top of a 2000 foot high plateau that's about 7 feet in diameter and i'm sure the spawn that follows me will have grown suckers on their hands and feet and can run down cliff-sides face-first, like a squirrel. me, i will have perished from fright. or rolled off the edge in my sleep.
anywho, back to Death. he's there, far far below, like 12 feet below, about the size of an apple, going: hello! hello! would you fancy coming down here for a bit? we have fantastic billiards.
Me: what? oh, um, no thank you. not if you don't mind.
Death: but are you sure? it wouldn't be very difficult for you to come with me at all, you know, just a few inches to your right....
Me: yes, but then my tombstone would say, "here lies jo she died by rugburn." and not that it matters to you, but there are other ways i'd rather go.
Death: i think Death by Rugburn is a nice way to go! not to mention you'd die doing something NOBLE for your parents! i can't think of any more creative ways, can you?
Me: more creative? you can't be more creative? wait, i'm an experiment in creativity? what kind of morbid loser are you?
Death: well if you're going to get all testy, i might just have to come up there and nudge you a bit....
Me: alright alright. let's see...my mind could slowly deteriorate until i think i'm a hippo and that charter bus is my mate!
Death: mmmm.
Me: or i could be mistaken as a dwarf by a bigoted giant who smashes me to bits with a medieval club, oh wait that sounds painful.
Death: well if you're not coming up with anything better...
Me: wait wait! or i could be walking along a posh alley somewhere and a piano could come crashing on my head! but it'd have to be a steinway or busendorfer or yamaha or you know, something nice. no clavinovas, please.
Death: no, i like the clavinova idea. it's ironic! it's amusing! it's fitting, you know, really. *pauses* i think you've given me all the ideas i need for my next final destination movie.
Me: what, you're making ANOTHER one of those?
Death: well, it is one of my best roles, you know. i get to let loose my twisted side!
Me: you're a sick wanker, i hope you know. and now *hops off ladder* i'm done, so you lost your chance! BWAHAHAHHAHA!
Death: *poof!*
i have been helping my parents paint their house for the last few days, and with the exception of one day when i conned a long lanky friend into helping out, "painting the house" also means "scaling a three rung ladder repeatedly, developing excellent calf muscles." it's not that we have tall ceilings; we're just that short. though inconvenient, this was doable until...
THE STAIRWELL. yes. regular three-rung ladders don't work well on stairwells. my father's first suggestion, of course, was to basically construct scaffolding for the whole house---thank goodness my mother has some sense of reason. nono, i said, we can do it, we just have to find stuff to prop up under half the ladder so we don't send paint flying down the carpeted stairs. and so i did one side (story to come later) and my father did the other.
this is how i came to stare at my father's calves for minutes on end (stabilizing the ladder). and then i noticed: he doesn't have much hair. okay yes, he's bald, but i meant on his legs. he has some of course, but not tons. why does this matter?
well, my mother's legs are completely hairless. she doesn't shave, she doesn't Nair, nothing. her legs are the mexican hairless cats of the leg world. a natural phenomenon. my legs, on the other hand, if not subjected to frequent shaving, er....well, i'll spare you the description. if i lived au naturale, i would be hairier than my brother. i thought i inherited leg hair from my father; now i know i am wrong. as far as i know, i am the hairiest person in my entire family. just call me chewbacca.
now, the other half of THE STAIRWELL painting experience---my half. the half that is titled: Conversations With Death.
right. so, i'm climbing the ladder to tape the ceiling, no big deal, la-di-da, but the higher up THE STAIRWELL i get the more freaked out i become. i'm fighting this, of course, because i don't want my father to have to do too much---ah, nobility---but you know, my hands are sweating, my legs are shaking, my mouth is dry. all symptoms of paranoia, and then here's the kicker: i see Death.
i hate, loathe, abhor, detest, consider an abomination, would vomit at the sight of, would throw pygmy goats at, would wish a plague of boils upon, people who ask me "why are you afraid of heights?" hello! look at me! i spent 99.9725% of my life less than 5 feet above the ground! it's like throwing a pagan witch into the southern baptist convention and asking, "why are you uncomfortable?" or giving a rhinoceros snorkeling gear and freeing it in the great barrier reef. or releasing an ostrich on the tundra. ah, i see i have developed an "animals of the african savannah" theme here. you get the point. "oh, but humans adapt! that's how we have survived as a species: high adaptability!" yes, i'm sure. throw me on top of a 2000 foot high plateau that's about 7 feet in diameter and i'm sure the spawn that follows me will have grown suckers on their hands and feet and can run down cliff-sides face-first, like a squirrel. me, i will have perished from fright. or rolled off the edge in my sleep.
anywho, back to Death. he's there, far far below, like 12 feet below, about the size of an apple, going: hello! hello! would you fancy coming down here for a bit? we have fantastic billiards.
Me: what? oh, um, no thank you. not if you don't mind.
Death: but are you sure? it wouldn't be very difficult for you to come with me at all, you know, just a few inches to your right....
Me: yes, but then my tombstone would say, "here lies jo she died by rugburn." and not that it matters to you, but there are other ways i'd rather go.
Death: i think Death by Rugburn is a nice way to go! not to mention you'd die doing something NOBLE for your parents! i can't think of any more creative ways, can you?
Me: more creative? you can't be more creative? wait, i'm an experiment in creativity? what kind of morbid loser are you?
Death: well if you're going to get all testy, i might just have to come up there and nudge you a bit....
Me: alright alright. let's see...my mind could slowly deteriorate until i think i'm a hippo and that charter bus is my mate!
Death: mmmm.
Me: or i could be mistaken as a dwarf by a bigoted giant who smashes me to bits with a medieval club, oh wait that sounds painful.
Death: well if you're not coming up with anything better...
Me: wait wait! or i could be walking along a posh alley somewhere and a piano could come crashing on my head! but it'd have to be a steinway or busendorfer or yamaha or you know, something nice. no clavinovas, please.
Death: no, i like the clavinova idea. it's ironic! it's amusing! it's fitting, you know, really. *pauses* i think you've given me all the ideas i need for my next final destination movie.
Me: what, you're making ANOTHER one of those?
Death: well, it is one of my best roles, you know. i get to let loose my twisted side!
Me: you're a sick wanker, i hope you know. and now *hops off ladder* i'm done, so you lost your chance! BWAHAHAHHAHA!
Death: *poof!*
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Olfactory Narcissism
bath and body works is what i refer to as "that smell store." true, there's the body shop, which i refer to as "that other smell store," only because i don't frequent it as often as bath and body works. this has little to do with the quality of either company's products, but rather relates directly to the fact that the body shop is always burning ridiculously extravagant amounts of aromatherapy oil in about 12 square feet of space. i imagine it smells like royal medieval paris, when people soaked themselves in herbage to disguise their own rank body odor.
at any rate, that smell store is the one which USED to sell a bergamot coriander series of products---massage oil, body washes, scrubs, etc. you know, the same aromatherapy line as the eucalyptus mint and lemongrass ginger and various other "fragrances" which remind me more of dessert or curry than cleaning putrid human bodies. not to say i don't like them, but at times i am tempted to eat a limb or at least a digit to see if i taste as good as the bottle smells. luckily i'm able to control this urge.
bergamot coriander is different. i don't understand why it's discontinued anymore than most people can understand my fascination with it. i first discovered it, in massage oil form, at a semi annual sale a year or two ago and fell deeply in love at first whiff. i scrabbled around the bins looking for any other products (let's face it; i don't get massaged with oil every day, or even every other day, or even with any frequency worth mentioning) but alas and alack! there were none to be found. to compound my feelings of woe, a very nice sales lady said, "oh, i think that's the last of it----it's discontinued."
oh the horror! if i were a soprano, i would shriek obscenely high notes at this very nice sales lady whilst collapsing on the spot, overcome by weakness from this dire news. if i were a tenor, i would croon a silky, yet sweet aria at her until she relented and gave up her secret bergamot coriander stash (i was sure she had one). if i were a hearty, stoic mezzo i might poke her with an epee just because i enjoyed vengeance. if i were a bass....well, i can't even begin to think like a bass. do basses think?
