A Sorta Fairytale

Latest music obsession - chasing after past music, looking for the songs that I missed out, finding the beauty in the things I used to like a lot.

D- recently just got my Neil Gaiman books signed. All... what was it, 7 books I think, 6 first editions of The Sandman graphic novels, including I think what are my 6 most favourite: The Season of Mists, A Game of You, Preludes and Nocturnes, Dream Country, The Doll's House, Fables & Reflections and the 7th being Mr Punch.

And my thoughts are the quiet kind of thrill that I get - the kind that sneaks up to you in the middle of the day and you smile silently to yourself, but otherwise show no expression on your face.

It kind of reminds me of the song I'm currently listening to - A Sorta Fairytale, from the album Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos, which traces Scarlet's (aka Tori Amos's) travels across the entire US of A, as she charts her way with a song in each leg of the journey. Some songs take longer and farther than others.

A Sorta Fairytale was written along the trip across California, down the 101, which she writes about in the song. It's such an open road, driving sort of song. Taking the classic convertible, silk scarf in one hand, driving down miles and miles of straight and open desert freeway down to Los Angeles. I think it's the same sort of the journey I used to take, driving south along the 101, open road, flying hair, tapping fingers, a heart screaming freedom. When I close my eyes and listen to A Sorta Fairytale, I can almost believe that I'm right there again.

And then you reach Los Angeles, and you find that what you're looking for wasn't really to be found in L.A. you travel through the journey with an open heart, brimming with anticipation, you stop only at gas stations and Wendy's fast food outlets in the middle of nowhere. But you arrive in a city that's nothing like you'd hoped for. There are no angels in the city of angels, my dearest. I should have written you to tell you, that the only thing I remember about that lovely city was listening to Sheryl Crow in my mind and seeing "Help Me" written in mirror image appear on my bathroom mirror.

More significantly, I think it was what had become of a dream I once held close to my heart, driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Tori sings, "things you said that day, up on the 101. the girl had come undone, I tried to downplay it with a bet about us. You said that - You'd take it as long as I could, I could not erase it"

Scarlet's bio writes: A SORTA FAIRYTALE finds Scarlet back in LA with a man she has convinced herself is her life's soul mate. "They take the big trip in the classic car up the Pacific Coast highway and across the desert. But as they go on, the masks drop away and they discover the fantasy they have of each other isn't who they really are." They end up back where they started and Scarlet leaves. "They did care. But somehow they lost each other. Which is why it's only A Sorta Fairytale..."

Very recently, I'd travelled very far to close my sorta fairytale. I think it did turn out OK - although I never did find the words to reply to closure, I'd left it hanging for the day I think I'll find the spirit to write back.

Was Ferran Adria using a Biochemical Engineering technique, or was he just cooking?

Every day, I think, I have this mind-blowing moment of realization. It's a kind of shock that you get at trying to grasp something so mind-blowingly innovative that you teeter on the verge of the realization that there are people out there, that you may not know of, who are innovating things so far-out exciting this very moment even as we speak, that you may get to hear about maybe a few months or a few years later. We live in very exciting times, and this is what gets me up every morning.

Today's is definitely the discovery of an experiment written by a scientist in the Chemical Engineering department in the University of Maryland called "Enzyme Entrapment in Alginate Gel" which Drazick of Draz's Kitchen came across and showed me. The shocking thing is... the scientific procedure outlined in the experiment to entrap any enzyme in alginate gel is almost the exact same procedure carried out by Ferran Adria when making mango and apple caviar.

I cannot nearly articulate how mind-blowing this realization is. Either to attempt to understand how serious Ferran Adria is about his experiments into pushing the boundaries of possibility with fine dining and cooking - even down to the very definition of cooking - or being amazed at how an experiment conducted in a lab so many thousands of miles away from Spain can be used in an application probably unimagined by the inventor.

Either way, it reaffirms that the things we do are never truly and completely ignored or forgotten. Whether Ferran Adria (more to follow about this new cool guy in my life) had read the experiment and subsequently decided on its application to making mock caviar, or he had come upon the technique by himself in his own experiments in his food laboratory is irrelevant. The truth is that our little discoveries accumulate in small victories to become the culminating successes of our individual lives.

(Did I just go really way over the top in that post?)

The New Cook

The New Cook
Originally uploaded by articnomad.

[Flickr post by articnomad] that I happened to stumble across. A cute, innovative macro take at a view most people take for granted. I love this one so much because it's so ordinary, yet it really made me look at my microwave all over again in a different light (which is quite difficult - I hate microwaves).