bunny wabbit bunny wabbit bunny wabbit

 So here's the thing. Everyone likes Marcella Hazan. 

                        

The problem is, I am absolutely not able to work out of her cookbooks. 

Marcella has a lot of opinions. You'd better be familiar with those opinions too, because things have to be Marcella's way.  But Marcella doesn't always make "her way" terribly clear.*  No, let me restate that. She makes her way very very clear indeed, to the detriment of the damn recipe.

A one and a half page rant about salt.

Humble bragging: an early version, with a two page recipe for pasta salad ffs. You see what I mean about the organization? GAAH

Page one of a rant about authentic (HER) Italian cooking.

See, this fucks with my chi.  So I chucked her and went with the cookbook that Marcella taught herself to cook from:  Talismano della Felicita - The Talisman Italian Cookbook. 

This is not the rooty-toot version, the one written for first generation American born Italians, but this served my needs better. This is the abridged version, no foreign dishes, only Italian, written for an American public that was utterly fucking unfamiliar with the genre. 

It takes nothing for granted. It simply tells you how. And that's what REFERENCE is all about, dammit.

What bites me is wondering if Marcella, self-taught, having arisen fully formed like Venus from the sea, who cribbed her whole career from The Talisman, paid Ada Boni any, like, money? or even just gave her thanks publicly for her legacy. 

Was there anything else I could have done with that sentence? Nope.

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Now me, I taught myself how to cook Italian out of this book vvv, and I did it starting back in 1968, because we didn't have video games in those days:

I am really sentimental about this little book.

I have no idea how this made it into my mothers house; it was just there. I used to read it when I was a little kid. Once I got over being afraid of the stove, I did the pasta recipe. Then I did the Ravioli. 

                                           

                                              (I am not saying I turned out restaurant quality.)

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I tantalized you with a mention a month or so back. Here it is:

This is all about Tony Bourdain. No bones about it. It's Tony the product, doing his best Tony here, giving us recipes that were favorites of his.   

If you don't want to cook out of it, just sit back and read the thing. It is a very entertaining read, particularly if you're a little high.

He takes no prisoners. None. This is his punk rock cookbook dammit. Don't expect anything, because this is basically everything, like someone kept all their recipes in a shoebox and dumped it out on their bed.  But it is also a workable damn cookbook. 

Some recipes are beginners' stuff, or just very basic, tasty things, and some are long, complicated, and use ingredients not found on this land mass.

He has Hamburger Rules.  He tells you to toast your fucking muffin. He lets you know that one dish had him 'shitting like a mink'. AND I LOVE EVERY WORD.

My house is strictly Bourdain. I mean omgwtfbvq we have this huge gaudy fuckin' thing on the wall in our kitchen. vvv 

                                                                 garbage wine for scale

If you are not a fan, and you have a stick up your ass, you won't like this cookbook much, because it is so very Tony©, and the word 'fuck' is thrown around pretty freely.  But because you can cook quite easily from it, it's a keeper as far as I'm concerned. 

Would I have gotten rid of it had it been a loser?  Fuck yeah. I'm hardass like that.

                                                               - well not exactly like that. ^ 

Imagine a very mean cheese.

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*Your mileage may vary!  I understand that! I just don't care.

I understand that this was Marcella's 'swan song' and that she's allowed a little leeway, that being the case. I understand that she was a strong personality, and that her 'Nonna Ballabusta' thing was part of her appeal; Marcella hads to get paid. (Whatever the tense is on poor grammar.)  I just find it busy, self-aggrandizing and poorly organized.

OOH LOOK BONUS RECIPE!

 

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I've been busy. I have!  And it's good news! I honestly have the most amazing personal news! I do!

Background:

Back in the 1970s the Niccolai Tour of Leonardo DaVinci's inventions came to my town, and all I had to do was to see it once and my imagination was aflame!  Then the Madrid Codices were rediscovered,  and in the international rejoicing and celebration of that event, forget it, I was in fangirl love with this towering genius of the late Medieval period, because dammit, he looked good naked and I liked his hat. Or how about 'Nobody draws sex between two consenting hemisected individuals like Da Vinci'?   Good shit either way.                                         

I needed to know everything about him. His life and times, the books he read, the subjects he studied, his materials and processes. I even taught myself a little Italian and a little ecclesiastical Latin to help forge onward through the fog. And when I humble brag about the Latin, know that I still have the bitemarks on my flesh from where I almost chewed off my own arm trying to learn the shit. (You learn your way, I learn mine.)

