Text 3745, 102 rader
Skriven 2013-08-19 05:35:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: quarters 25
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So Court and Philip were given my room, which is only fair,
plus there's a big bed; it at one time had a window screen
(which got detached during a storm and blew off somewhere);
I got relegated to the little room, which never had a screen.

Rosemary insists that mosquitoes can't fly above the first
floor. Apparently, if the incentive is a delicious me meal,
they can, and I have the itchies to prove it. So I did what
any budding young genius would, closed the window. It didn't
take long before the room, about the size of a walk-in closet
in the suite that the Newark Hilton gave me once, smelled
like me - not a bad smell (except if I've had pizza, which
hasn't happened) exactly, but distinctive, and I wonder if
the critters find me more tasty because of it. Anyhow, since
I closed the room off, only one skeeter has attempted mayhem
upon my person.

Philip just left, and I have Court to myself for the next
couple days, which is not a wholly terrible thing, especially
as she buys me stuff. Actually, she buys herself stuff and
shares. Yesterday's bounty included what she announced as
bad fried chicken. Apparently the Chinese restaurant on Fire
Island sells a special of a half fried chicken with pork
fried rice, enough for two, for ten bucks or so, and Court
got this munchie hankering and went to the Chinese restaurant
on Jamestown, where she was shocked and chagrined to find that
not every restaurant on earth has this special, so she had to
get an order of wings and an order of pork fried rice and
brought the leftovers back for me with that announcement.

The wings were heavily brined but decently fried in decent
oil, so I'm not sure it merited being thus calumnied. The
fried rice had no grease. No grease. It seemed to be just
plain rice, also rather salty, with a few perfunctory bits
of white onion (not even scallion!) and here and there a tiny
oasis of a 1/2" cube of red roast pork, which seemed ever so
delicious by contrast. I fished out two to taste by themselves,
and they were in fact better than most red roast pork. H'm.

More importantly, she picked up an envelope of Haribo
Tropifruits gummi candy. Five flavors, five colors, five
shapes that meant to represent various things some of which
I don't understand. The flavors were exceedingly fugitive.
The white one shaped sort of like a wedge was your standard
artificial pineapple but very very weak, so you got this
whiff of unidentified ester and then after some thinking you
narrow it down to pineapple or pear, probably the former.
The yellow banana-shape was (not so) obviously banana; it
suffered the same issue and gave the same impression. There
were two colors of blob, orange and red, and I really could
not figure out what flavors they were supposed to offer. I
might guess orange for orange, but that was the least orangey
orange I recall ever having had; the red seemed a little like
a fugitive from a raspberry pack, but maybe it was supposed
to be mango. The real puzzler was a little green palm tree
shape - I'd have guessed coconut, but it had no discernible
flavor at all. But what I am excited about is that this
company (German, but the stuff is made in Spain and then
shipped to Baltimore; I had thought it a Japanese enterprise,
given the name's resemblance to a Japanese one or at least
an Asian pronunciation of the word halibut) has got the
texture thing down pat: there's a fine dusting of very soft
sugar on the outside, quite unlike the big grains on the
surface of gumdrops, and the interior texture is ineffably
wonderful, hardly gummilike at all - a tenderness that
somehow seems to merit the description "crisp" - these guys
have clearly done a bunch of research to make candies that
one esteems and enjoys for the physical sensation instead
of (not addition to) the taste. Very strange, very wonderful.

--

Being breakfast eaters, the kids bought a box of Best Yet
raisin bran, which gave enquiring me a chance to investigate
the difference between generic and the fancy Kelloggs-Post-
Nabisco-what-have-you stuff. Answer. The grain part is pretty
much the same. The name brands have raisins throughout the
box; this had bran flakes on top, no raisins - all the
raisins had fallen to the bottom. Why is this: I figure that
the name brands take one extra step to ensure a uniform
product: at some point they must glue the raisins to some of
the flakes using sugar syrup, not so securely that the
raisins stay stuck but enough that they don't separate from
their host flakes until the agitation caused by pouring of
the cereal into your bowl. Very interesting.

--

A report on that Mezzacorona Pinot Noir 11. Unfavorable.
First off, the wine has what I can only describe as a texture.
It hits your mouth hard, something a liquid is not supposed to
do. The aroma is chemically, and I continue to entertain the
idea that this stuff may never have seen a grape. Flavor of
sour cherry juice - that's not (sour cherry) juice but rather
sour (cherry juice). Finish of turpentine, well, not exactly,
but close enough. Nasty nasty, and I could put down only half
a glass of it - and I bought a gallon. Someone else will do it
justice. Maybe use it in a stroganoff made with fat-free cream
and hamburger grown from stem cells?
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