#tried TWO different places and it's literally just tuna salad

[achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily]

going to need the goyim to stop putting TUNA in my WHITE FISH salad!!!

[jeonqukie]

PLAYING CUPID / 01.

SYNOPSIS / Consistently overshadowed by your older sister, you expect your days in high school to be filled with plastic smiles and apathetic peers with hidden intentions. Everything changes when four of the most popular guys in school join you and your best friend for lunch on the first day of school.

FEATURING / Kim Namjoon; appearances by Jung Hoseok, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, and Jeon Jungkook.

GENRES & TAGS / high school au, freshman reader, senior namjoon, student council president namjoon, best friend jungkook, lots of fluff, and some angst.

WARNINGS / Graphic and mature language, slight age difference/gap (to clarify, oc is 14-15 yrs old and namjoon is 17 - first part is rated pg); list will be updated as fic is updated accordingly.

WORD COUNT / ~10.3k

NOTES / I am a day late in posting this and I want to let you guys know that this is... not edited at all and I will be looking through this every now and then to correct any errors. But I hope you enjoy the first part of this series! I wasn’t expecting this to be relatively long, but it was all to set up the characters dynamics and the history behind the reader and Namjoon’s relationship. Any feedback is appreciated. To repeat, I’m so sorry this was super late. Please expect part 2 to be up in ~2 weeks. (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

All rights reserved © jeonqukie (formerly known as aiscka). All (or portions) of my work may not be reproduced, redistributed, reclaimed, translated, modified, or used in any way whatsoever without my permission.

“You’re Sena’s little sister, right?”

You’d be a damn millionaire if you made a dollar for every person on campus tried to break the ice with you. It was a severe understatement to say that your older sister was known around town. She was vice president of the student council, president of the debate club, and the best player on the varsity volleyball team. All of the teachers and faculty adored her, every girl wanted to be her, and every guy wanted to be with her.

For the longest time, you assumed your sister was a celebrity on campus.

You were so wrong.

It was because you never met him. You’ve heard his name so many times whenever your sister had sleepovers with her friends or when she was on the phone with a friend, whispering so softly into the receiver, afraid that someone would find out about that she had a crush on him. You were perplexed because you thought your sister was a very forward person; she had so much confidence talking to so many guys who desperately wanted her attention yet somehow her palms would sweat over him.

“Hey, you know who Kim Namjoon is?” You would sit at the cafeteria for the first time with your best friend, Jungkook, who had devoured half of his ham and cheese croissant sandwich. He looks at you and he would raise one brow.

“Oh no, don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who’s obsessed with hyung.” But Jungkook sees the genuine confusion form on your face. You catch a glimpse of your older sister who sat on the other side of the cafeteria, thumbing a reply on her phone while her friend nudges at her when she sees the notorious posse that every girl swoons over.

It was a scene right out of a movie.

At that time, you had the faintest idea who they were, but you were quick to find out why they were so well known around campus. Jung Hoseok was the senior of the group; he was a dancer and was featured in numerous music videos by well-known artists and he had an extensive list of choreographers willing to work with him. Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin were inseparable; they were juniors who ran the school newspaper and the school yearbook – Taehyung being in charge of the photography while Jimin being in charge of the organizing the yearbook staff. Meanwhile, there was Kim Namjoon; student council president, valedictorian of his class, member of the honor society and numerous organizations on campus.

“Wait, you know who Namjoon is?” You were curious whether Jungkook knew of him, not exactly knowing the guy.

“Yeah. I mean, he’s been my next-door neighbor for god knows how long. His folks and mine go out for golfing twice a month.” You just nod to his answer when you are shoving a chocolate moon pie into your mouth.

But your mouth instantly goes dry when the four guys appear right across from you and Jungkook are seated.

“Gukie!” Hoseok exclaimed at the sight of Jungkook still devouring his croissant. “Look at you! Finally, you’re with the hyungs in high school.” The tease made Jungkook’s ears go pink and you feel your own face get hot; not because of second hand embarrassment, but because you can see everyone’s eyes on you – the two freshmen who had no right to be sharing a table with, what you can only assume, the four most popular guys on campus.

There were many times where people would only want to get to know you because of your sister; girls wanted to get close to you because you were had a cool older sister and boys wanted to be with you because they were so eager to come over to your place and obsess over Sena.

Jungkook, on the other hand, had no interest in her. As a matter of fact, you met Jungkook when you were in middle school and took a swimming class and later found out that you two were in the same class and bonded over your competitive nature in swim class.

“Who’s this? You got a girlfriend on your first day already?” You and Jungkook exchange a look of disgust with each other and create a sensible amount of space for each other to establish that you both see each other as friends.

“Oh my god, wait – you’re Sena’s little sister, right?” Hoseok corrected Jimin who had made the assumption you and Jungkook were an item. Jungkook can see the way you scrunch your nose from his periphery, and he decides to answer for you instead.

“This is YN. She’s… literally been my best friend since middle school.” Jungkook introduces you to the four people right across from you. “YN, this is Hoseok – well, I call him Hobi-hyung. This is Jimin-hyung and Tae-hyung. I’m pretty sure you know Namjoon-hyung because –”

“ – school council president.” You interrupt because you didn’t want Jungkook to reveal that you had been inquiring about him earlier. “I remember because you made that welcome speech this morning at the assembly.”

Namjoon is rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment and you resume eating your packed lunch, despite losing all appetite because you are surrounded by so many people did not know. They weren’t terrible people, but you weren’t mentally prepared for such strong personalities and dynamics to be introduced all at once. You felt like an intruder – a fly on the wall – because everyone carried on with their normal conversations; Jungkook and Hoseok were talking about plans for the weekend and then Jimin and Taehyung were already drafting out ideas for the yearbook. Meanwhile, you sat in silence as you ate your tuna salad sandwich, reading a new book you were gifted over the summer by your parents.

“Let me know when you’re done.” A voice catches your attention, and you stop all chewing. “The book, I mean.” Namjoon clarifies and he sees that you are already halfway done with it. “I read it a year ago and I’d like to hear what you think of it.” He offers you a heartwarming smile and you nod once, returning the same grin.

“I started it a week ago. I really like it so far.” The conversation is light and drowned out by the loud voices beside you.

You never really pinned him as a reader.

“So, how’s your first day so far?” He inquires and you honestly thought that the conversation was… over. Normally, that’s how all the conversations go when people find out your Sena’s little sister. They feign their interest in you and instantaneously ask about her.

“It’s… nothing special.” You admit, smoothing your fingers on the pages of the book. “Most of the classes I have before lunch, Guk’s with me. Now –”

“Now, her large, wrinkled brain is going to abandon me and get into those advanced program and honors classes.” You are rolling your eyes at your best friend who whines that you decided not to take the same classes as him.

“We literally have homeroom, social studies, and PE together and then we see each other for breaks and lunch. I think you’ll live.” The group laughs which earns quite a bit of stares from outsiders, but they seem to be completely unfazed by it. Everyone turns back to their own conversations and, usually, your social presence isn’t necessarily sought out by people.

It wasn’t until you hear another inquiry fall out of Namjoon’s mouth.

“What do you have right after lunch?”

“Biology.”

“Honors biology, by the way. Can’t you spare just one regular class for me? Or does your GPA really matter that much to you?” Jungkook complains and you are left ignoring his comments.

If there was one thing that your older sister taught you (something you actually agree with) is that colleges love a good GPA and joining as many clubs as possible. You even remembered how she’d phrase it for you; college admissions officers will cream their pants when you score that 4.0 GPA and do something out of the box from the rest of your peers.

“Or just get smarter, Guk.” Hoseok poked fun at Jungkook, earning a shrug from Jungkook. Namjoon, on the other hand, is smiling from ear to ear at the dynamic between the elder and the youngest of the group.

“Let me see your schedule.” Namjoon urges as he spots your clear binder which has your printed schedule on the cover. You push over your binder to Namjoon who is scanning your binder; he reads through your name, your birth date, the list of teachers you had for the semester and the classes assigned to you.

You feel indifferent about the sudden attention on you, especially from Namjoon; a mere stranger who everyone obsessed over was so piqued by you. You observe the way the corner of his slips curve into an impressive smirk as he glances over at Hoseok.

“Guess who we have for calculus at the end of the day?” He slides over your binder where the rest of the group examine the rest of your schedule, only for Hoseok to find a coinciding class with you.

“How the fuck are you in a senior’s class? Are you some math whiz or something?” Taehyung’s eyes widen at the sight of an advanced calculus class on your schedule. It was one of the things you were proud of you; you were good at math – it happened to be Sena’s worst subject and your parents often joke what she lacked; you had gained immensely.

“Yeah, YN’s cracked, hyung. I don’t understand. I remember in middle school they had to make arrangements for her to get into a pre-caclulus class or some shit like that.” Jungkook finishes his fruit cup and gathers all of the trash on site to toss over to the closest garbage bin.

Namjoon is sliding your binder right back at you, brows raised at you with the same grin he had on. He stares at you for what seemed like a long time – to you, it seemed like a long time and he is glancing back down at where your fingers brush against each other and he pulls away, not wanting to make you feel uncomfortable.

“I – um, saw that you were taking orchestra too.”

You nod and chew on your cheek, self-conscious all of a sudden about your appearance because you are very much aware that Namjoon is examining every aspect of your face.

“Yeah. I mean, I already know how to play the piano, so I might as well learn how to play another instrument, right?”

“No – yeah, you’re right.” He stammers and he folds his hands together only to be interrupted by Jimin tossing over a bag of pretzels at Namjoon.

“Bell’s about to ring. Pretzels was all they had left. We need to head to physics soon.” Taehyung and Jimin are swinging their bags over their shoulders. Hoseok is too busy on his phone, showing Jungkook a video of his new choreography.

Suddenly, you are receiving a plethora of notifications in the depths of your jean pocket. Your fingers unlock your phone only to reveal a series of text messages from your sister.

Sena [12:29]: Did you just spend your entire lunch with Kim Namjoon?

Sena [12:32]: Earth to YN?

Sena [12:39]: GUK IS FRIENDS WITH ALL 4 OF THEM.

Sena [12:41]: You have officially made a fucking impression to this school. I’m so proud of you. You’re sitting with us at lunch tomorrow.

“Guess I’ll see you later, YN.” The bell doesn’t descend you back to reality. Instead, it was his voice that brings you to pack up your things into your bag. “You might want to sit at the back for Mr. Lu’s biology class; he’s a spitter.” Namjoon swings his backpack over his shoulder. “He reuses the same lesson plan every year. If you need any help with them, you know who to look for.”

As you’re swinging your own bag, Namjoon leaves you with a wink as he is exiting the doors of the cafeteria into the school hallways.

Now, you understand why the entire world was obsessed with Kim Namjoon.

“Alright, let’s get started,” Mrs. Kang, your calculus, is a middle-aged woman who didn’t look like she had aged past thirty. You found it incredibly hard to believe the woman was nearly in her mid-forties who had three kids of her own. She looked like a stern woman but had a good heart from what you remembered; she only wanted what was best for the class even though it meant tormenting them with a shit ton of homework. “I don’t need to go over the syllabus with you bunch. As you can see, this is a much smaller class than a regular class because not a lot of people pass this class.”

Silence fills the room from when you had first arrived. You were one of the last few people to find your seat because your class was all the way on the other side of campus. It seemed like everyone in your class were juniors or seniors. There were so many of them who knew each other from previous classes; they were all huddled in their own designated spots in the class, so you sat at the front of the class because all the seats at the back had been taken and it may help that you’re at the front because it’ll force you to pay attention.

“There’s a lot of material to cover and there’s only so much I can do. Since we’ve implemented the new block schedule, we’ll only be seeing each other for an hour and a half every Wednesdays and Fridays. First thirty minutes will be on new material, next thirty minutes will be spent on practice problems, and then the last thirty minutes will be working with your partner on getting your homework started. I’ve figured getting a head start on the homework for the last thirty minutes will be helpful just in case you or your partner are lost, you have me to ask for assistance.”

Someone’s hand raises up in the air out of your periphery.

Mrs. Kang points to them. “Yes, Namjoon?”

“How do we determine who are partners will be?”

“Please tell me we get to pick our partners.” Mrs. Kang is already turning her back to the class as she searches for a box that had been hidden behind her computer monitor only for her shake the contents of the box.

“The last time I gave the students the opportunity to choose who their partner was, I’ve written a disciplinary notice for academic dishonesty twice a week.” Mrs. Kang prefaced, and the room goes silent. As she continues ruffling through folded papers inside the wooden box, you are already aware of how the partner system is going to work.

Everything was going to be randomly assigned.

“We have 26 of you total which means there will be 13 pairs.” Mrs. Kang announces, and she walks around the class starting from the left where the person is picking a folded paper out of the box. Each person who had unfolded their paper sat patiently until Mrs. Kang had completed distributing the paired assignments around the room. She is fetching a pen and paper as she sits on her desk.

“Alright, our first pair is –” Mrs. Kang looks up to see two people raise their hands; it had been Hoseok and a girl with the prettiest bangs named Mimi. Mrs. Kang continued jotting down the pairs until you scanned the number on your own paper; a large 12 inscribed on your already tattered paper.

You hear Mrs. Kang’s voice as she calls out for the twelfth pair and you raise your hand. You don’t see anyone in your periphery raise their hands, so you turn your body around to search for your partner.

