giovedì, settembre 30, 2010

Mrs. Slocum weeps

Sorry. No heart for the food stuff today. I'm going to spend this evening stroking my pussy, and for once I don't mean . . . oh for fuck's sake.

I guess in one way I'm feeling better about Lexie. The vet, who feels really bad about what happened, and I had a good talk about it when he came round to trim her fingernails and fill out her forms; if she's happy at Sugarplum's, and I'm sure she will be, that's excellent, and if she's not happy at Sugarplum's and comes to Australia after all, at least we'll be settled down by then, and in all honesty there's no way to look at the situation without having to admit dropping her off in Canada tomorrow is the best thing for her.

But I'm so fucking sad. It's like being dumped by a guy you really love because he has to fly back to Mars or else he'll slowly choke on Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere, and neither of you are into the long distance thing. She's been my constant companion of years and years; my comfort when things were shitty and my darling when things were lovely; my dainty little southern belle, despite being so fucking fat; my familiar, my outlet for all the excess tenderness I used to waste tending to my own useless mental complexes.

She's moving in with Sugarplum tomorrow, close to where Neil Young grew up for awhile, in the Kawarthas. As soon as I realized that I started getting "Helpless" stuck in my head and it's got progressively sadder with every repeat. Thank god it's the Nick Cave version, or else I'd be cripplingly sad over a cat while a tomcat croons in my head.

(The F-word and I were just talking about Neil Young, in relation to where Lexie is going to be living and in relation to "Helpless" being stuck in my head, and he asked if I liked Neil Young, and I think I actually burst into laughter at the idea of liking Neil Young. Coming home from a long day at work, wondering what to listen to, and deciding - "yep, I'm going to listen to some nice Neil Young" - it's less ridiculous but no less hilarious than the idea of doing the same with Bob Dylan. But actually I really do like Neil Young, and have ever since I saw him in concert, and I would really love to see him in concert again, but the idea of sitting around listening to one of his records still makes me laugh out loud.)

Anyways, this is how I'm feeling. Now excuse me while I go cruising for some pussy:

mercoledì, settembre 29, 2010

Crack jojoba

Best insult I've heard all week: 24-carat pissant. Delivered and, as far as I know, created years ago by former Australian prime minister Paul Keating when he explained to a journalist who'd moved from public to commercial news broadcasting his opinion of the transition. Courtesy of the Paul Keating Insults Archive:

"You had an important place in Australian society on the ABC and you gave it up to be a pop star...with a big cheque...and now you're on to this sort of stuff. That shows what a 24 carat pissant you are, Richard, that's for sure."

Anyways, onto today's oil, and a non-edible one for a change, though continuing on yesterday's mention of the cosmetic application of sesame oil: jojoba. Actually you can eat jojoba oil without getting sick, as long as your definition of sick doesn't include anal leakage, a side effect it shares with the notorious olestra. That's pretty funny. And apparently it's pronounced "hohoba". That's pretty funny too.

What isn't funny is how fucking good this shit is for your skin. I'm not a conventional beauty; in fact I'm not any sort of beauty; and going by all the sick shit I'd like to do to my institutional enemies, I'm not even an inner beauty. That's fine with me. Beautiful girls have to put up with a world of shit; in fact, someday when I have more time on my hands, I'd like to write a heroic cycle about the trials and tribulations of a beautiful woman, and her eventual triumphant emergence into the Valhalla of invisible menopause.

What I do have, though, is lovely skin, and the way it covers my imperfect body goes some way to making that body pleasing. So I like to take care of it, and of course keep it as nice and tick-free as possible. Which is a touch of a challenge, what with sun (not that there's been much here), artificial heating (MUCH bigger problem here), marijuana smoke, and a recent development over the last few years . . . breakouts of eczema on my elbows when I get stressed. Eeeurgh.

