Scathing Rolling Stone report on McCain that really makes him sound like the biggest lowlife idiot there could be. I never thought I would say this, but George W. Bush would even make a better leader than this doorknob.
New Survivor stud, Prince William… oops Marcus, shows a little wang on the run. CBS offers official statement about it being “virtually undetectable.” Pure little dude.
Entering a strange phase in my life regarding men. Receiving unwarranted attention from unsavory quarters, and blank walls from unknown quarters. Will take this as a gentle reminder from the universe that life is anything but expected.
In good news, had tea at the Mariage Freres with Emilie. Had the Sweet Samourai, which consisted of thinly sliced monkfish carpaccio topped with Egyptian tea, sided with razor thin fennel salad in a citrus sauce. Scones with wild honey and rose jelly on the side, and some rare Darjeeling from the Nanjung Upper Rim.
Later on we went for sushi and it was fine. Then long talks with the usual crew. Now home, and the house smells like fried garlic and anchovies.
Tomorrow, posing for photo shoot (blah), then fashion show (blah blah), then tea with a Mark who’s in town (hurrah!), and finally perhaps a quiet dinner with friends before the fashion parties start.
Bumped into Brad at the bar. Haven’t seen that California boy since Martena’s party in April. Funny guy. Who’s the president of Awesome?
Nuit blanche, a white night, is what they call it when you stay up all night without sleeping. This bears no allusion to what keeps you up, but to the night which contains an internal sun so brilliant it burns out the dark.
Afterwards I did see the sun. Stepping out of Saint Michel, the light was sharp and brilliant but without warmth, as it is at the end of summer. At the bookshop, I went to the used section, which was a dried cabinet outside stuffed randomly with books. Perusing the titles, a man whistled tunelessly, pulling out cheap racy paperbacks from the 70s. I went inside. The darkness was bathed with the smell of aging paper and old wood. A tousled haired boy with a ripped t-shirt talked to me in musical tones, handing me a green and gold striped paper bag for my books.
Now outside, to smell the water.
Reaching Notre Dame, I went to the centre of the square, where a cat was most likely to sun itself, if it weren’t for the thousands of tourists. How the first few days of fall bring on euphoria and melancholy in equal parts, streaming from deep shadows yet golden crystal light. There were four Pakistani men, each with a camera. They would stand arms straight now, not smiling, armed with moustaches, black plastic frame glasses and brown shabby suits, in pairs, waiting for the other to take their image with the stony face of our lady glancing off behind them. And then to the right behind the bushes was an old man with fluffy white hair and an oversized blue blazer. His arm would shoot out periodically in an upwards arc, like a quotation mark, the fingers tenderly holding a piece of bread as the sparrows fluttered eagerly around for a bite. I could hear the sounds of their wings.
A boy with very long legs, long brown hair, brown leather jacket and red converse sauntered by. I averted my gaze towards the sun and closed my eyes to see red. The air was so sweetly sour with the bushes that always smell like sperm.
Thomas came to meet me, sporting his black leather trousers, jogging sweatshirt, and the trademark patent leather cap propped jauntily over his head. His nose and eyes are so fine and aristocratic, but poor boy, he had a rather deep gash on the side of his mouth from dried skin cracking. I rather adore wandering around with this dreamer, a darling of poetic elegance whose conversations meander fluidly between the oneiric images of almost lost remembrances and the sly sexual witticisms of a modern man. A rather forlorn post-modern Baudelaire sailing in his stream of beauty, all the while lost as lost could be.
Later on, while licking a passionfruit ice from Berthillon, I saw a man ride a bicycle the size of palm.
But soon, soon the sun would set and even now I felt the cold seeping into the bone, the sharp angles of an autumn swiftly en route, and it would be time to go home, to curl in the bed like a domestic beast, and recede into the darkness of thoughts and dreams without anchor.
On the way home, we walked by the stained wall of a grey church, and stopped inside a store to marvel at the multi-coloured patterns on mattresses, like a Murakami ready-made, never breaking step with the languid rhythm of the day.
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* There is something so deliciously nice about fingering books, flipping pages, trying to souse whether the worlds contained within it will were devilishly interesting or flaccid pieces that sounded like bad conversation from the table next to you. It’s quite easy, but I get excited, sometimes too excited, and want to buy up at least twice as much as I could possibly read in a month. And in bad moments, months. Sometimes these books defeat me. Or I get too distracted to finish them. Either way, it’s a like a love affair. Some of them are built to last a day, others for the rest of your life.
