croque of shit.

starbucks, utrecht central station
november 10th, 2013 

it's generally assumed of me that because i "like food"* i also like exploring the towns we visit on tour and seeking out the most exciting food available. this is unfortunately not the case: (a) because i'm a coward; and (b) because i usually have no better company than myself, who i can't stand, which leads in an unfortunately circuitous route to the fact that i don't ever want to do anything at all ever. as a result of this i spend almost all of my free time by myself in shitty hotel rooms refreshing twitter. yes, i hear you say, but what about le joie de vivre? i don't know, dawgue (that's french for dawg).

this is the elevator door outside my hotel room in the nh hotel. i don't know much about life, but i know that elevator doors shouldn't expound populist wisdom. especially not when their smily face is merely the cover for a thirteen-storey drop.

anyway, so... on my way out to find some breakfast i stepped in the lift and met a friendly dutchman. i smiled broadly at him, instantly won his friendship, and invited him out with me to explore.

"friend! you, me, pancakes...?"

"why, yes, of course! that sounds like an excell-" he said, screaming uncontrollably while violently jabbing the emergency alarm.

after he'd climbed out of the lift somewhere between the twelth and thirteenth floor, i realised i had to fend for myself once again.

and so i ended up at starbuck's in the central station.

there was a period recently when, living on the whitechapel road in east london, my only real option for a quick bite to eat and a coffee was starbucks. i didn't like it, but i didn't like walking futher more, so i settled for mediocrity***. they did a passable toasted marmite sandwich, and although i failed to get used to the tone of burnt faeces in their coffee, i appreciated the speed and personal touch of their service.

what's your name?

ed--*clears throat*--sorry, it's edwin

great, aaron, it'll be ready in one minute

the truly remarkable thing is how they manage to maintain such quality control across so many thousands of cafes around the world. a starbucks coffee in utrehct tastes precisely as disgusting as a starbucks coffee in whitechapel. it really is a marvel of globalised business excellence.

anyway, that's a croque monsieur in the foreground. i figured because i was in american-owned dutch coffee-shop that they would do good french food, and i was right! toasted on one side, strangely damp on the other, filled with a single slice of plastic ham and a dousing of liquid cheese, with no  bechemel in sight--it was, quite frankly, a croque of shit.

*do i? or do i hate it all?**

**by eating it

***settling for mediocrity: an autobiography, available in all your local bookshop soon

the nature of things

TAP0358 london heathrow - lisbon
nov 29th, 2013

q: when is an apple not an apple?
a: when it has to tell you it's an apple.

i believe the apple doth protest too much.

because, uh, it's not really an apple, is it? it's a plastic bottle filled with the blood of an apple--in fact, several apples.
 
it might seem pedantic, but i've been reading a bit recently about the dangers of fructose in fruit smoothies and juices. i ain't no scientist, so here's the lowdown:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/07/smoothies-fruit-juices-new-health-risk

in essence, it's best to avoid essences. the fibre in the skin and the flesh is the good stuff, and bound up with the natural sugar it makes for a tasty few and fairly nutritrious mouthfuls. but extract the juice, discard the rest, multiply by and you have a killer enzyme-busting hit.

there's no such thing as essential fruit. and it is not a goddam apple. 

the worst croissant in the world

gate 12, lima international airport
april 8th, 2013

i'm often asked: "edwin, where in the world is the worst croissant?"

yesterday i think i found my answer.

it's hard to represent just how sad and stunted they were. pasty, pale pastries, half the size of their european cousins. retarded still births, wrinkled and ruined. were they starved of air?

i'm no bully, so naturally i took pity and ordered two. i had a mouthful, delicately spat it out, and slipped the rest in the bin. no sugar! sweet nothing. this is no way to start the day. admittedly it wasn't the start of the day; the day had started, and was traipsing along behind me without much enthusiasm, but that isn't the point, and no airport cafe should ever deign to think to challenge it.

the funny thing is that the cafe seemed to pride itself on its home-made batch cooking. a staff member pulled a tray of freshly-baked gnomes out of their oven in sight of us all. all tiny and all terrible, as if this ain't nuthin'. perhaps they are a local speciality; perhaps my eurocentrism should back off and accept them for what they are: not-croissants, uncroissants, crassoints. perhaps not.

by a strange quirk of fate i managed to 1-2 myself, buying in mid-transferred desperation an overpriced and ineffective neck pillow. this design was, i promise, the least offensive on offer. regardless, it just didn't fit, and i'm sure my neck isn't thinner than most. it was weedy.

here they are together--bastard bed-fellows.

a bad day.

scrambled

this is the first morning of a nine-week north american tour. the first of 67 mornings. the first of 67 breakfasts! and i'm going to write about all of them!

25 degrees, hollywood, los angeles
april 9th 2013

i woke up with a start at 7am, orientated--remarkably orientated. it wasn't strange that there was another bed, unoccupied to my right, nor that all the lights were on. the wind was still whistling... through... something, but what? and so what.

i'm thinking: layers of crunch: lemon curd, greek yoghurt, any berries. damn, i'm thinking of tina's.fantasies abate, and i'm downstairs, wandering around. i like this place because it doesn't provide the usual canteen buffet-style community-vibe "let's-have-a- goddam-conversation-about-it" breakfast. i have to walk all the way next door to a diner, sit down by myself, and look at a menu: a simple, peaceful, devastatingly lonely transaction that suits this capitalist child. there's men at the bar, hunched backs, a bored waitress smeared in lipstick, and me.

"hihowarrrreyou" she drawls, eyes akimbo. i don't care how i am, but that doesn't seem appropriate, and the one thing i've learnt in the US is that questions are only social graces.

tepid coffee. i'd go so far as to say lukewarm. the saving grace of american "drip" coffee is that it is weak enough to have no real effect, taste or energy-wise. it's harmless, like weak lager. the danger is you hit it with a dependency weened from euro-espresso, and three or four are needed to get that hit, and your gut is left reeling. needless to say i just can't resist. two cups down and i'm warming to it, just as it is cooling to me. the second cup is chilled; the third downright cold.

finally my eyes have opened, and a tiger wood press conference appears in focus to my left eye, a wild fishing documentary to my right. third eye zoning out on some kind of inane americana indie music on the stereo. 

i order "scramble #3": queso fresco (possible name for my future good-time wedding-party jam band), scallions (wyld scallions?), avocado, some kind of salsa... mezzo secco jack, whatever the hell that is. perhaps this was a mistake from the off. i like scrambled eggs, but i'm not sure anything else deserves the indignity. what exactly is a scramble? not quite a blend; not a mash so much as a mush; certainly not a measured mix. i'd venture to say it's just a mess.

scrambled egg works because there are just two parts to be messed: the yellow, and the white. you start adding to that and you're not much more than a four year old in the kitchen with a big ol' wooden spoon.