this post was brought to you by the numbers 1 and 2, and by the letters T, M and I.

[the_siobhan]

I had to use a bathroom in a Home Depot today. This reminded me that it has been a source of constant bemusement to me that Every Single woman's bathroom I have ever been in has had a note in it about not dumping "feminine hygeine products" down the toilet. Usually these notes are handwritten and taped onto the back of the door, which leads me to conclude that they were put up because somewhere in the history of that particular bathroom, somebody actually tried it.

Except that these notes are everywhere. I find it hard to believe that there are that many women in Toronto who have never been in a public bathroom before, and who therefore don't fully grasp the limitations of modern plumbing. So that means that in bathrooms where there are no notes, armies of fertile females are thinking, "Well there's nothing saying I can't, so in this one, it must be ok."

I wonder if there is a potential future in a business that makes doors with the words "Don't Put That There" permanently engraved on them.

---------------------------------------------------
I don't know that I've mentioned here that I'm taking place in a diet study for one of the local hospitals. They are researching different ways of encouraging people to eat more healthy diets. They spent a lot of time explaining that by "healthy diet" they mean increasing servings of specific kinds of nutrient-rich foods, and they they will not do any counselling geared towards losing weight, low fat, low carb, or any of that stuff. I think they have to deal with a lot of confusion caused by the word "diet".

Anyway, we happened to luck into the group that gets free food delivery, so two massive boxes of food arrive on my doorstep every week. The deliveries are designed for a family of four and I swear just cannot keep up with all of it. My fridge is overflowing and I am searching for things to do with all of it.

Hence the question about okra the other week. The gumbo, by the way, was a huge success. I have also been making huge numbers of various curries, and have learned how to make tempura vegetables. On the other hand, we have never quite managed to find a way to make eggplant edible.

One of the things they gave us that ended up being a huge hit was a box of bran cereal which turned out to be absolutely delicious. Every morning we scarf down a huge bowl of it, usually covered with some of the massive quantities of fruit that we are desperately trying to use it before it goes bad. And it turns out it has psyllium in it.

Do you have any idea what psyllium does to the human body?

Well, I did in theory, but actually experiencing first-hand has still been kind of disturbing. I'm convinced that any day now I'm going to recover the plastercine I ate when I was four.

There are days when I go out and eat a big drippy hamburger in self-defense.

Comments

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Psyllium? Isn't that a rather powerful natural laxative?

I'm thinking those eggplant are gonna be turned into baba ghanouj before the week is out. I braised the last batch of leeks you gave me, so I might try slow-roasting these new ones. I will always happily take any surplus veggies off your hands. :)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Psyllium is the King Kong of fibre. It's so health-inducing it can reach back into your past and make you regular ten years ago.

I'm trying to spread the veggie love around. At this point I've donated onions to almost everybody I know.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, you can freeze some of the fruit and veg too. Frozen fruit is great for crumbles and crisps and other quick desserts. Or margaritas.

[heresiarch.livejournal.com]

or smoothies! i take bananas and strawberries or peaches or mangoes or whatever, and blend them with plain yogurt and orange juice, or just with almond milk for a non-dairy version. frozen fruit saves you the need to add any ice.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I gotta sayu how charmed I am that my friends have turned a post about elimination into a recipe share. That's class, that is.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

We're just all about class. ;)

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Speaking of recipes, after all that talk of cheesecakes on Friday night, I went home and fell asleep thinking of cheesecakes recipes.

My last concious thoughts were that I could add coconut rum to the pina colada cheesecake and top it with toasted coconut, and then I wondered if I could make candied tangerine slices to garnish the tangerine cheesecake.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I never thought of using frozen fruit instead of ice. What a great idea! I have oodles of frozen strawberries, cranberries and blueberries in the freezer as we speak. Now I just need a new blender. :)

[markeris.livejournal.com]

Aubergine. The word is aubergine. There are all sorts of things you can do with it once rebranded.

(key point being to leave the slices covered in salt to leech out the bitter juices for an hour before trying to do something with it).

Hello. I`m Eris and I`m VERY drunk. And frankly relishing the opportunity to swap cookery tips as an alternative to running round the neighbourhood with my cock out.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I make a mean aubergine parmigiana.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Aubragine sounds like something that should be interesting. Eggplant is not. If it had bitter juices I might like it more. As it is, I find it slimy, floppy and bland.

Somehow my mental image of you cooking has combined with my mental image of you drunk to create something involving tenderizing food with your cock. Please make it go away, it's kinda disturbing.

[markeris.livejournal.com]

"Please make it go away, it's kinda disturbing."

