On the nature of Food

We watched 'Julie/Julia' last night and was not impressed. I think the concept is great, take a cook book and cook every recipe (assumes that every recipe is worth cooking or that in the process you become more proficient).

One of the things that struck me about the film (have not read the blog) was the absence of endorsement from Mrs Child for the project. In fact I later discovered that she thought it was a completely facile project. She also noted that the food was rarely commented on (in the movie the only adjective is 'Yum') and never addressed the flavours or textures.

I felt overall that the movie did nothing for cooking and was a missed opportunity. I did feel however that Meryl Streep did a fine turn as Julia C and it is always a pleasure to see Stanley Tucci. But there was so little emphasis given to the cooking in the movie, so little attention paid to ingredients, to ovens, pots, pans, frying, blanching, steaming or roasting. Poaching does get a mention but the emphasis is on the reaction of the protagonist to the finished product. Given that the idea of the film is cooking it becomes a movie blog with a character who has no language to communicate the raison d'etre of the cook book.

If I were to recommend the reader to any good food movies I would simply start and finish with 'Big Night' (thank you, Mr Tucci). Here the meal is important, the ritual of preparing the meal, concentrating on the available time for dishes, guests and music all follow in order with finality being the mouthfuls of this amazing feast. It's a movie that takes food seriously, its about people who are serious about food, it's a recognition that food like music has an audience. Its a lovely movie.

I mentioned at the start that to cook every recipe in a book should in the least improve your proficiency in the kitchen. The movie implied the Julie character cooked dishes blind without having tested them first. This I find hard to swallow as they had just moved into a new place and had no experience with the oven. Every oven is different, they cook differently, they heat differently. Some have an uneven heating distribution, some heat from above but not below, one side more than the other etc. The variations are endless but the upshot is - you need to know your oven because only then will you know how to adapt recipes to suit it's behaviour.

But I will finish by acknowledging that all this started with a blog (like this one) that took off and got turned into a movie. So firstly, well done. My Blog is my personal ramblings where I am the main character. Occasionally I'll look at something else, but it will always be from my viewpoint. The movie (not the 'Julie/Julia' blog) is intended for an audience whereas the blog can be entirely personnel. If the movie was looking at the herculean task of cooking recipes it treated it like pressing each key on the keyboard of a piano ('Today I cooked aspic', 'Today I pressed Middle C - Yum').

Versus the Wasps

Well it was an exciting venture, I tell you whut Bubba's. Me against a whole mess of angry wasps. I was wrapped up like a environmentalist standing before the riot police, rock poised my hand.

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A few days ago we noticed an ever increasing presence of wasps around the house. Being mindful of our beautiful child we looked about for the nest. It transpired that there were two nests nearby, one at a neighbours and one out the front of our place.

I do not like wasps. I grew up with them in NZ, they are aggressive, they hurt like hell and can sting multiple times (unlike a bee). They also scare me, I have a scar on my left thumb from an encounter with a wasp.
But that nest had to go. Traditional methods include tipping a jerry can of petrol down the entrance and blocking it up with a rag and a brick. Not having a jerry can I called on my neighbours who lent me a tube of some kind of 'DeathKill' powder for bugs.
When dealing with wasps one has to wait until it's dark when they go to sleep. Alternatively you can wait until it's cold. Both have the effect of limiting their activity.

I waited until it was dark. I also bound myself up with gloves, a thick shirt, heavy boots, my work pants (tucked into my socks) and had my head covered by a hat, t-shirt and tea towel around my face. Angry wasps go into a stinging frenzy, take no risks.

At the entrance to the wasp nest were a few sentries. Holding my Zippo lighter at arms length I fried them with a can of Baygon and ignited a tree stump nearby. Needless to say my adrenaline was up. I quickly dumped the contents of the 'DeathKill' powder into the hive entrance, blocked it up and slammed the rock in place just as the first wasps were teetering their way out of hole. Another burst of baygon napalm.

Which is about when I heard the buzzing near my ear.

A wasp was on me trying to get inside my protection and sting me behind the ear.

I ran inside (calmly)

I calmly called to Evie to spray me with Baygon (this engendered a robust debate about baygon).

Some more buzzing and then quiet.

I stripped off washed myself and sat shaking on the couch for a half hour.

By then I recalled I set fire to a tree stump and I had to brave the dying wasps nest again to put it out. Thankfully I seemed to won the battle with my first strike. The fire was extinguished successfully.
It was then and only then did I feel I needed a beer.

Does not seem that long

Realised today that I've been blogging here for 4 years (now in my 5th). Not bad I must say.

It was interesting to go back over the older posts and see what I was doing and what I thought was worth recording. I know I've left some stuff out, but it's been fun to be reminded of some stuff.

I have to confess I enjoy jotting down my thoughts here and I only hope that every know and again people enjoy my writing. Even the short little notes like these.

They look through your rubbish bin

This will be one of my more bizarre posts.

For a couple of weeks now the on ramp of the Eastern Distributor that I take coming home has had a suspicious looking red plastic bottle on the side of the road. The more I noticed it the more the more I realised 1) The council doesn't clean up the side of the road often enough and 2) it began to look more and more like a male genital enhancement device (a P$nis Pump).

Which got me thinking. What if it was? Why is there on the on ramp? Who threw it out the car window (or truck or bus or taxi...)? What if it was a gay guy on a date, had been talking up his endowerment (I made that word up) and was afraid of the moment of truth. So he goes to the porno store, gets the pump and is furiously trying to 'fix the problem' while driving. Then has to throw it out the window 'to hide the evidence'.
Or maybe its a hens night.
Or maybe an enraged lover flings it from the moving car.
Or the Bishop is driving a Nun to the church. She finds it asks what it is...

The possibilities as a story are great! But today, while driving home I saw it had gone. The street cleaning machine had been and swept it up. Whoever flung this device onto the on ramp may have had to drive by it every day. The shame like the beating of the Tell Tale Heart as he passed it, accelerating to join the rush of traffic on the motorway.

And now it is gone.