supposed to be writing (#20)
...but burying my nose in perfume around paris instead
i’m in the throes of a perfume obsession, and what’s odd is that it’s made me focus on stuff i normally don’t register: the squeak of plastic water bottles as you lug them down the street. the distinct but unremarkable smell of a carrefour city that puffs out of its vents. does the shade behind the fountain smell cool or just feel it? i’m supposed to sniff the 6, which stays mostly above ground, but i always forget. i can’t say that these things will transport me, because where else would you find them but here and now, unless they nestle into vintage fabrics like the odor of bodies that refuses to dissipate after years of wear.
here is the appeal of perfume; you are catapulted to an experience that isn’t necessarily real or yours.
you spritz outrecuidant (histoires de parfum) and it’s gummy worms, a bag of trolli sour crawlers as your thighs stick to a leather armchair. but you can’t remember ever sitting in such a chair, and the background isn’t faded cigar smoke or whisky or old books, but cool and crunchy like the mulching pine needles of a forest floor. you realize that this is a hike that you took when you were really young, and your parents bribed you from tree to tree all the way to the top of a mountain with gummy bears, and the leather is dampened hiking boots and a transpiring water bottle against the bottom of an old eastpak or jansport. you put the tester in your bag and smell bug spray lingering on unsuspecting fabric as the sweetness fades, and on your overheated skin the leather goes a bit sour the way you do when you’ve been camping. it’s exhilaration and exasperation, the type ii fun your hiking cousins explained as you bribed yourself with haribo up a 3-mi. stone staircase in new hampshire. how can you not burst out laughing because who would think to spray dirt and grime and disintegrating green and supercharged fruits on your skin and call it arrogance. outrecuidant, impertinent, thumbing your nose at the dumb rules of the leather armchair in-the-conservatory-with-a-candlestick set, or of taking yourself too seriously.
– feed me
apricots! cherries! white and yellow nectarines! i love stone fruit season, even if it makes me sick. i guess i am eating my way through the summer like every dinner is a picnic: cold roasted chicken, easy salads, fresh veg, parsley and mint. here is one version of an infinitely adaptable cold summer soup.
brainless gazpacho
Cut up 2 vibrant on-the-vine tomatoes (cheap but effective) and blend until juicy. You can add a healthy splash of the distilled white vinegar brine from deb perelman’s essential pickles if your blender requires a liquid sacrifice to get going. next dice up the cutest light-green, tiger-striped baby courgette (roughly ½ a regular zucchini); add this to make everything velvety, plus a third tomato, and 1-2 tbs fruity olive oil to the blender and mix a bit more. aim for a slightly textured soup with no obvious chunks of anything. season with salt & msg, maybe more vinegar or lemon juice, then transfer to a jar to chill/mellow overnight, or at least until later. Serve in a glass, top with fresh herbs and/or slivered green onions.
essential pickles
this comes from a potato salad recipe that is also excellent, but these are perfect, dare i say better than salt & vin chips, when you are craving salt. in an old jam jar dissolve 1 tbs kosher salt in 4 tbs distilled white vinegar (sharp!ness!). to this you can add fresh dill, or fennel seeds, or basically anything you want, but you can also add nothing. meanwhile, slice a cucumber as thinly as you can manage. one time i ruined a cheese slicer that i requisitioned as a makeshift mandolin – it was not worth it; practice your knife skills instead (also sharpen your knives ffs!). pack the cucumbers in as tightly as you can, submerging them in the brine. put in the fridge overnight or for 15 minutes. these pickles are so bright.
– read me
l’education sentimentale, flaubert : i was told to read this a while ago, and it seems like it will take me a while to work through it. an ideal candidate to dissuade me from buying more books after having sent the others to the us ahead of me.
– sniff this
for a starting point or direction, listen to on the scent (via NM, a fellow perfume head)