FINE TOISHANESE QUALITY!

As you know, I drink and smoke. Abstention, in my life, is something best sampled sparingly. But I do not swear.
Savage Kitten on the other hand makes up for my defects by not drinking or smoking at all.
She swears like a trooper, but in her hands that’s a virtue. I have mentioned her mouth elsewhere, so shall not go into it here. It’s a very Cantonese thing.

[The Cantonese cannot help their foul tongues. Their native speech is a multi-layered construct of blisteringly unprintable hyperbole, made the more fertile by imaginative phrasing and a keen appreciation for the expressive possibilities of filth. A Cantonese woman swearing up a storm is a sight to hear – the earth shakes, dark clouds gather, and the temperature drops several degrees. Learn the language, then you will know.]

Pursuant a previous posting, reader Ari asked "Are you sure she doesn't smoke stogies or swill beer?"


Quite. Absolutely. One hundred and ten percent.


She is womanly virtue personified.


For one thing, she can't drink. If she has one or two teaspoons of whiskey in her warm milk at night, she'll sleep like a baby. A sip of hooch makes her face flush, and her mind will quiver dangerously in its moorings.
Which, I should add, is very disturbing.
Cantonese minds are twisty little beasts at the best of times, how much more so when the bonds of sobriety are loosened? Fortunately a stiff shot would knock her out before she got up on the table to dance.

As for smoking, a few weeks ago I was so thoroughly enjoying a pipeful of Three Oaks mixture that I suggested she take a delicate puff to taste. She has still not forgiven me.
Tobacco is the devil's weed. I am an evil white man. Punkt.
I rest secure in the knowledge that she will never smoke.


"Are you sure she doesn't smoke stogies or swill beer?"


A few years ago she won several medals at a martial arts tournament in Nevada. In high spirits she called me up to request a bottle of Champagne to celebrate when she came home.
I purchased a very good brand....... she likes good champagne, not that cheap swill that's served by her sister-in-law's crowd at baby showers. Or whenever. Expensive, lah!

It was a VERY good brand.

She drank a quarter of a glass.

Two weeks later I used the rest of the bottle in a pork stew. With dried mushrooms. And anchovies melted in the butter before adding the meat. I didn't want it to go bad, you see.
It was the most expensive pork stew I have ever made. But it was very good.