Cooking

Approximately five years ago I was more or less nagged into becoming a vegetarian. Four years later down the road I had the vauge suspicion that if I didn't want to go insane or starve to death, I would have to learn how to cook.

Cooking as an art or craft is really something quite special. Very few things combine all senses in the same way as cooking. Touch, smell, sight even hearing to a certain extent. And of course, if you want to succeed in your meal-making you need an elusive touch of a 6th cooking sense.

I like working with my hands, cooking satisifies that need to a very great deal. Chopping, cutting, stirring, kneading. At the end of a meal, you know you did something, and I'll be damned if it wasn't good.

Of course, part of it is pride, because I am honestly sick to death of people who's culinary horizone never expanded beyond the golden M telling me my food is boring, and there is no better way to prove someone wrong than with a demonstration.

Admittedly, I just like to cook with and for other people. It's a social thing I suppose. Cooking is intimate and personal, I cook with my dad a lot nowadays when he and mom are separated. And I think I will cook a lot with my mom when I move away from home, ironically enough. If my brother was in any way inclined to cook, or interested in vegetarian meals I'd probably attempt to bridge the gaping hole that is our relationship with food. Cooking solves everything. Plus, I just like getting praise for a well-done meal.

I'm certain that most people can with some effort, a good recipie and some patience cook up a spiffy Saturday-night meal. But the real masters, knows how to cook everyday. You all know those days, when you get home at 9, you've been up, about and working for the last 12 hours. Your boss is a dick, your car-tire went flat and that short bastard in the cubcicle next to yours got that promotion you'd been hoping for. Mere mortals will at this point usually say"screw it" and eat leftover, order take-out or go to bed. But the Masters, oh the Masters they throw what they can find in the fridge (a wedge of cheese, and an onion) into a pot and when they pour it onto their plate, 10 min later, they've created a culinary masterpiece. Such masters appears to be a hard find. I am however, working myself steadily towards that goal. One can dream, right?


And of course, as a final point. I like cooking because I like food and I like to eat.

On being a productive member of society

Otherwise known as having a job. Which I have, as of last tuesday. Nearly two weeks. I'm quite excited. After an initial four-day trial-period I was officially hired as a Face2Face Recruiter for Greenpeace.

I have been told that in England, they refer to my breed as "clippies" but in all honesty, I'm having a bitchin' time with this job. It absolutely kicks ass.

For those of you not in the know, I stand around different parts of the city, talking to people and trying to convince them to donate to Greenpeace. Essentially, I am being paid to argue for something I believe in. I retitirate: Totally fucking bitchin'

It certainly beats trying to sell useless junk to people on the phone. I also get to meet a lot of interesting people this way, I've talked to so many fascinating and just plain nice individuals these past days. I'd write more, but this is not much more than a news update really, I'm sure I will return to the subject later on.

I-country problems

I appreciate the fact that there are a lot of things I never need to worry about. Food, water, housing and giganormous bombs in my immediate vicinity. The fact that I wake up in a warm and comfy (so incredibly comfy) bed every morning is an incredible luxury that relatively few people in this world has access to. However, this does not mean that I am not endlessly annoyed by my numerous I-country problems.

For example: Being forced to prioritize my reading materials. I have five books which I am absolutely gagging to read right now. However, my time is limited and I can only spend so much time and energy on reading, so, because of circumstances, I am forced to take them all in an orderly fashion, rather than haphazardly working myself through them all simultaneously. The four books are:

• The joyful science by Nietzsche
• A compendium of Leonardo da Vinci's note-books
• The call of Chutulu and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft
• Anatomy for the Artist by Daniel Carter & Michael Courtney
• The Complete Roman Amry by Adrian Goldsworthy

Out of these five, two are on loan, one from the library. This means that Mr. Goldsworthy and his prissy library-bills must take precedence, followed closely by Mr. Lovecraft who is longing to return to the care of his actual owner. The other three are recent purchases of mine and I am sure that someone else understands my obsessive need to dig into Mr. Da Vinci and Nietzsche's mind. It's just not fair. Two of my personal God's are at my fingertips and I can't touch them. I also got a new job this Tuesday, which is awesome, and I have a job-interview for another on my lunch-break on Tuesday, and I never have time to make use of the easel and the oil-pastels I didn't have to pay for myself. Life just sucks sometimes. I'm going to grab a snack.

One larp later.

There is one particular truth that will always be rediscovered after every larp:

The three finest things civilization has to offer are coffee, pizza and ice-cold beer.

That being said, the larp was both more and less fun than I had expected. The larp in question (named "On the Road" more or less) is a tiny larp with around a hundred participators the last two years. While it usually succeeds in accomplishing exactly what it intends to, cozy partying around the camp-fire in cloaks and other funny clothes, it is objectively speaking a low-quality larp. What this means is that the IC-world is underdeveloped, the intrigues are more of an entertainment than serious thread for the characters to unravel during the larp and the characters in and of themselves are often shallow, unrealistic, underdeveloped, or stereotypes of some sort. This does not mean that there aren't characters present that are round or well-developed or that some of the more shallow characters aren't damned funny, but I'm sure you understand what I'm saying here.

There's nothing wrong with a low-quality larp as long as you don't arrive expecting something more. There is a lot of merit to this larp and in it's genre I think it's one of the better ones, not to mention that the area we use is absolutely gorgeous. Think Bauer and you'll have a pretty clear idea of what the area is like. Real troll-forest with a tiny lake. Absolutely gorgeous.

