i've cooked plenty of curries in my life (in the back of my mind there's this mainstream narrative that comes to the fore with buzz-words like: "cultural appropriation"... so i can't cook a curry for myself i need someone native of the "concept" of curry to cook it for me? the use of cumin, coriander seeds... star anise... cardamom pods is off-limits for me? like donning a sombrero? i hate acronyms but, in this instance i'll just keep it short and shrimp-y i.e. w.t.f.?!) but what i recently conjured up has become a... revelation... i know that the taste profile of some Asiatic people: the Chinese love their dichotomy of sweet & sour... as well as sweet & salty... come to think of it: i like those profiles too: salted caramel is the next big taboo topic?! the first proper revelation came to me via... refika's lavash & hammered beef recipe... she's on youtube: it's so **** when a woman as voluptuous as her knows how to cook... plus the ol' raven hair: beyond that... it's not that she knows how to cook: i can trust her to cook... not that i was willing to make lavash from raw goods... i can buy that... the genius is instilled in the marinate... what was it... oh hell... my beard is itchy... i guess at the mere thought of eating this dish... sea salt, pepper, lots of peppercorns... fresh garlic, fresh rosemary (thankfully i have a garden and i have rosemary in it) dried chillies (whole or flakes) olive oil, white wine vinegar... into the pestle & mortar... the beef thinly sliced then marinating for 15 minutes at best: the vinegar tenderising the meat quicker... fried for 2 minutes or whatever time it takes until you see the meat pouring out the most hidden blot clots... but beef & rosemary?! huh! who would have thought... i certainly wouldn't have... sure... LAMB & rosemary... but beef? oddly enough the meat works just as well when topped with English cheddar... you don't need a Turkish cheese... but that's not even the end of the story... of the lavash wrap... it's the side dish... the onions! slice the onions into crescent moons... squeeze them to get the party going... they must be red onions... some salt... some more white wine vinegar & let them pickle for a while... after the "while" add some sumac (i also add some gochugaru chilli flakes... for colour and tingling buzz) SUMAC... topped off with some fresh parsley... i could be writing about my escapades in the brothel... but this is so much better... what's ***? meat you can't eat... at the end... it's meat you can't eat... tease it, nibble it: but you're not going to eat it... i very much like the ethereal nature of cooking: it reminds me of the time i studied chemistry in Edinburgh and conjured up Esters from scratch... Esters? oh, those scented compounds used in the perfume industry... yet today i came across an even bigger revelation... Indian cuisine? done... Chinese... no problem... the number of curries i made in my life... eh... ha... hell: even the Hungarian goulash for a massive potato "pancake"... garnished with something sour... cabbage most likely... or at least a coleslaw to off-set the smoky-paprika taste... green peppers a must... of course you need some sprinkle of paprika on the lavash wrap-up... for colour: to "combat" the "insanity" of cheese... & some extra pepper.... & rosemary...
well you can't exactly call a stew a curry a sauce or jue... it's not juice if it's a juce... some "chew"... esp. not in the Persian cuisine... pity me at me at my self-wallowing in being cosmopolitan on the outskirts... i'll take one step into the night and i'll be met with the resounding presence of foxes... i stopped being bothered about BWV 988 being just a cliché... which it of course is... so many pieces of classical music were once beautiful... now... in the gulag of the muzak... they have become: morphed... hardly stand-alone pieces of music... moonlight sonata being the "other" over-emphasis of needing to match-up to the demands of / for mass consumption...
i hope this doesn't read like some foodie blog... every time i want to replicate a recipe i have to scroll down through so many self-congratulatory deviances from the narrative... none of these food blogs seem stressed about giving out what's needed: the list of ingredients... eh... the methodology doesn't really bother me... i always miss the click-of-the-button where i can simply get to the knitty-gritty... there's always "some story"... some care to grasp at some "authenticity": it's almost like rereading Wittgenstein and his focus on tautology!
come to think of it... i watch out for tautologies... like i watch out for metaphors and misnomers and the... ahem "air quotes": you can't stretch it as far as a metaphor? then we'll be stretching it into a misnomer status...
