Friday, August 27, 2010

Limonade sans Limone

My ire has been tickled. You lucky readers, two blog postings in one day.

Being a warm Irish summer day (18 °C), I decided to purchase a bottle of fancy lemonade to quench my thirst. I paid the €1.99 price tag, poured a good quarter of a pint down my dusty thrapple. Suddenely I was struck by a glaring absence of the taste of any kind of lemon whatsoever. A quick check of the stated ingredients confirmed the closet thing to lemon was citric acid, which it seems does not taste one bit lemony. I wouldn't care if they made the citric acid in a vat from petrol and tar if it tasted anything like lemons.

The drink in question if called "Bellot Lemon". Don't buy it. I've also raced back to the shop and tried a drink called "Lorina sparkling Lemonade Lemon" which you can get in a bottle with fancy re-corking stopper just like old timey lemonade. Don't buy it either. Lorina lists as one of its ingredients "Natural Lemon Aroma". What the fuck does that mean? Lorina also lists critic acid as one of the drinks "natural preservatives" which suggest to me it's used due to its absence of taste.

One more trip to the shop to browse the labels of rival products. It seems Fentimans is the only one that contains the juice of lemons (and pears as it happens) be it from concentrate and only 12 % its still ahead of the pack by a country mile. However it's guaranteed no more that 0.5 % alcohol (phew).

A bit of research on the web explains the entire misunderstanding. Lorina and Bellot are French names and of course are subject to wishy washy vagueness and retreat in times of battle to the bosoms of their tanned revolutionary women. Fentimans is a good British brand, and lets face it with name like Fentiman you know their cola is kosher. Plus it's got a picture of a faithful German shepherd dog on the label.

Good dog, that's a good good dog.

Porridge w/ Maple Syrup

This morning's breakfast was brought to you by Café Sol at the corner of Clare Street (and Canada). I love porridge. In fact I love porridge more than eggs for breakfast, but porridge, can be divil to get right. This mornings porridge was lumpy and had a faint powdery texture to it. I was disappointed. It think porridge should have a nutty bite and not taste like flour. I was disappointed because I've had lunch in Café Sol and it's been a pleasure, plus the staff are nice. If you go there I recommend the crayfish and rocket sandwich.

I'm constantly struggling to understand how porridge, a food which as probably been around as long as agrarian society, can still be treated as badly in the kitchen as a tinker bride who's burned the sausages.

Porridge brings out the Scottish accent in me incidentally, especially salted porridge or whisky'd porridge (which brings out the morning drunk in me also).

Monday, August 23, 2010

Eggs benedict al Fresco

Ah, breakfast outdoors with the paper and a catch up with old friend. Plus I got to see some lesbians kissing in the street and one of them was hot. I think she like me too. I could tell by the way she pretented to completely ignore me; but I knew.

Food outdoors in ireland is normally limited to burgers bought from a van on all ireland final day, or ham sanwiches and flaskes of tea on same day. I specifially asked to be seated and served outdoors on Saturday to enjoy the fine weather although I'm always a little wary of beggers when eating outdoors especially around tourist areas. Not that I mind how they make a living but I am trying to eat after all, it's dangerous, they might lose a hand if it strays too close to my plate.

Ham is better than spinich, fact.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Post Script on BdJ's blog

Gets boring after she stops turning tricks. Read October 2003 to September 2004, after that it reads like a christmas letter from a relative who's lost her marbles.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Breakfast du Jour

I'm reading belle du Jour's blog on my iPhone on the train commute these days. I know, seven years too late and all that. Why am I reading it on the train? Mostly because it's not the sort of thing one reads at work. I wish my blog was that interesting, or even that well written.

It turns out now she's a pediatric cancer expert, wow! There's a quote from Polanski's Chinatown I'm reminded of;

"Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."

Still, If I ever met her I might instantly jump in to condescending moral high tones. Not the finger wagging sort of thing, "think of what your doing to society blah blah blah. More the, "well that's your opinion on your body and you're entitled to it; unfortunately you're a brasser and your opinion doesn't count."

Not really. I think there would be a "Brooke, if you were stuck for cash why didn't you write to me? I would have given you sacks of gold for nothing!" Santa Claus type fantasy. But then we'd be all the poorer for not having read her mucky blog. By the way I'm not entirely sure that this isn't still an elaborate (double) hoax. I mean it's perfect timing when ones book sales start to fall to finish on the conjurers "prestige". It doesn't matter anyway; I can never tell the difference between the truth and a good story.

I'm curious about two things. I wonder would she have turned to prostitution had she finished her PhD on time. Reading her diary she doesn't strike me as the sort who would drag her heels on writing up, I might be wrong but bare in mind the caliber of her writing. I also wonder why she stopped. I mean to say, if the lifestyle and the money was so great, why not keep going. She stopped after all long before she was outed. Maybe she'll get the that at some point later in her blog. A lot of criticism leveled at Dr Magnanti is that she glamorises prostitution. I'm not sure she does, her blog makes me want to be a blogger, not a prostitute, but then that's just me.

Still, unless I want to end up on the game; I'd better get a move on.