RED ODESSA: CORNELL & DIEHL'S OLDEST BLEND

But actually, that is a lie; Red Odessa is NOT their oldest blend, not by a very large margin. It simply tastes that way. This is a delightful classic that is sure to disturb the even keel of every pipe hater between here and the Atlantic (either direction, your choice), as it evokes memories long repressed of crotchety old men (or old women) who have sandbagged themselves at the club, and will not yield for any number of little children or repressive vegetarians with a tobacco phobia.

It is, in fact, the perfect tobacco for free-thinkers.


Ever since Sherlock's Haven on Battery Street got sold to the idiot brothers, and the wealth of knowledge and keenly honed discernment known as Marty Pulvers retired, I had despaired of access to good tobacco. Grant's on Market Street, while a pleasant enough place to purchase oddments among the dead leaves, leaves much to be desired. Neither partner seems much interested in what they sell, or discovery of new things.
San Francisco businesses tend to rest triumphantly on the back-end of prior greatness. This is the city of great placidity.



RED ODESSA
By Cornell & Diehl

Somebody talked Craig Tarler into replacing the complement of Burley in his Odessa mixture with red Virginia, hence the name. It showed great flexibility, as Craig is a solid fan of air-cured leaf.
But I'm sure he's glad he listened. This is mighty fine tobacco.

Latakia, Turkish, Virginia, and a touch of Perique.
Preponderance of the first two.


It is both creamy and leathery, and quite delightful with a cup of strong tea. Which, given that I have to smoke outside rather than in the office, is hard to achieve. The guy at the front desk has this nasty habit of wandering off in the evening, nominally to patrol the perimeter and make sure all floors are secure.
He's probably playing video games on the crapper at those times, and I keenly resent him for that.

There are just enough loonies outside in the Financial District to make one keep moving, lest they spot the sedentary blinky object and come closer.
Some of them are beyond any doubt rabid.

Perambulated three blocks, trailing whisps of smoke.
Maybe the best smoke break ever.

I'm having that cup of tea right now.
Going to light up again when I leave.

TOBACCO INDEX


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

KOSHER PUMPKIN PIE

Pie is a mental state. Pie is a way of life.

One of my correspondents reacted to my previous posting of a pumpkin pie recipe by sending me something entitled "Kosher Pumpkin Pie".

[Previous pumpkin pie recipe here: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2007/11/take-that-pumpkin-and.html ]


KOSHER PUMPKIN PIE

Two cups pumpkin puree.
One and a half cups milk.
Half a cup heavy whipping cream.
3 eggs.
1 egg yolk.
Half a cup white sugar.
Half a cup packed brown sugar.
One teaspoon salt.
One teaspoon ground cinnamon.
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg.
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves.

A nine inch pie shell.


Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine eggs, egg yolk, white sugar, and brown sugar. Add salt and spices, stir in milk and cream. Add the pumpkin puree and mix well. Pour filling into the pie shell. Bake for ten minutes in preheated oven. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and bake for 45 minutes more, until the filling is set.


I am at a loss to explain what makes this recipe kosher above all others. Perhaps it is the pie shell...... In which case I would suggest carefully scrutinizing the list of ingredients on the box if that is a concern.

A good Chinatown bakery would use lard in their pie crusts and pastries, because it contributes much flavour and flakiness. This practice is not uncommon, and animal shortening is traditional in pie-crusts. Vegetable shortening does not have quite the luscious effect.
Additionally, the American food industry is not particularly aware of kashrus, and consequently a ready-to-use crust may have some ingredients which are not, strictly speaking, edible.
Some commercial pie-crusts also have a cocktail of chemical additives to prevent spoilage and cracking, besides tasting like industrial packing material.

But you can make your own. It is not difficult.


PIE CRUST
[for a nine-inch pie dish.]

One cup all purpose flour.
One Tbs sugar.
Half a teaspoon salt.
Half a cup (one stick) butter.
Two Tbs oil.
Three to four TBS ice water.

Sift flour, sugar, salt together. Cut in butter, and then mix in oil. It should be crumbly and somewhat sandy between the fingers. Add the water in sprinkles and fold over, spread out, refold. Do not overwork - when the dough sticks together, roll it into a flattish ball, dust with a little extra flour, cover with plastic wrap over the top and around the sides so that no air comes between the ball and the mixing bowl, and refrigerate it for an hour.

To roll the dough out, decant the ball onto a generously flour-dusted surface and work the rolling-pin over in an even circular motion till you have a disc around eleven inches across. Press into a buttered and floured pie dish, trim or fork edges as needed. Refrigerate for another hour at this point.

To prebake the crust for a pumpkin (or other wet-filled) pie, line the chilled pastry with tin foil (or parchment paper), and weigh this down with dried beans. Bake for twenty minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from oven, slide out the foil and beans, and bake for another ten minutes more.

Let it cool completely before pouring in the filling and proceeding with the pumpkin pie. You should probably brush a little water around the exposed edge of the pastry to keep it from darkening or drying out too much while baking.



Note regarding pumpkin puree: Seed a pumpkin, pare off the rind, cut the pumpkin into large chunks, and place on an oiled baking sheet.
Cover with foil and roast at 350°F for one hour or until tender enough to mash.
When mashing, a little butter may be added for flavour - do not overdo it. Keeps for a fortnight in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

THE SCREW YOU AWARDS

This blog, which is experiencing burn-out, is pleased to announce the first-ever Back-of-the-Hill SCREW YOU AWARDS.

The screw you awards will be balanced; I am nothing if not a man of compromise and equitability.


So


THE BAY AREA:

To the Bay Area Jews who think I'm too left-wing for them to stand with me at a pro-Israel demonstration:
SCREW YOU.

To the Bay Area Gentiles who think that being pro-Israel is too right-wing:
SCREW YOU.

To the Bay Area Jews who would rather support the Palestinians:
SCREW YOU.

To the Bay Area Gentiles who are too lazy to study the issues but are nevertheless incredibly opinionated about Israel and Palestine:
SCREW YOU.

To the Bay Area Jews who support Israel but don't want to be seen supporting Israel:
SCREW YOU.

To the Bay Area Gentiles who say they support Israel but disapprove of Israel's behaviour:
SCREW YOU.

To the Bay Area Jews who won't get off their duff to protest, but kvetch about how there isn't enough support for Israel:
SCREW YOU.

