The Hedonistic Pleasureseeker

My porch

Scorpio’s place at the shore

This is how you do it: With a margarita in hand! Actually I don’t know what I made; it was a mix of lime, coconut and tequila, all frozen and yummy.

I probably should have registered for only ONE online course instead of the two that I did, because now homework is all I seem to have time to do. It doesn’t help that they’re accelerated courses requiring both tests AND written papers. I’m too tired to do homework after my 12-hour work days so I use vacation time and weekends to catch up when something is due. There goes the first half of my summer down the drain, bah! Fortunately I’ll be done with both classes before the end of July.

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman recently interviewed writer and social critic Gore Vidal, whose most recent memoir, Point to Point Navigation, is getting rave reviews. It’s a must see; in fact I wish every high schooler in America could take some time out from civics to watch it.

Full transcript available at Information Clearing House

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UPDATE Sunday, May 18, 2008:

Article from the Sunday Times May 18, 08

From The Sunday Times
May 18, 2008

I knew JFK, says Gore Vidal, and believe me Obama’s the better leader
Gore Vidal, the writer and long-time Clinton supporter, tells why Hillary is insane to keep on fighting

Melvyn Bragg

At 82, Gore Vidal has reached an enviable position: he is an influential man of letters, a political activist, a scion of the New World aristocracy and a friend of the powerful and famous, including the Clintons.

So what does he think of Hillary Clinton’s stated intention to fight on to the bitter end for the Democratic presidential nomination? The reply is instant and searing: “I think her strategy is more or less insane.”

He continues: “I’d always rather liked her. She’s a perfectly able lawyer . . . But this long campaign, this daily search for the grail, has driven her crazy.”

In his view Barack Obama has won; and if the nomination is taken away from him, “I fear what our black population might do. There has never been a revolution of blacks - yet”.

During the Clinton administration, Vidal admired Bill’s understanding of the poor and of black people. His devotion to the Clintons has now been laid aside, however. By clinging on to her campaign, waiting for the small chance that Obama will make a terminal mistake, Hillary has crossed a line, he believes.

As for Obama, Vidal has taken time to warm to him. “I liked the idea of him, but he never managed to get my interest. I was brought around by his overall intelligence - specifically when he did his speech on race and religion.”

In Vidal’s opinion, “he’s our best demagogue since Huey Long or Martin Luther King”.

I ask if he thinks Obama has a similar charisma to that of John F Kennedy, whom Vidal got to know because he was related to his wife, Jackie.

“I never believed in Jack’s charisma,” Vidal says shortly. JFK, he believes, was “one of our worst presidents”; Bobby, his brother, was “a phoney, a little Torquemada”; and their father, Joseph, was “a crook - should have been in jail”.

So much for Camelot. “But Jack had great charm,” he adds. “So has Obama. He’s better educated than Jack. And he’s been a working senator. Jack never went to the office - he wanted the presidency and his father bought it for him.”

There’s no guarantee, of course, that the Democrats will triumph later this year, even if Obama does win the nomination. Does he think Obama can beat John McCain?

His views on the man the Democratic candidate will have to beat are even more brutal than his views on Hillary: ” You could beat McCain! I’ve never met anyone in America who has the slightest respect for him. He went to a private school and came bottom of his class. He smashed up his aeroplane and became a prisoner of war, which he is trying to parlay into ‘war hero’.”

In his view, McCain is “a goddamned fool. He was on television talking about mortgages, and it was quite clear he does not know what a mortgage is. His head rattles as he walks”.

However, in Vidal’s eyes, McCain is just a symptom of the real malaise affecting America today: the cynical subversion of the US constitution. “The Bush people”, he says, “have virtually got rid of Magna Carta and habeas corpus. In a normal republic I would probably have raised an army and overthrown them. It will take a hundred years to put it all back.”

By now he has worked himself up to a crisp fury: “Those neocons, lawyers, the big corporations - worse than that, extremists - want to get rid of the great power of oversight of the executive. See what they’ll try to do to Obama. They’re crooks. They’re just gangsters. They are the enemy of the United States. There’s no such thing as a war on terrorism. It’s idiotic. There are slogans. It’s advertising, which is the only art form we’ve invented and developed. It’s lies.”

Vidal has never been less than fully engaged with the politics of his country - but he seems angrier than I have ever seen him before. This may be because he has returned to live in the States only recently, after spending more than 30 years in Italy. He seems revived and refreshed by his furious reengagement with American politics.

