Haiku Thursday

I tried to tell K last night how I loved her post yesterday. I loved how she brought us hunks through HotMC and HotMC through WTF Wednesday. Ironic that our last week before an indefinite but hopefully finite hiatus should come so easily and be so enjoyable to read and write. 

Anyway it's Thursday and there would be no other appropriate way to spend our last ever Thursday (before this hiatus) than revisiting some golden hiaku. Some may think Hiaku Thursday was just an easy way out but in fact Haiku Thursday is goldmine of pristine nuggets just waiting to be (re)discovered. Seriously there is some great shit in there. But today I'm going to reproduce some haiku from three of the most important themes to ever be explored through haiku: Sparkleface, Jews, and the most famous Jew - Jesus.  

Haiku impressions of Edward Cullen

by K and J

I

Stupid Sparkleface

With his stupid sparkly face

Get a real face!

II 

You can climb a tree

Really fast. Um, so what, guy!

So can possums! Dick.

III

Edward Cullen's best

Thing are his ever larger

Volvos. For reals guy.

IV

Girl found you're a vamp

By searching the internet. 

That's really lame, guy.

V

I think vamps are hot

But somehow Cullen kills it

Pussy vamps aren't hot.

Haiku impressions of Jacob

by K and J

I 

In real life I

Love wolves. In Twilight Saga

I'm team wolf. TEAM WOLF!

II 

I love how the wolves

Are giant. I love how they

Are too hot for shirts

III 

I love how the wind

Blows through their fur. It suggests

Sensitivity. 

IV 

As well as being

a wolf (hot), Jake just seems like

better company.

V

If Edward's feelings

For Bella are wrong, then mine

For Jacob are too 

VI

Yeah. I guess we both

Know police chief swan is more

Age appropriate.

Just one more, I promise

I love you I hate

You I love you I hate you

Breaking Dawn Part 1

If J's allowed one, then I'm allowed one

Breaking Dawn Part 1. 

You sucked so very much. So

Why can't I quit you?

 

Haiku interpretations of what a random selection of Jews might have written in their diaries during the time that they were enslaved in Egypt and leading up to their release

Pharaoh be trippin’

He be hatin’ and killin’

Why he oppressin’?

Jews are people too

The chosen people! Jealous?

Suck it up bitches!

Is this for real?

Gotta  put blood on my door?

Oi vey! What a mess!

Who’s this guy Moses?

You want I should follow him?

I hope he’s a mensch

Haiku interpretations of what one very astute observer may have written in his diary

 I

Blood, frogs, lice, flies and

Pestilence, boils, hail

Locusts and darkness

II

What’s coming next, huh?

Slaying of the first born? No!?

Suck it, oppressors

Haiku impressions of what Jesus might have written in his diary during the week leading up to his crucifixion.

Monday

Hung with disciples

Found Lazarus dead. Hells no!

Miracled him back.

Tuesday

Woke with mad craving

For felafel. So what's new?

To Jerusalem!

Wednesday

Back to back meetings.

I was all Miracles, yo!

But they be hatin'.

Wednesday (later, in the Garden of Gethsemane)

God told me "The Plan".

Gulp! Also, Judas hates me?!

WTF!? Since when?

 : (

Thursday

BEST farewell dinner

With disciples. Ate WAAAAAYY too

Much bread! *Love* those guys!

Thursday (later)

I should have shaved my

beard before supper. It's so

Full of crumbs now. LOL!

Who am I? (AM)

It was Yom Kippur on Saturday, the day of atonement. It's also a time for self reflection. Russeth fasted and, presuming he had the presence of mind through the hunger, I assume he atoned and reflected. Around sunset that night though I received this message from him "So I've just left the house to get my post Yom meal and nearly said hello to a woman I thought was Mondonna". Readers, Mondonna lives in America, so the chances of her walking past Russeth were slim. Whether Russeth was in any position to make a sound assessment of the year just gone remains to be seen. I did not observe Yom Kippur but that doesn't mean I haven't been atoning and reflecting. Just the other night I did an Oprah quiz. Yes, now that Oprah is no longer a tv show she is a website. And a television station by all accounts. 

