A WORLD OF ONION EATERS

The bookseller mentioned getting slightly sunburned last Wednesday during his weekend, and seeing as he is near me in years I had to keep myself from asking whether he meant frostbitten instead. It being altogether too cold for comfort or poncing around with exposed skin. Unless you are a seal or a teenager.

He does not have tattoos, so I'm wondering why he exposed himself. Besides, all over the city there are very likely heavily tattooed people wearing fur coats, thermal underwear, and electric blankets, regretting their life choices. One of which absurdly is living in the nearest place you can come to Reykjavik in midwinter and still be in civilization.

At the time of this writing I myself am wearing an A shirt, a T shirt, a lumberjack shirt, and a sweater, and I am indoors. It feels cold. I don't even have tattoos to regret.

Also, the bank has boarded up the niche in which I used to smoke my pipe while waiting for the bookseller on the evenings when we crawl pub. Not because of me, but because of the street person who camped there. Which probably made them liable in case he caught ill.

This coldness at present is quite intolerable. Expect an angry letter to the editor about that.
I may write it in formal Dutch to show that I am serious and not to be trifled with.

That there are no late night cafes where a pipesmoker can shelter from the beastly climate and smoke his briar indoors is also an offense against civilized standards.
Quite objectionable! We live in beastly times.


Possibly the most delightful thing I've seen in a long while was three children, all under ten years old, two little girls and one boy, practising their violins together in Willie "Woo Woo" Wong playground around teatime today.

That will probably sweeten my outlook on modern society for at least the next week.
It more than makes up for being addressed as 'Ah Sook' (uncle).
Which, though respectful, makes me feel old.
That was on the bus later.
啊叔。


我唔係咁老！



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THAT TINKLY GIGGLE

Several years ago I boasted that I had gotten marvelously good at talking to teenage girls.
I no longer reduced them to tears but always left them giddy and smiling. The circumstances involved were that as part of credit and collections efforts I frequently needed to call retailers who, in an effort to seem soft and cuddly to their demographic, frequently hired squeaky teenagers to staff customer and phone services.

Wee Jennifer with the tinkly giggle was a better choice than forty year-old Spike with the tattoos and piercings. Far less likely to reduce little children and old ladies to tears.
Or tantrums.

Getting through wee Jennifer to Bob who has the checkbook works better if wee Jennifer is not presently a mental wreck doubting her life choices. At her age, she isn't going to make wise decisions anyhow, but Bob knows that wrong choices might wreck his credit rating.

[Of course, sometimes Bob holds all the cards. That changes everything.]

So I am extremely amused by our government, which is staffed presently by chuckleheads and egomaniacs, thinking that bluster and tariffs are effective tools. We keep calling, and China keeps telling us he isn't in. No, he won't be in this week. At all. Maybe ever.
He in this case being Bob with the checkbook.

China's economy is still growing, ours is on a downward slope, the dollar is losing its value, and we're shedding friends and allies left and right. Whatever we can't sell in China because of their reciprocal tariffs, the Europeans and Japanese will ship to them, and we really can't buy very much because our tariffs on everyone but especially China are crippling the American consumer. As well as most of our industries.

Bob no está aquí, Gringo.
You call back later.
Click.


It looks like Mah and Pah Bumsuck in 'Bama or 'Sippi ain't gonna be able to buy toys for their screaming kiddiewinkies this Christmas. Or new clothes. Not even a festive dollar meal. And cousin Bubba will have to do without insulin for a few months.
My piles bleed for them. Truly.
Tinkly giggle.



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WE WILL THANK YOU

In a famous scene from Lord Of The Rings, Doctor Spock kills and carves up his Tauntaun because it's too buggery cold or whatever. Or maybe that's Captain America from a franchise which I refuse to watch. Anyway, the cold. Yes, I know this is San Francisco and Mark Twain froze here. But I am still offended by this weather. I haven't seen Bay Watch, but I do know that California is tropical and we're supposed to run toward the surf in our cherry red skimpy swim togs. In slow motion, all very poetic.

Sadly, that isn't going to happen.

This morning, on my ambulation around the neighborhood smoking a pipe filled with aged Red Virginia broken flake after a strong cup of a hot imported beverage which will soon be rocketing up in price because the orange felon put a tariff on everything foreign, I passed by several frozen hobbits wrapped in their confederate battle flags, with French bulldogs defecating on their withered corpses, because America!

