food blog
No, not my blog, I’ll stick with shit and toes, but my friend, Soph, has a food blog.
Now I find all foodies massive wankers, but I could live on party pies and dim sims (two Australian delicacies).
But Soph likes food, and if you also like food, I see no reason why you don’t go over there and read all about food.
The blog is called apicia, which is enough to make me eat cheese and vegemite sandwiches for life, but you should visit it.
sweet corn in peckham
A woman runs to a fruit and veg store. Actually she runs to the sweet corn section.
You have to ask why.
When she gets there, she takes her time.
Looking over here is a chubby young smoking dude as she looks over each sweet corn one at a time.
I feel at home, not because of the running for the sweet corn, which I may never understand, but because she is Black and he is Vietnamese.
In Footscray (my home back in Melbourne), that was the normal combination of humans.
Throw in some white drug addicts, and Peckham could do a more than passable interpretation of Footscray.
I was only there for a short time and I was offered pirated DVDS, saw two cases of road rage, one guy talking to himself and some screaming match that seemed to be more for therapy than anything else.
I felt right at home.
I did keep wondering about the sweet corn runner.
Why had she done it?
Had she then bought the sweet corn and then run home, before running around her kitchen and then running around the dining table to serve it.
Or was she just excited by the sweet corn, because she stopped rushing once she got there. She gave that sweet corn a proper physical before deciding on the few she liked.
I’m not a food guy, so maybe I don’t get it, but at that stage I hadn’t eaten for 24 hours due to my flight back from Sri Lanka, and all I wanted was a quarter pounder and two double cheese burgers.
I didn’t run, i just walked and ordered.
I might run for a late night bus, or if I needed a shit and was looking for a toilet, but I could never run for sweet corn.
my ass in Sri Lanka
Two minutes of breathing the air in Colombo was enough for me to know that Colombo wasn’t my kind of place. Too hot, too humid, too loud, and that kind of feeling in your stomach that makes you want to leave as soon as possible. The two hour car ride to the hotel convinced me of two things, I’d probably enjoy Sri Lanka, but probably only once I left Colombo.
Upon arriving at the hotel I met my family, whom were all sticky from the conditions. It was nice to see them, but it was horrible to hug wet people after a long flight of no sleep. Being at a ridiculously posh resort I knew that I could get away with eating western food. Even though I had prepared for Sri Lankan food, I really wasn’t ready to start it when feeling sticky as hell. So I had a burger. It was ok, I’ve had worse ones in the US. I rate burgers on the American scale at all times.
I didn’t really get much of a chance to really snoop around Colombo, my trip to the cricket for the test was cancelled because of the travel involved. It was a shame, all I saw of Colombo when I wasn’t in a car was a bunch of local shoe shops where I looked for a pair of leather sandals. Instead I ended up with cheap plastic substitutes. 3 quid. Not bad, but they weren’t the heavenly thong/jandal/flipflop I was looking for.
The next day was taken up by waiting for our first anniversary wedding revision for Sri Lankan hangers on. A party for those who missed the real wedding. That was the main reason for the trip, and while I was looking forward to meeting a whole room full of people who didn’t know my name, I was really looking forward to the holiday after it. The actual event went pretty smooth; we walked in (I in my Indian style white safari suit thing, her in her mother’s sari) on what seemed like a red carpet as every person in the room took photos and left their flashes on to blind us. I’d never felt more like a rock star, or less like one.
Then was the getting to know people bit. Where we walked around and I became my wife’s political lackie. Moving her from table to table, making sure she covered everyone and didn’t get too distracted by meeting the people she actually did know. It actually became a challenge for me to make my wife talk to as many people as possible and more than any of the rest of the wedding aprty. Then was the food, and the ice sculpture.
Apparently ice sculptures are the done thing in Sri Lanka. So we, (me, wife, and bro n sis in law) asked for a koala riding an elephant drinking a cup of tea. If you are going to have an ice scupltupre, you are already absurd, so you might as well go for it. The idea was the perfect blend of both couples. Instead we got this, which was more realistic, and still pretty cool.
At dinner I did partake in some of the local food. I popped in some sort of beef curry type deal, and then ate the local kurd. Probably because I was drunk, or because I was convinced my mum said she was eating turd.
