schroduck

WHAT THE FUCKEDY FUCK FUCK FUCK. NEU-FUCKING-TRINOS WILL NOT MAGICALLY TURN INTO MICROWAVES WHEN THE STARS ARE RIGHT. MICROWAVES WILL NOT BOIL THE EARTH'S CORE. ON THE OFF CHANCE WE EVER DID MEET ENOUGH MICROWAVES FOR THAT TO HAPPEN, THE WORLD'S PHONE NETWORK WOULD BE TOAST LONG BEFORE WE WERE.
( Capslock rage and swearing )

I'll leave you in the very capable hands of Amelie Gillette, and her always hilarious take on it. Take the time to rent a tiny plane for your getaway. When the Apocalypse does start eating the world, the only thing people will respect any more are confirmation numbers for plane rentals. Be sure to jot yours down before out-running the end of the world.

So... I forgot to put last week's recipe up. That means this week, not only do you get the recipe for Jordanian Mansaf, but also Hungario-German Chicken Paprikash and Himmel Und Erde!
( I cooked a mansaf, and I liked it )

Next week, the Koreas!

Special edition! In honour of uke_nagashi 's Teesside roots and my Welsh Marches hometown... British regional foods!

( Short recipe this week )

I don't want to be one of those people who posts scans of failtastic old comics online cos, you know, that's old hat - doubly so for the "LOL THESE TWO SUPERHEROES ARE GAY" cliché. However, I came across an old copy of Captain America (#298 to be precise) at the back of a charity store and, well, how could I resist this?



I'm afraid I don't have a scanner, so crappy photos ahoy!

( If you do not want to see Red Skull confess undying love to Cap, do not click this cut )

Food times!

So, in the interests of world peace, this week's food was a ménage à trois of Greek, Turkish and Cypriot cuisine.

( Recipes be here! )
Oh, and some films + my thoughts =

• Up: Ridiculously sweet, ridiculously hilarious, ridiculously heartbreaking. Dug the dog is the greatest character ever. Amazingly beautiful, too, and I'll never get tired of Pixar's taste for taking the everyday and completely subverting it. To anyone who bitched on the internet that they couldn't sympathise with a) an old guy, b) an Asian, c) a child with divorced parents or d) someone who isn't just puppies and rainbows: fuck you.
• Coraline: This was, dare I say it, a bit of a letdown. Adding Wyborne was totally unnecessary, but sadly I can see why they did it? "A film with a strong, young female character? Never! Let's take all Coraline's strong traits and project them onto a male character, leaving her a bit of a wet blanket!" There were touches I liked - the Other Father's piano, for instance - and it was suitably pretty, in a very twisted way, but eh, I'll stick to the books.
• Stardust: Another book to put on my reading list. It did however add to my belief that Ricky Gervais can't actually act, only pretend to be Ricky Gervais in front of a camera. And really, guys? Making the character that subverts the concept of machismo gay and transvestite/transgender? I thought you had more class than that. I'll attribute that to Hollywood - Sandman proves that Neil Gaiman can write deep, sympathetic LGBTQI characters by the bucketload, after all.
• Franklyn: The twist was a little too obvious, but the route they took to get there was so gorgeous and dark, I didn't mind. They tried to pack a little too much in, I think - the Sally subplot needed a little more breathing room - but oh my God, Meanwhile City was far, far, far prettier and awesomer than anything created on a shoestring budget deserves to be.
• Fantastic 4 (90s version): LMAOOOOOOOOOOO. I love this film. Every incoherent second of it. Superstretch powers! Ugly rubber suits! Bad CGI fights! Laser defences any idiot can step over! Spacesuits that consist of motorbike helmets and tin foil! Bad ripoffs of Hello and the sculpture scene! A totally unnecessary subplot about rape! Wedding ex machina! The hand twitches! Leather elbow pads on tweed jackets!

And finally - OMG Johnny Foreigner and Los Campesinos! have upped their game. Go and hunt down Grace and the Bigger Picture and The Sea Is a Good Place To Think Of The Future right now!

Every single one of my incoherent bursts of BNP/neo-fascist-induced rage recorded for prosperity! Watch this space! You know. If you hate yourself.

All these recipes have been adapted from recipes in the Levi Roots Reggae Reggae cookbook. Well worth a read.
( No photos cos, hey, it's stew, we all know what that looks like )

Next week, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey as we whizz through the eastern Mediterranean!

A beloved popstar dies young of natural causes. The nation mourns. But wait, wasn't he gay?

( Cut for homophobia )

FUCK. YOU. DAILY. FUCKING. MAIL.

ETA: Thank fuck for Charlie Brooker.

Woo! So, just saw Johnny Foreigner playing at the pub LITERALLY down the road from the house. Here's what I thought:

Japanese Voyeurs: Could they be any more Courtney Love? They had some good songs, but too often their singer's voice (think No Doubt era Gwen Stefani) was drowned under the music. Their lyrics were a tad insipid. "You're so coooool. You're so coooool. You're so coooool."

Tellison: Chinbeards ahoy! Not bad at all.

Johnny Foreigner: Got off to a shaky start and just as they were hitting their stride on Bullring... the microphones died. Spent the best part of an hour idly spinning wheels and playing charades until the sound started working again. After that, they were amazing, with "Salt, Peppa n Spinderella", "Feels Like Summer", "Criminals" and "Our Bipolar Friends" as the best - at the climax of Spinderella, the guitarists from Tellison returned for the breakdown ("Bring out the real fun, turn on the real drums"). Can't wait for the new album.

They were so good they even persuaded me to buy a shirt (a thin, cheaply printed shirt, but still)!

