NOT JUST THE WEATHER

Over the years a number of my friends have moved to the Netherlands because it is more civilized than the United States, and a better place to live and raise kids. They're still in love with the place. Which I can understand, but non of them are living in Brabant or Limburg. Where, around Autumn nightmarish scenes that are profoundly educational take place.

Recently an article mentioned the traditional English breakfast. Which is also nightmarish and educational, oh golly yes. A large number of Americans claim to love it, but only a few really delve into one of the traditional items which is very nutritional and high in iron. Key to making it is enough grain product so it fries up nicely, the inclusion of chopped firm animal fat for flavour, and above all not allowing the fairer gender into the kitchen when it's being simmered to set.

It's one of those things my mother would not allow into the house, and the more traditional versions have been outlawed. Yet one can easily make it at home nowadays, assuming that one has a butcher shop nearby that does not cater to timid little Anglos.

Probably best to call it by a foreign term.

Marag dubh.

The last time I had a traditional English breakfast I also had acid indigestion for several days. Which is a testament to the fortitude and stamina of people in the British Isles and Ireland, for whom such things are presumably a 365 day a year occurence. Personally I cannot imagine starting my days regularly like that, and the American breakfast is also pretty damned ghastly in all of its forms.

The best I can do is a strong caffeinated beverage, and perhaps buttered toast. Or congee with a fried dough stick. Anything like Marmite or Vegemite should never be included, that's what the garbage can is for. Sausages or bacon require a mound of rice and a bottle of hot sauce. Exceptionally, I can understand where pan-fried marag dubh would be a good inclusion either way, plus something egg.

It's probably why the Huns and Mongols never made it that far west.



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HIDE THE KEYS

Most people at this point are suffering from holiday stress, and can't wait for the season of giving to have gone. Part of this is because the days are shorter, colder, and gloomier, part of this is because we're sick and tired of seeing Erika Kirk's sneering nasty damned face all over the internet because the bitch just won't shut the F up. Yeah, okay, we get that your husband got whacked, and that you ooze lubriciously over Fuentes, Trump, and Vance.
Can you get out of our lives now? We're really beginning to hate all of you.

Same goes double for brainworm boy.

We hope all of them get the firing squad.


One other thing contributing to all of this is that a significant number of us have not been able to smoke our pipes since the first week of December because of the beastly cold and a bad case of the flu. So we're pissed and frustrated. We'll blame Trump-voting downtown yuppies for this. And their trashy party-slag girlfriends.
Delayed Santa-conic nausea.
Bah, humbug.

Cite from a typical missive to a pipe tobacco forum: "The wife won't let me smoke inside, kids and relatives, heater in the tool shed out since last century, six feet of snow over the patio furniture, how do you guys stand it?" Dudu, get divorced, ditch the baggage, and move to Tierra Del Fuego. Seriously.

Five more days till the solstice. Then the days will start getting longer again, chocolate goes on sale eventually, people make resolutions to instantly break, and there's a different flood of bullpuckey. But the key thing will be longer days.


Another thing to which to keenly look forward is a nearly eight month absence of anything and everything pumpkin spiced.



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TICKLE TICKLE ...

Over on a culinary site many people reacted to a picture featuring chicken feet in a noodle soup. The input from Karenstan was predictable. So was the counter point. "Lotta good collagen there!" And "yum yum". I myself am, as you would expect, closer to the latter.
As well as amused by the nickname for cooked chicken feet in the Philippines.
Chicken feet adobo is "adobong adidas".

The very Karen reactions demanding that everyone understand that they would never touch that, ever, good lord how can anyone that's disgusting ugh and yuck, sounded for all the world like well-to-do yupsters in Iowa.

Although for all I know they could have mostly been from Marin County. Where there are also strong opinions about food. Why, I myself through work often come into contact with people there who believe that yeast was introduced by space aliens as well as the karmic dangers of gluten, animal protein, high carbs, four foods that all of a sudden many cardiologists warn against or three every day foods that might lead to dementia.....


