The Trouble With Sri Lankan Food

Like most of us around these parts I love Sri Lankan food. In fact, like most Sri Lankans I just love food, with a leaning towards anything Sri Lankan.

I read Lankan recipes and food blogs and look like a dog with a cooked cat being dangled in front of its face. I suspect I drool, I make no apologies for that. There's no better smell than that of some garlic, curry leaves and mustard seed frying, just waiting to become the base for whatever curry is dish of the day.

Indian food is just that; Indian food, though very nice. Sri Lankan food is rice and curry, the real deal.

But there is a problem with Lankan food, one that I've put my finger on lately. I feel like a doctor who's diagnosed an illness that a fellow's had for years but, instead of wondering what's been wrong with him all this time, the patient has had that vague feeling that something wasn't right.

Yes, I ask you to bear with me on this one, the fact is, and I so hate to say this, Sri Lankan food is NOT photogenic.

"Don't be so stupid RD, there's nothing more appetising than a good photo of a plateful of rice and curry." I hear you shouting at the monitor.

Well the fact is that the photo isn't appetising, it's our knowledge of what the food tastes like that makes it feel that way. Particularly for us diasporic types, stranded in remote, savage and lawless territories like the UK and Japan, where we pine for all things Sri Lankan and would prefer a glass of Portello to a crate of the finest champagne.

There are foods that look good, they're the international supremodels of the food world, the Claudias and the Elles of gastronomy. Of course the Italian and meditteranean varieties rank highly in this chart. A picture of a nice Spanish Paella is full of colour and texture and looks good in its own right, a nice photo of a lovely pasta dish can be bursting with reds and greens and convey a feeling of freshness and Latin lusciousness.

An image of some sizzling British sausages with the skin caramelised has an appeal that I feel yet can't explain, there's no level involved between the picture and my mind, I could eat the picture.

And then we give the world our staple; parippu. I love a bowl of dhal as much as the next Sri Lankan, I'll eat it for breakfast with toast or on its own with rice or grab a few spoonfuls out of a cold portion sitting in the fridge. But, like so many other Sri Lankan dishes it just doesn't look good.

Face it, it you were a white person with no knowledge of Lankan cuisine, you'd hardly see a recipe for parippu with a picture and feel like you want to try making it, would you? Once we know what it tastes like things are very different. Mallungs and pol sambol are usually quite bright in colour but usually there's just the one colour blaring at us at a level eleven. Artificial food colourings have been banned for less.

String hoppers are the culinary equivalent of a night with (insert name of ideal partner here....) but they don't look great, resembling plain noodles thrown at a wall until they stick together a bit. Murunga tastes like heaven on a plate, but if Indiana Jones stumbled across some in the jungle he'd be scared of it and probably push the girl in front of him towards it first.

I was reading that cookery book the other day, the newish one by that Peter Kuruvita. It's fantastic, full of seemingly easy to follow and delicious looking recipes, interesting anecdotes and tales about his life and family in Sri Lanka. The photographs are stunning too. But I just don't think the great food of Serendib is easy to portray in a way that makes it look appealing.

Unless of course you already know what it tastes like.

Any thoughts?

Cous Cous - So Bad They Named It Twice

Hello all, welcome back on this, the first Monday after the season. It's been a good one over in these parts. C's here, A and K have been in and out, and things have been fun, festive and food filled.

Cooking has been a thread, and a pleasant one at that. I'm fond of attempting to do my thang in the kitchen and, even if I say it myself, I'm getting reasonably good at some dishes. Truth be told the dishes I'm better at tend to be the ones that have a second name that sounds like "curry", it must be something in the blood I reckon.

I'll tell you what though, cooking for one, as I usually do, is a pain in the arse. On Wednesdays and alternate Fridays I get to cook for the girls, which is nice though not conducive for stretching my culinary abilities.

The rest of the time, when it's only me hovering round, cooking a decent meal involves a lot of effort for the satisfaction of one person's enjoyment; me. And when it's only me around it doesn't really matter anyway. I could lie, just pretend that the meal was gorgeous and no one would know anyhow.