Oh, and joggers. Joggers are immune to cold.
Bare arms, bare legs. Short shorts.

This is traditional for the end of April. The region has not warmed up yet.
It is inhumane to have your dog go outside in this weather.
Just let him poo inside.

Per Wikipedia: "Defecation (or defaecation) follows digestion, and is a necessary process by which organisms eliminate a solid, semisolid, or liquid waste material known as feces from the digestive tract via the anus or cloaca. The act has a variety of names."

I say this for two major reasons, one being that I care, passionately, about the frozen hobbit corpses, and the second is that some of you cannot clean up after your beasts with your tiny cold, cold fingers trembling uncontrollably. The evidence of the latter is abundant.

I know how it is. After five minutes outside Raynauds Phenomenon has kicked in, your digits have turned blue, the circulation beyond the knuckle has shut off entirely, and you cannot feel anything. Dactyl sensitivity is required for so delicate a task.

Perhaps get a bigger dog? The results are sizeable and easier to handle.
Think of the sheer satisfaction you will feel.
Sheer joy.


Also, it may warm your fingers.
That, too, will be good.



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THE ERA OF ADJECTIVES

Sofar I've seen over a dozen headlines today from newspapers in the free world (Canada, England, Ireland, and various Nato countries) using the term 'unhinged' in reportage about Trump policies, spokes-sycophants, obsequious suporters, and colloborationist shitweasels. How sad! They're entirely overlooking all the other worthwhile adjectives! Such useful words as 'reprehensible', 'detestable', 'loathsome', 'despicable', and 'Texas-sized puke-o-matic'. That last, by the way, applies in bucket loads to Karoline Leavitt, the girl next door who probably delighted in ripping the wings off flies. Until she became one of the Debbies.

[Eventually she'll loose her youth, be discarded, and turn full-Karen.]

The English language can be marvelous a communicative tool. It lets us converse with the racist inbred scum in the red states. People we would otherwise not speak to at all.
And that, of course, furthers peace and understanding.

I envision a summer filled with guillotines.

As you should expect, I have a list of candidates. Many of them are well-known rightwingers. Who are reprehensible, detestable, loathsome, despicable, and Texas-sized pukes.
As well as unhinged. Quite.

Not all of them are well-known. Some of them are just people I know well.
Even though I really wish I didn't.


A number of those individuals reside in Marin County.


I deserve combat pay for working there.

There are decent people in Marin, not all of them voted for the spray tan nazi.
You might not think so from my descriptions of the place.
Some of them don't drive wankpanzers.
Or torture small animals.



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WHEN FOOLS RUSH OUT

A gentleman of my acquaintance likes a game of tennis at the grim crack of dawn. Which presumes that there is at least one other person like that. And in the same part of the world too. Traveling distance. Which, to me, is astounding. At that hour I like a strong cup of coffee followed by an amble around the neighborhood with a briar pipe filled with soft tobacco jutting out of my face. Which is, please understand, NOT because I particularly like to take walks, but because my apartment mate is a nonsmoker and I am reasonably considerate.

I told my doctor a few years ago that I was walking a lot more.

At which news his face lit up.

With my pipe, smoking.

His face lit down.


At work I am considerably less considerate than when I'm off. I spent twenty minutes reading about a pipe tobacco blend with a view toward purchasing it for the purpose of irritating a coworker who hates all aromatic pipe tobaccos, before finally deciding that it was too rich and artificial even for me. One or two bowls to piss off Hecky, and then I'd be stuck with around forty five grammes of a product that I would look at occasionally with trepidation, wondering when I'd ever finish the tin.

So no, I probably will not buy it. But I know where to find it if I change my mind. Vanilla, honey, nuts. And a touch of caramel. Some smokers wives love the room note, some find it repulsive, and the smokers themselves have described it as "heavenly", "mild", "enjoyable", "old-fashioned", "what a tobacco is supposed to be", and "nasty and utterly nauseating".

I particularly dislike honey as a tobacco flavouring.

Shan't mention the name. Some people like it.
Don't want to insult them needlessly.
I'll find a better reason.


Tennis when it's barely light outside. Good lord.
What a horrible instance of self-torture.
Some people, you know.



