Friends With Benefits

Her: I thought you wanted to be my boyfriend?

Wombat: I do.

Her: When?

Wombat: Not right now.


Expectations kill relationships. They're the rocks that wreck super-tankers and sailing boats alike. No relationship is safe from them, and no chart shows them all. GPS works perfectly most of the time, but without knowledge of where not to go, metre-accuracy will only tell you precisely where you ran aground.

The ocean called "Friends With Benefits" is one with an unusually jagged coastline. As enticing as the concept appears, I fear most of us compartmentalize the 'friends' and the 'benefits' as if they can be. Like a watercolour Venn Diagram in the rain, those two can only bleed into each other with potentially messy results. Art is rarely the outcome.

Doc30ty highlights my point in her post. [link] Her male FWB half clearly didn't include exclusivity in his mental image of FWB. His thinking was more Benefits with a Friend, dare I say an expectation at variance with that of our beloved Doc30ty.

There are three ways to find a FWB relationship:

Friends first -> add benefits.

Simultaneous creation of friendship including benefits.

Beneficiaries first -> add friendship.

Is one way better than another? That's not for me to decide. What experience tells me is that my expectations will differ from my lady friend's, and the problem with that is that we both think there won't be any complications arising therefrom.

This is the temptation of the FWB deal: the simplicity of it appeals mightily, but it's impossible for any of us to not expect stuff beyond the raw acronym. We set sail in light winds and smooth seas but wake that night to the sound of crashing waves on gnarly rocks.



Bottoms Up, Landlubbers!



Diagram from here [link]

Edited for tense and incorrect plurals, as well as overuse of 'variance' - the usual thesaurus of Wombat idiocies.

Friday Fluffer - Freedom of Speech

Pussy Power might work on heterosexual men, but the 'tween legs dynamo does not influence the majesty of the law.

Jennifer LaPenta wore her I Have the Pussy, So I Make the Rules tee in the gallery during her friend's court hearing. The Judge was not amused - and Jennifer was cited for contempt.

She left the court in cuffs with a 48 hour sentence to serve. Unfortunately for Jen, this was not an elaborate submission game, and the man who led her away was not taking her to his dungeon for some fun.

The Smoking Gun has the story and the pics. [link]



Bottoms Up, New Inmates!

Bed-In

Inspired by John and Yoko, I plan to conduct a Bed-In sometime soon. Maybe this weekend.

What's a Bed-In, I hear you ask?[link]

Well, Grasshoppah, a Bed-In is a protest conducted entirely from one's bed. It's a kind of supine sit-in, designed to create maximum media coverage without lifting a finger.

Lennon and Ono's protest concerned world peace. It's natural for anyone to think that keeping horizontal and ordering room-service could momentously change the momentum of human history. Natural for self-absorbed dicks like John Lennon, anyway.

But I like his thinking. Why create sweaty Million Man Marches or immense stinking charity concerts when all one need do to attract media attention is to check into a hotel and jump into the fart-sack?

Two things missing from this weekend's Wombat Bed-In. Actually, three.

1. A cause.

2. My own Celebrity.

3. A woman with whom to share the Bed-In (mandatory.)

If I could find a famous woman with a cause looking for publicity, I would have the answer, and quite possibly a tax deduction.





Bottoms Up, Bedriders!

Pic of Dumb and Dumber from here [link]

A Sweet & Sassy Sandwich

May?  Already?  It appears time has gotten away from me again, but there's so much to do before I leave for my trip to Italy next month!   Awhile back I went to a wine tasting where they also had a cheese table.  One of their samples was a cheddar with apple and pickled green tomatoes.   Odd, but I really enjoyed it and inquired more.  Turns out the pairing was based on a sandwich from City Feed, which I had to recreate myself :)

When I found pickled green at Marshall's Fenway Farmstand, I knew it was time!  I tried one of tomatoes right from the jar, and boy were they tart :)  The sandwich has such a unique combination of flavors, with the sweetness from the cheddar/apple and bite from both the pickled green tomatoes and dijon mustard.  Different, but delicious, and if you'd like to kick it up a notch I implore you to give it a try!