The sound you hear in the background is my marketing team being given a payrise.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Slice into thick slices, brush with oil and grill/broil; it goes kind of crispy. Mind you, the only thing I ever do with it is use it in a sort of North African spiced vegetable stew which is served with cous-cous; recipe on request. In stews, the wetness isn't an issue, and it soaks up other flavours nicely.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yes please on that recipe.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

"Recipe" may be overstating the case a little, actually, but here goes;
Thickly slice your eggplant/aubergine. Brush the slices with a little oil and grill/broil on a medium heat, turning every now and then, until browned and slightly crisp at the edges, and mostly cooked through.
In the meantime, peel and roughly chop an onion or two, scrub and slice a carrot or two, de-seed and roughly chop a bell pepper or two, and top and tail and slice or chop a courgette/zuchinni or two; you're aiming for approsimately bite-sized chunks of everything. In a large pan, heat a little oil, and add the vegetables, onions and carrots first, and then the rest after a few minutes; stirring over a medium heat. When they all look comfortable, chop the aubergine slices into similar sized bits and add them.
To that lot, add a couple of cans of tomatoes, and top up with enough liquid (stock/bouillon, water plus tomato paste, and/or wine; any combination will be fine) so the the vegetables are almost entirely covered. Add about a teaspoon each of ground cumin seed, ground coriander root, and turmeric, plus half a teaspoon or so of cayenne, and a good pinch/grind of black pepper.
Mix it all in, bring up to a gentle boil, then turn the heat down and put a lid on it for about half an hour. At this point, you can leave it overnight, or freeze it; it freezes well although the spices seem to disappear a bit in freezing, so you may need to re-season it on defrosting. Leaving it to stand overnight, though, intensifies the veggies flavours; it's one of those "better next day" dishes.
About ten minutes before you want to serve it, add a can or two of drained chick peas/garbanzoes (or you can use dried ones if you want; do whatever soaking and boiling them need in advance).
Prepare the cous-cous (I'd say "according to instructions but the last packet I bought had totally the wrong instructions on; basically, heat a little oil or butter in a pan, add the dry cous-cous; about half a cup per person. Heat for a couple of minutes while stirring the oil in, then add double the volume of boiling water or stock/bouillon. Take it off the heat, stir with a fork, and leave to stand for ten minutes, giving it an occasional stir with a fork during that time. Don't, under any circumstances, stir with a wooden spoon; you'll end up with porridge.

Traditionally, to serve this stew you take out a little of the liquid at the last minute and add more spice to that, and have that as a sort of condiment to sprinle over, according to how hot you like it. I generaly don't bother; I just serve it over the cous-cous, with some crusty bread or pita bread. You can also serve it with grilled chicken or lamb or whatever, but it's pretty hearty just as it is.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Sounds really good. I'll definitely try it.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Somehow my mental image of you cooking has combined with my mental image of you drunk to create something involving tenderizing food with your cock.

Ever read Portnoy's Complaint? ;)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Um. No.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

http://www.sugarhive.org/index.php?title=Portnoy's_Complaint

[ladystardust-xs.livejournal.com]

Isabelle Allende has a great eggplant recipe in her aphrodisiac cook book. If you're interested I can dig it out for you. I'm just not quite sure where it landed since the last time we moved house.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Do you remmeber any details? I don't want you to go to the extra trouble if it's something straightforward. (If it's something really spicy though, chances are I'll like it.)

[kightp.livejournal.com]

How are you with Indian food? Because eggplant - cubed and oven-roasted until it's brown around the edges and meltingly tender inside - is a fabulous thing in an Indian-style vegetable curry.

Most modern eggplant hybrids aren't bitter, but they're still terribly *wet* - thus the off-putting floppy/cottony texture. Plus they're absolute sponges for grease, which can be distressing in the usual eggplant parmesan-type dishes. But like okra, they can be incorporated into a dish with other vegetables of more pleasing textures - a curry, a ragout, a ratatouille - and the obnoxious qualities disappear.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I love indian food. I'll try your recommendation the next time on shows up in my food box.

Usually I throw everyting together in a curry and it works out edible, but the raw eggplant was an exception.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

IIRC, raw eggplant is loaded with Vitamin Nicoteen, naturally. You need to salt it and such in order to leech Uncle Nick out.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

It's certainly related to the nightshade family, of which nicotine is a member, but I've never bothered to salt it; as I understand it, they used to be a lot more bitter, but they've now been selectively bred to get rid of the bitterness, so the salting isn't necessary any more.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I don't eat eggplant, so I may ne talking out of school.
Or, Australian eggplant may be more bitter.
It wouldn't surprise me.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

We probably sent it over there for being Bad and Wrong, which has left it bitter?