regardless, as a keyboardist my overflow of despair and heart-wrenching angst was manifested by lots of impotent fist-clenching. i brought home the lone bottle of massage oil and ruefully hoarded it, occasionally bringing it out for a quick sniff or two---just to tide me over. harmless fix, really. just a little bit more!!! but then...
my dearest friend (even more dear to me now) was at that smell store last week, as they are having their semi annual sale, and brought home three bottles of bergamot coriander BODY WASH! i was singing more alleluias than a catholic at easter! and tonight i bathed in it for the first time...oh what a combination of fresh acidity and musky sensuality! oh what an oasis of luxury for a nose parched in a desert of sewage! (cleveland's fault, not mine). if i were a soprano, i would shriek obscenely high notes of pleasure whilst collapsing on the spot, overcome by sheer hedonistic happiness. it's funny; it doesn't matter what they feel, they always do the same thing.
for the last half hour i have been rolling around in bed, trying to sniff random body parts (the back of my knee, the small of my back) and i'm always struck with amazement that THAT PLACE SMELLS GOOD TOO. i am in love with my smell. i can't get enough of me. i can see it now: i tuck myself into a fetal position as i inhale my gorgeous scent, and i never resurface for bland air. over time my hair and nails grow long and the gods pity me, turning me into a brown bush with black trim that smells fantastic! and a museum will buy me for my oddly human features and of course, my scent, and i will be known as The Jo. and hundreds of years later, whenever a human tucks into a fetal position, they will be doing The Jo. or if someone finds a brown bush with black trim, fragrant or not, it will be called The Jo. and then eventually a person with a smell fetish will be called a Joist, and everyone will want to plant Jo hedges and hold Jo-growing contests, or Jo-cultivation conferences, and my name will live on through all eternity, all owing to one fortuitous semi annual sale.
at any rate, that smell store is the one which USED to sell a bergamot coriander series of products---massage oil, body washes, scrubs, etc. you know, the same aromatherapy line as the eucalyptus mint and lemongrass ginger and various other "fragrances" which remind me more of dessert or curry than cleaning putrid human bodies. not to say i don't like them, but at times i am tempted to eat a limb or at least a digit to see if i taste as good as the bottle smells. luckily i'm able to control this urge.
bergamot coriander is different. i don't understand why it's discontinued anymore than most people can understand my fascination with it. i first discovered it, in massage oil form, at a semi annual sale a year or two ago and fell deeply in love at first whiff. i scrabbled around the bins looking for any other products (let's face it; i don't get massaged with oil every day, or even every other day, or even with any frequency worth mentioning) but alas and alack! there were none to be found. to compound my feelings of woe, a very nice sales lady said, "oh, i think that's the last of it----it's discontinued."
oh the horror! if i were a soprano, i would shriek obscenely high notes at this very nice sales lady whilst collapsing on the spot, overcome by weakness from this dire news. if i were a tenor, i would croon a silky, yet sweet aria at her until she relented and gave up her secret bergamot coriander stash (i was sure she had one). if i were a hearty, stoic mezzo i might poke her with an epee just because i enjoyed vengeance. if i were a bass....well, i can't even begin to think like a bass. do basses think?
regardless, as a keyboardist my overflow of despair and heart-wrenching angst was manifested by lots of impotent fist-clenching. i brought home the lone bottle of massage oil and ruefully hoarded it, occasionally bringing it out for a quick sniff or two---just to tide me over. harmless fix, really. just a little bit more!!! but then...
my dearest friend (even more dear to me now) was at that smell store last week, as they are having their semi annual sale, and brought home three bottles of bergamot coriander BODY WASH! i was singing more alleluias than a catholic at easter! and tonight i bathed in it for the first time...oh what a combination of fresh acidity and musky sensuality! oh what an oasis of luxury for a nose parched in a desert of sewage! (cleveland's fault, not mine). if i were a soprano, i would shriek obscenely high notes of pleasure whilst collapsing on the spot, overcome by sheer hedonistic happiness. it's funny; it doesn't matter what they feel, they always do the same thing.
for the last half hour i have been rolling around in bed, trying to sniff random body parts (the back of my knee, the small of my back) and i'm always struck with amazement that THAT PLACE SMELLS GOOD TOO. i am in love with my smell. i can't get enough of me. i can see it now: i tuck myself into a fetal position as i inhale my gorgeous scent, and i never resurface for bland air. over time my hair and nails grow long and the gods pity me, turning me into a brown bush with black trim that smells fantastic! and a museum will buy me for my oddly human features and of course, my scent, and i will be known as The Jo. and hundreds of years later, whenever a human tucks into a fetal position, they will be doing The Jo. or if someone finds a brown bush with black trim, fragrant or not, it will be called The Jo. and then eventually a person with a smell fetish will be called a Joist, and everyone will want to plant Jo hedges and hold Jo-growing contests, or Jo-cultivation conferences, and my name will live on through all eternity, all owing to one fortuitous semi annual sale.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
'Ole Mole
i love this title for its versatility. for example:
1) replace ' with "wh" and you get Whole Mole, as in an entire furry creature that plagues gardeners.
2) replace ' with "h" and it's Hole Mole, as in a mole hole.
3) pronounce the single "e" as a double "ee" and get "Holee Molee," which is scarily similar to Holy Moly.
4) pronounce it as a spaniard would and you have "Olay Molay," which is scarily similar to the anglo expression "Holy Moly."
so is this blog about moles the unit of measurement, moles the furry animal, moles the mexican sauces, whole holes, holy wholes, or the annoying cheerleaders of the english language, those perky, flexible, ever-present homonyms?
i'll take "what is the most famous distinguishing mark of puebla, mexico, to an uncultured american-centric oaf like myself?" for $46.78.
if you've never had a great mole poblano, i can now officially pity you, as i have finally had a great one myself. a week ago i could only say that i had disappointing moles, some of which tasted only of chocolate and others that tasted like spiced mud. it is funny to me when people refer to mole poblano as "that mexican chocolate sauce," given that the recipe i attempted called for 6 ounces of chocolate vs 20 dried chiles, 1 lb tomatoes, 1 lb tomatillos, plantains, etc. at the risk of making a completely inappropriate analogy, does having a tiny percentage of chocolate make it a chocolate sauce just as being 1/16 black makes one a "colored person?"
i confess: it was egullet.org, combined with too much time and boredom, that prompted me to tackle this 7 hour recipe. a $46.78 trip to the grocery later, i had all the ingredients i needed plus fresca and diet gingerale for hydration.
the recipe consists of a lot of toasting, poaching, blending (in a food processor), sauteeing. there was only one truly frightening moment: frying the chile puree. commentary had warned, "exploding chiles all over my kitchen! cover well!" this was shortly after i had delved deep into the gumbo archives on egullet and had learned that the roux i'd been making for 5 years or so is also known as "cajun napalm." apparently roux sticks to everything and can burn down to the bone --- as one poster wrote, "as i washed the burn under water my skin came peeling off, then flesh, exposing bone." yowch. in horrified shock, i combined the fear of toxic cajun napalm with the dread of burning hot chile puree and melted into a neurotic mess. this is partly why the process took two days: 1 day prep, 1 night to build up my courage, day 2 storm the fort.
and storm the fort i did. two potholders that went down to my elbow. ratty old tshirt that wouldn't complain if it looked like a bloody battlefield and tasted like a bloody mary (extra hot!) not one, but TWO splashguards. glasses to protect my eyes. long wooden spatula, AND i placed the pot on the back burner, just to be safe. and then pouring the puree....
"BOOM! BAM! whop! FOOM! PSSSSHHH! hisssssssssssssssss! CRUK! FOW! whrrrrrrrrm!"
was how everyone else had described it. but no, my pot went a bit like this: "pssssssssssssssss."
that was it! a sort of disgruntled murmur, and then acquiescence. a deflating balloon. a fish peeing in the sea. dumping the trinity in roux (for gumbo) created more of a fuss. adding cream to caramel was like gettysburg compared to this! WHAT??!!! i felt betrayed by the potency of my chile puree. i wanted a do-over. i wanted to throttle each little ancho, pasilla, and guajillo pepper and cry, "I TOASTED YOU WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! I LOVINGLY DESEEDED AND DESTEMMED YOU! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME????!!!!!"
so then i stripped myself of all my protective gear and ran to check the recipe.
oh.
see, frying the chile puree calls for 1/2 cup. i had memorized this as 1/4. then i thought, well to avoid all that oil, i'll just reduce it by a little bit, say, 2 tablespoons instead of 3.
in the end there just wasn't enough oil to bite back like it should have.
nevertheless, my mole still kicks butt. as in, your butt. as in, all of your butts that have never made a mole poblano FROM SCRATCH before, which i'm pretty sure is all of your butts. and next time, i promise.....