So. I mentioned awhile ago that I've started making moisturizers at home, mostly for the sake of the F-word's fussy skin. I whipped up a coconut butter-jojoba-tea tree oil solution for him to take to Italy and left the jojoba oil on the counter in my abstraction (liquid at room temperature, solid in the fridge). Also in my abstraction, I'd forgotten to mix myself a new batch of moisturizer, so when I got out of the shower the next day I just grabbed the jojoba oil and used that.

The results were SUPERB. I've been using it since - every other day or so - and it's been working so well that I'm having an even harder time than I usually would during a month of enforced separation from the F-word not touching myself constantly. And elbows still lovely and unblemished despite crippling stress. And I do mean crippling, I'm one fuckwit away from a nervous breakdown. And yet my skin looks so fucking good.

Apparently that's because jojoba oil acts like sebum, the goo your skin excretes and that gives you pimples, so by smearing it on you it's as though you're fooling your skin into thinking you're actually a teenager exuding all sorts of goo. Or something. I don't know. I'm going to slow down on using it now, since my skin profile is more dry, and it's most recommended for oily types; the conventional wisdom is that it fools your skin into thinking its producing enough sebum, so the sebum production slows down and your acne goes away. Whereas my skin doesn't produce enough goo to give me more than the occasional pimple, and I don't really want to throw the balance off.

That all sounds like bullocks, doesn't it? That's the trouble with home moisturizers; I'm not a chemist and I don't know anything about anything, and I'm not sure the people publishing the recipes do either, so I have to be sparing with everything in case something is actually horribly bad for me. But the jojoba oil is addictive. It just makes you look so good. So look it up and try it if you dare; I haven't found any contraindications, and am probably just suffering some Catholic guilt over becoming so attractive to myself.

And for the macho among you, fear not, as it doesn't smell like anything; or it shouldn't anyways; certainly nothing girly. But if you like being smelly, you can add a few drops of sandalwood oil or some such and have a certain class of woman falling all over you. Personally I prefer my men to smell like something edible; once more, however, I'm aware I'm not the voice of the majority, more fool the majority.

lunedì, settembre 27, 2010

Open sesame season

I'm lucky in my life partner in a lot of ways, but definitely one of the ones I feel smuggest about is that we can have a panicked conversation about how we're going to have to get a lady-goat or something for its milk so we can keep having some sort of raw cheese in Australia, where it's fucking illegal, and that any time we get a serious jones on for really stinky, artisanal raw cheese there we'll just a really fucking slap-up Asian dinner and count our fucking blessings. I took the F-word out his last night here for an attempt at a slap-up sushi dinner and it was fucking R-U-P-T rough. I'd never known before that tuna had gristle. That's fucking Latin Europe, man. Not enough Orientals.

Anyways, that segues me into two topics:

1. Last night I bought four kinds of cheese, in a wild bid to stuff so much into my tummy before leaving for Australia that I don't miss it as much as I know I will anyways. Most of them were hard so theoretically we'll be able to keep getting them in Australia, but I know from practice in Canada it just doesn't work that way - it'll be shitty knock-offs, the dregs of production, because the manufacturers will understand it's being exported to a country that's used to its food dead. Anyways: parmigiano reggiano, pecorino primo salata (a squeaky, soft sheep cheese, almost but not quite bland, comforting, and studded with peppercorns), Castelmagno (which I'd never had before and was a real success - imagine a parmigiano reggiano but with its soul still imprisoned in it, and only emerging with a holler of triumph as you take a bite), and then feta - but the feta was stuffed into pickled spicy green peppers. Holy shit. There aren't very many edible things that are better than pickled spicy green peppers stuffed with feta. It's a very pleasing combination. I think we can make that, after moving, though.

2. Today's oil (tying back into the slap-up Asian dinners we'll have when we miss the cheese too much): sesame. Sesame oil, and sesame seeds too, are important to me as a nut allergy sufferer. Sesame seeds, toasted, or sesame oil as a dressing, or tahini, or halva, that fucking priceless, delectable and horribly addictive ambrosia, can almost fool my tastebuds into thinking they're finally getting some peanuts or something, so there's an element of naughtiness to eating them - it just feels so deliciously wrong, like getting head from someone who's still doing their undergrad but who has figured out how to do it. So there's the naughtiness as well as an element of deliciousness. For delicious all these things are are.