Your body turns cold and still, but you can feel your cheeks get warm at the sight of Namjoon seated down at the back with Hoseok with his hands raised, revealing that he had pulled the same number as you. The thumping in your heart is loud and it beats hard as each moment passes.

Both your hands lower and you are trying to turn your attention back to the front of the class where your teacher stood, but you can feel his eyes on you. You remembered scolding yourself, unaware of why you were so nervous and so shocked to be his partner – he saw you nothing more than another classmate; someone to help him with his assignments.

“Perfect! Since we have our pairs, everyone will be sitting next to their partner from now on; I don’t care where it’ll be. I just need you to sit with them, so we’re not scrambling at the last thirty minutes of class to find them.” Mrs. Kang says sternly, clearly not wanting to waste time in this class. “Shall we begin?”

“How do you already have so much shit to do?” Jungkook laid comfortably on your bed, shoving down salt and vinegar potato chips that your parents had bought from the store last weekend. “Do you like never take a break from reading or what?”

“It’s just a really interesting book.” You say as you flip through the next page and bite into an apple.

You two laid on your bed, basking in the afternoon sun. Normally, you two didn’t have this much down time. Last summer, you two volunteered to be camp counselors to lessen the boredom you two would endure. It was either that or spending every goddamn weekend on the golf course with Jungkook’s parents and yours.

“I was thinking of trying out for the track & field team.” Jungkook informs you and you resume reading. “Namjoon-hyung tells me that the team runs right after school and it sounds fun. Events are early though, and we all know I’m not an early riser.”

The mention of Namjoon urged you to reminisce back to your last period that day. Mrs. Kang mentioned that she wasn’t going to let the class immediately sit right next to their homework partner – thank god. You just wouldn’t know what to talk about with him; you don’t really know what to talk about with people because they always somehow led the conversation back to your older sister.

But, at the end of class, he did manage to keep up with you as you hastily packed all your items into the bag before you darted outside of the classroom. You planned on walking home with Jungkook and you two would meet at the front of the school. Namjoon, somehow, caught up to you in time.

He had grabbed your arm and greeted with you with his million-dollar smile. “Hey,” He breathes, and you stop to offer him a meeker and shier smile.

“Hi, what’s up?”

“You’re meeting with Guk?”

You give him a single nod before he hands you two pieces of paper. You’re curious as to what they are, and you see the words parent’s consent form along with the health forms to give to a doctor – for a physical.

“He’ll know what they’re for.” He reassured you and you hold onto the forms. “Thanks for that. I have to go; I have a meeting in five minutes with the student council.”

“I’ll be sure to give it to him. Was there anything else you wanted to tell him?”

He shakes his head, and he starts reversing his steps, clutching onto the straps of his bags. “I – um, I’m really looking forward for calculus – you know, the whole partner thing. I must be really lucky to be partnered with a cracked, math whiz like you.”

Now, you’re blushing because you weren’t really sure if you were supposed to be flattered or offended.

And he read you so well because he is suddenly panicking but he hid it. He stops his reverses, and he takes one step closer to you.

“I’ll see you and Guk at lunch tomorrow, if that’s alright?” He hums; his voice sounded so soft and clear to you – no one can hear a single thing he had said to you, but you heard him bright as day. Suddenly, you feel a grin creep up to your mouth and you nod once. You had regained some of your confidence back and Namjoon can see it. “Cool, well, I’ll see you ‘round, YN.”

“Earth to YN.” Jungkook snaps at you and you pay attention to your friend who is lying next to you. “Did you hear a single thing I said?”

“Sorry ‘bout that. I dozed for a couple minutes.” You admit and he scrunches his brows, dismissing your moment of silence.

“I was asking how it was like to be in a class of seniors.”

“There’s no difference, honestly.” You begin your thought. “It sucks just because I don’t really know anyone, and everyone knows everyone.”

“Yeah, but you have Namjoon-hyung and Hobi-hyung.” Jungkook reassures you. “They’re basically your friends now because we’ll be hanging around them a lot.”

You weren’t sure if you were looking forward to or nervous to be spending a lot more time with the older guys. They made a good first impression on you though; they’ve probably only mentioned your sister’s name once. Granted, it was only thirty minutes spent together, but it was so much better than most of the conversations you’ve had with everybody else.

“That’s true. I have Namjoon as my homework partner, so I’ll… definitely need to get along with him.” You chuckle under your breath as you read through each line without comprehending a single thing. Your mind had been so clouded with the idea of Namjoon and you weren’t sure why.

Jungkook decided not to stay for dinner that evening even though mom made two pans of lasagna to feed a village. However, he did help you and your mother prepare it. Your mom was pretty insistent on it, so you promise that you’d be giving him some leftovers for lunch the next day. Your dad arrived home next; it was a typical evening – he beelined to your mom, planted a kiss on her cheek and patted your back before he hastily moved to the office to continue working. Sena arrived home from school at a later hour than usual before she was already setting the plates on the dining table.

“Alright, Guk, final offer.” Your mother says as she is pulling out two piping pans of lasagna out of the oven.

“No, thanks, Mrs. LN.” He respectfully declines before he is swinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Mom’s expecting me home right about now for dinner. I’ll definitely ask YN to pack me up some leftovers though.”

“Alright.” She waves him a goodbye before you are showing him to the door. “Walk home safely.” She bids him a goodbye softly as she pulls the foils off the pan.

“Pack me an extra serving, please.” Jungkook pleads and you roll your eyes before he already made his way out of the door.

“Honey, dinner’s ready!”

“You did not tell me Jungkook was friends with Namjoon.” Sena settles herself on the dining table and you sit right across from her, waiting for your mom to begin serving everyone a slice of lasagna.

“Quite frankly, I didn’t know Jungkook even knew Namjoon either. I’d say I’m just as surprised as you are, but I really don’t know what the fascination is with Namjoon.” You lied through your teeth as your mom serves herself first (she called dibs on the corner piece) and you decide on getting the smallest piece since you weren’t so hungry that evening.

“Are you talking about Mr. and Mrs. Kim’s son? Is this the same Namjoon we’re talking about right now?” Your mom’s curiosity is evident in her tone, taking small bites out of a side salad she had prepared.

“Yes, and Sena is hopelessly in love with him.” You shove the lettuce into your mouth as you wait for your lasagna serving to cool down momentarily.

“How can you not be in love with him?” She breathes out hastily. Your dad has his brows raised in disbelief; his daughter talking endlessly about her crush.

“He is a nice boy; responsible, kind, gentle, polite, seems to get things done, really cute too.” Your mom lists his never-ending advantages, and you stray away from their eyes because you hate the admit that you find him incredibly cute.

“Can we please talk about something other than this boy?” Your father is already exhausted from listening to you talk about Namjoon and you don’t blame him, really. “How was the first day for you, dear?” He refers to you and you are still chewing on your dinner.

“I have three classes with Guk. I like all of my classes so far; I can already tell calculus is going to be… a lot of work. We have a test every week and we mandatory study sessions after school for the exam to qualify for college credits. Thankfully, I have a partner to work with just in case I don’t understand anything. There’s also –”

“Who’s your partner? Maybe I know them.”

Your silence is defeating, and you look at your dad who is waiting for his answer and you dart your eyes back at Sena who is piecing the puzzle in her head, so she drops her mouth open, gasping at your lack of a response.

“No fucking way!”

“Language, please, Sena.” Your mom scolds.

“I mean, you’ve been in the same classes as him before! I’m sure you’ve been in a group project with him or something. You guys are in the same clubs. I don’t understand why you haven’t asked him out.” You weren’t so sure what motivated you to blurt it all out because your sister was definitely a good catch, but the obsession with him was getting way out of hand.

“That’s ridiculous, YN. I would never ask out a guy. I don’t even know he likes me that way.” Sena is taking small bites out of her dinner and you sigh to yourself, chewing on the inside of your cheek. “If there was only a way for me to find out. It’s not like I have a sister who’s partners with him in a class – oh, she’s also best friends with his next-door neighbor! How convenient.”

She eyes at you where you decide to focus on your meal, but her eyes are pleading and desperate.

“I… am completely eliminating myself from this predicament, Sena. If you want to ask him out for yourself, you should do it. Besides, who wouldn’t like you? You’re amazing.” Your voice is sincere and genuine, and you hope she pushes all of her fears and insecurities to the side to do something about her feelings.

“It would just be so much easier if I knew if he thought I was cute or something.”

“Everyone thinks you’re cute.”

“That’s not the point, YN. Listen, how ‘bout this? You don’t even have to drop my name in there; just ask what his ideal girl is like or something… or let Guk do the work! I’m sure he already knows the answer. Just help a girl out, please, YN.” You sigh defeated because your sister was really good at convincing.

It wasn’t really hard to figure out what type of girl Namjoon was interested in or… if he was interested in girls. All of this was easier said than done and you were going to rely on Jungkook a lot on this.

“I’m not going to prioritize this.” You surrender and she is giddy in her seat.

“YN, you are the best sister anyone could ask for.”

Several weeks have passed since you had last had your conversation with your older sister. You made an emphasis that you weren’t going to prioritize delving into Namjoon’s personal life. You were purely on a calculus homework and best friend’s next door neighbor relationship with him. But you finally get an idea of what Namjoon likes in a girl when he had to leave early for calculus to get pep rally ready for the first football game that Friday.

Unknown [14:34]: It’s Namjoon. Got your number from Guk.

For some reason, you feel your heart leap out of your chest at the text message. You’re still seated in calculus class working on the first few problems of your homework without him. You look up to see that Mrs. Kang is too busy assisting other students confused with the problem. Honestly, you were confused too and were unsure with your methods, but your mind had been too focused on your cellphone the entire time.

Namjoon [14:35]: Should’ve gave you the heads up about this. Sorry about leaving you alone to work. ):

You [14:36]: It’s no big deal. Seems like everyone’s confused, tbh.

Namjoon [14:36]: Fuck, mb. It’s the first game of the night, so I’m kind of required to be here. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.

Namjoon [14:37]: I have some down time after setting up. Maybe we can work on it then?

You [14:37]: Just tell me the time and place, I’ll be there. (:

Namjoon says that he had somebody covering his duties for the student council before the game began. You see him rushing inside a computer lab that remained open for students to use. You had reserved a table at a secluded corner because you wanted to be away from prying eyes. He spots you trying to reread your notes and erase the umpteenth method you had tried for a word problem you were stuck on.

He admires the way your brows knit together; lips pursed as you began redoing your method on a separate piece of paper. He keeps standing, not taking his place on the chair right next to you – too afraid that you would interrupt your flow. You feel a presence right next to you and he nearly gives you a fright and you realize just how tall he is.

“You scared me.” You inform and he chuckles softly at how endearing it was. He takes the seat right next to you where he is already pulling out notebook and pencils from his bag.

“I left my book at my locker. Do you mind if I share your book with you?” You look at your open textbook and nod at once pushing the textbook closer for both of you to see. “Thanks.” He scoots much closer than you had intended and when he strips his hoodie off of him, you can smell his cologne and how good it smelled on him.

You ignore your thoughts and scurry back to the problem you’re on.

“What problem did you end on?” He inquires and you point to the exact word problem you had been staring at for the past thirty minutes in class.

“It’s been bugging me. I didn’t want to ask Mrs. Kang because I wanted to figure it out myself.” You were so stubborn, he thought to himself. You had only completed a total of eight problems when there was so much more to do for the weekend. For some reason, you decided to stay stuck on that problem for god knows how long and Namjoon found it adorable – one of the few attributes he liked about you.

He reads the word problem and begins trying to solve the problem on his own. After several tries, he had figure out what you had done wrong and he so desperately wanted to point it out to you. Just when he was about to open his mouth, you turn to him and shake your head, covering your ears with your hands.

“No. I refuse to let you tell me what you did wrong. I can figure this out myself.” You whisper harshly. Namjoon can’t help but respond with silenced laughter because this is exactly how your homework sessions have been going; just the both of you refusing to let the other correct each other until the other figured it out themselves.

“Can I give you one clue?”

“Nope.” You popped your ‘p’ to accentuate just how persistent you were. You stuck out your lower lip as you examined the word problem again and he looked at the glossiness of your mouth and the softness of your cheeks; how he desperately wanted to lay his own petals right on yours as his fingers crawl to your face.

“So, I have a question.” He starts.

“And I can try to give you an answer depending on what it is.”

“Are… you and Guk by any chance – y’know?” His question is vague, but you definitely know what he is asking you because lots of people were never really used to the idea of a boy and a girl ever being best friends; for some reason, people assume they always end up dating and never talking to each other again.

“God, no. I love him, but I don’t love him like… I’d date him.” Your cheeks were fully flamed, and you weren’t so sure why you were so embarrassed to discuss this with Namjoon. All the times you had to clarify people on your relationship with Jungkook, you were almost disgusted and quick to reassure people that you two were nothing more than friends.

“Well, is there anyone you were willing to date?” Namjoon is pushing the boundaries here and he knows it very well. But he feels like he has gotten to know you well enough in the past few weeks to ask such a question.

“Not that… I know of really.” You try to remain composed when you respond to his question, but you feel his eyes burn into your soul, so you’re doing everything you can to avoid his stare. But Namjoon continues to stare right into you. He really can’t take his eyes off of you. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced what it’s like to be attracted to –” Just when you had mustered the confidence to look at him, he is quite literally staring so deeply into your eyes that it is taking your breath away.

He is making you eat your words right now; you can’t take your eyes off of him.

“You don’t know what it’s like to…?”