FOOM!
1) replace ' with "wh" and you get Whole Mole, as in an entire furry creature that plagues gardeners.
2) replace ' with "h" and it's Hole Mole, as in a mole hole.
3) pronounce the single "e" as a double "ee" and get "Holee Molee," which is scarily similar to Holy Moly.
4) pronounce it as a spaniard would and you have "Olay Molay," which is scarily similar to the anglo expression "Holy Moly."
so is this blog about moles the unit of measurement, moles the furry animal, moles the mexican sauces, whole holes, holy wholes, or the annoying cheerleaders of the english language, those perky, flexible, ever-present homonyms?
i'll take "what is the most famous distinguishing mark of puebla, mexico, to an uncultured american-centric oaf like myself?" for $46.78.
if you've never had a great mole poblano, i can now officially pity you, as i have finally had a great one myself. a week ago i could only say that i had disappointing moles, some of which tasted only of chocolate and others that tasted like spiced mud. it is funny to me when people refer to mole poblano as "that mexican chocolate sauce," given that the recipe i attempted called for 6 ounces of chocolate vs 20 dried chiles, 1 lb tomatoes, 1 lb tomatillos, plantains, etc. at the risk of making a completely inappropriate analogy, does having a tiny percentage of chocolate make it a chocolate sauce just as being 1/16 black makes one a "colored person?"
i confess: it was egullet.org, combined with too much time and boredom, that prompted me to tackle this 7 hour recipe. a $46.78 trip to the grocery later, i had all the ingredients i needed plus fresca and diet gingerale for hydration.
the recipe consists of a lot of toasting, poaching, blending (in a food processor), sauteeing. there was only one truly frightening moment: frying the chile puree. commentary had warned, "exploding chiles all over my kitchen! cover well!" this was shortly after i had delved deep into the gumbo archives on egullet and had learned that the roux i'd been making for 5 years or so is also known as "cajun napalm." apparently roux sticks to everything and can burn down to the bone --- as one poster wrote, "as i washed the burn under water my skin came peeling off, then flesh, exposing bone." yowch. in horrified shock, i combined the fear of toxic cajun napalm with the dread of burning hot chile puree and melted into a neurotic mess. this is partly why the process took two days: 1 day prep, 1 night to build up my courage, day 2 storm the fort.
and storm the fort i did. two potholders that went down to my elbow. ratty old tshirt that wouldn't complain if it looked like a bloody battlefield and tasted like a bloody mary (extra hot!) not one, but TWO splashguards. glasses to protect my eyes. long wooden spatula, AND i placed the pot on the back burner, just to be safe. and then pouring the puree....
"BOOM! BAM! whop! FOOM! PSSSSHHH! hisssssssssssssssss! CRUK! FOW! whrrrrrrrrm!"
was how everyone else had described it. but no, my pot went a bit like this: "pssssssssssssssss."
that was it! a sort of disgruntled murmur, and then acquiescence. a deflating balloon. a fish peeing in the sea. dumping the trinity in roux (for gumbo) created more of a fuss. adding cream to caramel was like gettysburg compared to this! WHAT??!!! i felt betrayed by the potency of my chile puree. i wanted a do-over. i wanted to throttle each little ancho, pasilla, and guajillo pepper and cry, "I TOASTED YOU WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! I LOVINGLY DESEEDED AND DESTEMMED YOU! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME????!!!!!"
so then i stripped myself of all my protective gear and ran to check the recipe.
oh.
see, frying the chile puree calls for 1/2 cup. i had memorized this as 1/4. then i thought, well to avoid all that oil, i'll just reduce it by a little bit, say, 2 tablespoons instead of 3.
in the end there just wasn't enough oil to bite back like it should have.
nevertheless, my mole still kicks butt. as in, your butt. as in, all of your butts that have never made a mole poblano FROM SCRATCH before, which i'm pretty sure is all of your butts. and next time, i promise.....
FOOM!
Friday, May 25, 2007
Non-tetrapod chordate-ing...
...is my new hobby. admittedly, i wear hobbies like most women wear handbags, but in this case if time allows it, it just might stick like that coach bag no woman can ever give up.
my first experience with non-tetrapod chordate-catching was with my dad, in my youth, using stinkbait for catfish. i do not remember much about the trip except for the stench in the minivan, catching a hook through my left index finger, and casting my very first cast into a tree on a sandbar (non-rescuable, line was cut, game was over, i was sad). i could not have been more than 10, and the shame and pain of that single failed cast has haunted me until....
well, four days ago, to be exact. that was when we boldly marched into a lodge of a west virginia campground at 8 in the morning, bought our licenses, received somewhat confused instructions on how to reach the closest bait and tackle shop, bought poles and minnows and nightcrawlers, and began our journey to angler-dom.
we didn't get to start until 9:30...admittedly late for fishing, but the most pressing issue when we began was how on earth to drive a sharp metal point through a tiny gasping fish, or how to cut a wriggling, angry nightcrawler into pieces to then be skewered on this point. we were a comical mess, using latex gloves to avoid sliminess and dropping bait and generally looking like citified fools. but then....the first cast!
after a while we were joined by a very old, adorable, west virginia couple. they had been married for 58 years, and i assume for the last 50 years the wife would talk and the husband would nod his head sagely and say, "mmmmmmmmmhm!" occasionally he would laugh, or mention that he had been stationed in texas in the war ("that's dubya dubya two," his wife chimed in) but mostly he sat back and would intone, "mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
"who's the better fisherman?"
"i am....i catch all the big ones."
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"honey, cast over there----i kin see that big black bass jes' lookin' at me. no! not over THERE----here....no, that's too far out, do it agin!"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"i don't bait my own hooks, ya know, i don't like all them worms. i make him do it fer me."
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
"you two girls should come on down to parkersburg...you'd have fun, we've got like what, honey, 60 restaurants?"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"well you have fun and good luck, it was nice meetin' ya'll, have a good trip!"
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
a black bass and 4 bluegills later, i'd say it was a good trip.
"mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
my first experience with non-tetrapod chordate-catching was with my dad, in my youth, using stinkbait for catfish. i do not remember much about the trip except for the stench in the minivan, catching a hook through my left index finger, and casting my very first cast into a tree on a sandbar (non-rescuable, line was cut, game was over, i was sad). i could not have been more than 10, and the shame and pain of that single failed cast has haunted me until....
well, four days ago, to be exact. that was when we boldly marched into a lodge of a west virginia campground at 8 in the morning, bought our licenses, received somewhat confused instructions on how to reach the closest bait and tackle shop, bought poles and minnows and nightcrawlers, and began our journey to angler-dom.
we didn't get to start until 9:30...admittedly late for fishing, but the most pressing issue when we began was how on earth to drive a sharp metal point through a tiny gasping fish, or how to cut a wriggling, angry nightcrawler into pieces to then be skewered on this point. we were a comical mess, using latex gloves to avoid sliminess and dropping bait and generally looking like citified fools. but then....the first cast!
after a while we were joined by a very old, adorable, west virginia couple. they had been married for 58 years, and i assume for the last 50 years the wife would talk and the husband would nod his head sagely and say, "mmmmmmmmmhm!" occasionally he would laugh, or mention that he had been stationed in texas in the war ("that's dubya dubya two," his wife chimed in) but mostly he sat back and would intone, "mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
"who's the better fisherman?"
"i am....i catch all the big ones."
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"honey, cast over there----i kin see that big black bass jes' lookin' at me. no! not over THERE----here....no, that's too far out, do it agin!"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"i don't bait my own hooks, ya know, i don't like all them worms. i make him do it fer me."