Related news: CITRON TEA. BUY IT.

Foooooooooooooood. This time, it's momo - Tibetan dumplings steamed over tomato soup. You'll need a steaming pan that fits over a saucepan. (No pics of the finished product, I'm afraid - bad lighting made it look more like an explosion at a back-alley surgeon's clinic than anything edible. That's what happens when you cover your food in thick red sauce...)
( Momomomomomo )

Also, improvements to the lassi recipe: half a tin of a coconut, 1 pot of double cream, using a third of a litre of banana juice and a third of a litre of mango juice. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

So, Young Frohnkensteen - HOW HAVE I NEVER SEEN THIS FILM BEFORE. brb, searching for more Mel Brooks films. Igor is the most awesome character ever.

Hey, guess who my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather is? It's this guy. (This guy meanwhile is my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather. Wooooo.)

• Jewish people (seriously, you're a frigging Italian. RESEARCH THE FRIGGING HISTORY OF ITALIAN JEWS)
• The Falun Gong
• LGBTQIA people
• Women in the Third World
• Women in the First World
• Women in war zones
• Albinos
• The travelling community (LOOK OUT OF YOUR FRIGGING WINDOW, SILVIO)
• Muslims outside the Arab World
• Shī‘ah Muslims inside the Arab World
• Hindus outside India
• Africans (does that one even need a link?)
• Early Christians
• Later Christians
• Communists
• The Irish
• The Welsh in England
• The English in Wales
• Trades unionists
• Tibetians
• The Ainu
• Bosniaks
• Abortion doctors
• The poor
• The homeless (FUCK YOU, LAS VEGAS)

BOY IT MUST BE HARD TO BE SILVIO BERLUSCONI.

PHOTOS HERE.

So, special double bill this week! Since uke_nagashi isn't a fan of spicy food, and I cook so many curries that there's no real adventure to it, we decided instead make national drink of the Indian subcontinent: Lassi!

( Indian milkshakes! )

Now, the ceviche - raw fish with rice, the national dish of Peru. This one came out tasting a little strong, so I've dialled down the garlic on this one (where ever it says "1 clove of garlic", I originally used 2)

( The first time I've ever had raw fish - somehow didn't get food poisoning! )

More digusting hate.

( Thanks, Daily Mail commenters, for chiselling away the last of my faith in humanity )

So... that Harriet Harman? Apparently she wants stop sex slavery, equalise men and women's pay, get racial minorities and LGBTQI people better represented in government and prevent the relegalisation of fox hunting.

Or as the Daily Mail puts it "force public bodies to discriminate against Middle Britain". THAT FIEND! NOT THE POOR DOWNTRODDEN PEOPLE OF MIDDLE BRITAIN! YOU CAN TAKE AWAY THEIR BLAND TASTING DESIGNER COFFEES AND PEBBLE-DASHED MOCK TUDOR SEMIDETACHED GREEN FIELD NEW BUILDS, BUT YOU'LL NEVER TAKE THEIR UNDERPAID FOX-HUNTING PROSTITUTES!

So, anyway, as so often happens with the Daily Mail, fail, stupidity and out and out misogyny ensues:
( Horrible people say horrible horrible things )

What with the recession and all that, it's hard to go out regularly for meals, and nigh on impossible to go abroad. Therefore, uke_nagashi and I have decided to try a little game: see how many countries' cuisine we can cook and sample. It'll be hopefully weekly-ish on Sundays. So, without further ado, this week's dish, Moambe Chicken, national dish of the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon!

( Bastardised recipe under the cut - flagrantly unsuitable for nut allergy sufferers )

We also watched Shark Attack 3, which is exactly as hammy as I remember it being. Sadly, John Barrowman is quite possibly the best actor in that film, which says a HELL of a lot about it.

In other news, I barely slept a wink last night since there's a weird all-pervading smell of burnt toast lingering around our house. It's... erm... worrying.

UPDATE: We seem to have solved the burning problem at least. Turns out, the mat on the bathroom was very VERY unhygienic. Like, basically, it was a mould farm, to the point that it seems have been breaking the mat down into carbon. So... yeah. Ick.

This is just stuff I've read this year or else it'll be pointlessly over long and filled with crap like "THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE X 1000". And hey, it's longer than I feared, so let's LJ cut this crapage.
( CUTTAGE )

Alas, I can't take the credit for this epic poem (next Beowulf, y/y?). That goes to these two glorious comments on the Guardian's website

JUST WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS
IS YET ANOTHER DOSE OF PETER ANDRE

WE HAVE LISTENED TO HIM GIVING INSULT
AFTER INSULT
ABOUT HIS WIFE
[[ YOU REMEMER THE ONE HE SAID
HE WOULD NOT COMMENT ABOUT
IN CASE HIS KIDS READ IT ONE DAY ]]

THE SAME PERSON HE SAID
HE WOULD NEVER GO BACK TO
[ OH I FORGOT THE SAME GIRL HE HAS
MADE MILLIONS BY BEING MARRIED TOO ]
AND THE MAN WHO PROCLAIMS
HE IS GOING TO BE THE NEXT
ROBBIE WILLIAMS ]]

SOME CHANCE OF THAT,
AND THE MAN WHO SAYS
HE THINKS BEING ON A REALITY SHOW HELPED
END HIS MARRAGE

WE ARE BEING ASKED TO SIT AND WATCH HIM
IN HIS OWN REALITY SHOW
SULKING AND MOPING AROUND HIS NEW HOME
BURNING SAUSAGES,
( more Avant-Garde within )