Look, I'm not going to swear that chicken feet are the end all or be all of eats, or even go out of my way to find them. But it's easy to go through an entire to-go container of them without even thinking.

One internet site, written by and for white people, screams that chicken feet will give you campylobacter, gout, heart disease, heavy metal poisoning, high blood pressure, kidney disease, high cholesterol, salmonella, and animal cruelty filthy damned heathens!

[Note: people taking antacid medication (e. g. North American Caucasians) are at higher risk of contracting campylobacteriosis, since this type of medication neutralizes normal gastric acid.]


Maybe instead y'all ought to eat tinned asparagus jello molds.
Or good old fashioned frank'n beans from a can.
All-American Christian food.
White folks chow.



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USE FISH

Sometimes it's all a matter of perception. A friend mentions he "had a great dinner at Xxxxxx, a vegan, gluten free, sushi restaurant. Amazing presentations and excellent flavorful food!" Now, being as you know a carniverous beast with juices dripping from my mandibles, that is NOT a statement you would ever hear from me. But my friend experienced it as exceptional, beautiful, and delicious. And enjoyed it in the great company of one other person.

This is not an eatery I shall suggest to my apartment mate. Who is extremely fond of salmon sashimi. I do not want someone screaming at me in Toishanese that we white people are out of our goofy little minds. That it is entirely true is not made any more palatable by unprintable Toishanese punctuationals.

[Unprintable Toishanese punctuationals: a mirror or overlap with the Cantonese Outstanding Five as well as the curses and obscenities which pepper the language. Words everyone knows, and often uses at breaks in the sentence where a comma or an exclamation mark would be appropriate. Yet no one knows them, especially not ladies. Okay?]

Just try to imagine what would happen if one suggested to a Dutchman that vegan herring filets were edible. A death-pounding with a windmill might ensue. Stupid American.


Note: There are vegan restaurants in Amsterdam. I do not know who goes there. Americans and Germans, presumably. And quite likely very large weightlifters named Gunther or Staphorst. I don't know. Don't ask. You might set me off.

IRRELEVANT PICTURE

Now, all of this ties in somehow with a dream involving the discussion of transactional ethics while making fresh Italian pasta in Hong Kong, north east of Ma Liu Suei (馬尿水) on 東平洲 ('tung ping jau'), a house in 沙頭村 ('saa tau chuen').

There is no place in Sha Tau Village where one can purchase aged Parmesan cheese (巴馬乾酪 'paa maa kin lok'). One would have to buy that at a fancy shop in 中環區 (Central District, 'jung waan keui').

The umami whomp is hard to manage when there is no appropriate cheese or meat product available. But one can be creative with fermented seafood products.




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YOU CAN, BUT SHOULD YOU?

Yesterday afternoon, while yuppies were having a drunken orgie, it struck me: if a drunken Santa assaults you, it is socially acceptable to stab him in the neck. It is not legally okay, but socially fine. In San Francisco there probably isn't a jury that will convict you for being sober and defending yourself during Santacon. And there are so many drunken Santas that one or two won't be missed.


Most common citations each Santacon: Public intoxication, drunk and disorderly conduct, vandalism, destruction of public property, assault on public employees, littering, defrauding an inkeeper, indecent behaviour. And illicit substance abuse.

There are public house restrooms littered with dozens of drunken elves trying to sleep-off Harvey Wallbanger hangovers. Oh, the humanity! Staff dare not go in with mops because of the smells AND the deviant procreative behaviours audible behind closed doors.
There's an intoxicated wild raccoon upset that they edged him out.
Have you no decency, human? Have you no decency?

For the record, I have never participated in Santacon. I do not have frat-boy (or girl) tendencies. I haven't climbed a palm tree lining Polk Street without wearing panties.