“I don’t what it’s like to be attracted to someone.” You sigh softly; your breath fanning him. “On the contrary, I don’t think anyone’s ever really been attracted to me.” A chuckle comes erupting from your mouth, shaking your head. “Fortunately, that’s not really my goal in high school.”

“You don’t know that.” He quips.

“I don’t know what?”

“If someone’s been attracted to you before.” You shake your head in disbelief, chewing on the inside of your cheek knowing fully well that he was doing this because he wanted to seem like a dick for not disagreeing with your self-deprecation.

“Well, what about you?” You pose the question to him. “From what I understand, most girls and guys I pass by swoon every time you pass by.” He is chuckling to himself this time and he is very much aware of his desirability among his classmates. “You have plenty of choices; I’m sure you have the opportunity to date someone you must really like at this very moment.”

“That’s what I’m hoping on. I’m just not quite sure how she feels about me.” You feel like you were unraveling his darkest secrets and you were happy he considered you close enough to reveal who it is or give an inkling to who it is.

“Do I know her by any chance?” You’re hoping that you can narrow down who he is interested in. Because you barely knew anybody, you knew this would be a piece of cake.

“Yes.” He replies simply and he is staring at you. “You know her very well, YN.” He sighs, hoping you would finally understand what he is alluding to.

“Is she in my grade?” You were really hoping that the answer would be no or else you’d be breaking some terrible news to Sena that evening after the football game.

Namjoon nods slowly and he can see how you are not picking up his hints. He sees the slight disappointment in your face for whatever reason. Suddenly, he is perplexed because, in his eyes, he has made it pretty clear who he was interested in from the get-go. Many people should make the assumption, too, considering there was only one person he had his eyes on – only one person he was giving his attention to.

“Is it… that girl in Guk’s class who –”

As you are trying to list out the girls in your class who has interacted with Namjoon, he is in complete disbelief that you have not figured it out at all. How much more clueless could you get? He is sighing now because is frustrated. He admires your persistence when it came to solving difficult word problems in calculus but it’s frustrating when you are unaware of his feelings for you.

Just when is about to confess his feelings for you, you are greeted with another presence calling for both your names.

“So, this is where you two have been.” Jungkook ambles hastily towards your table and you grin from ear to ear when he is taking out his algebra textbook. “YN, one last chance, please. I didn’t pass my last quiz which brought me one letter grade down and my dad’s going to make me quit track & field if I don’t –”

“I told you I’d help you over the weekend, dumbass. I’m busy getting shit done with Namjoon.” You breathe softly before he is hugging you on your side and you grunt at how much stronger he has gotten. “But you’re buying me coffee for a week.”

“Sick.” Jungkook simply replies before he begins unpacking some of his homework. “You excited for the football game, Namjoon-hyung?” Jungkook queries and Namjoon is baffled because the moment is gone. One interruption from his next-door neighbor and the moment’s lost.

“Fuck yeah.” Namjoon replies and he sees that you’ve suddenly lost interest in the subject. You were subconsciously listening on their conversation while you are back to resolving the complicated word problem right in front of you. “Will you two be going to the game?”

“I’ll go, but YN won’t go because she hates crowds and, honestly, she doesn’t know how the game.” You exhale in response to Jungkook’s statements. Namjoon observes that you decide to move onto another problem, wanting to tackle the word problem at a different time. “Everyone you know will practically be there. Why not give it a shot?”

“We usually have half of the bleachers reserved for the student council since we’re in charge of tickets and concessions, so it won’t be that big of a crowd.” Namjoon attempts to entice you with modifications to appease your concerns. “Plus, we’d all get to hang out with each other; no homework, no calculus talk – just… us.”

Jungkook is stunned to see you agree.

The night was a lot more enjoyable than you thought it would be. Namjoon waived off the entrance fee for the game the moment he mentioned that you and Jungkook were volunteers. Taehyung was already on the field taking photographs of the football players and cheerleaders while Jimin took photographs of the students on the bleachers. You even passed by your own sister who was busy with her own group at the entrance entertaining friends, families, and alumni into the bleachers. Meanwhile, Namjoon was overseeing every single aspect of the event; he was mainly at the concessions, not wanting to create so much traffic around it.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” You offer your assistance before he notices that you have your hair all tied up. “I’ve washed my hands if that helps.” Namjoon can’t hide his smile and he offer you a pair of food safe gloves.

“I’m usually one to decline help, but we really need it. Let’s see – Yuqi really needs to go use the bathroom, so you can be in charge of the drinks and chips right now.” You take your station at the drinks and chips stations. It was going faster than you had expected; people ordered too fast or too slow – there was no in between. There were people who were very certain with their order which you appreciated. Then, there were the people who were very fickle with their order and you can’t help but stand awkwardly to wait for them to decide.

“I can’t believe you roped me into helping.” Jungkook grumbles under his breath. “Hey, I didn’t rope you into anything.” You take the five-dollar bill from the student and offer them back their change.

“Yeah, but you made me seem like a real asshole sitting there not helping.” You can’t help but laugh at Jungkook’s pout because you knew just how much he wanted to just spend his time on the bleachers, watching the game with his hyungs. But he was stuck here helping out the student council while most of them were on their bathroom breaks.

“Once someone’s back from their bathroom break, you can go back to your game.” You soothe him and the chaos outside the booth is starting to die down. Less and less people were coming because they’ve all satisfied their craving and the game was building up – it was pretty close, so you understand why Jungkook was in there sulking with you. When you turn to look at Namjoon, hoping to convince him to let Jungkook off the hook, you don’t see him there.

You look out the window to hear your sister’s pretentious giggle. She laughed so differently around him – acted so differently around him. He stood right next to her with the rest of the council members, giving them a big pep talk. She looked at him like he was an angel who fell from heaven. Their conversation ends and the rest of the council members disband except Sena and Namjoon. They are having a personal conversation and you can’t read mouths, but you can’t tear your eyes away from their beaming faces.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” You clear your throat, speaking so softly so only Jungkook can hear you.

“I’m all ears.”

“Does – does Namjoon have a type?” You say out of curiosity. Jungkook raises a brow at you, curious as to what motivated you to ask the question.

“Uh, I don’t know. I’ve never really heard hyung talk about any girls… or his type, to be honest.” He hums and he is staring at you stare at your sister and Namjoon. “Why’d you ask?”

“It’s… for Sena.” It was the truth, but your own curiosity was definitely a motivating factor. “She’s been obsessed with Namjoon since… as long as I can remember.” You breathe out, hoping no one else can eavesdrop on your conversation. “She’s been talking a lot about him more since she found out I knew him, y’know?”

“Huh,” Jungkook leans on the table and folds his arms. “Why doesn’t she just tell him?”

“Apparently, she needs some sort of confirmation that he thinks of her that way too, so she doesn’t make a fool of herself.”

“Why don’t you just ask him then?” Your silence is clearly something Jungkook wasn’t expecting because you never actually considered it once. “He’s a pretty easy-going guy; just ask him and he’ll be honest.”

“We’re not on that level of friendship yet, I guess.”

“Well, I consider you guys close enough to ask that kind of question.”

“Then, he’d just assume I’m being friends with him because my sister was using me.”

“Well, are you?”

“No.”

Your own answer stuns you almost. Just a couple weeks ago, you knew nothing of Namjoon and, suddenly, you are on a level of friendship where you think you can confide him in anything. Perhaps, now, you really understood why everyone obsessed over him; why everyone wanted to be friends with him, why everyone wanted to date him, why everyone just wanted to be noticed by him.

“Then, feel free to ask him yourself.”

You hadn’t really worked up the courage to talk to Namjoon about his dating life. You repeated to yourself that it wasn’t really a priority to delve into what goes on behind the scenes with Namjoon. You were in a consistent state of going to school, doing your homework, reading books, and retraining your body to try out for the swim team next semester. 

But the time came when you got sick for an entire week and missed so much material, especially calculus material.

But you were eternally saved by Namjoon himself.

Namjoon had requested to drop off the homework sheets and printed copies of his notes over to you. Everything was so detailed, and you were impressed with how organized everything seemed to be. You didn’t know what motivated you to reach for your phone on your bed and dial in his number. Maybe you felt like it deserved a personal thanks rather than a typed one.

“YN?” His voice on the other line sounded so surprised and there was so much noise on the other end. “Give me a second.” He excuses before you hear him move to another location, somewhere much quieter.

“How many times do I have to thank you for being an absolute saint?” Your voice sounded so stuffed. The flu was getting to you really bad, but you were recovering well. But he chuckles into the receiver and you are flipping through each page he had printed before you fall onto your bed, sighing blissfully. “I’m serious, Joon. I’ll say it a million times if I have to.”

“You’ve pulled my weight when I was off doing council work so much. I’m sure if I got sick, you’d do the exact same thing. It’s what partners do.” Namjoon is smiling from ear to ear; he was glowing, and no one was there to really witness it. “I – um, did you see my note attached at the back?”

You are now flipping through the pages frantically until you see a handwritten sticky note that read: “We have a quiz on the Monday you come back. I’m free this weekend if you wanted to study with me.” And there was even a little smiley face attached to it and you are experiencing a whirlwind of emotions.

“You have got to be fucking with me.” You can feel the panic starting to bubble in the pits of your belly, but you were trying not to let it show. “You’ve already done so much for me. I can’t rob you of your weekend. It’s just – It’s just too much.”

“I’m happy to do it, Ace. I promise.” The guy deserved everything in the world because he was too generous for the world and you weren’t so sure what you did to deserve such kindness.

“Ace?”

He chuckles embarrassingly into the receiver, chewing on his cheeks. “I – uh, it’s a nickname. I hope you don’t mind.” Suddenly, butterflies erupt from your stomach and there is a glow on your cheeks that you are very much aware of and you are curling into your bed with a shit eating grin on your face.

“I – I like it.” You sigh and Namjoon leans on the wall as he observes the rest of his friends and council members enjoy slices of pizza, taking a well-deserved break from preparing for the pep rally event coming up next week.

“So, is that a yes to a study session this Saturday?”

“Yes.” Your voice is small and hesitant because it feels like you’re doing something wrong when you were just having a quiz session with your calculus partner.

“Great. My place or yours?”

Namjoon insisted on coming over to your place because you were still recovering. Coincidentally, your parents had the weekend trip away with your dad’s work colleague for a wine tasting event. You debated whether you wanted to tell Sena that Namjoon was going to be arriving in an hour, but you soon realize that she was out with her friend’s house for a movie night session.

You had the place all to yourself and you were relieved and frantic all at once.

You busied yourself the entire day to make yourself look decent; brushed hair, brushed teeth, clean face, and fresh clothes. You throw used tissues into trash bins, changed your sheets, and kicked all of your dirty laundry into your hamper that had fallen on the carpeted floors. As you are jogging downstairs, you discover you have no food in the fridge, so you’d probably have to order a pizza or something to share with Namjoon.

Immediately, you question why you are so desperate to make the place and yourself so presentable when this was a mere tutoring session with your calculus partner?

The doorbell ringing prompts you to peek through the peep hole and you see him; he is wearing a regular white t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He has his hoodie thrown over his shoulder as he begins texting a message on his phone, waiting for you to open the door for him.

When you unlock the front door and open the door for him, you smile timidly at him.

“Hi,” You greet him nervously.

“Hey, Ace.” He waves before he examines how you look. Despite your red nose and tired eyes, he missed seeing your face for a week; he really did. You stood awkwardly fiddling with your fingers and he can sense just how anxious you are, so he decides to tread lightly. “May I come in?”

His tone is so polite which effectively allows you to open the door wider for him to enter. You are nodding and you close the door shut behind him, ensuring that you have locked them. “I – um, I can’t really offer you anything to eat since my parents are out of town, but we can order pizza, if you want. It’s what my sister and I usually do.”

“I’m more than okay with pizza.” He permits and you nod and begin walking to the living room. “Will we be working here?”

“We can work anywhere.” You announce. The conversation is so light, and you hate how quick yet reluctant you are to your responses. “I – I can get you a glass of water, if you’d like. I’ll just get my things from upstairs and bring them down to the living room.” You inform him and he nods as he is making himself comfortable on the couch.

You are scurrying off upstairs to go get your materials and catching your breath because you think you were holding your breath the entire time. You’re stalling because you’re making a check list of every single thing you need for downstairs to avoid seeing him or talking with him. Just when you are about to exit, you see him at the bottom of the stairs. He is examining each family portrait on the wall.

Your face is hot because you can only imagine how terrible you looked like a child, so you jog downstairs with your study materials to gain his attention. “I never really realized how much Sena looks like your dad.” Namjoon comments and you stop in your tracks, only to examine the portrait he is looking at. “Exact same nose and smile.”

You purse your lips into a thin line because you are reminded once again that he is probably only interested in getting to know Sena – there was always that possibility. You were so familiar with this feeling of discussing your sister with other people because – yes, she is absolutely beautiful and intelligent and there was no denying it.

“But you are like your mother.” He comments as he takes a closer look at your mom who seems to be so much more youthful. “The way she’s smiling here looks so much like the way you smile.” He describes and you allow him to explain more by staying silent. “When you smile, your nose kind of crinkles and the corners of your eyes creases and your dimples are a lot more –”

Your throat seizes because you’re flattered and aware that he has perfectly examined your appearance and all the features in what he sees. He grows silent and he is chuckling nervously, scratching the back of his hand to distract himself.

“Sorry that was… super random.” Namjoon clears his throat, and you are shaking your head before you point towards the living room.

“I – I’m ready now.”

