Channeling Julia Child

Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
Woody Allen (1935 - )

I have an interesting relationship with food. Even as a kid I never quite ate what normal kids ate. It would not have occurred to me to describe it as ‘unusual’. Like most kids I was a picky eater, with phases where I refused pizza, sausage, hamburger-based dishes, tacos, and grilled chicken, all framed within a constant dislike of spaghetti sauce, frosting on cake, peanut butter, salad of any persuasion, or any dish in which the vegetables were mixed together. I have no memory of particular culinary terrors (lima beans, brussels sprouts, etc) filling me with dread, just a long list of stuff I didn’t like.

Food is the most primitive form of comfort.
Sheila Graham

As we age our tastes change, either as a result of social and emotional development (in the scheme of things, eating vegetables is not as terrible as when younger) or because of biological change. I no longer particularly care for sweet or oily foods; I prefer salty, sour, and bitter. I prefer vinegar to oil, drink unsweetened tea and coffee, and repeatedly bake my cakes with half the required sugar and usually a dose of lemon juice. Hot sauce, mustard, chilis, jalapenos, curries, and other such foods have become favorites of mine, and I often eat them plain.

Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals.
Finley Peter Dunne (1867 - 1936)

Usually I would not associate the term “picky eater” with myself; my single ground rule for what I will and won’t eat excludes anything with eyes and anything that can move of its own volition (a corollary added to exclude slugs and snails, which apparently do not have eyes). Yet in many senses, I am quite choosy about what I eat. I have the delightful reputation of being the only person to pack her own lunch at the university cafeteria, for reasons of economy and taste. I don’t like mass-produced food, sauces or meals from a box or package, and often am convinced I could do better myself—and am usually willing to spend the extra time to try.

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again.
George Miller

I would also describe myself as a wannabe gourmand. I enjoy good food, and because the Mr. Scrooge part of me refuses to eat out, I am led to put particular effort and time into cooking. When a group of people come to my house to cook it tends to be complicated, and particularly designed such that everyone (or most everyone) has a job to do, allowing us to make and eat things I personally would never have had the energy to make alone. Of course, not everyone necessarily wanted a job to do, but I figure it’s more fun if two people aren’t cooking alone while 8 people sit around.

We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.
Adelle Davis

So my consolation, as I sit today in the cafeteria with my broccoli curry, leftover from yesterday and lovingly packed in a tupperware container, enduring the bemused looks of my compatriots, is that at least I don’t have to ponder the deeper meaning behind “parts is parts”, contemplate the gelatinous-looking attempt at a sauce, or slurp down mushy french fries.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
(and apparently, becoming vegetarian does more to reduce CO2 output than switching to a hybrid car. End of commercial)

The battle of sushi fields

I had a small altercation with a piece of sushi yesterday. Middle of nowhere on a bike, somewhere between the Rhine and home, I get a call from A., who is back from a fabulous concert in Zürich and up for dinner. With a bit of effort I tracked down another friend who, plus her boyfriend, mine, his brother, my roommate, A., and the two friends she ended up bringing with, resulted in quite a crowd.

For a shared flat I have a big kitchen, enough for six to comfortably cook and eat. The nine of us had a bit of problem fitting everyone in, but sushi is work-intensive, and our particular economy had a comparative advantage in labor. So, knives flashing my faithful fellow cooks evicerated the vegetables, reduced the rice to a defenseless mass, and turned a tower of lettuce into a mustardly masterpiece. I myself went to battle against three bricks of spinach and a can of tomatoes, which, pitted against the pitiful three layers of lasagne noodles on hand resulted in something resembling a casserole but without aspirations of ever becoming a lasagne.

So, sushi. Cook rice, cool down rice, mince vegetables (carrots, radishes, cucumber, bamboo sprouts, baby corns, avacado), spread rice on nori (yes, it is seaweed), line up the vegetables neatly and carefully (the heretics added fish), and...roll. Someone pointed out the apparent affinity of my menues to tend towards "rolling". Freud would probably have something to say to that but I'd rather not speculate; suffice to say the evidence is against me (sushi, spring rolls, an attempt at soft tacos).

But I digress. We roll and we slice, we lift, we dip, we eat. For those brave of heart and tongue or devoid of taste buds, there is the evil green drug known as wasabi, cunningly addictive, leaving us red in the face, noses burning, coming back again and again for our next fix.


The opposing army...