To the Bay Area Gentiles who are always hypercritical of Israel, but totally and actively supportive of those dear sweet Palliwallies:
SCREW YOU.

To the Christians in the deep South who constantly criticize the Bay Area as too liberal:
SCREW YOU.
[You may be right. But you're wrong on so many things, so SCREW YOU as a matter of principle. Twice. With something sharp and rusty. Okay?]


THE DUTCH AND THE EUROPEANS:

To the Dutch who keep insisting that Americans, Jews, and Israelis are all brutes and barbarians:
SCREW YOU.

To the Europeans who keep harping on the flaws of the United States, real or imagined (mostly imagined):
SCREW YOU.

To the Europeans who cuddle up to every brutal third world regime that is anti-American:
SCREW YOU.

To the Europeans who will endlessly howl about the US and Israel, but never even mention Tibet, Chechnya, Sudan, or Cuba:
SCREW YOU.

To the European governments who collaborate thoroughly with the US on so many issues, but encourage their people to hate the US because, after all, we're a bunch of barbarians:
SCREW YOU.

To the self-satisfied priggish European press, which is so biased and partial that they would only be suited for fish wrap - if the Europeans actually knew how to cook fish:
SCREW YOU.



ISRAEL AND WHATEVER THAT OTHER AREA IS CALLED:

To the Palestinians:
SCREW YOU.

To the other Arabs:
SCREW YOU.

To the Iranians, and, what the heck, the entire Muslim world:
SCREW YOU.

To Shimon Peres:
SCREW YOU.

To Jimmy Carter:
SCREW YOU.

To Condoleeza Rice, who is pressuring Olmert to make impossible concessions:
SCREW YOU.

To Ehud Olmert, who wants to give away the farm:
SCREW YOU.

To Abbas, whose only loyal constituency appears to be Kadima:
SCREW YOU.

To the peaceniks in Israel who support Abbas:
SCREW YOU.

To the European socialists who support the peaceniks:
SCREW YOU.

To the misguided idiots on the left in the US who think the European socialists are wonderful:
SCREW YOU.



THE AMERICANS:

To the Republicans who keep supporting the dumbest president since Bush:
SCREW YOU.

To the Democrats who support Hillary:
SCREW YOU.

To the Democratic congress-people who voted for war:
SCREW YOU.

To the Democratic congress-people who now claim that they were tricked into voting for war:
SCREW YOU.

To the congress-people on both sides who allowed the Bush administration to gut our freedoms:
SCREW YOU.

To the redneck slope-browed inbred hicks who encouraged the Bush administration to gut our freedoms:
SCREW YOU.

To the Democratic Party leaders who sat around with a digit up their rear while our freedoms were gutted:
SCREW YOU.

To the panicky middle-class Americans who approved of the gutting of our freedoms because they were scared of "them":
SCREW YOU.

To Jimmy Carter:
SCREW YOU AGAIN.
I HOPE THAT RABBIT COMES BACK AND GETS YOU.
[You're a nasty little man, and remarkably uneducated. Plus you smell of peanuts. Ick.]



More awards as they come to me. Feel free to add your own candidates to the list. There is plenty of fed-uppedness to go around.


I will not be counter-demonstrating the Bay Area Women in Black this weekend, and I do not know whether I will be doing it the following week either. I need a break. Specifically, I need to wake up late on Saturday for the first time in over half a year, putz around the house in my bathrobe with a pipe in my mouth, and just kick back without having to deal with anyone. Punkt.

TAKE THAT PUMPKIN AND....

Pie.

It's a beautiful word. Just say it several times. Doesn't it just roll off the tongue?
It's fun to say words like pie. Like Cheezwhiz. Chocklit. Laatyeung (hot-sauce). Cake. Pie. Gafiltefeesh. Chocolate frosted sugar bombs. Pie. Gehocktuhlayber. Tasty-cake. Crispiyumyums. Goo. Pie.

These words sound best if followed by an exclamation mark - it's the equivalent of a happy-face.


Pumpkin Pie

[Canned pumpkin often is butternut squash, which is sweeter than regular pumpkin. Carving pumpkins are not very good cooking pumpkins. Cooking pumpkins are usually called 'sugar pumpkins'.]


Two cups mashed cooked pumpkin.
One and a half cup half and half.
Two eggs.
Two yolks.
One cup brown sugar.
1 teaspoon cinnamon.
1/2 teaspoon ginger.
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg.
1/4 teaspoon cloves.
1/2 teaspoon salt.


9-inch pie crust (store-boughten or make your own).


Gently beat all ingredients together and pour into pie crust.
Bake at 425 for about fifty minutes. Let it cool down for at least an hour before eating.


Note: To prepare pumpkin for mashing, cut the flesh into chunks and boil in lightly salted water till soft. Or place the chunks on a cookie sheet and bake for about thirty to forty minutes at 350 to 375 degrees. Slightly dehydrated and caramelized is good, browned and crusty is bad - keep an eye on them. They can also be softened by heating in covered Pyrex in the microwave on high.


Bong appety, y'all.

CHUSHIM BEN DAN

[Note: this entire post is the result of strong coffee and a two-bagger of tea. I'm totally zipped to the eyebrows. Yay! ]


RESPONDING TO COMMENTS

In a comment on a previous post, Graham writes:

"Why the obsession with Dovbear? I do not snuffle behind the hill to ascertain what Dovbear is doing or thinking. Eff all these links to Dovbear!!!
I do not care what Dovbear says or suggests. Who's he in this Goy's army? F*ck all truly!
Tho I cannot claim affinity 2much with the baccy ridden gourmet behind the hill - his is what I chose to read. Forget Dovbear. Boo boo the dovy!!
Are US Jewish blogs only to be measured agin Dovbear?
Let's Roll Blogmeester! Put yer clogs on & givit welly!"

Well shoot. It's eloquent. He's kinda put his finger on my opportunistic habit of mining other people's blogs for my own posts, especially when I'm a little dry. As well as my habit of using my own blog to sound off on what other people have said elsewhere, thus hoping to sneakily lure those readers onto the back of the hill. Exploiting the Dovvosphere for that purpose is as good a starting point as any.

I could also use other blogs, like the XGH (who seems to have spiraled into orthoangst), or the Goblin King (too busy with his studies to be over-enthusiastic about blogging, but when he does post it is often stimulating and chiddushy - go ahead and visit him), or even Jameel at the Muqata (whom you probably read already on a daily basis). How about Treppenwitz, who despite his non-smoking penchant is intelligent, likeable, and witty?