As a sane and stable Euro-American I do not rely on constant patterns of stupid behaviour for attention. Unlike all these debased retrograde mutants from inbred dumb*****ville thronging the streets with their parents' over-generous allowances.

My sympathies, of course, are entirely with the raccoon.
He should have been the only one on that floor.
Will no one think of the poor raccoon?



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BUT THE APPLE PIE IS KIND OF OKAY

Since the announcement that the Gestapo now will demand access to your social media history for the last five years when you visit this country, there have been a flood of internet comments indicating that hell will freeze over before some people even think of visiting. My only objection to that is that calling them Gestapo is incorrect. They are by no means Geheime Staatspolizei, but zur schau stellende staatspolizei.
Nothing geheim about it. No shame at all.

That being said, as an American, I do not want to visit this country either. Outside of the city of San Francisco the food is awful, the culture primitive and incredibly vulgar, literacy levels near rock bottom, with bigots and racists everywhere. These are the people who elected Trump and the Republican super majority. It's a shithole.

Southern sherriffs, Iowa food, Idaho Christianity, and incestuous relationships (all of which involve grease) for two thousand six hundred and eighty eight miles of wasteland between the Sierras and New York.

After all, if Abbot, DeSantis, Greene Johnson, Tubberville, and Trump, were the best that could be elected, that speaks volumes about the people in their parts of the country.
Drug dealers, killers, and rapists. Oh, and some good people, I suppose.
But mostly criminals and low-lifes.

Years ago a friend living in the Shomron told me that it was unfair to judge the entire country without having visited and seen the real America. And you know what? He's wrong. Dead wrong. I can see them on my computer. They are the Fox News moron brigade. The Western Journal, the Daily Caller, The New York Post, and Turning Point USA. They are Erika Kirk theatrically weeping into a miraculously dry tissue while squeezing money out of turnip heads, teevee preachers casting out daemons and speaking in tongues, and political demagogues calling upon Jesus and spouting cynical drivel.


Either we are in fact a Christian nation and Christianity really, really sucks, or we're a bunch of snake worshipping heathens and actually rather detestable.



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OBSESSED WITH PORK PIES

It was a long well-written bitch-essay, with a lovely illustration featuring tannic red tea colours, yellow ochre shading into lemon yellow as well as canary yellow, and mango-flesh hued areas. It was vicious and unpleasant, so I'm glad it was only a vivid dream. Inspired, very largely, by a Filippino Chinese gentleman at the pharmacy whose wife was, justifiably, very upset with him. And told him "stop it". "Don't". "Shut up". And "get in the car".

An ancient auntie rolled past in a wheelchair and remarked that he could give people heart attacks with his berserk outbursts, it was very inconsiderate of him. But because she said it in Cantonese he absolutely ignored her. Not his language, and he was fed up with the Cantonese. They were disobedient. And he knew that if you shouted and behaved like a white American tourist anywhere in the world, it brought results. One hundred percent.

Yeah okay, sunny Jim, but this is the Chinese Hospital Pharmacy. Not anywhere in the world. Most people here who get what they want get that by being reasonable and courteous, and patience by the way is a virtue. You didn't get what you wanted because in addition to being a Sangley a-hole throwing a tantrum, is because your pharmacy of record is Walgreens at Westgate, your insurance does not cover that medication, and furthermore doesn't have any relationship with this institution, and your paperwork is both incomplete and incorrect. And you don't listen. Common problem for people like you.

In fact, almost everybody (99.9999%) will leave here happy that they got what they wanted, in a comparatively short period of time, expeditiously and efficiently. And, given the reasons for them being here in the first place -- not being in the absolute peak of health and youthful spryity -- that is absolutely amazing. If this place was staffed by my people (Netherlanders), security would have been called on you so fast and a sedative administered pdq. Or a cattleprod. Pepperspray. They really need pepperspray. Just in case.

Shouting. Does. Not. Make. Good. Things. Happen. You. Pig.
Just stop it. Shut up. Don't. And get in the car.

