domenica, novembre 09, 2008

It's not bad, it's good tucker

Yesterday we were going to go to Antwerp, get high, and look at Russian dolls. You know, that sentence is the answer to a bunch of questions about female preferences right there, notably, 'how do struggling artistic types (in this case the F-word) manage to score women who you'd think would be going for rich types because they have more resources and we are ruled by our Selfish Genes?' Here's one answer: the artistic types' aesthetic sense is such that they are not only willing to, but propose getting high and looking at Russian dolls. Squeeeee! Dolls! But we didn't go. We started in the wrong order, getting high before going to Antwerp, and then it just didn't roll out - I wanted a woodland ramble in the nearby Dudenpark, as well as to catch up on my own life here by cleaning out our shithole of an apartment a bit, and go for a lovely long grocery shop on the Parvis and the big Delhaize next to the Porte de Hal, and then to bake some bread, and then to do a little light social visiting.

So I or we did all that, and the soda bread I made was a fucking winner - extremely good. The first time I've made a heavy multigrain bread that really worked instead of seeming like a murder weapon. It will be hard to go back to yeasty breads now, particularly as this only took 10 minutes to prepare and 20 to bake. I worked off of this recipe but made some changes:

- we don't have any buttermilk so I used normal milk with a squirt of white vinegar stirred into it
- instead of using only oats, I used mostly oats and some rye flakes
- I used maple syrup instead of sugar
- instead of sprinking sesame seeds on top, I sprinkled cumin seeds, thinking in my height that they were caraway seeds. But the cumin was actually really fucking good.

This weekend was also notable for the quantity of Australian television that we watched. Not sure why. I think the F-word is getting nostalgic as the fucking stupid northern European winter sets in, and I'm probably just looking for a replacement for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, now that I don't care about the American election anymore. Three shows: Bush Mechanics, Bush Tucker Man, and The Chaser's War on Everything. Call me a stoner but I loved them all. Bush Tucker Man was probably my least favourite, not for the concept, but for the way the Steve-Irwinish Australianisms made the F-word cringe (one of them being the title of this post). He tried to tell me it would be like a Canadian television host using 'eh' at the end of every sentence and saying 'aboot' in an exagerrated fashion, but I'm hard pressed to see any problem with that.

Anyhoo. The Chaser's War on Everything is great. I can't compare it to much - it's a satirical show whose stunts are simultaneously cuter, edgier and, as the title suggests, more scattershot than one is used to from Canadian and American satirical shows. Here's their most famous stunt to date, and the one they only cleared up the legal trouble from earlier this year . . .

But the clear and absolute fucking winner was Bush Mechanics, which I'm tempted to call the best television show ever. I don't like using language enervating or prejudicial to our gay brethren and sethren, particularly after the brutality that's been done to them and their ability to swear their fucking lives away to their lovers in a bunch of American states, but what can I say, it seems my education has failed to provide me with an adequate simile beyond this one (yes, I'm blaming society): Bush Mechanics makes the protagonists of Pimp My Ride look like a bunch of fucking mincing fairy queens. Have a quick judge for yourself with this little teaser.

And on that note, I'm off for the final lesson before hopefully getting my provisional license . . .

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