Having C floating around means that I get to try out new recipes, I can flaunt my prowess on the cooker, flex my culinary muscles and generally make attempts to tickle her taste buds with my delectable dishes. She can attempt to do the same to me, and has.

The other night she made a lamb thing, a tajine I believe it was called. It was seriously delicious, in one of those melt in the mouth sort of ways. But there was a problem. It came in the shape of cous cous, surely the most evil and unnecessary invention ever, second only to the service charge on a restaurant bill.

I can't stand cous cous. It tastes of nothing except the little flavouring that's sometimes added to it in the cooking process. It has the texture of sand and the succulence of feathers. You may be interested to know what it's made from and exactly how it's made, I'm not though.

I say all of this from my position as a general lover of all things carbohydrate. Rice, noodles, pasta, hoppers and string hoppers are some of my best buddies, some of the friends that accompanied me through my formative years. Cous cous is the old enemy, the class idiot that no one ever liked.

C cooked this tajine thing and asked me whether I'd eat cous cous with it. She'd smuggled a packet of the stuff into RD Towers earlier in the week. I felt as if my kitchen had been violated but, even now it lurks in a cupboard just behind me. Knowing my strong feelings C kindly offered to make me a separate portion of rice. That was cruel, I couldn't say yes to it, I know about these women traps. I gallantly said that I'd eat the cous cous, even though I hate it.

We served our food and the cous cous had that dry and dangerous look, as though it was teasing me with little whispered taunts.

"Look at me RD, I'm so nearly rice, but I'm not". I could hear hear it saying.

I put some on my plate, added butter, salt, pepper and sauce, then tasted it. I'd managed to persuade C to add some chicken stock to it in the cooking process so I did quite enjoy the sensation of chicken stock, salt, pepper and the sauce from the tajine, it was only the dry feathery nothingness of the cous cous that was the problem. So much so that I could only eat about two, perhaps three platefuls of it.

It was strangely satisfying. Strange because all the flavouring was delicious, it was just the substance that wasn't. I suppose it was like watching and enjoying a film when the lead role is played by the actor you most detest in the whole world. I couldn't help but enjoy it yet would so much have preferred the lead to have been played by Tommy Lee Jones, Miley Cyrus or one of those other thespians types.

Despite that I shan't be repeating the cous cous thing. When C does leave here I'll probably make her take the packet of cous cous with her, or give it to charity or something.

While I remember why on earth is it called "cous cous'? I mean why the same name twice? It's not New York, which in reality isn't so good they named it twice. Rice isn't called "rice rice", I can't think of any other food that's got a doubled up name. I suppose Reggae Reggae sauce might squeeze in but you're unlikely to have heard of that.

I'll leave you with that question. I've got a sublime beef and potato curry on the go, courtesy of Channa Dassanayaka, and I must go and put the rice on. Mmmmm....that's more like it.

The Incident With The Hostile Cheese

I found myself at home a bit early the other day and in a state of serious hunger, with a fridge half full of good things. I'm an optimist you know and my fridge is always half full. Except when it's half empty. Or totally empty, which is the norm.

One of those good things was a Pizza Express Sloppy Guiseppe pizza. They're good, in a European way. For the Lankan palate they need extras in the form of chillies, spices and all manor of those strange looking things that our parents use in cooking but we don't know what they are.

I tore into the task with the keenness of a bat out of Belgium.

I've been meaning to tell you, with pictures, of the new ceramic knife I bought in Singapore. The pictures are already taken, I think they're on my flickr account, probably saved on someone's hard drive by now and titled with the name of my brother. But I'll mention it now, I've got this ceramic knife and it's the second sharpest thing in the world, only beaten by a British MP trying to explain his expenses.

It's a piece of art to me. It's got the appearance of a white toy plastic knife, which can be deceptively dangerous when one holds and uses it. The temptation to handle it like plastic is large and the cuts are quick and deep. I was informed by a chap that these things are now being made and coated with a metallic looking surface so that people think of them as "proper" knives. It made perfect sense to me.

