Cooking Up a Storm

My status update from Facebook, 16th February 2013 (late this afternoon):

Covered in jam, banana slime, fish scales and guts. Seems about right...

Today was one of those rare completely free Saturdays. Usually I have someone to see or somewhere to go or both, but today was supposed to be a day to recharge my batteries. Too bad I had too much energy to burn and too many ideas in my head.

And when I have a lot of energy, a lot of ideas and even the slightest amount of free time, I can usually be found in the kitchen.

The morning saw the creation of jam sandwich biscuits, followed by a loaf of banana bread. Then I scaled and cleaned out some trout for dinner. However because I had rather a lot of energy and knew I was being a little ambitious in my culinary adventures time-wise, I sort of whirlwind-ed through the kitchen in a cloud of flour and goo... resulting in the above Facebook status.

Damn though, scaling fish is some serious business.

Short Stories: Making an Utter Arse of Myself- Part 2

(So soon? Why, yes. I told you there'd be more to come.)

I had a great day out in the West End with another good friend, Siu Yen, today. We first met at university in first year when we both took a foundation Japanese course as a side-study to our majors. Like all of my friends, she has her own unique and humorous way of seeing how the world works, and according to her I bring our her weirder side (this is a good thing, I'm told!)

She also knows I have a penchant for pretty edible things, sweet things and exotic food, and she kindly brought me a selection of Japanese sweets she'd found, ranging from biscuity to cakey to chewy.

On the train home I ate the mini mochi, mini dorayaki, and small handful of mini chewy sweets. The one I saved for last was an interesting-looking purple parcel that fitted in the palm of my hand, quite different from the others because the packaging obscured what was inside. I should have taken this as a warning, but instead I saw it as a challenge. Likewise when I prodded it and found that it was very, very squishy, I should have listened to my internal monologue that said 'hmm, this is probably going to be messy- better open it at home over a plate.' But instead, I opened it on the train.

It was one of those horrific moments where once you've committed yourself to a task, there's no going back, even though you realise instantly what a terrible mistake you've made. Instantly a sticky sugar syrup started oozing from the tear I made from the top, and because I had birthday presents for two people in the same bag, there was only one real way to dispose of the mess: by eating it.

I began by attempting to suck the syrup out from the tear, which proved to be noisy and just a bit on the socially unacceptable side. The train was packed full, so I really didn't want to draw attention to myself, and I abandoned this method as soon as the packet wasn't brimming with syrup. However I was still unable to just put the packet away because it was still leaking syrup- so I went for it and ripped the packet open further.

I was presented with a very squidgy, clear jelly-type thing, with what looked like an umeboshi (pickled plum) embedded in the middle. I knew it would taste fine, but I knew that visually, it looked quite horrendous. It certainly wobbled very indecently, and it wasn't just jiggly, it was slimy too.

I tried to delicately catch it with my teeth straight from the packet to avoid other people on the train having to see this alien-looking sweet, but only managed to bite off a small piece because it was so soft. After a few failed attempts I decided I was making more of a spectacle of myself with this clumsy display, so I went for it, took the slimy thing out with my fingers and bit straight into it.

The next part happened in a matter of seconds.

I bit straight into the umeboshi stone and choked in pain and surprise. This one simple action caused me to smear the remaining jelly across my face with one hand, and crush the packaging in my other hand, which caused the rest of the syrup to explode all over me.

Now exasperated, sticky and looking quite worse for wear, I glanced upwards, where a large family, who had apparently been observing me in silence, smiled sympathetically at me before getting off at their stop.

~Fin~

Of Street Food and Melting Makeup...

True to form, my first tale of woe will be of one that only happened yesterday.

I was milling around in Camden Town yesterday evening, waiting for the precise moment to start walking to London Zoo for the summer Zoo Lates event (one thing about me- I hate, hate, hate to be late for appointments and meetups, often resulting in me being somewhere ridiculously early and then having to find ways of entertaining myself- thankfully easily done in Camden Town, on this occasion). I noticed it was getting a bit breezier now, so I put my cardigan on, but without buttoning up- it wasn't that chilly (trust me, this is a key bit of information for later).

Having grabbed some food from one of the stalls and found a nice bench to sit and eat at, I suddenly remembered that the shirt I had on was white- not a crisp white mind you, but white with grey pinstripes. White enough to make a bad impression of a messy eater, in any case. Noting my poor choice in food in terms of stain factor, I ate the fluorescently orange (and very delicious) sweet and sour chicken with utmost care, and for once, successfully.

Making a note of the time, I decided to touch my makeup up a bit, being forever conscious of my oily (and therefore shiny) skin type. I checked myself in my compact mirror. Alright, was my internal assessment, but a bit reflective around the nose and forehead area: better sort that out before I meet the guys. I fished out my trusty tube of Benefit The Porefessional primer from the depths of my bottomless bag (I always make a point of buying bags with TARDIS technology), unscrewed the lid and carefully squeezed a tiny blob onto the back of my hand.


At least, I intended to squeeze out a tiny blob.

What I actually squeezed out was a whole lot of runny mess, and all over myself: the primer had melted in the warm weather. Cursing, I hurriedly screwed the top back on and made that pose everyone does when suddenly covered with wet stuff (you know, the 'looking generally down at yourself in disbelief with your elbows at your sides but your forearms stuck out like an incredulous velociraptor' pose). It wasn't looking good- now my shirt was streaked with light peachy marks. Could be worse, I thought to myself, at least it's nowhere near as noticable as sweet and sour would have been. I managed to mop myself up well enough with some tissues, but couldn't help noting that I hadn't solved my shiny face problem yet. It occurred to me that I should have kneaded the tube before using it. Silly me! It had been in my bag for a while, after all. I picked the tube up again, and squished it around.

I didn't realise that, in my previous haphazard hurry, I hadn't screwed the top back on properly.

So here I was, shiny-faced and with primer makeup on practically every part of my body except for my face. A bit fed up now, I managed to smear a bit of the stuff straight from my shirt onto my face, re-mopped myself up as best I could, and decided it was time to get myself to the zoo.

I should have just kept walking, in hindsight. Instead, I stopped by a churros stall. I noticed they were doing large, filled churros instead of the traditional thin ones that you dip into chocolate, so I went to get one, deciding that it would cheer me up. And it did, for a while.

I got about halfway through it until it very quietly and very messily exploded.

Now thoroughly fed-up indeed, churro-less and looking like the posterchild for a Persil advert, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd now be meeting my friends looking utterly ridiculous. I whipped out some more tissues and started cleaning the sticky stuff from my bag, and as well as I could from my trousers. I sighed, preparing myself, and looked down to properly assess the state of my shirt, which was of course terrible.

It was then that I noticed why it had suddenly gotten breezy earlier.

The middle button of my shirt had been undone the entire time, exposing, in all its green and spotty glory, my bra.

Which was now also splattered with chocolate.