Or I could go ahead and comment-mine from my own blog. Why not?
I have interesting readers, if not necessarily interesting posts.


CHUSHIM BEN DAN

Chaim G. writes:

"Mein Tayere Shaigatz.

Thank you. You are one stand up guy. Did you see where I called you "Khushim ben Dan"? Did you khop the reference?"


Yes, Chaim, I did see that. Chushim ben Dan was not directly involved in the disputation and was able to be objective. I'm taking it to mean that as someone positioned somewhat off to the side, I may have a clearer perspective sometimes, and can cut directly to the chase, cut the Gordian know, cut the shaigetz's kop. Rather than a knowing reference to my slight hearing defect. And of course I will deliberately obliquify the connotation of a spiritual lack or lacuna.

[I am nothing if not self-flattering. Heh heh heh. ]


But taking that as a jump-off point, Chushim the son of Dan was indirectly responsible for the rise of Amalek, a descendant of Eisav. We can see this from two angles. The most straightforward to the modern mind is that impulsive action will have unfortunate repercussions, violence may beget more violence, a straightforward solution to a problem can be a double edged sword.
The other angle, which is actually more in keeping with your thinking, Chaim, is that blending in, not being apart from the nations, can have unfortunate consequences. After all, Amalek represents a blood-line that became one with the surrounding non-Abrahamic population, a line that did not go down to Egypt, a descent-group that did not remain separate. It is those Jews who veer too much into Gentile society who eventually become less Jewish, even non-Jewish, and even dangerous and destructive to Jewishness. The list of anti-Jews of Jewish descent is nearly endless. And a corollary to them are the ideologies of Jewish derivation that have gone in different directions, and have also proven dangerous and destructive to Jewishness.

[Marxism is as good an example as any, both because it is an extreme example, and because I doubt I will be offending anyone by that comparison. Whereas there may be a few Christians who read this blog..... Marxism is as much an offshoot from a Judaic root as Christianity, and also as little. A defective branch, a mutated growth.]


Shishim panim le Torah. There is great scope for disagreement and differing interpretations. But there should be a degree of unity. One need not even veer into criticism of the offshoots at the beginning of the common era to see an ongoing pattern of dangerous manifestations. Just mentioning Neturei Karta on the one hand, Jewish Voice for Peace on the other, is enough. The desire to disagree has trumped the desire for unity. The sitra achra is also within.

No man is an island. It is by measuring ourselves against our companions, and by using them as sounding boards, that we maintain our own sanity. A havdala sensitivity must necessarily understand that differentiation cannot be towards the extremes. Individuation is not a matter of disagreement.



A HORNED SNAKE?

Another factor has to be mentioned pursuant Chushim ben Dan - argumentativeness and a concern with justice. As it says in psook 49:16 "Dan yadin amo keachad shivtei Yisrael" (Dan shall judge his people, (as) one the tribes of Israel).

Dan shall judge - precisely what the name of the shevet indicates. But what Yakov says next illustrates how disturbing justice can be.

Psook 49:17 "Yehi-Dan nachash alei-derech shefifon alei-orach hanoshech ikvei-sus vayipol rochvo achor" (Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a horned snake in the path, that bites the horse's heels, so that his rider falls backward).

Fair judgment is not necessarily a kind process. Impartiality is brutal, and often impedimental.


How oddly appropriate, from a symbolic point of view, that Dan's one son, Chushim (from whom the tribe of Dan will descend), is deaf, in the same vein as Justice being blind.

[Though in midrash it says blind, instead of deaf, and elsewhere muteness is also mentioned, as well as youth.]

How likewise significant that later we read that the tribe of Dan, though at this point the smallest, becomes one of the largest (see parshas Pinchas in Bamidbar).
A concern with justice evidently thrived.

APPARENTLY I'M A SCREAMING LIBERAL

I have been informed that reacting badly to two Republican yutzes who made our counterdemo seem like a 'pro-Iraq war yay Bush rah rah boomdee yay fest' will frighten away the poor gentle love-filled Republicans who otherwise would flock to our standard like happy little moths to a bright attractive light, and that we are becoming extremist lefties who scare people.

We are now repellent to dear little children, Republicans, small puppies, Republicans, girl scouts, Republicans, elderly women, and Republicans. We are like an overly perfumed pipe-tobacco, in other words.


Let me explain that a little.


On Saturday the twenty-seventh of October, about sixty or seventy people counter-demonstrated International Answer's alleged peace rally.

We, the San Francisco Branch of the vast intergalactic Zionist conspiracy, were there with signs and flyers making it clear that we objected to International Answer's anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agenda. We also made it clear that as a group we had no position on the Iraq war and were not demonstrating against the peace movement or the idea of peace, but were there only and entirely to protest against International Answer. One single and very simple issue.

This proved too complicated for the teevee reporters, who instead chose to feature sound-bytes from two simple very pro-war people who may have been Republicans.

The televised shots of the counter-demonstration showed tons of Israeli flags, but did not explain why there were any Israeli flags there. The talking neanderthals in front of that backdrop instead spoke lovingly of Bush and the Iraq war. Which effectively made it seem that all of us were there as pro-war slope brows.

I really do not like when our message is hijacked by Republicans. If the Democrats or the greens had tried it, I would be just as angry. But it was Republicans who did it. They were not there as supporters of Israel objecting to International Answer's anti-Semitism, they were not there in support of Israel - they were there purely to cheer for the war.


Because of that, I suggested to the group that we should in future avoid Republicans like the plague - the ones who show up to counter-demo tend to be mush-mouthed morons and no-neck inbreds. And I was being very charitable and full of sheer buckets of love when I said that.

But saying that apparently makes me a dangerous radical lefty - because I do not look with a kindly eye on Republicans going off message when they join us.
I have been informed that there are tons and tons of Republicans in the Bay Area who would join us and protest for Israel if only we didn't chase them away with our Marxist rhetoric and hate.


Sorry, no.


There aren't tons of timid pro-Israel Republican butterflies out there, sister.

This is the Bay Area. Eighty percent plus of the population votes for the Democrats. Being pro-Israel in the Bay Area is already considered ultra-rightwing by some people in any case. We have an uphill battle against popular perception. If those timid Republicans are frightened by our not taking a stand on the war, they are frightened of everything. They are frightened of bright lights, cheese that doesn't come in slices, and their own quivering shadows.
They probably check under their beds for democrats before they go to sleep at night.


