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My mother smelled of what, now?

Eh. Sorry, about the lameness, peeps…I got all jammed up today and if I don’t go take a bath RIGHT NOW, Uncle B is going to leave me for the slop bucket.

I harvested the elderberries today and started a gallon of wine. Fiddly little bastards, aren’t they? And it won’t be drinkable for a year.

Oh, also, I made mushroom, leek and cucumber soup (because that’s what I had to get rid of). I’m thinking of calling it “cream of beige.”

Comments


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 9, 2010, 11:30 pm

I wish to categorically deny any rumours about myself and the slop bucket.

Anyone suggesting otherwise will be hearing from my lawyers.

The cat, on the other hand…


Comment from Mark
Time: September 10, 2010, 12:46 am

Ya know, once it’s done wining, ya might be able distill it into a more medicinal level of spiritage…


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: September 10, 2010, 1:07 am

Ah, c’mon UB. We’ve all done the slop bucket once or twice….. Usually after ingesting copious amounts of tequila.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 10, 2010, 1:14 am

Mm, Scubafreak? The resident pedant can’t help checking in. . .I dont’t think Britons DO tequila. Certainly not while ensconced at home behind the white cliffs of Dover. I suppose, when abroad. . .although even then, the impression derived from British literature of the last century-and-a-half is that they do NOT do the native drinks, unless they are going native. I refuse to attempt to envisage Uncle Badger going native anywhere that would involve crossing salt water.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: September 10, 2010, 2:09 am

Damn, Hark! Next i’ll bet you are going to tell me that UB has never tried to ride an electric floor buffer!

What’s a guy gotta do to have some fun? Snort powdered Wasabi?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvNg9O5gFXk

๐Ÿ˜‰


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 10, 2010, 2:16 am

Um, Scube, I know no more of Uncle B than you do–quite possibly less. So I don’t know about him and electric floor buffers but, yeah, if you are attempting to undermine my claim to authority by demonstrating the shallow depths on which my pedantry rests, you win. WTF is this about electric floor buffers? Searching my extensive memory of 19th and 20th century print fiction. . . I got nothing. Drat you for revealing the paucity of my pedantry!


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: September 10, 2010, 2:19 am

That’s OK, Hark. The video I posted is an education in and of itself….. ๐Ÿ˜‰


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 10, 2010, 2:37 am

Well, I only managed to watch about half of it. If the secret of life and the universe was revealed in the second half, I guess I’m doomed. . .not that that is anything new! It did, however, evoke a powerful personal memory. . .

Midway through my first year in law school (in the midwest) I returned east and stopped in (on the way to visit my parents) to visit my former-fellow-secretaries-in-the-NYC-Office-of-a-not-to-be-disclosed-labor-union (that had to do with guys who fly planes). One of my former fellow office workers suggested we do lunch. Thing is, I had spent the evening before in the uninhibited consumption of alcoholic beverages, so I wasn’t feeling real adventurous. And she chose a Japanese restaurant. . .in an era when even those of us who sought out ethnic foods weren’t at all familiar with Japanese cuisine up close and personal (late 1970s? ‘k?).

Scrutinizing the menu, I decided that tuna was a pretty safe choice. Yes, well. When the quivering shiny red tuna chunks arrived, the information (filed in the back of my brain at some earlier date) that the Japanese ate a lot of raw animal tissue suddenly snapped into focus. OK, I knew I could do this, but it needed some time to ease into it. And I didn’t want to LOOK like I was hesitating, so I decided to nonchalantly eat the little ornamental whirl of green mayonnaise that decorated the raw tuna.

My First Encounter With Wasabi. Picture the guy in that video having to maintain complete composure and make conversation following his initial snort. Sorry–he’s a wimp! I managed it.

Mind you, I love wasabi, but have ever since treated it with the respect it deserves.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: September 10, 2010, 3:05 am

Elderberry wine?

Hippie.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 10, 2010, 3:08 am

That’s why she mentioned her mother, Christopher! Surely you’ve been paying attention. . .there’s going to be a pop quiz on all things Weasel any day now!


Comment from Allen
Time: September 10, 2010, 3:58 am

One of the older Elton John songs has a lyric, “Elderberry Wine.” It might be the name of the song, but my Elderness might be kicking in, so I could be wrong.

What the hell, at least I’m more aware than Joe Biden.


Comment from EZnSF
Time: September 10, 2010, 4:36 am

Hippie Wine? I want the recipe! And step by step directions!
And the proof.

Speaking of things to ingest, I got me spotted-dicks yesterday Dame Stoat! Thanks so much. What struck me when opening your package was the scent from the wrapping. It was a musty-sweet smell that I’m imagining is a cross between old English countryside, elderberries, and freshly scented English women. (does that sound creepy?) Who cares. You know how every house has a different smell? Yeah, like that. Anyway, It was like Christmas.

