vanilla

When I was younger, in the days of ice cream, vanilla meant plain. It was the variety of ice cream that had the flavor turned off. It was the null set. Now that I am older, and eating yoghurt, vanilla means something else entirely. Plain yoghurt, the real deal, can be quite extreme. It is bitter and set in its ways. But vanilla, vanilla is a little sweeter and more full of hope, an inspired tableau into which toppings can be readily incorporated. Let’s not overdo it, but a lil’ vanill’? Hmm.

the joys of vegan

I am going to stop chugging milk from the carton and start pouring it into a glass. My biggest fear is waking up, staggering with that dim, bovine look of morning in my face, and heading straight to the fridge to take down a healthy gulp of 1%, only to find, just as the swig is ending (since of course it wouldn’t occur to me right away), that the milk has seen better days and here I am gagging on bitter meal of milk chunks and separated dairy particles, acidic, complex, the chunks dissolving on my tongue releasing new levels of tangy poison, no longer a milk, not yet a yoghurt, a bleu moment of gagging and deceit and I am hunched over the sink, hair in my watery eyes, spitting into the running water, cursing cows and those who raise them. Even worse, would be to spend half an hour cooking something like mac’n'cheese, only at the end to see that the milk is bad and that you are out of butter and that this is going to be some odd macaroni.

I came, I saw, I ate frozen pizza

I use real milk and butter, along with vegan sausage in my Mac ‘n’ Cheese. Why vegan sausage? I don’t know. Not at all as good as the real thing. That was all I had yesterday, 1/2 for lunch, 1/2 for dinner. I don’t think I have eaten meat in days. To ease the transition back into the carnal, I am now going to have a Chicken Caesar Pizza! Weird, right? It’s like a salad, but with dough where the lettuce should be. Oh god. Let’s see, earlier today I had a garlic bagel with tomatoes, onions, and scallion cream cheese for lunch, an intelligent order, if I may. The day also featured three smoothly elided cups of coffee, and give or take as many cigarettes. Oh, and of course a pot of coffee in the AM and some strawberry Kefir. Also, I need to be drinking more water, since occasionally I get coffee related headaches in which the only cure would be more coffee. A conundrum if I’ve ever seen one.

breakfast in echo

Today, today I made breakfast. Breakfast. Everyday I have breakfast, not in the traditional sense of the word however, but whatever the first thing one consumes in a day is, that, that qualifies to be considered his or her breakfast, unless something more substantial or definitively breakfasty occurs later on; and I wanted to document that for you.

My eating habits are largely homogenous, at least amongst other meals of mine, or shall I say, my cooking habits are consistent. My food is either quite spicy and full of pungent aromas and onions and garlic and bursts of pepperiness, or it is dairy based and comforting and full of milkiness; and let me tell you: boy, do I love curry.

So as an homage to my taste in food, I made a piece of music. It is “electroacoustic” or “acousmatic” or “diagenetic” or whatever bullshit term best works for you. It is, in fact, a recording of this morning’s breakfast ceremony: the unloading of the dishes, the boiling of water, the pouring of milk and cereal, the grinding of coffee, the chewing, and finally the satisfying matchlit cigarette at the end. The piece is comprised of about 8 or ten tracks recorded this morning of the aforementioned mundane rituals. They are then layered, edited, panned, and given a minimal treatment, mostly in the way of heavy delay and reverb usage. I call it “Breakfast in Echo.” Enjoy.

More on the analogous traits of my cooking and musical preferences to come. I feel the trio I am working on now quite exemplifies that sharp contrast between the spicy and calming.