To A Neglected Blog
You subsist dormant
Type stored in a cabinet
Not condemned to dust
Friday, 15 August 2014
Friday, 7 March 2014
Never realised I could make titles
The Berfooda Triangle is a
tripartite ramble of tenuously interconnected art forms. You can expect a
synesthetic mush of art, music, food, and not much else.
Some people, after experiencing a particularly traumatising
or emotionally unsettling event, will turn to writing to offload their
thoughts.
I am one of those people, and my problem is compost. Or, to
be more precise, my problem is MY compost. MY compost that I am trying to
cultivate, to the extent whereby I physically plunge my grebby little hands
into the bin, fishing out other people’s potato peelings and apple cores and
depositing them back into my specifically designated bowl. ‘Specifically
designated bowl’ can in this case be taken to mean an upturned microwave lid
(fig 1).
I live with seven others, all* of who eat an unseemly amount
of vegetables, so have taken it upon myself to become Legume Mulch
Representative 2013. It was all going well, and I began to develop particular
favourites (orange peel = good, pleasantly fragranced. Onionskin = bad, insubstantial
and blows away in the wind. Mouldy celery/spinach/salad leaves = great, adds
nice green colour, gives off superficial impression of advanced decomposition. Entire
product = shameful, suggests waste and unfinished gluttony etc), but recently I
have been led to believe there is a kompost konspiracy being carried out
against me.
Just this morning, for example, I was looking for my bowl
(lid) of fermented substance to put my tea bag in, and I saw it hideously
empty, sitting in the sink, gleaming with fairy liquid. WHAT? Who dares
sterilize the fetid mulch? Well, clearly someone, cos that half butternut
squash bubblin’ with fungi is now amongst the plastic detritus of the real bin
world. I’m going to stop this pre-amble here for the following reasons:
a)
it was about to get repetitive
b)
it brought us to the present day, as I am
writing this immediately post sink/bowl (lid) discovery, and therefore have no
more factual information to convey.
What I do have, however, is a gustatory (1 point) recipe to
kick off this week’s triangle. Naturally (1 point), we’re making it
compostable, so expect plenty’o’veg trimmings and maybe** even a few
unnecessarily peeled products.
Ingredients:
- An unseemly quantity of mushrooms; a veritable, munificent
(1 point) pile
- a slightly smaller, albeit it still significant, mound of
new potatoes
- Bunch of fresh thyme
- Bunch of real time (approx 30 mins for prep and cooking)
- 2 tbsp double cream
- 2 tbsp white wine
- Salt and pep
- Greaseproof paper
- Simple string, rustic rope or cute cord
Method:
1)
WARNING. This is a preparatory action: peel,
chop, and boil the potatoes until just cooked. Fling the peel into the ostcomp.
2)
Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees sea
3)
Cut out big squares of the greaseproof paper,
large enough to hold a hefty portion and be tied at the top with your choice of
fastener
4)
Peel the mushrooms excessively, send the
shavings to the compost too
5)
Place them either whole or halved in a mixing
bowl, along with the cooked potatoes
6)
Sprinkle the thyme (don’t forget to compost
those stalks – they look fabulous in amongst the other mulch!!!!111!)
7)
Add the wine, cream, salt and pepper. Stir
together
8)
Spoon out portions of each on to the squares.
Fasten the squares to make what one could define as ‘parcels’, ‘pockets’ or
‘sacks’, and then place on a tray.
9)
Bake for 20 minutes
10) Devour
So, you should be feeling a little full after that. But we
all know full doesn’t mean enriched (unlike the soil,
post-compost…com(post^2)…which is endlessly improved by such wealth of
vegetable squelch), so to give yourselves the equivalent brain fertilizer, may
I suggest the following work, by graffiti artist Narcelio Grud. It is entitled
Tropical Hungry (fig 2) and is made entirely out of natural produce, mainly
decomposing/overripe he found at the local market. Although not as neatly
effulgent (1 point) as his other street art, Tropical Hungry is impressive for
its resourcefulness, and clearly demonstrates Grud’s understanding of colour,
as he manages to make a squishy carambola actually look useful.