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
"you two girls should come on down to parkersburg...you'd have fun, we've got like what, honey, 60 restaurants?"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"well you have fun and good luck, it was nice meetin' ya'll, have a good trip!"
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
a black bass and 4 bluegills later, i'd say it was a good trip.
"mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Gaming, dude
i admit: i am a secret gamer.
secret because if i were to admit this...addiction (i'm feeling honest), non-gamers would scorn me and true gamers would deride me for my faux-gamer-ness. i would hang in societal limbo (despite the pope!) between the cool, normal people who don't communicate solely in acronyms and the cool, nerdy virtual people who manage to come across as casanova AND einstein simultaneously online.
no, my gaming habit brings me neither profound joy nor copious amounts of virtual women wanting to form virtual relationships. usually it is done in the morning, alone, as a sort of catharsis from all those creepy, non-cathartic dreams i had the night before. and usually the game is one that came as a free demo on my computer, FATE.
FATE's premise is idiotic, quite frankly. you are given various missions, which invariably consist of killing various monsters, and you can choose from assorted hairstyles, names, faces, and pets to make your character. well, two pets: a dog and a cat. even with my best efforts, i could not get the pet colors to change (hey, if you can change your hair color, you should be able to change fur color)....no, the cat is hopelessly ginger, and the dog benignly white and brown. this pet cannot die. it can "flee" when its life is low, which means that it runs in maddening aimless curlicues around you while you are being pummeled to death, but it is, in fact, immortal. you can "perish," but you can also pay to have your life restored. besides immortality, your pet is also endowed with a ridiculous amount of strength (it can carry a pack that's the same size as yours) and the uncanny ability to morph into bizarre creatures if it eats certain fish. oh yes, and you can fish in this game. you must have a pole, naturally, but no fishing license....you simply drop the hook, and when an exclamation point appears above your head, accompanied by a "thwuk," you have approximately 1.146267 seconds to press "set the hook." if your reflexes are just right, "you just caught a fish!" and much jubilation is allowed.
i spend a good portion of my time faux-fishing.
but i do enjoy hacking things to bits. mindlessly, of course---the great thing about FATE is that nothing looks remotely humanoid, so you needn't think. here is a list (not comprehensive, as in demo mode i cannot progress past level 3):
1) nocturne stalker: a purple tiger
2) nocturne fungus: a purple giant mushroom
3) myconid: a pink giant mushroom
4) topaz, emerald, ruby gels: giant blobs named for gems for inexplicable reasons
5) noxious gel: the toughest gel to kill; unlike the others it can poison you
6) goblin: green semi-human thing
7) goblin scout: bigger than the goblin, and blue
8) bat: a bat
9) rat: a rat. there are also sewer rats, which are bigger.
10) skeleton: a skeleton; diabolically fast and difficult to kill without magic
11) timberwolf: a timberwolf
12) gnoll: big and blue with a tail
13) bugbear: big and brown, no tail
14) kobold: imagine a rhinoceros walking upright
15) wereboar: smaller, brown, 25% fire weakness
16) tunnel crawler: a long creepy caterpillar. this one gives me nightmares
17) mottled lurker, creeping widow, tunnel spider: various spiders.
18) mummy: not to be confused with...
19) zombie: one of these is immune to basically all magic. i just let my minions finish them off so as to not confuse myself and accidentally wind up dead.
20) forest imps and imp shaman: they generally appear in groups of 3 to 4, with one imp shaman at their head that can do things to you like slow you down or electrocute you. short and green with orange hair, or in the case of the shaman, a magenta-ish color with dark purple hair.
21) basilisk: giant green lizard that breathes something that looks like purple bubbles.
so my mornings run thusly: roll to my right side and reach for the laptop on the floor, place laptop on stomach with knees propping it up. turn on computer, open FATE. pick one of three previous games i have started, or trash them and begin anew. fish. travel into the dungeon and use spells to create rat, spider, and skeleton minions (6 allowed at a time). feed my pet a fish so it turns into a "dire unicorn" or my favorite, "the brain beast" (literally, a giant brain on legs with two flapping tentacles). poke a few gels with my choice of spears, or whale on a kobold with my trusty bone club. feel immense satisfation at having slaughtered a walking rhinoceros with naught but a piece of bone. commence the day.
secret because if i were to admit this...addiction (i'm feeling honest), non-gamers would scorn me and true gamers would deride me for my faux-gamer-ness. i would hang in societal limbo (despite the pope!) between the cool, normal people who don't communicate solely in acronyms and the cool, nerdy virtual people who manage to come across as casanova AND einstein simultaneously online.
no, my gaming habit brings me neither profound joy nor copious amounts of virtual women wanting to form virtual relationships. usually it is done in the morning, alone, as a sort of catharsis from all those creepy, non-cathartic dreams i had the night before. and usually the game is one that came as a free demo on my computer, FATE.
FATE's premise is idiotic, quite frankly. you are given various missions, which invariably consist of killing various monsters, and you can choose from assorted hairstyles, names, faces, and pets to make your character. well, two pets: a dog and a cat. even with my best efforts, i could not get the pet colors to change (hey, if you can change your hair color, you should be able to change fur color)....no, the cat is hopelessly ginger, and the dog benignly white and brown. this pet cannot die. it can "flee" when its life is low, which means that it runs in maddening aimless curlicues around you while you are being pummeled to death, but it is, in fact, immortal. you can "perish," but you can also pay to have your life restored. besides immortality, your pet is also endowed with a ridiculous amount of strength (it can carry a pack that's the same size as yours) and the uncanny ability to morph into bizarre creatures if it eats certain fish. oh yes, and you can fish in this game. you must have a pole, naturally, but no fishing license....you simply drop the hook, and when an exclamation point appears above your head, accompanied by a "thwuk," you have approximately 1.146267 seconds to press "set the hook." if your reflexes are just right, "you just caught a fish!" and much jubilation is allowed.
i spend a good portion of my time faux-fishing.
but i do enjoy hacking things to bits. mindlessly, of course---the great thing about FATE is that nothing looks remotely humanoid, so you needn't think. here is a list (not comprehensive, as in demo mode i cannot progress past level 3):
1) nocturne stalker: a purple tiger
2) nocturne fungus: a purple giant mushroom
3) myconid: a pink giant mushroom
4) topaz, emerald, ruby gels: giant blobs named for gems for inexplicable reasons
5) noxious gel: the toughest gel to kill; unlike the others it can poison you
6) goblin: green semi-human thing
7) goblin scout: bigger than the goblin, and blue
8) bat: a bat
9) rat: a rat. there are also sewer rats, which are bigger.
10) skeleton: a skeleton; diabolically fast and difficult to kill without magic
11) timberwolf: a timberwolf
12) gnoll: big and blue with a tail
13) bugbear: big and brown, no tail
14) kobold: imagine a rhinoceros walking upright
15) wereboar: smaller, brown, 25% fire weakness
16) tunnel crawler: a long creepy caterpillar. this one gives me nightmares
17) mottled lurker, creeping widow, tunnel spider: various spiders.
18) mummy: not to be confused with...
19) zombie: one of these is immune to basically all magic. i just let my minions finish them off so as to not confuse myself and accidentally wind up dead.
20) forest imps and imp shaman: they generally appear in groups of 3 to 4, with one imp shaman at their head that can do things to you like slow you down or electrocute you. short and green with orange hair, or in the case of the shaman, a magenta-ish color with dark purple hair.
