FISH DREAMING MAN

No, I didn't go out on the usual weekly tea-totaling pub crawl last night. The bookseller had something to attend to, so we agreed that next week next year was best. Instead I slept. And dreamed of food, particularly a meal several years in a hot place, and dishes that I have not seen together on the same table in a long time. Nowadays I seldom prepare complete meals. Instead I do quick and convenient foods, sometimes with complex spices, much more often very simple dishes. The addition of ginger and fermented fish products, plus sambal and a squeeze of lime or lemon are usually sufficient.

Cilantro or chopped scallion.

The hot places often have bugs and smells. The bugs were inevitable, the smells are echoed at times here in SF. Seafood was a constant. Plus lots of very weak tea to hydrate, and because water must be boiled.

The entire day is spent tensely limp from the heat, mildly and ineffectively hepped from the caffeine. Remarkably, or perhaps quite logically, one does not have to micturate very often. The skin evaporates much of the excess liquid. A beverage is ever-present.
Returning to the temperate zone requires adjustment.

Steamed fish with chives or scallions, a few pieces of ginger, and chilies. Perhaps some very thinly sliced black mushroom. Drizzles of soy and sesame oil. Easy to do.

Woke up after midnight, and drew it.

Yes, there would be sambal there. Fish pairs naturally with sambal. Plus a vegetable, nothing complex. Strong coffee, and a small cigar or cheroot, before returning to the office.

Mornings were much more productive than the afternoons would be.
Not very much gets accomplished in the middle of the day.


I don't miss the heat. But I miss the food and the company.


Sometime soon I'll do a steamed fish, with what I mentioned above, as well as peanuts and slivered fatty pork to add flavour. Plus a little ricewine or sherry.



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