To be honest I don't know if I intended to google "what should I do with my life?" or if predictive googling distracted me, either way in order to discover who I am meant to be, I found myself ranking, according to frequency, statements  like "others think of me as nurturing". I don't know Oprah, go ask the others! Or "I lose sight of my own needs". Yes Oprah, sometimes I do. Why the fuck else would I be doing this quiz, I certainly don't need to be, a fact I've clearly lost sight of. 

It became clear to me when I'd finished the quiz that it was the kind of thing where any result would give me some reassuring, positive and inaccurate assessment of myself and after looking around for some more enjoyable quiz (I love quizzes, I find them very relaxing. I enjoy surveys in the same way and will always do one when telesurveyors ring with them) but it turns out that Oprah the website is at least as annoying as Oprah the tv show was and after laughing at the discovery of an article called "how to wear jeans to work" I looked under my chair to see if there was a gift bag only to find nothing and shut down the Oprah window.  

So Oprah helped me achieve nothing and a 24-hour fast would probably make me as delusional as it did Russeth. I've got a year to figure out how to best self reflect and how I can apologise to myself for spending on Oprah.com. 

Terrific Tuesday goes Thursday (AM)

As predicted, since Miss Soft Crab moved to a two-day-a-week blog the world has lost some great days. It's lost the chance to think about favourite things on Fridays and the ability to turn a regular old Tuesday into a terrific one. But why. You know what other day starts with a T? Thursday! That's today! Oh sure, it's too late for Tuesday but let's all make today terrific! 

Here's how I'm going to do it:

Eat porridge! Ok so I eat porridge for breakfast 9 days out of 10, but I love it every single time. What I don't love is the days when I don't eat porridge. There's no way I'd eff up Terrific Thursday by skipping porridge. No way!

Have 2 coffees! It's a grand tradition on Terrific Tuesdays to have 2 coffees and why break with tradition just because it's Thursday?! I'm going to start my day with a home brew and later I'm gonna keep things moving with a take away. Terrific! 

Celebrate the new year! It's rosh hashanah guys and who doesn't love a New Year celebration?! Oh I know there are people out there who say "oh I hates New Years, so much pressure to have a good time" or "it's so anticlimactic". Well I really like New Years, I usually gave a really good time and why should the Jewish version be any different? Good food with my family? Terrific!

Three simple little things to make this day terrific. It's not much, in fact if I'm honest you know what makes Terrific Tuesday no matter what day it is? The mindset. It's all about the mind set. Shana tovah you beautiful sons of bitches. Go out and have a terrific day!

The Passover questions (PM)

OK, passover questions. Here goes.

It's hard to know what to cook for a dinner party at the best of times, nevermind those that are held on holy days and come with dietary restrictions. 

And like I said when we were discussing this very issue over That Time of the Month dinner, the passover meal is all about symbolism, and I think there is scope to make a dish that is symbolic of the passover story. You know, something evocative of:

- wandering in deserts

- parting seas

- plagues

But who has the time to get all Heston's Feasts on the spread?

Sure, we've got the freedom (thanks to Moses) but no time.

Personally, I hope someone makes this thing called Brei. It's like an eggy matzo pancake/fritter type deal.  I think it could be the hot new dish this pesach. 

The Passover questions (AM)

Well, it's Pesach again. Not today, next Monday. And you know what that means! Miss Soft Crab turns two Jew years old! And also, everyone is thinking about food. Everyone, right? Of course Passover celebrates the freeing of the Jews from their enslavement in Egypt. You can read all about their hardships here. And while that is of course what we gather to celebrate on the 14th of Nisan every year, we gotta eat to right? And we gotta eat good. We're free now, we deserve it!

This year I am going to make the matzo crack that I have been making for the last couple of years. It is a very delicious recipe from Smitten Kitchen that involves slathering one side of matzo with caramelly toffee and the other side with chocolate.The sweet taste of freedom.