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RESTORE BALANCE TO THE UNIVERSE

Jeff was sputtering on about Liugi Mangione. I should have told him the country would be a lot better off if people like Brian Thompson had a more realistic fear of being whacked. Jeff, of course, is a typical hypocrite and a Republican, who just wishes the less fortunate would suck it up without protest. He's comfortable, so why would anyone want to upset the apple cart and burn things down. Don't worry, be happy, and please shut up all you little people.

If he survives, ten years from now he'll be quite senile and sitting in a corner drooling and sputtering to himself. His wife will have left him by then, and he'll probably have no friends because the bald pervert will have died of apoplexy and one or two others will have passed from preventable diseases.

As you can tell, I foresee a bright future for him.
If he doesn't get shot.

I lost all respect for him quite a while back. So did his former spouse. I guess she had finally had it with his repulsive conservative tendencies. She must have been a very tolerant woman, probably a saint.

He is, by the way, a cigar smoker.

As a pipesmoker I suppose I should be kind to him and his friends. But lordy, I am not that way inclined. I want most of them to come to a bad end, but not in a health-hazard way, so that no one else gets infected or polluted.

By the way, it is never too early to plan an impressive funeral.
Naturally I am planning several.


They'll be happy events.



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IRKSOME NATIVES

Yesterday I overheard two Jews arguing in favour of nazi-style actions against foreigners. And against due process for them. Because, of course, those damned foreigners! They were specifically reffing Hispanics. And given that they aren't even Pesach-observant, I doubt that Vayikra 19:34 means bupkes to them. I believe both of them have post-WWII refugees in the family woodwork. One of them, N.B., is a lawyer.

[Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:33-34: "And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt ... " ]

Not that I expected any better of them just because they were Jewish, but I am surprised at their inability to see the irony and disconnection.


Because I have a slight accent, though American-born, I have been told several times to go back to wherever the hell I came from. And I've also been called a Euro-commie jew.

Years ago someone threatened to report me to immigration. So I should just watch it!

And I can still remember the manager at one company who was convinced that I was an illegal alien trying to snooker everyone, but she could see right through me.

It's a longstanding open sore.

You will understand that I have no wish whatsoever to visit any of the red states and rather wish they would drop off into the ocean. I also suspect many of the people there of having unclean diseases and being too closely related to each other for comfort.



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ADVENTURES IN THE FREEZING TUNDRA

It's almost miraculous how much having a bite to eat and putting on an extra layer of clothing after doing one's laundry makes a difference to one's outlook. Almost immediately one's fellow human no longer looks like an evil space alien or malevolent sasquatch sapiens.
Still not our type, dearie, but much better.

The best yesterday could register temperature-wise was fifty two degrees Fahrenheit, but with the wind it felt several degrees less. Tourists of course were wearing shorts. I had five layers on my torso and still felt like a bitch. Snap, bark, growl.

Senile Mandarin speaker on the bus trying to teach a Spanish speaking woman and infant how to talk in a civilized tongue (his own). Very entertaining. My Spanish is considerably worse than my Mandarin, but I could understand all three of them.

Pipe, after tea and a coconut tart (椰撻).
Nice warm coffee shop.
Comfy.

My favourite grocery store has not reopened yet. They were supposed to be back from their vacation this past weekend, open again this week. So I'm deeply concerned. Did they have a customs and immigration issue? Are they currently rotting in a Latin American organ trafficking prison? Did that effing bunt Homan take a scunner to them? What?

Were they run over by wild horses? Sasquatch get them?


Chinatown ain't nearly as much fun when I'm worried about people I like. Who are not angry white Karens, not stupid Midwestern tourists, not dimwitted Southern pudge-mommas, not even very cleancut yet disturbingly blinkered young Mormon missionaries outside their Washington Street ping pong hall trawling for suckers.

下午好，先生，你想唔想打乒乓球？

Haa ng hou, sin saang , nei seung m seung daa bing bang kau？Eh, sorry, I do not want someone to sleep in my bathroom, and I shall now gibber on a bit in Dutch, saying snide things about your repellent haberdasheries. Good 你嘅 bye.

[Actually, Mormons don't speak Cantonese. They're kind of like snooty Northerners.]


