Food glorious food!
I am going to do something a little different this week and introduce reviews into the things I write about.
I am an avid foodie as my size will attest so at some point it had to enter into dialogue somewhere.
Coming from a poor family where it was a combination of canned food (frozen wasn’t really an option yet) a little fresh food and basically junk or take-out food, plus having my mum being about as far away from Julia Child as you can get it wasn’t very inspiring.
Sunday dinner in the UK is normally a bigger thing than during the week with a roast meat and some fixings. It was hit and miss in my house. The daily faire was a version of some fried food, mainly chips (French fries) with eggs, or beans or sausage etc. Pretty standard. Since leaving England my culinary taste buds have evolved to the point where I am a food snob. I confess. What I find when going to a friends house for dinner or even when I go out to eat is that I am very critical and can’t understand why most people don’t have a grasp of even the basics.
Can’t they taste?
I believe that a culture is judged on certain criteria and food has to be (in my mind anyway) one of them.
So I will be adding reviews on restaurants that I eat in that either really impress me or that I hate. It is rare that I go back to an eatery more than once or twice when I didn’t enjoy the first time.
So for the locals out here in Colorado this is my first official review.
Flavor of India in Longmont has one of the best buffets that I have eaten at. It is a regular for me and the wife either for lunch or on occasion their dinner buffet. Both are excellent but the dinner buffet with lamb curry is very tasty.
Each dish has distinct flavors and not a generic across the board taste like you get in a lot of Indian buffets.
The Saag Paneer is the best I have had. Period. The veggie Korma is incredible (for vegetarians this place is excellent) and the Naan bread seems like it’s hot and fresh from a traditional clay oven.
I really like this place for the buffet and if you can do more than two plates your better than I.
My rating system is as follows.
1 lick = fair
2 licks = average
3 licks = good
4 licks = great
5 licks = Outstanding.
If I don’t like the restaurant or food of a place then I will rate it as follows.
1 smack = poor
2 smacks = very bad
3 smacks = disgusting
4 smacks = complete bollocks.
These are all based in science and research as The Dogs Bollocks wouldn’t have it any other way.
So if I like it, it’s a lick to the bollocks if I don’t it’s a smack to the bollocks.
There we have it.
Look for more honest and acerbic reviews coming up periodically.
-TDB.
American Horror Story
I never had a big Halloween.
I never managed large
Amounts of candy.
But, being away from home,
For the second Halloween
In my life,
Teaches me how much I miss
Candy corn,
Oven roasted pumpkin seeds,
Carving into Jack O’ Lanterns,
And pretending I could be
Anything I wanted to be.
However, one thing remains:
I can still dress up,
Put on makeup like
A burlesque girl,
Wear rouge like
The bruises from
My stiletto shoes
And call it red rum.
I was never a fan
Of horror movies
Because I’ve seen enough
Horrors in people’s lives
To know when to be scared
Out of my seat.
Skeletons are real life
Children from countries
We don’t mention,
And anorexia has
Already turned women
Into ghosts.
This year,
I am going to a Halloween party
Off campus,
Where acid trips people up
Until they fall down.
I am ready for the night
Where everyone wears
A second layer of masks
Because the first layer
Isn’t something that ever peels
Away at the edges.
Some days I miss giving out
Candy to children,
Scaring adults,
But these days I can be
A sexy pirate or
A schoolgirl.
I wear my pride
On my breasts
Like a lioness.
I’m still learning how
To roar into the riptides
Before RIP tithes and asks
For me.
There are one too many
Gravestones
And one too many coffins.
I never quite fit inside
The burial box.
I want wiggle room.
I want to watch Pretty Little Liars
And write Halloween poetry.
If you don’t have a pumpkin pie
To enjoy,
Try what my momma calls
My pumpkin head,
And see which seeds begin
To grow inside
The oven
Of our American Horror Story.
-Seraphine
XXIV
Seasonal affect and change can be a serious endeavor for some. I witness a lot of seasonal depression, and I experience a "dip" in my spirit naturally as colder months approach. Something about the cold...and death of things (nature, or figurative) promotes a fear in me that I do not like dealing with. To cope, I deny, I ignore, I replace, I smoke, I drink, and I attempt to sever my emotions. None of these mechanisms are truly successful--or worth it. This fall, for the first time in my life, I am comfortable observing nature decay and the things around me essentially 'change'. I pride myself in my strong sense of adaptability and flexibility, but those too can be a cop out.