Boo, gentle Republican butterflies, boo!


And we aren't radical lefties either. I already bend over backward to keep from scaring away rational potential supporters with my extremist pro-settlement sentiments. I have not once said that if the Arabs cannot stop firing rockets the response should be devastating and final. I have never even mentioned to querulous strangers that I consider the European left, with their wussy pandering to every anti-American and anti-Israeli cause in the world, the greatest possible danger to civilization. I have studiously avoided expressing points of view which could be misinterpreted as extremist far-right Zionist here in the rather liberal Bay Area.

Because I love lucid and sane supporters of Israel, I'm already doing my bit not to frighten the mainstream. So the very least the hypothetically pro-Israel Republicans who might stand with us can do is not piss all over that.


Do NOT hijack the message.


At this point, I'm perfectly willing to mace the next person who brings a pro-war or pro-Bush sign to a counterdemo which is ONLY supposed to be pro-Israel.

If that makes me a screaming liberal, so be it.

I HATE DEMOCRACY

Dovbear has given me the perfect subject for today's text.

In a posting entitled: 'Should I ban Chaim G.', Dov writes "Has the bray worn out his welcome? Please vote here."

[Dovbear's blog here: http://dovbear.blogspot.com/ relevant post here: http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2007/11/should-i-ban-chaim-g.html and comment-thread here: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/dovbear/1156305258160200369/ ]


It was posted only a few hours ago, and already there are over thirty "votes".


Ge, as they say, valt!


Some commenters think Chaim G. (operating usually as 'The Bray of Fundie') to be a troll, others disagree with him and find him not nearly liberal enough or enlightened enough. Others merely find him irritating.

I can't see what they're objecting to. Yes, he has opinions about Talmud-Torah and halacha ve hashkafa that I don't agree with. Yes, he comments a lot. And yes, he sometimes sees a havdalah twixt Jewim and Goyim that might be considered far-fetched (though more often than not solidly founded in Halacha). But heck, he's eloquent, involved in the material, and comments often. These are characteristics that are desirable. Especially in visitors.

And irritating?

Errrrm, no offense to anyone, dudes, but that's hardly a reason to ban him. Y'all also thought Mis-naged and XGH irritating as all heck (and many of you still do), some of you feel that Mar Gavriel and the rest of the diqduqgeeks are irritating (even though most of them no longer have time to post much, being hip-deep in mesechtes this-and-that because of their studies), and a few of you got so steamed by Yeshiva Chipas Emes (Rabbi Pinky in New York, the RABAM in beautiful downtown San Francisco) that you screamed, shouted, foamed at the mouth, and had fits. And, very irritatingly, just wouldn't shut up (which was also extremely gratifying, by the way - Rav Pinky Shlita soll sein gazunt and I are still giggling over some of the mean-spirited things you wrote).

Dovbear himself seems to irritate the spit out of everyone at least once. Some people regularly. And y'all are still reading him, aren't you?


So, if Dov's readers convince him to ban Chaim G., I will extend contributor privileges on my blog.

Even though this blog seems to be an unholy mix of Zionism, pipe smoking, treifish cooking, and only sporadic veerings into yiddishkeit (along with apoplexy at things in Dutch newspapers), he'll fit right in. And if Chaim G. wants to occasionally veer off the derech and into treif-cooking, pipe-tobacco, and the liquor chest, so much the better. I encourage that.

-------------------------------------

Unwitting fellow contributors to this post were:
Qwerty, YadVShem, Albert Einstien, HirshelTzig, Charlie Hall, The Bray of Fundie, Abe, Anonymous, CousinOliver, Gabagoo, happydadofseven, Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulke (mazel tov, dude!), Barak, Dovbear, Alice, Mar Gavriel, Nephtuli, Ayin, and Chaim (not G.) R.
Thanks guys. More than enough for a minyan.

OUT OF KILLER-CRIMSON LIPS

===========================================

"Going through menopause is bad enough without being a murder suspect!"

===========================================

Be glad the same person did not scream "no... more... wire... hangers... EVER!"
Now, have a happy Halloween. And remember, trick-or-treaters love smokes, yes they do.

BALKAN SOBRANIE ORIGINAL MIXTURE

This particular pipe-tobacco is the chimera of tobaccos, now that it has been out of production for over a decade. It is the holy grail of Balkan Mixtures (English style heavy Latakia blends with a very noticeable share of Oriental (Turkish) leaf - all together marvelously stinky).


I first encountered it while living in a small town in Northern Brabant, and was immediately hooked. It was rich, reeky, and leathery-tweedy-bookshelvey. The first tobacco that gave such a deep, resinous, and smokey flavour.

It was of course also the one tobacco that more than any other distressed people around me. My parents did not object, and I think my father actually liked the smell, being an erstwhile pipe-smoker himself. But classmates, fellow patrons of bars and cafes, kvetchedikke strangers - all saw fit to explain to me what an anti-social sinner I was and how the civilized world despaired of my presence (which may have been only partly true at that time, but has since pretty much become a self-fulfilling prophecy).

That was also the time in which I became fond of certain teas - Assam, Ceylon, Lapsang Souchong.

I associate Latakia tobacco and strong tea with autumn.

Last week was oddly warm, after the wetness of the preceding week. This week is oddly cold, and bitterly grim. Every morning has been grey, foggy, mist on the tops of San Francisco hills. Cold during much of the day. Arrogantly threatening rain, but not following through. An expression of climatic despondence.
Precisely the kind of weather in which to load up a pipe with Balkan Sobranie, sink into an armchair and read, and enjoy a nice cup of strong tea. I really wish I could do that throughout the long afternoon and into a long twilight. But by the time I get home it will be dark - twilight is too fast here.

Still.

Evenso.

Once I get home I will prepare strong tea. And smoke some of Cornell and Diehl's Red Odessa.

[Red Odessa is a variant on their Odessa mixture, made with Red Virginia instead of Burley. It is a straightforward, profoundly old-fashioned English Blend. Very wonderful.]

I may even go out later and taunt some of the neighbors with my smoke.


---------------------------------------

NOTES FOR THE NEUROTIC

Balkan Sobranie Original Mixture was probably around 36 percent Latakia (Syrian), 24 percent Yenidje (Turkish), and the remainder pressed Virginia with some Maryland, and perhaps a stoved Virginia or a black ribbon.