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I remember now a story I read early this morning about a sailor in a monocoque race. He was racing in the Mediterranean, in the middle of the night, when a storm hit suddenly. His boat was thrown over quickly and he was trapped beneath the sail. Disentangling himself rapidly in the heaving waters, he found himself suddenly far from his boat. There he was, in the pitch black night, being tossed by two metre waves. He stripped himself bare and started to tread water, at times so overwhelmed with despair that he let himself sink beneath the surface. Finally, after two hours, he was picked up by one of the other sailors in the race. Having been alerted to the shipwreck, the other racers had detoured from the race to find him. In the photo in the newspaper, he is a rather stocky type, not unlike a rugby player, and he looks remarkably healthy. Perhaps even healthier than the blond thin man next to him who was his saviour.
Getting ready to get skinned at dominos tonight. Feel that maybe I should play for money as it will surely cure any gambling habit to play while having the hangover the size of the Sahara.
Rising quietly for a couple of years now, Frenchman Gilles Simon is having a banner year. Ranked No. 12 with three titles this year, Simon is the type of player that hasn’t had to bear the brunt of intense media hoopla unlike his compatriot and eternal underperformer Richard Gasquet. Let’s hope he brings it home in Bercy. I like this guy’s nerves.
why am I all of sudden listening to so much punk and psychedelia?
Listening to the Baby Grandmothers… a lot.
That’s right… I was forced to get creative with vegetables. Hauled in over two weeks ago from my sojourn in the deep French countryside, the giant zucchinis that are possibly three times the width of my arm, and the length of my thigh, were causing me no end of anxiety. I had no idea what to do with zucchini that large, but was terrified of seeing it get moldy, going to waste.
Luckily, last night in a state of mild delirium and massive hunger, I stumbled across the laziest and best solution: zucchini risotto.
Cut half the zucchini into chunks (reserving rest of zucchini in the fridge for similar use the day after), and stick into a middle to low heat pot, along with olive oil, pepper and salt. Randomly toss in one large tomato (gloriously ripe and also culled from the same garden) and one shallot. Leave to wilt, stirring occasionally. Once the juices are really out of the tomatoes and they are total mush, while the zucchini is still surprising intact, season. Don’t be afraid to add a dash of cassonade/honey to the mix. Then take a couple of handfuls of basmati, no more than two probably, and toss into the pot. Stir, reduce heat to lowest possible and put cover on. After about 10 minutes turn heat off. Ten minutes later, serve.
This recipe hinges on ripe end of summer vegetables. If you don’t have them, don’t even bother.
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is back in business. Internet and cable tv at home make life sooooo much nicer!
Thoroughly rotten day which luckily ended with a good meal. Officially hate 19th century French armoirs, designer bookcases, especially while confronting possibilities of being an alcoholic. Furthermore, I can’t seem to play guitar properly anymore. UGH! UGH UGH!
The Omnivore’s Hundred (which originates at Very Good Taste)
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (I think I might have eaten this but not sure)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries (many times but most memorably on the coast of Jersey Island)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (thanks but no thanks)
27. Dulce de leche (too sweet)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava (and I dislike it. Too sweet)
30. Bagna cauda (in Marseille, no less)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (too american food chain-ish)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth US$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (and I make them too!)
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (not a big chip eater)
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads63. Kaolin (is this even considered food?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (the story is simple… had a friend who saw a deer get hit by a truck in front of him… he picked up the deer and stewed it in wine and herbs. It was delicious)
76. Baijiu77. Hostess Fruit Pie (disgusting chemicals)
78. Snails
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (rabbit counts!)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (unfortunately)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (too old fashioned, kind of a waste of lobster)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (I don’t drink coffee)
100. Snake
That scores me at a healthy 87. However, I am a voracious and curious eater, and I have lived in three different countries, on three different continents, in three different cities that prided themselves either on food, or variety of food. There are some things I would disagree with, on this list, and some things I would like to add, for which I have already left some notes. For example, I would love to add fiddleheads, kaiseiki, tete de veau, pasta alla sarde, fresh anchovies from the sea, wild asparagus, century egg, and not fondue but raclette. I think some people miss the point of this survey, conceiving rather as a weird food list, or a foodie exam. I think the point of any such list would be to put down 100 things people should taste once in their lifetime, not because it’s strange, but because it’s good.
in a bikini, by the pool, hard at work.
