Bouncing Bettie

The city of Berlin is an extraordinary place. There is a latent sense of history: the magnificent art-collections, Museum Insel, Schloss Charlottenburg, the old KaDeWe building, the Olympia Stadion (and other remaining buildings intended for the Third Reich)…

But the city’s pre-1945 history is suppressed, perhaps intentionally. Very few of the old apartment-buildings are restored to their original state, and even those large public buildings that are preserved and restored still feel empty, and I did not hear the steps of the gentry. Berlin’s history is a ghost, not a presence, and this is quite an unique experience for a Vorzeit-sensitive person like yours truly.

A few introductory words from yours truly:

To ease reading, I have inserted some paragraph titles into the original text, written by Ovid sometime around year zero (probably some years before this). These are the only lines that have been passed down to us, but it is thought that the original manuscript was five to eight times longer. I wonder what other recipes it contained… Even though some of those ingredients are so poisonous that they would never come anywhere near my skin, I think it makes for some immensely interesting reading. Some of these things are still used as skin remedies, and good manners really never go out of style.

Now learn, my dears, the art of beautifying your faces; learn by what means you can retain your charms. Cultivation makes the sterile ground bring forth fruit; it destroys the thorny brambles. Cultivation softens the sourness of the apple, and the grafted tree bears fruit both rich and strange. Art clothes all things with beauty. Lofty ceilings are gilded with gold; the dark soil is hidden by the marble edifices raised upon it. The fleeces are dyed many times in the brazen cauldrons with Tyrian purple, and ivory from India is carved and cut to suit the luxury of our times.

The new generation of women

Maybe, in those far-off days, when Tatius was king, the Sabine women thought more of dressing the fields of their forefathers than of dressing themselves. In those times, the red-faced matron, perched clumsily on her high stool, would spin and spin the livelong day. She put into the shed the flocks her daughter brought home from the meadows; she tended the fire herself by heaping furze and faggots on it. But your mothers’ daughters are daintier and more refined than that. You must needs have dresses embroidered with gold; you like to do your perfumed hair in countless different ways; you must have sparkling rings upon your fingers. You adorn your necks with pearls brought from the East, pearls so big that your ears can scarcely bear the weight of them.

How men also adorn themselves

Nevertheless we must not reproach you with the care which you bestow upon your person, since the men, in these days, pay immense attention to their dress. The men take a leaf out of the women’s book, and the wives can hardly outdo their husbands in luxurious attire.

How every woman should strive to look her best

Thus then let every woman strive to look her best. It matters not how love shall spread its lure. Tasteful simplicity no one can find fault with. There are women who, though buried in the country, are yet most careful about their hair. Even if rugged Athos should hide them from view, they would dress well-for Athos. They even take a pleasure in dressing to please themselves, and every young girl loves to make the most of her attractions. The bird of Juno, when his plumage is praised, spreads out his tail to be admired, and dumb though he be, is proud of his beauty. To kindle in us the fires of love, dress is more potent than the dread arts of the magician. Trust not to herbs, nor to philtres compounded of divers juices, and essay not the flux of the mare on heat. Serpents are not cut in two by the incantations of the Marsians; and rivers no longer flow backwards to their sources. You may bang the brass of Temesa as much as you will, it will never bring down the moon to earth.

On the importance of good manners

Your first preoccupation, my dears, should be your manners. When a woman’s manners are good, she never fails to attract. Manners indeed are more than half the battle. Time will lay waste your beauty, and your pretty face will be lined with wrinkles. The day will come when you will be sorry you looked at yourself in the mirror, and regret for your vanished beauty will bring you still more wrinkles. But a good disposition is a virtue in itself, and it is lasting; the burden of the years cannot depress it, and love that is founded on it endures to the end.

A recipe for whitening cream

Now, when you have had your full of sleep, and your delicate limbs are refreshed, come learn from me how to impart a dazzling whiteness to your skin. Strip of its straw and husk the barley which our vessels bring to our shores from the fields of Libya. Take two pounds of peeled barley and an equal quantity of vetches moistened with ten eggs. Dry the mixture in the air, and let the whole be ground beneath the mill-stone worked by the patient ass. Pound the first horns that drop from the head of a lusty stag. Of this take one-sixth of a pound. Crush and pound the whole to a fine powder, and pass through a deep sieve. Add twelve narcissus bulbs which have been skinned, and pound the whole together vigorously in a marble mortar. There should also be added two ounces of gum and Tuscan spelt, and nine times as much honey. Any woman who smears her face with this cosmetic will make it brighter than her mirror.

