Valley of the Trolley Dollies

don’t worry the vegetarians: coming soon is a piece on the joys of carrots.

No, really…

“Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.  He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes.  Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”
–James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).

 

In this age of supermarket meats, with the disappearance of the local butcher, we end up eating the meat – the cuts, the types, the parts – that the monolith megamarts want to sell us; the stuff that’s easily packaged, transported, stored; the meat that can be most easily sold to the largest mass market. Anything that’s oddly shaped, a little too delicate for slam-bam-refrigerated truck-to-warehouse-to-cold shelf gets dropped, and, slowly but surely, vanishes from the repertoire.

 

I’m reminded of this because my parents are visiting. They’ve always visited “The Butcher.” Sometimes – usually – daily. My Uncle was the butcher when I was a kid, and I can still remember the sawdust floors, the hanging carcases – marbled in fat – so removed from actual animals and the glistening, dark scarlet to palest pink spread of product in the windows.

 

And hearts. A true comfort food, and one which you don’t ever see at supermarkets. Sheeps hearts – a little bigger than, and almost the same shape as, your fist.

 

A cross section would look like one of a capsicum pepper; four chambers surrounded and divided by a thin wall of meat. Not a huge amount of meat by any accounts, but so good when roasted long and slow in the oven.

 

The gentle heat pulls out the fat inherent in the meat (a fatty heart? Thank god humanity doesn’t appear to be the only creature open to coronary disease). It reaches the surface, and cooks, then scorches, then caramelises, making a red unctuous and almost impossibly savoury shell, inside of which is the velvet smooth, deliciously creamy meat, then the four ventricles, filled with savoury air.

 

Of course, the empty space can be stuffed; I’ve often seen them this way (although my mother never stuffed hearts when we had them). Rice – a mixture of white and wild – is good, often mixed with minutely chopped red and green peppers. Or, for a nice Arabic feel, try couscous, made up using a good stock or bouillon, then lightly fried with toasted and smashed coriander seeds, then speckled with teeny-tiny jewels of reconstituted dried apricots, almost preternaturally green slivers of smashed up pistachios, a little dusting of cinnamon, and perhaps a finely diced red chilli pepper or two.

 

I’ve always wondered whether the luxury could be upped by filling the parcel with a rich pate, but suspect that that much cream and fat would result in a messy – and possibly too rich – concoction.

I’m not looking back any more. Those end-of-year reviews? Not this year. It was a summer filled with fun and love and joy. I never wanted to be 40 (it’s ancient, really, isn’t it?), but the alternative seemed a little less palatable. And the summer - the garden party, the regattas, the dinners and the dressing up and the whole unmitigated joy and love (I said that already, didn’t I) was wonderful. As was the September trip to NY with my parents. I finally rediscovered how much I loved writing, and being around writers, and the two classes I took on my fiction writing have made me feel like this is something I NEED to do - not just would like to, or would enjoy daydreaming about: I NEED to write and get published. Not for the money; not for the validation - I know I’m a good writer - but because in some way, to do anything else feels almost like constant masturbation without orgasm - always straining towards something, and never really doing anything more than wanking in front of the computer.

But large swathes of the rest of 2008 have been pretty shit, to be honest. Deaths. Friends in legal trouble. Friends getting sick. Worry and fear and stress as the finanical carpet on which our lives rest  began to unravel beneath our feet. Culminating in the feeling that I simply couldn’t cope and a terrible depression that just felt like a big black wet rubber blanket being thrown over my head: No escape, no hope, nothing to be done.

Bollocks. So far this week: The heating packed up. The shower died. I heard strong rumours that my financial future may be severely affected by the current financial conditions in my industry.

It’s not gonna matter. I’m not gonna let it. Head up. You’re bigger and stronger than all of this. You have beautiful people and beautiful things around you, the voices say; and I have a decent brain and wit and some talents, and a huge amount of things to look forward to.

And that’s what I’m doing: looking forward. Letting go of an annus horibilis (no, not you Carlie). More of that to come…

For now, the one little bit of looking back is the list of musics from 08 that I am looking forward to blasting out of the speakers into ‘09.

In no particular order:

This is Alphabeat - Alphabeat (who, I’m told, have been dumped by their record co. WTF)

 

 

Discipline – Janet Jackson (her best pop album in a long time; shame it tanked)

Somewhere in the real world – Vanessa Amorosi (it just rocks)

Let it Go – Will Young (his best album, IMHO. Again, shame it seems to be tanking)

Way to Normal – Ben Folds (well, a third of it; the bit that’s not filled with bitterness and negativity)

 

Funhouse – Pink (cos it’s fun and raucous)

 

 

And Winter Came – Enya (Cos it’s Enya. And she’s not U - Fucking - 2!)

The Alesha Show – Alesha Dixon (Cos it’s nice to see a fresh(ish) face on the scene. And Xenomania have done the works with her - check out Cinderella Shoe)

Circus – Britney Spears (Cos she is loopy, isn’t she. Let’s see: Child star? Check. Biggest hit had her dressed up as a little girl? Check. Bad mother? Check. Drug fiend? Check? Boozehoud? Chec? Unsuitable / unstabel husband? Check? Bad relationship with at least one of her parents? Check. Liza Minelli’s mother? Oh, wait… Apart from that one, she’s bascially Judy fuckign Garland, isn;t she? Yay!)

The Circus - Take That (Because the inclusion of the definitve article makes for a very different album - one of their finest, frankly, if a little ‘grown up’ - and proves they are not crazed, drink-drug befuddled bad mothers with career trajectories like Lorna Luft’s old ma. Though Robbie may rejoin them next year…)

C’mon – Keith Anderson (’Cos Country can be wonderful, and Keith - of whom I know nothing other than I love his album from front to back, and he’s not too bad on the eys neither - is a prime example)

Metropolis: The Chase Suite – Janelle Monae (’Cos It’s Genius. Psycho-Bladerunner-Hey Ya Crazyness. Like Michael Jackson should be doing. She’s getting a UK launch next yr. Should be good.)

Backwoods Barbie – Dolly Parton (’Cos it’s Dollie. And it’s got lovely tunes, great lyrics, and a cover of “She drives me crazy” that almost improves on the original!)

Spotlights and Catfights – Sugababes (Never had a SB album. Never wanted one. Then this one came along - filled with hit after hit after hit. Except it’s tanking. Boo! The curse of Derek strikes again.)

Hurricane – Grace Jones (Cos It’s Grace. And because “Williams’ Blood” alone - lifting the veil on the aloof icon and showing her human side - is worth the cost fo the whole thing).

Alchemy: GST Reloaded – Ultra Nate. (For playing loudly through headphones whilst running. It CAN NOT be beaten!)