Now, you’re desperately hoping Sena doesn’t come home too early from her friend’s house.

Hours have passed since Namjoon have gotten you caught up with all of the materials and have assisted you through last week’s homework sheets. Namjoon was impressed with how you can keep up despite your recovering condition. One minute, you were sneezing and wiping your nose clean and, the next minute, you have your lips pursed and brows furrowed as you are writing equations down on a separate piece of paper.

“I got a question for you.” Namjoon begins and you are still too busy piecing everything together for a specific word problem you wanted to master.

“Shoot.”

“Are you always this focused?” You are typing things into a calculator before you are erasing things on your paper and you turn to look at him, showing him the calculator.

“Is this the right answer?” You ignore his question for a moment.

He nods and you grin at him before you proceed onto the next word problem.

“If I’m a week’s worth of lessons behind, yes, I’m focused all the time.” Namjoon is shaking his head and he is in awe at how you are so quick at writing all the information; he notices how neat your handwriting is too. Namjoon checks his watch and realizes just how late it has been and he clears his throat as he looks out the window to see the sun has gone completely down.

“Will your sister be coming home tonight?” Namjoon notices that you stop writing – you stop solving the word problem that you are tackling because you, suddenly, realize that he is asking about your sister.

“She’s probably still at a friend’s house or something.” He senses the atmosphere has changed and you shift your mind back to the practice problem right in front of you. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason – well, I honestly thought she should be taking care of her recovering sister.” You snicker at his statement.

“She’s a great sister, but she’s not that great.” You quip, biting your tongue at how ridiculous he sounded. “I think we can all agree that she’s smart, charismatic, and ambitious. I will admit she’s a really considerate sister too, but she thinks caring for her ill sister is a parents’ job – not hers.”

“Okay, okay, I get it she’s amazing but not… amazing.” He raises his hands to surrender and his words coming out of his mouth urged you to inquire about his relationship with her.

“If you think she’s amazing, why don’t you date her?” The words came spilling out of your mouth uncontrollably. Maybe it was the meds, you thought. You see the grin disappear from Namjoon’s face into utter confusion and he tilts his head for further clarification. “What I mean is that… you’ve known her and worked with her for so long and she’s a great girl – I’m obviously really biased considering she’s my sister, but you two would make a… great couple.”

You didn’t believe that you were talking about this to Namjoon. You didn’t think you would have the guts to discuss this with him, but the opportunity came up and you took it. But you are faced with such an unfamiliar emotion. True discomfort arises at the pit of your stomach as Namjoon’s brows furrow together and he is shaking his head with the same boyish grin he always flaunted to the world.

“Ace, she’s great, but I… honestly see her as a friend.” He isn’t so sure how many times he’s reiterated those words before. Because little did you know, so many people have asked the exact same thing. Peers and colleagues in their class were very much aware of Sena’s not so little crush on Namjoon for quite some time.

“Well, I mean, isn’t that how all relationships really start? Becoming friends and then possibly developing feelings for each other? Most people always see each other as friends until one of them is aware of the others’ feelings, right?” Your tone was so quizzical. You were treating this conversation like it required rationale and logical reasoning to tackle the issue at hand.

But this wasn’t a problem the mind can solve.

“That’s the usual circumstance, yes.” He admits and he sees that you resume back to the worksheet. “But I’ve known Sena’s had a thing for me and, quite frankly, I’ve been interested in someone else for a while, remember?”

“Someone far more interesting than Sena?” You are in disbelief. You are trying to eliminate other people in school who is on the same social standing as your older sister. “That’s… not possible.” You breathe.

“You’re wrong.” You stop writing because you are retracing your steps on the word problem you are solving. He finds it so endearing how you can’t seem to understand that he is utterly into you, but you are so lost in numbers.

“No, don’t tell me, Joon. I’ve told you this hundreds of times –” You lift your head to look at him to accentuate your reminder; you didn’t want to know what you wrong, you wanted to solve the problem yourself unless you demanded the assistance yourself.

Normally, Namjoon would comply with your request. It was so rare for him to point out your mistake, but he figured this was the perfect time to do so.

“You’re so stubborn.” He breathes before he dives in.

You don’t complete your sentence. Because when you turn your head to look at him with pleading eyes, you are met with his pillowy petals on yours. Your cheeks heat instantaneously, and you can feel your heart leap from your chest.

His kisses were soft and slow. You don’t realize that he has already cupped your cheeks. You’ve never kissed anyone ever before but, for some reason, it was like you knew how to move your mouth against his. He was gentle but there was a certain control he possessed. You pull away momentarily to breathe and, suddenly, you feel the heat of his tongue swipe on your lower lip. A shuddered whimper leaves your mouth before you are regrettably pulling away from addiction.

“N – no, that’s not possible.” You’re still in denial from the events that occurred. “Sena – she’d be so… betrayed if she –” Your brain is glitching and it didn’t help that you can taste the mint of his lips on yours.

“Listen, Ace, for one moment stop thinking about Sena and answer me honestly.” Namjoon positions his body to look straight onto you. “Do you feel the same way I do or not?”

“I don’t – I don’t know.” You shrug before avoiding his eyes. “I – I shouldn’t like you.” You sigh defeated and you are covering your face. You were ashamed not because you like him, but because you didn’t understand what you were really feeling, and you didn’t understand what you wanted to do. “Why – why do you like me?”

“You’re hardworking and incredibly intelligent.”

“I know plenty of other girls who are… exactly the same.”

“Your tastes in book are impeccable. You’re selfless to a degree that I can’t quite comprehend. You keep to yourself, but when you speak your mind, it leaves a lasting impression. Listen, YN, I can keep going, but you can’t… keep doubting my feelings for you.” Namjoon justifies and it was a tough pill to swallow.

You were too stunned to say anything. Too many emotions flooding your brain and it took too long for it to process, so you remained expressionless. Namjoon found it incredibly difficult for him to read your face.

“Ace, it’s really hard to tell how you’re feeling right now.” He points out and you understand just how awkward you sat there; head spinning with so many things to say but very little coming out of your mouth.

“I – I don’t know what you want me to say.” You admit. “I’m not sure what you’re expecting out of me with a confession like this. If I don’t feel the same way, what would’ve happened? If I do feel the same way, what – what was I supposed to do?”

“Well, for starters, do you actually feel the same way as I do?”

“I – I do.” You croak to respond to his inquiry. “I – I don’t think I’ve ever admitted that to myself either, but… I think I like you.”

A wave of relief washed over Namjoon, but there’s a bit of relief for you too. It’s out in the open now, and you know that there’s nothing really you can do about it. There’s a very content grin plastered right across his handsome face, but it slowly transforms into a frown as he realizes that, despite your feelings for each other, nothing will change between the both of you.

“Namjoon, we can’t be anything more than friends.” You realize the unfortunate circumstances the both of you were in. “It’s not fair to my sister. I don’t think it’s very fair to make me choose between you and my sister. I – I don’t think it’s very fair that… you’re in this position.”

Your heart swelled just moments ago, and you can feel it crumble into pieces as the words come spilling out of your lips.

“I understand.” He agrees softly and you perk up at his acquiescence. “I’m not going to force you to be in that position, Ace.” The reassurance softens your tense form, and his fingers cradle your chin, lifting up to be at eye level with you.

“But when you’re ready to reconsider... us, I’ll be waiting.”

↪ Please stay tuned for the next part!

[abiteofnat]

AN ANXIETY-APPROVED GUIDE TO SOCIALLY-DISTANT  DINING IN THE NORTH SHORE

A headline I truly thought I would never write, because I used to be the type of person to leave work, jam myself into an L train packed with people, scroll through my phone while breathing in someone’s backpack, and then get to a busy restaurant to meet friends and dive into food without washing my hands. My entire immune system was chock-full of city scum, and eating indoors with dozens of other people who likely got off an equally full train? Not even a question of a doubt in my mind. Things took a quick and dire turn in May when suddenly I became afraid of everything and grossed out by anything, and after moving home with family I was certain I would never leave the house again. I miss being the fearless gutter rat I used to be, but times are different, and staying safe is key. 

Alas, while my family has been taking quarantine very seriously, we reached a point in August where we all felt “ok” with sitting at a restaurant once or twice a week to feel like we were still part of society and because we all mutually hate cooking. After not being at a restaurant once since March, we nervously ventured out to a local Italian restaurant, sat outside very far from others, and ate pasta that was still piping hot from the kitchen and that didn’t taste mediocre after sitting in a takeout container for an hour. It was refreshing as FUCK. Rose? In a real wine glass? Served chilled? What am I, a QUEEN? 

Ever since we have been carefully dining, only ever sitting outdoors, and carrying packs upon packs of antibacterial wipes and hand sanitizer like actual loons. But safe loons! Being home and enjoying the local restaurants through new eyes and new level of appreciation has made me love them 10x more, even if we’ve eaten somewhere a hundred times before. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to dine with these spots, eat favorite dishes & try new ones, and be out of the house for 1-2 hours on a Friday during these wild times. So, why not share some of my favorite spots?? Maybe you’re also living back in the good ole North Shore, and looking for any excitement at all in the quiet of the suburbs. Here you go. 

1. Mino’s Italian - Winnetka

This restaurant is newer to Winnetka, however it became an instant local favorite and is always, always full. They have a huge patio area with lighting, cozy wooden benches, tons of tables, heaters, and a menu packed with classic Italian dishes done so right. Their Calamari is unreal due to the seasoning and the roasted garlic aioli it comes with for dipping. Their Cacio e Pepe is magically light but still full of cheese and fresh cracked peppercorns, and the seasonal Risotto consists of warm mushroom richness. Their pizza is great to-go as well, and tastes like an NYC slice if you order the largest size. 

2. Pescadero - Wilmette 

Ok to be fair, Pescadero is not somewhere we’ve actually dined AT during the pandemic. We do pick it up quite often though, and it is some of the best carryout in Wilmette. The Fish & Chips is mouth-watering, with fresh fish covered in a seasoned batter that alone is delectable. Their chips (really more french fries) are thin, crispy, and topped with a parmesan and herb dust. DO NOT MISS OUT ON THE FRIES. The Mahi Mahi tacos are excellent and a lighter, fresher dish with broccoli apple slaw and avocado crema, and for fuck’s sake order a side of the Mac & Cheese just to stick a fork in. Pro Tip: You want as much extra tartar sauce as they will give you!!!

* Edit - since I wrote this post a few days ago, we ate on the Pescadero patio and it was delightful. Even though it was 55 degrees, the hot Clam Chowder and Fish & Chips warmed me up real quick. Clam Chowder served in a hot mug = a new fall dinner staple. Will only accept soup in a mug from now on. And, they do have heaters!

3. Depot Nuevo - Wilmette 

I have eaten here no fewer than 3,456 times in my life and every single time I feel like I’m on vacation because the vibes, the food, and the booze are immaculate. Located in an old train station turned restaurant, Depot Nuevo is warm and inviting no matter if you’re inside (pre pandemic) or on their gigantic patio that allows for spaced out and comfy seating. They’ve added heaters for the fall, so don’t worry about being chilly- and if you are, the Pomegranate Margarita will warm you right up. It’s strong, delicious, and comes in a very pleasing traditional margarita glass. I always order the Appetizer Trio as my entree, which has queso fundido (ordered without the chorizo!), guacamole, and ceviche composed of scallops, shrimp, and calamari with vegetables and lime. Usually this comes with tortilla chips as it’s meant to be shared, but I ask for corn tortillas instead and then pile a little of everything in there for the taco of my DREAMS. Do it. Order it. I dare you. 

The staff is exceptionally friendly and have taken COVID precautions seriously, so menus are disposable and everyone has gloves on. They will treat you like family, and they are family to us because we go there so often. See you on Friday, Depot! 

Other good things on the menu are the Fish Tacos, Shrimp Tacos, BBQ Salmon, Chipotle Mashed Potatoes, Cheese Quesadilla (smothered in their salsa verde of course). 

4. The Noodle - Wilmette

Can you tell downtown Wilmette is the place to be? It has truly popped off and the majority of restaurants aren’t serving up your typical “suburbs” food (you know- fried appetizers and burgers and weird salads and overpriced meat dishes) so I am always happy to be out in our little mini city. The Noodle is as classic Italian as you can get, with overflowing ceramic boats of buttery garlic bread, a salad OR soup included with your entree, and no bar- only wine (or beer) if you want a drinky drink. Incredible. I am partial to the house-made spinach linquine with Roasted Garlic and Sun-dried Tomatoes sauce, and the starter salad with house Creamy Garlic Parmesan dressing. Their Tomato Basil soup is also delicious, however I have some suspicion that that soup is the same as the Roasted Garlic and Sun-dried Tomatoes sauce... just served as soup... they refuse to confirm or deny whenever I ask. Either way, delicious. I tried a NEW DISH when we went last week to sit at one of the 6 large tables they have spaced out outside, and let me tell you that the bowtie pasta (not house-made) with Alfredo sauce is THE SHIT. It may be my new go-to when I just want to carbo-load the hecking out of my night. On your way out, get a Pot de Creme to go- it’s the richest, smoothest chocolate dessert on this side of town. 