But then what? I want to make something delicious, I kind of want to make something traditional, but so much traditional Jew food is meaty. And if not meaty it's doughy and therefore not fit for passover. Although The Jewish Festival Cookbook does have a lot of recipes made with matzo. Including an apple matzo kugel which may be delicious. And Passover fruit fritters! What? Pass them over here, please! Then again that book also says that you are meant to open the Passover meal with egg soup, which involves everyone putting a boiled egg in a bowl, mashing it up and adding salt water to taste. Get the hell outta here with that crazy talk!

As you may imagine, on the savoury side that book is wanting. So then I think maybe traditional Jew food is not necessary, maybe just something delicious is all that is needed, but I feel like it would be good to strike a balance. Even the Internet barely seems to be cooperating, although Chickpea has said she is going to make vegetarian gefilte fish, and when I asked the Internet about this they did supply some delicious potatoey faux gefilte recipes. So that's her taken care of. I want to eat delicious food to celebrate my people's freedom, but what?!

Then again, maybe I should just chillax. There is always way too much food on the table anyway, then it ends up with being way too much food in my belly. God, I can't wait for the vegetarian chopped liver.

Shorties (PM)

Who doesn't love a shortie?! And those shorties you made, mate, look so effing good. I want one. Those little bastards sound delicious. That icing... get the hell outta here! And icing is not a thing that ever gets me excited. Also now I understand why you may or may not have been a little absent during the Oscars. Who wouldn't be paying more attention to a delicious biscuit than that ridiculous excuse for entertainment.

Funnily enough I also made a shortbread-like biscuit recently. In that it was a biscuit that is super buttery, quite crumbly and very effing delicious. You see last Saturday was Purim, a lesser-known/celebrated Jewish holiday. And by coincidence my family were getting together for lunch. Apparently one is supposed to eat a biscuit called a hamataschen. So I made some. Also mum bought some from the local Jewish bakery. Here are mine and the professional ones side by side.

Mine are the messy ones in front. Obviously.

I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and I am not kidding when I say that they were fan-fricking-tastic. There was some debate over the lunch table as to whether mine or the pro biscuits were better. Everyone thought my actual biscuit was better but there was division over who had a better poppy seed filling. The commercial one was more full poppy seed flavour. Like, traditional flavour. Mine on the other hand was a bit more... not traditional. The poppy seed is ground

then dressed up with with Grand Marnier, orange zest, lemon juice. These are probably largely unnecessary.

The bought biscuit was more dense and mine was more buttery, lighter, lemony. And on the whole I think it was a generally superior biscuit. Like, if you just want to eat the sweet poppy seed goo, sure, buy a commercial biscuit, but if you want to eat a delicious effing biscuit, eat the Smitten kitchen one.

On a sidenote, thanks Scotland for sending great things like shortbread on Ewan our way.

That guy should work more: Adam Goldberg

I know that history is written and there is no point speculating about how things may have been. And yet… I would bet this: If K and I did not see Dazed and Confused 5000 times and be dazzled by Adam Goldberg declaring, “I wanna dance!” the phrase “That guy should work more” would not be one of our catch phrases. Yeah, we have catch phrases. And this is in the top 5 most frequently declared. And it is largely thanks to Adam Goldberg. Right mate? Am I right?


K: You are so goddamned right.

The history books will show that we have seen Dazed and Confused 5000 times (did you guys know that Ben Affleck and his old teeth are in that movie? True fact) and we were dazzled by Adam Goldberg saying "I wanna dance!" and now we say "that guy should work more" all the time.

Because plainly and simply, some people should work more. Adam Goldberg, he is one of them.

You know he is one of them because whenever he turns up in things you think "Goldberg! Why aren't you in stuff all the time?! You're great!" 

J: That is exactly what I think every damn time I see Adam Goldberg! Every time I watch Dazed and Confused, I think it. When I saw The Hebrew Hammer , I thought it. When I saw 2 Days in Paris, I thought it! Seriously! Why doesn't that guy work more?! In fact if you look at his IMDb page you will see the guy works plenty, he doesn't need us on his side, but I wish I saw him in more stuff.

Did you know that The Hebrew Hammer is one of the reasons that I seriously wanted to put Mordechai on our baby names list. Needless to say LB put the kybosh on that pretty quick.