This ceramic knife makes me want to cut things, not in an emo way I mean, more in a 43 year old bloke wanting to test his new knife on an onion way. If you took a stroll around RD Towers on most days you'd find random bits of vegetable cut cleanly and waiting to be used. The problem for me is that, when the need comes to use them, I want to cut more. So I do.

I took the pizza out of the fridge and looked at it with my best Marco Pierre White eyes and frown.

First I chopped up a couple of green chillies and threw them on the pizza with all the nonchalance of a Sri Lankan road planner at an all you can eat tarmac buffet.

Next up was some lovely little cherry tomatoes. They were so lovely that they're called something like Pomodoro tomatoes or similar. I remember that it sounded similar to Portello, but can't recall the precise name. The ceramic knife went through them like you see on adverts for knives on teleshopping channels. Yes, it really is that good.

Then there was a large salami to be sliced, it sounds like a euphemism but it's not. The only thing around RD Towers that resembles a large salami is a large salami, disappointing I know. Slices of the most delicious fresh Italian salami were sprinkled with gay abandon on top of the base. More slicing, this time of the mushroom variety, followed, with more stacking on the pizza.

The final touch, for I was wary of overdoing things, was some more grated mozzarella and a tad of olive oil to moisten things up. I was tempted to really pile it on and use a dash of olive oil, but a tad was all that was needed. It's about discipline and subtlety of tastes, this cooking thing.

There was mozzarella to start with but with all the new toppings it looked likely that it would fade into obscurity quicker than Ranil Wickramasinghe in a guess who won the war competition. More was needed, just to create a sense of balance with the taste buds.

By now the oven was warm and the pizza base was heavy and unrecognisable. If the original Mr Guiseppe, in his very sloppy way, was hiding somewhere in my apartment watching me at work, I don't think he would have looked at my bastardised version of his original with any hint of recognition. He may have been impressed with my work, perhaps even envious, but he would not have realised that I was using his original as the starting point, it was buried so deeply under a pile of additionals.

I like to plan ahead. I can happily sit here and plan details for my next trip to Sri Lanka or Singapore or ponder on the dinner menu for next Friday evening. This time I'd messed up though. The taxing problem of how to transfer the Pizza, with all its weight, to the oven was something I hadn't addressed. If I had addressed it the only realistic thing I could have done would have been to have bought a spade earlier in the day.

I would have gone into a local shop and simply asked for a spade. I wouldn't have asked for a "big thing" or any other beating about the bush type of name, no, that's the kind of guy I am. I like to call a spade a spade.

There was no spade, there was no handy paddle shaped thing that I'd forgotten about hidden behind the curtains. It was a job for the hands.

I lifted up the RD pizza. The weight of the toppings made it sag in the middle, but I maintained my usual level of composure. I hurriedly moved to stick it on the top shelf of my warm oven.

About a foot from its destination it started to misbehave. The middle drooped and began to collapse through my small, delicate and frankly rather ladylike hands. I made a rushed move and tried to shove it onto the oven shelf.

The feast I'd almost created was having none of it. It collapsed on me, perhaps exhausted, maybe insulted by what I'd done to it. On my oven shelf lay something that looked half pizza, half roadkill.

I thought about things for a few seconds. I know now that I would have been better off investing more time in the thought process. I went to remove the specimen from the shelf.

And it died.

And it fell on the open oven door.

Oven doors, when said oven is at about 200 deg, are at about 199 deg. So you can picture my dismay. I knew the meal was a goner, I'd reluctantly accepted it and moved on. What I hadn't accepted was the fact that I'd stand there and stare helplessly as it melted on my glass oven door. I hadn't accepted that I wouldn't be able to pick it up as it was too hot, that I'd be faced with a melted cheesy mess that would get worse in front of me.

