Smokey the Magnificent

You know what’s dismal and moopifying? Trying a fancy recipe from a slick food blog - a recipe the blogger praised to the stars, gushed about in a friendly yet authoritative way and photographed in glorious closeup with bokeh and the good spoons - and finding the finished product to be insipid.

This has happened to me a number of times recently, and it’s not that I’m a bad cook. Really. A friend of mine once spontaneously referred to my cupcakes as “little gems of sunshine”, and she’s not even the poetical type. Before our semi-regular braais, whatever chump gets stuck buying the meat brings it over a day early to my house so I can soak it in my wondrous marinade. The biggest fan of my pumpkin pie is a guy who doesn’t even like pumpkin. The point is, I can cook, dammit.

And as someone who can cook, I tend to prick up my ears when a blogger of the calibre of Pioneer Woman or Smitten Kitchen starts raving over a recipe. (By the by, did you know Pioneer Woman’s autobiographical love story Black Heels to Tractor Wheels is going to be made into a movie? True’s I’m sitting here. They’re considering Reese Witherspoon for the lead. I’m really not sure how I feel about all this. Anyway.) You get six stunningly glossy photos, rhapsodies about the rhapsodies of the guests who got to eat the thing, and comparisons to similar products from swanky-sounding restaurants who would allegedly close their doors and commit seppuku if they tasted this, the food blogger’s infinitely grander version.

And then you make it. And it’s…. nice. But no more. In some cases, to add insult to injury, it turns out to be less nice than a recipe you already had (making you secretly pleased and curious as to what heights of enthusiasm said blogger would sustain if she tasted your recipe, and considering sending it in, but refraining because a) food bloggers get that all the time, b) it goes against your upbringing to send emails that say “Your brownies were rubbish, mine are better”, and c) you harbor a tiny possessive streak that forbids it, because what if you want to have your own food blog some day, or even write a cookbook? - even though you know you won’t, because you can’t photograph to save your life and have no discipline). And sure, sometimes you can attribute this to using Pam’s chocolate chips instead of grated Valrhona 70%, or omitting the sun-ripened seasonal figs from the beaming Frenchman with photogenically wrinkled hands at the market who can name to the millisecond when they will start to pong, because you’re not a pretentious privileged gi - I mean, because your supermarket hasn’t stocked figs for years. But sometimes you can’t. Sometimes the recipe is just average.

Now, I get why they do it, of course. There are a lot of food blogs out there, and who’s going to make a cake on the description “Ehh, it’ll fill up a chink in the old tum” when the rest of the blogosphere is claiming their recipe will cause your old high school flame to ring you up that very night, the heavens to open and Elvis to return from the dead? Similarly, who after posting a truly delicious recipe is going to admit that the next few are a come-down, a sop to the necessity of not buying a bucket of creme fraiche every night? And so it begins, a vicious cycle of one-upmanship, and perfectly decent recipes get Botoxed, corseted, squeezed into evening gowns and nudged out onto a stage in front of thousands. One almost feels sorry for them standing there simpering, saying “Oh wow, I’m only a little cake from Texas and this is just such an honour, um, I’d like to thank my mum…”, while knowing deep in their cakey little hearts that it is all a Sham and a Lie.

And if you were not convinced by the photos and the promise that the eating of this cake will provide a spiritual experience so intense that the soles of your feet will be lifted off the ground and you will lapse into a brief coma, there are the comments - all 680 of them. But the thing about the comments, on popular food blogs, this is… is that nobody ever makes the darn thing. It’s all “Oooooh, you’ve done it again! *runs to kitchen*” and “Oh my, I’m totally bookmarking this, how sinful and delicious, my thighs will kill me!”. Which is all very well, but it’s hardly peer-reviewed, innit?

This is not to say that food blogs never produce good recipes. But I’ve had a run of several which have proven disappointing. Smitten Kitchen’s Double Chocolate Torte, for instance, which I made for Helpdesk Man’s birthday. It was OK - I did not blush as I served it, and none of my guests puked it into the bougainvillea - but it wasn’t superlative, and I won’t be making it again. The cake layer was basically a not-as-good-as-mine chocolate brownie, and the top layer a not-as-good-as-mine chocolate mousse (with a slightly salty taste because of the butter. Who puts butter in chocolate mousse?). Similarly, Pioneer Woman’s “The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever“. Again, not a bad cake, but hardly inspirational. Not something I’d make twice. Certainly not “moist beyond imagination, chocolatey and rich like no tomorrow, and 100% of the time, causes moans and groans from anyone who takes a bite”-able, despite Ree’s promise. David Lebovitz’s Butterscotch Pudding? Bland and cloggy. Helpdesk Man didn’t finish his. And tonight, I decided to have another stab at something creamy and butterscoid, so I made Caramel Pudding, again from Smitten Kitchen. Now, it may taste vastly more delicious after chilling in the fridge, and I hope it will; but judging from preliminary spoon-licking tests, it is no more than adequate.

