Friday, September 26, 2003 MOUSSE As some of you know, we at Mango Pudding Blues are completely bald. Completely bald, so we don’t use hair products of any kind at all. But back in our youth in the good old nineteen eighties, the thing to use was mousse. Mouse was not really a new product, but more a new format for an old product. Hairspray in a lather. Gel whipped into a froth. It came in slim, sexy pressurized cans with pointy tubes at the top. You’d push the tab and a foamy puff pure white holding power would spurt out, mushrooming in your palm like a chemical reaction, releasing its gleaming smell, a smell that smelled like engineered teflon cleanliness. A smell that smelled like the 80s. Mousse? Nothing could be more man-made. The most obviously artificial artifact of an era known for its artifice. And you would rub it in your dyed hair and blow yourself dry, backcombing and teasing and building great towers of hair architecture and you would put on your pointy shoes and your utterly straight-legged jeans and your geometrically cut shirt and you would go to the nightclub and listen to The Cure with the moussed masses, watching as the night went on how their great nests of hair would gently start to slump and sag or sometimes even fully fall. Yes. * * * Thursday, September 25, 2003 MAILBAG From the mailbag this week, a reader from Brooklyn writes: True story: “Mmmdah, mmdah, mmdah, mmmmdah” is what I was humming at the corner bodega a few moments ago. The man behind the counter scratched his head (or really his turban -of the most beautiful indigo/blue- it made me jealous, I wish I could wear such fancy head-gear without looking like a Q-tip that had been dipped in something vile) and said, “I know that song…it’s from a show, or a movie or something, right?” “Why yes. “ I answered.”It’s the theme from Mango Pudding Blues.” “Oh I love that show!” he said.”They always get the bad guy, “ he leaned over the counter “…and sometimes they show you the titties.” Well, I just thought you’d like to know you have fans in Brooklyn. www.antigeist.com Also from New York, our friend S has this to say about the salsa/chutney/relish question we posed recently: As I understand it, and this is old info I once looked into, but may now have misplaced the accuracy of, a chutney is sweet and involves fruit. A relish is tangy and involes pickles and it’s accompanying spice pallette and salsa is spicy but swings either way in the fruit/veg challenge. ...And our dear ol’ pal Dr. M weighs in on the same question with this: I threw out your question about salsa, chutney and relish to my collegues at the college. Leave it to a bunch of academics to go after something like this. I think you’ll be pleased. Oh, what fun! (It’s good to know that I’m not the only one looking for a distraction from work.) By the way, given what I think the difference is between these things I don’t know if it’s even possible to make mango salsa. Here, from the good doctor’s panel of highly clever experts, is one of the responses: My guess is that the Brits brought chutnies home to England from India. As chutnies were probably the first really good tasting food to hit the grocery shelves in the UK, they would be very pricey, with lots of snob appeal. Less affluent people probably ate relish, while “foreigners” had salsa. The joke on all of them is that chutney, relish and salsa are all the same thing! ...and another: My understanding is that they are all really the same thing – condiments, just different cultures. Salsa’s originate in Mexican cooking and can be cooked or fresh, generally they have peppers, tomatoes and onion – but not necessarily. Chutnies are Indian in origin and they are all cooked I think, but am not sure. They have a more fruity base – generally apricots, raisins. They also have varying degrees of heat and sweetness. Relish I am less sure of the origins. It is a different way of serving pickles essentially. It is generally uncooked and is a cucumber base. ...and one more: I think that you could probably find recipes for Salsa, Chutney, and Relish that are very similar, but the origins are different, even though the definitions seem to be merging and overlapping in current usage. Here are the definitions from the very useful online dictionary at epicurious.com chutney [CHUHT-nee] >From the East Indian word chatni , this spicy condiment contains fruit, vinegar, sugar and spices. It can range in texture from chunky to smooth and in degrees of spiciness from mild to hot. Chutney is a delicious accompaniment to curried dishes. The sweeter chutneys also make interesting bread spreads and are delicious served with cheese. LP: I might add that in India and Afghanistan (and probably other cuisines from the same part of the world), chutneys are not always cooked, but are sometimes a marinated mixture of fresh ingredients. salsa [SAHL-sah] The Mexican word for “sauce,” which can signify cooked or fresh mixtures. Salsa cruda is “uncooked salsa”; salsa verde is “green salsa,” which is typically based on TOMATILLOS, green CHILES and CILANTRO. A broad selection of salsas “ fresh, canned or in jars “ is available in supermarkets today. They can range in spiciness from mild to mouth-searing. Fresh salsas are located in a market’s refrigerated section. At home, they should be tightly covered and refrigerated for up to 5 days. Unopened cooked salsas can be stored at room temperature for 6 months; once opened, refrigerate them for up to 1 month. Epicurious doesn’t define “relish”, which is not really surprising, since calling spicy preserved condiments “relishes” is currently unfashionable in North America. “Relish” used to describe a condiment (as opposed to an appetizer) is, in my understanding, more common in North America than in other English-speaking parts of the world, but I suspect that many recipes that North Americans used to call “relish” actually started life as chutneys. I know I once found a chutney recipe in a purportedly authentic Indian cookbook that was virtually identical to the condiment my mother used to put up every year, but she called it “Chili Sauce”. Go figure… * * * Tuesday, September 23, 2003 SERATONIN About three days into it, as soon as I realized that my new job wasn’t like my last two evil motherfucking jobs, I felt a mainline seratonin rush, baby. You must get this; a hit of pure oxygen. Dizzyness. Paroxysms of joy. The shudder, the shudder of correcting brain chemistry washing out demons. The snapping of molecules into receptors. The bright firing of newly wired synapses blasting the cruft out of the carburetor. The buzzing ectoplasmic connection to the fractal universe, to history, to the gods. The ribbon in the sky! The ribbon in the sky! Like cocaine or a triple espresso, but cleaner burning. Like endorphins. Almost like being in love. Except of course it’s fall and so even as I’m feeling this feeling I can feel it slipping away. I feel my seratonin leaching out into the cool air and increasingly early sunsets the way the green is getting leached from the leaves. I feel my summer unemployment suntan flaking off into my clothes. Yes. We at Mango Pudding Blues, much to our chagrin, traditionally get a little blue in the autumn. But this year, we’re gonna fight it. Um, any tips? Strategies? Advice? Okay. Side note to Susie: Yep, I took that photo of the cab. I think you were with me at the time, up on Central Park West near your house. I took all the photos I post here. So far, anyway. I’ll mention it in the caption if I post something by someone else. * * *