It was like an action movie, albeit a boring pizza based one. The hot oven door quickly melted the cheese and then it slowly dried into a vile looking mess. It resembled Hi ! magazine's double page spread of Colombo society women at the "come dressed as if someone's just been sick all over you after a cheese based meal" party at the Cinammon Grand.

I waited for the oven to cool down then took about forty five minutes to scrape the mess away. I used wet wipes, a sponge and a brillo pad thing. It was an emotional three quarters of an hour for me. I'd so looked forward to the pizza and the preparation, though fun, was all about the joy at the end of the task.

I ate my sausages with scorn. Not to be confused with corn.

Next time it'll be a deeper based pizza for me.

Lately In The Lankanosphere

Things have been busy, different, interesting, good, bad and downright ugly. Now that, as a film title, would have been a mouthful wouldn't it?

A friend asked me for some advice about something this week and one of the things I suggested was the use of mindmaps to help her. Now I can't explain mindmaps because I'm no good at that sort of thing, but I can tell you that the mindmap for this "lately" post is a complex and messy looking one that resembles a dismantled black string hopper, with some lumpy bits. If I ever have to make a choice in my life between mindmaps and string hoppers, as many chaps have to, it would be a tough one indeed.

This means that you might get a nice and meaty and interesting post with lots of good things about the Lankanosphere or you may receive a pile of disorganised words, with random links here there and everywhere and no real cohesion, structure or point. I think we both know that it's going to be more of the latter, not latte, that's coffee. But, either way it'll be a long one, so you may well be better off doing some work and reading this later.

The current situation in Lanka permeates into the Lankanosphere like sothi on that very same string hopper and that's about the only level of agreement anyone will get from all of us blogging types. It's natural that the Sri Lankan blogosphere reflects what's going on in Sri Lanka and it's therefore natural that the atmosphere is different to normal, whatever normal may be.

Indyana asked in this recent post why there are hardly any blogs being updated these days and I think, if she's talking about the Sri Lankan blogosphere, that it's simply because of what's happening in the Country, the fact is that it makes everything else pale into insignificance, and quite rightly too.

The bloggers writing about politics, war, peace and conflict are presenting a plethora of opinions and views. I think it's better if I don't tell you my judgement but just pass on the links and information on some that have caught my eye.

There's David Blacker with this rather splendid article he originally wrote for the Times of India. It's a response to the famous, or infamous, article written by Arundhati Roy that has attracted much comment and criticism by so many.

DD wrote this piece that revealed a side to him and his views many of us haven't seen before. It's thought provoking and one of the comments left there said something like:

"Why don't you go and help the IDPs instead of eating/drinking/shopping (delete as appropriate)?"

I've seen this kind of thinking a lot lately and I've pondered on it too. It seems to me that many are saying that it's far more important to give help and aid to the IDPs today and tomorrow than it is for people to plan and think about what's actually going to happen next week or next year.

My take on it is that balance is needed, that we must do both.

And talking of people helping today Indi has been involved with ACT Lanka in getting supplies and aid up to the Vanni. You can read about it here and here you can read about ACT Lanka, donate and learn more here. Please check it out.

On the far less serious side of things there's a bit of a party going on at a mystery address soon. It sounds like it will be fun and I'm looking forward to it, particularly that game Dinidu was talking about with the blindfold and the cucumber.

We have some music things to report too.

Cynical Sach and T have both put up posts showing the new video from Thriloka. I've heard so many great things about Thriloka, in particular about their young drummer, but have never been in Sri Lanka to witness one of their gigs. This video left me seriously impressed with the drummer, he grooves and plays with a feel that would be the envy of many. In comparison to this guy I'm such a bad drummer that I wouldn't even be allowed to envy him.

If that doesn't float your boat check out the Lily Allen video in Sach's post. There's something so quirky about it and it's one of those videos that makes the song so much better than it actually is.

Then, while we're on the subject of drummers, there's the new drummer in town. He's called Heshan and he's mad about music. I'll be reading him regularly, but I'm not sure this drum related blogging thing will catch on.

