Random joy
Dec. 4th, 2002 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beetigerEvery once in a while the universe hands me a little gift, something that happens for no reason except to please me.
I was browsing the periodical rack at B&N yesterday, hoping to find a weird little magazine to offer Bard as a Hanukkah gift, when a bit of bright orange at the top of the rack caught my eye, up at the level of the pornographic magazines, but in the cooking and crafts section of the rack. I could only see a few English words at the top, mixed with Japanese: “eat”, “sizzling sydney”, “pregnant urges”, “ancient aphrodisiacs”, “honey pumpkin soup”, and in much larger letters than the rest, “gender”. Intrigued, I asked a man next to me who was browsing pornography to reach the magazine for me.
There was no more text on the rest of the cover. Just a picture, an arty closeup of an armpit and a bellybutton. I opened randomly to a full page photograph of honey being drizzled onto a slice of baklava. Flipping the pages showed a picture of a metal steamer and an article titled ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. I read a bit of the text.
When faced with the beauty of a steamer, my mind wanders. “Let’s steam a carp in sake with coriander and ginger!” “How about good old Chinese Shao-Mai, with a filling of pork, scallops, and pepper. I’ll smother it in soy sauce before munching into it.” “Or “How nice to steam a thick mixture of tofu and Chinese yam with grilled eel inside. It would go perfectly with tht pure sake from the Suwa region!”These plans swirl endlessly inside my head.”
I swooned. This thing didn’t belong there. The issue’s from June 2001, not at all recent. And it’s not a B&N type of ‘zine at all. I bought it immediately, seduced. It’s full of gorgeous food photography, and short indulgent articles about honey, milk, attractive urinals in restaurants, bath salts made with hot pepper, maternity food cravings, fish roe, aphrodisiacs, gender stereotypes and food choices, and champagne industry widows, all in facing Japanese and English. In the back, there are recipes: honeyed pumpkin soup with cumin, smoked salmon with edamame, shiso, and cherries. By the time I’m through looking, I’m breathing a touch more heavily, more deeply. Arousing, this stuff. Beautiful. Quirky.
Yes, the universe placed this in a suburban chain bookstore as a gift for me, I’m sure.
I’m doing a gift exchange, and the person for whom I’ve needed to buy something has listed in her suggestions “food porn”. I wasn’t sure what she meant. But this is clearly it. I don’t think I’ll be able to give this one up, though. This one’s my new bedside reading.
I was browsing the periodical rack at B&N yesterday, hoping to find a weird little magazine to offer Bard as a Hanukkah gift, when a bit of bright orange at the top of the rack caught my eye, up at the level of the pornographic magazines, but in the cooking and crafts section of the rack. I could only see a few English words at the top, mixed with Japanese: “eat”, “sizzling sydney”, “pregnant urges”, “ancient aphrodisiacs”, “honey pumpkin soup”, and in much larger letters than the rest, “gender”. Intrigued, I asked a man next to me who was browsing pornography to reach the magazine for me.
There was no more text on the rest of the cover. Just a picture, an arty closeup of an armpit and a bellybutton. I opened randomly to a full page photograph of honey being drizzled onto a slice of baklava. Flipping the pages showed a picture of a metal steamer and an article titled ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. I read a bit of the text.
When faced with the beauty of a steamer, my mind wanders. “Let’s steam a carp in sake with coriander and ginger!” “How about good old Chinese Shao-Mai, with a filling of pork, scallops, and pepper. I’ll smother it in soy sauce before munching into it.” “Or “How nice to steam a thick mixture of tofu and Chinese yam with grilled eel inside. It would go perfectly with tht pure sake from the Suwa region!”These plans swirl endlessly inside my head.”
I swooned. This thing didn’t belong there. The issue’s from June 2001, not at all recent. And it’s not a B&N type of ‘zine at all. I bought it immediately, seduced. It’s full of gorgeous food photography, and short indulgent articles about honey, milk, attractive urinals in restaurants, bath salts made with hot pepper, maternity food cravings, fish roe, aphrodisiacs, gender stereotypes and food choices, and champagne industry widows, all in facing Japanese and English. In the back, there are recipes: honeyed pumpkin soup with cumin, smoked salmon with edamame, shiso, and cherries. By the time I’m through looking, I’m breathing a touch more heavily, more deeply. Arousing, this stuff. Beautiful. Quirky.
Yes, the universe placed this in a suburban chain bookstore as a gift for me, I’m sure.
I’m doing a gift exchange, and the person for whom I’ve needed to buy something has listed in her suggestions “food porn”. I wasn’t sure what she meant. But this is clearly it. I don’t think I’ll be able to give this one up, though. This one’s my new bedside reading.
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no subject
Date: 2002-12-05 08:14 am (UTC)