21) basilisk: giant green lizard that breathes something that looks like purple bubbles.
so my mornings run thusly: roll to my right side and reach for the laptop on the floor, place laptop on stomach with knees propping it up. turn on computer, open FATE. pick one of three previous games i have started, or trash them and begin anew. fish. travel into the dungeon and use spells to create rat, spider, and skeleton minions (6 allowed at a time). feed my pet a fish so it turns into a "dire unicorn" or my favorite, "the brain beast" (literally, a giant brain on legs with two flapping tentacles). poke a few gels with my choice of spears, or whale on a kobold with my trusty bone club. feel immense satisfation at having slaughtered a walking rhinoceros with naught but a piece of bone. commence the day.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Endeavors in Wine
Water? check
Sugar? check
Yeast? check
Orange and lemon? check check
Yellow blossoms of a common weed?
er, hang on a minute.
two hours later i returned home, triumphant, with 2 quarts of dandelion blossoms i had harvested from a nearby cemetery. actually, this cemetery is supposed to be quite well-known, and john d rockefeller himself is buried there. to show my respect i picked his grave clean.
peeled (only the yellow bits are useful), boiled, and steeping, the dandelions look awful, to be honest. luckily they don't smell yet, for while my roommate has been somewhat tolerant of my experiments thus far, she did wrinkle her nose in utter disdain at the cheesecloth-covered browning vat of goo on the kitchen counter. just wait until i add the yeast! one more day....
a few days ago i attended a party that consisted mostly of singers. now, classical musicians are known for their inclination to drink, and singers are known for exercising stupidity to excess. being the intellectual keyboardist i am, i glumly sat in a room filled with much nonsensical hilarity. i cannot drink alcohol (which just goes to show that dandelion wine is purely a curiosity), so i was left admiring furniture, cds, the ceiling, the dying fern in the corner, and finally the wine corks that were being mysteriously thrown in my direction.
being an incurable collector (see Papers!) i was shoving corks into my pockets until my hips looked like chipmunk cheeks (a most attractive characteristic, i must say). i brought them all home and thought, what do i do with you?
the next morning, at approximately 3 am, i awoke to my cat playing as happily amongst the corks as a toddler in a pile of raked leaves. after 30 minutes of aural torture, and a sound oddly similar to a feline choking on a slightly spongy cylindrical object, i thought, i must toss you out the window (with the feline following) or i must somehow render you immobile. i graciously opted for the latter.
so now i'm doing what i once swore i would never do: making a cork board. see, i'm not a wine connoisseur--though i read about it occasionally, being unable to taste it effectively negates whatever knowledge i acquire. opinions are useless in a vacuum. however, at the risk of appearing that i am posing as a oenophile, i am assembling a cork board out of the music school's prolific refuse simply because i cannot bear throwing anything away.
if all goes well, in one year you can come by and we'll pop open a bottle of amber, sweet, flowery wine, pour it into glasses, and place them on cork-board coasters that i store on a cork-board tray. and i can lie about all the $100 bottles of wine i have personally consumed, and you can lie about my phenomenal winemaking prowess, and we can while away a perfectly mediocre evening whilst secretly longing for that diet dr. pepper in the fridge, and for a cork collection that doesn't consist entirely of bottles $15 or less.
Sugar? check
Yeast? check
Orange and lemon? check check
Yellow blossoms of a common weed?
er, hang on a minute.
two hours later i returned home, triumphant, with 2 quarts of dandelion blossoms i had harvested from a nearby cemetery. actually, this cemetery is supposed to be quite well-known, and john d rockefeller himself is buried there. to show my respect i picked his grave clean.
peeled (only the yellow bits are useful), boiled, and steeping, the dandelions look awful, to be honest. luckily they don't smell yet, for while my roommate has been somewhat tolerant of my experiments thus far, she did wrinkle her nose in utter disdain at the cheesecloth-covered browning vat of goo on the kitchen counter. just wait until i add the yeast! one more day....
a few days ago i attended a party that consisted mostly of singers. now, classical musicians are known for their inclination to drink, and singers are known for exercising stupidity to excess. being the intellectual keyboardist i am, i glumly sat in a room filled with much nonsensical hilarity. i cannot drink alcohol (which just goes to show that dandelion wine is purely a curiosity), so i was left admiring furniture, cds, the ceiling, the dying fern in the corner, and finally the wine corks that were being mysteriously thrown in my direction.
being an incurable collector (see Papers!) i was shoving corks into my pockets until my hips looked like chipmunk cheeks (a most attractive characteristic, i must say). i brought them all home and thought, what do i do with you?
the next morning, at approximately 3 am, i awoke to my cat playing as happily amongst the corks as a toddler in a pile of raked leaves. after 30 minutes of aural torture, and a sound oddly similar to a feline choking on a slightly spongy cylindrical object, i thought, i must toss you out the window (with the feline following) or i must somehow render you immobile. i graciously opted for the latter.
so now i'm doing what i once swore i would never do: making a cork board. see, i'm not a wine connoisseur--though i read about it occasionally, being unable to taste it effectively negates whatever knowledge i acquire. opinions are useless in a vacuum. however, at the risk of appearing that i am posing as a oenophile, i am assembling a cork board out of the music school's prolific refuse simply because i cannot bear throwing anything away.
if all goes well, in one year you can come by and we'll pop open a bottle of amber, sweet, flowery wine, pour it into glasses, and place them on cork-board coasters that i store on a cork-board tray. and i can lie about all the $100 bottles of wine i have personally consumed, and you can lie about my phenomenal winemaking prowess, and we can while away a perfectly mediocre evening whilst secretly longing for that diet dr. pepper in the fridge, and for a cork collection that doesn't consist entirely of bottles $15 or less.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Papers!
ever since i can remember, which is pretty far back (i remember having the impulse to hug one of the legs of our grand piano when it was moved in, when i was only a year old) i have had a fascination with paper.
so much so that instead of majoring in music, i did consider majoring in chemical engineering, with an emphasis in paper sciences. i still might do it.
now, this is not an undiscriminating love of paper. i don't lust over coupon clippings, for example, or junk mail, or paper napkins and plates. i collect glossy magazine pages only for very specific purposes. but then there are the papers i simply cannot toss without sustaining a twinge of pain:
smooth typing paper---color, weight, and grain irrelevant
brown bags---again, weight and grain irrelevant
cardstock, corrugated cardboard, regular cardboard
then there are those that i lust for, with a rabidly perverse fervor that frightens and confounds all who must share my abode:
mulberry paper
rice paper (not the edible kind, silly, the kind made from bamboo)
oiled paper
marbled paper
cotton rag paper
papyrus, parchment, and vellum!!!!!!! (multiple exclamations points are used to convey enthusiasm)
i can recall several significant childhood memories centering on paper.
1) i had just learned to make origami boats from regular, 8.5 x 11 typing paper. i had just learned that columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. i tried to make my boat sail in my bathtub, but alas, it turned into a nasty mess. on the other hand, water stayed away from wax! i spent months, literally MONTHS, secretly shaving my crayons (and anybody else's) and hoarding up the shavings in a box under my bed. i preferred gold to reflect the royal stature i was sure my boat deserved. the idea was to coat my boat with shavings, subject it to heat, let cool, and then sail my newly-improved, crayon-coated paper boat. alas, i feared my mother too much to use the microwave, and upon using a lighter my boat burst into flames. it was the first of many disappointments.
2) i believe i was 10, with the assignment to make a house for science class. being as environmentally-friendly as i was, i was determined to make a paper house. plan A was to meticulously fold bits of paper and glue them together to make bricks. then i would make a papier-mache slurry to use as mortar. unfortunately i began this process approximately 36 hours before the house was due. 12 hours later i had enough bricks for one 2-inch tall wall. i resolved to complete the project later, for my own personal satisfaction, and work on plan B to make the deadline.
plan B consisted of using only papier-mache to shape my walls. each wall would be formed, oven-dried, and then assembled to make my house. nevermind that this left the house without any windows, or even a door. success!!!.....in a way. the walls were complete, but my papier mache mixture had begun to mold and so the house smelled rank. they also were not structurally sound enough to stand straight, and of course, the walls didn't fit exactly. and yet i was elated by the feeling of CREATING, until my mother casually asked: "won't a paper house fall apart in the rain?"
now, i remembered the crayon fiasco and was determined not to set my crooked moldy paper box on fire. i had gotten so far already! i racked my brain for solutions. i could cheat and glue milk carton panels to the outside (they were waterproof!) but i wanted everyone to see the work i had done. i didn't want to CONCEAL the papier mache, for heaven's sake. so i seriously, studiously, and meticulously went on to wrap the entire house in saran wrap.
i think ms. cherry gave me an A out of sheer pity.