It peeves me, people.

And lest you think I am picking on these bloggers, SK’s dulce de leche cheesecake squares - ironically, a recipe about which she was less enthused than usual - were pretty yummy, and David Lebovitz’s basic French vanilla ice cream is a thing of beauty and a joy forever (as is his chocolate ice cream, according to Helpdesk Man). (You know, I’m trying to think of a really delicious PW recipe I’ve made, and nothing springs to mind. Isn’t that catty of me? I don’t think I’ve cooked much of her stuff, though. I remember Helpdesk Man didn’t like the Crash Hot Potatoes…)

So, anyway. I love food blogs. They are marvellous. But I am beginning to view their claims with a distrustful and rheumy eye. I’ve had much better luck with recipes ranked by popular vote - the New York Cheesecake on Allrecipes is truly spectacular. So if you are a food blogger casting your eye over my humble pages (and chances are slim, you’re probably my mum, but if you’re not her)…. tone it down a bit, k? Be courageous. Say “This really hit the spot last night when I had pregnancy cravings and would have eaten the fridge if it hadn’t been wedged in, but this morning I think it’s a bit soggy in the middle - but hey, give it a go”. Or take a hint from Presbyterian church supper cookbooks of yore and say “This is an extremely economical pudding”. But don’t play havoc with hopes. One can only get so emotionally invested in caramel-flavoured gloop before succumbing to ulcers, and that wouldn’t be good for your readership, would it?

1. So I wangled a bunch of characters for my practice novel out of thin air, and half a plot to boot. This is well and good, but I need a villain, or at least some form of dramatic tension. Maybe some entity with a moustache.
2. I think I need to trim the snortlepig. I made her a lovely top which looked, if anything, too big in the making: and now it won’t fit over her squish. I am remedying the situation by lacing the back up corset-wise, but it is not ideal. I did, however, overcome the butterflies in my tum and attempt buttonholes for the first time. After many rippings-out I achieved a set of the sorriest-looking buttonholes ever to grace a garment; but at least the plunge has been taken.
3. The space bar on my keyboard issticking, which makes me want to KILL THEWORLD. See?
4. We finally finished the X-Files - including, against sound advice, the second X-Files movie I Want to Believe. Which was rubbish. And it could have been spectacular if they’d only continued with the bally arc (and omitted Mulder’s pedophile haircut and Scully’s greenish dye job and anorexic makeover, and so on, obvs.). So that was depressing. But I was a bit disenchanted with Scully ever since she had the baby anyway. It’s sad when shows leave one with a slightly bitter taste in one’s mouth when they’re over, but I really did enjoy the X-Files around seasons 5-7ish… so that’s something. We’re now finishing off Dollhouse, and thence on to catching up on a few seasons of The Office. It will be nice to watch something with fewer autopsies: the snortlepig has started saying “yucky” when Scully uncovers figures on gurneys, and will probably end up twisted in the head.

Somewhat to my astonishment, Helpdesk Man and I passed the police check for having a homestay student. The next step is to be interviewed by a nice lady called Loretta and have the student’s room inspected to make sure we aren’t planning on chucking her in a rat-infested hole in the floor. Which is a doddle in theory - well, except for the interview, which will probably prove us to be antisocial semi-loons with supralapsarian leanings - only the homestay student’s room currently contains fourteen boxes of junk left over from moving house, a large plastic bag full of used coffee grounds, and no furniture.

So I am once again scouring TradeMe. According to the terms and condishes of homestay-student-having one has to provide it with a bed with a Good Quality Mattress, a desk, a chair, a lamp, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. Privileged little blighter. I don’t even have a lamp. Anyway I was thinking of going for a vaguely shabby chic-cum-Anne of Green Gables dormer room kind of look, with a splash of French Country thrown in. Dusky pinks and greens and creams, kind of demure, an old-fashioned writing desk if I can get one, that sort of thing. We specified a girl homestay student, so hopefully the pink will not be a problem; and it’s a style I like well enough that when the room eventually becomes the snortlepig’s room, I won’t feel the need to rip it all out and start afresh. Hopefully.

