The Novice Cook (Part I)

[Disclaimer: I realise such entry is laughable at most, given the content is not the confessions of a scorned soul or a broody poet. These days it is a better pursuit for me to find some peace in trivial, happy and optimistic things rather than to contemplate on philosophy. On another note, where does one position the disclaimers?]

The (one and only) joy of being a recent unemployed graduate is the ample time in which to do 'stuff', learn new 'stuff' and think of every possible way to pass the time other than wallowing in self-failure and grief. Years back, free time would be spent on aG, which these days is not the option. It usually takes around 30 minutes (only) to read through every single new posts from the time I last logged on .. which I, like a loser, do. Reading posts about Musicians and their turmoil, Football fans and their utterly idiotic (to me) loyalty, Brazilian waxing, the odd 'shuta-krimi' and not to mention the rights of every minority on this planet.

So I turn to Foodie Blogs. I'm almost tempted to put up a wiki-link on the definition, but I think I'll refrain. I perhaps jumped in the wagon very late, because .. well blogs are just not cool any more, is it? (To my defence, I did join Twitter a few days ago and yet to fully milk all its worth) .. I'll post some of my favourite Foodies at the end of this post. Foodies are generally evil because I find myself constantly thinking about food like a boy who just hit puberty and all their thoughts revolve around sex. I also find myself looking at Food-Photography for hours and hours and take great pleasure in it (I believe the term is coined Food-Porn). I have started watching Hell's Kitchen every Tuesday night religiously (shameful?). Last of all, I find that my own home-food no longer satisfies my palate. Hence one day, I woke up and thought to myself, to hell with the world, I'm going to learn to cook! Currently, the way our household works is that some days, I'll bring home a bunch of ingredients NOT suitable for the curry but the likes of Italian or the odd Moroccan. It really helps when I also have a dietician (because I have been found to be officially under-weight with high cholesterol!) so as to justify (without telling the over-sensitive mother that I can't stand the home-food) the need for me to cook separately some days. Two incredibly negative things have resulted in this new way of life - increased food wastage (because I still can't get the hang and feel of what's under-cooked, cooked and over-cooked among many other reasons) and I find that the mother's kitchen itself is incredibly insufficient for my needs (we only have two knives and no knife sharpener or a casserole dish or a proper baking dish .. the list is pretty long and it would cost me an arm and leg to actually update the amount of utensils .. so for now, I compromise and compromise heavily).

My partner in crime in no other than the sibling who, surprisingly is more competent in the kitchen. So she usually judges when 'stuff' is cooked. I usually chop 'stuff' and read the instruction out aloud .. which no way is the ideal situation, if I were to actually learn the culinary art. I've attempted to cook pasta for yonks (sp?) and only managed two occasions where it was perfect (i.e. to my liking). The lamb cutlets I make, however, are almost there in terms of .. you know ..

So I lack the basics.

However, with all the time in the world at my disposal, I did browse through the library and found the perfect book! I was flipping through it today .. and yes .. it is the perfect book for beginners! That made me happy and these days I'm hardly ever happy. It's called 'The First-Time Cook' by Sophie Grigson and .. well .. maybe I will review it one day. (Speaking of which, I'm yet to review two of Murakami books and that is depressing). It tells me how to chop 'stuff', cook 'stuff', shop for 'stuff', store 'stuff' and what 'stuff' to have in a kitchen (the fact that you need at least four knives minimum and they must not be cheap).

Something else I use is the Video-Jug web-site and I love it. I learned to 'Roast the Perfect Potatoes' !

On a side note: This the way to 'Hide an Unwanted Erection' for anyone who it might apply to. You can also learn how to 'French Kiss', 'Undo your partner's Bra with one hand' and my personal favourite 'How to make your breasts look bigger'.

I'll end this long and boring entry with the link to one of my favourite Foodie-Blog.

All I need now is a motto to cook by.