For him, the biggest lie has always been to keep quiet; and the best life-enhancer is to provoke, unsettle, rile - in short, to make people face the truth. He remains a rarity.

New York Times best-selling author Bill Bonner
and political journalist Lila Rajiva lay bare the secrets to…

Money, Mania’s, Politics and War…

How to Make Sure You’re Not the Next Victim of
Destructive Public Thinking

“If I had to name just one book investors should read,
this is the one I would select…”
- Dr. Marc Faber, Tomorrow’s Gold: Asia’s Age of Discovery

Mobs, Messiahs and Markets -Forbes.com
Is Bailing Out Reckless Investors Wise? Don’t Bank on It. -Washington Post
Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets -Salt Lake Tribune
Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets -Pittsburg Tribune Review
Mobs, Messiahs and Markets by Alexander Green, Chairman, Investment U

(The doomed lovers)

Keira Knightley will probably get an Academy Award for her exquisite performance in what might be the most depressing movie of 2007: Her role as Cecile in Atonement. This is th perfect movie in so many ways: The acting is fierce, the dialogue is perfect for the place and time, and the costumes and scenery are breathtaking. The chemistry between Keira and James McAvoy is so powerful that it might make you squirm in your seat a little bit, but in a good way. The rest of the story is fraught with turmoil, betrayal, war, blood, fear and guilt, but I suppose the juxtaposition of such beauty, passion and longing with the ghastliness of everything else is a part of the point of the whole movie.

RUN to see Atonement if you love Ms. Knightley, Mr. McAvoy, historical romances, England during World War II, “European” movie endings,* technical aspects of filmmaking, and really, really really good acting.

Do NOT see this movie if you have difficulty following complicated plot lines, are disinterested in or confused by exercises in perception and interpretation, or tend to disorient yourself when interrupted by flashbacks and replays. DEFINITELY take a pass on this movie if you’re hard of hearing, already depressed, under the weather or expecting a Hollywood ending. Read the novel and appreciate it for the work of art that it is instead.

* European movie endings tend to be complicated, sad or ambivalent compared to the “Hollywood” happy endings popular in the U.S.

(But in a good way)

For what it’s worth, I’m having a devil of a time finding a psychiatrist specializing in hormonal issues. Nearly everything I’ve learned about PMDD I’ve gotten from the internet, my GP and my gynecologist. A few days LisaLisa hipped me to The PMDD Phenomenon, written by a psychiatrist at Duke University. I checked it out and it’s getting rave reviews from medical professionals and patients, so I ordered it!

The first book to clearly explain this new disorder and offer treatment options

Afflicting an estimated 3 million women in the United States, PMDD is an extreme form of PMS in which the physical and psychological symptoms are often so severe that they strain social, familial, and work relationships to the breaking point. Despite the rapidly growing body of scientific research into its causes and cures, PMDD continues to be a bone of contention among medical professionals, and many women who suffer from it are still told that it’s all in their heads. The first consumer book written on this condition and authored by a nationally respected expert on the treatment of this condition, The PMDD Phenomenon:

• Helps readers determine whether they have PMDD
• Explains the full spectrum of prescription and nonprescription drug therapies
• Covers major alternative treatments
• Features inspiring and informative case studies of women who have battled PMDD

Frankly, my ongoing search for competent psychiatric care is just to humor certain friends who cannot wrap their little brains around the fact that psychiatrists are not the only ones competent enough to prescribe Zoloft and/or Wellbutrin. In fact, for the most part the go-to guys and gals for PMDD expertise are gynecologists, not psychiatrists, but . . . . Whatever. I have insurance and I make good money so it’s no biggie. To have a shrink diagnose me as whatever kind of crazy and approve whatever drug regimen is worth a few $35 copays, I guess.

I’m asking my doctors for recommendations. They told me they’d give me one . . . when they found one.

I had dinner with a literary agent tonight. Actually, he was just trying to get into my pants, yeah yeah blah blah blah, but, you never know! Perhaps something else will also come of it! He represents writers who want to publish and market their first books. What are the odds? He was cute, too.

No, he hasn’t seen this blog. Shh!

Looks as though Bunny and I will be staying in tonight! Perhaps I’ll just watch the boob tube and have a snort of Count Chocula’s Gnarly Wee Heavy? Nah; given the weather I believe it’s time for a blizzard martini. Photos to follow.

