Quelle cochonnerie, quelle connerie

Yesterday biologically speaking should have been a depressed sort of day and emotionally speaking should have been awful, what with occasional tears thinking of Grandpa using a walker and my dear Miss E.G. blundering around Beirut hoping a fucking bomb doesn't fall on her, looking for bread and canned food for the hundreds of panicked hungry refugees she's trying to keep calm and fed - no food is going in, and not nearly enough medical supplies, but I guess that's the fucking point, isn't it? Goddamn those responsible to something I can't even imagine - how I hate them!

But I promised a more cheerful post than usual, didn't I? Fine.

Despite periodic bouts of chokiness and rage, despite my own inept, hapless hand-wringing, despite swelling up like a beach ball as the Red Dragon (hopefully) flies in for a landing, despite my pervasive feeling of impending apocalypse, I kept remarking through the afternoon what an excellent mood I was in under the circumstances. I blame food. First, I've been eating the best hummus I've ever had - of course because I made it, with the juice of one lime, a drained can of rinsed chick peas, a dash of sesame oil, two teaspoons of sesame seeds creamed in the coffee-grinder, three cloves of garlic, a little olive oil, and salt to taste, all done in the blender. Look at the tryptophan levels on the chick peas! I might as well have been doing periodic bumps of MDMA. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. I've also been making and eating gorgeous raita and semi-gorgeous tzatziki, but not gorgeous enough for you to bother with my recipe when you can probably get something better off Epicurious.

Second, I've been gorging on honey. A few days ago during a particularly boring hard-to-concentrate stretch at work, I found out my middle name means 'affording honey'. That's nice considering how much of it I eat; I think I'm on my way to becoming the Gargamel of the Apiform world, especially as I'm now counting the days until I can afford a demesne where I can have my own apiary. While in Ottawa I did some honey shopping at a couple of farmer's markets and I saw some of the spring tree honey Jiri mentioned. Like a fool I didn't buy it; it was a touch more expensive and I knew I was going to another farmer's market the next day - but then it wasn't there. Mel, would you please get me some when you go back to the farmer's market if I can't find any before you get back from the Bruce? I've gone to my own local farmer's market, the St. Lawrence market; I've even looked online to order it and I can't find shit.

Well, I can - everybody look at how fucking pretty. See, there are reasons I want to move back to France besides the creepy songwriter poets - but like Sugarplum I'm all up for encouraging the more local merchants. And I'm cheap.

One thing I did buy at my own farmer's market was some royal jelly from John Alecu's afore-linked apiary. I was inspired by the Roald Dahl story about the substance; of course I'm always looking for ways to get fitter, prettier, happier and eventually unequivocally invincible. Haven't tried any yet, but I did let my cat lick a little off my finger to make sure it wasn't poisonous. She loved it and has been acting much more pretty and energetic. So there you are. Proof.