Talking of Sachs, which I was before, the almost Japanese one wrote a nice post here, on hypocrisy. He asks us what makes a hypocrite, a question that probably has no definitive answer but an infinite number of answers. He can also spell hypocrisy correctly, which gets my admiration as it's one of those words I always stumble over.

The Whackster's out and about and asking about blogstitution. He asks if we're all just prostitutes for attention, the only problem with his question is the extra T he put in the word "prostitute". I think we're all partly motivated by recognition, but how far up recognition is in each of our individual list of motivators is variable.

Cerno continues with his T100SLSLBP, but things are slowing down. You can keep it going by nominating posts and writing posts, if you can read and write of course.

The Right Honourable C also tells us that he's given up Linux and his fuel account at Shell. It's a strange lapse in concentration from him. I don't think anyone really cares about Linux as Charlie Brown isn't popular these days and we certainly don't care where he buys his fuel from.

On the positive side he did announce the good news that Unbound Urchin, that young guy who made such an impression in the Lankanosphere and then vanished quicker than you can say "can say" is back with more blogging. It seems that the chap has moved to London and I for one hope he'll continue to write on his blog.

Also, after the understandable turmoil it looks as though Jade has decided to return to the Lankanosphere, something that almost everyone will be pleased about. We like her, even though she sees ghosts and likes Travis. I see ghosts too. Only the other morning I saw one in my toilet. When I went to wipe there was no trace of it whatsoever. These things fascinate me you know.

What else?

Electra's back with some posts, this one I found particularly mindgrabbing.

The Gypsy wrote another of her poetry that isn't poetry type posts. Just read it.

I'll tell you a little secret about Gyppo if you promise not to tell anyone. She writes every single one of her posts in exactly two minutes and fourteen seconds. No more and no less. That gives you an idea of how clever she is. She told me this, so it must be true.

And I think I'll wrap up there.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Those blind chaps have got some new pictures up from India and the Maldives. They're good, in fact they're better than that, in a "I think I really should give up photography when people can be that good at it" sort of way.

Have a very nice weekend all.

RD

Blood, Sweat, Curry And A Birthday

I was chatting with the best parasitologist in the world yesterday and she asked me something that was uncannily topical. Uncanny because it was only on Friday last week that I had sent music biz bro a text about the subject. Topical because it was a topic.

Darwin asked me what I thought about the theory that, when a chap eats a lot of curry, the sweat can start to smell of it. Of course Darwin herself smells of chocolate cake and science labs, but I thought it was an interesting question, one that I've puzzled about for some time.

In the life formerly known as a married one I would have probably eaten rice and curry once or twice a week. On really good weeks I just might have hit the number three and a holiday to Sri Lanka would throw the figure on the how many curries a week has RD eatenometer off the scale.

Then, during the segment of my life during which I lived on my own for a year or so, saw me eating less home cooked rice and curry but far more from the Bengal Brasserie, the absofuckingtastic Indian at the end of the road. I guess the frequency must have gone to about twice a week.

Now, back at the 'rents, the curryometer has gone to new extreme levels, the sort of high numbers that are usually associated with Sri Lankan public holidays, calories absorbed in an average Christmas holiday or the number of people that read Indi.ca.

I'm certainly not complaining. The food is great, plentiful, delicious and welcome. It comes at me from all angles and only occasionally leaves me yearning for the blandness of some chips or a sausage or two. Anything not eaten, in true Sri Lankan parent style, is tupperwared and put in the fridge, to reappear the next day/week/month or year in a different form.

But there is a downside, the smell. After several days of eating R+C I start to feel as if it's somehow sweating its way out of me. The topical relevance to my discussion with Darwin is that I received a text, or SMS in Singlish, from music biz bro last Friday. He was at my parents' place, I was at work. He was trying to persuade me to go back there by describing the mouthwateringness of the mutton curry my Dad had made and that they were tucking into.

I, being the captain of industry I am, responded to him by saying, and I quote

"Son I've got curry oozing out of my bloody pores at the moment!"

Which I felt was true.

