Smelly morning.

[mrissa]

By 8:45 this morning I had already finished getting sealants at the dentist and going to Byerly's. Sealants are the best idea in dentistry, as far as I'm concerned: paint something on my teeth now, and they don't get cavities later? Yah, okay. It's a particularly good idea because I have deep molars. (A lot of guys say that about me, that Mris, she's a girl with really...deep molars. I also have really big lungs. Men notice that kind of thing. They discuss it in locker rooms etc. "That is a girl with a really healthy set of alveoli," and so on.) The sealants, despite their other advantages, left my mouth tasting like Home Depot. When I mentioned this to the hygienist, her eyes went big. "It does! That's just exactly what it smells like!" I get this a lot. I articulate what something smells like, and people either treat me like a raving loon or else they act like I have come forth with a profound revelation. (Well, I am deep. In the molars, at least.)

And in addition to smelling slightly of Home Depot and slightly of otherwise-dentist and somewhat more strongly of Byerly's, I smell like a stranger is following me around again, because they discontinued my scent of lotion again. If I didn't like the texture of the lotion they sell so very well, I would have quit years ago, because this is something like the fifth time they've discontinued my lotion of choice since I graduated from college, which was only seven years ago. And then my world is a little weird for a fortnight or so while I get used to the new lotion and convince my hindbrain that there is no stranger in the house, relax, it's just me. My hindbrain is like my dog in that way, except that she, apparently, can adjust in the space of a morning. So: like my dog but slower. How comforting.

But! I have Dzur! (I even did my little Dzur-having dance down Chicago Ave. to the car yesterday. It was rather un-dzur-like due to the amount of hip-shaking. Still and all.) And as those of you who've been around me awhile know, I am extremely scent-suggestible when it comes to text. If you write "garlic," my head obligingly produces the smell of garlic for me internally. This means that by about chapter three, I was feeling much better about the dentist thing but was also mumbling imprecations under my breath at people who have Hungarian food when I do not.

So now I'm reading Dzur in chunks alternating with Jozsef Venesz's 1963 masterpiece, Hungarian Cuisine: A Complete Cookery Book. It contains gems such as, "Children and those of the 'weaker sex' in particular have a weakness for chestnut puree with whipped cream or iced rice pudding with fruit and whipped cream." I didn't know that was the weakness implied in weaker sex! In that case, I'm weak! Very weak, and do you happen to have any of those things? (You know how I make my rice pudding? With wild rice and sour cherries. Oh. So good. And with a dollop of cream on the top that does this amazing thing with the nutmeg when you finish it in the oven. Mmm. Sorry. I kind of drifted off there for a minute.) Some parts of this book are extremely frustrating (the fish section, for example, could be called "dozens of ways to cook fogas" -- if we had any fogas or any prospects of some, this might be useful). And most of the rest is not very seasonal just now: it is not time for mushroom soup with dill and paprika, not time for gulyas, not time for plum dumplings. Soon, but not now. But it got me thinking about slices of fresh garden tomato with turos and a little black pepper, maybe. Maybe. We are amply supplied with fresh garden tomatoes and will soon be hip-deep. I always make my mouth a little sore this time of year, trying to live on tomatoes while they're good. It's always worth it.

I think all this means it's time for lunch. And maybe to get back to my own book, where nobody is eating anything at present. Or maybe they'll give her a little bread and water. Not langos, though. No langos for anybody here right now, real or fictional. Sigh.

Comments

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look up that Hungarian cookbook. Excuse me while I try not to drool all over my computer!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you can't find it, let me know if you're looking for anything in particular. It's not actually the source for our mushroom soup recipe, and I can't find a langos recipe in it at all. I think we were massively lucky to find it in The Other Downtown Palo Alto, though -- we don't usually check used cookbooks very carefully, and I haven't seen it elsewhere. Good luck!

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Curious: what lotion is it that you like, and what do you like so much about it?

Don't suppose they make an unscented version you could scent for yourself, consistently. That would be too easy.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The texture of Bath & Body Works body cream is just right as a body lotion for me. I use something else ("unscented," by which they mean not deliberately scented -- but it's not actually without scent, of course) as face lotion, but this is what works best for the rest of me, and I've tried a whole bunch of others in sheer frustration when they've changed my scent on me, but I really like this one best.

[sylvery.livejournal.com]

That is my very most favorite too. It's just exactly right--nice and thick and soothing and smoothing and non-greasy.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

You head to this Byerly's a bit too often for my jealousy levels. Just saying.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's a genetic failing, I'm afraid. Everyone on my grandma's side is in and out of the grocery store like jack-in-the-boxes (if jack-in-the-boxes went to grocery stores), and Byerly's is quite literally two minutes away.

[redbird]

Plum dumplings, eh? Are they difficult, and do I need a specific kind of plum, or are they flexible that way?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

With the normal American grocery plums, they're a little bland and really, really huge if you use the entire (stoned) plum. If we could get the little sour ones, that'd be wonderful.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

I dunno. It's up to you, of course, but I'd just stick with the cookbook. It sounds wonderful. It is not clear to me why I do not yet possess it. I must see to this.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And yet I have finished reading Dzur, and the cookbook is only half-read.

Well, if anybody ever has any difficulty telling you and me apart, we'll know what to tell them.

[aet.livejournal.com]

I wonder does the word "dzur" have same meaning in English as "tsurr" has in Estonian?

Tsurr is the word used by children to stop a game, for a timeout, to get away with breaking a rule without having to pay penalty.

And looking for the word I found a poem by one of my favourite poets, Doris Kareva:

Tsurr, armastus!

Kes ütles: armastus? Või oli meelepete?
Kes julges öelda, astugu kolm sammu ette!
Kuis kellelgi küll vääratama juhtus keel
nii keerulise mängu lihtsa lõpu eel?

Kes söandas välja öelda selle, mis on tabu?
Ta pidi nägema ja kuulma siis, et nagu
välk oleks sähvatand, kõik surmavaikseks jäi.
Kes ütles: armastus? Tsurr, mängust välja käi!

It says: "Did I mishear, or did someone use the taboo word - love? If anyone used this taboo word - they should leave the game"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Dzur, to the best of my knowledge, has no English meaning at all. It is, in the context of this book, a fictional large feline (large on the scale of tigers and lions rather than 25# tabbies). I have no idea what methodology, if any, the author used when composing his critters. He's skzbrust, comment right above yours, so you can ask him if you like.

[aet.livejournal.com]

So it was just my mind playing games with images of Mrissa ordering smells around: "Tsurr! Dental office smell out of game! Magyar cooking smell step in!"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It was, but that is an absolutely fabulous game for your mind to play, and I'm glad you shared it!