So instead of that painting with angry tannic reds, various intense shades of yellow as well as umber, ochre, and sienna, here is a lovely restful image of somewhere in England. Yorkshire. Once a gentleman of impeccable Chinese Filippino background (Fujianese ancestry and an intense knowledge of all the top designer brands) told me "you'd love England, everything is grey there". Indeed.

I've actually been to England several times. Once you get out of London, where there are Yobbos, it's a very nice place. Sure, the food is nothing to write home about, although they have some lovely pork pies, and the teatime offerings are splendid, but in the main no one shouts, there are few if any American or Americanized tourists, they have bookstores, and spicy condiments are available. A lovely place. And yes, they do speak English.

For some reason, the courtesy and professionalism of the staff at Chinese Hospital, and the pharmacy there, always reminds me of England. High standards, sheer competence, and equanamity when dealing with the occasional grouchy old pustule.



The time I spent in the ICU there years ago was, sadly, not alleviated by pork pies. Perhaps an oversight. Maybe I should suggest that to them. It is extremely likely that their Cantonese demographic would appreciate it. Those are the same people that enthusiastically dig into cheesy spaghetti porkchops (焗豬扒意粉 'guk jyu paa yi fan'), flaky barbecue pork turnovers (叉燒酥 'chaa siu sou'), and cheesy curry fresh seafood baked rice (芝士咖喱海鮮焗飯 'ji si kaa lei hoi sin guk faan').

There is also Portuguese Chicken Rice (焗葡國雞飯 'guk pou gwok gai faan'; a base of egg-fried rice with mild coconut curry chicken and cheese crusted under the broiler).
People would be dying to get into the ICU.
Oh wait......



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ANOTHER ERA

Seth posted an article about a seasonal exhibit of old-timey jello dishes. The picture actually looked edible until you realized that that was asparagus, and they had murdered it. The bed of crinkly lettuce and parsley underneath the fruit cocktail ring(?) was what made the whole appetizing. than another friend posted what may be the classicest sammich recipe ever: Take a quarter pound of liverwurst, mash it with a peeled banana and a cup of tomato ketchup or chili paste. Butter eight slices of bread, smear the liverwurst and banana mixture on eight other slices, and stick them together. Slice diagonally. Yum. boys, that sounds delish!

In the good old days women would stay at home all day and while away the lonely hours inventing festive old timey foods like this. I think we've lost a lot by becoming civilized.

I would use chilipaste instead of ketchup.
Sambal badjak, sambal oelek, either.

Toast the bread first.

Had a bowl of jook yesterday, first food since Sunday. Felt it was necessary, so that I wouldn't wankle or stumble when down at the pharmacy picking up a refil of latanoprost. That would have been bad.

Can't have random white dudes wankling and stumbling around pharmacies these days.
I feel that was a crucial part of movies back then.
Happened all the time.



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MURDEROUS STUPIDITY

Being hors de combat from a horrid case of the flu, it was with avid interest that I clicked on a link to an article detailing a virus currently surging in the Bay Area. And promptly noticed that the comments may have been written by idiots. Many of my fellow Americans, when it comes to medical matters, are dumber than a puddle of dog vomit. That's not just an opinion based on the exceptional morons who all felt a need to prove what idiots they are, but on the huge surge in infectious diseases which had been nearly eradicated, innoculations and vaccines falling in several areas of the country, and the just plain blithering idiocy of rightwing social media influencers.

Texas, the Carolinas, and Florida deserve what they're getting.
So do Southern California and parts of Marin County.
Colorado, Idaho, and Oklahoma also.

Of course I've known for years that the situation was dire. For nearly ten years some of the people with whom because of work I must regularely come in contact have been telling me that miracle manuka honey, apple cider vinegar, and turmeric are surefire guarantees of health, and that if only I would have listened to them I would not have needed a coronary stent. Or, most recently, an angioplasty in my right leg. Look, boyos, if you actually believe that nonsense and persist in propagandizing for it, you are murderous swine. The more so because you also claim not to believe that vaccines are in any way useful despite several of you having survived Covid. Kindly shut up.