K: I really like the name Mordechai. Mordy. Imagine if Baby was called Mordy! Cute.

Anyway, I just looked at IMDb and sheesh, that Adam Goldberg never stops working. But I think he is in the wrong things.

He should be in more things like The Hebrew Hammer and 2 days in Paris. I wonder if he was in  2 Days in New York. I heard it was really shit so I didn't bother with it. Plus, Adam Goldberg wasn't in it!

J:  It's true, Adam Goldberg gets a lot of work, but the point is that he should work more in stuff we want to watch. You'd think the Hollywood big wigs would be falling over themselves to get a quite hot, certainly charismatic Jew in stuff! 

Adam Goldberg, you should work more!

I made donuts (AM)

I think there is something wrong with me. Every time I do something awesome I pretty much love myself sick, even if the thing I did is really easy. Like the time I made croissants. I fully loved myself sick for ages after that. Still do in fact. Love myself more every time I do it. But, as I said at the time it's actually pretty easy.

Why am I so in love with myself this time? Oh, no big deal. Just made some donuts is all.

Happy Chanukah! I made these donuts/ponchkes/sufganiyot for Chanukah. You have to eat fried food. It's a rule. For reals.

But you guys, you can feel as smug as me too! It's totes simple! I know. I know. The deep frying is kind of off-putting. But it's seriously no biggie. Because those dough lumps are such little... dough lumps, the oil stays pretty fresh and totally reuseable. And they were nowhere near as greasy as store bought ones. Here's how you do it:

First put an apron on. I never do this but I can not stress how much better it made the cooking experience! I stayed so neat and could wipe my hands on myself without getting dirty!

Make a yeast dough with some flour, yeast, water, sour cream, egg. 

 

Let it rise. Roll it out, cut circles. Put jam on top. Don't these bastards look delicious already?!

Cut more circles and put on top of the jammed circles. They look messy, but don't worry guys. Just wait and see. Cause you gotta let them rise for a while.



 Fry them bad boys. Look how they look like real donuts!

 Finally, love yourself fully sick!

Wednesday wonders - watermelon (AM)

Regular readers of this blog must think my brain is a total light weight, the frequency with which it is blown. But it's like the ads for SBS used to say, the world is an amazing place. So what's blowing my mind this week? Good question!

It's not just that watermelons are delicious. I mean most fruits are. Watermelons aren't even close to my favourite. Maybe that's too harsh, They are in the top 10. Probably. Whatever. The thing that blows my mind about watermelons is that they are huge and they have this very hard green shell and this soft, sweet, watery, PINK flesh. I mean, does that not blow your mind?

Think about discovering them! Watermelons are originally from Africa. Hot ass Africa and these sweet bastards just grow wild there. What a delight! I just think that, even though watermelons are not as delicious as mangoes or a good apricot, they are the most magical fruit. Apparently watermelon seeds were found in Tutankhamun's tomb! But I really hope they were not only for fancy people. I guess they are native so probably they are and have been widely available in Africa. According to the bible the Jews ate watermelons when enslaved by Pharaoh in Egypt! I guess watermelons were too bulky for them to take when fleeing, what a shame though, imagine watermelons at passover!

And they need bees for pollination! I know lots of things do, but growing watermelons requires a growers to have a beehive per acre! I kind of love that! And I wonder about watermelon honey! Why isn't that a thing?!

Watermelons, guys! Watermelons!

Happy Jew Year! (PM)

I didn't take a single picture of last night's dinner either. Only because I was having such a nice time, and such a sweet start to the new year. On Saturday, however, I did manage to capture a picture of the car that is sometimes parked outside my house, the one I am always telling J about because its numberplate amuses me.

PLZBLV. Hahahaha. That's a nice rosh hashanah message, isn't it?
Also, for a sweet start to the new year, may I recommend baking challah, and living in a house the size of a Hotel Formule 1 room? You'll dream of sweet honey all night long.
Shana tova, lovely readers.

Happy Jew Year! (AM)

Shana tova, friends! Yep, it's Jewish New Year and I'm still feeling full. I hope you are too. From breakfast at least if not from your Rosh Hashanah dinner last night.

