The modern market place

I shopped at Walmart today. You can give me grief about this. Go ahead. I'd like to hear it. I have mixed feelings about shopping there and feel somewhat ignorant about the issues.

Yet.

Why do some people hate Walmart but shop at Target? Is there a difference? Target has hip ads. Walmart doesn't. Target has some hot designers working for them. Walmart might, but they aren't talking.

Supposedly Walmart treats it's employees badly. I've read that. I know there are lawsuits. But, the people I've known who work at Walmart say they like it. In fact, a number of people have told me they are treated far better at Walmart than the local Food Coop.

What about the people who make the goods for Walmart? Yes, they are certainly paid badly, but what would they be doing if they didn't have those jobs? If you can illuminate me, please do.

I am hurting for money. I'd love to shop locally, but when I have a choice of paying nearly thirty bucks for a roasting pan at the hardware store, over a hundred dollars at the housewares store (!), or nine dollars at Walmart, well, there's really no choice there. I promise, when I have more money, I will shop at Walmart less. Or even stop. Who knows?

I do buy many things locally, but I realize they're not local items: Japanese and Himalayan rice. Irish steel cut oats and Italian cheese. The only truly local things we buy are eggs, milk and vegetables during the season. I also buy local yarn and fleece. But that's about it.

Living here in the countryside, there is less opportunity for local shopping than when I lived in New York City. I miss going to the green grocer, the bakery, the butcher, the pharmacy and the little newspaper shops. But even in New York City, those places are going by the wayside. That's not only a loss of local shopping, but a loss of community.

Another word about pay: Walmart pays its employees poorly. So does every other retailer employer. But, so does the school system, and that's criminal. There's enough inequity to go around in so many spheres, I don't know where to begin. This is too large for me, so I'm being more terse than I usually am.

Some days I wish I had succeeded in living a subsistence lifestyle, but I did not. And on my present half acre of land, with a mortgage, that's not going to happen.

I will say this, however, I did not buy a turkey at Walmart. For some reason (and maybe it was all that talk about factory farming), the idea of doing so was abhorent to me.

Painting note: Vincenzo Campi
The Fruit Seller 1580
Ah, that looks simply wonderful.

Warning: long post with some gruesome bits (and a bonus curse word)

In my last post, which was a harmless piece of fluff about cooking dinner, a commentor wrote:
"Ahem, I had no idea lamb legs could so peacefully coexist with being a buddhist. . ."

Quite a spirited conversation about vegetarianism followed. I commend all involved for their seemingly good spirits and courtesy. As Obama has said, "We can disagree without being disagreeable."

Now, when I discuss "issues", I always try to use myself as an example. I may read, and read quite a bit, but I tend not to intellectualize. I speak from my experience in the world, and hope that by doing so, I present a jumping off point for others to respond as they wish. I try not to push any dogma at others. I have my opinions, and some of them are pretty extreme, but these are mostly about aesthetics, so I care not a whit if anyone agrees with me.

That being said, I realized that as far as eating goes, I've become almost totally mindless.

So, I'll tell my story, and you can take away from it what you will (not like I could stop you from doing otherwise):

Many long years ago, I bought chickens from a Buddhist farm outside of New York City. They raised their chickens well, but did not cut them up and put them into nice clean packages for sale. You got your chicken whole, wrapped in brown paper, and had to deal with the fact that in order to eat it, you needed to cut off it's head, feet and pull out all the internal organs. Thinking back, I'm surprised they didn't ask you to kill your own chickens. Thinking now, I'm surprised they were doing this at all, but it was a good way to get city people to think about the food they eat, so it does make sense.

I remember struggling with those chickens. In order to cut off the chickens' heads, I needed to place a cloth over them. I did it anyway and always felt badly about it. That was a big red flag that I didn't feel right about it.

And so, I stopped eating meat after a while, only for the fact that I felt if I couldn't kill the animal or even cut it's head off after it was killed for me, I had no business eating it.