The statement "if it's natural it has to be good for you" is absolute twaddle. It is because of natural things that the average lifespan during the middle ages was at rock bottom. The plague is natural. Rattlesnake venom is natural. Tetrodotoxin is natural.

That picture above is of something you can't even see, the name of which many of you have trouble reading, recognizing, or pronouncing, and which none of your damned miracle natural remedies will cure. You really need to shut the F up about your batshit medical theories.


That goes double for the idiot Trump put in charge of Health and Human Services.



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A LIGHTHEADEDNESS

Putting it into modern hippie terms, it's a 'cleanse'. Meaning that I haven't eaten since Sunday, and goldarn I feel spiritual. Wrecked by the flu too, but spiritual. And all this without the benefit of apple cider vinegar, turmeric, or that great therapeutic cure-all, marijuana.
I didn't go to my usual Tuesday lunch place yesterday, shan't be heading over to the chachanteng I go to every Wednesday either.


Yes, I did get all my shots.


Three of my coworkers didn't. All of them either got sick, or were in proximity to sick people for many hours. And they have goofy medical ideas, so I'm surprised they aren't dead yet.

I haven't smoked a pipe since the weekend either, and intellectually that bothers me more than realistically. It's something I just don't feel like doing at present.


PLus the temps outside right now are brutal.
Icebergs drifting perilously close.
Snowdrifts, frozen corpses.

I suppose I should shave today, my chin feels frowsty. Like a British living room after Old Roger has smoked all of his Havanas with the wife away. He really should have put on some sweaters and opened the window, the difference in temperatures would have gotten that pokey estate flat fresh in no time. Maybe she's in the hospital.
And not coming back this week.
Should have had her shots.
Flu, covid, distemper.


The weather at present is exactly the same as in England.
This does please me in the slightest.
Going back to bed now.



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THE SOUP THAT MATTERS

Wasted the entire day mostly in bed. Flu-ish. Achy. Cold. So altogether, write this one off. The chain of transmission probably runs directly from work, a coworker who was no longer quite symptomatic. If not, I probably passed it on myself before the fevered feeling had manifested itself. Food, today, is a bit iffy. I don't feel like cooking, and there is no restaurant conveniently nearby where I could get exactly what I want, which means that weak tea and perhaps a biscuit will be on the menu.

Exactly what I want is congee made with chicken stock and chicken shreds, with scallion and ginger strewn on top. Unfortunately this neighborhood caters mostly to younger generation white people who wouldn't know what that was if it came up and bit them in the rear.


Once upon a time I was a younger generation white person.
Okay?!?


Now I just want these kids to get off my imaginary lawn, and to take their cellphones and scooters with them. Just leave the to-go container by the door and scram. It's rather depressingly gloomy in here. and cold. The heater doesn't kick on till later.
And my arms and torso ache. Profoundly.

Congee is comfort food.

Chicken congee is chicken rice soup simmered and stirred till the rice grains are cloudy and falling apart, then shredded or cut chicken -- which may be from a roasted bird, or not -- are added, and then in this scenario chopped scallion and ginger over it. Maybe a drop of sesame oil. Decent stock is key. Hot, thereapeutic, simple.


Entirely unconnected to any of this, I'm looking at a tin of Chenet's Cake, by Cornell & Diehl. Which is a meaty Virginia and Perique blend I am quite keen to light up, probably in my older Peterson pipes. But I shan't open it till later in the week, when I've improved considerably.
It's been described as having an awful tin note, but a very good smoke.
Probably perfect for the icy weathere we're having.



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IT IS VERY NEARBY!

