I'm back. Someone's insisted that I write very "one-note", so here's a conventional journal-like entry. I will try not to have any alliterative liaisons or other gratuitous effects, but if some slip in, I'm sorry.
So. London was warm, cloudy and expensive. They're big on refectory-style dining, hobnobbing at the same table, being seen with the be-seen. I had almost certainly the two best pizzas in my life, both on the same day. I had Mediterranean, Italian, French/Belgian, Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese and English. Yes, English. I hear you retching. This was no ordinary pub grub.
Roasted bone marrow, crostini, parsley and caper salad ("butter from God", according to Anthony Bourdain)
Mallard-magret (there! caught myself), red cabbage and rosemary
As someone who finds even crabs disproportionately troublesome, in ratio to their taste, to deal with, I didn't quite relish thrusting my crab-fork blindly into those cavernous cylinders (again I falter) for a full 45 minutes. Not quite butter from God, but definitely a very superior lubricant for bread. And who would've guessed, parsley, "always the wrong erb", making an absolutely perfect accompaniment? And the mallard. Which had a very ducky bouquet and therefore was not in the least divine. But it was raw, erotically odorous, reeking of duckiness and the stench of foul poultry (ok, that I admit is inexcusable), giving you to feel slightly naughty, bestial, heck, macho even. No dainty juxtapositions, delicate melds of compatible flavors. This was in-your-face, untrussed by culinary artfulness; a cooked piece of murdered bird, the barely twiddled-with aftermath of an avian masectomy.
No that probably wasn't quite the typical journal entry.
So OK I bought a pair of StyleLab jeans which I can't stop wearing, a cool sweater/jumper/sweatshirt/pullover (have I missed one, H?), and a couple of trashy dancey LPs at 49p each. And drank at least 30 clementines' (mandarin oranges) worth of juice. About 7 espressos. An excellent tarte au citron. Skordalia.
There, that's more like it. Lists. Why do people like to make lists? It's because they want to say, look, I'm cool, I did all this in this space of time, I like obscure music, I eat at the poshest places, I read highbrow lit, don't you wish you were as cool as I am. Lists validate tenuous existences, buttress flagging self-esteem, conspicuously enumerate the stuff we do and then forget about. But if you write it down, you can say, well, that's what I did today, that's some pretty cool shit, I feel fulfilled, I am cool, life is good.
So. London was warm, cloudy and expensive. They're big on refectory-style dining, hobnobbing at the same table, being seen with the be-seen. I had almost certainly the two best pizzas in my life, both on the same day. I had Mediterranean, Italian, French/Belgian, Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese and English. Yes, English. I hear you retching. This was no ordinary pub grub.
Roasted bone marrow, crostini, parsley and caper salad ("butter from God", according to Anthony Bourdain)
Mallard-magret (there! caught myself), red cabbage and rosemary
As someone who finds even crabs disproportionately troublesome, in ratio to their taste, to deal with, I didn't quite relish thrusting my crab-fork blindly into those cavernous cylinders (again I falter) for a full 45 minutes. Not quite butter from God, but definitely a very superior lubricant for bread. And who would've guessed, parsley, "always the wrong erb", making an absolutely perfect accompaniment? And the mallard. Which had a very ducky bouquet and therefore was not in the least divine. But it was raw, erotically odorous, reeking of duckiness and the stench of foul poultry (ok, that I admit is inexcusable), giving you to feel slightly naughty, bestial, heck, macho even. No dainty juxtapositions, delicate melds of compatible flavors. This was in-your-face, untrussed by culinary artfulness; a cooked piece of murdered bird, the barely twiddled-with aftermath of an avian masectomy.
No that probably wasn't quite the typical journal entry.
So OK I bought a pair of StyleLab jeans which I can't stop wearing, a cool sweater/jumper/sweatshirt/pullover (have I missed one, H?), and a couple of trashy dancey LPs at 49p each. And drank at least 30 clementines' (mandarin oranges) worth of juice. About 7 espressos. An excellent tarte au citron. Skordalia.
There, that's more like it. Lists. Why do people like to make lists? It's because they want to say, look, I'm cool, I did all this in this space of time, I like obscure music, I eat at the poshest places, I read highbrow lit, don't you wish you were as cool as I am. Lists validate tenuous existences, buttress flagging self-esteem, conspicuously enumerate the stuff we do and then forget about. But if you write it down, you can say, well, that's what I did today, that's some pretty cool shit, I feel fulfilled, I am cool, life is good.
posted by D at 20:43
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