At that time, I worked at a historical museum where I lead children's field trips. When we gathered around in the kitchen, I'd always ask the children what they thought people ate in the 1700's. They'd usually yell out "Chicken!" and perhaps a few would say "Hot Dogs! Hamburgers!" but that was essentially it. I asked them, "Do you think people went to the store and bought their chicken wrapped up in plastic?" Plastic was the give-away word, and kids are smart, so they'd all yell "No!" What did they eat? Squirrels. Rabbits. Pigeons were very popular, and still can be bought in stores in England. The kids would squirm and say "Ew!" when I gave them a list of cute little animals that people could eat (and still do).

I wasn't trying to turn them into vegetarians, but I was telling them the truth.

So, I couldn't face up to the idea of even cutting up my dead chickens, and then I read John Robbins' "Diet for a New America", which goes into enormous detail about the horrors of factory farming. No more meat for me. That was that.

Then two things happened. I moved to a rural Maine and started raising sheep. I also spent some time at a Buddhist monastery. Now, you'd think neither of these things would do anything to make me stop being a vegetarian, but they did.

I knew nothing about raising animals, and had a number of mentors. All of these people raised animals in the most humane ways possible. I was raising my sheep for their fleece, but others were raising their animals for meat. If they had sheep, fleece was secondary, except for the few people I knew who had very expensive pure breds, and those folks, most of them, were not trying to make a living. Nor were they trying to feed famillies. I knew people who made their own bacon and sausages, smoked turkey and all sorts of meat specialties. I never touched any of that stuff, even though it smelled great, and I insulted quite a few people by not at least sampling their delicacies.

One day I was hanging around at this fellow's house while he was cooking up some bacon. I've always loved bacon. I kept saying "that smells great", over and over again. Fakin' Bacon just never cut it, but I didn't really care. That day, I was salivating. This fellow was one of those Mainers who doesn't say much. He helped me out so much when I needed help with great straightforward advice, such as the day I found one of my ewes walking around with a couple of hoofs hanging out her back end. I called him up and said "What do I do?" He said, "Just reach in there and pull out that lamb!" That was the longest sentence I'd ever heard him utter. Anyway, he got quite tired of hearing me moan about how good that bacon smelled and stuck a plate under my note and said, "Eat the fucking bacon." When a person like that curses, you do what they say. So I ate it, and it was delicious.

Still, I was a vegan. I had a slip. That's all.

That winter, I stayed at a monastery and almost everyone was ill for months. I heard that they decided later that a little bit of meat in the diet was okay, though not mandatory for all, but it was decided that us Northerners needed it to stay healthy and active during the winter. I didn't think that made that much sense, but at this well-respected monastery, people also smoked cigarettes and drank quite a bit, both things that this new-to-Buddhism person just assumed were things good Buddhists did not do.

Combine that with missing bacon, sausage, cigarettes and booze and I was fired up and ready to return to my past hedonistic ways.

And so, here I am. I don't smoke cigarettes any more, barely drink, and I do eat meat, but not every day. I feel comfortable with what I think of, if I think of it at all, as "moderation". But the thing is, until today, I haven't been thinking about how I feel about eating meat for years.

The comments I read today, along with some Buddhist reading I did earlier, got me thinking. I have no idea what I feel about this subject. Do I even care? I'm going to be brutally honest. I don't even know the answer to that.

So, you've read this far (perhaps) and I have no conclusion for you. I'm glad that I posted yesterday's fluff, for it banged open a window that's been shut for years. Will I stop eating meat? Just thinking about not doing so makes me anxious. Since returned to being an omnivore, I've developed quite the taste for meat, and besides, Dick is an amazing barbecue guy. It would be quite a blow to him if I stopped eating his outrageously delicious locust cooked ribs.

This is the end of the post. A history. Some questions. For me. And if you want to lay it on me, have a spirited argument with me, bring it on! I'm not defending myself. I have no defense. And, I've gotten quite attached to eating meat. The idea of glazed duck makes my mouth water. I'm thinking, "Is this another red flag?"