An internet discussion with a friend in Israel this morning, in which I mentioned that the languages of San Francisco are English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Tagalog. Pursuant ordering food in Antwerp, where if the waitress speaks really deep and unintelligible Flemish, her parents native tongue will come in handy. Cantonese, despite it not being a Chinese restaurant. One should never let language stand in the way of food, unlike for instance haemorroids (quiero comprar un tubo de tu mejor pomada para las hemorroides!), for which salves are, or used to be, as advertised on Mission Street buses. And you can imagine how chuffed I was to realize that I could make sense of every word on the colourful advertising poster.

At last! I can go to Mexico AND have haemorrhoids!

Some folks think just pointing will work. With food, that can lead to confusion and lectures, the subtext of which might be "that's bittermelon with shrimp paste, which is indeed delicious, but you're so white you glow in the dark, perhaps I should let you know that you will probably detest it". With piles, pointing is probably not recommended either. But feel free to try, and report back.

Imagine that you are visiting Beirut.

Afwan, ya mademoiselle, hadha biwasir!

Ayn Walghrizi? Where is a Walgreens?

One would hope 'qarib jidan'. Rather than ten miles away. So you thank her nicely ('shukran jazilan, ya mademoiselle'), then toddle off on your ten glowing tentacles, leaving her with memories of an experience she can't possibly tell her friends about.
"Hey Laila, did you know space aliens can have haemorrhoids?" At which point Laila thinks to herself "oh goodness, Fatima has been hitting the bottle again" and resolves to call the authorities.

One would hate for glowing green space alien haemorrhoids to be the reason for first contact. It would be undignified. Just saying.



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THE IRISH ARE NOT SOMALIS

Having woken from a nap dream featuring Somali food, I searched the internet for Somali restaurants in San Francisco. It looks like there aren't any. Ethiopean, yes, Sudanese also, but nothing Mogadishuesque. A tragic oversight. A lacuna. This more or less relates to the dumb Irishman infesting the back-room at work who insists that Somalis are low IQ people hellbent on destroying the United States, because he heard something that Trump said.

I'm not sure that my fellow Dutch American Ayaan Hirsi Ali would agree with either of them.

Which is neither here nor there. We Dutch Americans have more experience dealing with sub-standard Irish Americans and German Americans than Somalis (fellow spice merchants), and I'm on record as saying some perfectly shitty things about the Irish (especially around Saint Patrick's Day), which mostly reflect my experience with frat boys (not an ethnic group) and people from the Sunset and Richmond Districts (violent inbred drunks who support the IRA), none of which are representative of the Irish. For one thing, the mildew between their toes is due to bad hygiene, not the misfortune of living in a bog. But no matter.

The other thing is that sometimes my accent is mistaken for Irish or Boston, which I bitterly effing resent. Dumb-ass Americans! It's almost like the morons in this country have the only slimmest idea about the entire rest of the world.

Oh wait, that's actually correct.
They do. Quite slim.
Idiots.

As you can see from this photo, I look nothing at all like an Irishman. I am trimmer by far than the senile bastard in the backroom, plus there's that intelligent glint in my eye, instead of a potato sodden dullness. And I'm quite huggable. Rather than repulsive. Even if you don't factor in the obvious difference of brain (me) versus slab of blood pudding (him).

No, he's not a drunken wreck. Abstains entirely.
He's seen what it does to his people.




By the way: Splendid Irish products of note are Guinness and whiskey, both of which make their cuisine palatable (it's a variation on general British Isles muck, slightly different from the utter dreadfulness of English cooking or horror of Scots). One of my favourite authors is J. P. Donleavy. And I'm also quite fond of my Peterson pipes. Someday I'll have to visit the factory in Dublin, if I can refrain from cogent remarks about the Irish long enough to keep from getting punched. No one in all those islands appreciates American honesty. Sad.

Can't say anything about their poetry. Sometimes I can't get their damned songs out of my head. It's a curse.