5. Hometown Coffee & Juice - Glencoe 

Hometown deserves a round of applause for breathing life back into the stuffy grandmother of the North Shore - Glencoe. Between the gorgeous Writers Theatre and countless boutiques selling blouses and hand-blown glass jewelry, it used to only really serve a certain demographic, however Hometown said “let me give it a try” and changed weekends in Glencoe for good. This coffee shop, smoothie bar, bakery, & cafe hotspot is the perfect afternoon spot to grab a drink, enjoy avocado toast, and sit outside at one of the dozens of tables they’ve lined the corner and two streets with. They’ve moved their registers outside so you don’t even need to go inside to order, and the wait staff will bring you your order right to your table to make it as organized and safe as possible. The tables are spread out, the corner it’s located on is beautiful in the fall, and there are lots of good dogs out and about. 

I will say that while Hometown is doing a great job with COVID precautions, the people of Glencoe are a little high & mighty, and seem to think they’re exempt from wearing a mask to wait in line to get their smoothie. It’s irritating that they’re putting the staff at risk and just ignoring state mandates because they feel safe in their little North Shore bubble and because it’s entirely outside, but come on. Be respectful and understand the privilege of these places even being open to serve you, and just wear mask. I hate people. ANYWAY. Love you, Hometown. 

6. Coast Sushi - Evanston 

Ok, so this gem is not open for dining indoors OR outdoors, however they have their carryout system down and their sushi is so, SO fresh and good. I’ve picked up from here a few times and eat time I fall more in love with the flavors and how consistently tasty it is- and with sushi, it’s always a gamble if it’s going to be really good or kinda fishy and old. The Coast in South Loop was a favorite spot for a while, however it has shut down and I am so happy to be able to get my favorite rolls up in the burbs. My go-to order is a Spicy Tuna Maki, Spicy Scallop Maki, Spicy Miso Soup, a side of Spicy Mayo, and a side of Sushi Rice. This sounds odd, but hear me out- I like to mix the spicy mayo into the sushi rice and eat it just like that. It’s. So. Good. Am I gross? I might be gross. 

Anything you get from here is going to rock your socks off, so for your next night in (aka every night lol) treat yourself to some sushi, babbyyy! 

I sincerely hope that we can keep dining outside for at least a few more weeks, and I am absolutely ok with wearing Uggs and a full-on coat to be able to. Just a reminder to keep your mask on when talking to wait staff, be polite, be patient, and don’t be an asshole. You don’t NEED to dine out- it’s a treat- and you should treat it as such. Don’t be a Karen, or don’t leave your house. Those are literally the only two options.

I hope you try somewhere new, whether it’s carryout or dining out, and tell me if you have any favorite North Shore spots I missed! 

Until next time, Happy Eating!

- Natalie

[aloysiavirgata]

Korban

Title: Korban

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: Teen

Timeline: Post The Truth

Summary:   Mulder puts his arm around her, drawing her head against his shoulder. “So do, uh, do you really believe it all? The Virgin Birth, the Temptation in the Desert, the literal rising from the dead?”

*** The room has been theirs for over two months. It’s a cash-in-paper-envelopes sort of place, where the mattresses sag and the windows are made of scuffed plexiglass. They spent Valentine’s Day here, a half gallon of Moose Tracks ice cream and used condoms in the plastic wastebasket. He wonders sometimes if she’s actually afraid of another pregnancy, or if it’s just the last layer of herself she can hold back.

He doesn’t ask, acceptance being a gift he can give.

For her 39th birthday, Mulder had managed a Carvel cake and a small bottle of good lotion. He made mushroom ravioli for dinner, with a side of overcooked peas. He narrated his preparations in a Julia Child voice while they drank  wine from a screw-top bottle. They ate the cake with plastic sporks until it melted into sludge.

He sang Happy Birthday to her again and she laughed, but her eyes were too bright. They sat bundled under the comforter on the concrete patio for a long time, watching everything but each other. Trucks thundered down the highway towards the weigh station, carrying milk and oil and Japanese electronics. Scully stared at the stars until her eyes swam. She fell asleep with her head tipped back beneath them, and Mulder carried her to bed. They began her 40th year in the shower, pliant and frictionless in the wafting steam.

Early spring now, heaps of dirty slush melted back into deep reservoirs beneath the warming belly of the earth. There are feathery leaves unfurling from fresh mulch, and whipped cream blossoms on trees. Teenagers loiter in the parking lot, smoking and drinking malt liquor. They wander to and from the fire department carnival, slouchy and giggling in the lengthening evenings.

Inside, little changes. The upholstery on the couch is still rough and nubby, a sort of gray ropey material that Scully softens with thrift store blankets. They have their feet propped on the scarred oak coffee table, Scully’s toenails painted pink with dollar store polish. A bottle of Manischewitz Concord Grape sits in the middle of the table, uncapped. On the wood cabinet TV, Nefertiti is wearing turquoise gauze and Revlon lipstick and a technicolor Moses shakes his fist.

Scully spreads a tea towel across her lap, picking at the loose threads on it. Her hair is choppy with long sideswept bangs, the color of the waxy chocolate Easter bunny by her foot. Their eyes are the same arresting blue.

Beside her, Mulder is sunken deep into the cushions, leggy and scruffy with a flop of bangs and a three day beard. In his big hand, he spreads his matzah with ham salad that resembles chewed bubble gum. Scully bought it from the deli attached to the Exxon station, along with the coconut lamb cake that stares at them with blank licorice drop eyes. It smells like cheap sunblock, a hint of the coming summer.

“Stop judging me,” Mulder warns it, poking its jellybean nose. The lamb remains inscrutable in a nest of Easter grass.

Scully swats his hand. “Leave it alone.”

He scowls, takes a bite of his food. “Oh, Scully,” he says in dismay. “This is really disgusting.” He opens his mouth and lets the bright pink mass fall into a napkin. He chugs a plastic cup of water.

Scully takes a bite of her own food, cupping her hand to catch the matzah crumbs. “My mom always made it the day after Easter. It’s no different than tuna salad or chicken salad.”

“It’s very different,” Mulder asserts, decapitating a yellow Peep. “It tastes like exhaust fumes and looks like something you’d jam a scalpel into.”

She crams a piece in her mouth, chewing it inches from his face. She huffs her breath at him after she swallows.

Mulder wrinkles his nose. “You make confession with that mouth?”

She crosses herself. “Bless me Father, for I am living in sin with an infidel.”

“I’m fidel,” Mulder protests. “Just to different things.”

“I know,” she says, and nudges his foot with hers.

“…son of Amram and Yochebel,” intones Charleton Heston from the TV.

Mulder picks up the bottle of Manischewitz. “Shot,” he says, taking a swig from the bottle. He passes it to Scully who does the same.

“Now that is disgusting,” she says, wincing. “Communion wine is better than this.”

“Yeah, it’s not great. But your Catholic asses harassed my people every time we tried to settle anywhere for more than a century or so. That’s not a stable foundation for outstanding viticulture.”

Scully, buzzy and puckish, whispers, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Too soon, Scully. Unless this is the lead in to a bondage fetish.”

“Don’t have my handcuffs anymore.” She picks up two forks from the table. “You wanna eat this lamb?”

Mulder regards it with mild disapproval. “At least Passover food has a reason for tasting like shit. Bread of affliction and so forth. But you’re celebrating the miracle of the Risen Lord with ham paste and sponge chickens. You need to get it together, Dana Katherine.”

“Well excuse me, but I don’t usually do my holiday shopping at a place where I can also get an oil change.” She stabs the lamb in the ear with her fork, removing a large chunk of it. She steers it towards Mulder’s mouth, making an airplane noise.

He takes an experimental bite, the gritty icing thick on his tongue. “This isn’t the worst,” he allows, chewing.

“Imagine my relief.” She eats the rest of the ear, a treat she usually lost to her siblings. The coconut is dense and chewy, full of sense memory.

Mulder puts his arm around her, drawing her head against his shoulder. “So do, uh, do you really believe it all? The Virgin Birth, the Temptation in the Desert, the literal rising from the dead?” He knows it’s an unfair question, knows her faith is raw and shaken these days, but he wants to understand. He longs to see the structure she does in the universe, the benevolent architecture of the grand design.

She sighs, burrowing in. Does she? Did she ever? “It’s complicated,” she tells them both.

He kisses her murky brown head. “I know.”

Scully pulls off the lamb’s nose, the same pink as her toenails. She turns it over in her fingers, frosting stuck to the smooth shell of it. She polishes it on the tea towel. “I believe in God. I believe that He acted through Christ to show us a better way to live. I believe that the stories about Christ, whether literal or allegorical, have value and purpose. I believe they can guide one through a meaningful life. So it almost doesn’t matter, in a way, how precisely they’ve been recounted.”

Mulder eats the jellybean from her fingers, tasting coconut and her tea tree lotion. “So like… the real Resurrection is the friends we made along the way?”

She slaps him lightly, laughing. “Something like that, yeah.”

He cups his hand around the sweep of her jaw, thumbs the tender spot behind her ear. She blushes. After all this time, still, she blushes. It moves him profoundly, re-confirms her as the center of his small orbit.

She smiles like the sun.

Across the room, in the tacky splendor of 1956, Moses is scowling at Pharaoh. His loyalties are torn between those that rescued him from that drifting cradle and those who put him into it. Mulder thinks of his own son, safe in a household of strangers, drawn from his basket of reeds.

He takes a long swallow of his wine, eats another piece of the lamb.

[constant-calum]

Watercolors (Brandon Arreaga) ~ Chapter Twelve:  Pollock

Summary:   17 year old Amina Parker was far from a blank canvas, but he still managed to make a finger painting with her love.

A/N:  I lowkey despise this story now.  Oops!

WARNING:  Mention of pregnancy and abortion

Part Eleven    Part Thirteen

Amina hated that Halloween was on a Wednesday this year. There was something so badass about getting dressed up in a costume and showing off to everyone in the neighborhood while she took her sister trick-or-treating.  On a Wednesday, however, Amina had too much homework to be able to participate in her favorite tradition.

As she sat in the lunchroom on Wednesday afternoon, she pouted in her tuna salad.  She realized how ridiculous and childish she must have looked, but she couldn’t help it.  All she was looking forward to was dressing up, and she couldn’t even do that.

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Edwin asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

Zane sighed. “She’s sad that she can’t dress up for Halloween this year. That’s a big deal for the Parkers.”

“I take my sister trick-or-treating every single year. But since it’s a stupid Wednesday, I have too much work for the first time ever.” Amina sighed. “It’s frustrating more than anything.”

“Fuck work,” Nick stated bluntly. “You should go out and have fun on your Halloween. Especially if it’s a tradition you look forward to.”

Amina felt like she was overreacting to the situation, but she couldn’t help her emotions. “I really can’t. College applications are becoming all too real, and I have so much homework.”

Brandon placed a warm hand around Amina’s shoulders, giving her a comforting squeeze. Amina could feel herself relaxing even the tiniest bit. She immediately wondered when Brandon became a source of comfort for her.

“I’m sorry that you can’t go through with your tradition, Amina,” Brandon looked as though he was genuinely upset for his friend.

Amina nodded, which everyone took as the end of the topic. Looking across the table, Amina noticed Zion staring directly at her. She was about to ask him what the problem was until she realized just what he was so focused on. It was Brandon’s arm...that hadn’t moved from its resting place on Amina’s shoulder. Zion finally met Amina’s eye, smirking slightly.

Amina found it impossible to calm down her racing heart, unsure if it was from the physical contact or from the embarrassment of such a public display of affection. She tried to snap herself out of it. If it were Nick, Amina would not have thought twice about it. For some reason, it was different with Brandon.

A loud ringtone interrupted the comfortable chatter of the lunch table. After a few seconds, everyone realized its owner was Brandon, who got up from the table to take the call. Upset at the sudden lack of warmth surrounding her, she decided to lean her head into Nick’s shoulder, who wrapped an arm around her without skipping a beat.

.           .            .

Amina didn’t know how she beat Brandon to the art room after school. It was slightly concerning seeing as he had art last period, and tended to just stay there until Amina arrived. Amina just brushed it off, taking a seat on Brandon’s stool even though she knew he would make a fuss the minute he got there.

As if being summoned by someone else taking his place, Brandon walked through the door the minute that Amina’s butt touched the wood. His eyes were red and puffy, dripping with raw emotion. His steps were slow and uneven, as if he was unable to focus on the act of walking. Amina had seen Brandon emotional quite a few times, and it seemed as though every time he got worse.

“B, what happened?” Amina stood quickly, crossing the room until she stood right in front of her friend. “Are you okay?”

Brandon just sniffled, displacing his glasses in the process of wiping his eyes. Amina didn’t know what else to do but grab his free hand and lead him to sit down. Brandon immediately slumped onto his stool, looking as miserable as ever.

“Talk to me, Brandon. I can’t stand to see you like this.”

Brandon’s framed eyes met Amina’s, taking a deep breath before beginning to speak. “It’s Valerie,” he began. “She’s pregnant again now, with this one night stand’s baby. She’s keeping it.”

A piece of Amina’s heart broke for her friend. At a loss for words, she stumbled over what to do or say. Getting over an ex is hard; getting over an ex who aborted your baby is even harder; getting over an ex who aborted your baby and is now pregnant again is nearly impossible.

“I don’t even know why I’m so upset,” Brandon chuckled bitterly. “It’s not like I’m not over her. And I’m not the father of this new baby. It just...it just hurts for some reason. Not even in a ‘she kept this rando’s baby and not mine’ way. But more of a...I don’t even know. I feel like shit.”

Amina smoothed a hand over Brandon’s dark curls, secretly loving how soft they felt under her fingertips. “What do I always say?”

“I’m allowed to feel however I feel,” Brandon mumbled, reminiscent of a toddler reciting rules back to their parent.