Of course, the tricky bit is that one has to decorate the room before the interview, so if one fails one is not only out a supplementary source of income, but the price of a roomful of furniture. Still. We will prevail.

I had a cunning thought the other day. If I am to be making most of the snortlepig’s clothes from now on (and it seems I will, both because it amooses me and because I am Agin the clothing industry and hand-me-downs have slowed down to the merest trickle since she left the baby stage), it makes sense that they all match. Currently she has a pleasing conglomeration of handmade and bought items in varying clashing shades, and only about two tops go with two bottoms on a good day. So next time a new season hits or she grows out of things, I plan to go to Spotlight with a tiny colour palette in mind and buy five or so fabrics - a few solids, maybe some dottos or stripes and a floral - that all mix and match, and then make her clothing accordingly. It seems frugal. Plus, I can then look back fondly on her childhood photos and say “Oh yes, that was during your blue period”, and date contested family holidays by the hue of her trousies. And it’ll force me to make clothes she actually needs, as opposed to things I want to make (case in point: she is currently inundated with tops and rather lacking in bottoms).

Right. I now need to go and complete my hour of fiction writing for the week. I have successfully managed to do my hour of housework every day, even going so far as to do an extra hour the day before we went to the beach (more on that later). None of the editors I queried have gotten back to me about my print articles, though; nor have I utterly mastered the Road Code; and I totally forgot about the fiction writing thing until now. I should really use this time to work on My Novel, but I’m getting rather sick of it; perhaps I’ll start something new. We shall see.

Oh, yus. Question. If you were a nearly-two-year-old snortlepig, and it was going to be autumn/winter when you were twoish, what kind of colours would you want to wear for that season? I fancy dove-grey at the moment, but it might be a little drab for a toddler. D’you think? Dove-grey accented with blue or possibly maroon? Maybe I should save that particular combo for when she’s a sedate matron of four.

[Sung by Edward, or similar]

When you wake up

Yeah, you know I’m gonna be

The shadow in the corner watching over you

When you go out

Yeah, you know I’m gonna be

The hooded figure softly slinking after you.

If you get drunk

Yeah, you know I’m gonna be

The man who buys a bottle of absinthe for you

And if I haver

At the corner of the bar

The girl I call my snickle oodlekums is you.

And I would kill a hundred fish

And I would kill a hundred more

Just to be the man who killed two hundred fish

And left them at your door

When I’m working

Yeah, you know I’m gonna be

The man who sells illegal kidneys just for you

And when the money

Comes to me from Shady Fred

I’ll mug him for his cut and pass it on to you.

When you come home

Yeah, you know I’m gonna be

The one who euthanised your goldfish just for you

Did your dishes

Rearranged your DVDs

And drew a poem on the mirror just for you.

And I’d decapitate a pig

And I’d decapitate one more

Just to be the man who put two headless pigs

Outside your bedroom door…

[Edward, or similar, staked by Buffy: FINIS]

Merry Christmas!

Spam is getting cunning. I just deleted 17 off this very blog, and they were all “This is a very interesting blog, I havc read several of your posts and will refer it to my friends” and “Great content, I like how you are clear in the message you convey”. It’s a wee bit canned, a la “Smokering is a pleasure to teach” from my old school reports (administered to every student who didn’t actively try to sever the teacher’s thumbs) or “You have a lovely and unique VOICE” from Suite101, which is a bit of a joke as every single Suite writer gets told the same thing. Still, I have to admire the fiendish psychology that would prey on the ego of a tentative newbie blogger. I can just see it stammering now, eyes misting up behind its spectacles, “Q-quality content! I have quality content!”

Fortunately, being under no illusions about my content, I remain immune from pharmaceutical blandishments. Now, if they started sending messages like “Dude, that’s sick” or “Quit bugging the public with the mundane details of your parochial little life”, my bank account details would be skipping over the ‘net in a flash. And this is why research is the most important part of freelancing.

Research, and a Lovely and Unique Voice.

The party was OK… not spectacular, but not disastrous. We’ll get to that shortly. Firstly, there are two questions which have been bothering me, and both relate to bodily fluids. Perhaps you could help me out.