For the soggy note of aged Virginia matched with Latakia, try Germain's King Charles Mixture, Royal Jersey Latakia Mixture, or Esoterica's And So To Bed.

For that resinous Oriental perfume, try Dunhill's Durbar Mixture, or to a much lesser extent, London Mixture.

For the interplay of Latakia and Oriental supported by Virginias, try GLPease's Westminster or Cornell & Diehl's 968R (Red Odessa).

Bill Bailey's Balkan Blend will please your palate and displease your wife. Latakia, Turkish, Virginia, and fire-cured Kentucky. Robust. Rank. Rambunctious. A recommendation.


NOTE as of October 21, 2012:
The proportions of Turkish and Latakia have now been corrected to reflect the Balkan Sobranie Mixture during the Gallagher regime, which is what most smokers will have in their memory, that being what was available for the last decade that the product was available. The quality of the leaf was not as good as it had been, and the recipe had been "simplified". And keep in mind that in the Seventies, before Gallagher took over and while it was still made in England, Latakia was fifty percent of the blend - a different time, and a different style of tobacco.

TOBACCO INDEX


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

THREE SOLDIERS

Wednesday, October 30th. 2007
[Posted at 8:05, at the moment of a rather disturbing earthquake. Over a dozen floors up. Oy.]


Rabbosai, please expand the definition of 'Prisoner of Zion' (Asserei Tzion).
In the past, the term was specifically applied to people who were imprisoned or exiled because of Zionist activity, such being illegal in the country where they were imprisoned or exiled.

A Jewish soldier, in the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah, should surely qualify also.


GILAD SHALIT, ELDAD REGEV, EHUD GOLDWASSER.


Being a Jew and a soldier of the IDF stamps them as Zionists, especially in the eyes of Hamas and Hezbollah - and the eyes of Saudi Arabia and Iran, those being the paymasters of those two terrorist entities respectively.

They are not prisoners of war - they were not captured but kidnapped, and not by a military or a foreign power, but by gangsters claiming a political cause. They are not treated as prisoners of war, but held in secret locations, denied visits by the red-cross, and denied access to religious support.


GILAD SHALIT, ELDAD REGEV, EHUD GOLDWASSER.


At five thirty this afternoon, at Montgomery and Market Streets in downtown San Francisco, while the commuters streamed past on their way home, we gathered to keep alive the memories of these men, as indeed we hope that they are still alive. We held up posters of their faces and signs with their names, we held flags and handed out literature. We spoke about them, and read aloud from material describing what they were like, and how their families and friends related to them, in order that they cease being just names, but become people to those willing to listen - so that the listeners could think of them as people, as individuals, as members of families, with friends who cared about them, classmates and companions who knew them, parents and siblings who loved them.

People. Not just names. Not just dry data in an ongoing polemic.


GILAD SHALIT, ELDAD REGEV, EHUD GOLDWASSER.


There were thirty of us. After speaking of Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser, we recited Psalm 70 in Hebrew and English. We held candles, and in the darkening street we spoke with each other. Some of us come to nearly every event, others are limited by their location and can only attend actions in San Francisco or the East Bay. Some do not come on Shabbes, others believe that attending a pro-Israel protest on Shabbes is doing the Lord's work - a milchemes mitzvah. Most of us know each other. We reconnected, exchanged news about those who could not come, mentioned people we knew, events we had been to. We interacted like normal people who get along with each other, and share in each others' lives.

Precisely like Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser should likewise be able to do.


"...Let them be ashamed and confounded, that seek after my soul;
Let them be turned backward and put to confusion, that desire my hurt...."


This year we gathered so that these three men are not forgotten.
May we gather next year to rejoice in their home-coming.

URASMUS

Not a misspelling, but rather, the name of a small furry entity.
[Pronounced: 'You-razz-muzz'. Emphasis on the first syllable.]


In the last year that we were in the old office building - the building with the bollixed heating and air-conditioning systems that necessitated heavy sweaters during hot weather and tee-shirts during cold - the pumpkin carving team headed by the bald elf in Marketing kidnapped the one-legged monkey from Product Design and fed him to a carved troll-head. I blame the bald elf. Not for the loss of the monkey's leg, as the degenerates in Product Design did that entirely by themselves, but for the neck-gash, ketchup, and ripped stuffing. They named their ketchuppy pumpkin creation "Too Curious George". It sat at the reception desk with the other halloween horrors.

Five days later, the various pumpkins had started to attract fruit-flies and smell funky, and were dumped in the waste-bin in the kitchen.
Where I found the monkey.

What kind of savage throws out a monkey? How sick and perverse does one have to be to consign a friendly looking furry being to the city dump? Especially one with soft synthetic fur and friendly glass eyes? A benign simian presence, staring up at one, reproachfully.

I saved him and took him home. Sewed up the gash, cleaned off the ketchup, and patched over the ragged edges where the leg had gone missing. As good as new.
Except for the leg, of course.
I was planning to make him a wooden one, but never did.


In the first year he would blame me for the loss of his leg. He didn't remember the sadists in Product-Development, and accused me of cutting off his leg and eating it, with ketchup.
I guess the trauma played havoc with his memory. That, plus the fact that his brain was cotton wool - probably from hanging out with Elmo (the Elmo in product design held a glass of whiskey, had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and looked crazed with brain-rotting syphilis - Elmo the dypsomaniac, Elmo the street-person, bumming coins for a dance).

In the second and third year he said that I looked like his mother, and demanded more bananas. He also lost his Jamaican accent.

Nowadays he claims that I am a degenerate and that he is the alpha-male of the household.
And he very well might be, at this point. I am merely the human, whereas he looks like Humphrey Bogart.

Savage Kitten wants him to return her slinky silk blouse, but the monkey just looks so darned handsome wearing it. Dashing. Suave. Alpha to da max. A veritable dude. She's probably lost that frippery to the monkey permanently. Never gonna get it back.
Lately, he's started eyeing her pearls.

DESPAIR AND EXULTATION

The peace movement has been co-opted by anti-Semites and radical Israel haters.
This is a report on counter-demonstrating their agenda at San Francisco's recent 'peace-rally'.