Actually, here's a random question which you may be able to answer; I read, or saw, or heard, or somehow absorbed the factoid recently that Australia doesn't import _any_ food products from abroad, and indeed that food importing is actually banned; is there any truth in that, do you know?

[(Anonymous)]

No, we import quite a lot of food.

There has been a lot of fuss about the fact that we can import food (usually called lower quality) from countires like Thailand and China at rates so low that local farmers can't compete, and as such many local farming business are closing up.

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

The term, "basketball sized chocolate mudbaby churning in the Siobhan's rectal uterus" came to mind.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Nice try, Jak. :-)

[kest]

the things people will do to public spaces is quite astonishing.

and of course you want another beer.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

mmmm okra, mmmm tempura (with sweet chilli dipping sauce.. divine!) and eggplant (I believe it's the same as aubergine?) is the tease of the veg world - shiny, purple, sexy and unutterably foul!

[girfan.livejournal.com]

Does this cereal have a brand name?
(curious)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Kellog's Bran Buds

[katyakoshka.livejournal.com]

That is the only high-fiber cereal my fiance will eat. And he generally eats it daily.

The fact that it's whole wheat makes it my natural enemy -- considering that his mother's the celiac, I worry sometimes. :/

[mandor1971.livejournal.com]

Every single house, with zero exceptions, I rented in Bloomington, IN had to have anywhere from 3 to 30 linear metres of tampons removed from the plumbing... So yes, there are that many women who think "Oh, this one tampon won't cause a problem" and flush it. Add up how many women use a public restroom in a month and get the total that reads: "Flush... BOOM. Flood."

One place, after the plumbing started backing up... the maintenance guy came out, went to open up the cleanout, and had his wrench and the lid ripped out of his hand as around 4m of tampons rocketed out of the cleanout.

Another place, the landlord paid the city to put a 25cm drain into the main sewers because it was costing him several thousand dollars a year or more because women were flushing tampons even after he told them to stop.

Another place started to flood the basement. We thought it was the shower, so we said not to use it. I used the toilet while my friends were in the basement and all I heard was "DEAR GOD, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP" as raw sewage was pumped over his shoes. It was 50m of tampons stuck in the trains. It cost a lot of money to get it removed.

Anyway. Could go on, as I moved to a new house every year, but I won't.

The biggest problem? That tampon makers STILL WRITE "FLUSHABLE" on the tampons. "Flushable" means they'll degrade in the sewage treatment plant. It doesn't mean they can actually be flushed.

You know that. I know that. The vast majority of women still think "Oh, this once, it will be ok."

Sigh. Sorry. Peeve issue of mine.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell.

Maybe more women need to go into plumbing as a profession.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

The mind boggles. I was taught from infancy that you simply don't flush such things. Like Siobhan, I assumed it was a universally known factoid & have never been able to figure out the "do not flush" signs in every ladies' room in the known world. (Yeah, they have them over here too).

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to believe that there are that many women in Toronto who have never been in a public bathroom before, and who therefore don't fully grasp the limitations of modern plumbing.

dude, you would not believe the contents of the sewers. when i was working for region of peel, i never lifted a single sanitary manhole cover without finding at least a few tampons down there, and usually a few maxi pads, too. there were *diapers* in the drains.

and, fwiw, Tampax used to be labelled as "flushable". i don't know if they still are, but i knew loads of girls in HS who used tampax because of that fact.

[heresiarch.livejournal.com]

another good eggplant dish: stirfry cubed eggplant with bell peppers and ginger, and maybe some tofu, then make a sauce with sake, miso, soy sauce and sugar, and add in at the end. i never salt my eggplant, and it comes out fine. of course, the long japanese eggplants are better suited to this dish, but i've used regular old bulbous dark purple ones with much success. but do make sure to cook the eggplant through -- apparently it's mildly poisonous otherwise.

anyhow, the trick to this dish is to julienne the ginger and fry it briefly (30 sec) in sesame oil, then reserve the ginger and add some canola oil for sauteeing the eggplant and peppers (chopping the peppers into similar-sized squares is also helpful). i can probably get you the exact recipe if you want it. but be forewarned, eggplant really does absorb a ton of oil.

anyhow, then you serve it all over some brown short-grain rice (or whatever kind you like), with some toasted sesame seeds or five-spice powder if you have it. and a little shredded nori. mmmm.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That sounds great. Ginger is one of my favourite flavours.