1. Blood is salty, no? I read somewhere that it has the same salinity as seawater, which was supposed to prove something meaningful and evolutionary; but whether that be the case or no, if one cuts a gash in one’s forearm and sucks the blood (accidentally, I mean; while making a flan, perhaps; not just for kicks), it tastes like salt. So. Wouldn’t drinking a whole pint of it, or however much vampires drink at one go, make you extremely dehydrated? I mean, vampire physiology is presumably constructed so as to cope with it; one does not envisage them carrying along a bottle of Evian. Well, Edward probably would. It’s the sort of marvy accoutrement one would expect a sparkly vampire to tote. But anyhoo. Blood. Salty. Yes. Interesting thought, no?

2. If one were alone in the wilderness, miles from civilisation, clean water, alcohol, antibiotics etc and a repellent crocodile bit off half your arm, would it a) improve your situation or b) otherwise to throom on your own stump? Urine is sterile and acidic, which makes me feel it would have antibacterial or cleansing properties of some sort. But mebbe not. And it would hurt. Helpdesk Man cautiously gave his opinion that it might be better to do so than not, but hesitated to make a definitive pronouncement. I like that in a man. It stops us from being sued. But what do you think, standard disclaimers aside? And if you thought it was the right thing to do, would you do it?

Anyway. Party. Yes. It was OK. Apart from the guest of honour’s family and my own family, there were only two guests present; fortunately, my family is capacious and the guest of honour had her parents visiting, so combined with our lack of chairs we managed to fill up the living room tolerably well. Much to my amazement, people bought Tupperware (!!); my small sister Ruth came over in the morning and baked practically all the food while I worked on the quilt, which I got finished (Is Better Than Perfect) more or less in time; and the snortlepig’s behaviour impressed the Tupperware lady so much (?!) she gave her a tiny pink container in a Handy Size. It seems the key to successful Tupperwaring is enthusiastically pointing out how any size of container, be it barely big enough to hold a crocus or large enough to host swim meets in, is Handy. I wonder if they conducted studies to find out the average household volume of leftover lasagna, or the typical quantity of Scroggin consumed by a family of four? At any rate we all agreed meekly that the various sizes were Handy indeed, and she got a bit cocky and asked me for an onion in order to demonstrate a device called, I kid you not, the Happy Chopper. It’s not a DC villain; it dices.

After this event my dear friends came over and we ate leftovers while watching American Graffti (kinda slow, Harrison Ford’s part smaller than expected) and The Lost Boys (all kinds of awesome; why do vampires have universally ridiculous hair? Is it a function of old age? “Ahh, I can’t keep up with the styles any more, I’m two hundred years old - here, love, pour a bottle of bleach on it and we’ll fling a bit of moose tallow in for texture.”).

Best yet, I discovered that my dates were all out of whack and my article isn’t actually due until Tuesday. Cue choruses of Mormon cherubs. Perhaps I will make it to Christmas after all.

• Nobody is going to come to the baby shower-cum-Tupperware party tomorrow. I can’t blame them. I’m tempted to ditch it, and I’m hosting. I did finally get hold of the Tupperware lady, and she assured me she’d “only speak for half an hour”. Half an hour? How much is there to say? What if I bring up bisphenol-A in a fit of rebellion? What if I panic when nobody buys anything and end up with microwaveable jelly moulds? What if the woman gives me a Look to indicate scorn and hatred for my having dragged her out on a Saturday? Only one person has RSVPed, and she made very sure to say she couldn’t stay long - presumably so she could scarper at the first sight of a pourable cereal container.
• I have no idea how to structure this article of mine that’s due on Monday. None. And it’s 800 words too short.
• I also have 6000 more words to go on NaNoWriMo. Most of them will probably be rewrites of the article. Feh.
• I was supposed to go shopping for groceries with Sister-in-Law today. She is not online and has not shown up. How am I to get the ingredients to make the lemon slice, the chocolate cornflake slice, the focaccia, the puff pastry cheese straws, the pecan tarts, the forgotten cookies and the cupcakes? And how will I have time to make them?
• Also, the baby quilt. It is Not Done. Not remotely done. It is barely even a flimsy. I can chain-stitch the stems this evening in theory, but only if the snortlepig isn’t climbing all over me. Hah.
• And I have to tidy up the garden, otherwise the church ladies will turn up and want to investigate every nook and cranny of it. And there’s a dead bird on the back lawn. Helpdesk Man, informed of this in panic-stricken tones, says consolingly “Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere”.

Ha! Word from Sister-in-Law. Am still in PJs. Half an hour, she says. This is OK. Will give the pig more time to nap. I will think of calming things, but not the ocean because that makes me nervy. Maybe the sky, although I had a horrible dream last night that - oh, never mind. I am clearly wibbling. Into the breach!

Busy week this week. Whose crazy idea was it to put NaNoWriMo in November?

