On (not) writing about sex.

Since I started this blog partly as part of a show-and-tell exchange with Charmaine, I ought at some point before long to write about sex. Otherwise the exchange would be far too one-sided, and that’s not generally something I enjoy.

And it’s not just that I feel as if I ought to – I want to. But it’s not necessarily that easy.

For a start, there’s the danger of writing something awful. This not being literary fiction, I’m in no danger of being shortlisted for the Bad Sex awards, but their shortlist certainly flags up some of the dangers. (Really, though, this paragraph was little more than an excuse to share the following wonderful piece by Giles Coren, which won him the 2005 award.)

And he came hard in her mouth and his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth and he blacked out and she took his dick out of her mouth and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away and he gasped and glugged at the air, and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye and stung like nothing he’d ever had in there, and he yelled with the pain, but the yell could have been anything, and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.

One thing’s relatively clear, though, namely that I’m not going to get over this difficulty by not writing about sex.

The procedure for resolving the second is perhaps less obvious. As I said to Charmaine,

I suspect that before I get round to posting about sex I might well end up having to write something about the gender-related difficulties of writing in semi-public about enjoying sex with multiple partners without (a) being and (b) seeming misogynistic. I guess the solution is to spend more time getting fucked by men.

Living in Berlin, there are plenty of opportunities for the latter. But experiences with women form an important part of my sexuality, a part about which I want to (be able to) write. But I’m not yet confident that I’ve found or developed the right voice in which to do so. And I suspect that doing so might involve some work.

Lasagne

I suspect that writing this up is just showing off. But since there was also not an inconsiderable element of showing off to the Ethonologe and the Lion-Tamer in my making it, i don’t see any additional problems.

Your author (who is currently suffering from TPS) started by making a ragu. This involved softening two large onions in a mixture of butter and vegetable oil, then adding about a kilo of meat, a third pork, two thirds beef, and cooking until no longer pink. Then half a litre or so of milk, which bubbled away until dry. Then the same with the best part of a bottle of white wine. Once dry (the process had been going on for a few hours by now, long enough to finish the bottle of wine and drink most of another), he added a couple of kilos of chopped plum tomatoes, along with a little salt and pepper, brought to the boil, and then put the casserole, uncovered, into a cool oven. This was stirred occasionally, a glass of water being added on the occasions it got too dry, and cooked for a further 7 hours in total, not stopping until it was dry and the fat separated from the sauce. At this point it was seasoned more liberally.

The following morning, the Lion-Tamer decided it looked good enough to steal some for her lunch. Reports were that it tasted very good. Your author, being a model of restraint, of course hadn’t tasted any at this point. In any case, the compliments were appreciated.

Then dough, using about 3 eggs, 150g lightly cooked leaf-spinach, and as much pasta flour as it took to stop it sticking to a clean finger pressed into the middle. And the fun part, since none of us has yet got round to buying a machine, was stretching it as thinly as possible, using a combination of a rolling pin and the edge of our work-surface.

Meanwhile, the Ethnologe made a béchamel sauce with about 50g each of butter and flour, and the best part of a litre of milk, which we combined with the ragu. A thin layer of this combination went into a well-buttered lasagne dish, to be covered with pasta, then more meat, then grated parmesan. Then another five layers of pasta, with meat-sauce and parmesan on top of each one, the thinnest possible spreading covering the top.

Once the Lion-Tamer came home, it went into a very hot oven for 15 minutes. And was served with a bottle of something more than adequately drinkable. Received with what your author took to be satisfied and appreciative silence.

It was the the first savoury thing I’d cooked without garlic in quite a while.

Restraint

Sorry, you’ll have to wait for this one.

Gratin dauphinoise

Given my blog’s title, it would be rude not to start with a recipe. This one is adapted (as so many of mine are) from Pomiane.

I first dotted a casserole dish with butter, thankful that the Ethnologe with whom I share my WG owns a lovely piece of enamelled cast-iron le creuset. Orange, of course. I then peeled and crushed a large head of garlic, and ground rather more black pepper than I needed.

Unable to find a mandoline in our kitchen, I then scrubbed and sliced a bit less than a kilo of potatoes (I used desirée) as thinly as possible. This was somewhat tedious, particularly as the potatoes were relatively small, with the result that once I had enough to cover the bottom of the dish, I stopped cutting, and did so, spreading over it a couple of teaspoons of garlic, and adding a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Then back to the slicing, repeating the above process once there were enough potato-slices to do so.

There were about 6 layers in total, and no garlic or seasoning on top of the last. I then brought a scant half-litre of milk to the boil, while the Ethnologe stirred a teaspoon of flour into a pot of cream. The hot milk went over the potatoes, and the cream on top. Then into the oven for 45 minutes or so at about 200°c. We ate it with steamed savoy cabbage and leftover beetroot and beef soup.

(Differences from Pomiane’s recipe: he suggests peeling the potatoes, and using only 4 cloves of garlic and no butter)