The parasitologist and I had quite a lengthy discussion on the matter. She feels that sweat is fundamentally odourless and sent me a few links that would seem to agree with her. Her opinion is that the smell comes more from external factors. So, you walk into an Indian restaurant and can often find your clothes and being end up smelling of the food and spices that get mixed with your general bodily juices.

Or you cook a nice rice and curry meal and the wafting spices, the curry leaves and garlic will blend in with your natural smells to create the odour that is you and I.

Me? I partly agree with Darwin, but also think that the curry smells do come out through the sweat. My belief is that when a chap eats a lot of spicy food some of those spices and flavourings start to ooze out through the pores and mix with the sweat. I don't know the science, you'll have to ask Jennifer Aniston about that, but I'm sure the sweat actually starts to have an odour itself.

There are however, levels of complexity to be added to the simple starting theory. First is the suspicion I have, based on a sample size of roughly zero but also with a lifetime of experience, that odours come through the sweat on men more so than on women. Even I, with my sheltered and naive background, have met a few rough old soap dodging birds in my time. But none of them have ever smelt as bad as a soap dodging bloke.

I reckon it may be the case that mens' sweat is different to womens'. You lot, with the breasts and femininity usually smell of sugar, spice and all things nice, except the spice. Us men invariably reek of engines, soil and curry. That applies even in the case of a good metrosexual like, er me. Maybe it's to do with testosterone, testicles or test matches, I know not.

Also this whole theory about sweat, curry, men and women goes flying out of the window quicker than you can say "flying out of the window" when I go to Sri Lanka. Granted, the smell inside a Sri Lankan bus is unlikely to be used as the inspiration behind the next Jean Paul Gaultier eau de toilette, but the fact is that people in England smell far worse after intensive curry eating than they do in the Motherland.

Maybe it's to do with climate, perhaps it's because we all eat so much rice and curry there that we become immune to the smell in others. I don't know, but ti definitely throws a spanner into my otherwise well researched findings.

So what do you think? The comment box is waiting for your input. Is Darwin right? Am I right or are we both right?

Oh yes, I lied about the blood bit, I've got nothing to say about the stuff, but it is my birthday today.

Cheap, Used And Not Like A Sri Lankan Man

Was how it made me feel.

What?

Well lately I've been on a bit of a health drive. Nothing drastic, I'm not doing marathons, or Snickers as they're now called, I'm not going to the gym every day or doing anything overboard. All I'm trying to do is to eat a bit healthily and do lots of sit ups every day.

One of the good things about playing the drums is that it keeps up the old cardio vascular stuff quite a bit, though I must confess that I haven't really got a clue what that means. I do know it sounds impressive.

This eating thing is just common sense really. I'm trying to cut down on quantity, you know, only have three servings of rice instead of five. I'm trying to eat just one sandwich at lunchtime and I'm trying to savour and enjoy every mouthful of food. This is a useful tip that I read somewhere. We often stuff our faces and don't think about what we're eating, resulting in eating more, just because we haven't thought about and cherished the taste of the food.

There's only so much cherishing you can do with a Tesco sandwich but I'm sure you get the point.

And one of the eating things I'm doing, honestly this really is true I promise you, is to try to eat some, ahem, salad. There, I've said it. I know what these fellows who come out must have to go through.

I should explain for those who don't know or aren't familiar with the concept.

Salad is a mix of vegetables eaten by white people and women. It consists of vegetables, usually crispy ones, served raw and cold. There are no spices, no chilli powder, no curry leaves and no carbohydrates involved.

The health implications of eating salad are disastrous and serious. It can make you slim, totally without paunch, it can give a glow to your complexion and reduce cholesterol. Often when you eat it you don't even feel all bloated and full up afterwards. People have been known to eat a salad and then work, instead of sleeping. It's so deadly that advertising of any saladey type stuff is banned in Sri Lanka, a country respected internationally for its approach to banning things.

