Friday, July 20, 2012

when a food blog is napping

. . . it might appear inactive but secretly be doing inner work, such as lucid dreaming about breakfast.



There are any number of reasons why it should want to attempt such things. To generate ideas by way of jiggling its usual frame of reference, for example. A Tibetan lama might say that lucid dreaming is "[a method] to directly reduce the coarse, rationally created reality, to touch upon and be able to perceive and appreciate a more direct and nonmanipulated relationship with reality, a step which in itself will further a nonrational contact with reality." This is a compelling pursuit, but extraordinarily difficult. The food blog might instead simply be replenishing its energies, or protecting itself from the fractural little stresses of what it perceives to be a dreary routine.




It is probably at least semi-consciously rooting around in its thoughts about things, the way a seemingly impassive NYC dog can suddenly unearth an arid, frozen pizza bone from under a foot of snow.




It might also be tossing and turning and idly thinking about briny snacks, in which case it will, upon waking, try and fail to remember whether it possibly dream-smelled a tin of salty little fish or merely had an evocative night-thought about them.



Suddenly the sun will be shining and it will be time to get to work.


kitchen sunrise


I guess this is a way of saying I'll be back soon, hopefully next week.


_______________________________


Waffle and syrup sheets from Etsy seller and fiber artist Brook Abboud / B Fiber and Craft Emporium.


Egg costume by Carole Itter, 1974, via Creatures of Comfort.


Pizza sleeping bag also from Brook Abboud / B Fiber and Craft Emporium.


Sardine sheets from Australian shop Bed Toppings.


Scorched IKEA trivet from my kitchen, where it sneakily clung to the bottom of a pot I put on the burner and was not noticed by the distracted cook until it started to smell funny.

Friday, July 13, 2012

frozen lunch

I was planning to return with a pineapple extravaganza but I'd feel foolish if I didn't tell you there's some very good ice cream visiting NYC from its native San Francisco today and this weekend. Humphry Slocombe! I've been wanting to try their ice cream for ages and it's at Paper mag's Superduper Market right now. I usually stay away from pop-up-shop-type-things because I'm a grouch and I don't like crowds, but this sounded manageable to me. Even if it didn't I would've ducked in for the ice cream anyhow. I had just a piece of toast for breakfast this morning in anticipation of cramming all sorts of stuff into my eatin' hole this afternoon but it's muggy today and I managed only a couple of frozen things.

 Humphrey Slocombe ice cream visiting NYC
Sorry for the grim, neorealist ice cream portraiture but it was a grey day.

Humphry Slocombe's Secret Breakfast ice cream = bourbon + cornflakes. It's got plenty of bourbon in it and it's damn tasty. The corn flakes have a nice crunch to them too, which I'm guessing comes from being baked Chex party mix-style before being stirred in? (I haven't seen their book yet; maybe it explains). They'll have different flavors each day at the market but I didn't ask about the weekend because I'm looking forward to going back and being surprised. I've got my fingers crossed for Candy Cap mushroom. Today the other flavors were Blue Bottle Vietnamese coffee (which was sold out by the time I got there around 2:30-ish) and Thai Chile Lime sorbet (which I tasted a sample of). The sorbet was impressively fresh-tasting and I tried to get my friend to order a cup so I could eat some more of it, but he'd apparently been binging on ice cream all week long and refused. FFS! I need to screen my eating companions for this sort of thing.

Imperial Woodpecker sno-ball lunch in progress

That's an Imperial Woodpecker sno-ball above: cotton candy (blue) and Mardi Gras king cake (purple). I secretly really like cotton candy and was pleased to discover that this tasted exactly like it. I've never had king cake so I can't comment on the accuracy of the purple side, but it did have a nice cake-y thing going on. I hope it won't be too disappointing if I explain that I wasn't eating ice cream and shaved ice at the same exciting time. I ducked outside to eat each because it was a little crowded inside. 

I didn't do much shopping at the market because a lot of the stuff I've either tried before or know where to get year-round, but I did leave with a little sack of Salty Road's salty peanut taffy. I'm a salt fiend and after having such a sweet lunch I couldn't resist. It's not aggressively salty like a bag of chips but it's got enough crunchy, coarse sea salt in it to keep me happy, and I think it's helped me digest my frozen lunch.