Want to find your own personal beer? Try the Random Beer Name Generator!

Hat tip to Feministe

Scenes from the evening (peignoir by Oscar De La Renta):

I’ve been doing my chocolate research, and the book by the guy whose spicy hot chocolate recipe I posted is a bestseller! Five stars on Amazon! Hmmmm . . . a Valentines’ Day present for Bunny? She makes her own truffles with recipes she invents herself. I’m sure this book has truffle recipes in it.

Then again, perhaps I should get her this one instead? It’s the topseller at Barnes and Noble:

Then again, those recipes look as though they might be too difficult. This the bestselling truffle book at Amazon, getting five stars:

And this book sells well at both sites!

Then again, why not just go out and buy a box of truffles and be done with it?  Well I might just do that too.  We’ll eat them while we’re making the homemade ones!

We are off to the races with my Month of Chocolate! Fortunately I have a collection of aphrodisiac cookbooks to help me entertain you. This one is my new favorite: What a yummy cookbook! Best food porn ever!

This cookbook features traditional aphrodisiacs like oysters, strawberries, black beans, seafoods, coffee, and, of course, chocolate! Included are aphrodisiac histories, couples’ comments, elaborate appendices, and full-color photographs of aphrodisiacs on nekkid people! Checkit!

I bought the 10th-anniversary edition, which features more than 34 new, couple-tested recipes and a completely revised appendix. The mushroom ragout was the second recipe I tried because it sounded so strange. Mushrooms and chocolate? They had to be kidding! But it was everything they said it was. Eating it was a positively erotic experience. This recipe is definitely made for body art! I would love to lick this sauce off a certain someone . . .

HPS Note: Ignore the candied mushroom below as it’s not a part of the recipe. I googled “mushroom chocolate” in the Google Image Search, and that photo came up. Yummy!

Wild Mushroom Ragout

1 pound mushrooms such as portobellos, chanterelles, shitake, crepes, and cremini

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2/3 cup dry red wine, such as Rioja or Merlot
1 or 2 pinches of each:

grated nutmeg
ground cardamom
white pepper
ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon finely chopped unsweetened chocolate

Rinse mushrooms briefly and pat dry. Slice 1/4 inch thick, discarding the stems if they seem tough. Set a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add one teaspoon of the olive oil. Add one type of mushroom and saute, stirring frequently until browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape them into a bowl and set them aside. Repeat with each mushroom type, scraping them into the same bowl.

HPS Note: The scrapings from the mushrooms may also be dissolved and added to the mushroom bowl; it improves the flavor of the sauce. It’s also important to cook different mushrooms separately as they cook at different rates. If this seems like too much of a bother, use only one kind of mushroom.

Set the pan over medium-low heat and add 1 more tablespoon of olive oil and the garlic . Saute until soft but not browned. Return the mushrooms and any accumulated juices to the pan. Add the wine, spices, and salt, and simmer for 2 or 3 minutes.

HPS Note: Don’t let the garlic brown or it will ruin the taste! Also, don’t be tempted to overdo it on the garlic. The spices are subtle and blend just so, and you don’t want the garlic to overwhelm them.

Add 1/4 cup of water, cover, and simmer for 6 to 10 munites to cook the mushrooms and release their juices into the sauce. Uncover and cook until the sauce is reduced and slightly syrupy. Stir in the chocolate unti it melts and smoothes the sauce. Tast and correct the seasonings if necessary. Serve over polenta, toast points, or anything plain that absorbs the rich flavors of the sauce.

HPS Note: I’ve made this dish several times over toast points and I think I’m addicted! It’s not a “pretty” dish: Imagine shit-on-a-shingle and you get the idea. But the taste! Unreal! Hard to describe, so you will have to make it yourselves!

I must be feeling better: Shoes excite me again!

I found these a few days ago at DSW. Sssssssssssssnakeskin stilettos! They were already marked down to $70, plus I received an additional 40% off because they were in the clearance section at the back of the store. Then I turned in a $20 gift certificate, so they ended up costing only $22!

They’ll look awesome with my new party dress, yessss?

(I’ve turned into one of those people who plans her dinner during breakfast. On weekends, at least.)