A cure for spots and pimples

Then make haste and bake pale lupins and windy beans. Of these take six pounds each and grind the whole in the mill. Add thereto white lead and the scum of ruddy nitre and Illyrian iris, which must be kneaded by young and sturdy arms. And when they are duly bruised, an ounce should be the proper weight. If you add the glutinous matter wherewith the Halcyon cements its nest, you will have a certain cure for spots and pimples. As for the dose, one ounce applied in two equal portions is what I prescribe. To bind the mixture and to make it easy of application, add some honey from the honeycombs of Attica.

A cure for blackheads

Although incense is pleasing to the gods and soothes their wrath, it must not be kept exclusively for their altars. A mixture of incense and nitre is good for black-heads. Take four ounces of each. Add an ounce of gum from the bark of a tree, and a little cube of oily myrrh. Crush the whole together and pass through a sieve. Bind the resultant powder by mixing with honey. Some people recommend that fennel should be added to the myrrh; nine scruples of myrrh and five of fennel is the proportion. Add a handful of dried rose-leaves, some sal-ammoniac and male frankincense. Pour on barley-water, and let the weight of the sal-ammoniac and the incense equal the weight of the roses. After employing very few applications of this mixture, you will have a charming complexion.

Rouge

I have seen a woman pound up poppies soaked in cold water and rub her cheeks with them. . . .

I just bought these insanely fanciful pieces of jewelry. This, people, is semiotics, playing with signs. Fragments of our everyday lives turned into pieces of decorative, whimsical bibelots. 

Spoon and knife earrings:

Scissors necklace:

They are from the Etsy shop Katinka Pinka.

Things like this keep popping up on Etsy. I bought another one of my favorite pieces of jewelry there, from an etsy shop called Paraphernalia. Unfortunately, this seller does not seem to be active any longer. I only bought two things thing from her, the parrot necklace and a brooch (not shown here), but I wanted the gold fish and camera necklaces too. 

Seen from afar, these pieces look so strange and out of this world. People kept thinking I had a huge parrot tattoo on my chest. 

Oh, how I wish I show you a photo of the coy Lois Long, but alas, there is no trace of her pretty face on the internet, not as her 20’s flapper self. So I shall scan some photos of her and get back. In the mean while, consider this in relation to the character Carrie Bradshaw from the HBO series Sex and the City. I sure do think Candace Bushnell knew about Lois Long.

Lois Long wrote for The New Yorker from the very beginning in the mid 20’s (1925, to be specific). She was hired to “give The New Yorker a pulse” (Zeitz: Flapper, p. 87). Before that, she had worked at Vogue (alas, only as a copywriter) and Vanity Fair. I will quote Zeitz, and you can draw the comparison:

“She was [...] known as a girl about town. Living in a cramped apartment on Manhattan’s fashionable East Side, Long and her roommate, the actress Key Francis, threw exclusive soirees and passed their evenings gliding from one smart nightclub to another. 

What she had to offer Ross’s magazin was her lifestyle. Like tens of thousands of other single young women in Manhattan, she was living high in the Jazz Age. Unlike most of those women, she was armed with a keen eye for detail, a wicked sense of humor, and a razor-sharp prose.

[...]

Essentially, Long would be the magazine’s resident flapper journalist. Writing under the pseudonym “Lipstick”, she continued her long nights of drinking, dining and dancing - all on the magazine’s expense account - and regaled her captive readers with her weekly tales of her adventures on the town. She became one of America’s most insightful chroniclers of the new, middle-class woman who seemed to embody the flapper’s spirit and style.”

Joshua Zeitz: Flapper, Three Rivers Press, 2006, p. 89

She is a strong woman. Excuse – strength is not the word I am after. Women, pretty women at least, are never ‘strong”. I need a word that expresses energy, the quality that makes a man who speaks of ‘frail Eve’ – referring to the female sex – look like a fool! Her neck is arched and tense. Tense also her features, her whole carriage indeed! Her demeanor is that of a duellist awaiting the attack! Attack from whom! From you, sir, and from me… from man, in general.”

