Tue, Jul. 25th, 2006

Weird rat!

Tue, Jul. 25th, 2006 04:30 pm
oyceter: Two of my rats in a tissue box (rat)
My rats are insane.

Or just really, really cute.

Given the heat, they've taken to sitting on the window sill when the window's open. There's a little space between the window and the wooden cover with slats, and they've also discovered that they can climb through the slats and sit between the screen and the wooden cover, happily eating cherry pits or doing whatever rattie thing they do.

My window sills are completely covered with rat hair!

When I finally notice that the ratties aren't running over me every two seconds and digging their little claws in my shirt, I look up to find all four of them in a giant rat pile in the window sill. It's so cute!

As an addendum to this, it's been so hot that I've actually been sleeping downstairs on the couch instead of upstairs.

Sunday night, I woke up at some godforsaken hour to find Renren sniffing around me curiously.

"Bzuh?" I said.

Sniff-sniff-sniff, went Renren.

I looked over, and sure enough, the cage door had come open.

I plopped him back in and went back to sleep.

Yesterday night, I slept on the couch against. Around 4 in the morning, I woke up to find a rat sitting on me again!

Sure enough, it was Renren.

I looked over, and the cage door was shut.

I looked at Renren.

He sniffed at me.

I looked at the cage door. Still shut.

I dumped the little guy back in.

Two hours later, I was woken up again by Renren, who had escaped again!

I dumped him back in the cage (door still shut).

And in another two hours, there he was, right back on me. I was too tired to dump him back in, so I let him run around the windowsill for a bit before getting up.

I sincerely hope that all the rats aren't running around, plundering the kitchen and eating who-knows-what, when I'm at work.

Renren is, of course, the rattie who reminded me most of Fitz-rat when I got them. This assessment has yet to change.
oyceter: Stack of books with text "mmm... books!" (mmm books)
Given the new foreward to the paperback, Bourdain wasn't at all expecting the popularity of this book. After I read the foreward, I was expecting a whole lot of blustering, possibly even an expose.

While Bourdain is a bit of a character, and while he does expose some of the nastier sides of the restaurant business, he enjoys what he does and he loves food. The things that he gives advice on (don't order fish over the weekend, get better food on weekdays) aren't things that he seems to want to change. He's been in the business for a while, he knows the ropes, and he's just letting us in on some of what he knows.

I keep almost not liking Bourdain, given his rather stupid decisions at times, but he likes food so much! And not just fancy restaurant food, but oily fish and brains and all sorts of innards. It also makes me realize that the things I eat are probably things that he doesn't quite consider good food, like fancy salads. He's not big on plating or presentation, while I have to admit, I sort of like seeing things drizzled around.

But it reminds me of waitressing back in college, hanging around the kitchens, the industrial-sized fridge, the gas ranges and cooktops. I loved reading about the cooks' meez (mise-en-place) and their secrets (squeeze bottles and metal rings to stack things). I love seeing the behind-the-scenes of the places I eat (well, more like the places my dad eats).

Bourdain seems very conservative; he doesn't much like what he thinks of as "froo-froo." He remarks on the lack of women in the culinary world, the machismo atmosphere. He mentions that some of the best help in the kitchen are Ecuadorians and Guatemalans, but he never really talks about how the top echelon of chefs are still white males.

Still, I like reading about kitchens and restaurants and how they're run, and Bourdain has a very good narrative voice.

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