My problem was that once the larp started I realized that while I was well aware of what it would be like, it just wasn't satisfactory this time, I couldn't get into character, despite trying. Things that usually haven't bothered me were extremely annoying and my thoughts kept drifting to OOC-related things.

So, while there was good IC-things (the partying, the wrestling and the midnight group-hugs to keep warm comes to mind) my enoyment stems mostly from the OOC-bits.

Having worked from eleven AM to 7 PM and finally being given a pizza is so divine I can't even being to describe it. I was an animal, that little sucker never stood a chance before my greedy fingers and gnashing teeth. thirty seconds and it was gone, no joke. I even stopped to dig out the shattered olive-seeds from between my teeth. Carrying things isn't so bad when you have company either, many interesting conversations were had about larp-equality and how to create an IC equal world without losing the realistic edge.

This was all fun, I just don't want my larps to be about the OOC-fun these days, I want to larp because I'm looking forward to being my character and the events that include. I have a sneaking feel this is what they call "developing" or possibly "evolving". Scary.

Fascination

I have, an admittedly childish fascination for pretty things. More importantly, I have a need to touch and fondle things that interest me. I occasionally hate going to museums because I'm not allowed to fondle the sculptures and stroke the paintings, highly frustrating.

My latest obsession is this. To be specific, it's a classically styled inkwell. A couple of days ago I decided, for the sake of a larp-character to learn some basic calligraphy (because, y'know, if you play a character who has been taught the art, it might be good to actually know it). To this end I purchased a wooden calligraphy pen, black calligraphy ink, and the glass inkwell that can be seen on the picture. a planned purchase is a beginner's book on medieval calligraphy styles, but for now, let us focus on the bottle.

If I could I would explain just why I am so enamored with this ink-bottle, but I'm not quite sure. I think it has potent imagery. Whenever my eyes land on it (often) I want to pick it up and just hold it. Something about the round shape is alluring and uncorking it is just pure pleasure. Maybe I need a better hobby, am I the only one who can see the mental image of a goose feather pen (another planned purchase) being dipped in that inkwell and moved smoothly over a piece of yellowed paper?

I think touch is really important to a piece of art. It activates you and you stop being an observer and become a participator. Large museums are death, because there is not a chance that you are going to be able to take it all in just by looking. I love interactive art. I remember the last time I went to Stockholms Museum of Modern Art, they had an exhibit on contemporary set design. One of the pieces were thousands of colourful bands hung from the roof so that turned into a thick forest of sorts, and you could go into it if you wanted. It was amazing. Watching someone go in was magical. They parted the narrow bands, and once they fell in place behind them, they disappeared. Going in yourself, all you could see were the colours. You could hear everyone else, but never see them and occasionally they would spring up upon you as if from nowhere. The experience truly felt like entering a classical Magical Forest.

Sometimes I wish I could just close my eyes and put my hands on a painting. I don't want to see it. I just want to feel the structure of the canvas and the paint beneath my fingers. It tickles the fingers and soothe the mind. Art, no matter how abstract is still a concrete object that you can put into your hands and sequeeze tight.

There really is something special in good, simplistic design. I should get back into clay and sculpting again. I miss it.

Exploding mushrooms

There are a few things a person can be mocked for not knowing to do, boil an egg or tie their shoe-laces for example. Or make an omelette, if you cannot make an omelette you are truly inept and not fit to cut your momma's apron strings.

So my question is, does the kind of omelette you're attempting to make factor in, and what about exploding mushrooms? Do you get an ineptitude-discount for the exploding mushrooms?

Rarely before has making lunch been so risky and eventful. I thought this was going to be just any other lunch-making day. As I fried the potatoes nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, how wrong I was. As I poured the mushrooms in, I noticed a distinct popping sound. Thinking nothing of it I proceeded to stir the mushrooms, and was immediately forced to take cover behind a chair as the frying pan sizzled angrily and shot a spray of cooking butter towards me.

Temporarily retreating I put on some Armour (read: hooded sweater) and approached cautiously. First order of business was to lower the heat, so far, so good. I decided to leave it be for a small while. Upon return I attempted to stir it again, despite omnious popping-noises. Despite my Armour I had to retreat as I was showered with not only cooking butter, but pieces of mushroom, too. What had I done to deserve this? I do not and may never know.

In the end a system was worked out where the frying pan was sat upon low heat for a short while, taken off heat, stirred and then returned until the mushrooms were sufficiently fried.

So, do I get an ineptitude-discount for total war? I hope so. I'd hate to be labelled inept on the account of exploding mushrooms.

Just another day

It is interesting to note how different an event can seem, depending on our outlook. I woke up 10 minuets late today. The reason is that I had recived a textmessage on my cellphone (which doubles as my alarmclock) and the textmessage function apparantly supercedes the alarm-function. That is, the alarm wouldn't go off until I read my message. I've no idea who would program a phone in such a morbidly moronic manner, but there you go. Can't trust Nokia.

There are two ways to look on this.

1. Thank god I woke up without the clock!
2. I hate Nokia. I hate phones. I hate the world. Everything sucks. I'm going to eat worms.

While I desperately attempted to adopt the more positive outlook, my day was effectively off to a bad start. It is frustratingly difficult to choose your own reactions sometimes. As a general rule of the universe, a bad day usually gets worse, which is why this day has been an interesting phenomena. It's like karma can't decide, so it all goes up and down like a goddamn roller-coaster.

On one hand, I went to a job interview and was offered the job. A job I actualy want. On the other, I cried while waiting for the buss home. All in all, a roller-coaster day and I'm only halfway through. I'm feeling quite wrung out.