Category Archives: Delicacies

Negroni

18 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by in [Lee], Barcelona, Delicacies, Ego | Indulgence, Fun, Poems

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                 *

El primero fue en un rascacielos
y le supo a puñetazo en un beso.

                 *

El segundo fue casero
y se lo hizo un romántico

con flequillo largo
y ojos pequeños.

                 *

El tercero fue en un palacio
de esos que inventan los cuentos.

                 *

Hubo otros, en lugares fiables
y en garitos sosos y feos.

En vaso de plástico, una vez
sin naranja ni hielo. Todos buenos.

                 *

Se tomó uno en un bar hortera
y sorprendió al camarero.

‘Las mujeres nunca piden negronis’
le dijo, con admiración

y ella se perdió en un pensamiento
divertido y lento.

Se hubiera fumado un puro allí mismo
para toser y hablar

de cómo trabajar
sin prestar atención al tiempo.

                 *

El último fue en Barcelona
y le borró la memoria.

Le supo a puñetazo en un beso.
Le hizo pensar algo, que no recuerda.

Le hizo desear piedras,
máquinas de escribir y ruedas.

La puso en marcha
la confundió y le abrió puertas nuevas.

                 *

What is the problem with mushrooms?

10 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in [Lee], Barcelona, Close & personal, Delicacies, Pleasure, Raíces | Home

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I read something Ayurveda-related, two years or so ago. It told me mushrooms were the wrong food to eat. Because they emerge from the rot. They are associated with death and decay.

But I adore them.

Of course the kinds of mushrooms I would love to eat are rovellons. My brother just shared a few pics from his lush fungi feast at home, back in Vilassar. The bright orange rovellons on display had been collected by my father in one of his secret early morning excursions into the woods. This is the passionate pursuit of so many pensioners in that area of the Maresme at this time of the year: getting up to the mountains around Vilassar and Cabrils, sigilosamente, making sure no one else knows where they have spotted their stash of setas – rovellons, pets de llop and the rest of it. Every year. Their clandestine pilgrimage into the wet soil, under the leaves, amongst delicious rot, wicker baskets in hand and lots of hush-hushing. They certainly won’t share their precious locations. Their knowledge of where the best, most fruitful forest decay lies, is probably their most valued possession.

Well, my Liverpool mushrooms are, naturally, from Tesco. Or Sainsbury’s. They are boring, they are mass produced. But I still like them. Doused in good quality olive oil I have brought all the way from somewhere nice in Catalunya; tossed with rosemary branches I grow in my terrace; sprinkled with garlic from I do not know where. Very satisfying, all in all.

So, I do not know what’s wrong with mushrooms. But I will keep eating them and thinking of secretive pensioners proudly tip-toeing into the humid mountains, first thing in the morning.

Black Feast

14 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by in [Read], Delicacies, Japan, Pleasure, Poems, Sed | Wanting

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Photo 14-10-2016, 18 13 53

Again that oily feeling of peace
looking at foreign water, an artificial lake
perfect black nibbled by long legged insects
reflecting black light and black branches
black stones and black leaves
all so dark and beautiful. so precise. so false.

I am enchanted, drinking my plum wine
in this minutely cold cup, blue and white
and trancelike, to the touch, exquisite.
Such pleasure, by this black fake perfect lake.
Then eating these tiny fungi, immaculate,
still serenaded by insects with long legs,

who are drunk and happy and generous with me
singing, without feathers, dark and brittle
shiny companions in this secret simulated garden
so precious so glitter so hypnotic so Japan so nightime.
Plum lips, cold from kissing this vase
this tiny miracle of a cup I want to marry, merge into, become.

What body! White and blue and ripe porcelain in my mouth
which searches, touches now a fruit, a sin, a wonder.
A fruit turned into this strange flower that breathes dead in my plate
so dead and enticing. I’ll have her please, yes let me.
What skin what velvet to lick and bite and fall for, what fate
inside this magic, this banquet of miniature marvels

so small so small so dark so black so nightime.
With lake with stones with insects who are ripples
who are stars, diamonds flying and chanting with wings
made of crystals, so fragile so tempting. I want them.
A crunch of their flight in my teeth, soaked in plum wine
and naked fruit and fish, yes, now fish like marble

so pearly, so thick, proud and defenceless in my cage.
Covered in petals, this fish, no mercy, no mess.
Perfect creatures, cut, dissected alive for this moment of pleasure.
I swallow and say thank you. I love your white translucent flesh.
You are so vibrant I think you are dancing.
You seduce my tongue my palate my throat this cavern

inside my body that is now your tomb, your bed your temple.
And the music wails. Such sweet agony from ancient time.
I touch the wet cloth. Perfumed. A civilised gesture to mask this carnage,
this botanical feast this battle
of the senses, of the powers, of the ghosts, of the darkness
of the lake so black so precious so fake.

.:.

