Lyrics and lines....

I'm offering a spot for your favourite song lyrics and first lines of books. So to start things off:

"Three little birds sat on my window
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Summer came like cinnamon, so sweet;
Little girls double-dutch on the concrete."

Great lyric for a Sunday afternoon, from Corinne Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On. Expecting my copy to arrive tomorrow with great anticipation....

As for first lines of books, I don't think much can beat:

"Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt."

But here's one:

"My father was a millionaire in Shanghai in the 1930s."

From Bo Caldwell's The Distant Land of My Father, which I'm currently working my way through....

Fruits of thy labour......

So on quite possible the coldest day of the year in London, I was enticed to a somewhat impromptu Hawaiian-themed evening, which was to involve exotic fruits, Hawaiian shirts, surf videos and pizza (I had to forego the Hawaiian shirt, not being quite dressed for the occasion, and Hawaiian shirts being against my religion... I did overdose on pizza, though, having had a whole one for lunch too....). Marks & Spencer's Simply Food, being the plastic store that it is, didn't so much have fruit that wasn't already cubed and cellophaned, let alone exotic types. Still, we did what we could with one pineapple and a few boxes of canteloupe, rubbish mango and watermelon.

I got to play with Japanese steel (yay!), so as you can see, it all got a little out of control. Just a shame we didn't have any cocktail umbrellas:



I'm thinking of taking a fruit carving course.... anyway, suffice to say, I'm much better with a Japanese blade than I am at World Rally Championship, which involved 'driving' on an icy track in snowy conditions somewhere in Sweden while listening to Alpinestars. My PS2 thumbs are a little rusty, so I'm dusting off those controllers.... bring on Gran Turismo.

Greens cont'd...

Ah, here we go:


Stir-fried monkfish with chilli and black bean sauce on a bed of shredded greens. Much improved. You don't need a second stomach after all....

Now then, I've been somewhat remiss of late:

"The smallest minds always have the biggest mouths."

Which brings me to The Guardian's Guy Browning's weekly How To column. This week: How to.... be silent. And I quote:

"Alligators have huge muscles that snap their jaws shut. Humans have similar, huge muscles that keep their mouths open. It takes a huge effort for most people to keep their mouths shut and, if you look back over your life, most of your problems will have come from under-utilisation of the alligator muscle. There is another added bonus to keeping your mouth shut, and that is a much-reduced incidence of obesity.

"...most people can't stand a silence without filling it. Some people feel a compulsive need to fill the silence with their own voice, regardless of what it's saying. This wittering is a form of human white noise."

Take heed, people.

And now for the result...

Yeah, it was kinda fibrous and slightly tough. At one point I thought I was gonna get lockjaw. But it was ok. Wasn't that crazy about it - it's kinda tasteless, but otherwise inoffensive. Maybe shredded next time, in some form of beef stew..... but it wasn't bad, and it went quite well with my pan-fried monkfish fillets with chilli and garlic and egg-fried rice.

Greens

Now, would anyone care to speculate as to the nature of this vegetable?

At the market it was rather helpfully labelled as 'greens'. Perhaps I should have asked, but I feared that the answer might be so self-evident as to incur disdain, and it was only a pound for a bagful. I presumed it was in season, and wasn't just some random weed they imported from Peru and decided to sell for 60p a pound. So I thought I'd give it a try. I suspect it's some kind of seed or root leaf - thick and fibrous, large white veins and tough broccoli-like stalks. But if the horticulturally-aware among you have a clue, let me know.

I'm thinking blanche and stir-fry with olive oil and garlic, which is my general approach to most vegetables of unknown aetiology.......

Katana @ The International

The recently modernized Katana really does have a very convenient location, just off Trafalgar Square in St. Martin's Lane. The bar downstairs always seems to be packed, and on a busy Friday night, you'll do well if you can manage to squeeze through the after-hours crowd, even if it's only to get to the restaurant upstairs. The restaurant itself is quite swanky, although it does get really loud and you'll have trouble hearing your fellow diners across the table, unless your table happens to be the all-girls table in the corner with the champagne bucket, in which case I imagine most of Westminster will get a listen.

The menu has a reasonable, if unadventurous, modern, Asian-infused choice of starters and mains. The calamari strips with chilli, garlic and lemongrass dip really were strips. A lesser man with chopsticks might have missed them altogether. Sadly, my phone doesn't have a night mode (really, Motorola, what's up with that?), but here was roasted aubergine with tofu and some funky coriander sauce:

Nice enough, but the food was lukewarm. The steamed seabass (across the table from me....) did look more appealing, I admit. But the service can be a bit ditzy. We had to remind three different waiters that we were missing two rice bowls. Incidentally, the rice was a bit too dry. So overall, not very impressive, and even with an offer of 2 courses for 12.50GBP, it was not great value for money after drinks and coffees. Wouldn't make a special effort to go there again, but it's inoffensive enough for an informal night out with friends.

Mmm....

There was something rather comforting about my first plate of pasta in 4 weeks... might I add that fresh tomatoes are always so much better than tinned. Shame you can't smell it.

Caché

This is what The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw has to say about Michael Haneke's (he of Code Unknown and The Piano Teacher fame, neither of which I've seen) latest endeavour:

Michael Haneke's masterpiece: a compelling politico-psychological essay about the denial and guilt mixed into the foundations of western prosperity..."

And this is Philip French's take:

"The acting all around is outstanding, with Auteuil and Binoche working beautifully together as their marriage falls apart, expressing their emotional upheaval through the slight movement of an eye or the flicker of a lip..."

yada, yada, yada.... which is precisely why I never bother to read film reviews. Yes, politico-psychological essay, and I have nothing against slight eye movements and flickers of the lip, but did either of these tell me that this is quite possibly the most depressing movie I'm likely to see all year? Were either of these reviews useful enough to tell me: "but hey, maybe this isn't a great choice of movie for a Friday night, unless your only other option involves sitting at home in the dark imagining a conversation with Schopenhauer...."

I'm willing to appreciate that the concept was quite interesting, but really... in the end it's just another thinly-veiled critique of Western foreign policy. The main argument goes something along the lines of "Western powers do things in a short-sighted manner to promote their interests, but are all too happy to shirk their responsibility, and when others try to show them the consequences of their actions, they get defensive and aggressive, escalating fear and misunderstanding, and leading to all kinds of unpleasant things."

But really, there's nothing new here, other than a few unnecessary scenes added for shock-value. What was good, however, was the Sushi Café at the Centre Point building. So good, in fact, that I ended up there twice on Friday for take-out lunch and dinner. I think the waitress must have thought I was a freak. The restaurant is above a Korean grocery store. They have great sushi and bento boxes and it's quite a relaxing place to have a meal. Reasonable people would have eaten for less than 20 pounds a head, but we ordered a lot of food.... (well, we just had to try those spicy tuna and shrimp maki......) Definitely worth many more visits!

Gluten-free free...

So, I mentioned that I actually quite like wheat-free muesli and yofu for breakfast, which is true. Not to mention that I'm eating more fruit now too. But really....

Need I say more?? Well, yes, I should actually. Their hot chocolate is amazing! You'll never want another cup of crap powder, sugar and water you get from the Tchibo machine at the office....

And what about tiramisu cake.....