“Exactly. It’s okay if you’re upset. It’s okay if you’re upset and you don’t know why. I’ll be here no matter what.”

“I guess there’s too much baby drama for a 17-year-old like me.”

“It’s not even my drama and it’s too much for me.”

Brandon looked up at Amina from his seated position. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Even though Amina could tell he was still devastated, there was a grateful twinkle in his eye.

“Thank you,” he began. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Probably turn into a ball of sadness and die,” Amina joked, causing Brandon to chuckle.

“You’re probably right. I’d have any bit of sadness or drama and I would just combust. Or just make super angsty art about it.”

“That sounds like a much more positive outlet.”

Brandon continued to look up at the girl in front of him, this time with a smile on his face and dry eyes. Amina couldn’t stop herself from running a hand through his hair once more. The two didn’t speak, but they didn’t have to. They both simply enjoyed the moment.

It was Amina who decided to break the momentary silence. “You know you could always make art about this. Write Valerie’s name in super big pretty letters, then just splatter paint all over it.”

“I think my art is a little more sophisticated than that.”

“Of course it is, Mr. I’m-going-to-RISD (Rhode Island School of Design),” Amina chuckled. “But maybe it will help.”

Brandon thought for a moment before finally nodding slowly. He instructed Amina to grab a few tubes of paint and two smocks from the supply closet. She did so giddily, pointing out how she never got to paint and was excited to do so. Brandon just watched her bounce around the room with a lazy smile on his face.

Amina tossed Brandon his smock before attempting to put hers on by herself. She frowned when her short arms couldn’t reach the tie behind her do.

“Brandon? Can you tie this for me?”

The boy did as told, walking over to his friend and securing the tie around her waist.  He let the tips of his fingers linger on the small of her back, and smiled slightly when Amina shivered.  When she turned to face him, he clapped his hands together.

“Alright, let’s do this,”  he grabbed a piece of paper and spread it out on the table in front of them.  “So normally, I would outline the name in pencil, and then paint over it, but I’m impatient today.  What color should her name be?”

Amina shrugged.  “Maybe we should do something bright.  Then we can put darker splatters on it.”

“Alright, how about orange?”

The way Amina turned her nose up at the color made Brandon chuckle loudly. He watched as the girl picked up each individual color, inspecting the tube like they were in competition with each other. Eventually, she pulled out the yellow, smiling brightly.

“I think we have our winner!”

The two worked meticulously, watching each other as they alternated between broad strokes of the brush and short flicks. Within an hour the two were done. Amina stepped back to admire the masterpiece she and her friend had worked to creative. As she inspected the whole scope of the work, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Brandon?” Amina managed in between her fits of laughter. “This looks like shit.”

This made Brandon’s indifferent exterior crack as he exploded into laughter. “Mimi, what did we do?!”

“I don’t know! I thought it would look good.”

Brandon placed a hand on each knee, doubled over with the force of his laughs. “It literally looks like a baby vomited on a piece of paper, smeared it, and called it art.”

“I know. It’s pretty terrible,” Amina rubbed her hairline with the back of her paint-covered hand. “At least we did it together right? And don’t you feel better?”

“I definitely do feel better.”

“That’s what matters,” Amina beamed.

The two were quiet as they began to clean up, washing dirty hands and brushes and hanging up their smocks. By the time they were done, the only evidence of their work was the paint smeared paper lying on the center of the table.

“Should I throw this monstrosity out?” Amina asked, still smiling down at their shared work.

Brandon hesitated before picking the painting up and holding it out in front of him. “Nah, I think I’ll keep it.

Amina was slightly surprised that Brandon would even want it, and was a little hurt when she realized that it still had Valerie’s name on it. That’s what it all boiled down to—Brandon and Valerie.

“Okay, well I’m pretty sure my mom is here,” Amina sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, B.”

“Of course. I’ll see you.”

Brandon waved as Amina left the room, still admiring the piece of work that the two created. Something about it warmed his heart, no matter how terrible it was. He smiled to himself.

“Oh, I’m totally framing this.”

.        .         .

As a compromise for not going trick or treating, Amina’s mother let her man the door for the entirety of Halloween Night. It wasn’t ideal for Amina to be curled up with a calculus textbook in one hand and a bowl of candy in the other, but she was happy to do something to celebrate the holiday.

After spending a few hours gushing over little kids and cute costumes, Amina closed the door for what she thought would be the last time. It was already 9:30 on a school night; no one would let their kids out this late. Her sock-covered feet turned away from the door and began to trek up the stairs until she heard the doorbell ring.

Groaning, Amina turned on her heels, picking up the candy bowl on the way. She flung the door open aggressively, obviously annoyed with this last minute group of children. What she didn’t expect was to see six familiar faces beaming at her.

“Trick-or-treat!” They all said in unison, making Amina break out into a wild smile.

Amina didn’t know if she was happier that her friends had come to see her, or that they were all dressed up in various costumes: Nick was a vampire, Edwin a werewolf, Austin was Ash from Pokémon, Zane was Number 4 from Codename Kids Next Door, Zion looked like some underground rapper, and Brandon was Spider-Man.

“You guys didn’t have to do this,” Amina started. “But damn am I glad you did. You’re all getting your picture taken.”

“Of course we had to do this,” Austin leaned on the door frame. “It’s Halloween. If you can’t go out and enjoy it, we’re going to bring the fun to you.”

Amina beamed. “Well thank you.”

“Thank Nick,” Zane replied. “It was all his idea. He even planned everyone’s costumes.”

Nick looked bashful, shrugging slightly. “It was nothing.”

Amina was speechless as she went down the line to hug each of her friends. When she got to Nick last, she hugged him extra tight. Nick did the same, clutching Amina close as if he were to never let her go.

“Thank you guys, seriously. This means a lot.”

Zion scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Um, not to be headass, but can we have some candy? Like we are here to trick-or-treat after all.”

Amina chuckled, passing around the candy bowl to everyone. She didn’t miss Austin taking at least six Kit-Kats, but decided not to say anything in effort to preserve the fun.

After a few minutes of the group talking and laughing in the doorway of Amina’s home, Zane declared she was tired, which was instantly met with agreement from the rest of the boys.

“Wait, before you go,” Amina interrupted. “We have to take a picture.”

Although reluctant, the group eventually settled into an appropriate formation, and with a count of three, they were done.

As everyone began to say their goodbyes, Amina found herself pulling Nick close once again, unable to begin to show her gratitude for making her night better. Nick seemed to understand, though, just wordlessly holding Amina until Edwin declared that everyone had to go.

“Mimi, thank you,” Nick whispered, pulling away.

“For what?”  

“Being patient with him.”

“With who?”

Amina didn’t get an answer as the group walked away. She just stood in her doorway, confused as hell, watching her friends disperse into the nighttime.

[chanoyu-to-wa]

Nampō Roku, Book 2 (13b):  (1587) Twelfth Month, Sixteenth Day, After the Morning Meal, Part 2.

13b) After [chanoyu in the small room] was finished, [Hideyoshi] deigned to go out into the shoin; [and] Oshō took his leave¹.

▵ Shiru  tsuru [汁 鶴]².

▵ Namasu [鱠]³.

▵ Ni-mono  hara-hara kou imo [煮物 ハラ〰 コホウ イモ]⁴.

▵ Ni-no-shiru tara [二ノ汁 鱈]⁵.

▵ Kawarake ko-tori [カハラケ 小鳥]⁶.

▵ Ae-mono uto [アヘモノ ウト]⁷.

▵ Sashimi koi ・ mana-katsuo [サシミ 鯉 ・ マナカツホ]⁸.

▵ Kō-no-mono [香物]⁹.

▵ O-sakana tairaki ・ uzura [御肴 タイラキ ・ ウツラ]¹⁰.

▵ Hasu [ハス]¹¹.

▵ Suimono hashira ・ ko-kabu [吸物 ハシラ 小カフ]¹².

▵ Kashi  kan ・ senbei ・ zakuro ・ ko-neri ・ nashi [菓子 カン ・ センヘイ ・ サクロ ・ 小ネリ ・ ナシ]¹³.

[In the] toko [床]¹⁴

◦ A pair of landscape paintings by Ba En [馬遠]¹⁵.

◦ Sai-kōro [豺香爐], [displayed] on a guri-guri kō-dai [クリ〰香臺]¹⁶.

[On the] shoin-doko [書院床]¹⁷ ◦ [子昂 硯]; ◦ [龜水入]; ◦ [筆架]; ◦ [筆 ・ 墨]; ◦ [子昂 軸物]¹⁸.

[On the] chigae-dana [チカヘ棚]¹⁹ ◦ jikirō [食籠]²⁰; ◦ bon-san Kiji [盆山　紀路]²¹.

    [Hideyoshi] expressed his desire for the daisu to be arranged, and he made tea [with his own hands] using a taikai²².

_________________________

¹Migi sugite shoin [h]e oide-nasare, uma-no-toki o-zen deru, Oshō ha o-kaeru [右過テ書院ヘ御出被成、午時御膳出ル、和尚ハ御歸].

    Migi sugite [右過テ] means “after the preceding was finished....”

    The details of Rikyū's shoin during this period are unclear.  All that seems to be known with any certainty is that it had a 6-mat jō-dan [上段].  The above is a reconstruction based on the shoin in the Hisada family's residence* (however, the Hisada shoin had a 4-mat jōdan, rather than one of six mats).  At any rate, this will give the reader at least a general understanding of the nature of the room in question.  (Note that the 6-mat area at the top of the sketch is the jō-dan, in which a 2-mat area, in the upper left-hand corner, was raised still higher as the seat for the nobleman:  the dashi-fu-zukue is appended to that part of the room, and it was there that the hand-scroll of Chinese poems was displayed -- together with Sugō‘s writing implements.)

    Oide-nasare [御出被成] is a polite form meaning that Hideyoshi (and the others) moved on to the shoin.

    Uma-no-toki [午時] means “at the hour of the Horse,” in other words, in the noon hour.  Given the amount of food that was served, there likely was a certain delay, during which the guests inspected the objects that Rikyū had placed on display in the toko, and on tsuke-shoin and chigai-dana.

    Oshō ha o-kaeru [和尚ハ御歸]:  as mentioned in the previous post, Kokei Sōchin probably excused himself after the inspection because he did not care to participate in the banquet that would follow (which would naturally include fish and fowl, and drinking as well).  This early departure would have been accepted by Hideyoshi without any ill feeling.

    With respect to the kane-wari of this arrangement, the two kakemono and kōro count for three units, and so are han [半].  The writing implements count as a single unit (since they are grouped together, as shown in the sketch), while the hand-scroll of Chinese poetry is separate†, giving the dashi-fu-zukue a value of two, which is chō [調].  And the jikiro and bon-san arranged on and below the chigai-dana count for two units, and so the tana is also chō [調].  Han + chō + chō is han, as is suitable for the latter part of a chakai held during the daytime. __________ *The Hisada family descended from one of Rikyū’s daughters, and seems to have actively tried to preserve Rikyū‘s legacy in details such as this.

†Tanaka Senshō said that he believed that the hand-scroll of poems was displayed on the chigai-dana, rather than the dashi-fu-zukue.  While this disagrees with the way Rikyū has formatted the entry, it has no bearing on the total count, so far as kane-wari is concerned.

²Shiru  tsuru [汁 鶴].

    The first bowl of soup (probably a clear soup) contained crane.

    Crane (and other large birds, such as swan and wild goose) were occasionally taken by Hideyoshi's hawkers (hawking was enjoyed by Hideyoshi and his court), and then prepared and served at court banquets -- as well as during chakai held within the palace complex when the fowl were available, as a sort of special treat.

   Soup was made by boiling the bones, while the meat was usually mashed and formed into dango [團子] (meatballs), which were cooked in the broth along with pieces of daikon, mushrooms, and other seasonal vegetables.

³Namasu [鱠].

    Namasu is a sort of salad, made from julienned daikon and carrot, served raw, dressed with a mixture of rice vinegar, soy sauce, and mirin.

⁴Ni-mono  hara-hara gobō imo [煮物 ハラ〰 コホウ イモ].

    Ni-mono [煮物] are food cooked (and usually served) in a broth.  The difference between “shiru” (soup) and “ni-mono” seems to be that a soup course contains more liquid, while the ni-mono is primarily solid food*.

    Hara-hara [はらはら]† is dried daikon strips‡; gobō [牛蒡] is burdock root; and, imo [芋] -- which is usually translated “potato” -- refers to the corm of the taro.  These three vegetables were cut into bite-sized pieces and boiled in dashi**. __________ *It is possible to serve the ni-mono in a bowl or dish without any soup at all, though in chanoyu some soup is usually included.

†Hara-hara [はらはら] means something like flutter down (like snowflakes).  The image refers to the dried strips of daikon, which flutter (so they say) when the mound is fluffed (in the latter stages of drying) -- in contrast to the way the freshly chopped daikon would behave.

‡The daikon is cut into strips and sun-dried in a shallow basket for a week or so.  This process sweetens it, and deepens its natural flavor.  Modern-day kiri-boshi daikon [切干大根] is similar, though it is shreded more finely than hara-hara.

    The hara-hara needs to be rehydrated (by soaking in water) before it can be used.