Cheddar, Apple & Pickled Green Tomato Sandwich
Yield:  2 sandwiches

a grainy baguette, or 4 slices of a whole wheat bread
dijon/mayo blend (2T of a grainy dijon with 1T olive oil mayo)
red leaf lettuce
pickled green tomatoes
1 granny smith, peeled and sliced (I only peeled it for ease of eating)
2-3oz cheddar (I used Dubliner)

To assemble, spread half of the dijon/mayo blend on one half of the sandwich.  Shred or slice on the other slice of bread.  On top of the cheese, add apple slices then pickled green tomatoes.  Top with lettuce, then the other slice of bread (the one with dijon).   Toast the sandwich (either in the toaster oven or on the stove) to get the cheese warmed/melty, then dig in!

Cut Fruit

Apart from driving my car, yesterday's most dangerous time was the thirty minutes I spent eating a bowl of cut fruit from the supermarket. Once those nice people with the hair-nets break the seal on rind fruits, it's an invitation to ne'er do well bacteria. The California Canteloupe Advisory Board is clear on this; "melons should be washed before being opened or cut to remove any traces of bacteria which may have adhered to the rind."

Cut fruit bowls are expensive. The economical way of obtaining the sweet pleasures of nature is to buy whole fruit and wield the knife yourself. Then place the self-cut fruit in a bowl. This plan never works. Uncut fruit suffers from Whole Fruit Inertia, which is to say that it remains in its current state forever ie: whole, uncut, and motionless in the crisper compartment until it rots.

Deception plays a big role in the cut fruit department. Look at the refrigerator cabinet and the bowls have interesting stuff on top. Strawberry halves, ripe grapes, nice pineapple pieces, mango in season, slices of kiwi-fruit, juicy watermelon - these are the temptations to get you to buy. Once you're through that layer of delight, you realize you've been duped, again. Underneath the flavoursome hotties of the fruit world lies a huge core of blandness. Large unkempt chunks of honeydew and canteloupe are all that's left, but you plow on through that stuff vaguely resentful that even life's simple pleasures are a rip-off.

Today is a new day. Today is the day I'll walk into the supermarket and choose the cut fruit bowl that's laced with delicious fruit pieces all the way through. And those pussies at the Canteloupe Board be damned! If I'm contracting a food-borne illness, let it be in pursuit of my fantasy fruit.




Bottoms Up, Thrillseekers.



Miss Melons from here [link]

A Trip to New York and a Culinary Discovery: A Perfect Spring Salad of Black Kale, Kabocha Squash, Cheddar Cheese, and Almonds

Going to New York is always a treat.  Like everyone else, I love walking around the city.  A leisurely stroll through Central Park when the flowering trees are in bloom is one of life's great pleasures.

A visit to a museum is also a must. This trip we went to MOMA, where special exhibits by Marina Abramovic and William Kentridge were causing a stir, especially Abramovic's use of nudes as an element of her performance pieces.  For myself, I never tire of the permanent collection with its iconic works by Van Gogh and Matisse, among other masters.

Since I'm not in the city as often as I'd like, I look forward to visiting my favorite places to eat: Gray's Papaya (Broadway at 72nd) for the $4.45 Recession Special (2 hot dogs with everything and a medium Pina Colada), Piada (3 Clinton Street below Houston) for a panini and espresso, and the salt and pepper shrimp at Nha Trang One (87 Baxter Street below Canal).

A friend who is an expert on the food scene, highly recommended several dishes, especially a salad, at a new restaurant in the East Village called Northern Spy (511 East 12th Street between Ave. A & B, 212/228-5100).

The unassuming space has a country feel that immediately makes you feel at home. Locally sourced produce and meats are put to good use in refreshingly simple and inventive ways.