I gotta write approximately 17,000 words, including one 2000-word print article and a couple of catch-up haircare pieces for Suite.

I gotta plan and prepare for a baby shower this Saturday, which is also - and I stress this was not my idea - a Tupperware party. I guess after the first two babies a plain ol’ baby-themed baby shower seems passe. The odd thing is the mother doesn’t even want to buy Tupperware, just to replace some cracked stuff under its lifetime guarantee. I’ll probably end up buying a dozen lettuce crispers out of guilt for dragging the poor demonstrator over; and I can ill afford ‘em. Hmph.

I gotta finish the baby quilt before the baby shower. Maybe I could quilt it in vaguely Tupperware-shaped patterns, as a subtle nod to the occasion? No, bad thoughts.

I gotta do my taxes. Nothing new. I was supposed to do ‘em in, like, April. The bailiffs will probably seize this blog any day. (Wait a second! “Seize” violates the “I before E” rule! When did this happen? Who authorised it? Good golly. Procrastinate on your taxes for a mere seven months and the world goes topsy-turvy.)

I gotta send a bunch of leaflets off to various churches, a task that was foisted upon me by a woman upon whom it was also foisted, by another woman who came over with the vapours at the mere thought. I have in turn foisted the task on a corner of the kitchen floor, which doesn’t work as well as you might think. Better send them off before the event they are advertising takes place; that, or pitch them in a storm drain and feign oblivion.

Oh smeg. There was something else I gottaed. I cannot remember now. Ooh, we watched Twilight. I was curious. It was rubbish. Helpdesk Man didn’t help. (Me: That’s a nice pagoda. Helpdesk Man, darkly: I’m a pagoda. Etc.) Also I went to my dear friend Nat’s house today after church and we watched the new Star Trek movie. And I have learned how to make tabbouleh. It has bulghur in it, whoda thunk? Right. Gotta wash. Ten-four, minions.

There are probably people reading this blog who haven’t read Their Eyes Were Watching God.

To whom this applies: I am flattered, nay, touched; but your priorities are so far out of whack I wouldn’t be surprised to see you selling your grandmother for a biscuit.

In eight days it will be the three-year anniversary of myself and Helpdesk Man. Year One, we stayed the night in a hotel (in town, because I was pregnant and unable to fit into my motorbike jacket), saw a movie (Resident Evil III) and had dinner at a Turkish restaurant. Year Two, we left the snortlepig to the mercies of her tiny aunt and went out for lunch at a nice restaurant out of town. Year Three, we are looking for ideas. Cheap ideas, because nothing says romance like saving money.

So, we were thinking of leaving the snortlepig with its grandparents (depending on the aimiability of said relations) and oosing out on the motorbike somewhere. I thought maybe hot pools, as I haven’t been swimming since before I was pregnant with the piggie. Then again, there could be bathing suit-related angst attached to such an enterprise. I fancy the idea of skydiving also, but it doesn’t really come under the category of frugal and also, Helpdesk Man is a gurly. What happens if one upchucks at 15,000 feet, I wonder? Could it kill a man? Would you be liable?

Anyhoo. Thoughts? Quaint restaurants with no mooseheads on the walls? Hitherto unsuspected theme parks in the Waikato area? The Amazing Maze in Maize? (I’ve been there; it was quite fun, acksherly.) Arty movie theatres playing arty movies? Do-it-yourself bungee jumping?

This is not the only impending celebration on the Smokey horizon, however. I have decided to have a Thanksgiving party for all my dear friends, and the dear friends also of Helpdesk Man. Negotiations are running hot as to whose house we shall have it at, what we shall eat and other such important matters. Not being American, we can be fairly Protestant about our choices of food and drink - a turkey is probably too rich for our tiny purses, for one thing. But it should be fun.

In other news:

• I woke up early this morning and hustled the snortlepig to the toy library for my mandatory volunteering duty, only to find out we were a week early.
• Helpdesk Man temporarily taught the snortlepig how to say “Nappy” properly instead of “nap-me”. I nearly weeped, but then she forgot again.
• I have now successfully cooked salmon steaks. Feel v. cosmopolitan.
• The snortlepig learned how to say “No no no no no” yesterday off, of all things, a Don Carson podcast. She’s said it before, but not with such rapidity and force of expression.
• My NaNo count is up to 32,123 plus a few hundred more I haven’t added on yet.
• They discovered water on the moon. Int’resting, no? I am pro- the moon. Go moon!, I say. Ask anyone.