-----------------------------------------

It was predictable. All of it was predictable.
The San Francisco Chronicle, which could not see five thousand Jews in Justin Herman Plaza in April 2002, did not see sixty Israel-supporters at Civic Center on October 27th, 2007.
There was no mention of our presence in the SF Chronicle. None. We do not exist.

However, the Chronicle did claim to observe over ten thousand "peace-loving" anti-war protestors.

International Answer asserts that there were over thirty thousand righteously angry activists. This blogger will maintain that it was only between three thousand and five thousand of the terminally far-out. Though closer to three thousand.


The news programs on Saturday night, entirely as expected, did puff-pieces.
Channel two (Fox News) did mention that there was a small counter demonstration, but rather than having something so divisive as the activist community's anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel disturb the progressive little cottonwool heads of their Bay Area viewers, they chose instead to feature sound clips from two pro-war goobers. Thus proving to the self-satisfaction of their Bay Area audience that anybody who did not approve of the alleged peace rally was a retrograde.


The only way to get the attention of the media, and get them to do a serious investigation of the background and unsavoury associations of the leaders of the anti-war movement, may be to hold a naked Zionist rally.

So,

If any of you are nudists or exhibitionists, please contact me.

[Note 1. Do not send photos. I'm not interested in your what you look like. Just your deep-seated atavistic need to prance around naked with flags and flowers while screaming into a bullhorn.]
[[Note 2. And if any of you are perky Catholic schoolgirls, so much the better.]]
[[[Note 3. I'm not obsessing about perky Catholic schoolgirls. Really I'm not, honest!]]]
[[[[Note 4. Bring your own flowers and apply your own body-paint!]]]]




Other than that the SF Chronicle is a poor excuse for a newspaper and proved it once again, and also that we don't have any capable television news desks in the entire area, it was a great counter-demo.

Several people came over and joined us. As one of them put it, "there are too many pro-Palestinians on that side". She had been with the alleged peace-rally until she became disgusted with the political undercurrents.

One woman came over to start a verbal confrontation with me, and left filled with existential self-doubt.
[Not so much angst as an uncomfortable realization that the world was infinitely more complicated than the simplistic slogans of the Answer-folks.]

Either that, or she has as an attraction to out-of-shape men with little beards. But I think not.
[At least one charming young lady passing by does have an attraction to an out-of-shape man with a little beard, and came up and kissed me. I had dinner with her that evening.
As I usually do on Saturdays.....]


The sad thing is that we have more signs and flags than people to hold them - But the great thing is that we have tons of signs and flags!
When fully loaded, the Zionist van looks like a moving garbage dump (with, hobbit-like, the bright eyes of a young Zionist peering out from the middle of the heap). My apartment hallway looks like a forest at present - flags, signs, spare lumber for flags and signs.

Unlike last time, we didn't lose a single flag to incendiarists from the other side.

-----------------------------------------

Afterthought: the bald self-identified Nazi who screamed that he was going to kill all of us kikes and that Israel should be nuked demonstrated perfectly why we were there, and why there remains a need to demonstrate. He and others like him, by their very evident hatred, may have disquieted more rational members of that side. There was less angry ranting at and about the Jews than at previous ANSWER rallies.

[Though I have been told that they really amped up the Jew-hatred once they got to Dolores Park, the aforementioned newsmedia gave the impression that the final part of the rally was a happy hippie peace and butterflies love-fest in a beautiful setting. Bongs and tie-dye. More or less.]


By the way, Richard Becker, Western-Regional Coordinator of International ANSWER, has only one testicle. Just thought you should know. One. Only. Small, too.

ENOUGH CHAR SIU NOODLE SOUP FOR TWO PEOPLE

There is a new commenter on Dovbear's blog. A commenter who sternly disapproves of nearly everything, and enjoys pointing out to everyone else how utterly unholy they are.
All in a spirit of ungentle remonstrance. And indignant sincerity. From the Vaad Lmaan Kovod Hatorah.


I may have suggested in a comment on Dov's blog that his efforts were counter-productive.


The Vaad Lmaan Kovod Torah (who is a very lonely yeshivish teenager in Flatbush) responded:
"What a goyish kop. u sure your jewish?"



In answer to that query, my dear Vaady, no, I'm not sure of that at all. Quite the contrary.


I'm actually a Catholic high school girl with thick raven tresses. My stiffly starched long sleeved cotton blouse is just a little too small in a particular area, and my plaid skirt flashes a sight of dimpled knees when I walk. My long white socks hug my calves - the effect is both very modest, very girlish, and incredibly revealing. Not Jewish at all.
I smell alluringly of Alfred Sung perfume, despite that being far too mature a scent for a person of my youthfulness.

You hide behind that bus shelter as you watch me lifting juicy morsels from my bowl of roast-pork noodle soup to my red red lips with my chopsticks at the front table of a Chinatown eatery. You spy upon me, as you have so often in these past few weeks. You observe my every move. It is an aesthetic obsession, but there may be more to it than that.
Guileless, perhaps. But is it you or me that is so?

Do you notice the elegance of my delicate hands? The deft way my fine-boned fingers enfold the pale ivory plastic shafts? And especially, do you note the perfect line of my nose, the exquisite undulation of my eyelids, when I close my eyes to inhale deeply of the porky brothy aroma wafting up from the bowl?

I know you do. I can feel it.

Vicariously, you too absorb this treif. Your mouth makes its own masticatory motions, an unwilled and unconscious echo of what I do with such joy.
It is good. It is very good. You just know it.


You cannot fail to observe, even from that distance, how my eyebrows, which curve like the antennae of a moth, are mirrored in the surface of the soup. How black they are, how velvety against the pale skin. That soft soft skin, those gentle features.

You do not know that I see your shadow out of the corner of my eyes, that I sense you spying on me.
I am conscious of your sweaty discomfort - I can see your forehead shining, and you are wearing too many garments.
I lift some noodles to my mouth and slurp, swallowing them entire. A fragment of cilantro clings to a corner of my mouth. As I lift the bowl up to sup the last savoury drops, I know that your knees have turned to jelly. You slide down against the bus shelter exhausted.


Good boy.


I pay for my soup. As I leave the restaurant it starts to rain. I stride past you, crumpled up behind the bus shelter, your frog-like eyes glassily staring up at me. You hope that I will not notice you, and yet.... you wish I would.
When I have passed, and you can no longer see my face, I smile.

It was good soup. I'll go there again tomorrow.



