September 2012 – Circling The Abyss

I didn’t get it, and I haven’t got it for most of the time. I’m only just getting it – the faux-masculine shibboleths that I’m expected to observe, in order to be ‘one of the guys’.

Especially the degradation of women as rite of passage.

Don’t get me wrong…

I’m nobody’s knight in shining armour (I think this will be the last time I repeat this for some time), and I don’t believe in chivalry towards women – chivalry, as opposed to decency, assumes that women are frail objects to be protected like delicate porcelain in a world they’re not equipped to deal with. Women are no such thing.

I’ve got an interest in this. If pseudo, and actual misogyny, are used as defining criteria for what it is to be masculine, then I consider that an imposture. I don’t want that group identity lumped on me, and moreover, I’m willing, if imposed upon, to fight for my stake in masculine culture to the exclusion of other men.

Gentlemen, if you’re going to make an asshole out of yourself in the first instance, I’m not going to take much notice when you make squeals of indignation, when you get a little comeuppance. That is unless, I find it justifiable, useful, and entertaining, to laugh at you.

Seriously though, some men really shit me. The things that some of you expect me to take on board as normal, or healthy, or unappealing-but-otherwise-not-rebarbative.

[Trigger warning: There isn’t anything explicit beyond this point, but the subject matter is rather dark, delving into the dank, unsanitary world of misogyny, as it does].

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Continue reading “…assuming the mantle.” →

While the intent wasn’t to make something vegan (rather just vegetarian), this would be the result of my gastronomic exploits one night during a recent weekend. The aim was to produce a curry (Indian or Thai), that I could whip up for both my meat-eating brother, and my vegetarian self, to share during a movie marathon (while leaving left-overs for the next few days).

I started at a base-notion, after asking a few friends on Facebook for inspiration, with the idea of a Massaman (aka Mussaman, aka Mosselman, aka Matsaman, etc.) curry. The lore goes that the Massaman curry started out as a curry cooked by Thai Muslims, originating in the 16th century, arising out of Persian influences.

(So this adapted version, I guess, is some kind of yellow infidel curry?)

Naturally, being vegetarian, shrimp paste and halal beef (or any halal meat) is off the menu for me, so further modification was needed in that respect at least. It’s worth mentioning at this point, in the mentioned Facebook discussion, I admitted a need, and was urged to try giving up on substituting meat all-together (more on this later).

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Continue reading “Vegan yellow curry” →