Photo note: Glazed Duck with Clementine Sauce

Addendum: I re-read this hours later and found that in editing, I had garbled some sentences. What I accidentally wrote is quite funny: . . .I've developed quite the taste for the truth, and besides, Dick is an amazing barbecue guy.

Well, I can't deny that one, though facing the truth is quite another thing.

Curry du jour - a recipe from a lazy cook

I used to love to cook. When I was a freelance artist, I was very disciplined. I worked at home, but I kept to a schedule and didn't break it unless there was an emergency. I worked from 9am to noon, took an hour break, and worked until 5pm. If there's wasn't an art director screaming for an inhumane deadline, I'd stop dead, no matter where I was in the day's work.

Cooking has something to do with this, I promise.

At noon, I would have a quick bite to eat. Then, I'd do whatever preparations were in order for dinner. Back then, this could mean anything from making pasta from scratch to deboning a whole cornish game hen, stuffing it, and sewing it back together (a very impressive feat, believe me). Vegetables were chopped, vinaigrettes were left to develop their flavors, and little bowls of ingrediants were filled if I was going to cook Chinese food. I was quite orderly, and I knew that by the time dinner rolled around, I'd never have the energy for any of this.

This cooking mania was prompted by a show on PBS about the "Great Chefs of New Orleans." I bought the accompanying book and both volumes of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

One memorable meal was that crazy deboned game hen, with a tri-color vegetable pate starter, and petit peas wrapped in steamed lettuce leaves. Another one was a white bean pate with whole vegetables. It looked beautiful. Each slice had circles of orange carrots, purple beets, green peas and red peppers. It tasted like school paste and was dumped in the garbage. We had a pizza that night.

For years now, I haven't enjoyed cooking all that much. I'm certainly not the uber-disciplined person I used to be. I tend to cook the same things over and over again. It's usually tofu and broccoli or string beans in black bean sauce, pasta with chicken or turkey sausage in marinara sauce, white pizza with red peppers and mushrooms, or a spinach and cheese omelette. I eat lots of Boca Burgers and ramen.

I was planning on making a curry last night but was feeling lazy (and had yet another night of ramen, tofu and egg). Dick couldn't find a can of tomatoes at the store, so he bought a pound of tomatoes, and knowing I would have to cook something from scratch was too much to deal with. Seriously, this is how I've come to think of cooking - too much to deal with. If I lived in a city, I'd be looking at takeaway menus every night, but where I live there's only one choice in that arena - a pretty lousy pizza from the General Store.

So, today was curry day. It was now or never, for we had a big leftover leg of lamb and I didn't want it to go to waste (sorry to all you vegetarians for subjecting you to images of deboned capons and legs of lamb).

I wound up making a mean curry. It's simmering now. Here's the recipe:

1 lb of tomatoes, de-seeded
2 tablespoons of good curry powder
3-5 cloves of garlic, your choice
1 cup of chicken or vegetable broth or bouillion
1 onion
Meat optional
Cauliflower
Green peas
Chickpeas would probably be good in this, but I don't have any

Put the tomatoes, curry powder, garlic and liquid into a blender and blend until almost totally liquid. This stuff tastes great cold, like gazpacho, but spicier.

Cook the onions lightly in olive or canola oil. Then pour the curry liquid in the pan.

If you're using meat, throw it in about 1 to 1 1/2 hours before you want to eat. Cook the cauliflower for about a half an hour. Throw the peas in for five minutes at the end.

Serve with basmati rice. If you've got some Indian bread, great. This is really tasty, so having something to sop it up with is good.

Not a big deal of a recipe, but it's easy. I didn't bother to tell you how to cut up the cauliflower or how much to put in. That kind of detail is just silly. Cut it up however you want. You want lots of peas? Throw 'em in.

Tip for de-seeding tomatoes: Just cup them in half and scoop the seeds out with your thumbs. De-seeding always sounds like it's going to be a chore, but it isn't.

I'm annoyed because I'm out of basmati rice. I wonder what my Japanese brown rice is going to taste like with butter in it. Sticky and buttery, I'd guess.