Last week I finally came to the other end of 53 years of obsession. That's not a bad thing. It's certainly not the end; I'll never be done!  Still, I was able to look back over my work, organize it, make it into something that tracks, and start on the next chapter!!!! 

  

I'm starting to wonder how much this had to do with some of the stress I've gone through recently. Some of it certainly could have been caused by all those years of mental effort, now  having reached the 11th hour, trying to finally become something. 

A year ago I wrote about an event that marked the closing of one chapter of my life and how it felt like I'd been given a set of wings; the most spiritual thing I've ever had happen to me. This feels similar. Imagine that a thousand beavers have built a dam across the Bosporus, and that Erich Von Danekins' Ark came along and fired bankrupt hotels into that dam 5 million times, and the dam broke and beavers went everywhere. That is nothing like what happened.

It feels fantastic.

I took on a project when I was thirteen years old and I stuck with it, and here I am at 66 years old able to turn to that (figurative) kid and say 'Look at what we did. Let's get drunk as shit. You're figurative. You can drink."

  I  Rock!   

Wrapt in maunderin' ponderine, the phairy mashful said

                     Mme. Arcati's secret life:  What a hidden pied a' terre in Barking revealed!!

                                                                          __________ 

 Put on your high heel sneakers and pull that wig hat on!  It's time for a FirstNations Fun Activity!!!!!

A.    Ask a question of your search engine of choice (mine is Gleegle.) In order to keep your interest in this diverting activity high, ask an interesting question. I mean geeze.  

2.   Now let Mr. AI answer that question. Do not go actively seeking Mr. AI, just let the intrusive version of AI chime in with its two centavos. 

b.  Now read that answer.  

B.   Now take that answer in. Including the kind of links it might throw up, if any.

C.   Now swap over to another search engine. Say, Mr. YeeHaw. Ask the very same question in exactly the same terms - letter, space, and symbol perfect.  

d.   And proceed as the above.

D.   Do this a few more times in different search environments. Try Waterfowlx2 Avaunt, Bling, Microcephaly FullCircle, anything that has that intrusive AI feature. Don't forget to consider those answers!

What becomes immediately apparent to you?

IT SHOULD BE THE OBSCENE AMOUNT OF BIAS, KIDS.  

But gosh dangit, oh hey, it's just AI, sometimes it's wrong! Sometimes it's stupid!  Look at all these funny memes! Look at all the funny mistakes that AI makes!  No threat here!

Except yes.  I promise you. There is a threat.  It's in the bias profile.  

Here's what I mean:  Each search engines' servant clanker 'expresses itself' using an emotional tone profile.  In other words, the language it uses to word it's replies can come across as happy, dumb, scary, annoyed and etc. The makers and purveyors of search engines and web crawler platforms say "No no no no no, that's just to be 'user friendly', we wouldn't dream of inserting any bias operants in order to subtly sway your opinions! " 

 Putting aside the question "Why do it at all, when up to this point I haven't demanded that of my encyclopedias, dictionaries, bus schedules and mathematical charts? --

   No I mean it. Put that question right the fuck aside. 

You're an American and thus far too stupid to be able to give a dangling shit about the answer 

Information leads you away from God 

YOU'LL GO TO HELL AND LICK THE DEVILS VOLKSWAGEN FOR ALL HIBERNITY.    

So having put that question aside, simply ask yourself 'What do I like more?  Scary things or nice things?"

       Truman Capote, having chosen food instead of malice... just a blue-eyed, barefoot boy motoring through the waves atop a giant bass, singing the song of his people or something.

Never fear. I do not believe that my computer is attempting to control my mind. That's not what I'm saying.  I do not lie in bed awake each night listening for the sound of it's dirty little felt pads sliding closer in the darkness. No no no.  

I do believe that all the different brand AI-identities, with all their baked-in semantics games, are being shoved down our gullets faster than the finer details on the commercial level can be examined, or any kind of ethical framework can be established or enforced,  and that this process is being expedited while human rights issues are at an all-time low in this country. 

