Requiem for some Underwear

It’s difficult for some people to imagine, but I get pretty attached to certain pieces of clothes. I have a pair of socks that are perfect for flying in. I guard them closely. They fit ever so tightly, and have this nappy (no offense intended, ladybasketballers), terry cloth quality, but they also have lycra sewn into them or something which makes them not lose their shape. They are thick and grey, and warm enough to not wear shoes on long overnight flights. I would buy ten pair if I knew where to get them (actually, I do: the Montbell store in Osaka’s Gare Outdoor, underneath Umeda Japan Rail station- so next time you swing by, I am size 12).

Yesterday, I had to say good buy to a storied pair of underwear. It made me kind of sad. They pretty much just died. There was no going on for them; they expired, kicked the bucket. I had no choice. I would have brought them home, but I had biked to work in them, and well, to put it delicately, that didn’t help their cause much. I bought them in Jaipur, in northern India. They were made by Dara, a company I have never heard of before. They were brown square cut trunks that made my butt look awesome. Sigh. Did they ever dream that they would travel across the world to be unceremoniously dumped into a rubbish bin in the locker room of my building? Did I ever think when I was buying them that they would finally fail me on a grey April morning?

Maybe it’s time to go back on the mood stabilizers.

Let’s Give Her an Applause

I have been studying Arabic for a couple months now, and our new term started a few weeks ago. My last teacher, while being a very nice person, was not patient. When one is teaching a language, the unforgivable sin is impatience. It’s simply not optional. You must be patient.

My new teacher is patient. And meandering, and hilarious, and crazy, and I like her so very much. My favorite part is her imperfect command of English, which causes hilarity to ensue. She is every encouraging. Who wouldn’t be encouraged by these phrases? But also, she is hilarious, as she actively seems to get angry at Arabic for being so hard to learn.

Quotes from our teacher:

• Now remember, make the mistake. With out the mistake, no one is shoe to know. Mistake! {If only the shoe could know. Everything would be made clear.}
• Very good! Montaz! Let’s give her an app-loose. That’s enough. Good app-loose. {everone loves a good applause}
• Yes, the Arabic seems very confuse. But, you go to sleep with Arabic confuse, but then you wake up! And: Arabic! Confuse. Not to be discouraged. One day you wake up with Arabic no confuse. {Still waiting for Arabic to one day begin to ‘no confuse’. And everymorning! I wake up and there is Arabic! Confuse!}
• Is it on the end? {referring to a marker on the end of words that should be pronounced, but aren’t used very much by the general public} You don’t always use, but sometimes you use, because while using is better, Arabs are sometimes lazy when they talk. So we don’t use. This is called “the slang”.
• Who will be the knight in shinny [sic] armor and read? No one will be shinny armor? No? Then you will read. {Pointing to me, who never wears shiny armor to class.}
• Read is not hard. Just sound out it! {Ma’am, sorry to inform you, but in Arabic read is hard.}
• Oh hamza! Hamza is lazy mark! Bring him a chair! He likes to sit on a vowel. Maybe alif. Alif will make a good chair for lazy hamza. {While I know what she means here, still: then mind wobbles}

Dear Co-workers,

 

I am on a conference call right now, and let me tell you some things:

 

Work place humor is the lowest kind of humor.  “Ha ha- these acronyms sure are confusing!  I feel like we could play bingo!”.  Die.

 

Just because you talk over people doesn’t mean that you are correct.

 

If you use words that don’t make sense, then don’t be surprised when no one understands you.  For example, friends, one may not say “We need to find the delta between the two” when one means that you would like to know what the difference is between two things.  Because if you do say that, I will hit you with a shovel.

 

If you are calling into a conference call, no need to scream out “It’s ME!  SUSY FROM MARKETING!”.  No one cares if you called in.  Shut it. 

 

Best wishes,

 

The Badger King

 

 

Whores in Church

Scones conjure up images of daft old women sitting around in a dim room twittering about who was dressed like a whore in church. Maybe it's just me. But Saturday we decided to buckle down and eat the clotted cream that I bought in London like forever ago to see if it would make us go blind, or implode, or suffer some other fresh hell. It did not. And it was delicious. For future reference, however, aging what is supposed to be a fresh dairy product is perhaps not the best idea. Note to self.

The scones, which to be honest were intended to be simply a vehicle for moving butterfat into my mouth in a more socially acceptable manner than shoveling it in with a spatula, came out spectacular. Moist, tender, golden-crusted. The buttermilk had to replace the cream because we didn't have any and I cannot deal with Safeway before noon, but I think it tenderized the crumb somewhat.

Current Scones
(modified from the New Joy of Cooking)

250 mL	1 c	all purpose flour
45 mL	3 T	sugar
7 mL	½ T	baking powder
1 mL	¼ t	baking soda
1 mL	¼ t	salt
45 g	3 T	butter, cold
60 mL	¼ c	dried currents (real currents, not crappy zante currents)
1		egg yolk
60 mL	¼ c	buttermilk

1. Heat the oven to 425ºF/220ºC and put a piece of parchment paper on to a large baking pan.

2. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt together in a mixing bowl until thoroughly combined.

