Loose Cans

Incidentally, the follow-up to yesterdays adventures in the land of Gastronomy is a very happy one. I now have a full liter of good old-fashioned chicken stock, which I somehow managed to get into a milk jug, a slab of raw steak I didn't use, a big ass piece of chicken and half a jam jar (say that out loud: "half a jam jar." Assonance!) of real good teriyaki sauce.

The teriyaki that was used, though, went towards the artefaction of the single most succulent dish I have prepared all year (that's not bragging; it doesn't necessarily speak well for all the other dishes. It's just that this stuff was remarkable). I don't know why the teriyaki beef and onions over rice was so good, maybe it was the quality of the beef, which was excellent, maybe the Pearl River soy (70cl for €2! Cheapest available!)...I don't know. I hate using €0.44 Tesco value rice, and am glad I finished that bag last night. It just glues itself right to the pan, sucks up all the water and never fleshes out right . I'm going to buy some decent goddamn rice.

I've been reading Me Talk Pretty One Day again. It's Sadie's copy, but it's been making the rounds. A few months ago, I took it upon myself to introduce my friends (no one can really be my friend and not know Sedaris; it's just one of those ineluctable, insurmountable deficiencies in a person) to Sedaris, when I brought Holidays on Ice back from the States for Sadie, who had actually worked as a Christmas elf. We had also, you will remember, watched Elf twice in one night. So it was appropriate and adored (zeugma-tastic!) by all who read it. Sadie then went out and bought Me Talk Pretty, which has been making the rounds and has, at long last, found its way into my hands. And it makes me glad. It's a pretty day.

I am now going to go and spend the rest of the day reading it, pausing only to prepare my slow-cooked Beef Barley soup at about 2pm. Hold all my calls, Miss Numblythums.

I have spent the entire afternoon, five hours, bent over the damn stove. I have made chicken stock for tomorrow with the bones from the excellent buttered roast chicken I made last week, then I made fried chicken with smashed podadoes and groovy for lunch. The groovy was fine, and the chicken adequate. I'm still not using enough oil in the skillet, though. It got well-fried on one side, somewhat blackened on the other as the oil itself burned, and then only decently-done on the interior. It's okay. I have a humongo block of solid vegetable oil left, and a lot more chicken. I did a big shopping this morning at the butcher's and grocer's (not the supermarket, the grocer's; he's much nicer and he's got everything I need, like barley for tomorrow's slow-cooked beef and barley zuppa, which Tesco don't have, the barley I mean, not the soup, they have the soup, but where's the fun in that, plus the grocer is an awfully helpful, pleasant guy who not only gives you parsley for free, but who told me that the kind of barley they had was better than the wholly introuvable pearl barley, which the recipe called for, as the former had more roughage in it, and I'm a little proud of myself for being able to spell that), buying loads of meat and ingredients. Bought a big, wine-bottle-sized bottle of Pearl River Soy sauce. Also bought stewing beef for tomorrow's soup, a nice slab of round steak for tonight's beef teriyaki (marinating right now in homemade sauce), and too much chicken for today's lunch. Big cooking weekend, not sure why.

Anyhow, the fried chicken. Well, the gravy and mash were good. I need to work on my frying technique, though. The chicken stock is done, too. I found an old plastic milk jug to put it in. Yes, I washed the jug. Incidentally, should I freeze the stock or just refrigerate it? Also, I did the right thing throwing out all the solids, yes? Not of my goddamn cookbooks had a real recipe beyond chicken broth, so I more or less went pot luck, chucking in a carrot, an onion (it was a small chicken and a small pot), a celery stick, a chicken bouillon cube (one of the books encouraged it for broth), and, of course, ze magical bay leaf.

I enjoy cooking. There was a fun moment when Mama called, and I was at that moment tending to all four cookers on the hob. You talk about multi-tasking. It's the first time in our flat's rhinestone-studded history that one person has been responsible for all four at once. I felt very big.

I'm getting much more confident around a stove. I'll admit to being scared to death of anything involving baking, simply because I am useless and don't think I have the peaceful, patient, assiduous demeanor required of the baker. I identify much more with Emeril: I like to shake the stuff in my skillet and yell "BAM!" a lot.

She's 47 today.

Or something like that...in the forties somewhere. Not at her silver Jubilee yet, though. In any case I'm still a huge fan of that dignified streak of silver hair down the middle of the part. Huge fan.

And again, I'm of divided mind regarding whether or not to go to my fifth Ultimate session since Sunday. I'm a wreck. Both lower legs seem to have spurs in them; running is unnaturally painful. Frankly, I'm terribly unfit. It's weird. I shouldn't be in this shape. I play so often, and for so long, that it doesn't make sense. These things so rarely do. But I'm thinking I need to start fitness training over the summer. But there's no way I'll get it done alone; you have to do these things in pairs. Anyone (Samantha?) up for a little summer conditioning?

See, my legs have been taking a lot of strain because we've instituted these lovely new weekday sessions in Herbert Park, Tuesday and Thursday, 6pm till the park closes, and your man walks all around the park, ringing his little bell. We also had a humongous turnout at TCD practice yesterday; suddenly, in the past two weeks, eight new girls have turned up. Two in particular are quite serious, and are improving with delightful celerity, but Mike is rolling his eyes at the thought of my assessing them on the basis of their talent...see, the thing is, for some reason, the women of Irish ultimate are, as a species, uncommonly lovely. And these new ones do more than fit the category. We are now four fresher guys to something like eight wenches. But Mike, you should know better: teamcest is what we in the industry like to refer to as a poor, poor idea. So I stick to teaching them moves, not making them.