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A SLICE OF HEAVEN

The other day, when passing a Chevron station, I noticed the posters on the pumps put there by the company itself, asserting indignantly that California has the highest gas prices in the country, and I realized that it was a deliberate cynical ploy by them to fuel resentment toward the state government as well as sabotage regulation of their industry. And, naturally, I thought "shut up you hosebags, you make record profits in any case, why should you give a damn." Because in the most motorvehicle oriented state people will drive no matter what. California basically invented highways and the suburban strip mall, as well as American car culture. Chevron protesting any rules at all is blatant cynicism.

The other thought that came to mind is that Luigi Mangione is the wave of the future, with many more assassinations of big company executives. Not just the vicious bastards in charge of medical insurance, but a wider and more diverse target group. And remarkably, almost all the candidates for such action are Republicans and major contrigutors to the campaign finances of the robber baron party.

It's just a thought, of course. Far be it from me to advocate political violence. No. I am a bland pacifist more than happy with the splendid state of affairs in a country exploited and drained dry by the enlightened leadership of political whores. I am overjoyed.
It's the best of all possible worlds! Thank you Jesus!

And please don't get me started on the religious rightwing.
Om shanti shanti om, Jesus, om shanti shanti om.
Peace, love, butterflies, and baby angels.

Another thing that came to mind is that the combination of high health insurance costs, fast food chains, and our addiction to hyper-processed junkfoods, probably saves Social Security and Medicare piles of money. We die faster here than in the rest of the industrialized world, and more suddenly. So who cares that clinics and hospitals all over rural America are underfunded and closing down? The savings are enormous!

Things must be really wonderful in Texas.



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THE LIZARD PEOPLE

Just wait for the next pandemic. Traffic will become less congested, and there will be plenty of parking. Almost a guarantee. And we'll finally be able to pave over Texas as a parking lot on the road to Guadalajara. Yes, you may call me an optimist. And that may sound a little negative, but I've spent two days hearing pustulent right wingers justifying and defending Trump's racism and turpitude and Whiskey Pete's complete moral vacuum. So I have little love for my fellow Americans. The rot started when we let in all the trash from the British Isles. English, Irish, Scots, Scots-Irish, what have you. In fact, if we Dutch had sank the Mayflower when it was loaded, the world would be a much better place.

Ichor, radioactive sludge, and toxic secretions.

Thank me for sharing.

Sure, the British Isles would now be overflowing with all the scum that couldn't leave unless deported to Australia, but that's actually a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.
I'd be okay with that. They would have been forced to deal with their whack-jobs at home.
Instead of foisting them on the world. Cold showers, boys, just have cold showers!
It will cure you of those depraved tendencies!


Yesterday afternoon the backroom with the old farts was a little slice of hell. Steaming rancid compost brained hell. Rottenness bubbling over, psychic slime globs, and ectoplasmic putty, splashing around and spattering like what happens when you dump a thirty two ounce soft drink into the deep-fryer at the cheese steak place.

In their next lives they should be reborn as gila monsters with painful infected jaw glands. It would be appropriate. Chronic starvation because of their inability to hunt effectively, the venom giving them constant acid and constipation. Long but incredibly unhappy lives.

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DREAM COOKING

The doorbell rang in the night, but that was probably a dream, as there was no one there when I checked. Sleep then brought me beef stew, happily quivering in a long dark hallway and humming to itself. Unappetizing beef stew. No spices, salt, or flavour. Fortunately that didn' last too long. I cannot find a way of blaming that on the weather.

Probably that last cup of coffee before going to sleep.

Beef stew normally does not shake and tremble in the hallway. It's often kind of emotionless. Perhaps in other parts of the country it's semi-sentient and expresses itself, lord only knows what food is like there and I've heard horror stories about chicken rice sludge with processed cheese melted over because the illiterates have banned cookbooks at the local library, but not here. Seldom. Rarely.

Our beef stew is a more literate product.
Often with French pretensions.
Boeuf Bourgignon.

