STRANGE FACTS AND DISTANT LANDS

Many recipes on the internet have long mundane and downright boring narratives that add naught to your knowledge, interest, or desire to cook the dish in question. This is for various reasons (advertising and copyrights). How about putting in an introduction that excites? "While getting shot at by the Germans, Captain Nigel Penguin of the Royal Navy decided to experiment with lutefisk and turnips". And, like magic, you now desperately want to cook Royal Navy Mine Layer Lutefisk Casserole. Goes great with mango chutney.

Of course, not having any lutefisk, you make substitutions.
Tinned sardines in olive oil.

You change the name slightly, what with having no lutefisk. Royal Harbour Tugboats on Toast. And you add a dusting of cayenne, because it needs symbolic explosions.
Plus 'Gentleman's Relish', in lieu of Mango Chutney. They're similar, right?

British in any case.

Ten years later you run into 'Mordor Toast Crumble' in a charming Hobbit-themed Irish pub in Minnesota. Something seems strangely familiar, you can't quite put your finger on it.

It was invented, you are told, by Tolkien, as a snack while playing videogames. Back in that day they didn't have computers, and the early videogames were all analog instead of digital. It took days, there were long boring periods when castles were being built by hand.
A man needed sustenance!


By the way entirely: J.R.R. Tolkien smoked Capstan and ate Mordor Toast Crumble, William Faulkner smoked Balkan blends and dined on 'Skorpor med Torkedfisk og Peparediki, with a side of grits, and Georges Simenon smoked Dunhill's Royal Yacht when not stuffing himself with Moules-Frites Avec Mayonnaise et Sambales (he was Belgian, you know, and they are 'eccentric'). I bet you didn't know that! It's the overlap between authors and pipesmoking. If you're into hobbits, smoke Capstan. Southern writers and Clark Gable, Balkan Sobranie or Dunhill MM 965. Fine dining, Parisian bistros, and rainy weather, then deceptively strong peculiarities like Pipestud in Texas often enjoys.

All of this serves to bring up that the local pipeclub met again yesterday, and because Neil was absent due to lassitude and bad weather, there was no duck liver pâté.

No stinky cheese either. What IS this world coming to?

Though Neil's sparkling personality was rather sorely missed, Calvin and Bernard were in fine mood, and Joel happily showed me his modifications of two pipes, one of which now looks piss-elegant and very old-school English. Nice. Among the tobaccos enjoyed by the crew were Red Carolina with Perique (C & D) and the No. 8 Slice (L. J. Peretti), as well as various mild to medium British-style pressed flue-cured products and sliced coins.

I probably smoked too much. And I was high as a kite on tea.
So altogether I would say it was a splendid afternoon.
Perfect pipe-smoking weather outside.


We few, we happy few, we band of stinkers.



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