**Japanese soup-stock made by boiling kombu [昆布] (kelp) and katsuo-bushi [鰹節] in water.

    For ichi-ban-dashi [一番出し] (used for miso-shiru and for cooking foods with a strong flavor), the kombu is boiled first (starting from cold water, after reaching a boil it is kept simmering for about 5 minutes, then the kombu is removed and a cup of cold water added to lower the temperature of the broth), then the katsuo-bushi are boiled (after returning to a boil, the katsuo-bushi are boiled for a further 5 minutes or so).  The pot is removed from the fire and the katsuo-bushi allowed to settle, after which the clear broth is decanted.

    Ni-ban-dashi [二番出し], which is usually what is used for ni-mono, reuses the above kombu and katsuo-bushi -- added to water, the mixture is brought to a boil, and then simmered for about 5 minutes or so (some people prefer to remove the kombu as soon as the liquid begins to boil, while others leave it in the pot for the entire session).

⁵Ni-no-shiru tara [二ノ汁 鱈].

    This would be what is usually called tara sumashi [鱈清汁] -- a clear soup containing pieces of codfish (tara [鱈]), daikon*, e-no-ki mushrooms, leeks, and a small piece of yuzu-skin added to each bowl just before the soup was served. __________ *Perhaps a little crushed garlic was also added to the soup, since Rikyū was from Sakai.

⁶Kawarake ko-tori [カハラケ 小鳥].

    Ko-tori [小鳥] -- literally “small birds” -- is a generic term for the various sparrows and finches that were taken by the hawkers.  These were cleaned (the heads, lower legs, feathers, and internal organs were removed) and then minced very fine, and mixed with miso.  Then the mixture was baked on top of an unglazed plate set over a charcoal fire until the flesh was cooked.

    This kind of miso-based food was always served with sake.

⁷Ae-mono udo [アヘモノ ウト].

    Udo [独活] is a Japanese vegetable with long, asparagus-like stalks, that have a delicate, fennel-like flavor.  When served as an ae-mono [和え物], the immature stalks are cut into julienne strips and then dressed with a mixture of rice vinegar and white miso (2 parts to 1), with soy sauce and sesame oil added to taste.

⁸Sashimi koi ・ mana-gatsuo [サシミ 鯉 ・ マナカツホ].

    Koi sashimi [鯉刺身] refers to what is usually called koi-arai [鯉洗い]:  the cleaned fillets of carp are placed into a hot water bath before being chilled in cold water.

    Mana-gatsuo [真名鰹] (above) is a distant relative of the katsuo [鰹] (“slapjack tuna”).  It has white flesh (whereas katsuo is pink to red in color) that is very oily.  Accordingly, while delicious, people should not eat much of it, or it will cause digestive problems.

    These would likely have been served with iri-zake [煎り酒]* as a dipping sauce -- though it is also possible that a shallow dish of precious soy sauce was offered to this important guest. __________ *Iri-zake [煎り酒] is a sort of dipping sauce prepared from "old" sake (sake that has lost a lot of its alcohol through evaporation).  First, a piece of dashi-kombu is soaked into the room-temperature sake for several hours (to deepen the taste), then removed.  Then several ume-boshi are placed into the sake, and the sake is brought to a boil.  After about 5 minutes, a large handful of katsuo-bushi is thrown in to the sake, and it is allowed to continue simmering until the volume is reduced by half.  Then (as when making dashi) the pot is removed from the heat and allowed to cool for five minutes while the katsu-bushi settle.  Then the clear liquid is decanted off (or filtered through a piece of sarashi).

    This is the iri-zake, and it can be used as a dipping sauce once it is fully cooled.

⁹Kō-no-mono [香物].

    Kō-no-mono [香の物] are vegetables pickled for a time* in a brine solution -- this is what is usually referred to as shin-tsuke [新漬け] today.  The pickled vegetables (sliced cucumbers, hakusai, carrots, and so on) were usually served with crushed sanshō [山椒] (Japanese pepper) as a seasoning. __________ *Ranging anywhere from overnight to several days, depending on the desired result.

¹⁰O-sakana  tairagi ・ uzura [御肴  タイラキ ・ ウツラ].

    O-sakana [御肴] refers to the course usually referred to as shii-zakana [強肴] today.  Sakana [肴] means cooked or prepared food; while shii-zakana refers specifically to such food served as an accompaniment to drinking.  Irrespective of the name, this course would have been accompanied by several rounds of sake.

    The tairagi [タイラギ = 玉珧] (Atrina pectinata) is commonly known as the Japanese scallop or Comb pen-shell.  It is the kai-bashira [貝柱] (the muscle that opens and closes the shells) of this mollusk that is eaten.  This kind of scallop can be prepared in numerous ways -- including as sashimi, grilled over charcoal, broiled on the half-shell, cooked in broth, and even as tairagi-dengaku [たいらぎ田樂]*.  Rikyū does not indicate how it was served.

    Uzura [鶉] is the quail†.  There are two ways it could be prepared.  First is by mashing the flesh and bones into a paste, forming the paste into meatballs (dango [團子]), and boiling these in broth.  Three dango are typically skewered on a bamboo brochette, and served in that way (either with a dipping sauce, or with some sort of sauce poured over).

    The other way that these, and other fowl, were sometimes prepared for Rikyū's guests was as what he called senba-iri [船場煎り]:  the cleaned quail were roasted over a wooden fire while being basted with a mixture of soy sauce (or possibly iri-zake [煎り酒]‡), sake, mirin, sesame oil, and perhaps crushed garlic (since this sort of food was endemic to the wharfs of Sakai). __________ *Dengaku [田樂] is a type of grilled food, originally eaten by the peasants though taken up by the upper classes during the sixteenth century.  The food (halved egg plant, momen-tōfu, shiitake mushrooms, or -- in this case -- scallops) is skewered and grilled over charcoal, and dengaku sauce is brushed over the upper side.  After the sauce is dried, the food is turned over to caramelize the sauce.

    The sauce is made by mixing white-miso (though red miso or other varieties can be used, depending on the preferred taste) with mirin, and sake (in the present white sugar is also added to make the taste sweeter -- though probably not in Rikyū's day):  roughly, one measure each of sake and mirin (and sugar) are combined with two measures of miso.

†Tanaka Senshō comments that some people conflate these two things, resulting in tairagi-uzura, which they say means the quail were split in half and (presumably) grilled in that way.

‡See the sub-note ("*") under footnote 8.  Iri-zake was often used the way soy sauce -- which was both rare and very costly in Rikyū's period -- is used today, both for cooking and as a dipping sauce.

¹¹Hasu [ハス].

    By hasu [蓮] (lotus), Rikyū seems to be referring to ren-kon [蓮根], lotus root.

    Usually lotus root is braised by sauteing ("stir-frying") the thinly sliced root (actually, it is a rhizome) in sesame oil, and then simmering in sake (until the liquid is gone), and then mirin (again, until the liquid is gone).  In the present day this is usually followed by adding sake and continuing to simmer briefly, though this last step may have been missing in Rikyū's day (or the soy sauce was replaced by iri-zake).

¹²Sui-mono  hashira ・ ko-kabu [吸物 ハシラ 小カフ].

    Suimono [吸物] is food cooked (and served) in clear broth.

    Hashira [ハシラ = 柱] seems to mean kai-bashira [貝柱] -- though most likely from a different variety of scallop than what he served above.  Probably these were quite small.

    Ko-kabu [小蕪] means small turnips -- probably from the kitchen garden, since kabura was one of the plants grown for winter greens.

¹³Kashi  kan ・ senbei ・ zakuro ・ ko-neri ・ nashi [菓子 カン ・ センヘイ ・ サクロ ・ 小ネリ ・ ナシ].

    Kan [柑] refers to the citrus fruit usually called mikan [蜜柑] -- tangerine -- today*.

    Senbei [煎餅] are rice-crackers.  They would have been procured from a specialty shop.

    Zakuro [柘榴] is the pomegranate.

    Koneri [木練り] are naturally formed hoshi-gaki [干し柿] (dried persimmons), and so of very small size†.

    Nashi [梨] is the Oriental pear‡. __________ *Mikan [蜜柑] means honey-sweet (mi [蜜]) tangerine (kan [柑]), and was probably originally a marketing term.

†Usually, natural koneri -- the name means to soften on the tree -- also have many seeds:  the small size and presence of many seeds both facilitate the natural drying process (since larger fruit would simply rot before drying:  artificially drying persimmons requires the removal of the skin for this reason).

‡The skin cannot be eaten, so the pear must be pealed and cut into bite-sized pieces.  Oriental pears are more juicy than the Western varieties, so they are generally eaten with a yōji [楊枝] (such as a a small kuromoji [黒文字]), rather than with the fingers.

¹⁴Toko [床].

    This was the toko in Rikyū's shoin, which seems to have been at a level below the jōdan [上段] -- the elevated seat for a noble guest -- as shown in the sketch.

¹⁵Ni-fuku ittsui Ba En san-sui  [二幅一對 馬遠山水].

    Ni-fuku ittsui [二幅一對] means a diptych, a pair of pictorial scrolls intended to be hung in the toko at the same time*.

    “Ba En” is the Japanese pronunciation of Mǎ Yuǎn [馬遠; c. 1160 or 1165 ~ 1225].  Mǎ Yuǎn was an important painter, from a family of professional painters, of the Southern Song dynasty.  Mǎ Yuǎn's works are mentioned six times in the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō-ki [君臺觀左右帳記], by Nōami [能阿彌], and four times in Sōami's [相阿彌;  ~ 1525] O-kazari Sho [御飾書].

    Nōami notes that, when hung as a diptych, one scroll should be a landscape, while the other should have the figure of people.  Meanwhile, Sōami indicates that the diptych of small scrolls consisted of one painting by Mǎ Yuǎn, paired with one by (Mǎ Yuǎn's contemporary) Xià Guī [夏圭 or 夏珪; dates unknown, but active between 1195–1224].

    In the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō-ki, Nōami simply segregates Mǎ Yuǎn's (and other artists') works by genre (landscape, birds-and-flowers, paintings of figures, and so forth), without giving them titles by which the individual paintings might be identified.  And while Sōami's original manuscript of the O-kazari Sho originally included small sketches of all of the works cited, none of the subsequent copies (which are all that survive) have any.  Consequently, it is impossible to determine which of Mǎ Yuǎn's works were displayed by Rikyū on this occasion -- or whether or not those paintings are still extant today.

    Above are two of Mǎ Yuǎn's surviving paintings which I selected as representative based on Noami's specifications regarding the two scrolls included in a diptych†. __________ *The pair of scrolls were usually prepared with identical mountings, indicating they were part of a diptych.

†A glimpse of the mountings are usually not included in photographs of these works (and most were remounted during the Edo period anyway, since the preferred proportions came to be based on Kobori Masakazu's [小堀政一; 1579 ~ 1647 -- he is better known today as Kobori Enshū, 小堀遠州] creations, rendering the earlier continental model employed by Nōami and his fellow dōbō [同朋] uninteresting), thus even this potential clue to which of the paintings were used as diptychs is lacking.

    Most of the diptychs and triptychs that were decided upon by the dōbō-shū [同朋衆] were broken up during the early sixteenth century, and those that continued to be used together were almost all split divided into different collections in the Edo period.  Thus there is no clear historical evidence to go by, either.

¹⁶Sai-kōro guri-guri ko-dai ni [豺香爐 グリ〰香臺ニ].

    The kanji sai [豺] means a jackel*.  It seems that Rikyū is referring to a piece that would usually be classified as a variety of shishi kōro [獅子香爐]†.

    The above piece, made of purple bronze, was one of Jōō's personal treasures, may be the kōro that Rikyū displayed on this occasion‡.

    Since this, and several other utensils that Rikyū used on this occasion eventually ended up in Hideyoshi's collection (without the records indicating that they had been owned by Rikyū previously), some scholars have suggested that Rikyū did not actually own them, but that he had taken them on consignment from other Sakai chajin, with the intention being that, should Hideyoshi like them, they would be sold to him for a good price (which Rikyū naturally would negotiate -- while accepting a generous fee for facilitating the sale from the original owner**).

    Unlike Rikyū’s kōgō, the guri-guri kō-dai was probably black††. __________ *In Japan, where such exotic creatures had never been seen, the sai was reimagined as a yama-inu (which name is more commonly written yama-inu [山犬], meaning a kind of feral dog).  The Japanese wolf (ōkami [狼], Canis lupus hodophilax), with which the sai is sometimes equated, differs in several ways from the yama-inu.  In fact, recent genetic evidence suggests that both of these creatures were ancient wolf-dog hybrids (the Japanese wolf has been considered extinct since the early 20th century).

    That said, it is not clear whether Rikyū actually considered this kōro to resemble a wolf, or whether he simply wrote the wrong kanji.

†With which speculation Tanaka Senshō concurs.

‡The other “shishi-kōro” [獅子香爐] commonly associated with Rikyū was one made for him of pale-yellow Seto ware by Furuta Sōshitsu, shown above.   However, this would have been too many things made by Oribe, so the purple bronze kōro seems more likely.

**As a number of these utensils actually had been among Jōō's personal treasures, it is possible that they had been passed to Rikyū by Imai Sōkyū, who was managing Jōō's estate on behalf of Jōō's son Sōga [宗瓦; 1550 ~ 1614].

    Rikyū accused Sōkyū of selling these things and then keeping the profits for himself (which Sōkyū said was to reimburse himself for the expenses of Sōga's upkeep); and this may have been how Sōkyū's name came to be associated with this chakai (the inclusion of this gathering in the Imai Sōkyū Chanoyu Nikki Nuki-gaki [今井宗久茶湯日拔記], mentioned above under footnote 6 -- which collection seems to be at least partly spurious -- may have been calculated to support these accusations; or, possibly, to validate the traditional denrai [傳來] of certain pieces in the Tokugawa family collection -- pieces which do not appear to have had any actual connection with Rikyū, beyond the assertions made in this document).