After the party I drank more, and then went to sleep. At around 4am I woke up. And that is when it started, the shits. Those shits. The ‘I travelled away from home’ shits. The first few shits were as bad as any sort of diarrhoea (one of the all time best words). But then shit got real. So to speak.
I went white, the shit kept coming. Then I started feeling dead. Not dead, dead, but dead enough. We were supposed to finish the weekend with a civilised dinner at a relatives house, but my ass just wouldn’t quit. So while the others were enjoying Sri Lankan hospitality I was painting the porcelain yellowy brown every 45 minutes.
It couldn’t get much worse, then it did. I sharted. What was worse was that I sharted (if you didn’t click the link, a shart is a fart where shit comes out) while laying in bed. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get off a bed when you are sicker than R Kelly and your ass is covered with shit. I never noticed that everytime I get off a bed my ass hits the surface. Now I was stuck with a shitty butt, and trying like hell to roll off the bed and not end up staining the carpet. After 8 minutes, I managed it. Even though it was a private victory, I really believed I had accomplished something.
It couldn’t get much worse, then it did. The mouth came onboard to. It probably felt left out. All day I had been waiting for the inevitable vomit, but nothing had come, so it surprised me when it did and I almost got to the toilet before I did. Instead I painted the hall of the room with vomit, then finally vomited in the toilet while I shit myself at the same time. It was funny, but it was a ‘had to be there’ kind of thing.
In a hotel room you don’t really have the tools needed for cleaning up vomit. So I called the cleaners in. I was hoping for some sort of Harvey Keitel type person to come in and just take charge of the situation. Instead I got a young bloke who looked like he had received his first vomit call. He did clean it quite well, but I had to look over his work and tell him to clean the wall, the plastic bags, the toilet and take the shit stained bathmat.
With his cleaning skills and my knowledge of what I had and hadn’t dirtied, he had the room clean in 20 minutes and I have him more rupees than he probably makes in a day as a tip. He may have been downhearted when he arrived, but after cleaning all that vomit and shit, he had the cash in his hand, and he left with a huge smile you that wouldn’t let you believe he had just cleaned up human waste. I felt better mentally, but still very fucken crook.
Then the doctor came over when the wife came over and I had blanket on. I don’t really use blankets that often, and using them in Sri Lanka with air conditioning on was enough for her to know I had more than the runs. According to the doctor, and his well behaved two bag carriers, I had food poisoning. And he put me on more drugs than Keith Richard.
4 days later my turds regained turgidity, and I was ok again.
It was either the drugs or the fact I had left Colombo.
Just to be safe I never ate kurd again. Maybe it wasn’t kurd that made me sick, but kurd sounds so much like turd I thought it was better if I played it safe.
talking about fish and chips
With all the Australians in my house (which my wife has assured me that she would love more of them to come and was happy with the ones that did) I’ve been talking a lot about fish and chips.
Sure they have fish and chips in the UK, but it isn’t the same. Just as if you were brought up on UK fish and chips the Aussie ones wouldn’t be the same.
All this started when my mate wore a chiko roll t-shirt.
A chiko roll is, well someone else has explained it better, “Some variation of a Chinese spring roll. It started off as a Chicken Roll and being Australian, was quickly reduced to a Chiko. But no chicken, just mutton, massively battered with bits of cabbage, carrot, animal fat, celery, onions, green beans, textured soy protein, cooked barley, salt, sugar, spices and numbers like 471, 635, 320, 450 and colours 102, 100.”
It should be said that over the years I can’t recall seeing anyone eat one of these.
But the chiko roll myth is way more than about food, it was about Posters. When I grew up every fish and chip shop had an old terribly sexist poster in their shop. Some had more. They were always badly laminated or falling apart, but they had pride of place in the fish and chip shop.
Chiko Chick
Going to the fish and chip shop or the mechanics was one of two places I would get my soft-core thrill. It was like Baywatch before there was a Baywatch. You can say whatever you want about those posters, but those girls always knew how to hold that roll.
So seeing the Chiko Roll girl on my mate’s chest took we way back to fish and chip shops I grew up in. Greek guys running it, calling everyone boss, dirty grease everywhere. Sweltering heat in the mostly non air-conditioned shop. Deciding between Flake or Whiting. And the Chiko Roll Girl sitting proudly on the wall grasping that phallic food that seemed like an even dodgier version of the dim sim.