Maga scum needs to be savagely taken down.
Malevolent damned Christians.
The unclean.



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THE SHART OF THE DEAL

The folks in Arkansas and Oklahoma still believe Karoline Leavitt, but they also regret that they can't casually lynch black people and reporters in those places. Everyone else realized a long time ago that's she hawking koolaid. Meanwhile, president Blue Suit And Bone Spurs continues to drive the stationwagon off the cliff. Well, to be fair, Fox News in the backseat continues to tell him he's doing a fabulous job.

And everywhere, the reek of the President's overloaded incontinence diapers overwhelms people, surrounding us with a foul Republican miasma that demands that we open all the windows and let in fresh air and sunlight. Are we winning yet?

There is absolutely nothing more American than Republican politicians hiring private security to brutalize people at Town Halls. As seems to be happening in many places, not just Idaho, which is a festering garbage pit anyhow.

Well, perhaps Texas inviting people to demonstrate their freezums by catching measles.
Plus Southern politicians cheering on the destruction of those Yankees.
And maintaining that we don't need the world.
America is the greatest!

Look, California actually has an economy, plus a fairly high number of college graduates and inventive people. We'll survive. All those chuckleheads with incontinence diaper rash in the red states can go suck an egg. I hope the panels on their Teslas fall off.


The only thing really wrong with California is all those scummy opportunists from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Sadly, I guess we have to tolerate the leeches.
After all, we're all in this together.



If only we could nuke some of the red states, things would be better.




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AN IDEOLOGICAL BLEAKNESS

As you know, in some parts of the world it is warmer than here in San Francisco at present. Where it's fifty degrees Fahrenheit. In Jakarta, for instance, it's hovering above eighty. My friend Iskander in Jakarta is poncing around in his shirtsleeves smoking a Havana cigar with a small cup of strong cardamom coffee. Whereas I just returned from stumbling around the chilly arctic wastes with my pipe and extra padding.

This is uncivilized. They really ought to do something. Like open a smoking coffee shop for people who cannot indulge in a bowl or a cheroot when their apartment mate is still at home. A well-heated place, with more than decent hot beverages, crisp newspapers, and elegant capacious ashtrays on little tables among the comfy rattan chairs.

Breakfast next door. Curry noodle soup.
Fresh sliced chilies on the side.

Unfortunately the wheatgerm freaks have decided that smokers must go outside and freeze their collective tuchuses off, risking pneumonia and attacks by maddened street people in this frigid weather. As well as arthritis and stiff muscles.
Oh, the humanity!

SOMEWHERE IN JAKARTA

You do know that when Sir Francis Drake explored the Antarctic one of the sled dogs was specifically tasked with dragging the supply of fine British pipe tobacco and the tea set over the frozen tundra, don't you? That's how important it was considered! Neither Auckland nor nuclear power would have been discovered if people had to step outside in those days.
Penicillin wouldn't have been invented!

Because of anti-smoking laws, the average Indian coolie now has to step outside with his clay cup of chai to smoke, risking attacks from health freaks and social purists as well as cobras and mongeese snapping at his exposed parts.
It's inhumane, is what it is.

Needless to say, I am bitterly resentful.
I blame Adolph Hitler for this.
Damned anti-smoker!
Vegetarian!




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AUTUMN HONEY PEARS

At quarter to five I delivered a baggie with an extremely large 'Autumn Honey' pear and two glutinous rice rolls (一個秋蜜梨同兩個糯米卷) to both my landlady and the old Indonesian woman downstairs. Because the new dimsum place on Stockton Street has interesting fresh looking snackies, and the pears looked delicious. In between I had enjoyed my tea at the bakery. Neither of the old gentlemen I often see there showed up, probably because it was too cold today.

Sadly, my favourite stockist wasn't open, but the geezer loading merchandise into their storage rooms at the back door seemed to believe that they would be open tomorrow.

I hope that's true. To say that I don't trust those racist wasp-o-phile careerists in customs and immigration further than I can spit would be an overstatement van jewelste.


No idea why they haven't opened the shop yet.
They were supposed to be back this week.

AUTUMN HONEY PEARS

Not as attractive as the 'crystal' pears, but probably much less likely to bruise.