But don't worry: these girls, you know, they do have friends...

I have realized exactly what the difference is between the Americans and the Irish. Everything will now be made clear. It's very simple:

In America, we call it plumber's crack. In Ireland, they call it farmer's crack.

It all makes sense now.

Well, weather, if you're not feeling cooperative just yet, maybe a wee injection of a few kajillion more chlorofluorocarbons up your ass would help spring along, hmm?

It's gone back to being bitchy, after all. The warmth and sun sort of petered out after the weekend and apparently migrated down to the south of France to recuperate after their ordeal. It seems that, if you're the sun, showing your face in this country is really one of those tests of strength. I suppose busting through smothering, oppressive clouds can be pretty exhausting. I might need a rest cure, too.

Oh, wait. I'm getting one in a week. Parigi, here I come.

<<>><<>><<>><<>>

I haven't been sleeping well. I'm not sure what it is. I crash around 11:30 or 12, toss and turn all night, sleep lightly (this is in large part the fault of my flatmates banging around at all fucking hours; if they decide to carry on in the hall, which is the worst of all, I am occasionally forced to hurl my frisbees, which I happen to have at bedside, at my door, producing a terrifically startling BANG, followed by a HAVE YOU PEOPLE NO HOMES TO GO TO!, often producing the intended effect of getting them to shut the fuck up. The only drawback is that it is not healthy for the frisbees and I end up having to put them in the microwave to unwarp them. Also my flatmates don't take kindly to it. But what the fuck do I care, they're jackasses), and then, bizarrely, wake up between 8am and 9:30. Even when I get to bed at 5am, as happened the other night, I was still up and out of bed by 9:30. I thought, for a while, that I'd acquired that holy power of sleeping in which Sadie possesses, and which I envy deeply. Turns out that was a fluke.

It's not like I peter out midway through the day, it just bugs me at night.

You know what it is? It only started after they cut my hair. And now, yet-closer-cropped as I am, it's even worse. I think it's a direct result of my having lost that little bit of extra padding my hitherto voluminous hair provided. Seriously. The pillow doesn't feel as firm as it used to, either (this might also have something to do with the fact that the pillow's what, five years old?). Furthermore I'm very much of "twosome twiminds" about whether or not to doff the duvet altogether, in favor of my blankets. I did it one night, because it was ungodly hot out, but then it turned cold again. See, it's that it's just a little too hot under that bulk. Just a little, just enough so that at some point, usually around 2am, you wake up to sweat prickling all over your body, and you have to get up, open the window (which you have closed because every fucking night you have people coming through that damn stone echo chamber of a courtyard your window overlooks, singing, shouting, clapping, making a terrific ruckus, and making it entirely impossible to sleep), throw off the duvet, wait a few moments, begin to freeze because now there's a draft and the sweat is cooling, as water does, and then finally give up and pull the damn thing up again, hunching under it for warmth.

O but I shall miss Halls ever so terribly.

Yesterday John told me that if you go onto iTunes on the TCD network, people's shared playlists will come up. So I brought my iPod cable today, hoping to siphon off a few hundred tracks. I have found, unfortunately, that shared playlists cannot be transferred, which is infuriating, because this one guy has the most spectacular classical collection I have ever seen, 6690 magnificent tracks. Right now I'm plugged into the largest Jordi Savall trove ever (if anyone's wondering what to get me for my birthday, I adore Jordi Savall/Hesperion--the album presently on is called XX Ans de Hesperion). He's got all of The Rake's Progress, all the Dreigroschen Oper, Otello, Coltrane up the arse, even Meredith fucking Monk, I'm dying here...19 some-odd days of classical music. It's brilliant and I HATE that I can't have it.

UPDATE: Oh, Jesus. He's got about 40 Alan Lomax songs. For those unfortunate enough not to be familiar with the work of Lomax, he's the world's most important songcatcher: he spent his days traveling everywhere, collecting traditional songs from every culture you could think of. He just got everyday country people to sing into his gramophone, and the effect is stunning. The album is called The Alan Lomax Sampler, and it's just something else. This guy is too cool. And yes, I know it's a guy; the playlist's called "Paul Keenan's music."

He also has Aretha Franklin right next door to Martha Argerich. Bliss.

No, really, I feel like a different person--well, not so much a different person as the same person in a different place (the relationship there is worth looking into, don't you agree?). We have had dazzling, warm, sunny weather this past weekend, with dozens of Halls denizens lounging and sunning on the banks of the great green greasy Limpopo water feature, and today it's trying to peter out, and I refuse to let it happen. I am still wearing shorts in protest.

Also there's a wee ultimate meeting today, by which we mean, a congregation at the Pav pub, a spot of talking about matters of the utmost importance, like our name (still taking suggestions) to pass the time while we drink refreshing beer, followed by throwing. Rinse and repeat.

Only this time it was Stephen and Reem, and they had the good sense to use a razor. After the lawnmower job Brona and Sara Jane did, it took to growing at an alarming rate, in all the wrong directions. So one night in Sadie's flat, we lay down newspapers, put a weenie-ass towel around my neck, and went at it, mostly to the end of damage control. It now looks evenly shorn. Not half bad, really. There is a picture, yes. It's not all gone, but there's not much there. The consolation is that there was and is still this bit at the front, the widow's peak, which no amount of attention from the razor could disrupt. It peaks defiantly. I'm very proud of it.