“The Flapper – A New Type”, by Alfredo Panzini, Vanity Fair, September 1921

I wanted to share my latest French macaron adventure with you. My mission was of a very challenging type: to create the infamously nerve-wrecking chocolate macarons!

With macarons, you never really know what will happen. Sometimes your egg-whites just aren’t quite right: according to most macaron handbooks and manuals, you are instructed to never use fresh egg-whites. Quite a paradox, when it comes to good food. These crunchy, chewy, scrumptious, heavenly devils demand egg-whites to sit overnight (or longer, if you dare) at room temperature. Sometimes the almond flour you meticulously made by grounding and sieving and grounding and sieving just isn’t fine enough. Sometimes, the shells get too dry or not dry enough. Sometimes the meringue just hates the rainy weather, or maybe the wind-direction. With macarons, you just have to put all your love into it and just see what happens.

The chocolate macarons I was making were for my darling friend’s farewell party. She is going away for half a year, and almost as soon as she returns, I shall be going away for a whole year. So you see, we had to part on some sort of special note, a special tinge of sugar and spice and everything nice. The chocolate macaron’s that I made and we enjoyed:

I gathered my utensils, took out this recipe, studied it and made some adjustments and added a couple of tips. You have to be very precise with the ingredients. As I mentioned before, many people say that you should let your egg-whites age overnight at room temperature. I didn’t do this and my macarons turned out perfect anyway. Personally, I believe the trick is to pipe the mixture right away, never letting it sit after mixing, and then let the macarons dry for two hours before baking.

Laduree Chocolate Macarons

Prep. time: 3 hours
Cook time: 9 minutes, in preheated oven (180 degrees) with the door slightly ajar.
Servings: 50-60 small macarons

Ingredients, chocolate ganache:
- 325 grams bitter chocolate
- 300 grams heavy creme
- 75 grams butter (unsalted)

Ingredients, meringue:
- 140 grams powdered almonds
- 275 grams powdered sugar
- 25 grams cocoa powder
- 110 grams egg-whites (3 egg-whites if you use large eggs, 4 if small) (fresh or aged overnight at room temperature, both is fine)
- a pinch of salt

Preparation, ganache:
- You want to make your ganache filling in good time, so it can cool off before you need to pipe it: Chop your bitter chocolate and put it in a casserole. Pour the creme over it and heat up over low heat to 60 degrees celsius. Add butter and mix with an electric mixer until it thickens a little and you get a homogenous mixture and then cool. Once cold, you want the ganache to be creamy and not too fluid. If you think it’s too fluid, try mixing more. It should thicken. If everything goes wrong, mix in some more butter once it’s cold and then you get a type of butter-cream, which is nice too. I’m not a ganache expert, but you just want it to taste good!

Preparation, meringue:
- It’s important that you are ready to pipe as soon as you have mixed your meringue. So before you even start mixing anything, you want to prepare your baking sheets, parchment paper and piping device. If you don’t have the routine, I would advice you to draw circles on one side of your parchment paper before piping.

- On three pieces of parchment paper, use a pencil to draw 2,5 cm. circles about 4 cm. apart. Flip each paper over and place each sheet on a baking sheet. (Note: You only have to draw circles on the parchment paper if you want absolutely even-sized macarons. If you’re skilled with piping and don’t mind eyeballing the amount of batter per cookie, skip this step.)

- Mix almonds sugar and cocoa powder in food processor until you have a smooth fine powder. Sieve it and mix it again. It’s best if you mix it as finely as possible.

- Beat the egg-whites with a pinch of salt. Beat until completely foamy and firm.

- Place the egg-whites in the powder. Fold delicately with a wooden spoon or spatula to obtain a homogenous mixture. Stir downwards toward the middle of the mixture and back up the sides of the again, constantly turning the bowl, until the mixture is even. The consistency should be like lava, thick and supple. Check the consistency by making a small top with your spoon and see if it dissolves back into the mixture, to a smooth surface - that’s the consistency you want to achieve.