3) playing with paper was not enough. i had to make it. i had heard of how it was made---you could do it the hard way, and cook down tree branches and other plant matter, or cut up rags and use the fibers, but my mother wouldn't donate her pots nor her clothing to the cause. the easy way was to take paper and shred it up. i had done this at school with coffee cans, but i didn't want useless small rounds of recycled newsprint. i was dreaming big (i was also dreaming of tanning leather with my own urine, but that's another post)....i wanted to make huge, gaudy sheets of it. step one was easy, as i had several shoeboxes of contraband shredded paper underneath my bed. step two, soaking, as easy as well, as water was free and plentiful. but step three required procuring a large screen, and this proved difficult.
the only screen i could think of were window screens. unfortunately, we had NONE---except for the one in the patio door. now, how could i possibly trick my father into giving me one, or at least into replacing one so that we had an extra one i could pilfer for my own purposes?
"dad, the patio door looks dirty."
"really?"
"yeah, the screen part. it's all black. i think we should get a new one."
"they come in black."
"oh." (damn!)
now, a bit unrelated: my dearly beloved friend is singing an aria declaring war on bureaucracy and the system. it is an impassioned plea for justice and mercy that stems from frustration, despair, and tragedy. and one of the highlights is: "all you give me is papers!!!"
i couldn't help but smile a little.
for the record, i now have approximately 6 square feet of windowscreen, 4 shoeboxes of shredded paper, 1 large box of magazine paper, 1 enormous box of handmade paper with various projects, 12 cereal boxes, 1 container of bamboo pieces, cat hair, and onion skins, and countless stacks and rolls and scraps of various papers all happily tucked underneath my bed.
oh yes, and one jar of crayon shavings.
so much so that instead of majoring in music, i did consider majoring in chemical engineering, with an emphasis in paper sciences. i still might do it.
now, this is not an undiscriminating love of paper. i don't lust over coupon clippings, for example, or junk mail, or paper napkins and plates. i collect glossy magazine pages only for very specific purposes. but then there are the papers i simply cannot toss without sustaining a twinge of pain:
smooth typing paper---color, weight, and grain irrelevant
brown bags---again, weight and grain irrelevant
cardstock, corrugated cardboard, regular cardboard
then there are those that i lust for, with a rabidly perverse fervor that frightens and confounds all who must share my abode:
mulberry paper
rice paper (not the edible kind, silly, the kind made from bamboo)
oiled paper
marbled paper
cotton rag paper
papyrus, parchment, and vellum!!!!!!! (multiple exclamations points are used to convey enthusiasm)
i can recall several significant childhood memories centering on paper.
1) i had just learned to make origami boats from regular, 8.5 x 11 typing paper. i had just learned that columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. i tried to make my boat sail in my bathtub, but alas, it turned into a nasty mess. on the other hand, water stayed away from wax! i spent months, literally MONTHS, secretly shaving my crayons (and anybody else's) and hoarding up the shavings in a box under my bed. i preferred gold to reflect the royal stature i was sure my boat deserved. the idea was to coat my boat with shavings, subject it to heat, let cool, and then sail my newly-improved, crayon-coated paper boat. alas, i feared my mother too much to use the microwave, and upon using a lighter my boat burst into flames. it was the first of many disappointments.
2) i believe i was 10, with the assignment to make a house for science class. being as environmentally-friendly as i was, i was determined to make a paper house. plan A was to meticulously fold bits of paper and glue them together to make bricks. then i would make a papier-mache slurry to use as mortar. unfortunately i began this process approximately 36 hours before the house was due. 12 hours later i had enough bricks for one 2-inch tall wall. i resolved to complete the project later, for my own personal satisfaction, and work on plan B to make the deadline.
plan B consisted of using only papier-mache to shape my walls. each wall would be formed, oven-dried, and then assembled to make my house. nevermind that this left the house without any windows, or even a door. success!!!.....in a way. the walls were complete, but my papier mache mixture had begun to mold and so the house smelled rank. they also were not structurally sound enough to stand straight, and of course, the walls didn't fit exactly. and yet i was elated by the feeling of CREATING, until my mother casually asked: "won't a paper house fall apart in the rain?"
now, i remembered the crayon fiasco and was determined not to set my crooked moldy paper box on fire. i had gotten so far already! i racked my brain for solutions. i could cheat and glue milk carton panels to the outside (they were waterproof!) but i wanted everyone to see the work i had done. i didn't want to CONCEAL the papier mache, for heaven's sake. so i seriously, studiously, and meticulously went on to wrap the entire house in saran wrap.
i think ms. cherry gave me an A out of sheer pity.
3) playing with paper was not enough. i had to make it. i had heard of how it was made---you could do it the hard way, and cook down tree branches and other plant matter, or cut up rags and use the fibers, but my mother wouldn't donate her pots nor her clothing to the cause. the easy way was to take paper and shred it up. i had done this at school with coffee cans, but i didn't want useless small rounds of recycled newsprint. i was dreaming big (i was also dreaming of tanning leather with my own urine, but that's another post)....i wanted to make huge, gaudy sheets of it. step one was easy, as i had several shoeboxes of contraband shredded paper underneath my bed. step two, soaking, as easy as well, as water was free and plentiful. but step three required procuring a large screen, and this proved difficult.
the only screen i could think of were window screens. unfortunately, we had NONE---except for the one in the patio door. now, how could i possibly trick my father into giving me one, or at least into replacing one so that we had an extra one i could pilfer for my own purposes?
"dad, the patio door looks dirty."
"really?"
"yeah, the screen part. it's all black. i think we should get a new one."
"they come in black."
"oh." (damn!)
now, a bit unrelated: my dearly beloved friend is singing an aria declaring war on bureaucracy and the system. it is an impassioned plea for justice and mercy that stems from frustration, despair, and tragedy. and one of the highlights is: "all you give me is papers!!!"
i couldn't help but smile a little.
for the record, i now have approximately 6 square feet of windowscreen, 4 shoeboxes of shredded paper, 1 large box of magazine paper, 1 enormous box of handmade paper with various projects, 12 cereal boxes, 1 container of bamboo pieces, cat hair, and onion skins, and countless stacks and rolls and scraps of various papers all happily tucked underneath my bed.
oh yes, and one jar of crayon shavings.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
yes, i know, millions of people probably posted that title on their blogs days ago, when kurt vonnegut passed. no, i didn't "steal" the idea, i'm just that sadly cliched. i remember being twelve and thinking i was brilliant because of this idea:
the statue of liberty holding an absolut bottle in her hand, instead of the torch, with the words ABSOLUT LIBERTY.
and then a friend gave me ABSOLUT BOOK as a gift, and i discovered that that's the most common unsolicited suggestion the campaign receives.
talk about feeling normal. mediocre. inartistic, inarticulate, un-extraordinary, un-uncommon, un-un-un-unusual (yes i counted the negatives, to make sure they properly canceled out).
whatever. as it is, if you want to peg me for my lack of creativity, i beat you to it. i win.
one of the local (by local, i mean in a neighboring corporate) libraries held a book sale recently. actually, it is still going on as i type. so what i REALLY mean is that i went to a book sale at a nearby town's library recently. gosh, clarity can be elusive.
here were a few of the finds:
1) bless me, ultima
2) a cd of the siete canciones of de falla, plus other stuff. obviously i purchased the cd for those 7 songs.