There I was at lunchtime in my local Tesco, though the word local is quite relative I know. When these blokes come to terms with their sexuality and go to a gay club for the first time they probably feel like I did as I browsed the salad section. I kept a low profile as I furtively glanced at vegetables and green things. There were a couple of times when I could feel panic and fear building up within me. I dealt with this by dashing over to the meat section and browsing at sausages, chops, chicken legs and steaks. Each time the smell of vegetables got too much a quick walk to the comfort of one of the meat aisles sorted me out.

Being the adventurous type I decided to really go for it as far as the choice of raw, and I mean raw, materials for my evening salad was concerned. Throwing caution to the wind, something I usually have a lot of, I went a bit wild, a little bit mad and totally reckless.

I bought some of those tomatoes and half a cucumber. Do vegetables begin with a capital letter? Mmmm I'm not sure.

I bought a pack of sliced ham, (honey roast no less) and some cheese with blue bits in it. People would look at me strangely, I was possibly going to bring shame on my family, but I was ready. I did ask the lady at the checkout if she could hide the things in an Ann Summers bag but she couldn't help me on that one.

That evening I went home. The short drive was filled with feelings of nerves and excitement. I knew what I was going to do, I knew that I'd go through with it but a first time of doing anything is always nerve wracking and angsty and usually quite adrenalin fuelled.

I watched a bit of Walker, Texas Ranger to help fire me up and get motivated. It did the trick and I went into my kitchen to "cook". I sliced green things, I sliced red things and chopped chunks of cheese. I rolled up slices of the honey roast ham and splashed a dollop of mayonnaise. It was done through a barrage of vegetable and watery odours, overpowering at times. The dreadful smell of the cucumber, that green and light stench, the juiciness of the tomatoes.

To tell you the truth I was sorely tempted to chop some onions and fry them up with a bit of garlic, mustard seed, curry leaves and chilli powder just to get rid of the salad odour that would hang around for days afterwards. I didn't though. I kept strong and resolute knowing that a lesser man would have fled the scene. Chuck Norris can influence a chap like that. It might be the beard.

Eating the salad was easy. I did it with the deft touch of a wannabe Hollywood starlet who hadn't eaten anything but salad or sperm for years. Half a slice of cucumber, a bit of ham, some mayo, then bang, in my mouth. The next mouthful would be different combination of things and there were some points when I thought it tasted quite nice. I had succumbed to my Sri Lankanness slightly and grated some salt, pepper, chilli and garlic onto the plate.

Before I could say "king prawn vindaloo, mushroom rice, brinjal bhaji and a plain naan" I was finished. There was a small pool of watery stuff left on my plate. I guess white people keep that in a small container in the fridge and use it in a sandwich the next day or something. I threw it away defiantly.

Five minutes after eating and clearing away the evidence I felt empty. Not in a deep and thinking way, I mean in a hungry way. When I used to smoke I'd occasionally have a cigar and as soon as I'd finished it I'd want a cigarette. That's how I felt. Not that I wanted a smoke, but I wanted a rice and curry, or even a burger and chips. Something involving carbohydrates, heat, meat that I had to chew and more salt than the Red Sea at the very least.

I knew I wasn't really hungry, that my mind was going through some sort of illusion. Perhaps it was like Walker Texas Ranger when he gets shot and doesn't show any sign of pain. Maybe my special talent is to be able to stuff my face with green and red crispy grass, water and leafy flavoured crap and to not feel the faintest glimmer of repleteness. If David Blaine can make all that money from just holding his breath underwater for a minute or two then I could make millions from this I thought.

What is all this about though? To eat a meal, to know that I'd eaten a fair good plateful of stuff and then to sit there and not feel bloated as if I was fifteen months pregnant, to not feel as if I need a sleep. It's just mad, it's kind of why you never meet someone who smokes those herbal "no tobacco" cigarettes, and I'm not talking about Java's ones here, I mean the ones you get in health shops.

I sat and waited, thinking loving thoughts about the Indian takeaway at the end of my road. If my doorbell had rung I'm sure that the walk to my front door would have been all the impetus I needed to go that extra bit and walk to the Indian. Sadly the bell remained silent. I might buy some batteries for it soon, though I never get any visitors so there's not much point.