- Using a parchment bag or some other piping device with about a 1 cm. tip (as you would for icing),
pipe the batter onto the baking sheets, in the previously drawn circles. Be swift and precise. This is difficult, but you just need to practice!

- Let the macarons sit and dry for 2 hours before baking.

- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

- Cook for 9 minutes, leaving the door slightly ajar.

- Remove from the oven and move the parchment with the macarons over to a cooling rack. Let them cool. They are very delicate and brittle before they cool so do not touch.

- Pair macarons of similar size, and pipe about 1/2 tsp of the filling onto one of the macaron shells. Sandwich macarons, and refrigerate to allow flavors to blend together. They get really tasty after 24 hours. Bring back to room temperature before serving.

- Share with your friends!

Sukiyaki er en gryderet, hvis samtlige ingredienser man kender og genkender, eftersom retten bliver tilberedt foran Dem, på Deres bord og mens De spiser den. Produkterne, der er rå (men skrællede, vaskede og allerede iklædt en æstetisk nøgenhed, skinnende, farverige og harmoniske som en forårsdragt. “Farve, finhed, strøg, virkning, harmoni, krydderi, det hele er her”, ville Diderot sige), bliver samlet på en bakke og båret ind. Det er selve essensen af et marked, der kommer til Dem, dets friskhed, dets naturlighed, dets mangfoldighed og endda dets inddeling i klasser, som forvandler det simple stof til et løfte om en begivenhed. For appetitten skærpes ved synet af dette blandede objekt som markedsproduktet er, på samme tid natur og vare, natur som vare, opnåelig for almen besiddelse: spiselige blade, grøntsager, englehår, cremede sojaterninger, rå æggeblomme, rødt kød og hvidt sukker (en forening der, fordi den er visuel, er uendelig mere eksotisk, mere fascinerende eller mere frastødende end det simple sur-søde i kinesisk mad, der altid er færdigkogt, og hvor sukkeret ikke længere kan ses, undtaget i visse “lakerede” retters karameliserede glans).

Alle disse rå varer, som i starten er forenede og komponerede som i et hollandsk maleri og som ligesom synes at have samme skarpe kontur, spændstige penselstrøg og farvestrålende fernis (man ved ikke om de skyldes tingenes materalitet, lyset i scenen, den olie, som er strøget over maleriet eller museets belysning), transporteres lidt efter lidt over i en stor kasserolle, hvor de koges sammen for øjnene af Dem, mister deres farve, form og diskontinuitet, opblødes, afnaturaliseres og antager denne “roux”, som er sovsens karakteristiske farve. Efterhånden som De med spidsen af Deres spisepinder plukker et par fragmenter af den helt frisklavede gryderet, bliver disse erstattet af nye rå stykker. Denne kommen-og-gåen forestås af en kvindelig assistent, der, anbragt en smule tilbagetrukket i forhold til Dem og bevæbnet med lange pinde, skiftevis nærer kogekar og konversation. Det er en hel lille madodyssé De deltager i med blikket. De overværer Råhedens Aftenskumring.

Denne Råhed er som bekendt skytsguden for japansk mad. Alt bliver tilegnet den, og når japansk madlavning altid foregår foran den, der skal til at spise (et grundlæggende træk i dette køkken), er det måske fordi det er vigtigt via synet at hellige tilintetgørelsen af det man ærer.

Det der æres ved råhed (en term - la crudité - vi mærkværdigt nok anvender i ental for at betegne seksualiteten i sproget: rå, anstødelig udstryksmåde, og i flertal for at benævne den del af vores menuer, der er ydre, uegentlig og lettere tabubelagt: råkost, salat), set ikke ud til som hos os at være et indre væsen i maden, noget blodrigt (blod som symbol på kraft og død), hvis livskraft vi ved en slags sjælevandrig optager i os (hos os er råhed en kraftfuld tilstand i maden, således som vores ihærdige krydring af en tartarbøf meteonymisk viser det). Japans råhed er af væsen visuel. Den betegner en vis farvetilstand i kødet eller i grøntsagerne (idet farven dog aldrig udtømmes af en farveskala, men ligeledes henviser til stoffets taktilitet. Således er det heller ikke så meget farver som konsistenser, sachimi‘en stiller til skue, nemlig de indbyrdes forskellige konsistenser af råt fiskekød.