By the way: There are three produce markets where I do not wish to shop for a few weeks in Chinatown. A nasty attitude at one of them, the second one is a bit grotty, and the pushy old farts who patronize the third are just too much to deal with. But the people who staff the dimsum take-out place are very pleasant.

I am a sour and grumblesome old toad. Fruit alleviates that.
Kept one pear to share with my apartment mate.



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ENFORCED BLAND GARBAGE

Fortunately the one thing that isn't impacted by Trump's stupid tariff war is my own personal hot sauce production; we grow chilies in California. As well as garlic. And I can buy enough stinky shrimp paste to survive the apocalypse on Stockton Street before that's affected, as the stuff keeps forever. But in other ways it will impact my wallet, and I'm pissed about that.

Why should I pay a punitive commerce tax to the government?
Screw the Republicans and the camels they rode in on.


Today I find out if the people at my favourite stockists got back safely.
Or whether the uniformed thugs at our entry points got pissy.
The store has been closed for three weeks.


We are finally the country that Christian fascists wanted. Which is, sadly, the majority of the American electorate. America has become a negative example to the free world. Don't travel out or you might not get back in. Don't think of visiting, because you could end up in a Latin American organ harvesting concentration camp being savagely brutalized by MAGA's pet dictator and his goons. If you look or talk different, the nice people in several states and jurisdictions will report you for fun and profit.

And, if you travel through the Midwest or parts of the South, wanting to eat decent food is mighty suspicious. Anything with chilies is considered commie and darn well un-Christian.
If Jesus and Marjorie Taylor Greene can eat bland garbage and like it, why can't you?


Ya know, boy, differences of speech, diet, and religion, are mighty suspicious.
In my day everyone was a white Anglo Protestant, and proud of it!
No talking those funny lingos. That leads to drugs!
Why are there coloured wheelchairs?
Mah vital juices!


I'm surprised that cannibalism and headhunting aren't more widespread in this country. Surely those should be televised sports in the red states? Subsidized, at the very least.



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DO I LOOK LIKE THAT TO YOU?

As usual, I was high as a kite, hepped to the gills, when I got home after our customary pub-crawl. Three caffeinated beverages during, and coffee before I left the house. And the water was hot enough for decent tea at the drinking establishments. They are learning. But unlike the spry old fellow opposite me on the bus I wasn't clenching because of bladder pressure. See, after a decade part-time at the Indian restaurant, where I dared not abandon the cash register for even a moment during working hours because the waitstaff would make ghastly mistakes when I was otherwise occupied, my bladder is the size of Texas. It can hold, comfortably, for several hours of tea-drinking. It's positively English in that regard.

Small elderly Cantonese gentlemen are not as lucky.
He exited the bus at a remarkable trot.
I guess he had it in him.

Yes, I'm gloating about my bladder.

The karaoke joint was screechy mayhem, so we went to see miss Vivien. A much calmer environment. And I now understand why people watch ice hockey. It's for those moments when the goalkeeper clobbers some member of the other team who keeps bogarting him. Dude, I told you to get out of my face.

We love big violent Belorussians on skates.


While waiting for my friend to arrive I had been in conversation with a chap who believed that I was a spy, and was concerned that either I or he himself looked exactly like someone on Mission Street who had been stabbed.

After my recent haircut I look less bigheaded than normal, but my head feels larger and colder than before, especially in the arctic breeze this evening. Almost like it belongs to someone else. Who also smokes a pipe.

There were fewer people about, but more crazy folks than normal.


One of the things my friend the bookseller and I briefly discussed was an entirely new category of literature, neither sci-fi nor fantasy, but something which should properly be named "whatever the hell that is that he writes". Maybe a subset of pretentious poofle.

Likely to be banned in many parts of the country, I think.
Especially if it mentions New Yorkers.
Favourably.


By the way: I am not a spy.
Nor reptilian.



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ON THE SAME CONE

There is a strong temptation to doom-scroll, and after this is all over we'll all need a vacation, probably. So I took a break this morning and ate some mango. Along with dried fish, mango is one of precisely TWO flavours that absolutely scream ASIA to most white guys.
I'm a white guy. Very stereotypically so.

Dried fish, while delicious, is not my favourite ice cream flavour.
Yeah, I suppose it's okay. But you can have mine.

I think I've lost my appetite now.
You too? Odd.