Photo 14-10-2016, 19 19 20

Rosa | Llibre [moments]

23 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Delicacies, Visuals

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Moments d’un collage, en construcció   |   Moments of a collage, in construction

Salt ∴

04 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by in [Read], Delicacies, Encanto | Wonder, Pleasure, Poems

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a few grand names
have sprinkled beautiful words
about you
.
not me
i want the taste
the feel against my
soles walking
on crusts
∴
resonant concept
whole collections
of poetry
about you
⋮
here, no
it is really about
your sound
when chunks
fall rabid
from the rock

expansive sound
when it is used
.                          salt
. .                salty   ..   .     salted
in between lines
..    .
seasoning well
-thought pages
by respected
poets
¨
none of this
intended
now

now
just needing
the screamy edge
a cut
a lick
a crack
of crystal       ..                                           ..
and white shine   .   ..              ∴ ..   . .
.                                            . … .        …       .   …

Food for thought

27 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Delicacies, Performance

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I am having a very ‘theatrical’ dessert at the Young Vic, after having been swallowed up by Peter Brook & Marie Hélène Estienne’s ‘Battlefield‘. (We ended up inside a young boy’s stomach, looking at the stars).

A beautiful, stripped-bare performance, focused on the smallest of things to reflect on the immense and unfathomable.

Now I move on to my lovely amuse-bouche, in the hope of some universal answers myself… What do you think this is?

Beatriz Garcia's photo.Beatriz Garcia's photo.Beatriz Garcia's photo.
Beatriz Garcia's photo.

 

Cocktails with flowers

01 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by in [Read], Delicacies, Fun, Poe|try, Poems, Sed | Wanting

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Cocktail

Cocktails with flowers
I’d say that’s the way to go

I look around

Christmas lights
Beer
Shopping bags
Forks and knifes in pretend tins
Black boards in pretend handwriting

This flower is real
Swimming in my pretend elixir:
infused tea gin.

Queues
Enthusiastic chat
Air kisses
Coats
Pretend romance hairdos
Feet in pretend power shoes

But this flower is real
Floating in my pretend fun evening
Energising my pretend self-sufficient grin

Perhaps none of us are pretending.
Even the fake utilitarian tins
in this fashionable down-to-earth theatre of a bar
have a right to reality
A right to exist

Let’s all become
cocktails
with flowers

Are they pretentious?

Oh, spare the flowers
They can’t pretend

I am this jolly drunk flower.
Let me just be.

Give me crispy insects any time…

01 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Delicacies, Taiwan 2014

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For seasoned travellers who may feel the world is their oyster & ‘have seen it all’, it is good when places manage to confuse you and force you to accept that you can’t always be in control or predict what you’ll get

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In my case, I fancied some sashimi for lunch but, I have ended up with a gigantic bowl of boiling soup, cooking on my table, and filled with intestines and a whole other range of squelchy stuff I prefer not to know the provenance of.

No matter how many waiters have come to try to engage with my questions (like, ‘why can’t I get the sashimi, as it shows in this picture?’ – the reason I came in, in the first place) I am getting nowhere. So gallons of soup with innards & Co. it is.

The broth is actually quite tasty – once you learn to ignore the relentless chili & stronger-spice hellish burning all over your mouth.

But wait! The waitress has realised I am only pouring the broth. So she diligently proceeds to come over and personally fill in my plate with what looks like tripe, tongue and the other stuff I prefer not to think about! Will I manage to get away without biting into it?? (It’s early and I am the only customer here, so the eyes of the full serviceable waiting team are on me… My chances of escape look slim!!)

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So here I am, feeling embarrassed that I left Wulai without trying their local delicacy, fried bees – abejas fritas, si!!. Right now, the sound of bees sounds infinitely appetizing compared with what is concocting in front of me… Give me crispy insects over gelatinous entrails any time!!!!

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What’s cooking? I prefer not to know…

But the experience keeps getting more & more interesting. I think the waiters are taking pity on me. They are now bringing what looks like a lab test tube set, and they tell me this is complimentary for me, a drink of ginger and lemon & strawberry ( if I have understood it right) Why the testing lab look, so out of line in this very stylish but traditional Asian looking place? Who knows. They may be playing an experiment on me

Whatever is going on, there is no chance to take anything for granted in these parts!

 

Now, turning back to the witch cauldron soup, as I advance on the broth consumption, I keep seeing more kinds of stuff coming up to the surface… Has something winked at me? I better stop looking. It is scaring the hell out of me!!!

… I am taking refuge sipping the red liquid in test tubes for comfort…

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What do the test tubes have in common with the rest? Nothing. They may simply contain the antidote to the magic potion I keep digging into…

PS: for the record, I was at Shih An Farm, and I was served (well, forced into!) a Phoenix Reunion pot. It did not look too scary in the picture. But this is because the ‘best bits’ were hidden in the sacred urn, topped by animal skin.

On closer examination, it looked a bit like a pharaoh funerary pot – the ones used to keep the stuff that could spoil the embalming process…  And this Phoenix reference… Are the cooking bits supposed to come back to life after going through the flames??

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I am going mad. I better get back to the streets, let’s see what I get into next!