blueberry mountain

I wanted to go over to KGB tonight and listen to Mark Kurlansky read about oysters over a glass of red wine in a red-painted room. But that would have meant getting Manhattan-presentable: the pointy boots, the non-saggy jeans, something besides the big charcoal sweater of K.'s that I've been living (and sleeping) in for the past week or so. Comb my hair, brush my teeth, put on lipstick, walk to the subway, buy yet another Metrocard, tromp along the buzzing East Village streets: I had planned to do all these things. But then it was 7 o'clock and I was still reading the story about Jehovah's Witnesses in the latest issue of the Oxford American, eating grits with smoked paprika, garlic and broccoli and again, not being able to leave the house. It's winter hibernation.

So then I was trying to salvage the evening by working on a new book idea, going through some old work to see if anything's worth filching (since it's not plagarism if you steal from yourself). Ranging through an old column about gay-pride week (or month, if you live in San Francisco), I found paens to the Go-gos, a description of girls wading through the amber afternoon as if they'd been dipped in butterscotch, and then, right after the part about letting the blueberry muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes before slathering them with the butter, the words

Cannibal

Obsession

appeared stacked one on top of another, apropos of absolutely nothing.

This is why I don't take drugs.

Now, this column--about lady-lovin' and the joys of morning-after blueberry muffins--actually ran in the Bay Guardian some seven years ago or so, and I'm sure there was nothing about cannibals in there. I don't have an obsession with cannibals, and I would think, given their tastes, that blueberry muffins would be low on the list of obsessions for actual cannibals themselves. I'm a little thrown, to say the least.

****

And speaking of obsessions, I feel kind of bad now for slagging so hard on that oil-based hamentaschen recipe. While they did taste pretty blah fresh out of the oven, those cookies got magically better after sitting around a while. I added a few drips of lemon extract to the batter before I baked a second batch, and they taste surprisingly good with a cup of tea, three days later. So maybe these would be the hament. of choice for mailing long distances, as long as you upped the lemon/orange rind quotient and added a little lemon extract too. I still think the texture of the dough is way too slick, so an oil-reduction experiment is in order before I post the recipe.