Now it's time for me to cook the cauliflower. See ya. Don't expect another recipe too soon.

Photo note: Looking at this makes me think it's summer.

Addendum: I put too much lamb in it. Would you read a cookbook like this? Actually, I think it's not a bad idea. If recipes were less rigid, people would be creative. And, I'd like to see some famous chef write "I put too much lamb in it" instead of telling me that I need to put 1/8th of a teaspoon of cumin in something. Cooking is not that exacting! And failures are inevitable.

Also, Japanese brown rice cooked with butter is quite delicious. It wound up being my favorite part of the meal.

Surprise of the day

I'm making a red sauce, was short on cash, and so I bought a bottle of wine for $3.99. Figured it didn't matter if it was disastrously bad wine or not, 'cause I'd only use it for cooking.

Honestly, I don't like red wine all that much. This sounds snooty, but the reason is that I don't like cheap red wine, so if I do drink it, I mix it with sparkling water.

If I want some booze, I go for the micro-brews. I like good beer and good beer is affordable.

So, I'm making a sauce and the bottle's been sitting on the counter for a while, breathing. I wondered how awful it was and took a swig. Didn't bother with a glass. It's cheap wine, nearly as cheap as Nightbird (if they still make that) and anyone who drinks that does it right from the bottle.

The stuff is good. Imagine my shock. It lacks that fizzy and overly sharp tang of a typical low end red wine. I figured I must be delusional, so I googled it. Surprise number two is this: "Tisdale Merlot. . .kind of like finding a hidden treasure or $40 in a coat pocket from last winter."

Image note: What, you expect a better photo for a $3.99 bottle of wine?

The same old same old

According to some statistics I read somewhere (and I don't know where, so don't press me), women have a greater need for variety in their meals. When I read that (somewhere), I thought "Oh no, not another piece of proof that's I'm atypical!"

I love to eat and I love variety. But, if it were up to me (and it is, generally), I'd eat the same thing for every meal until I tired of it. Right now I've been practically living on yoghurt and granola. Before that, it was Japanese noodles with egg and tofu. When I stayed at the Kripalu Center for a month, I was teased for eating brown rice at every meal. That's right; breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most Japanese people eat rice at every meal, just as many Americans eat bread with every meal, so what's the big deal?

When I was a kid, my father ate the same breakfast and lunch for as long as I can remember. For breakfast, he had one fried egg with a piece of toast. When he was done with that, he had a cup of instant coffee with cream and three sugars or an entire packet of Sweet and Low and a small piece of Entenmann's brownies. For lunch, he ate a muenster cheese on rye sandwich, with lettuce tomato and mayonnaise, followed by two Vienna Fingers cookies. The only times he ever wavered were when he ate what someone else had cooked.

I had forgotten why I started this post and put it in my drafts folder. Then I caught a whiff of the Shalimar Light I put on this morning and realized what my intent was. I'm starting to wonder if I am having serious memory problems, but that's a whole 'nother story. . .

I seem to like a steady diet of everything. I wear pretty much the same thing every day - jeans and a baggy linen shirt or sweater. And in spite of having approximately 100 perfume samples, I have been pretty much wearing Serge Luten's Chergui for at least a month. I have had to force myself to wear anything else. Now that I've put a Shoutbox on this blog, I will endeavor to try more of my collection (most of which has barely been sniffed, never mind worn).

Today, I'm wearing Shalimar Light. My reaction to it, both today and the first time I tried it, is "it's nice". That's not much of a compliment. It is indeed nice, nice in that it neither jars nor challenges ones' senses. It smells like "perfume" (though my first reaction to it is that it smelled more like a traditional cologne with its citrus opening). I must admit to never having tried Shalimar, which is an oversight in someone who's interested in perfume.

In spite of wanting to spray on some Chergui, I won't. Though I find Shalimar Light rather boring, at least I can wear it (in other words, it doesn't make me sick and I'm not going to scrub it off). I've applied such a small amount that I'll need more by lunchtime. Perhaps then, I'll try something else.