And I do believe that the big guns aren't even in broad play yet. But don't worry!  We'll see that happening in the coming elections! 

I know it's freaky. I just got done freaking myself out for a whole day digging into this shit. Marveling at how convincing some of the verbal and visual AI generated content out there can be. How creepy and tonally specific some of the language choices are in the responses I get. 

What y'alluns in Parts Foreign have got to look forward to, I do not know. 

                             May I suggest you ask your uncle Jabez Featherstone-Haugh                                                   

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*Here's a query you should try over on Microcephaly:

"does scientology own reddit stock"

...yeah, see where that gets ya.  Now try the same exact query on Gleegle.

Compare answers.

Think about that shit for awhile.

KIM CHI!

Straight into the cookbook! No explanation of where I've been!

    !!!!BOOM SHAKALAKA!!!! 

        KIM CHI EATS THE WORLD!     

This was an impulse buy, because KIM CHI BABY!!!!!!!

 

.....and also COOKBOOK. 

A shiny, sparkly cookbook!

 
My expectations were a sad reflection on the fact that I do not get out a lot; as, 'C'mon, that's going to be like an autograph thing, a promo item, not an actual 'recipes that you will use' kind of cookbook.'
I was sofa king wrong.

Look at all the tabs I have in here. Those are all recipes I'm going to try!  

Tony Bourdain didn't get this many tabs.*  

Rick Bayless didn't get this many tabs.

 

Many tabs!

Do you get to see the recipes?  No you do not.  You have to go BUY THE DAMN COOKBOOK to see the recipes.  DO IT NOW.

 

And you need to take a look at this. Dear God look at the way she did the indexes. This is so efficient!

Ms. Kim Chi is not screwing around. I haven't run into anything this adventurous and original in a very long time.  Why are you sitting there GO BUY IT LIKE I TOLD YOU TO GEEZE

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Fine OK where have I been. 

I have been 1. moving on, and  3. dealing with all the goddamn SMOKE.

Oh, and the high temperatures.

Lawd.

Oregon, right across the river from here, is on fire. Occasionally, so is Idaho. For the last four weeks we did not see blue sky.  The sun rose through a bar of yellow smog, and it was huge, the color of a neon maraschino cherry,

 ...and then the remainder of the day it was just a little silver circle in the brown sky. Sometimes ashes came floating down. There were days that we could not see the next block down, and there were days that the smoke was so bad stores closed and people were told to stay home from work - and stay indoors while they were at it. You could practically hear the Christian Nationalists meeping like Beaker. Grab the tithe box! it's Armageddon!

This morning and afternoon we finally saw a little relief. An overnight rainstorm blew in, and the difference it made was astounding. We were all like 'Wow, I forgot how blue the sky is!' and going from the front door to the back door and saying 'Look at how blue this is!' and shit, like a couple of nutbars.

________________________

SCREW THAT LET'S LOOK AT MY TOMATOES

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Here is another picture I found as I was looking for tomato images:

 

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Fine fine fine here is a picture of The Hanging Gardens of Fruitland!

But first, this:

   This was my first harvest here in Idaho!  IT'S SO BITTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Devalued currency for scale. Also a spoon like the kind you eat with. For scale.   

NOW ON WITH THE SHEW!

Here it is! Spread across the rolling plains! Breaking several city ordinances and at least one rental regulation by rendering the meters out back difficult to read! YEE HAW!

You will note that The Hanging Gardens are protected by this prestigious association. 

Do not be screwing around in the Hanging Gardens. 

They'll send that farmer-stockman out to fuck you up.  

I have two cherry tomato plants growing in this container (this is only the front half) and they cannot be stopped. 

Here is the back half, lying on that sheet of white painted tin all the livelong day and flourishing.

 All these lovely cherry tomatoes want is to drink water, to bask in the deadly radiation given off by the merciless, murderous sun, and to put out boatloads of fruit. Utterly delicious. Just the basic '100' plant you can get at any grocery store. 

   Here is my pepper plant, growing ordinary green peppers which are not only small, but flavorless. Come to find out that this variety, 'Lady Pepper' is known for that.  Ah well. This is my learning year, I figure. And I figure I won't waste my time on this thing next year. 