Over the weekend I told several people that nothing says Easter like a cigar. Just like nothing says Valentine's Day like a cigar either. And by the way, totally unrelated to any of this, you do know that Mother's Day is coming up, don't you? Sunday May 11.

In the good old days they put out cheery cartons of cigarettes for Mother's Day.
Make your mom feel special with a carton of Wabash Filters.
It's got little pink flowers all over!

There was a time when dried fish was a more common flavour in the Netherlands than fresh mango. The exiles from the Indies craved both, but one was more easily imported than the other. So, understandably, I knew about dried fish ages before I came back to the United States, thanks to 'aunties'. Thank you, aunties.

[First had mango in my twenties.]

Even today I have dried fish in my food more often than mango.
But I had let this one ripen, so couldn't use it in cooking.
Green mango chunks with fatty pork is delicious.
With sambal trasi it tasted like heaven.
And a big pile of rice.


The skin was showing slight wrinkling so it was time to cut it up, lest it become too soft and start going bad. A lot of it is now in a bowl in the refrigerator for a late night snack. Unless my apartment mate eats it, which she is welcome to do. Last night's snack was eggplant cooked with duck chunks and chili paste, also delicious, and similar to the dried fish previously mentioned not likely to become a popular ice cream flavour.

Although I imagine that there are some who would say "bring it on!"
And all of them probably live in this city.
I don't want to know them.


It was a very big mango.



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WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT, LITTLE GRASSHOPPER!

Russell was outside taking in the sun. He's been a bit wankel for the past several months, after having pneumonia a while back. But he appears to be chipper, and glad to be (slowly) on the road to recovery. At somewhere over ninety years of age. Of course being in the centre of Chinatown it is highly likely that people smoke around him, which, given his diminished lung function, is not good.

A short while later I was involved in an animated conversation about eating in Shanghai (the new exotic locale for HK foodies), which segued into wonton noodle soup. I am adamant, but diplomatic and not insistent, that dried flounder (大地魚 'daai dei yü') is essential in the broth for that contrastive saveur. This was before lunch. So before filling my pipe I headed toward a nice plate of mui choi kau yiuk (梅菜扣肉) over rice, side of savoury cooked tofu.


As you know, very many conversations in Chinatown involve food.
To Brabanders, Italians, and Cantonese that's important.
Sadly, far less so to many Anglos.

On the way down to Portsmouth Square I passed several groups of large pudgy people. White, of course, and probably tourists from the more cuisine deprived parts of the country, where getting all the nutrition you need necessitates wading through piles of fries, bacon, grits, and flapjacks. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Who am I to judge.

There are probably valuable vitamins and minerals somewhere in the cascades of ketchup and artificially maple-flavoured corn syrup. And some useful fibres in the huge cliffs and mountain ranges of grits and Danish pastries. Donuts ARE a food pyramid!

Just keep on chewing. Eventually you will get there.

Many Americans need more stomach acid.

It's what carbonated drinks are for.



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SPAM JELLO WITH BITS OF VIENNA SAUSAGE

Several years ago, a friend who regularly does so, spoofed my gustatory tastes. Suggesting that like the small turkey vulture I likewise had a well-developed taste for carrion.

I did not take offense, as it was meant good-naturedly.

By vegan standards, I do.

She's not vegan. Parsees seldom are. There are too many good things to eat in this world for them. When she shared her mom's recipe for dhansak, meat was specifically mentioned.
Also, you can't make marghi na farcha without animal protein.
Nor jardalu salli boti. Et alia multa.


The following is a Parsee recipe for a relish that would go well with very many foods on the Parsee table, and though it could also be served with vegan food I would not recommend that, because vegans are most comfortable with bland porridge, dairy-free "cheese", and frequently, tofu cooked by white people with no taste. None of which Parsees eat.

AMBAKALIO

One pound small green mangoes (NOT squishy ripe mangoes).
Half a pound jaggery (palm sugar in big chunks).
A fragment of stick cinnamon.
Chopped onion (about a quarter to a half) optional (some recipes leave it out).
A green cardamom or two, a whole clove or two.
Water - two to four tablespoons.