3. Cut the cold butter into small pieces (¼"/½cm cubes) with a sharp knife. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the fat into the flour until the largest peices are the size of a pea and the entire mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs.

4. Add the dried currents and mix so that the fruit is coated in flour.

5. Mix the egg yolk and the buttermilk together.

6. Now, be gentle and patient here dear reader. Much like a paranoid girl, these scones need gentle handling and no cause to get upset, lest she start crying and you have to throw her from a moving car to save yourself. Take the liquids and dump them into the flour. Now, with a bowl scraping, bottom-to-top motion, gently mix the liquids and the flour mixture. It will look pretty ragged at this point. Abandon your spoon, for it has taken you as far as it can go. With your hand, scoop all the dough (some will be powdery, some will be wet and sticky) into a ball and push it against the bottom of the bowl. Do this five more times. Is it starting to look like dough? No? Sprinkle a teaspoon of cold water over the dough and gently knead five more times.

7. At this point, it might not look perfect, but fear not. Gather this shaggy, rough looking dough into a ball and pat it out on the counter into a circle about an inch thick (2.5cm). With a sharp knife, cut it into six wedges. Transfer it to the parchment paper on the baking sheet, keeping the wedges in their circular shape. Brush the top with buttermilk and place in the oven.

8. Bake 15-20 minutes, until the scones have risen and the tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool on a rack for a few minutes to let the crumb set.

9.. Shovel them into your mouth heaped with clotted cream, butter, and jam. Repent for your sins, and vow to never eat again.

Hanami: Japanese for Drinking Booze Outside

This is crazy overdue, since the cherry blossoms are currently either already dead or soon to shake off this moral coil, but remembering is good times, too. When the manfriend and I lived in Japan there were two times of year that the entire country look forwarded to: cherry blossoms in spring and fireworks in summer.

The cherry blossoms herald the arrival of spring, plus, being Japanese, the Japanese use it as an excuse to buy new clothes, dishes and stationary. Also, they use it as an excuse to get drunk outside. Those rascally Japanese. J. and I made a heap load of food, and headed down to the tidal basin to enjoy some contemplation under the cherry trees. A million thanks to Arjewtino for the pictures. Also, for the memories.

The reason for the season. Also, a plant orgy of heaving stamens.

The traditional Japanese vodka-cranberry.

Pretending to like each other.

Mmmmmm. Cupcakes. And satan.

More satan.

Radio. A definite future in Radio.

K. expresses her displeasure with the current state of civil discourse.

I bet you wish you had photos of nice normal people like this that you could show to your families to convince them that you don't spend all day in a bar playing video keno.

Disgusting English Food That I Want More Of

I always thought that English food was an oxymoron. A cooling puddle of gelatinous white gravy, if you will. Swill. Over cooked pot roast and vegetables that have been boiled to death. I was right, of course, as I always am (see: Badger, Infallibility of; Canon Law 452), but what I considered English food is what English people were eating in 1981. Which is the year that the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared that ketchup would be considered a serving of vegetables, so really, I think maybe my point of view is skewed by about twenty-five years.

British food is back, and back with a vengeance. I went to London a couple months ago to visit a good friend, G., who took us to what has become my shangri-la: Borough Market. I dream of it at night. We ate cheeses. We sampled cider. We bought wild boar sausages, potatoes with dirt still on them, clotted cream (which we actually just ended up eating yesterday. Best-by date? No, shan't.), ate pastries, ogled hanging sides of meat and looped around for two samples of the wines. Woah, my God, as certain people might exclaim.

Two fine fellows at Borough Market.

So, in celebration of Britain deciding to quit eating crap on white bread, I made a treacle sponge with a butterscotch sauce. I've never tasted, much less made, a steamed sponge before.

Je. Sus. I see what my English friends were always whinging on about now when we had the inevitable expat "what food would I kill children for right now because they don't have it here and I need some RIGHT NOW" conversation.

Dark and warm, the sponge has the tenderest crumb possible, deep brown from the brown sugar and blackstrap molasses. So brown it was almost red. If that makes sense. Which it doesn't. The butterscotch cascades down the sides, leaving a smooth surface of sweet velvet, and pools around the base of the sponge, begging for a spoon to cut a vaguely cake-like but not quite bite from the sponge, scoop some of the butterscotch and render the entire offering to my currently salivating mouth. So sweet, so caramel, a smoky-sweet cake covered in butter goodness. The sour cream in the butterscotch seems counter-intuitive, but trust me, it's what's right with the world.

Make it. NOW.


Treacle Sponge with Butterscotch
(modified from delicious, March 2007)
Serves Eight (or one, if you are me).


