Fine dining

Masterchef is nearly done and the cooking is vairy vairy posh.

I do wonder what you are to do if you have a limited diet in any way and go to a fine dining occasion where set menus are presented, complete with fish, meat and any manner of offal, feet or shells as garnish. Last night's Masterchef had 238 legal top boffins and it seemed all 238 were served a fish starter and steak main.

Yes, vegetarianism again. Shoot me.

In my limited experience of fine dining it does seem to be that the finer the food, the more the food consists of whole creatures. Seafood particularly is served in its entirety: legs, shells, eggs sometimes. Even in my voracious omnivore days I couldn't eat something that looked like it did when it was alive. Prawns I liked, assuming they came as little curls of meat, not with their entire being attached. Nor could I eat a fish with its head and eyes on my plate. Fish appears more as the menu gets more refined, and the finest is plucked from the sea and plonked more or less directly onto the plate.

Pork also, tasty food, but why serve the trotters and ears? The posher one is, the rawer the beef and lamb are served. Masterchef often criticises contestants for serving meat cooked to what I would describe as edible. Not well done, just cooked. They call it overdone. I've cooked a lot of meat in my time and I have never served it either dry or half raw.

I have on two occasions had genuinely fine dining. Once at a quite marvellous wedding, and once at a Michelin starred restaurant. On both occasions I had vegetarian meals as I was fully vegetarian at the time. On both occasions I was served sublime food that was equal in perfection to any meat dishes. At the restaurant I had the vegetarian taster menu and seriously, if you can get food like that without meat, why would you ever eat meat?

On both the aforementioned occasions however, I was made to feel slightly freakish. I get that most people aren't vegetarian, but there's a sense that eating everything is sophisticated and turning the pigs ears down is crass. More than that, I get the impression that vegetarianism is considered to be the premise of teenagers and tree huggers and anyone else is kind of immature or simply uncultured.

I find as I get older and, one would assume, maturer of mind, that I care more about the planet and the life upon it as a whole. I don't like being made to feel stupid and unworldly for doing so.

Gluten-free is smart and clever; vegetarianism is silly. Unless of course you know anything about nutrition.

I do eat some meat, for now and not for long. I make meat for my children. I like to choose vegetarian dishes when eating out though and I'd like to be able to do so without pasta or mockery.

The penny drops

I just realised where the vegetarianism came from. Why is this happening to me? I'm not normally influenced by other people. I don't change things because of other people. I used to like meat.

I am a sad, sad groupie git.

I need my own mind back. Give it to me now.

Sensory overload!

Exciting things! Hyperbole, hyperbole!

>NB Still in a funk. A fizzy funk. Sort of like Cava.<


Exciting thing uno:

Fireworks. They're always exciting. Except, as always, the first half was seen from the car as no parking space or progression towards site of fireworks was forthcoming. But lights! Bangs! Whees! Damp squibs still working! Squibs may well not actually have been used!


Exciting thing zwei:

The phone. It's lufferly. It's great. I can work it now. It has a thing that "listens" to music and tells you what it is. This is probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me. I squealed at it. I'm really not a squealy sort of person. It was that exciting. It works anywhere, I have tested it extensively. The phone does other stuff too, like receive phonecalls, of which I got two dodgy ones today and which I have to raise (stroppily) with Carphone Warehouse tomorrow. One was asking for various bits of information including my bank details, which I wasn't happy about, and I got hung up on when I asked them to tell me what information they had and I'd confirm it, got told that it was against Data Protection, and said that it was ok, they'd established I was me and I authorised them to give me any information I wanted.

I have little tolerance for people that phone me up. I have "Idiot", "New idiot" and Idiot 3" programmed into my landline phone, these are persistent wrong number callers and it's useful to see on Caller Display. I have not yet had the cheek to answer the phone with "you have called the wrong number" but one day I might. They're all of the "who's THAT?" type of callers, the ones that get irritated at you for not being the person they meant to call.

Hello?
Who's that?
It's me.
Who?
Me.
Where's Gemma?
I'm sorry, you've called the wrong number.
Oh.
*hangs up*

space of about 3 seconds

Hello?
Is that you Gemma?
No, you've got the wrong number again.
Argh!
*hangs up*

another 3 seconds

Hello?
Gemma?
No.
*hangs up*

I have a variety of responses for cold callers, depending on the mood I'm in. They amuse me.

But I digress, as often happens when over excited; back to the lufferly phone. It's ever so nice. It does everything I would ever want it to do. Except bluetooth: my old phone and new phone simply won't see each other. I even pointlessly put them face to face and waved them at each other and still, they can't find one another. Silly phones. I may try a formal introduction tomorrow, but no matter how I dress it up, the Samsung knows it's being cast aside for one more aesthetic/generally useful and I suspect this lies at the bottom of its reluctance to bond.

I can access the internet anywhere. I will never get anything done ever again. Woop.

Reviewing: not my strong point.


Exciting thing trois:

Whoever knew how interesting the stock market could be! I suddenly follow what they're on about and find it fascinating. I think this officially makes me grown up even if I do still like making monster leavey feet by scuffing through piles of leaves.