The main difference being wide-spread cultural awareness, woke policies, and a more civilized way of living. We're just better than them. And wine. We have wine.


Food has featured in my dreams a lot lately.
That, I probably can blame on the weather.



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SOUNDING A BIT MORE SO

No meatballs. Very disappointing. But evenso. I had scoped out the menu when walking by the first time, and had seen lions head meatballs over rice (獅子頭飯 'si ji tau faan') as one of the offerings. So after some necessary purchases I went back and went in. Turns out that today they didn't have it. So I ordered something else and enjoyed my lunch anyhow. Not bad. Not exceptionally good. But above mediocre in a pleasant environment. The waitress was determined to understand my Cantonese even though she only spoke Toisanwaa.
My Toisanwaa, in case you hadn't noticed, is awful.
I can sort of understand it.
Sometimes.

There are four restaurants in Chinatown that offer Toisanese cuisine. I do not know how different that is from standard Hong Kong Canto, as I have never been in them. There's that dialect, you see. And usually native speakers of Toisanwaa take pains to explain that they don't speak Japanese or Mandarin or whatever that mispronounced gibberish is that I'm attempting to speak, please talk English.

My track record with speakers of that dialect is not very good.

About as bad as with Americans from the interior.


If I really wanted to be considered a foreigner I would have moved to the suburbs or beyond years ago. See, in standard Cantonese no one will say "you have an accent, where are you really from?" They can plainly see that I am not a local from their place. It stands out like a sore thumb. But at least I sound like a real human being.
I've never been sure of that in English.

The entire rest of the country beyond certain cities is like the America of the teevee series King Of The Hill. With folks who ask "so are you German or French" after I explain that I'm an American who grew up in the Netherlands (which I then have to clarify isn't Denmark or Norway, you dumb redneck). They're easily flummoxed. And they love pizza.
That's from Europe also, ain't it?

Some Toisanese assume that a white guy conversing in Cantonese is actually trying to speak Mandarin. That probably explains the "sheh sheh" (謝謝) of the waitress when I left.
Which was very cosmopolitan of her.
And courteous.



It's easy to understand why Toisan people are a bit "wary" of foreigners. Their experience with those people is that they're pirates or drug dealers, plus invaders, tax officials, and commissars. You know, the Dutch, English, and Mongols.



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AGAIN THE FRAGRANCE RISES

There's something about those first cups of coffee that just puts the mind on the right track. Before waking up the mind was obsessing (and I know this is weird) about Capstan tobacco, which when I was fourteen I did not particularly like, but of which now I'm rather fond, then after that dark musky jolt of mud I am instead thinking of sunlight, the scent of roses, and jasmine flowers. A study with a hidden staircase.

Across the street in Naarden there was a house with a long garden filled with rose bushes. Various hues. Next to a canal which curved sharply to the left near the highway. The further neighbors in that stretch had tall old trees which I climbed, only the lower branches.
Sunlight, summer, insects. An attic window. Very lovely.

No, at that age I did not smoke a pipe or drink coffee.
But I remember the smells of those then.
A very summery aroma.


We moved to Valkenswaard the next year.
Tar, dust, and fermenting leaves.
A pine tree, resinous.
Low branches.

The painters in the air well outside the kitchen have finished, and the windows are open. The present does not resemble the past, the location has changed, and the sunlight is different.
Coffee and tobacco are a link; they smell the same.


It's quiet in the building, there are few people here.


The room where the computers sit is southfacing. Light is streaming in, but fragmented and diffused through the blinds. Second cup, tobacco in a Charatan Canadian shape briar, books, and wayang figures. A nobleman from Sunda, brought back from Holland years ago. Petruk on top of a bookshelf, behind a bulbous ceramic jar, Arjuna next shelf over. A tribal carving of a Dutch seacaptain with cowrie shells in the corner.
Alone. But not alone.



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