birthday, no blues

my roman-symmetrical birthday came and i felt no blues - except for the moment i stopped to remember how marvin gaye died on my 10th birthday. i even wrote a haiku in the morning - a sign that my zen is maturing:

barrage of goosebumps
a corporeal down payment
for afternoon sun

otherwise, all goes well in California. i visited a remarkable middle school, Nimitz in Huntington Park, CA as part of the university's outreach programme and had the fullest day ever - from 7:25 until 15:13 reading poetry, running workshops, answering questions - i was completely hoarse when i got home. but, to balance that i had ice cream yesterday - cold stone creamery in long beach, CA - it was sooo good (see their website for pictures :)). i made my own mix of banana/coffee ice cream with pecan nuts, almonds and caramel, with the thickest crunchiest waffle ever

and who said we have to age gracefully? here's to 33 going on 3

mint

So, maybe we should get all the lit news out of the way then get to the mint? Well, as you gathered from my last offering I've been in NYC writing and stuff. I returned to the UK to a backlog of e-mail and all that lovely sour mash. The manuscript for my first novel has been doing the rounds and it hasn't found a home yet. I've had two lovely rejections from editors who had very different opinons of my work; one thought it didn't have a strong enough narrative thread, but loved my writing, the other thought the plot and story were fascinating and original but didn't like the language, which was described as 'solemn and brooding'. In any case, both editors were very nice about it and I'm glad for that because I respect them both BUT it leaves a writer thinking WHO'S RIGHT?? This is when you have to trust your own instincts. I mean how many books have we seen turned down that then became mega-sellers; my own agent turned down a manuscript that is now on the Booker longlist. Man, it's a beautiful world!! I do have good news though: a major excerpt from my second novel (in progess) is to be published in the British Council's New Writing anthology next year, and I'm on the verge of becoming a published children's writer - ha! No money, no problems...

Now, the mint. Basically fresh mint was on sale at Tesco so I bought a bunch. I put half up to dry to make tea with later, but I still have the rest of the fresh mint. Yesterday I made six mint teas - lovely! Then today I thought, let's make some interesting food. I had some left over tuna, some spring onions, parmesan cheese, a bit of lamb mince, a last thin slice of brown bread, a bit of double cream, and stuff. And then I spotted the large green pepper - so I thought pepper stuffing tuna/lamb competition. For the lamb the mix was lamb/chilli powder/double cream/half slice of brown bread (crumbed)/mint leaves (ha, ha, ha)/spring onions/salt&pepper and for the tuna it was tuna/mustard/half slice of brown bread (crumbed)/mint leaves (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha)/spring onions/salt&pepper/plus parmesan topping. In the end I had excess stuffing so (influenced by the recent visit of the mother of a Libyan friend of mine whose mom is the most amazing cook!) I dragged some left over rice from the fridge and made rice-stuffing parcels to go in the oven with the stuffed peppers. While they were in there I made a double cream/mustard & mint (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...) sauce and would you believe???? It was SOOOO FREAKING GOOD - and to my great surprise the tuna (from Ghana of course - all the big cans of Tesco tuna are from Ghana - dolphin friendly and all!) actually won the taste wars. Don't get me wrong, the lamb was good... but the tuna was poetry!! The rice parcels were yummy too with that crazy sauce. Another mad recipe for the book!! BTW if you want to try this stuff, the key to any mint sauce is to keep tasting because, trust me, you don't want to get too minted! Mo' money mo' problems!!

I'm listening to Stephanie Mills 'cos she has one of the best voices ever - none of this cheap trilling stuff we get fed these days. My girlfriend always laughs when I sing along to "Comfort of a Man" but it's worth it just to sing along to such dopeness...

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:
Stephanie Mills

pasta

no listening, no reading, just talking... i'm away from home unwinding with some old friends 'cos my life's all twisted right now. of course, what do i get for dinner? pasta - spaghetti bolognese. you couldn't get more twisted than that - am i reading too many metaphors out here? well, the good thing is it tasted great and i ate it all. now if i could consume all my entangled problems in the same way, i wouldn't care if it came with good wine or not!

fenugreek love, fan hatred

First, anyone who makes a comment on how long it took me to get clean dies. I was working!
Even if I wasn't, that's what free will is about. So, anyway I said fenugreek is my new thing.
Natural, subtle or overpowering depending on how you use it; a spice like love and salt...
Use too much and you come undone. Speaking of overuse, I've decided I hate the extractor fan;
great big thing above my cooker that's supposed to stop my place from stinking of food - well I
really like the smell of food. And you can't be creative if you can't smell what you're cooking, I've
even tried hovering above the pans when I'm cooking but the damned noisy thing is a little too
effective. So I turned it off and now my dreams smell of palm oil. Hey, I'm happy. I will not
keel over because of the smell of good food, will I? I made a super slimy okro soup with chicken
wings last night, with a healthy dose of my new best friend fenugreek and the world stopped.
One of these days I'll write a recipe book. I've had one recipe published but it's just not enough.
What I have is a unique angle. Surely a kid who smelled his food so religiously that his mother
asked him if he was a monkey must have a different perspective on food...
+
random facts: fenugreek is supposed to increase breastmilk production, some cultures have used it to increase breast size, and it is used in that lovely eritrean/ethiopian bread (injera).

hope you enjoyed my acrostic post - any excuse to practise poetry :) - speaking of which, that chronicling exercise I spoke of? I found the first poem. It was hard work, but I did so I'll be doing a double thought movement... Oh, and Random House just sent me an advance copy of Anne Carson's new collection of poetry (please, don't ask me why!) so I have some interesting verse to look forward to after I come out of jazz-inspired scribernation. I'm listening to Branford Marsalis right now - the guy is amazing! I've decided to let him play on because I've been very productive since he kicked in. I'd love to see him live one day - he's my favourite Marsalis brother (OK, Nii, when the jazz geekiness kicks in you have to say goodbye to the nice people...) Erm, bye bye!

what i'm reading/listening to

listening:
Requiem by Branford Marsalis