Veronika Decides to Die

I must confess - I tend to like pretty much anything from trashy Mills&Boon to pretentious Salman Rushdie/Dostoevsky. Anything at all, as long as it leaves me feeling it was worth the read or if it touches a special chord somewhere within (mostly the heart, but I suppose the nether-regions for selected Mills&Boons). The point I'm trying to make is .. an author need not put a great deal of effort for me to like their books.

Enter Paulo Coelho. I absolutely hate this guy. Late last year, I had the privilege of reading 'Veronika Decides to Die' courtesy of a friend who loves him and sent me this book via air-mail (all the way from NZ) and I hated it. How this guy is a millionaire (or is Coelho a billionaire? The Internet is capped, so I'm not able to check on Google either) is beyond my comprehension. No, I take it back .. I think I know exactly why this guy is a freaking billionaire. Here starteth my review (of the book).

A Brief Synopsis:

Young girl who has everything going well for her decides to end her life but finds herself stranded in a mental hospital (or something like that) alive and kicking. Girl is told she has five days (more or less) until her heart stops beating. Girl realises value of life (and wants to live with a renewed energy) and the readers realise it was all a lie - the girl was used as an experiment whereupon she was lied to and told she only had a few days to live, so that when that anticipated death does not occur her life force will be renewed and she will continue to live her life believing it was a miracle gifted by god and it was her destiny to .. live (with another fellow depressed Prince living in the asylum .. in front of whom she masturbates thrice climaxing all three times).

[I think I would watch the movie (yes! they are making a movie out of this book starring Sarah Michelle Geller) just for the masturbating scene .. should it be allowed on screen].

What I found this book to be is nothing but a preachy-know-it-all-snobbery of a novel where the author spends all his time preaching (worse than your average organised religion folks) and preaching and preaching - how life should be, why it should be so. I might as well have picked up the Quran and read that instead. Coelho is simply more of a Pope than an author. The book felt like a pretentious crap that shoved its 'life ideal and philosophies' down my throat until I choked and spat out in disgust.

I don't pretend to understand life's blacks and whites or even the greys and neither should a literary work. I've grown accustomed to the simple fact that books are there to enlighten you and make you think .. it is not a self help guide where all the answers are churned out. So when an author comes in to establish that he knows it all, that he is the Messiah who has all the answers is nothing but an insult to .. well I don't know exactly what .. but I was furious.

Of course I understand why Coelho is popular. People are brainless morons or one in the making. The laziness takes hold and fuck all that spending time thinking about a book .. let's all read crap that already provides easy philosophies and easy answers to life .. Oh Coelho, you are the greatest, please do all the thinking for me and write more of those crap you call literary works and in turn, I shall contribute just a little bit more to your Billions.

Dance, Dance, Dance

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so so so in love with Murakami. He is not the greatest writer this era has to offer. I've read (just about) enough literature to know that. Murakami doesn't really use hard vocabulary (that I gather from the translations, as I cannot read his works in original Japanese) or even intricate sentence structure. In fact, everything about his books (the ones I've read) are .. just imperfect. Phillip once told me that the more you read his things, the more they would bleed into each other, ie. you'll find yourself reading similar things.

Despite all that, I'm enjoying my Murakami phase every little bit.

The latest book I finished (which took me an awful lot of time) was Dance Dance Dance. Unfortunately, I didn't know there was a prequel to this piece (which after I found out, I bought .. just today in fact. The Murakami books are JUST perfect. The way they look - the cover, the illustration, the back sleeve, the fonts, the way Haruki Murakami is written ..), so .. it's like .. I know how it ends for the un-named narrator without knowing his roots.

It seems stupid to talk about Dance Dance Dance a second time since I'd already talked about it in another blog. But baby, I'm in the mood for writing.

Majority of the reading had been spent on buses to and from work and uni. Also, the Botanical Gardens along with a few Kent-Blues. No, I don't really smoke .. it was just one of those things. Start of Spring, sun-baking in a park with gorgeous views, Murakami and cigarettes. One day, I would like to get an apartment right in front of the bridge, the opera house and the botanical gardens - spend quiet times with a book and a glass of red wine. (Mmm .. I seem to really love red wine too .. a new acquired thing .. must have been that cheese and wine night thing at Sydney Uni. As I say, all I dream of is a soul mate and red wine). I fall in love with Sydney everytime I venture out to Circular Quay.