3) east of eden
4) the sound and the fury
5) an anthology of english renaissance literature
6) the armada
7) don quixote
8) a few bernard shaw plays
9) the man who ate everything
10) i searched for more vonnegut, but alas. in a splendid display of true human nature, when the man died his books were taken off the sales racks and placed solidly back on full-price, best-selling collections. it makes me wonder; were i to die soon, would more people suddenly read this blog?
it snowed yesterday. i was going to talk about how white and pure the snow looked, pure as an untouched virgin. but as we salt the crap out of the roads and drive all over the snow in our daily routines, i thought the analogy inappropriate unless you fancy salted, smashed virgin. instead, what we do to the snow is reminiscent of a tender, juicy chicken-fried steak, with extra gravy. unfortunately it does not comfort as chicken-fried steak does. it only depresses---and while i will admit that gorging oneself on chicken-fried steak can lead to severe regret and self-loathing after a rendezvous with the bathroom scale, snow does not even offer that grade of depression. it says, bleakly: "i will delay you 15 minutes every morning for you to scrape me off your car. i will come when you least expect it, forcing you to tromp through me in your flip-flops. i will fall just thick enough to cause trouble, but not enough to have a snow day. and i will come to kill your daffodils and tulips, and trigger your radiator so that your cats, who were deceived by good weather into sitting on the radiator to look out the window, will scald their paws and whiskers and fur and whine whine WHINE, so that you will want to kill them."
so it goes.
the statue of liberty holding an absolut bottle in her hand, instead of the torch, with the words ABSOLUT LIBERTY.
and then a friend gave me ABSOLUT BOOK as a gift, and i discovered that that's the most common unsolicited suggestion the campaign receives.
talk about feeling normal. mediocre. inartistic, inarticulate, un-extraordinary, un-uncommon, un-un-un-unusual (yes i counted the negatives, to make sure they properly canceled out).
whatever. as it is, if you want to peg me for my lack of creativity, i beat you to it. i win.
one of the local (by local, i mean in a neighboring corporate) libraries held a book sale recently. actually, it is still going on as i type. so what i REALLY mean is that i went to a book sale at a nearby town's library recently. gosh, clarity can be elusive.
here were a few of the finds:
1) bless me, ultima
2) a cd of the siete canciones of de falla, plus other stuff. obviously i purchased the cd for those 7 songs.
3) east of eden
4) the sound and the fury
5) an anthology of english renaissance literature
6) the armada
7) don quixote
8) a few bernard shaw plays
9) the man who ate everything
10) i searched for more vonnegut, but alas. in a splendid display of true human nature, when the man died his books were taken off the sales racks and placed solidly back on full-price, best-selling collections. it makes me wonder; were i to die soon, would more people suddenly read this blog?
it snowed yesterday. i was going to talk about how white and pure the snow looked, pure as an untouched virgin. but as we salt the crap out of the roads and drive all over the snow in our daily routines, i thought the analogy inappropriate unless you fancy salted, smashed virgin. instead, what we do to the snow is reminiscent of a tender, juicy chicken-fried steak, with extra gravy. unfortunately it does not comfort as chicken-fried steak does. it only depresses---and while i will admit that gorging oneself on chicken-fried steak can lead to severe regret and self-loathing after a rendezvous with the bathroom scale, snow does not even offer that grade of depression. it says, bleakly: "i will delay you 15 minutes every morning for you to scrape me off your car. i will come when you least expect it, forcing you to tromp through me in your flip-flops. i will fall just thick enough to cause trouble, but not enough to have a snow day. and i will come to kill your daffodils and tulips, and trigger your radiator so that your cats, who were deceived by good weather into sitting on the radiator to look out the window, will scald their paws and whiskers and fur and whine whine WHINE, so that you will want to kill them."
so it goes.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
I'm dreaming of a.....
white easter.
aye, it's snowing. not only is it snowing, the ground is still warm so it's melting, but it's 25 degrees here (without windchill) so it's refreezing. fun to drive, even more fun to brake.
of course, last week, in shameful optimism, i put away my snow boots. after all, the weather channel was at first predicting ONE day of snow, and ONE day of cold---just a short blip on the spring radar. alas.
what i'm particularly annoyed with is how a good portion of the easter vigil service is outside, and we have to light the flame (the return of christ) and make a little fire and all that. last year, in GOOD weather, it took multiple tries and a good 9-10 minutes...
i suppose i can always cram my parka underneath my choir robe.
aye, it's snowing. not only is it snowing, the ground is still warm so it's melting, but it's 25 degrees here (without windchill) so it's refreezing. fun to drive, even more fun to brake.
of course, last week, in shameful optimism, i put away my snow boots. after all, the weather channel was at first predicting ONE day of snow, and ONE day of cold---just a short blip on the spring radar. alas.
what i'm particularly annoyed with is how a good portion of the easter vigil service is outside, and we have to light the flame (the return of christ) and make a little fire and all that. last year, in GOOD weather, it took multiple tries and a good 9-10 minutes...
i suppose i can always cram my parka underneath my choir robe.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Egg humor
i'll be honest: i was only looking for ostrich egg recipes (1 ostrich egg = 22-24 chicken eggs) when i chanced upon these. but they were too good not to share.
the premise is that a lot of classic recipes named after musicians (anything tetrazzini, rossini, melba, for example) were centered around eggs. eggs berlioz. eggs bizet. eggs meyerbeer. real recipes that you can look up and actually make. but then it was noted that 20th century composers never make the list.....
Eggs Carter: Break an egg into a pan with a multitude of other ingredients, and place on the stove. Continually and simultaneously vary both the temperature and the cooking time. The dish is done when the aggregate intervals of the other ingredients allegorically crush the individuality of the egg.
Eggs Partch: Build your own oven. Calibrate both the thermostat and the timer to non-Western scales of your own invention. Then bake the eggs at 943 degrees for 17,000 minutes, or until the yolks are set. Top each egg with a slice of peyote.
Eggs Strauss: Give an egg to a singer. Cover with the orchestra.
Eggs Reich: Heat two pans to slightly different temperatures. Start frying two eggs, one in each pan, at the same time. As each egg is done, take it out and put in another one. Breakfast is over when the pans are back in phase.
Eggs Cage: Heat up your frying pan. Turn it off. Think about what not eating eggs tastes like.
Eggs Philip Glass: Would it get some eggs for the omelet. And it could get for it is. It could get the frying pan for these sous chefs. And it could be were it is. It could Emeril it could be Emeril it could be very fresh and clean. It could be a pancake
Eggs Mahler: Obtain 432 eggs. Claim you have a thousand. Cook as many of the eggs as time permits. Invite people over. When they've had enough eggs, give them some more eggs. This really only needs to be done about once every twelve years.
Eggs Babbitt: Insist that people would find your licorice, peanut butter and pocket lint omelet absolutely delicious if they only had been to advanced culinary school and "understood" it.
Eggs Satie: break an egg into a large glass of cognac. Repeat 841 times.
Eggs Boulez: Arrange a row of eggs; multiply the first three eggs by the second two eggs. Add butter and whip to a soupy but opaque consistency. By the way, cooking eggs any other way makes you inutile.
all i can say is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA!
the premise is that a lot of classic recipes named after musicians (anything tetrazzini, rossini, melba, for example) were centered around eggs. eggs berlioz. eggs bizet. eggs meyerbeer. real recipes that you can look up and actually make. but then it was noted that 20th century composers never make the list.....
Eggs Carter: Break an egg into a pan with a multitude of other ingredients, and place on the stove. Continually and simultaneously vary both the temperature and the cooking time. The dish is done when the aggregate intervals of the other ingredients allegorically crush the individuality of the egg.
Eggs Partch: Build your own oven. Calibrate both the thermostat and the timer to non-Western scales of your own invention. Then bake the eggs at 943 degrees for 17,000 minutes, or until the yolks are set. Top each egg with a slice of peyote.
Eggs Strauss: Give an egg to a singer. Cover with the orchestra.
Eggs Reich: Heat two pans to slightly different temperatures. Start frying two eggs, one in each pan, at the same time. As each egg is done, take it out and put in another one. Breakfast is over when the pans are back in phase.
Eggs Cage: Heat up your frying pan. Turn it off. Think about what not eating eggs tastes like.
Eggs Philip Glass: Would it get some eggs for the omelet. And it could get for it is. It could get the frying pan for these sous chefs. And it could be were it is. It could Emeril it could be Emeril it could be very fresh and clean. It could be a pancake
Eggs Mahler: Obtain 432 eggs. Claim you have a thousand. Cook as many of the eggs as time permits. Invite people over. When they've had enough eggs, give them some more eggs. This really only needs to be done about once every twelve years.
Eggs Babbitt: Insist that people would find your licorice, peanut butter and pocket lint omelet absolutely delicious if they only had been to advanced culinary school and "understood" it.
Eggs Satie: break an egg into a large glass of cognac. Repeat 841 times.