Meat eaters will be in pig heaven--literally--with Chef Nathan Foot's pork terrine with homemade pickled carrots and celery root, pork shoulder meatballs in tomato sauce, and a special of crispy pork belly and potato hash and wild arugula.  Classically trained, Chef Foot described the inspiration for the menu, which changes seasonally, as "being the kind of food I'd feed to my chef friends."

Affordably priced (most dishes are $10-15), the menu also has plenty for vegetarians.  Risotto with butternut squash and mascarpone (Freekeh Risoto), a Farmers' Salad with a collection of root vegetables,  several soups including navy bean and chilled celery root, five dollar sides of quinoa, wild rice (with feta, mint, and lemon), runner beans, collard greens, and roasted potatoes, polenta with braised greens and roasted mushrooms, and, the dish my friend had enthusiastically recommended, the kale salad.

I use kale frequently but never in a salad because I've always thought the stiff leaves needed to be sauteed or braised.  At Northern Spy, kale is presented as nature intended--raw.  Julienned, the kale presents a good base of support for the contrasting qualities of sharp, creamy cheddar, sweet, yielding kabocha, and crispy almonds. Finished with a lemon vinaigrette, the salad is refreshingly light with a hint of sweetness.

I experimented at home and discovered that the salad is easy to make.  I made a few changes in my version, which was delicious, but all the credit goes to Chef Foot.

A Spring Salad of Black Kale, Kabocha Squash, Cheddar Cheese, and Almonds

Time: 45 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

1 small kabocha squash, about 2 pounds
1 bunch black or Tuscan kale, washed, stems removed, julienned
1 cup cheddar, a good quality English or Irish cheddar, cut into 1/2" squares
1 tablespoon whole almonds, roasted unsalted, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Sea salt and pepper

Method

Cut the squash into quarters, scrape out the seeds and fibers on the inside. Place in a steamer.  Add 2 cups of water to the pot.  Cover and cook on high heat for 5-10 minutes until cooked but still firm, remove, and let cool. Remove the skin and discard.

You will need a cup of cooked squash.  Reserve the left over portion to use in a soup or as a side dish with a grilled meat. Cut the cooked squash into 1/2" squares.

In a small saucepan, reduce the balsamic vinegar to 1 tablespoon. Set aside to cool.

Place the julienned kale on the bottom of a serving bowl, sprinkle the squash, cheddar, and almonds over the top and dress with olive oil, reduced balsamic vinegar, and season with sea salt and pepper.

Variations

Chef Foot sprinkles freshly grated pecorino romano on top of the salad

Add 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion rings to the salad

Brodeo

I pretty much gave up on my regular Friday bar on Friday. A long day labouring for money gives a bloke a thirst, and when booze alone can't release the animal spirits, the potential for finding women will tip the balance. Still dripping with Working Stiff cologne, I made Happy Hour with a minute to spare.

It's a hamster-wheel life, single maledom. It's one in which we are handily practiced at dismembering women with a head-to-toe glance. (That's a metaphoric dismemberment, but no less vicious for it.) She's either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, after which comes the calculation of whether she'd have an interest in a chap with twelve-hour-shift hair. Looks like another hundred scampers around the wheel when she sashays to the guy with the Bentley key fob.

Mr Nights, my drinking companion, looked kinda peeved. He'd been sipping tequila for an hour, and peevishness is a common-enough side-effect. But in this case it was the lack of women in the bar that had gotten to him.

It's a brodeo here, he said, despondent.

And he was right. Over his left and right shoulders was a herd of men, rather like beasts at a waterhole. In nature, a regular mix of sexes would naturally gather at the cool corner of the bar - which I think was the reason Mr Nights was off-balance. Absence of females felt all artificial and dysfunctional. The livestock references aren't accurate either. All showered and shaved and Alpha-ed up, the guys looked as useless as show-dogs. Bulls never looked so pouffed.

The good news is that even if one is stuck hamster-wheeling through life, it's possible to have more than one hamster wheel.



Bottoms Up, rodents!