Sometime later in the evening, after I had already eaten two or three hundred pieces of sushi and my ration of casserole and salad I went for another sushi piece, dunked it liberally in wasabi (I, ever the modest one, brag of my ability to eat it plain, with a spoon--not just idle chatter). And the bloody piece of sushi attacked me, getting stuck somewhere between chewing and swallowing; the wasabi, sensing weakness, moved in for the kill and in a brilliant flanking manoeuvre, managed to incapacitate me completely. I sat rigid in my chair, slowly turning red, gasping like a lifetime pack-a-day smoker mountain climbing, trying to swallow, or spit out, or do something, anything, but the persistant piece will not release its hold, going for the jugular like a bulldog. As my distress becomes obvious I am surrounded by a ring of horrified-looking dinner guests, probably looking like the unholy cross between a tomato and a fish out of water.

But I rallied the troops and counterattacked, managing to force the sushi into retreat and eventually into my stomach. The wasabi relinquished extremely unwillingly, and I was left with the last vestiges of the rearguard in my nose, giving me the appearance and the stuffy nose of a serious allergy sufferer with a headcol; these battle wounds would remain with me throughout the remainder of the evening.

My victory meal of apple sauce and crêpes was not the least diminished by my uncooperative olfactory organ, though I imagine I could have appreciated the taste as well as the consistancy had I been more astute or graceful in my initial sushi sortie.

A series of unrelated thoughts on a Sunday afternoon...

It must be a reflection of the student culture in general, or else some kind of peculiar condition particular to this town like a rare disease, but I find it fascinating that, on a Thursday night, one can go to a punk rock bar, pay a 3€ cover charge, try to find a place to squeeze in among the multitudes where you can still see the stage and, hopefully, order something to drink as well...and listen to poetry. It's a poetry slam, where courageous--or indifferent--individuals stand up before the packed house and recite texts they have written themselves with a 7-minute time limit. Some of the acts were straight out of Duo-Interp from my forensics days; others were existential, some about love, others abstract almost to the absurd. One poem, written and performed by a middle-aged gentleman in a boater's hat, cargo shorts, and sandals with socks, used the word ,,Schnee" (Snow) about 4,372 times in all manner of variations which eventually elicited laughter. I can't tell if that was his intent. One guy got up and read a story about a guy, a girl, a dance, and.... we didn't hear the end because he ran out of time. One woman, claiming to be Liza Minelli, eventually got kicked off the stage because her rambling turned to raving and became, for all intents and purposes, incoherant.

As I was waiting for my friends on said evening, leaning on a railing across from said bar, an interesting-looking guy on a bike pulled up and, after much effort and some cursing, managed to turn around. He looks at me, grins (is he missing teeth or does he just not brush them?) and asks, "how are you?" Uhhh, fine, I guess... I'm being pretty distant, because I don't feel like talking to him and he's kinda strange. "Do you have a man/husband?" he asks (in German, the word Mann can refer to either males or spouses). Yes, I reply, because it's none of his business and maybe he will leave me alone.



As complement--or counterpoint?--to this, I will be marrying a Freiburger. For those of you who have visited this fine city, you may be aware of the multitude of little canals (called Bächle) running through most streets in the center of town. As legend goes, they were installed to bring fresh air to the alleys, were rumored to be open sewers and now are the playplaces of small children and amused tourists. As custom goes, anyone who steps into one of these Bächle will a) have good luck and b) marry a Freiburger. I, late for an appointment, blistering along the cobblestone streets in the rain, am confronted with an oblivious line of pedestrians who refuse to get out of my way. In avoiding them I manage to get my wheel stuck in the tram track, and in braking I fall over---into the Bächle. So, my fate is sealed and my dress is wet, but no matter and no major harm done.

Tortillas, by the way, are not the same thing in Mexico (and the US) and Spain. In North America, tortillas are round flat bits of bread, very thin, made of wheat or corn flour. In Spain, Tortillas are omelettes made with fried potatoes and sometimes tuna. And what I make, called Tortilla by some and Beignets by others, is some combination of omelette and pancake with whatever vegetables I happen to have on hand. Step 1: cook vegetables till crisp-tender. Step 2: beat eggs (3 - 5) with some flour, milk, and salt. Step 3: Add vegetables to egg mixture. Step 4: pour batter into pan and cook like pancakes/omelettes, using a pot lid to flip. Excellent way to use cooked vegetables or leftovers. Just so you know.

I've forgotten how much I love the smell of rain. I've also forgotten how long it's been since it's rained, and I miss it. It feels like summer, having a hot and humid afternoon and a soaking rainstorm, preferably with a lightning show. Best viewed with a mug of tea on the porch.

Ein grünes Blatt

Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen,
Ich nahm es so im Wandern mit,
Auf daß es einst mir möge sagen,
Wie laut die Nachtigall geschlagen,
Wie grün der Wald, den ich durchschritt.

Storm, Theodor (1817-1888) (born in Heiligenhafen)