Nothing happened. The world didn't change and I woke up the next morning ravenous. I felt cheap and used, a bit dirty and ashamed.

Every meal since then has been full of badness and full of flavour. I'll just do more situps.

I'll probably eat another salad sometime. The desire to be like one of them will overwhelm me. But, until then I remain a good old fashioned Sri Lankan salad dodger.

And proud of it.

Mood Indigo

Back at my desk as if Christmas never happened. We didn't have snow here, just cold and slushy weather, but it was nice.

I'll no doubt jot down some details and half truths about my Xmas festivities at some point but for now I have a cunning plan. It involves me sitting here and writing whatever comes into my head, seeing what tangents turn up and where they take me. You can come too, it might work or it might not work.

I've got three days at work during which all will be quiet and I can do some organising and planning for 2007. The wife gave me a new briefcase for Xmas, one of these highly trendy brown leather "satchel" types. So I finally got rid of the old black one which I've had since 1989. This meant some clearing out had to be done and I have been standing at the office shredder for some minutes feeding a steady stream of old bank statements and unwanted junk mail into it.

I have noticed one small negative about this new bit of craftmanship, it's actually a negative to do with the "satchel" case rather than just this one specifically. I can't leave it open and just peruse the contents casually, browsing is a bit harder to do. No big deal and it means that I'll keep it tidier than I did the old one, I had a tendency to chuck stuff into it and just leave it there.

Boxing day was spent at my parents' house. Copious volumes of rice and curry were consumed by all, a welcome spicy treat after the traditional Roast turkey on Christmas Day and the traditional Polish Christmas meal on the Eve. I like them both but my Dad's mutton curry is legendary.

Strangely my Carrom form has suffered since I had my eyes lasered. It's eight months now since the op and, during that time, I have been whipped at Carrom by both my brothers. This is unusual. One brother, the academic one, who wasn't with us yesterday, will normally give me a good game and the results can go either way. The other brother gets his sorry arse whipped by me every time. Some weeks ago I got my sorry arse whipped by that bro. It was then that I knew for sure that there was something badly wrong. I checked the small print from the eye people and couldn't see anything that mentions Carrom playing. I thought there may have been some kind of guarantee but there was nothing. I really didn't know where to go with this one other than to try to play my way through the nightmare.

But yesterday we had a doubles match. There was Bro 1, my Dad, the usual Sri Lankan stray a bloody nice chap called R and me. I definitely saw signs of my old form returning. As with most games confidence is the key to playing good Carrom. When mine is low I think too much and hesitate before shots, I place the disk on the lines and stare at it for just a bit too long. Then I play the shot and fuck up all over the place. When I'm on top of the game, well you know how it is don't you? The Queen is on the centre spot and you can slice it into the pocket every time, you don't have to think about it. You can pot those shots when the seed is jammed right up against the edge. All is sweet and you have no hesitation and championship confidence.

Yesterday I felt that just a bit of the old magic was returning. I don't want to get too excited, I know that I'll have to work hard to regain my ranking in my family, but I'll put the effort in and do it for my fans.

Other miscellany; A conversation with my good, but sometimes a couple of cans short of a two pack, mate went like this:

Him: "I heard Sam Brown died this morning"

Me: "No, you mean James Brown"

Him: "Ah yes, sorry mate, what was I thinking of?" (he is from New Zealand, so do the accent in your head) "Sam Brown's the one who did "Under the Boardwalk" isn't he".

Me: (feeling vastly superior because of my clearly advanced knowledge of modern music)

" No mate, Sam Brown's that white girl, Joe Brown's daughter, (who I've fancied for years (Sam, not Joe)), she had a number one with "Stop" a few years ago. Sam Cooke's the one who did "under the boardwalk".

Him: Ah yes, I've got it now.

I'm off to tidy my desk now.

Oh yes, did I tell you that I booked a ticket to nip over to the Motherland for a week? I'll be there in Feb, I can't wait.