The opposite of England leaving the European union is cooking ginger and orange pork belly at home. That has been scientifically quantilionified, so that's what I'll be posting this week.
I'm all out of thoughts about the Brexit, except that it's a fucking ugly portmanteau. On one hand, I know the dipshits who voted leave are a bunch of hooting xenophobic throwbacks and angry couch humpers who frankly stunned me by eschewing Sky Sport en mass, admittedly to vote for something they didn't understand which must have made them feel at home, I suppose. On Team Remain we have the feckless dumbarses who base their favouring of international overlordship on St Vincent tweets and wanting to spend six months taking drugs and fucking hot foreigners on the Continent with minimal documentation, man.
We live in New Zealand and have enough problems of our own, so it was nice to sit this one out and just enjoy the fuckery while it's still a distant abstract. On a personal level I hate most people, so part of me wants to sever all relations, deport everyone and lock the gate. The other part wants Germans to pay for urban renewal projects, to enjoy liberal narcotic legislation and inexpensive cheese and fuck Spanish guys too; the conflict is real. But we're all doomed either way so I don't worry too much about the deckchair shuffling.
On a completely unrelated note we were in our favourite Indian grocery the other day. It’s Ramadan and every observant date fancier in a 20km radius is freaking out about supply. We’re not observant but we were freaking out when the shop owner explained that the date boat was held up in bloody Wellington. Fuck that lazy date boat right in the arse!
I'm all out of thoughts about the Brexit, except that it's a fucking ugly portmanteau. On one hand, I know the dipshits who voted leave are a bunch of hooting xenophobic throwbacks and angry couch humpers who frankly stunned me by eschewing Sky Sport en mass, admittedly to vote for something they didn't understand which must have made them feel at home, I suppose. On Team Remain we have the feckless dumbarses who base their favouring of international overlordship on St Vincent tweets and wanting to spend six months taking drugs and fucking hot foreigners on the Continent with minimal documentation, man.
We live in New Zealand and have enough problems of our own, so it was nice to sit this one out and just enjoy the fuckery while it's still a distant abstract. On a personal level I hate most people, so part of me wants to sever all relations, deport everyone and lock the gate. The other part wants Germans to pay for urban renewal projects, to enjoy liberal narcotic legislation and inexpensive cheese and fuck Spanish guys too; the conflict is real. But we're all doomed either way so I don't worry too much about the deckchair shuffling.
On a completely unrelated note we were in our favourite Indian grocery the other day. It’s Ramadan and every observant date fancier in a 20km radius is freaking out about supply. We’re not observant but we were freaking out when the shop owner explained that the date boat was held up in bloody Wellington. Fuck that lazy date boat right in the arse!
| A week later and lo, the date fairy had been generous. Her magic fruits were everywhere abundant; boxed, bagged, loose- we couldn't decide which ones to go for. Then we saw these... Al Khaleej dates. From Jeddah. Vacuum-packed. Mysterious. Should we be supporting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with all its no-homo lady-shading vodka-hiding ways? No. But the lure of the unknown vacuum packed date was ascendant. |  |
I bought them and the Iranian dates. Maybe you're some sort of European or North African date-literate sophisticate but we're still at the basic stage of ourتمر journey and we had many questions. Why are they like this? What is that moisture? Why vacuum packed?
There was no smell to guide me; for all I knew, we'd just dropped seven dollars on something that tasted like sock vinegar or spicy earwax.
There was no smell to guide me; for all I knew, we'd just dropped seven dollars on something that tasted like sock vinegar or spicy earwax.
 | I looked them up online and found something about their being recalled in Canada a few years ago due to their random insect content. Ha ha! You're not getting away that easily, mystery date. If you've seen my kitchen, you know we thrive on random insect content. There is an Alkhaleej Date site but the server handshake between NZ and a lot of Middle Eastern content is like fucking treacle for some reason, so no dice. |
Having eaten all the conventional Iranian dates, we looked to the Al Khaleejis with intense curiosity and a modicum of trepidation. Bracing for sock vinegar, I cut that shit open and extruded a great sticky, difficult mass of sweet-smelling goodness; fat, slightly compressed dates in a small amount of thick date syrup. Presumably.
They taste like date-infused caramel or caramel-infused dates with faint floral and liquorice suggestions; in a word, delicious.
They taste like date-infused caramel or caramel-infused dates with faint floral and liquorice suggestions; in a word, delicious.
| So delicious that my own gluttonous desires compel me to hide them under foil and bury them at the back of the fridge for fear of diabetic coma. See the pic to the left there for a comparison with the conventional Iranian mazafati. My advice: embrace this delightful caramelized spawn of ye olde Phoenix dactylifera. If you're going to cook with dates, and I do so with increasing regularity (leg of lamb roasted with apples and dates fuck yeah), this is probably the best form to use. |  |
If you see me walking around with something brown stuck to my face, it's a date, damn you.
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