Sponge:

6 oz	175 g	butter, softened
7/8 c	175 g	dark brown sugar
2 t	2 t	treacle, or blackstrap molassas
3		eggs
1 ½ c	175 g	self-rising flour

Butterscotch:

2 oz	50 g	butter, softened
6 T	75 g	dark brown sugar
2 T	25 g	white sugar
5¼oz	150 g	dark corn syrup
½ c	140 ml	sour cream

1. Find something to make this steamed sponge in. The British have a special pan called, lyrically and appealingly, a pudding basin. If you don't happen to have one of those laying around, I recommend a ceramic mixing bowl of some sort that holds at least a quart. It has to fit into a big pot so that it can steam. Go crazy.
2. Grease your new found pudding basin with some butter.
3. Cream the butter until it is light and creamy. Add the brown sugar and keep beating until the mix is pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. With the last egg, add a big spoonful of the flour. Gently fold in the rest of the flour.
4. Spoon the mixture into your greased basin and level it off. Grease a piece of foil at is big enough to cover the top of your basin and hangover a few inches. Place the foil, greased-side down, on the basin and tie it into place with some string around the outside of the foil, under the rim of the basin.
5. Put a trivet or an overturned plate in the bottom of your big pot. Add about two inches (5cm) of boiling water to the pot and place it over a high flame. Place the pudding basin in the pot, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cover and steam for two hours. Don't forget to check the water level, you lazy punter, you.
6. When you are about twenty minutes from eating this little piece of heaven, combine all of the butterscotch ingredients except the sour cream. Place the sauce pan on a medium high flame. Stir the caramel until all of the sugar melts (it will bubble and boil and gradually get darker- this should take maybe three to five minutes). Stir in the sour cream, return to a boil for a brief second and then take off the flame. Do not drink the boiling hot butterscotch.
7. Remove the sponge from the steamer and run a knife around the edge to loosen it. Upturn the basin on a serving dish and gently shake the steamed sponge out. Pour over the butterscotch. Eat.

Rejoice in that strange little island that invented our language.

Food Confessions

I never write about it for some reason, but I cook. A lot. And by a lot, I mean that I can slice onions with my eyes closed, I know how to bone a chicken, I can make biscuits from scratch with out consulting a cook book, and I can tell when caramel sauce is done by the sound it makes while it bubbles in the pan. I know what to do with kitchen twine. I own a leave-in meat thermometer. I lust after kitchen equipment. Paradise is an afternoon alone with the stove and a glass of wine. Which makes me a little bit obsessive, I gather.

Before I was out I worried that my ability to cook was a dead give away. I roasted chickens in secret, passed off cookies as other peoples and generally was an obsessive retard about my own abilities. But I've always been able to cook- my mom made us learn (Thanks for making me gay!). (Kidding. It was dad pushing me to play little league.) I don't think "made" us learn is the right phrasing. I think "taught us how to not burn the kitchen down with our own enthusiasm" is a more apt description. My brother and I have always loved the cooking. My sister: not so much. But she knows how to fix cars. I know how to fix omelets. We are both happy with our trade-offs, I think.

The obsessive part comes when people find out how much I really do spend thinking about it, doing it, reading about it, researching it, and cleaning up after it. Good thing the boyfriend is understanding (and hungry).

Niece Update:

Baby eats a lot.

Parents tired.

I know more about my sister-in-law’s breasts that I would have ever thought possible.

Keira Grace

I am not a baby idolizer. But this is one cute baby. And obviously, because she is my niece, she is totally cuter than any other baby. Ever.

I think you've got a little something on you there, and there, and...

Like all of our family, she seems to enjoy naps.

This is the best new family picture I have ever seen. Is it possible that my little brother, the one who used to eat ketchup from the packet and once told my parents it was me who had been burning things on the porch, will now raise his own offspring? The mind wobbles.

"Look what sex does!"

Momma K, you look damn good. I love that you have the obligatory post-delivery 'fro. Lovin' that epidural, are we not?

Keira Grace K.
Born April 3, 2007
7 lbs, 11 oz
My niece.

I'll let you drive the car as soon as you can hold your head up.

Damaging the Next Generation

I’m going to be an Uncle! Whooohoooo!! My sister-in-law K and brother L are on their way to the hospital to deliver my niece. Cigars for everyone!

Pretty on the Outside.

While looking up everone’s names for the last post I put up (yes, I do research sometimes), I ran across this picture of Steve Inskeep, host of NPR’s Morning Edition:


Uhhhhhh… he’s pretty. I thought people in radio were only pretty on the inside, like bloggers and Kentuckians.

How do I love thee, National Public Radio?

I love National Public Radio for so many reasons. The soft mead tones of Sylvia Puggioli reporting from Rome while I lay in bed, Bob Edwards sounding just a little bit peeved at the person he is interviewing, Steve Inskeep reeling off headlines, Nina Totenberg doing her strange yet compelling back and forth of the Supreme Court Justices, and that guy who no one knows who says “You’re Listening to National Public Radio”, and you can tell that he is totally capitalizing the right words even though there is no print to capitalize.

But on Sunday I almost died of loving that NPR when Weekend Edition aired this support tag at the end of a (April Fools) story

“…story blah blah blah, end of story blah blah. Support for NPR comes from the Soylent Corporation, manufacturing protein-rich food products in a variety of colors. Soylent Green is People.”

Straight-laced, no nonsense, dead-pan delivery left me and the boyfriend listening to it over and over. It’s creepy, but it’s hilarious. Check it out here, the last 20 seconds or so:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9210663