The Review:

It didn't occur to me for a long time that the narrator's name was never revealed. So, I'm guessing that I was really really sucked into the book. Which is odd because I don't ever recall reading a huge chunk in one sitting. I took my time with it .. like how you would with wine (maybe that's why I can't do straight shots .. so much of life still unlived and I'm turning twenty-two next week .. it's depressing). The plot wasn't exactly this intricate maze of ... maze .. but the unravelling .. was just so incredibly sexy (which is true for most of his novels in-my-humble-opinion). I remember reading Kafka on the Shore and thinking how much it reminded me of the whole Moroccan slow cooking thing .. well .. not the best analogy .. but one of my greatest love happens to be couscous and Moroccan food (and Moroccan tea and their traditional tea-cups .. speaking of tea, I must blog about T-2 one day).

I'm doubtful whether the book had a happy ending. Though it's implied that he .. unknots his life and gets back into the wheel of life, somehow I didn't buy it. Or I didn't want to believe it. Dance Dance Dance was definitely not as .. trippy as Kafka. I always wonder about the grubby pubs in Japan, whether they really play La Boheme and Bach like Murakami always implies. (Which is why I'll be heading to Japan end of next year, given a few financial kinks and life-difficulties somehow work out). Behind all the pretentious references to things I consider cool .. there is never any deep philosophical pretention that I find absolutely unbearable .. adding to the list of things I love about Murakami's books.

.. I've just realised how incredibly attractive Robert Downey Jr is.

.. And I end here.

Kafka on the Shore - a review?

It took three years to join the bandwagon and read Kafka on the Shore. It took even longer to get started on Mr. Murakami. Apparently, he has been 'the-in-thing' for a while now. I discovered him around six months ago, and finally read his stuff four weeks ago (and finished Kafka on the Shore two days ago). Despite the fact that the book is very much sexually charged (which in turn has made me feel sexually depressed - not the best of feelings one can have), it was .. a good read. Here is my take on it (not that anyone cares post-hype).

When a book is translated (in this case from Japanese), you have to wonder how true to the original was the translation. Did the author really mean to be so crude when he referred to the protagonists' privates as his 'cock' or did he actually mean 'penis'. Structurally, there is a huge difference between the two words- the mood, the vibe changes quite dramatically depending on which word you choose. That's something I will never know unless I became fluent in Japanese and read the actual version. (In fact, the sibling is becoming fluent in Japanese, and I have a feeling that this is actually pushing out all the algebra out of her brain - it happens!).

Mr. Murakami is well-read and you don't need to Wikipedia to tell you that. Yes, I know everyone has heard of the Oedipus Complex and everyone has their own take on Freud and almost everyone is street-smart about their German Philosopher Nietzsche - which makes this book so wonderfully readable. Thanks largely to contemporary literature era it's alright to make constant references to other diverse (and sometimes pretentious) fields. Murakami tells us about his take on Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, the Greek tragedies - almost every page has his interpretation on .. something someone else has done and said. I Googled (Google has come so far that we've turned it into a verb - that is true accomplishment!) Murakami, and this is precisely why people (critics, general public) love him and why I'm a few inches short of loving him.

I have to admit it's a great literary tool, something I automatically do in my own .. dabble into words. I realise how pretentious I sound.

I've written nothing about the book so far and dare call this a review? This is where critics come in handy- they always have just the right words. To put it in plain words .. I've read very few books where the progression and 'unraveling' has been handled so delicately well. It would be wonderful (I assume) to make love to Kafka.. no, actually it would be wonderful to have him dream that he is making love to me (but we won't go into any details on how he rapes his sister in his dreams).

The Boy Named Crow!

Happy New Year!