I am pretty excited to graduate with my masters degree in December. That may be a part of my acceptance for the seasonal change and flux, but there is something else. I am ready, for the first time in my life, to let go--to process life and to embrace it. So what I am not where exactly where I want to be, but I am confident. No one can take that away when it has been stripped from you in every sense possible--and you gain self back. Now, I do not need as much as I did in previous life experiences. A great deal of older & wiser individuals have said to me lately: Sunny, sometimes in life we don't get what we want, but we get what we need. I guess The Stones were kinda right. The more I give up on wants, the more that I am given opportunities to get in where I fit in. Nah mean? However you go through life, will depend on how your perspective is mold--but I say that 'reality is perception'. So don't be afraid when your world turns upside up. Trust yourself. We have exceeding capabilities that are inherent. Its written in our souls.
Selah
-Sunny
Tis the Season
To wear hoodies. I like being that cartoon character guy, you know, who wears the same thing every episode. Got my mimis pants on, my thermal, aaaaaand my hoodie. It's like a mimis blankie you can carry with you and wear without people judging you. If you walk around like Linus from Peanuts with your Naruto blankie, trust me, people judge... -.-
But with your hoodie, it keeps you warm, can help you go back to sleep wherever you are, just put your hood up, block the light, ear phones in, almost as good as being in bed. Also, for those days you forgot to shower, the smell has yet another layer to permeate before offending your friends, family, or fuck em strangers.
Hoodies are like the swiss army knife of clothes. You can use it for a pillow. Give it to your girl when she's cold. Take it back when you're mad, expressing the exact depth of your discontent. One of my personal favorites is the napkin/dry your hands app. Probably the one I use most.
Alas, just like an old hoodie, people see right through me. It's never really been about the hoodie. Just being a dirty lazy cartoon character that you can't believe is real. But this season makes me feel justified. Because sometimes, it's just too cold to shower, or change, or do laundry. All the more reason I should just stay in bed when the leaves start to make their own.
-DCR
Death Can Be Beautiful
Long days lead effortlessly into long nights, long nights fading into cold mornings, and cold mornings easing their way into nearly perfect afternoons, the smells of fall in Colorado are nothing if not enchanting. Trees putting on one final glorious display before their stature is reduced to lonely dendrites reaching for the heavens , the reds, yellows, and oranges create idyllic scenes the gives you a sense that sometimes, death can be beautiful.
For me, fall has always been a time of reflection, a time for second guessing everything , a time for making messes that would take all winter to clean up or recover from, but I’ve learned a lot since and through those moments of doubt. Having found so much of myself in those intense interactions, this fall feels different. Sensing that I have been on the right path for the majority of this year, this time around the goal is about refining, and redefining goals, and not about completely rebuilding. Having formed a strong foundation of family, friends, and ideas, what is beginning to take shape is far too exciting for words, and at times , fairly overwhelming. Requiring focus, attention to detail, and an almost superhuman level of adaptability, each day is different from the day before, and on most days it is that knowledge that removes me from the warm comfort of my king sized bed.
Each hour filling with a wide variety of tasks, many of which I have never encountered before, the process of acquiring new knowledge and skills is probably the most addictive drug i have ever encountered. Recalling the indifference that I once held for knowledge and education, i cannot help but think of how incredibly public schools have failed so many children like myself. Most strongly associating fall with thoughts of returning to school, it is these days that I miss the classroom the most. The smell of new clothes, the feel of a new pen as it figure skates against a fresh sheet of paper, that familiar tingle in the back of your skull as new synapse are formed.
Fondly recalling memories like the year my mom took us to the store to buy eggs for Halloween and then spent the rest of the night on phone deescalating the angry parents of my yolk covered peers, over a Pumpkin flavored Coffee or a Vanilla Bean and Cinnamon Stick Mead, it is safe to say the fall is one of my favorite seasons.
-Joshua Genius