Exciting thing tessera:

Cauliflower! It is exciting! Cauliflower is generally great. And today I received a cookery book that has lots and lots of things to do with cauliflower, and other foods-that-probably-should-be-knighted such as chick peas, mushrooms and courgettes. My mother is resigned to the fact that I'm off meat, she is being as weird as if I've announced I'm leaving my family and going to live in a commune in Tibet. But still, the cookbook was a nice gesture.

There have been two reactions from (most) people to my sudden abandonment of carnivorism. The carnivores take it personally, think it's a phase, and generally shudder at the thought that it might be catching. The vegetarians are victorious and rejoice at my sense prevailing, they have won me over to their cause.

Actually, I'm just off meat. I may go on meat (once I've stopped rejoicing over recipes with cauliflower, mushrooms and chick peas) again, I have no idea. The only thing that's changed is that I finally understand what people are on about, apart from the pescetarians. I will never understand them...

I have sat in a restaurant and watched people eat my pets. Not actually my pets, but you know what I mean. That's not cruel? You eat their EYES.

Why this is exciting: I haven't enjoyed cooking this much in ages. Why am I mentioning fish? Because I am operating at 16x normal speed. These things fall out of my consciousness. No undying love for anyone, I'm doing well.

I should probably sleep now. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I may bounce instead.

Things I have learned today

1) I am more manly than Richard Herring. Not only am I taller than him and definitely have bigger hands, but his blog today confesses to his lack of all interest in manly things, which roughly coincides with the things I do have an interest in. Sigh. I'm never going to be a princess.

2) Men are completely rubbish from a very early age, it makes them easy to love.

3) I am not a good hairdresser. Son one looks ok, son two now has a Take That era Robbie cut. Oops.

4) I LOVE this song: "Human" by The Killers. It was on the radio making me all warm and fuzzy, then Steve Wright helpfully announced that the song before was China Girls and the one after was Witchita Lineman - oh thanks, they're so obscure. If only all radios were DAB... So googling the words "are we human or are we dancer" to find out what it was, rewarded me with many, many blogs trying to answer that question. The basis seems to be "are we fallible or do we just dance through life" but I am quite sure that Brandon Flowers is trying to ascertain if he and his bandmates are in fact aliens from the planet Dance: born under the sign "vital", cold hands, travel around on knees, fond of train analogies.

Actually, I don't care. It's a top tune, it encapsulates everything I like in music into one song. Sounds kind of like good (Joan of Arc, for example) OMD, which isn't ok to admit to listening to (I do, sorry, I'm still in the 80s), but this is The Killers, I can listen to that in public and everything. I know fine well that as soon as my in-house personal critic gets in, I will be informed "it's shite", but for now, I shall bask in my song based happiness.

5) I HATE this song: "Build me up Buttercup" by The Foundations. It's vile, made more so by the fact that it gets churned out at "discos" and it's one of those tunes that everyone *has* to caterwaul along to. Ugh. It encapsulates everything I hate in music into one song.

6) In "Poetry in Motion" by Johnny Tillotson (that I also learned today, I thought it was by someone I'd heard of), motion is rhymed with locomotion, ocean, devotion and potion (but not emotion, which would have been my personal choice). Movement also rhymes with improvement. Not a song I'd ever listen to on purpose, but spectacular dedication to rhyme.

7) Saying "I don't like meat any more" actually means "please ply me with meat based lunches, I clearly don't know my own mind and if you just give me it, I'll eat it by mistake, won't notice and realise the error of my ways". Grr.

Who or what I am

This is weird. I'm turning into someone that's completely alien to the person I was until very recently.

Most noticeably, why am I turning into a vegetarian? Why? How has this happened? How can I go for 32.5 years happily eating everything that doesn't look like a pet and is conventionally edible, then suddenly bam, I don't like meat? That does not make sense. Fish I've been struggling with for a while, both from the point of view of fish rights (why is it less cruel to kill a fish?) and from the fact that it suddenly started to taste all fleshy, then bacon suddenly became vile. My mum was talking about lamb, and there is No Way on this planet I'd eat it. Tonight I had a expensive and perfectly cooked piece of roast beef for dinner, nearly gagged when I was carving it, and had to force it down, only because it was expensive and I'm having palpitations at imagined lack of iron. That pretty much leaves chicken and turkey which I fear have a very limited life on my menu. All very nice and all, but I never do anything unless I do it with boundless enthusiasm and I live with a vegetable hating carnivore. And it's a little disturbing, I was a fairly gung ho omnivore until very recently and I am not the sort of person that follows popular trends, the fact that it's more common now thanks to Hugh Furrily-Witteringand Jamie Oliver is usually precisely the thing that sends me off to the abattoir (so to speak).

Having never disliked men in any way shape or form since before I can remember, today I have turned into a man hater. This is the singularly most unlikely thing ever to happen to me, seriously. Prior to today I was much more into silencing feminists, now I'm having these disturbingly feminist-ish thoughts. No reason either, if I'd been unceremoniously dumped or something, that would possibly explain it, but no, I just have a new personality. Not one that hates men to the extent of liking women I may add. Just to clarify.

In addition to being unable to write, I appear to also have forgotten how to read. I can't do it. This is unfortunate and may well severely interfere with my studies, which won't matter in the fullness of time, I'll no doubt wake up tomorrow with a passion for gardening and won't care tuppence about transport any more.

My imagination, paranoia and hypochondria are still intact and functioning as normal, there's still a little of me in here.