This week, BWW&FP is a day late, as those of you cognizant of the days of the week will have realized. My schedule was thrown off due to final exams, the last of which I administered today. That means my time in purgatory has ended; I have been emancipated, so to speak (a tasteless joke for those of you who know where I teach). What must not be tasteless, however, is the banquet I will enjoy to celebrate my long-awaited freedom. So, in that spirit, I picked up a bottle of Zardetto sparkling wine ($7.99, from Italy) from the liquor store this evening. I have paired the spumante with leftover ribs and jalapeno flavored kettle chips, which I found inexplicably in my glove compartment.
The cork has been popped: Let the celebration begin!
Hm. Now that I think about it, I don’t feel very much like celebrating. In fact, my mood can be encapsulated accurately by Andy Stott’s “Execution,” from his superb EP Passed Me By (which deserves a place on my Best Music of 2011 list; I just happened to favor We Stay Together on the day). As you might gather from the song, I don’t feel triumphant. I’m not even the least bit satisfied. Incidentally, what specifically about sparkling wine connotes celebration and revelry? The commonplace answer, I suppose, would be the bubbles. But why are bubbles regarded so gaily? Thanks to HBO’s The Wire, every time I hear the word “bubbles,” I think immediately of the gritty realities of heroin addiction illustrated by the character of that name.
Furthermore, consider critically some features of bubbles: At exactly the moment you think you have captured one, it bursts and is lost forever. That’s a wonderful feeling. Additionally, bubbles are hollow, empty, and insubstantial. And while I identify strongly with such a state of being, I derive no pleasure from doing so. In short, bubbles are rubbish.
Well, now that bubbles have been ruined, on to the meat: The slimy, lukewarm, two-day old meat. Coincidentally, I find myself identifying with this butchered rack of flesh as well. I feel as if I was flayed early on this semester and I’ve since been strung up and bled out slowly. Not unlike this fellow, who at least had the chance to spend some time with Rembrandt. Lucky.
(Rembrandt van Rijn, Carcass of Beef, 1657; oil on canvas; Paris, Musée du Louvre.)
Perhaps the glove compartment chips will be the Perseus that swoops in and saves me from this thus far monstrous meal. We are off to a good start: The synthetic jalapeno flavoring creates a not unpleasant sensation. It’s as if thousands of microscopic drilling robots were heated to scorching temperatures and set loose to burrow into my tongue. However, as an infrequent chip eater, I forgot that kettle chips are as thick as CDs. They do not melt pleasantly into salty potato sludge upon being placed in one’s maw, as do regular chips. Instead, initial mastication of a kettle chip splinters it into still-substantial pieces that are equipped with jagged edges, which lacerate savagely the roof of one’s mouth. So, in addition to being flayed figuratively, now the interior of my mouth feels like the hacked offal left on the cutting board of some incompetent Top Chef contestant.
At least the spumante is still wine: Sweet, sweet wine. But, as noted earlier, it is wine with bubbles. Bubbles that are now entering and bursting inside of the open sores in my mouth, causing pain that is somehow miniscule and intense simultaneously. Here we have yet another reason that bubbles are indeed awful.
This has been a disaster; a fitting end to a hellish few months. As I close one chapter of what passes for my life, I must also take this opportunity to declare sadly that this feature will appear less regularly on Belly Blog. As I enter the ranks of the unemployed, I must tighten the purse strings, which includes cutting back on booze, unfortunately. Very sincere thanks are due to all who have read and given me feedback on these entries. But fear not, I will still post especially tasty - or terrible - pairings that I happen to consume in my foragings. And please check back as I experiment with more cost-effective options: Belly’s Glue & Cat Food Pairings comes to mind. However, I might eventually have to cut out the food altogether. It’ll still be fun, though. Perhaps.
(Published originally on December 8th, 2011.)
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