THE SMELL OF HEAVEN

Last week I noticed a strange smell in our kitchen. Not one I had made - normally I am the person responsible for odours - but an unknown reek, fruity-funky-rotten, putrid even.
Being a coward, I did not say anything. Savage Kitten would have suggested that I take out the garbage once in while (like "right NOW!") instead of leaving that task to her all the time.

I need not have worried. It was her. She did it.
She had bought a durian to give to a friend the next day.
That was very sweet of her, seeing as she and durian are not simpatico.

[Savage Kitten meets durian, see this post:http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2007/09/biting-delicacies.html
For an in-depth description of durian, see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian ]


After the durian left the building the stink faded.

Which does not mean that the kitchen reverted to smelling new and fresh.

Our kitchen normally is a bit whiff.

For one thing, I smoke in there.
She insists that I not light my pipe or cigars anywhere else, as she does not wish Ms. Bruin (the senior teddy-bear, aka head room-mate, and her oldest friend in the world) to smell like smoke.
I'm usually in there several times a night because of her objection to my strong tobacco.
There always a pongus of Oriental leaf in the kitchen.

For another.......

Earlier last week she walked into the kitchen after I had fixed myself a snack and recoiled, shrieking "good Lord it smells of c*nt in here! Did you fry up a bucket of dead c**tchie?!?"

Even after I clarified that it was merely pork chunks with a little brown sugar, chilies, and garlic, with lime juice and fish sauce (!), to go with my rice, she kept wondering at the potency of the odeur. That was some eppes strong fish sauce, wow, unclean, unclean, unclean! Gevalt!
She kept ranting on about the elderly Asian women who infest the downtown clothing stores, and how the changing rooms stink of stale fish. What is it with old people, they can't smell themselves? Peee-ew! Stanky! Take a bath sometime, auntie! Use lye-soap and rag-on-a-stick why don't you?!? Makes even big white midwesterner tolerable. Heck, makes even pipe-tobacco seem like flowers!

I put that last assertion to the test by smoking a strong Balkan mixture after dinner in the teevee room.

She didn't say anything.

Gonna have to use MORE of that fish sauce.

[Fish sauce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_pla The fish sauce I used was a lovely
Huế-type clear amber liquid, with a deep rich taste. A bit expensive, but accentuates pork very nicely.]


The next morning, she cheerfully speculated that vinegar would keep the aunties happy. Better than any amount of shopping-therapy or valium. Heck, if they just rinsed themselves thoroughly with vinegar, and applied a sponge occasionally......
She seemed to have something on her mind there - a bee, so to speak, in her bonnet.
And she wondered whether it was Nobel prize material.

My contribution to the conversation was to silently smoke another pipe in the teevee room.

Normally she insists that I smoke in the kitchen - perhaps I mentioned that?

That was some darn good fish sauce.

For several days afterward she kept bringing up the subject of fishy smells in clothing stores. In actual fact, I think she was probably exaggerating, seeing as she also kept mentioning the Philippinas that haunt places like Ross and Marshalls. She is not fond of pushy Philippinas. The Philippinas, as she told it, were the principal offenders.

Which probably explains the durian in the kitchen.

Fastidious Philippinas, especially if well brought-up, eschew durian. The average Manilenyo regards the noble spike-fruit as intolerably 'country-style', why, only unreconstructed provincials would even TOUCH such a thing. Peasants and savages, hah! Malansang!
Years ago I told Savage Kitten about flying back to Manila from Cagayan De Oro after having eaten durian for breakfast. At the beginning of the flight, all seats were taken. When we landed in Manila, the seats all around me were empty. Nearly twenty seats in my immediate vicinity were deserted.
See, if you eat durian, the smell comes out of your pores. Your skin acquires 'character'. And Philippinos of good breeding have sensitive noses.

The other passengers refused to come near me.


"Wah, si mukang puti iyan mabahoooooooo! Talaga! Madre de dios!"

Durian: potent medicine against Philippinos.
I think I'll use some more of that Hue-type fish sauce tonight.
This could get interesting.

TOBACCO INDEX


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