Although no longer a hostile environment, the soil of your
mind could still do with one final mineral: that of music, my friends (awarding
myself the right to be over-familiar) Apple Bobbing by Joe Goddard (from the
album Harvest Festival) has no lyrics, but does posses the most beautifully
appropriate title. It is borderline soft drum and bass, something which should
not be held against it in my opinion, and provides the perfect backdrop (or
foreground, depending on your personal views towards music’s role) to the
Hungry for Mushroom Bobbing experience. If you think this paragraph needs more
parentheses, text YES to 778778.
* ‘All’ with the exception of one, who doesn’t know what a
grape is. Joking so far aside it has been pushed into the next room.
**definitely
Splendid Adjective
and Combined Pun Leader board:
4 points – Polly
3 points – no one, because there is only me in this lonely,
lonely game
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Find the odd one out:
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 1939
Processors Alliance for Cocoa Traceability and Sustainability ©2013
The Poetry Pact 2014
Treaty of London 1518
Correct, the answer is The Poetry Pact 2014 because, unlike the other three, it does not exist.
Neither, in fact, is it in any way a positive or progressive agreement that will benefit the concordant members in addition to large numbers of the public.
What it is, however, is a disastrous and violently botched contract, formulated in a three minute conversation during which Robert (previous Berfooda contributor - see below for orange Booth triangle) and I committed ourselves to four subsequent days of moral and emotional turmoil. The initial principle was one of mutual support; a 'you do it if I do it' clause whereby we would both write and read original poetry in support of the Oxjam Beats and Bars. Despite the apparent pleasantness of the pact, we failed to acknowledge the fact that neither of us are competent and/or confident enough to write the poetry, let alone read it aloud. We therefore descended into small scale panic, perhaps even denial, refusing to withdraw from the pact yet also refusing to definitively commit. The resultant action, therefore, was a climactic crumbling of morale, and we both pulled out a mere two hours before the show, turning to comfort eating and prolonged sighs of relief. I would thus like to apologise first and foremost to Oxfam and all the organisers of the event, whom we abandoned ashamedly, and secondly to all those people (i.e. one person) who turned up to the event hoping to see us make enormous fools of our pretentious selves. If the one person who did turn up to see us would like to be reimbursed for their effort, come round to our house any night of the week and we can provide the pseudo-intellectual pomp you were searching for.
So that brings us neatly on to this week's/month's triangle. Yep, it's sham themed.
The pfoodo (1 point) recipe below relies upon an axis of deception. It looks disgusting, but it tastes delicious. There is room for extra embellishment, especially if you think you have particularly outstanding skills as a chef of fugly cuisine, but make sure you stop yourself from trying to make it look edible, as that would only shatter the fundamental illusion.
Basil pesto
Tomato purée
Grated cheddar cheese
Sliced green olives
Chopped cherry tomatos
Salt
Pepper
A little sugar
Olive oil
Fusilli
Spaghetti
1) Mix together the first 8 ingredients in a pan. Try and get equal quantities of pesto and tomato purée in order to achieve a nice, even brown paste.
2) Cook pasta as you always cook pasta.
3) Combine the two, chobbling up the whole thing to obliterate all semblance of edibility.
If you can manage to get hold of any of Heinz's horrendous and thus discontinued coloured ketchups, then DO. They will make even the most elegantly executed tuile of a meal look like crayola vomit.
While you're eating this deceptive dish, crank up that volume dial (if you don't have a volume dial, and instead rely on + or - buttons, reassess your entire life ethos and invest immediately) and insert this playlist of pseusic (1 point):
Morning Wonder - The Earlies
Lonely Lonely (Frisbe'ed Remix) - Feist
Mi Mujer - Nicolas Jaar
Luna Y Sol - Manu Chao
These are all fake-singalong songs. They pretend to have user-friendly lyrics, easy melodies and understandable rhythms, however they are actually just the noise equivalent of a bowl of noodles. If you can make it all the way through the whole list without realising how a) off key or b) inhuman you sound, then email me your address and I'll post you a prize. A fake prize, of course.