FESENJAN... it's not like the Persians were not knocking at "our" doors since... perhaps time immemorial... what about that off-shoot tribe of Aryans: the Sarmatians settling in the basin of the Vistula? funny... the concept of the Aryans... that the Germans espoused it... while... historically... never mind...
it's not a curry! it's a Persian stew... i couldn't fathom it at first... you make a walnut paste... you toast 'em... salt, pepper, sugar... some of the usual suspects appear: like cumin... cinnamon... but then you get: pomegranate molasses... and fresh pomegranate seeds to garnish... with... you also use fresh parsley instead of coriander... only one tablespoon of tomato puree... some ground almonds... a pepper: which, along with a can of chickpeas somehow, "somehow" managed to disappear in the sauce... garlic... sure... ginger? no... onion... yes...
i knew that Persian cuisine tickled the sour fancies... but i never knew to what extent! zest of a lemon: juice of a lemon... no aubergine... this time... turmeric: the peasant's version of saffron... no difference... you can sprinkle some of that anti-bleach magical dust and it works just as well as a pinch of saffron... but we're talking about the sauce... cinnamon i already mentioned: even though you can use acacia bark as a substitute... pepper: already mentioned... honey... imagine my shock: no mention of a canned lot of plum tomatoes... ******* roasted walnuts... pomegranate molasses... tomato puree... ciućpajza...
this wasn't a curry... walnuts, though... when roasted? ahem... "cultural appropriation" of the Indians using cashews... & almonds in their Korma... but walnuts?! hey presto... some Turkish ingenuity combining beef with rosemary!
is my native tongue a dodo lingo? i'm just... wondering... perhaps with the omnipresence of English we'll all be savvy cosmopolitan nomads by the end of this century... i still manage to squeeze in a word: or two... into my currency of the current: lingo... but... the point of: no one's speaking it beside me... it's not a rhetorical question... it's not even a question to begin with / per se... it's a... vague obligation to: some mustard seed metaphor sort of "power"...
youtube used to be such a fun website... until the wallets started rummaging hyping up...self-tutorial videos of make-up: cover-up... it used to be (this)... now it's... )this(... sure... don't blame women... it's not like Helen wasn't fabled for gearing up a thousand ships... Eva Braun wasn't Jewish... no no! she wasn't... wi- do you really need the suffix -nk?!
a grammar school playground filled with only boys... hey... presto! a girl comes in... what's going to happen? the worst things... imaginable... i'm giving birth to a shadow... she's curious about giving birth to the gambit of: more time... please... i can be done with all of this spectacle in a moment... she needs this misery to continue... come to think of it... i don't think the supposed "forbidden" fruit of Eden did anything to Adam... i think the fruit was a placebo... he just towed his ******* ******* along to experience the wind & the dangle... whatever the metaphor of Moses implies... ignorant of dinosaurs?! seriously... there's a talking spine of a t-rex... there are the crocodiles of the Nile... there's the imagining of a large fire-breathing lizard: a dragon... oh sure... the idea of dinosaurs wasn't somehow: unconsciously implanted into us... dragons precursor the discovery of dinosaur bones... don't they?! don't they?! imagining dragons precursor our discovery of dinosaur bones! no?! no?! hell-oh... Pandora... how's tomorrow? oh, right... can't say... just like today then?!
since the usual quest of bypassing the atypical gatekeepers has been... quenched... i'm no Tolstoy... western democracy is worried about democracy per se: ooh... something terrible is bound to happen! some terrible has been happening since time immemorial... it's only inflated: in a society bound by glorifying sociopaths & psychopaths... the fakery escalates... so much of this culture is bound to celebrate: hardly the opera singer... hardly the poet... forever & until more the Thespian... you know what happens to a culture where only one art-form is given: too much attention it deserves? there was that period of time when poetry was celebrated... when the western letf-oids seemed rather... refreshing... what now?
let's go back to civilisation based on the motto: we need carrots! we need cabbage! we ******* need root vegetables... oh forget the fruits... that's not important for us... winter is coming: a warm winter... to borrow a phrase: how can there be any hyperboreans: what eternal sunshine? i think of an eternal night...
when i think of the wind: there's not one... there are 8... the wind from the north... south... the wind from the north-east... the wind from the south-west... i count 8 winds... if there aren't 8 then we have a lemniscale... a lazy: reclining 8... or a beta metaphor: B... no? the origins of numbers are all Hindu?! sure... the letters too? i can... rewrite the origins story of numbers using only Greek or Roman letters... with hindsight it doesn't punch-up but... proud retardations of borrowed cuisine aside... L: 7 4: G mirrors! mirrors! 9: P 8: B 1: I(ota) 3: E 2: Z 5: S 6: b...
we didn't march across the ******* Siberian tundra arriving at the Caucasian peninsula for no ******* reason?! we also managed to drag along the tribes of Mongols... Turks... that settled in this grand... continental funnel...
i learned "numbers" from Sanskrit... i suppose the letters too? like... ooh... i love how Hangul was conjured... Sejong the ******* Solomon... Abraham... St. Cyril... i always thought that Cyrillic script was a cheap-*** variation of Greek... sorry... it looks: looked: will forever look: sort of shabby...
this time round: the devil didn't come round with either fire or sulphur... smoke & mirrors... smoke & mirrors: Kowalski!