Image Note: I was surprised to discover this Shalimar ad is from 1975. Whatever the year, I doubt, no matter what version of Shalimar I may be wearing, that there's no possibility of my feeling transported into the dream of this ad. Maybe that has something to do with how I'm dressed at this moment. What am I wearing? Brace yourselves: One striped sock. One polka dotted sock. Orange drawstring pants with a paisley design. A 1920's English white nightshirt covered (mostly) by a huge olive green sweater. And no, I'm not going out dressed like this. I'm not that crazy.

The consequences of food choices (with a bonus recipe)

I'm not above engaging in silly time-wasting activities. I saw a friend had taken an on-line quiz about what kind of American English they spoke, so I took it (45% Yankee, 45% Average American, 10% Dixie). Then I wanted to find out "what my pizza says about me."

I was pretty curious what absurdities could be deduced from my answers. I like pizza without red sauce, extra cheese, mushrooms and sausage (if it's good, but the test didn't ask for that much specificity). I also like thin crust pizza, but honestly, if it isn't cooked in a wood fired oven or on my own pizza stone, I'd prefer a different kind of crust. I would guess that what I just wrote would classify me as one of those dreaded "elites", along with the fact that I like arugula. I prefer micro-brewery beer to wine, but that's mostly because I can't afford really good wine (and yes, I can tell the difference). Another piece of evidence that I am indeed a bit of a snob. If offered a Pabst or wine from a box, I will decline. I can't say the same for pizza. I'll eat pretty much any kind of pizza, as long as it has no anchovies or pineapple on it.

Why am I writing about this when there are important things to write about? Well, a lot of fuss has been made about Obama's eating preferences, which are seen as vaguely un-American. He's picky. I've been accused of that myself, as if I'd prefer to starve than eat spam. No, if I was indeed starving, I'd eat spam (though it occurs me that I've never tried it, though I have tried scrapple). Unlike Obama, if you saw me, you'd see that I can't be that picky, for I could stand to lose weight.

I've left you hanging with the pressing question of the day: "What does my pizza say about me?" Here it is:

"People may tell you that you have a small appetite... but you aren't under eating. You just aren't a pig.

You are a very picky pizza eater. Not any pizza will do. You fit in best in the Northeast part of the US.

Your taste in food tends to favor what's rich and comforting. You prefer food that will definitely satisfy you.

You are generous, outgoing, and considerate with your choices.

You are cultured and intellectual. You should consider traveling to Vienna.

The stereotype that best fits you is guy or girl next door. Hey, there's nothing wrong with being average."

I doubt anyone has ever described me as "the girl next door". In fact, in an article published in a Lubbock, Texas newspaper, there was once a picture of me with the headline "Would you bring this girl home to meet your parents?" I kid you not.

I'm curious as to how my preferences in pizza added up to "cultured and intellectual". And do they serve my favorite pizza in Vienna? Oddly enough, my forebears were from Vienna, and one of my great-grandmothers was a pastry chef there. Though she used dough on a daily basis, I would bet my life savings (not much, I'm afraid) that she never used any for pizza.

It's true I like rich and homey food, in spite of liking arugula. The way I like arugula the best is with pasta. Here's a wonderful little recipe for you, if you like arugula (the amounts of all the ingrediants are up to you): Chop up a large bunch of arugula. Shred a good amount of Ricotta Fresca, or if you can't find that, combine one part large curd cottage cheese with one part feta cheese and mix them together. Cook up some pasta (your choice). After you drain the pasta, quickly throw it on plates, putting the cheese and arugula on top. Drizzle some good olive oil on it, if you want. To make it even tastier, use garlic infused olive oil. This stuff is over priced. Make it yourself. Buy some cheap olive oil and throw a bunch of garlic cloves (cut in half) into it. In a week, it'll be as good as the expensive stuff.