As much as I would love to share with you some of my attempts at poetry, if I couldn't do it on the night, I certainly can't do it on the internet. So instead I'm going to toss Raymond Queneau's Cent Mille Miliards de Poèmes in your direction. It is a book of one hundred thousand million sonnets, all written by Ray himself. OR IS IT? Due to the very nature of the theme, obviously not. It is, in fact, a collection of 10 sonnets - each with the same rhyme scheme and metrical structure - cut up along each of the fourteen lines, so that each can be rearranged in 1014 different ways. Incredulous? Well good luck proving it, cos it would take one reader approximately 190258751 years to read all possible combinations, by which time u w!11 b ded.
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 1939
Processors Alliance for Cocoa Traceability and Sustainability ©2013
The Poetry Pact 2014
Treaty of London 1518
Correct, the answer is The Poetry Pact 2014 because, unlike the other three, it does not exist.
Neither, in fact, is it in any way a positive or progressive agreement that will benefit the concordant members in addition to large numbers of the public.
What it is, however, is a disastrous and violently botched contract, formulated in a three minute conversation during which Robert (previous Berfooda contributor - see below for orange Booth triangle) and I committed ourselves to four subsequent days of moral and emotional turmoil. The initial principle was one of mutual support; a 'you do it if I do it' clause whereby we would both write and read original poetry in support of the Oxjam Beats and Bars. Despite the apparent pleasantness of the pact, we failed to acknowledge the fact that neither of us are competent and/or confident enough to write the poetry, let alone read it aloud. We therefore descended into small scale panic, perhaps even denial, refusing to withdraw from the pact yet also refusing to definitively commit. The resultant action, therefore, was a climactic crumbling of morale, and we both pulled out a mere two hours before the show, turning to comfort eating and prolonged sighs of relief. I would thus like to apologise first and foremost to Oxfam and all the organisers of the event, whom we abandoned ashamedly, and secondly to all those people (i.e. one person) who turned up to the event hoping to see us make enormous fools of our pretentious selves. If the one person who did turn up to see us would like to be reimbursed for their effort, come round to our house any night of the week and we can provide the pseudo-intellectual pomp you were searching for.
So that brings us neatly on to this week's/month's triangle. Yep, it's sham themed.
The pfoodo (1 point) recipe below relies upon an axis of deception. It looks disgusting, but it tastes delicious. There is room for extra embellishment, especially if you think you have particularly outstanding skills as a chef of fugly cuisine, but make sure you stop yourself from trying to make it look edible, as that would only shatter the fundamental illusion.
Basil pesto
Tomato purée
Grated cheddar cheese
Sliced green olives
Chopped cherry tomatos
Salt
Pepper
A little sugar
Olive oil
Fusilli
Spaghetti
1) Mix together the first 8 ingredients in a pan. Try and get equal quantities of pesto and tomato purée in order to achieve a nice, even brown paste.
2) Cook pasta as you always cook pasta.
3) Combine the two, chobbling up the whole thing to obliterate all semblance of edibility.
If you can manage to get hold of any of Heinz's horrendous and thus discontinued coloured ketchups, then DO. They will make even the most elegantly executed tuile of a meal look like crayola vomit.
While you're eating this deceptive dish, crank up that volume dial (if you don't have a volume dial, and instead rely on + or - buttons, reassess your entire life ethos and invest immediately) and insert this playlist of pseusic (1 point):
Morning Wonder - The Earlies
Lonely Lonely (Frisbe'ed Remix) - Feist
Mi Mujer - Nicolas Jaar
Luna Y Sol - Manu Chao
These are all fake-singalong songs. They pretend to have user-friendly lyrics, easy melodies and understandable rhythms, however they are actually just the noise equivalent of a bowl of noodles. If you can make it all the way through the whole list without realising how a) off key or b) inhuman you sound, then email me your address and I'll post you a prize. A fake prize, of course.
As much as I would love to share with you some of my attempts at poetry, if I couldn't do it on the night, I certainly can't do it on the internet. So instead I'm going to toss Raymond Queneau's Cent Mille Miliards de Poèmes in your direction. It is a book of one hundred thousand million sonnets, all written by Ray himself. OR IS IT? Due to the very nature of the theme, obviously not. It is, in fact, a collection of 10 sonnets - each with the same rhyme scheme and metrical structure - cut up along each of the fourteen lines, so that each can be rearranged in 1014 different ways. Incredulous? Well good luck proving it, cos it would take one reader approximately 190258751 years to read all possible combinations, by which time u w!11 b ded.
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