It started a huge discussion that involved a 15 minute section where my mate and I both badly explained what a potato cake is to my wife.
For those who don’t know, the potato cake (or potato scallop) is a large thin piece of potato that is deep fried in batter. I’ve never truly seen the need for potato cakes, I’m already getting deep fried potato in the form of chips, do I really need more, and battered.
But many people do.
As my conversation with my other Aussie mate a few days later showed. His family would get a whole heap of potato cakes, as part of their Friday night order. I know a lot of families that had fish and chips as a Friday night special.
This was always a big thing in Australia, getting fish and chips on a Friday night can be an experience, the really clever people phone their order in. Everyone seems to be wearing moccasins or thongs (jandals/flipflops) and people always seemed to be holding their keys in their hands.
We never did, most of my fish and chips meals were when my mum was out.
Dad loves his fish and chips, and this was good as I loved dim sims and he loved potato cakes, so when he got meal deals, we would swap dim sims for potato cakes, although when my mother was involved she would ruin it, as she liked dim sims as well.
I’ll be back in Australia in November, and on that first night I shall eat fish and chips.
But for now, the two rather long and drawn out fish and chip discussions were more than enough.
baker’s delight
I think I would have mentioned this before, but if I haven’t i should have.
I love bakeries.
And in Australia they seem to be everywhere.
In England not so much.
There are greggs, which seem to be a punch line more than a Bakery, and very few others.
In London a bakery generally means a bread shop.
In Melbourne a bakery is a wonderland of 8 different kinds of rolls and donuts alone.
There is a particular bakery in the northern suburbs of melbourne that makes rolls so good you can pretty much eat one then shoot your face off.
With my limited experiences in Greggs i would say that is not the case.
But now I have a new independent local bakery, and I loves them.
They are still nothing like a Melbourne bakery, they have two kinds of rolls, soft and hard, and a small rack of breads, but their food is great.
Today I ate 3 rolls with vegemite, and I haven’t felt so at home in London as i did at that very moment.
I do love rolls.
I can’t lie.
And these were good, so soft you’d think a baby’s ass was made of granite in comparison.
The best thing is this bakery is just around the corner.
I plan on visiting them often.
to belfast
Yesterday was my birthday.
I am supposed to be in Belfast right now enjoying it.
But for two days on the trot Gatwick has been snowed in. Memo to white racists, not everything white is good, see Noel Edmonds and snow.
The first day was ok as we knew early and never had to go to Gatwick, today we were not so lucky.
Our flight was at dawn, or midday, so we had to get up way before 9 in the AM.
We did that couple thing of blaming each other for the fact we had to rush to the station, and then we had to buy two different tickets to make it to the airport due to delays on the first train we bought a ticket for.
Then we arrived at the dante-esque gatwick, where we literally had to step over the corpses of deceased air travelers to arrive at the check in desk in on time only to find out our first flight was cancelled. Gatwick is a special place, more like a bus terminal with confused people bumping into shit and discounted airlines flying to obvioulsy made up places, like Faro and the Ukraine.
So then we had to line up with everyone other poor bastard, but we also called them at the same time to try and ease our pain.
While we were in the line some lady asked us to “‘mind” her bags. We declined, only because she hadn’t labeled which one had drugs and which one had bombs.
Then after my 20 minutes on the phone to a guy who’s only excuse could have been that his brain was damaged or that it was his first day on the job put us on the next flight.
It was a shame, as I was growing fond of him fumbling around the keyboard and the screeching interference that came through, which in it’s own way made more sense than him.
Then we looked for a restaurant, we found two, both of which had long waits, one because it was full, the other because it had no staff. We chose the American themed no staff restaurant.
It was great because the food was shit, overpriced, and I got to listen to Mr Bojangles and What a wonderful world three times each.
Then, even though we had been checking the board the whole time, it was via our phones that we found out that yet again we would not be travelling. Ofcourse the counter told us to wait another 5 hours for our next flight, because it hadn’t been cancelled yet, we decided to give our trip a miss after 30 hours of our holiday had already gone.
Eventually we got home, and that was the best part of my birthday, well before I saw the dirty dozen and drank whisky.
One day I shall get to Belfast, I promise.
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