This is a first - a post about cooking! See, I'm not in the worst of moods! I do have a bit of a stomach ache from an overly rich meal I ate last night, however. I went, for the first time, to a popular local restaurant, "The Olde Mill Restaurant". The extra E on the word Old should have tipped me off to this place not being all that it was cracked up to be. It had the same fare as any typical Maine restaurant - lots of fried food (including huge piles of onion rings for two bucks) and a big pie menu. I ordered pot roast with mashed potatoes and carrots. THe entire plate was covered with a terribly dark brown gravy that smelled like "Gravymaster". I pushed that to the side and discovered that the pot roast was actually quite tasty. In spite of the pizza quiz, I am indeed a pig at times. I ate everything on my plate (plus quite a few onion rings). Of course, I paid dearly for my piggishness, and had a terrible night's sleep.

I rather wish I had gone somewhere where I could have had a good mesclun salad, but those places are overpriced around here. No wonder Americans are overweight. The cheaper the food, the higher the calories and the bigger the portions. Everyone knows this, so what have I got to add to it? I stopped eating at fast food restaurant years ago, but I do indulge in Coolatas, which must have at least a thousand calories in them.

Getting back to what my pizza says about me, I am assumed to be a Northeasterner (thin crust?) But how do they account for the "generous, outgoing and considerate with my choices"? How does food choice make one friendly, generous or outgoing?

I'll make some stabs at over-analyzing this bit of fluff. One can be generous in their choice of foods. If you're invited to someone's house and eat what they offer, regardless of whatever pickiness one might have (oh, say, vegetarianism or food allergies), one could be considered generous. Friendly? If, even as your eyes are swelling up due to eating an overabundance of whatever you're going into anaphalactic shock over, you say "Gee. That was great. Can I get the recipe?", you are indeed a friendly person, and quite considerate to boot. You're even more considerate if you don't put your hosts out by asking for a ride to the hospital for some epinephrine.

I don't have any serious food allergies and have ceased to be a vegetarian, so I have no reason to turn down any food I'm offered. Therefore, I have every opportunity to be friendly, considerate and generous when it comes to food choices.

Now I'll tell you a story that proves this isn't all in good fun. It hadn't occurred to me until now that I had an experience that gives all this nonsense some reality.

Years ago I was invited to a formal dinner party, something that is rare in these parts. The hostess asked me if I had any foods which I could not eat, which was truly considerate of her. I said I didn't much like fish and that I seemed to have a bad reaction to salmon, though while not an allergy, was more of a serious aversion. The smell of salmon makes me want to gag.

I showed up at the party, which had a few guests whom I knew the hostess was a bit nervous about. It was all very stiff and polite, everyone in their best clothes and making horrendously small talk.

The table was laid out beautifully and there were even name cards for the guests. First, a salad was served. Then came the main course: salmon.

I sat there politely with my plate of salmon, eating what was around it and trying not to breathe too deeply, but it started to become too much for me to bear. Without knowing it, I pushed the plate away from me. I didn't push it far. It was only about one or two inches further than where it should have been. But the hostess noticed. She asked me to come into the kitchen, where she asked me if there was something wrong. I told her that I had a problem with salmon, and very gingerly brought up that we may have had a misunderstanding, for I was sure I was clear about this when we had spoken about the dinner party. She declared she had no memory of it at all. I didn't see what the fuss was, really. There was plenty of other food, and it was lovely. I did ask if she minded if I removed the salmon from my plate and stuck to eating the side dishes. I returned to the table and told the other guests that I was allergic to salmon.

After dinner, the table was cleared and the hostess said that she was sorry to inform us that she was feeling poorly. She apologized for not serving any coffee, tea or dessert (which she indicated was something lovely), but she just had to go lay down. We all put on our coats and left.

About a week later I received a letter in the mail from this woman. It was four pages long. She told me she could no longer be my friend, for I had terrible manners. I had ruined her dinner party by rejecting her food and it had pained her so much, after all the trouble she had gone to, that she had taken ill and laid in a dark room for a few days. She said I had embarassed her in front of "important people" and would have to work hard to mend what I had done.