Break jaggery apart, put in an enamel saucepan with water, the cardamom, and the cloves. Plus the onion, if you decided to use it. Cook till the jaggery is dissolved.
Peel, cut, and de-seed the mangoes. Green mangoes will have a tender seed and the flesh will not have become all fibrous around it. Nor will juice and pulp cascade over your hands at this stage of unripeness, and the flesh is firm and fragrant, albeit pleasingly tart.
Add the sliced mango to the jaggery water, and simmer till the mango has softened and the liquid has become stroppy. Cool.


It might also go well with Spam® Jello® with bits of Vienna sausage. Which she suggested to me as an appropriate substitute for carrion. I assume that's indicative of her superior experience. She is older than me, and has eaten more. She would know.

SMALL TURKEY VULTURE

Naturally, being a Dutch American (so white I glow in the dark), I myself would have a small katori of sambal trasi next to the bowl of ambakalio to enjoy with my 'unidentified fried object' (the Dutch national dish).

Perhaps the gelatine and canned salted meat mixture above would make a good base for a nineteen fifties suburban housewife's terrine on her cocktail party buffet when the boss and his spouse are visiting. It's sure to impress them!

Somewhere in in Iowa or Minnesota.

Pâté de porc du Midwest.

Parsee recipe.



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POLISHING A TRADITION

Now that my apartment mate has left for the day and the only other person here is the stuffed turkey vulture dozing on her chair, it's relatively quiet. When she is here, he is voluble. Perky. Contentious. Querulous. Feisty. But while she is at work, he mostly dozes, waking up every so often to ask if the fatty inner thighs on which he wishes to feast have somehow as if by magic materialized. Surely I can whack a random passerby outside on the street?
Or one of the old geezers at work?

It's okay to harvest their juicy bits and simply cauterize the wound. That way they won't bleed out, or if they do, no matter, no one will miss them. Why don't I understand this?

And what is wrong with me?
No gumption!

While I will admit that the second category mentioned appeals as potential victim, as dinner for a fuzzy entity snoring opposite, it is not a workable plan. Eventually he'd want more, in his buzzard mind death is a perpetual feast, and undoubtedly there would be slip-ups. And I have no desire to spend the rest of my life behind bars for old geezer disposal. The authorities frown on that. One must let them pass naturally.

Also, it looks like it's going to be a nice enough day that one would not want to dwell on the prospect of hunting down kvetchy old geezers in what is altogether a rather nice city. If he wants to eat them, or any part of them, he'll have to whack them himself. I can lend him a pocket knife. He's small enough that they'll never notice him sneaking up.

While he rests, I shall continue polishing the Comoy billiard shape Tradition which I got back from the stem guy last week. The rim almost looks right now, as good as it may ever be, after assiduous use of microfibre pads of diminishing bite. And where I dealt with the sides I've done a pretty decent job of colour-matching the stain and patina.
I'm rather pleased with it sofar.

I often tell new pipe smokers that if they weren't neurotic before, they soon will be.
Pipe smoking and pipe collecting almost inevitably lead to that.
The aesthtic sense developes sharpness.


Quite likely I have spent well more than a day putzing around with this Tradition. It appealed to me, and now looks considerably better than when I acquired it.
Comoys are among my favourites.



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AVOID THE MIGRATING BIRDS

Sadly, we don't have crocodiles in San Francisco. Otherwise we would love them, walk them on leashes, and coddle them like children. And feed the tourists to them, probably. When I walked by one of my favourite dumpling places it was packed with tourists. One could tell that they were tourists, because they were pudgy, very white, and in family groups.
Mah, Pah, the three or four kiddies, and the pet goldfish.

So I headed to the other one. Where there were also tourists, but they were quite a bit more bearable, being two college boys from Florida, dressed cleanly, eating with chopsticks, and quietly exchanging ideas from their cellular devices on where to go next.

My lunch was excellent.

Small white cabbage and pork dumplings (白菜豬肉水餃) ordered in Mandarin, which I speak fairly badly. Eaten there, and generously tipped. That last because I really do like being a valued customer. Both at the time and when I'm there next.
The people there are from the North.
Hence Mandarin.

Yes yes. Delicious! After leaving I lit my pipe and headed in a direction in which there would likely be no visitors. The financial district was empty today. More than before covid.

Coldish. Not very windy. Only mid fifties.
That's positively springlike.
In Reykjavik.


All the visitors are going home tomorrow, probably.



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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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