I didn’t have breakfast in bed this morning because I woke up alone. But the next time I have an overnight guest I’m going to make this:

Breakfast in Bed

Cold Fruit Soup
Turkey Sausage with Spinach and Feta
Brie Cheese and Toast Points
Espresso and Orange Juice

I found a recipe for a cold fruit soup in Gael Greene’s Insatiable. She calls it “The Morning After Orange Fruit Soup.” It was in the chapter where quotes from her New York Magazine essay titles “The Decadent Delights of Breakfast in Bed,” her ode to unabashed indolence:

Breakfast in bed is one of those unnatural acts that can be supremely delicious when performed by two consenting adults. I should have been a pampered courtesan . . . muse to some mad creative genius, a woman of modest intellect, great wit and fine consuming passions. But given the mean and ascetic boundaries of democracy, I struggle and contrive. I play geisha to his prince, slipping softly away to bring fresh-squeezed orange juice and homemade bread and smart, smelly Reblochon or runaway Brie . . . left on the counter overnight to mellow. And sometimes he is the weekend gamekeeper; splitting logs while I sleep the last precious hour, then coming into the bedroom dark with Hostess Twinkies, fresh bitter espresso, purple and green grapes in an old Shaker basket . . .

The Morning-After Orange Fruit Soup

1 1/2 cups water
2 tbsp quick-cooking tapioca
1 tsp sugar
pinch salt
1/2 cup frozen concentrated orange juice
2 cups fruit

Mix the instant tapioca into water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a full boil. Remove from heat. Add sugar, salt, and orange juice concentrate. Stir to blend. Let cool for 15 minutes, then stir again. Cover and chill for at least 3 hours.

Just before serving, fold in fruit. In winter, you can use orange sections with the membrane cut away, sliced bnanas, half grapes, frozen and thawed peach slices, and the best berries you can find. In summer, you can choose a mix of sweet and tart summer fruit - plums, peaches, nectarines and berries.

Serve in chilled bowls or balloon goblets. Serves 2 large portions or 4 small.

Physically, there are similarities between the mouth and the genitals. Lips, tongue and genitals have the same neural receptors, known as Krause’s end bulbs. Lips, tongue and genitals are all sensitive, charged, and highly responsive. The line that connects them is intense thread that winds through our bodies, from lips to labia, from tongue to penis. Mouth and genitals are the most sensitive parts of our bodies; the lips rank with the clitoris, the penis, and the tongue as the body’s most sensitive, and therefore most sensual , skin. The word labia is Latin for lips; the labia are the external folds of the vulva, the lips of the vagina, pink and pursed around a deep, moist hollow.

If there were ever any question about whether or not food and sex were related, the above passage should remove all doubt. When I saw this book I had to have it. Sex and food! Food and Sex! Besides, who could resist a name like “Bunny Crumpacker?”

The Sex Life of Food: When Body and Soul Meet to Eat was not the volulptuous read I had hoped it would be. It’s more like a rambling, sexy romp through centuries of sex and food trivia, proving over and over and over again the infinite ways hunger and desire can act on one another. There are no recipes, only history, facts and a lot of Sigmund Freud:

Freud writes of “kissing epicures,” who as adults are as turned on by sensations of the mouth as they were when they were little hungry babies. They are avid for pleasures of the mouth, and they retain, says the doctor, the erogenous significance of the lip zone long past the time in infancy when that significance ought to move to other parts of the body. Sometime, he adds, the epicure becomes a pervert, a mouth monomaiac, with “a tendency to perverse kissing . . . ” He writes that such kissing perverts sometimes also show a strong desire for drinking and smoking.

Ah, the Oral Fixation. When I am in bed with a man I use my mouth more than any other part of my body. Had Freud been my doctor, he would have diagnosed me as a kissing epicure, a mouth monomaniac, and a pervert. But would he have tried to cure me?

(Go to Food and Wine to see the winners of their food photography contest!)

I just realized I don’t buy cookbooks. I buy food porn.

If a cookbook doesn’t have big, glossy photographs of mouthwatering food and drink I’m just not interested. I’m not like the guys who buy Playboy for the articles, nononononononon! I must have my pictures!

My latest acquisition: Seduction and Spice,written by Rudolf Sodamin, the executive chef of the QE2. This may - and I say may only because I’ve just started looking - just be the ultimate aphrodisiac cookbook! My scanner isn’t doing any of the photographs in this book justice so you’ll have to take my word for it: They make me hot for . . . crispy ginger duck with poached pears? Baked potatoes with truffles and caviar? No, linguine with clam sauce! God help me there’s even a creme brulee recipe, lawd have mercy. Something tells me I’m going to be very busy this weekend . . .