Who knew that my dislike of salmon could cause such distress? I must confess, there was a time I might have taken this letter to heart a bit for I used to be prone to terrible feelings of guilt, but this time I felt no such thing. I was rather outraged at being blamed for such neuroticism, even though I tend to be quite forgiving of other peoples' craziness (after all, I have much). But not this time. I wouldn't eat the salmon and I wasn't going to eat the blame. That was the end of the friendship.

On rare occasions I see this woman on the street. After more than fifteen years, she still will turn her back or cross the street to avoid me. Small town life is like that. There are people I would prefer not to see, too, but these awkward moments are over things that are bigger than a piece of salmon steak.

I daresay everyone is crazy in some way. It's just more obvious in some people than others. And I shouldn't be throwing stones, as they say. I mean this woman no harm by recounting this story, truly.

I just noticed that I thought I smelled salmon. Can one hallucinate smells? Perhaps I should think about the smell of a good pizza dough, cooking on a stone in a brick oven.

Painting note: Still Life with Stoneware Jug, Wine Glass, Herring, and Bread 1642
Pieter Claesz., Dutch, about 1597–1660

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a wonderful interactive site that includes "MFA Images: Feasts".

Addendum: I can't believe I'm still thinking about that pizza quiz. Since when was the "average girl next door" intellectual and cultured? We should be so lucky. Maybe we'd elect some better politicians if all us average folks liked thin crust, sauceless pizza with sausage and extra cheese. And, y'know, I've always wanted to go to Vienna. . .

Addendum #2: I felt rather uncomfortable that I had written about a person who lives in my area (and is still alive). I want to assure readers (and my friends) that this is an exceptional circumstance. I know for a fact (for reasons that would help disclose the identity of the person I wrote about) that the woman mentioned in this post will never read it, nor will anyone who could identify the "incident".

Dzongkha, with rice on the side

Dzongkha is the national language of Bhutan. Until a few moments ago, I only thought it was a L'artisan perfume (which I am wearing at present). Dzongkha (the perfume) has now overtaken my love for L'artisan's Passage D'enfer, which is too bad, for I've only got .5ml of the stuff and it's going to run out quickly if I keep up my wearing of it. It is both woody and clean, smelling slightly of soap.

I have no idea if the scent Dzongkha is evocative of Bhutan. I've never been there. The only thing I am intimate with that is Bhutanese is their red rice (which is delicious).

I hated rice when I was a kid. Rice, to me, was this outrageously white stuff, quite dry, with absolutely no taste. It needed butter (though I recall we used margarine, adding insult to injury). It was a waste of plate space. Why eat the stuff? I suppose this is akin to asking why eat Wonder Bread, but in truth, Wonder Bread has a lot more flavor than the rice of my childhood (and Wonder Bread and butter sandwiches are fantastic, especially when cut into strips and used liked little airplanes that fly into ones' mouth along with the sound effects of dive bombers).

The rice at Chinese restaurants was much better. When I was quite little, I hated Chinese food, but did like the rice (yes, I know I said I hated rice above, but I meant the rice at home). I can recall quite clearly sitting in a dark Chinese restaurant, having made a terrible mess of my rice. It was everywhere, on my clothes, the tablecloth and the fake plastic seat. I have no idea how old I was, but I suspect I was quite young and probably sitting in a booster seat or upon a stack of phone books (that wouldn't work in Maine, for the phone books are at best one inch thick). Have you ever seen a New York City phonebook? It's massive (and has more than one volume these days).

I didn't fully appreciate rice until I had a Japanese boyfriend in my first year of college. Good Japanese rice, while stickier and perhaps not to ones liking on account of that, is full of flavor (if it's fresh - very important). My boyfriend showed my how to measure the rice and water with the knuckles on my fingers, the way his mother did it, and this seemed quite important to him and to the rice. Using a measuring cup was considered just wrong. Perhaps it is a source of pride to be able to measure rice without instruments with numbers on them. I don't know. But what I do know is that I learned not only how to measure it the old fashioned way but that sometimes one had a sense that more or less water was needed for the same amount of rice. It depended on ones mood and the weather, but intellectually, knowing how one knew this made no sense.