Made in NZ? WTF? Lazy Englishmen. I’m hoping to send you a photo of it on a picnic with my hometown in the background. The most well traveled Dick on earth!

Still speaking of thing to ingest: My dick did have a bit of an accident last night. I set the package on the counter next to a jar of 7 year old sourdough starter that needed feeding. Apparently, I fed it a bit aggressively. Yes, I got sponge all over my dick. No lie.

Let me know, I’d send authentic SF SD starter to anyone who wants it! Would love to in fact.

Thanks again your Stoatyness.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: September 10, 2010, 4:53 am

CHMC, huh? What’s this nonsense about Brits not drinking tequila? When I was at school a quarter century ago, a very popular drink (especially with the girls, and the guys trying to get in their frilly white panties) was the Tequila Slammer. A shot of something ropy like Joe Crow, two shots of fizzy lemonade, you put your hand over the top, slammed it on the table so it would froth up and then necked it in one go. Five of those down a 16-year old girl’s throat materially increased the likelihood of someone having a happy experience. It got even worse when I went to university.

Anyway, tequila is a poof. My brother and I killed a litre bottle of genuine Oaxaca Mezcal one night in 1988 or so – I had the worm, along with about a dozen bottles of Sol – and we still shudderingly reminisce about how appalling the hangover was (and this is two guys who don’t get hangovers normally). I think the only time I’ve felt rougher was the day after I had a half litre of Grappa on an empty stomach, but that’s another story. Although maybe the morning after I drank three bottles of Retsina, or when we had a 60-hour bender after second year exams, or…

Christ, I’m an alcoholic.


Comment from Pavel
Time: September 10, 2010, 6:10 am

I can relate to the story, David. I celebrated my 23rd birthday in a bar called Dago Joes in Ajo, Arizona. Everyone in the place bought me a shot, or two, or hell, a dozen, of tequila. I was then ferried to a friend’s place wherein we polished off a bottle of Bailey’s, not understanding that it is the mortal enemy of tequila.

Buicks and Chevrolets abounded, and the hangover was enough to make me swear off booze for nearly twelve hours.


Comment from Hotrodelectric
Time: September 10, 2010, 6:41 am

Allen- Yah, that is the name of the song. The Honky Chateau album. Even have it going through my brain right now…

Drunk all the time,
feelin’ fine
on Elderberry Wine

Those were the days
We laid in the haze
forget depressive times

How could I ever,
get it together
without a wife in line

to pick the crop
and get me hot
on Elderberry Wine!


Comment from gebrauchshund
Time: September 10, 2010, 7:19 am

In my first encounter with wasabi I assumed it was something akin to guacamole. I like guacamole, a lot. I like wasabi too, but it doesn’t really operate the same as guacamole.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: September 10, 2010, 10:43 am

David Gilles–Ah! Seems, then, that my image of England is a bit out of date. I blush with the mortification natural to those who try to set others right, only to be set right themselves–but still, I thank you for the correction.

And your anecdotes put me in mind of a Steve Goodman song–“How Much Tequila Did I Drink Last Night?” (“I drank so much that my hair got drunk. . .”)


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 10, 2010, 11:46 am

I had a wasabi incident, too. And I was a teenager in the era of the tequila sunrise — what grenadine looks like coming up is not to be believed!

Oh, and saw Elton John in concert in 1975. The year he came out. I went to see a piano player, and I got…well!


Comment from Clifford Scridlow
Time: September 10, 2010, 12:47 pm

David G. –
I keep the last of three bottles of Cusano Rojo mescal, purchased on a trip to Mexico in 1975, in the back of the liquor cabinet to remind me of the string of bad decisions made on that trip. I get a bit of a cold sweat just looking at it.


Comment from MCPO Airdale
Time: September 11, 2010, 4:16 am

I lurves this blog!


Comment from Frit
Time: September 11, 2010, 7:51 am

“My mother smelled of what, now?”

Ah, memories of Monty Python! ๐Ÿ˜‰

As for the wasabi – I spent three years in Japan back in the ’60s as a bratling, and learned about wasabi, sushi, and sushimi at an early age. Been in love with it all since!

However, it boggles the mind to realize that the person in the vid did not make the connection between wasabi causing a burning sensation in the mouth – an area often accustomed and therefor somewhat inured to same – and the probability of wasabi cauterizing the nasal passages, which are not usually accustomed to direct exposure to burning spices.

Do people no longer think things through? Or have I missed something in the translation here? *blink, blink*


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: September 13, 2010, 1:26 am

Jen-you-wine SF sourdough starter? I want some! I’ve got one, but I’m always up to getting another. ๐Ÿ™‚

Just got back from LA. Left work on Friday to head down to Monterey county to pick up assorted family members, from whence we left yesterday AM to see Walking With Dinosaurs at the Staples Center, and then home this morning. Very tired, and wondering what idiot thinks that driving from Sacramento to Los Angeles–with a jog to Salinas and King City–is a weekend trip?

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