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

APPLE SAUCE NOODLE KUGEL

Did you know that petite Cantonese women love men who can cook?
It's useful information, and you might want to ponder it for a while.
It explains a lot.


In the meantime, while you are pondering, here's a recipe for

The Apple Sauce Noodle Kugel Of The Chivying Of The VLKH
[Hereinafter possibly simply referred to as 'Apple Sauce Noodle Kugel, or APSNOOK for short.]

8 oz. broad noodles.
4 eggs, slightly beaten.
Half a cup sugar.
Two cups (1 pint) sour cream*.
Two cups (16 fl.oz) applesauce.
Quarter cup raisins.
Cinnamon, Salt, Butter.Cook and drain noodles. Mix all ingredients together. Dot with butter in greased 8x8-inch baking dish. Bake at 350 F for 60 minutes.

[*Or substitute Tofutti pareve sour cream.]



The recipe comes from OJ, who placed it into the comment-string on this post:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2007/10/eliezer-and-318-men.html
From this blog:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/


When I made it Monday evening I added some powdered ginger and a little ground cardamom and mace - the next time I make it I will probably try adding a little grated lemon zest, and increase the raisins.
I klitsed the eggs, apple sauce, smetana, raisins, and sugar together before adding the noodles, as I did not want the residual heat to start setting the eggs.
[Can't remember why I thought that was the thing to do - meh, neurosis. A bee.]

It is simple and very good. Savage Kitten likes it for breakfast, I like it for late night snack. There is nearly none left.

--------------------------------------------

NOTES:
1. VLKH stands for 'Vaad Lmaan Kovod Hatorah', also referred to in that comment string as Vaad ha-etcetera and several other things. Mister Vaad seems to have a bee in his bonnet about the bear, and quite probably Star Trek paraphernalia up his beis. Which is appalling! Everyone knows that Star Trek is mamesh kofrus gamur and davka avodah zara.
Lord Of The Rings, on the other hand......
2. Eliezer's posse kinda lost it while chivying the vaad ha-imagination mercilessly in that comment string. Both Eliezer's posse AND the vaad ha leitzonus apologize for their loss of self control. We promise it will happen again.
3. No one should own Star Trek crap. NO ONE! But a Hellboy action-figure on the same shelf as Bredero's Spaanschen Brabander and The Embarassment of Riches by Simon Schama is okay.
Everone should have one.

JERUSALEM MUST NOT BE DIVIDED

The Palestinians are pressuring Secretary Rice to guarantee that Israel give up the Temple Mount, and they're making this a pre-condition for showing up at the Annapolis conference, insisting that the Temple Mount be returned to the Muslims.
They also have several other intemperate demands that must be satisfied or they will not come.

Condoleeza Rice has in steadfast reaction thereto acquiesced without the slightest resistance.

She demands that Israel accept the Palestinian preconditions, and insists that large areas of Jerusalem must be part of a future Palestinian state. It has also been reported that she would publicly blame Israel for the failure of the summit if Israel didn't agree to relinquish those parts of Jerusalem.


Perhaps she does not realize what these demands will ensure?


Faced with the choice of either retaining all of Jerusalem, OR giving up the most central Jewish place on the planet, the only possible option is utter refusal. There is no way the Jewish people (I'm not talking of Kadima or JVP here, their Jewishness is debatable at best) will accept such a condition. They cannot accept. It would be tantamount to forced conversion. It would be a self-loathing rejection of everything that is Jewish, every part of their identity, their heritage, and all their kin both present and past.


If that is the price of peace, peace is not worth having.


No Israeli politician will live long after giving up the Temple Mount. His gang will cease to exist, his collaborators will be erased and expunged, and his name will join that of Haman and Hitler.

If the demand is relinquishing the Arab parts of Jerusalem, the only logical and rational response is to make sure that there are NO Arab parts of Jerusalem.
Does Ms. Rice REALLY wish to see the Serbian option put into play?
Does she really hate the Arabs so fiercely that she would want them cleansed from the land?
Is she such a fanatic end-of-times Christian that she would by this insanity attempt to unleash the apocalypse?
Or is she a bigot and moron of such magnitude that she hates both Jews and Arabs to the point of madness?

These are not hard questions. Because they are largely irrelevant.

No one cares about the state of her head at this juncture - she has written herself out of any significant role other than that of infectious agent. Even whether she is a panderess for the Arabs or a patsy of the Europeans is immaterial.



Condoleeza Rice may go down in history as the person who unleashed slaughter in the streets of the Holy City and caused an Israeli civil war.

If the Arabs think that they will come out the winner in this they are insane. If Jew fights Jew and Israelis are forced to kill each other, Arab lives will count as nothing. Less than nothing. Any Arab who does not get out of the way will be a speedbump on the road to the Temple Mount.
Ehud Olmert might well be the first Arab speedbump of that struggle.

They say that power corrupts. But it also causes madness. Clearly our leaders have lost their marbles. They've been sucking too long at the tit of hubris.

GOT ADOBO?

I apologize to a certain correspondent, whom I had promised a speculative explanation of the subtext underneath the title of Margavriel's blog.


The subtext reads:
1. YAY THRACE KAKARMAHIN KA NYAN
2. the more he talks the less hhakham Hhakham ‘Ovadya Yosef seems


It was the first item particularly that caught our attention.
An English exclamatory, then the name of a territory in the classic world, and finally an expression in snappy slangy Tagalog which roughly translates as 'there's karma for it'.
I committed to guessing why that expression showed up on the blog of a talmid, and possibly providing annotata thereto.

But I'm drawing a blank.


All I can think of is that Margavriel is hanging out with a hot Fillipina!


Which doesn't seem particularly likely. I'm not implying that he couldn't or wouldn't, it's just that I doubt that given his environment and his academic pursuits he would have an opportunity to date some nice young missy from Manila.
Fillipinas don't customarily frequent yeshivoth, and also they tend to be rather high-maintenance companions - he really doesn't have time for that at present.

[How do I know about Fillipinas? Well, back in the early eighties I used to hang out with people in Makati and Cebu, and there was an episode involving a waterbuffalo....... Apparently white people smell distressingly like beef and butter. Who knew?]



But if he IS hanging out with a hot Fillipina, more power to him. It's gonna be one helluvan adventure. Ooh-wee. Oh yeah.