Now I no longer cook rice in this fashion. I have a Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker. The thing is a wonder. And the real wonder is that it scientifically backs up the idea that on certain days one needs more or less water, cooking time and such. It doesn't sense your mood, no, but it cooks rice perfectly, even if you happen to forget how much rice you've measured into it and then messed up the amount of water. It will compensate. It senses the temperature of the rice, the air, the moisture: everything (except the aforementioned mood).

I am not, unfortunately, getting a kickback from Zojirushi.

I would be quite sad if my rice cooker broke down. And it will some day, I'm sure. It's not a cheap appliance, especially since it does only one thing (though you can make oatmeal in it, too). But it is, hands down, my favorite appliance (besides the stove and refrigerator). I've owned a Cuisinart, many blenders, toasters, toaster ovens and coffee makers, but that rice cooker is the appliance I'd feel lost without. Sure, I can cook rice on the stove. But I love my Neuro Fuzzy. It's also damned cute (and I put a silly sticker on it, something that is totally out of character for me).

There are many varieties of rice, way more than that wretched Minute Rice I ate when I was a kid. There's Bhutanese red rice, Himalyan red rice (which is probably the same thing), Japanese short grain, medium and long grain, both in brown and white, Thai Jasmine rice, Indian Basmati white rice and Basmati brown rice, Italian arborio rice, Wehani rice, wild rice (not really rice, actually), Louisiana rice, Chinese black rice and Japanese black rice (which cook up purple), and more. I have read that there are four thousand varieties of rice though the amount in production is much lower than that.

I'm not an expert. The folks at the International Rice Institute are.

This is one of those posts where I started out wanting to write one thing and forgot all about it. The truth is, I don't have much more to say about Dzongkha. I've already said plenty, in which I swoon. The truth is, the only reason I'm posting anything is that I want to offset the various whiney posts I've put up lately about Hillary Clinton.

I do encourage anyone who is neutral about rice to try an exotic one. A word of caution, however; the black rice is best used in combination with something else. It is intense, to say the least. Put a small handful in a pot of Japanese white and it will color the whole thing purple, plus give it a nutty flavor. Or better yet, cook them separately and then mix them together. It's a pain (unless you have two rice cookers), but it's worth it.

Painting note: Bhutanese wall painting, unattributed.

Polyphagia

Next time I eat too much, I'm gonna say, "Boy, I was really suffering from a case of polyphagia". And if my stomach hurts afterwards, I will proclaim, "Darn, now I've got gastralgia!" After a second night of polyghagic eating, I will grumble, "Ooh, this is a case of gastrodynia."

Well, those are just your plain ol' stomach aches, but the actual disturbance of digestion is called dyspepsia, which I always thought meant having an acid stomach. However, that's indigestion resulting from hyperchlorhydria! Pyrosis is the term for that burning sensation which originates in the epigastric region of the abdomen. Not the stomach, mind you. The stomach is a very specific organ with some fascinating functions.

The stomach has these folds called RUGAE which unfold when food enters. I don't know why, but this sounds nice to me, like the rugae are some lovely velvet curtains on a stage. Enter: food!

The food mixes with hydrochloric acid and pepsin to break it down into something called CHYME! Never heard of chyme before, but I believe it'll stick in my head, for it's another lovely word. Enter: food! Exit: Chyme! Ding! Ding!

And out the chyme goes. . passing through the pyloric sphincter and into the small intestine. . .

ps. I thought perhaps I have made up the adjective from of the word polyphagia, but it is indeed a word. However, hyperphagic might be more suitable. Overly hungry! Insatiable. Voracious. I AM hungry right now, but I don't think I'm hyperphagic. I'm just hungry. I may be orexic, as opposed to anorexic, which, incidentally, means NOT HUNGRY, not starving to death 'cause I want to look like a supermodel.

pps. There is no such word as orexic.