   

   I grew Roma tomatoes. Here are some green ones. They, thank God, are DELICIOUS.  Ugly plant, puts out excellent fruit, loves that full sun. Next year I'll be choosing 'Roma' again! 

 

 

I snooked in some Golden Oregano, which, as it turns out, does not like the full nuclear force of the Idaho sun one single fucking bit.  Here it is flourishing in the shade of the Roma. It would be bigger but I keep cutting it off and using it.  If it survives the Winter, hey. Cool. If not, I spend a buck next year and grow it again.

The Roma and the 100's have been giving me tomatoes since last month.  I keep them picked off as soon as the fruit turns pink, because apparently this keeps the squirrels from becoming interested. The tomatoes ripen in a flash in the kitchen, and so far no signs of squirrel damage. To the tomatoes.

   SQUIRRELS SUCK

  

DO YOU  KNOW WHAT THOSE FUCKING SQUIRRELS DID OMG those little shits. I had a really nice set of oregano and thyme in a planter this Spring and they were flourishing. Until some prick of a squirrel came and dug them up and then PISSED ALL OVER THEM BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK NOT. Why the fuck not piss all over innocent thyme and oregano plants THAT DID YOU NO HARM YOU HEARTLESS LITTLE BASTARDS

Watch out for squirrels, is the message I'm trying to get across. 

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hey I love you LOOK AT THIS

From the prestigious Culinary Institute of America!

This book here! It's a textbook! A COLLEGE TEXT BOOK PEOPLE

WE GIVE YOU A RECIPE FOR

Kind of gives you an idea what kind of a three-star hotel kitchen job they're setting you up for, doesn't it? 

__________

Now you should go around with a baseball bat and check for SQUIRRELS

_________________________________________________

*Hint of things to come

OK I'm back again PART DEAUX

 Ok that's enough, that's not why I'm here.

I'm here to

   HANG OUT WITH SWEATY PEOPLE IN THEIR UNDERWEAR and take photographs of them apparently    

  i know what you're thinking. you're thinking "wow i bet this would make a lot of Soylent Green." i know it because that's what i'm thinking too. 

Soylent Green is made of people, you know.   

____________________________________________________

I am going to tell you a story about a spider. This spiders name was Irving, don't ask me why, I know most spiders you see hanging around are female, this one was, but it's name is Irving so I'll just go on.

This is a picture I took of Irving:

wrong picture.  

right picture.  

this is a Phiddipus johnsonii, also called the Bold Jumping Spider.  

  here is Irving on my front window, grooving on the twinkle lights.   

  

That single little spider absolutely took care of the problem my plants were having with fungus gnats. I mean that spider wiped them out.

I found Irving in the back entryway and brought her inside, and dumped her into the middle of my houseplants.  A few days later I found a spider midden loaded with little gnatty carcasses. I even mentioned it here at Steve.  I thought 'Well done, Irving. Go on with your bad fuzzy self" and Irving did.

I would find her marching all over the front room and kitchen, walls and ceiling. When she caught sight of me, she'd stand there for a few moments in astonishment, and then start shaking her spider fists at me. 'You want to go? You want some? Yeah you don't. I'll beat your ass.'  

Other times I'd find her while I was dusting, chilling in the front window, sucking the life forces out of a fly, and she'd brandish that fly at me. 'See this? This could be you. Yeah it could.'  

Mostly she hangs out just around the corner of picture frames, drapes and heat register covers. She builds little filmy webs anywhere there is a slight draft and catches flies and gnats by the hundreds, and just does her rounds of each trap. 

Irving got really fat. Far from body shaming her choices, I wishher all the best. My plants are happy, I am happy, and the flies are nervous.

BEHOLD: PLANT PICTURES THAT SHOW SUPER HAPPY PLANTS THAT ARE GNAT FREE

This spider really does jump, too. It's an ambush predator, and a really efficient one. She'd leap for a fly from straight off the window and catch it mid-flight, and just fall with it and lay there on the windowsill, little spider fangs sunk into its neck. The most fascinating thing to watch.  I mean, I have a life, but I'm also sitting right here in the front window where the spider likes to hang out, right next to my plant tower, and things happen, like spider murder. And I see it.

Anyway that is the story of Irving: Bringer of Death, Terror of Idaho.  Long may she sail.