[Many Fillipinos have a passion for mahjong. I remember spending a weekend over at friend's place smoking cigars and playing mahjong for over fifty hours. When I needed a break, someone else would take my seat at the table. Usually one of the female relatives. San Miguel beer (for the men), lots of coffee, and a lot of good food - mabuti, pare, masarap to da max!]



Pancit, man, that's what life is all about.
I'm really trying to imagine Margavriel in that kind of environment.
I think I'm going to need lots more coffee to succeed.

COMING ACTIONS

Two events coming up in the immediate future, and a third in another month:


Saturday October 27th:
Counter-demonstration against International ANSWER's rally.

We'll be meeting at Civic Center with signs and flags. We expect at least two hours of angry speeches from the enemy, and if previous ANSWER demonstrations are anything to go by, hate and insults from all the usual suspects. Be alert and keep your guard up.

This is San Francisco, so some of the police may be on the wrong side, as will some of the reporters covering the event. Do not expect fair coverage or objective reportage - the press standardly reports that "two opposing sides faced each other and that the crowd seemed mostly peaceful". Above all, keep your eyes open.

Please be aware that many of the participants of this 'anti-war rally' will be anarchists, ultra-left sympathizers, revolutionaries, frustrados, delinquents, and opportunists. As well as angry pro-Palestinian activists.


As usual Int'l ANSWER will be using the cover of the anti-war movement to propagate their Marxist-Leninist agenda.
Int'l ANSWER's Western Regional Director, Richard Becker, is a notorious Jew-baiting far-left activist, whose love affair with repressive dictatorships is well known - in the mid and late nineties he traveled to Baghdad, his writings pandering to the Sudanese government are virtually obscene love letters, and his adoration of an elderly Cuban tyrant verges on obsessive. At a previous Int'l ANSWER rally he demanded bloody revolution against the United States, and fulsomely praised terrorists. He grows moist at the thought of violence.

It should be noted that International ANSWER is little more than a front for the Workers World Party, which in the past wholeheartedly supported the excesses of the cultural revolution in China and the Russian crushing of the Hungarian revolt. Despite flirting with Trotskyist ideology, the Workers World Party has remained a firm supporter of the Soviet Union and the tenets of Stalinism, even after the collapse of the empire. The party, through its front the International Action Center, founded ANSWER in the autumn of 2001. International ANSWER has since then voiced support for a multitude of repressive regimes and violent radical movements.




Tuesday October 30th:
Solidarity vigil for the three kidnapped soldiers.
Details to be communicated later.



Monday December 17th:
Counter-demonstrations against anti-AIPAC protests.

Stop AIPAC is planning to protest at two possible venues, namely San Francisco (Hilton) at noon, and in Oakland at the Marriot City Center starting at six pm.
The first venue is a 'maybe', the second is definite. The protest in Oakland in the evening is likely to be large and threatening; Stop AIPAC is trying to drum up as much support from the fringes as they can, vowing to make it "unforgettable".

Last year's anti-AIPAC protest in Oakland was marked by anti-Semitic sloganeering, threatening behaviour, close contact, and insults. We can expect more of the same, especially as the anti-AIPAC crowd operate with the approval of groups such as JVP, which means that they can pull the usual "we're not anti-Semitic" shtick. This is despite the evident anti-Semitic content of their signs, and Jew-hating tendencies of their participants.

--------------------------------

Note: As always, and for these three dates in particular, please remember that if you are punched or hit, there will be NO witnesses - the anti-Israel side will claim that nothing happened and nobody saw anything. They have done so in the past, and they are experts at denial. Unless it was video-taped, IT DID NOT HAPPEN!

Be carefull afterwards, and try not to leave alone.

HATEFUL GIBBONS FILLED WITH P*SS AND VINEGAR, AND OTHER THINGS

Tzipporah asks: "Isn't there anything going on in the Bay area?
Besides rain and soggy smokers adrift among the self-righteous healthnuts."


The answer to that depends on whom you ask (okay, we know you're asking me) and what you mean.


I myself am still neurotically reading about tobacco blends, and looking forward to another shipment from Cornell & Diehl. I have ordered several basic blending tobaccos, and will, once I have them in my possession, be compounding a mixture provisionally called "ESSENCE of TOAD".

The blend name? Well, Savage Kitten objects most vociferously to my smoking when I light up something with Turkish leaf and Latakia (she hardly notices the smell of Virginias). This particular mixture is guaranteed to make her demand that I go smoke next to the open window in the kitchen, or even out on the front steps. And, being an agreeable old toad, I will comply.



Our cell of the conspiracy is ramping up for next weekend, when we will be counterdemonstrating International Answer's anti-war, anti-US, anti-Israel, pro-Chavez, pro-Ahmedinejad, pro-Castro rally. I myself don't really care about Chavez and Castro either way, other than considering both of them rather reprehensible panderers to the European nouveau-Communists & anti-Yanqui intelligentsia. And the war was clearly one of the more ridiculous things we've done in the last seven years.

You can probably guess what my points of view are on the other three issues.

After that we'll be dealing with the upcoming AIPAC conferences. The hate-filled gibbons usually come swinging down from their trees for that one, and after the publication of both Carter's book,and Walt & Mearsheimer's grotty little tract, the hate-gibbons should totally be full of p*ss and vinegar this year.

We hope to take the p*ss out of them.

[Metaphorically speaking, of course. They can keep their fluids. Honest.]


In the meantime, though, it rains. It blatters. It motters and mists. It fogs. My posterior feels arthritic, and I grumpily look out over the darkly glistening street in front of my apartment building at night, puffing wisps of Burley into dusk. I bemoan my ancient rump.

The Haunted Bookshop: "A predominantly Burley mixture with a touch of red Virginia and Perique". By Cornell & Diehl. I also have a few tins of Old Joe Krantz ("ribbon and coarse cut burleys, perique and red Virginia"), which I look forward to trying once this tin is gone. Autumn requires aircured tobacco, especially if the weather is inclement.



This evening I will head into North Beach to drink beer and whiskey and gibber insanely. As has been my once a week custom since the late eighties, in which I am not alone.

Savage Kitten will be fast asleep by the time I return. She will probably be clutching either the one-legged monkey (a demented Banan-o-phile who is convinced that he is the alpha male) or Mizz Bruin (her oldest friend in the world, who outranks everybody else - and that really does mean everybody else).
I will probably have to remove her headphones when I come in - she falls asleep listening to audiobooks.