Yesterday I thought I may want to write about the dinner so I started documenting my day early. Around 8am, I started cooking my vegetable broth and frying apples for my honey apple upside-down cake.

But then, even though I did awesome things like add egg whites to the broth to clarify it and make a delicious caramelly cake which I put lavender on, um, I kind of forgot to take pictures. Then, at the start of dinner I remembered to start taking pictures again!

K made this beautiful-looking, delicious tasting challah.

And then I forgot to take any more photos because I was too busy eating. It was all I could do to make polite conversation. Sure, I managed to tell that Gorman story. At someone's request. No, really. And I found some time to talk about all the adorable things Baby does while he bounced around doing more adorable things. I listened to stories of Mondonna's wonderful LA life, and how G-Force's mum kept causing trouble at suburban supermarkets, resulting in a childhood spent travelling to ever further supermarkets. And among all that, there was no way I could remember to photograph all the delicious stuff. So I guess it was a pretty good night.

And at the end of it when everyone had left and I was tired and cold, I went home to my living room where it was toastie warm, I took off my shoes, I felt full, but not sick, and not long for bed, and I just felt so goddamn happy. Warmth and comfort and the promise of sleep, is there a better way to start the new year? Not for this loser.

Multi-faith Haiku Thursday (PM)

Jesus wasn't the only Jew that had a rough time.

Haiku interpretations of what a random selection of Jews might have written in their diaries during the time that they were enslaved in Egypt and leading up to their release

Pharaoh be trippin’
He be hatin’ and killin’
Why he oppressin’?

Jews are people too
The chosen people! Jealous?
Suck it up bitches!

Is this for real?
Gotta  put blood on my door?
Oi vey! What a mess!

Who’s this guy Moses?
You want I should follow him?
I hope he’s a mensch

Haiku interpretations of what one very astute observer may have written in his diary
 I
Blood, frogs, lice, flies and
Pestilence, boils, hail
Locusts and darkness

II
What’s coming next, huh?
Slaying of the first born? No!?
Suffer, oppressors

Oh, what brings you here?

I know we have written about this before, remember? That guy that asked Google where is missing finger was?! HAHAHA! Shit. I shouldn't laugh. I mean, maybe that guy lost a finger. I'm sorry guy. Anyway, Google brought him (I assume it was a man but that is totally sexist. I was once taught cheese making by a woman who had one or more half fingers) here.

Do you know what else has brought people to this here site? Other than Ewan McFuckingGregor (no disrespect to Ew.Mc, but seriously people move on)? Well we will get that in a minute. I will stick with Ewan for a minute. In the last month 6 of the 10 most used search phrases that lead people here are Ewan related. Including "Ewan McGregor eyes" and "Ewan McGregor trainspotting smiling". HAHA. These phrases have brought people here more than once! I'm pretty sure that if you get a picture of Ewan his eyes will be included. But this is not quite as good as a recent favourite, "Michael Fassbender sitting". I like to imagine a woman out there just thinking, "That Fassbender is so hot. I love it when he sits." And then she Googles that. Again, I am totally making sexist assumptions but it's my imagination in my heterosexual brain living in a heterodominant society. I'll imagine Fassbender fans however I want goddamnit!

Anyways, of course with all this Ewan traffic there is not much room for anything else but one search term that appeared a few times was "Sarah Michelle Gellar looks like Barbra Streisand". I love this because because SMG turned up here once and then Babs turned up here totally separately and now this ludicrous search sends people our way. Thanks Google.

Now, as you know from last Friday Miss Soft Crab knows a thing or two about celebrity doppelgangers and as you may also know SMG is not Babs' doppelganger. In fact when you ask Google Images about it you get things like this:


No, Google Images, I said Sarah Michelle Gellar. That's Jennifer Aniston you idiot!



That's still Jennifer Aniston. But why is she doing that Barbra Streisand pose?

Jesus, Aniston, this is getting embarrassing.

Seriously Google Images, don't you have any pictures of SMG and Babs?

WTF??!?!