Not only that. Sesame oil is a super-useful hair thing. It's been years since I demanded my hair suffer chemical abuse but back when I was rehabilitating it, sesame oil was the trick. Your scalp loves it. If you bias toward dryness, like I do, it's a rare and lovely pleasure to get a deep, langorous scalp massage with sesame oil; and then one quick wash later, or extended comb with a rough wooden comb to pick up excess goo, your hair looks ace for a week.

It's also reputed to be a cure for baldness. That, I couldn't say. My deductive instincts tell me that if it was I'd be priced out of the market by panicking men, and there wouldn't be any bald people. But it's hard to say. The thing is, once you've had a sesame oil scalp massage, you smell quite distinctly of sesame. To me it's rather nice to smell like a Japanese seaweed salad but I'm aware I may not be the voice of the majority on this one, more fool the majority.

domenica, settembre 26, 2010

Slick – Pumpkin seed oil

I love vegetable oils more than animal fat, and I love animal fat a lot. Butter is indispensable for some soups and sauces if you live in a wintry environment, and when it comes to fries – sorry, Hindus - cow lard is the fucking acest. But otherwise, vegetable fats are so adorable and various and smashingly awesome. So to focus on the positive this week, I’m going to write about all the vegetable fat that I love. Especially since I've realized that there's a range of things I've started consuming here that I don't remember in Canada (possibly from want of looking) and I'm worried I won't be able to get in Australia.

I’m the sort of person who feels stress in a) her brains and b)her tummy. At times like this, especially after the whole turning-bright-yellow following the massive self-abuse leading up to my thesis defense years ago, I pay careful attention to what my tummy is asking for, food-wise.

And lately it’s been asking for pumpkin seed oil by the shot-glass. God bless the fucking Germans for introducing me to it. Have already gone on about the glories of pumpkin flesh, and could go on about the delights of pepitas as well; pine nuts are off my radar at the moment until they get cleared by an allergist, so pumpkin seeds have been making their way into our pasta and salads and pizza and everywhere else – lovely little fuckers. (Really very, very versatile, but bear in mind they burn pretty fast, so if you top any oven-cooked thing with them pop them on or in close to the end).

But pumpkin seed oil; that’s a lovely fatty nectar of the gods. I drizzle it onto crumpets in the morning instead of butter now. And salad. Decorating soups. Vanilla ice cream and granola. Actually just about every other dish where I don’t have to cook it. Fuck, is it good. It has this sort of clean richness to it. It’s heavy, it’s almost like you can taste its colours, and its colours are one of the strangest things you can see in a food, because it looks like a straightforward green, but when the light shines through it, it turns wine-red. But while it’s almost as though you can taste the bizarreness, it doesn’t leave any clingy traces, like most oils; just a nice sort of mouth environment of “mmm, I just ate a bunch of pumpkin seed oil”.

Well, as you can read, adjectives are failing me. This shit is good, let’s put it like that. Also – and this is just second-hand anecdotal as, to my knowledge, I've never fucked a vegan man - its absurd amounts of zinc, which us normals tend to mostly get through seafood or other animal flesh/product, help vegan men fuck more enthusiastically and frequently.

In fact it has so many touted health benefits that I'm paranoid that when I return to the New World the only place I'm going to find it is in horrid little new age 'pharmacies' that smell like mothballs, with the oil sealed into a animal-free soft-wall easy-swallow capsules designed to prevent you from actually tasting it when you consume it. Like this. Fucking travesty. More on that when I get to the flax oil, but for fuck's sake; the medicalization of society in general is a hideous enough prospect, leaving the medicalization of fucking food to one side. Pumpkin seed oil is a fucking delicious gift of the gods. Any company that suggests you consume it without feeling it is a bastard who's out to screw you out of one of life's unique, even transcending pleasures (I really like it, okay?). It's fucking evil.