Hen over bakken gennegår det rå fiskekød tilstande som slattent, fibrøst, elastisk, kompakt, ru, glat). Da maden i bund og grund er visuel (tænkt til, tilpasset efter synet, endog efter en malers, en grafikers), siger den hermed at den ikke er dyb. Den spiselige substans er foruden et dyrebart hjerte, foruden en skjult kraft, foruden en livsnødvendig hemmelighed. Ingen japansk ret er udstyret med et centrum (det madmæssige centrum, der hos os er underforstået i vores ceremonielle anretning af et måltid, i garneringen af retterne eller forsynet med et overtræk). Her er alt ornament på et andet ornament. Først og fremmest fordi maden på bordet, på bakken, aldrig er andet end en samling fragmenter, hvoraf ingen tilsyneladende får forrang, i form af en fast rækkefølge til at indtage dem i. Således er det at spise ikke at overholde en menu (en fastlagt rute af retter), men med en let berøring med pindene at udplukke snart en farve, snart en anden farve, frit efter en slags inspiration, der i sin langsommelighed minder om det løsrevne og indirekte akkompagnement til konversationen (som på sin side kan være voldsom tavs).

Dernæst fordi denne mad - og det er heri dens originalitet består - forener sin tilberedningstid og sin fortæringstid i en og samme tid. Sukiyaki er en ret, der tager en uendelighed at tilberede, at fortære og, om man så må sige, at “konversere”. Ikke fordi den er teknisk svær at fremstille, men fordi det ligger i dens natur at svinde bort, efterhånden som man tilbereder den og dermed at gentage sig. Sukiyaki har intet andet fast forankringspunkt end sit udgangspunkt (der er den bakke, der bliver båret ind, malet med madvarer). Så snart starten “er gået”, er der ikke flere distinkte øjeblikke eller steder. Den bliver decentreret som en uafbrudt tekst.

Roland Barthes: I Tegnenes Vold (oprindelig titel: L’Empire des Signes, udgivet 1970)

Nu hvor jeg færdig med at citere Barthes, vil jeg til sidst vil jeg supplere denne japanske madodyssé ved at henvise til Tampopo, en japansk film om mad, og nydelse af mad, og respekt for mad. Jeg synes denne scene demonstrerer Barthes pointe om det visuelle aspekt af japansk mad.

Scenen kunne næsten være skrevet af Barthes, og mandens beskrivelse af hans ramen-ret er, præcis som Barthes påpeger, som en beskrivelse af et hollandsk maleri. Et væld af overflader af forskellig karakter: guldets og sølvets glimtende overflade, perlemorens changerende farvespil, porcelænets blanke genskin og tæppets lysopsugende, farvemættede, vævede tekstur.

I tilfælde af ramen, og sukiyaki, er det hele skålens gestalt: fedtperler glimter som juveler på suppens overflade, tangen synker langsomt mens forårsløgene flyder og endelig er der de tre skiver svinekød som beskedent skjuler hinanden, for ikke at skille sig for meget ud - de stemmer overens med resten af skålens æstetik.

Every character in Six Feet Under reminds me of somebody I know. The portrayal of Brenda Chenowith is particularly striking, showing how intelligence can easily be turned into arrogance and lack of morality. I see these traits in both myself and a couple of other people I know. 

I’m also quite fascinated by the show’s portrayal of California. I wonder if it’s anything like that and I can’t wait to find out next year. I hope the drugs are plentiful, the food organic, the people gay and the sex free.

There is this episode of Six Feet Under where Fisher & Sons have to arrange a Buddhist funeral and David says that they will bring in the “monks from Riverside” for - that made Riverside sound very rural and zen, which made me chuckle, considering I almost applied to UCR. Probably would have benefited from the zen part. The Buddhist monk’s chant in this episode was quite touching, none the less. 

While in California, I want to learn about Buddhism and visit some monasteries. I might even visit Cohen’s Mount Baldy in San Gabriel. It seems like California is the spiritual capital of the US - I wonder if this is true. Academically, UC really does seem to be just this - especially when it comes to Buddhist religion and art. The flung-ink paintings and their juxtaposition of words and images, in particular, intrigue me: