Tag, I’m IT
The lovely Lindsey from the blog adventures in the desert tagged me! What this means is that I have to meet her challenge of telling five things about myself and then tagging five other bloggers.
Why? you ask.
Because it’s there.Because it’s silly. Because it’s time to LIGHTEN UP.
1. I live alone and I cook for myself alone about three or four times per week. Sometimes, it gets rediculous, like the night a few weeks ago I made mushroom sauce, braised kale with caramelized onions and aged balsamic, and fried perogies. (With one hand, need I remind you). Dirty pots for days. But it gave the day closure, with ritual and sense memory and good food.
2.I love dressing up. Alas, my lifestyle does not require me to go to galas and ballroom dances; thus, I must organize my own fun. At least twice a year, there’s a themed party at my house. Sometimes, I’m one of only a few in a fancy dress, as in this year’s Oscar party (open theme – I channelled Edith Piaf from La Vie en Rose). Last year’s Queen theme got more folks dressing up: we had paparazzi, a schoolboy, and me, of course, as The Queen. Cucumber sandwiches and gin drunk from tea cups completed the scenario. I’ve used my dressing up fetish for political ends too, as in the culture-jamming project Billionaires for the Olympics to protest Vancouver’s bid for the 2010 Olympics. We lost, obviously, but I got to wear a cheetah coat and matching hat for a good cause!
3. My fridge, aurgh…well, if I had to describe my fridge I’d say she’s the messiest girl in town. She’s self-centred, a hedonist, perhaps a tad slutty. She’s never without olives, good cheese and gin…but she’ll forget all about the milk and eggs and tofu. She doesn’t believe in cleaning up after herself. But she always comes through in the end. She’s a whore with a heart of gold.
4. I seriously believe that cooking with a lover is as good as sex. When you get that culinary vibe going, and one person’s chopping, another is sauteeing, jazz on the sound system – ahhh! It’s the best!
5. I have the worst kitchen supplies of almost anyone I know. My pots date back to a bad breakup in 1995 – a woman with excellent kitchen pots was supposed to move in with me, and didn’t. After the requisite mourning period, my friend Sheena marched me to The Bay to buy a set of pots and and pans. Thirteen years later, it’s time to upgrade, but I have decided it’s Le Creuset (or reasonable facsimile) or nothing. I also lack: oven mitts, a good set of matching dishes, salad bowl, serving utensils, the list goes on. Somehow, I manage to produce great meals, but people are often scandalized when I pull out my scarred pots and burnt wooden spoons. I did however purchase a lovely Remy Olivier green cast-iron-enamel-covered pot recently, so the times are a changin’.