The new year didn't start with a bang .. as usual. The new year didn't bring any sweet promises of love, lust and happiness .. as usual. There were no Y2K bug to look forward to (perhaps Z3L bug?). Legend has it, that on the eve of the new year, whatever one ends up doing last, will be what one's life will be filled with the rest of the new year. So I purposely went to watch the fireworks with the sibling and our uncle-aunt's soon-to-be-proper family. Let's hope that the rest of 2008 is filled with sitting around under the scorching sun for hours followed by fireworks .. and of course, tuna filling between whole-meal breads.

I promised myself that I would write. Since this promise doesn't come with any consequences for breaking the promise, I think I'm fine!

Just updating because I'm bored. Updates on life in general:

- The parents own a huge 46 inch Bravia LCD TV with a wicked 5-speaker surround system as of last month and it is on ALL the freaking time and it's loud.
- I'm still at university STILL finishing off a Bachelors' Degree in a subject I shall have no use for in the future.
- The new hair-cut is awfully similar to when I was 12 years old- decreasing my perceptual age from 15 to 10.

Pins & Needles!

It just doesn't get any better than this.
Fiona Apple ~ I Want You (Elvis Costello cover).



Lyrics

Pinhole Camera!

(Did I use this title before?)

I found the concept to be quite amazing and it works (unlike so many things in this world). It's a basic tin can with a lid (think Milo tins or Red Cow powder milk tins) with a very small hole drilled on the circular surface. All that needs to be done then, is to put a photography paper in the tin (done in the dark room, shiny side facing the tiny hole, shut the lid tight), cover the hole completely with masking tape or similar .. and that's that - you have a pinhole camera. On a bright sunny day (the kind I'm missing right now after a winter that arrived way too early and still lingers) the pinhole is taken outside and placed in front 'something' - leveled with the tin-hole. The tape (or similar) is stripped off and the paper inside is exposed (the time I can't remember- somewhere between 10 seconds to 15 or else the paper is burnt charcoal once processed) and tape is put back. Once in the dark room the paper is taken out. The developing process for pre-historic (surely, this is the age of Photoshop and other manipulations. A bit like the movement towards capitalism) black & white photography is quite messy (but fun, sort of like making your own shelf without the IKEA cut-out pieces- end result isn't certain .. then again, at our house, the end result of an IKEA DIY anything never has a happy ending)- Developer, Stop, Fixer, Water .. (Steps!) Happy times with chemicals! Nearly six months of photography classes (forty minutes a week as an elective in High School) was enough for me to realise that like many things this was not my forte.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club has a tendency to use a lot of second person in their lyrics ('So how's it going to feel/When you don't know what is real/You tell yourself it's love, and tear yourself apart'). I say that because I've never actually read a book concentrating heavily on second person perspective (and those 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books do not count) and always wondered what it could be like ... but then again, one could utilise everything to get as many perspectives they can squeeze in. For some reason, I can't get my second person usage to sound sophisticated. Here's one I prepared earlier:

You uttered those words in midst of Just like Heaven and for a moment I questioned how sober you really were. It was the perfect notion of the modern day love most boys and girls clung to at the time. I was pro-choice while you were an anti-abortionist. You hated my carefree ways and I never liked your shoes. I termed us incompatible and you thought we were complements.

"But we loved each other" ... and that was the one common denominator we could both offer.

(Two star crossed lovers with nothing in common. Sir William did indeed make the right decision. Star crossed lovers poisoned; presumed dead in each other's arms: Short life span is what makes a love so grand)

We fought over movies (Incest or not Old Boy was still a brilliant portrayal of revenge), books and sports, always leading to making love and we would cuddle longer than most (the average being anywhere between 5 to 20 seconds). You never did remember my birth date (though you still remembered you previous lovers') and at times I resented the fact that there were no songs for me (or was there?).

You uttered those dreaded words in midst of Summer Skin and for a moment I was sure it was a very cruel joke. It was the perfect end to the modern tale of love- boredom and a betrayal on the side. I was exhausted while you looked worse for wear. You hated my neglecting ways and I never liked your tone. I termed us incompetent and you thought we were stale.

"So here's a toast to our dying love" … and that was the one common denominator we could both offer.