Eggs Boulez: Arrange a row of eggs; multiply the first three eggs by the second two eggs. Add butter and whip to a soupy but opaque consistency. By the way, cooking eggs any other way makes you inutile.
all i can say is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Frostbite
no, not me, silly. after all, it's 50 degrees outside. nevermind that it's supposed to snow over the weekend. palm sunday...i wonder how jesus would have reacted had the hebrews pelted him with snowballs instead of hailing him with palms.
no, the frostbite refers to the state of most things in my freezer (minus the crawfish tails!) after a very hectic week last week, i finally opened the freezer door to discover a few dehydrated, pale chunks that will take a brilliant mind to 1) identify and 2) make palatable again. see, as a poor college student (emphasize POOR), i do not have the luxury of tossing something out just because it has the consistency of pemmican (mmmm.) after all, if the tibetans can bravely dry an entire leg of yak outdoors and then gnaw the dried meat OFF THE BONE, so can i! here is a list of the jerkified relics to be found:
1) salmon. there was just enough orange peeking through all the white for me to guess that this was fish and not some horribly miscolored, misshapen steak. although you never know. i cannot decide between buttering the heck out of it in an effort to revive it, or simply tea-smoking it like my original plan.
2) "stir fry vegetables." apparently i opened a package of these handy, albeit untasty morsels a while back to save time. conveniently labeled for times like these! but despite my innate asian frugal nature, these will be donated to the confused squirrels outside who can't decide if the ground is thawed out enough to bury nuts.
3) pork rib? probably still frightening that i have thawed it out and still am not quite sure what it is. it doesn't smell bad, but it looks dreadful....the colors haven't changed much, but the surface is dry dry dry dry dry. i am hoping intensive braising might rehydrate it, or that i can use it as a soup bone.
4) tilapia! easily identifiable because it is whole, fins, head, tail, and all. this last item gave me some comfort----if in the odd event we were completely buried by a blizzard and we all died, and nobody could find the city of cleveland for 400 years, one lucky paleoanthropologist in the future would discover my freezer and write: "they ate REAL FOOD!"
no, the frostbite refers to the state of most things in my freezer (minus the crawfish tails!) after a very hectic week last week, i finally opened the freezer door to discover a few dehydrated, pale chunks that will take a brilliant mind to 1) identify and 2) make palatable again. see, as a poor college student (emphasize POOR), i do not have the luxury of tossing something out just because it has the consistency of pemmican (mmmm.) after all, if the tibetans can bravely dry an entire leg of yak outdoors and then gnaw the dried meat OFF THE BONE, so can i! here is a list of the jerkified relics to be found:
1) salmon. there was just enough orange peeking through all the white for me to guess that this was fish and not some horribly miscolored, misshapen steak. although you never know. i cannot decide between buttering the heck out of it in an effort to revive it, or simply tea-smoking it like my original plan.
2) "stir fry vegetables." apparently i opened a package of these handy, albeit untasty morsels a while back to save time. conveniently labeled for times like these! but despite my innate asian frugal nature, these will be donated to the confused squirrels outside who can't decide if the ground is thawed out enough to bury nuts.
3) pork rib? probably still frightening that i have thawed it out and still am not quite sure what it is. it doesn't smell bad, but it looks dreadful....the colors haven't changed much, but the surface is dry dry dry dry dry. i am hoping intensive braising might rehydrate it, or that i can use it as a soup bone.
4) tilapia! easily identifiable because it is whole, fins, head, tail, and all. this last item gave me some comfort----if in the odd event we were completely buried by a blizzard and we all died, and nobody could find the city of cleveland for 400 years, one lucky paleoanthropologist in the future would discover my freezer and write: "they ate REAL FOOD!"
Monday, March 26, 2007
Whole Foods
this blog is about all the things that DON'T keep me up at night---nothing deep, nothing serious, nothing depressing. it IS about the things that keep me sane and distracted. now, i have a recital tonight. perhaps if i were a "serious" musician i would be entering some sort of semi-voodoo ritual to ensure that i am in that precise frame of mind in which musical genius comes pouring from my fingertips. but that sort of thinking has led me to crash and burn at the last few public performances, so here is plan B: distracting myself from myself.
ok, so back to Whole Foods. their grand opening in cleveland was this past week; my roommates and i chanced upon them on saturday, our first day off (minus the practice sessions) in weeks.
even though Whole Foods is based in texas, from which i hail, i'd never been to one. even if i had, back then i wasn't near the wanna-be foodie i am now...the treasures within would have been lost on me. treasures such as....
1) ostrich and emu eggs. $20 a pop, not cheap, not practical---i don't have the first clue as to what to do with one, except egg somebody i truly despise. but still! i never thought i would say i was a size queen, but in this case, who can resist?
2) fiddlehead ferns. my first encounter with these were in taiwan, where, due to translation/nomenclature issues, i came to the conclusion that nobody had any idea what we were eating. imagine my delight, then: "THERE THEY ARE! AND THEY'RE LABELED!!!"
3) maitake mushrooms. ever had the taleggio cheese/maitake sandwich from Craftbar in NYC (one of tom colicchio's restaurants)? 'nuff said.
4) taleggio cheese! you all can guess what we've been making at home for snackage! but, seriously---they carry LOTS of cheese---stinky cheese, pretty cheese, UNPASTEURIZED cheese. i would profess to be a cheese connoisseur who could discuss the finer points of various methods for aging, cooking, inoculating, brining/salting, curing, etc etc---but then i would be lying.
5) crawfish! or merely their tails. and frozen, shipped from houston. FOR ME, this is a huge deal....gumbo is my therapy (making it, and eating it). it's difficult enough to find okra in this godforsaken midwest, but crawfish are unheard of...at least for eating. one of my roommates, from minnesota, refers to them as the "bugs in the creek." or "crik," as she would say.
now, the other finds are no less wonderful, but mostly less rare. we are blessed to have the west side market and a small chinatown (really, chinablock) that have supplied us with most of our needs...squid, fresh fish, crabs, razor clams, and eel, goat and lamb and unsmoked pork hocks and belly, freshly made chorizo and filled pastas and gnocchi, and a wonderful assortment of chinese vegetables (minus the elusive "tswan chi," which i recently found out was the madeira vine). there are more, but that's another blog.
so....if you've ever ticked me off the in past and you open your mail one day to find a REALLY HUGE ROTTEN EGG? good chance it's from me.
ok, so back to Whole Foods. their grand opening in cleveland was this past week; my roommates and i chanced upon them on saturday, our first day off (minus the practice sessions) in weeks.
even though Whole Foods is based in texas, from which i hail, i'd never been to one. even if i had, back then i wasn't near the wanna-be foodie i am now...the treasures within would have been lost on me. treasures such as....
1) ostrich and emu eggs. $20 a pop, not cheap, not practical---i don't have the first clue as to what to do with one, except egg somebody i truly despise. but still! i never thought i would say i was a size queen, but in this case, who can resist?
2) fiddlehead ferns. my first encounter with these were in taiwan, where, due to translation/nomenclature issues, i came to the conclusion that nobody had any idea what we were eating. imagine my delight, then: "THERE THEY ARE! AND THEY'RE LABELED!!!"
3) maitake mushrooms. ever had the taleggio cheese/maitake sandwich from Craftbar in NYC (one of tom colicchio's restaurants)? 'nuff said.
4) taleggio cheese! you all can guess what we've been making at home for snackage! but, seriously---they carry LOTS of cheese---stinky cheese, pretty cheese, UNPASTEURIZED cheese. i would profess to be a cheese connoisseur who could discuss the finer points of various methods for aging, cooking, inoculating, brining/salting, curing, etc etc---but then i would be lying.
5) crawfish! or merely their tails. and frozen, shipped from houston. FOR ME, this is a huge deal....gumbo is my therapy (making it, and eating it). it's difficult enough to find okra in this godforsaken midwest, but crawfish are unheard of...at least for eating. one of my roommates, from minnesota, refers to them as the "bugs in the creek." or "crik," as she would say.
now, the other finds are no less wonderful, but mostly less rare. we are blessed to have the west side market and a small chinatown (really, chinablock) that have supplied us with most of our needs...squid, fresh fish, crabs, razor clams, and eel, goat and lamb and unsmoked pork hocks and belly, freshly made chorizo and filled pastas and gnocchi, and a wonderful assortment of chinese vegetables (minus the elusive "tswan chi," which i recently found out was the madeira vine). there are more, but that's another blog.
so....if you've ever ticked me off the in past and you open your mail one day to find a REALLY HUGE ROTTEN EGG? good chance it's from me.
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