††Guri-guri pieces were painted with alternating layers of red and black lacquer.  While Rikyū's guri-guri kōgō had red as the outermost layer, most guri-guri pieces (especially furniture and trays) seem to be finished with black lacquer (probably so scratches would be less visible).  Guri-guri-nuri is not shiny like shin-nuri.

¹⁷Shoin-doko [書院床].

    Shoin-doko [書院床] seems to be Rikyū's name for the dashi-fu-zukue [出し文机], the built-in writing desk that was found in the shoin.

   The way to arrange the writing implements on the dashi-fu-zukue is based on Nōami's recommendations in the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō-ki. __________ *This built-in desk is usually called a tsuke-shoin [付書院] today.

¹⁸Sugō suzuri, kame mizu-ire, fude-kake, hitsu sumi, Sugō jiku-mono [子昂 硯、龜水入、筆架、筆 墨、子昂 軸物].

    Sugō [子昂] refers to Chén Zǐáng [陳子昂; 661 or 656 ~ 702], an important poet of the Tang period.  In fact, according to scholars, Chén Zǐáng was responsible for bringing into being the style of poetry that is considered to be “characteristically Tang.”  By many he is considered to be the first poet of the Tang period.

    The objects arranged on the dashi-fu-zukue seem to have been all associated with Chén Zǐáng:

◦ Sugō  suzuri [子昂 硯] -- this ink stone was supposedly the one owned by Chén Zǐáng;

◦ kame mizu-ire [龜水入] -- this was his water-dropper;

◦ fude-kake [筆架], this was a small stand (sometimes carved from precious wood, sometimes made of pottery, and sometimes of jade or other stone) against which brushes were rested, so the brush would not roll around, or the wet head stain the desk (or paper on which the person was writing) -- however, the fude-kake in question has not been identified;

◦ fude ・ moku [筆 ・ 墨] means a brush and an ink stick (while probably both imported from the continent, the specific brush and stick of ink, or who the previous owner might have been, cannot be known from the little that is written here);

◦ Sugo jiku-mono [子昂 軸物] -- this was probably a horizontal scroll, an anthology of Chén Zǐáng's poems, though whether it was an actual Tang period manuscript, or (more likely) a later continental copy, is unknown:  the scroll has not been identified.

    Above is a late Song or early Yuan period hand-written copy of one of Chén Zǐáng's poetry collections.  The jiku-mono displayed by Rikyū on this occasion may have appeared similar to this.

    Perhaps some of these things (as well as other objects displayed in the shoin) had originally belonged to Jōō (certainly, as a trained poet, Jōō would have enjoyed owning just such relics of a very significant poet from the past), and were on loan to Rikyū (from Imai Sōkyū*, into whose keeping they had been given when Jōō died† -- hence his name being ambiguously associated with this chakai) so that Hideyoshi might view them (and possibly purchase them).  While some of these things were used by Rikyū at future chakai, other things are associated with him this one time only, after which the denrai [傳來] suggest they entered Hideyoshi's collection (often without mentioning Rikyū as a previous owner at all), and passed from him (surely unintentionally, at least on his part) to the Tokugawa family, where they still remain.

    As mentioned above, Tanaka Senshō argues against the jiku-mono being placed on the tsuke-shoin (even though that is how the kaiki is formatted).  He prefers to think that the scroll was displayed on one shelf of the chigai-dana (with the jikirō placed on the other).  Nevertheless, at a chakai included in the Rikyū Hyakkai Ki, an open scroll is definitely displayed on the dashi-fu-zukue, and the way Rikyū wrote the present account suggests that this was his preferred way to do things‡. __________ *Imai Sōkyū was married to Jōō's sister, and hence his brother-in-law.

†Jōō's son Sōga was a child of 5 when Jōō died, and Sōkyū was designated both foster parent and executor of Jōō's estate.

    It is said that the bad blood between Rikyū and Sōkyū was occasioned by Sōkyū selling some of the meibutsu utensils that had belonged to Jōō, and then keeping the profits for himself.  Sōkyū claimed this was to reimburse his purse for expenses related to Sōga's upkeep; but Rikyū was disinclined to accept this explanation.  Perhaps this chakai was the occasion on which this sale was initiated -- and, if so, Rikyū would therefore have been intimately aware of the monetary details, since he would have negotiated the price with Hideyoshi on (he would have assumed) Sōga's behalf.

‡The scroll was supposed to be inspected by the guests.  Displaying it on the chigai-dana may have encouraged them to wait until Rikyū entered, so he could retrieve it for them.  Placing the scroll on the writing desk, however, would invite them to inspect it at their leisure without waiting for the host to help them -- and since part of the reason for the delay was so that the meal could be prepared, this seems like it might have been the best way to do things.

¹⁹Chigae-dana [チカヘ棚].

    Rikyū's semi-phonetic rendering of the word chigai-dana [違い棚] -- the staggered shelves usually found adjacent to the dashi-fu-zukue.

    The jikirō [食籠], containing kashi, was probably placed on the lower of the two shelves (while the upper shelf remained empty), with the bonsan displayed on the floor beneath the pair of shelves, as was customary.

²⁰Jikirō [食籠].

    This was a container -- originally a lacquered basket (as the name implies) -- for kashi that was displayed on the chigai-dana -- together with a bon-san [盆山].

    Rikyū's jikirō has not been identified, though the one shown above (which was made during the Ming dynasty) seems to agree with his taste.

²¹Bon-san Kiji [盆山　紀路].

   Kiji [紀路] is the name of a bon-san*.  It has not been identified, and may have been lost.  Perhaps it served as the model for Rikyū's sketch, found in the Nambō-ate no densho [南坊宛の傳書] (though the sketch is just as likely to be fanciful).

    According to the Yamanoue Sōji Ki [山上宗二記], only two of the viewing stones belonging to Ashikaga Yoshimasa were worthy of note (and so suitable for display during chanoyu gatherings)†:  

- The first of these was named Zan-setsu [殘雪].

- The second was called Sue no matsu-yama [末ノ松山], and that stone is shown below.

    According to Sōji, these stones were sometimes arranged on a shallow Korean platter (kōrai-bachi [高麗鉢])‡, and sometimes in a lacquered naka maru-bon [中丸盆]**, both of which may be seen in the photos, above. __________ *Bon-san [盆山] literally means a mountain in a tray (or a tray-sized mountain).  The more modern words bon-seki [盆石] (stone arranged on a tray) and sui-seki [水石] (an abbreviation of san-sui-seki [山水石], which means a landscape stone) refer to the same things.  They are often referred to as “viewing stones” in English.

    In Yoshimasa's period, these kinds of stones were used in a type of meditation practice, with ones vision concentrated on the stone until one entered into a state of peace (after mentally running though the various thoughts that the sight of the stone inspired).  According to a poem by Yoshimasa, when arranged on a tray, two mounds, representing sand-dunes, should be raised up in front of the stone, while the sand behind the stone should be raked to resemble waves (the nature of which was changed depending on the natural conditions of the ocean during that season).

†Apparently Yoshimasa had assembled a sizeable collection of these stones -- which usually resemble distant mountains, or suggest other such scenes from nature -- over the course of his lifetime.  But only these two stones had been celebrated in poems, and it was perhaps for that reason that they were judged suitable for display during chakai (while the others were rejected by Sōji).

    The same sort of (what we might consider) nitpicking is found with respect to which of the Ogura shikishi were originally considered “suitable” for display in the tearoom:  while they were all written by Fujiwara no Sadaie, and all represent poems carefully selected by him and his committee of eminent courtiers (and written on paper selected by him to complement the verse that he would write on it), Jōō is said to have declared that only those poems written on paper that had a background painting on them (the paintings were done by professional artists) could be hung in the toko, while those written on plain colored paper (or Chinese paper with a block-printed decoration) were “wholly unsuitable” for use in chanoyu.

‡This shallow platter (it is described as being a Korean bowl, korai-hachi [高麗鉢] in the Yamanoue Sōji Ki) was made of Korean bronze or sawari [四分一] (it is variously referred to as a kane-no-hachi [金ノハチ], and sometimes as a Namban karakane [南蠻カラカネ], in the various kaiki from the sixteenth century in which it is mentioned:  sawari is a pale gold with black mottling when it has not oxidized, and this aggrees with the platter seen in the photo).

**This tray was 1-shaku 2-sun 3-bu in diameter, with straight sides (that had a raised band on the outside, as can be seen in the photo).  Yoshimasa seems to have used this tray because the original (which was destroyed when Yoshimasa's storehouse was burned down during the Ōnin Wars) had a brass plate inlaid into the face of the tray (the tray seems to have been used in China for carrying hot containers of food from the kitchen to the residental apartments).  The brass plate would protect the face of the tray from being scratched by the sand or the bottom of the stone.

²²Gyo-i ni te daisu kazari, taikai ni te o-cha tate [御意ニテ臺子カサリ、大海ニテ御茶立].

    Gyo-i [御意] means according to the pleasure (of the noble guest); according to the desire (of the noble guest).  In other words, Hideyoshi requested Rikyū to bring his daisu out of storage and display it in the shoin.

    Above is Rikyū's daisu and kaigu from this period in his life.  This daisu was made around 1586, and so some months before this chakai (during which it may have been used for the first time).  After Hideyoshi was initiated into the gokushin futatsu-gumi temae, he forbade Rikyū to teach that temae to anyone else without his express permission.  At that time, Rikyū modified the proportions of the daisu (by making the legs half their previous thickness -- this was enough to move the furo and mizusashi far enough apart so that the previous effect was lost), and then had this daisu made to reflect the changes.  This was the daisu that Rikyū used from that time until his death (and it -- along with Sōtan's “wabi daisu” that is cobbled together from parts of several old daisu, so the ten- and ji-ita are different sizes -- is the daisu that is known and used today).

    Rikyū's Seto taikai-chaire [瀬戸大海茶入] is shown below.

    The expression o-cha tate [御茶立] is very formal, and means that tea was prepared (using the daisu) by Hideyoshi.  Under the circumstances, it is likely that Hideyoshi served usucha to Tsuda Sōkyū and Rikyū -- and perhaps drank a bowl himself.

    The chawan is not mentioned, but perhaps it was the same one that Rikyū used earlier, the Shima-suji-kuro [嶋筋黒] bowl made by Furuta Sōshitsu. 

    Hideyoshi probably performed his temae using the furo.

[agent-bash]

So I’m up in the Muskokas with my sisters family. When we were kids our Grandma and Papa had a cottage up here, when we’d come and visit Canada in the summer, we always started here. There was this restaurant we all loved. We’d have usually two sometimes more meals there. It changed hands a number of years ago, like a decade at least, it went from this laid back place with great food at a decent price to this high end upscale place to match the new dichotomy of the neighbourhood. It was disappointing, there were a lot of great memories at the restaurant, but I got it too times change. We definitely went there less though. The last time we went was pre-covid, and it was one of my worst dining experience ever. They had a seafood taco platter that day, not only was the sauce (like a chipotle mayo but also not) just slathered all over everything like just so much of it, none of the sea food (one was shrimp, the other two different kinds of fish) was cooked! I wasn’t the only one who’s meal was a let down my sister had ordered a large salad also with shrimp (hers was fortunately cooked) yeah there was two shrimp in it and it was a 14$ charge to add it. BIL ordered his steak medium rare, it was charcoal and covered with so much barbecue sauce so you hopefully wouldn’t notice. It something that likely would have cost us around 100$ but because of all the mistakes and especially because of my uncooked food (which the chef tried to argue was ceviche but it did say grilled on the menu) our meal was comped. The only positive thing I could have said about the experience was our server was phenomenal. She was angry for my sis and BIL and absolutely horrified by the state of my meal. We slipped her 50 on the way out picked up some take away from a different restaurant.

We figured we’d give the place another shot since we’re up here. I’ve been kind of hit and miss on it but that’s down to me trying to be adventurous, while my sister and BIL have genuinely enjoyed meals other than the last one. BOY HOWDY WAS THAT FUCKING MISTAKE!

They’re one of the places doing a covid surcharge. Even on curb side pick up. And if it were a couple of bucks it would be NBD but it’s not no its 10% of your check. And because of the number of how much we ordered for they added another 20% gratuity on top even though we did not dine in (knew about the former and sucked it up didn’t catch the latter until we got back)

I was not super hungry, so because we weren’t dining in, I ordered off the kids menu. Chicken strips. Pretty much a no brainer right? Niece and nephew got pizzas. Again usually a crowd pleaser. All were stone cold, and the cheese on the pizza wasn’t even really melted. This isn’t even a distance thing, we have a hot/cold bag and are at most a 5 minute drive away.

We also ordered an herbed chicken flatbread for the five of us to split that had no chicken on it and nice pile of oregano in one corner of the flat bread. Literally it was like someone held the shaker in one place and just shook until a little mountain formed.

Sis got soup (the lone hold over from the good old days) two orders of it because we know from experience that they’re a little stingy with the ladle, that tasted like someone dumped a whole box of salt into just those two portions.

BIL got tuna. It was advertised as blackened, apparently it’s just their cover for burnt to a crisp. It was about half the size of my phone (iPhone11) and cost 50 bucks. But hey maybe it was bigger before the “blackening”. He also asked for no mushrooms, which was amongst the plethora of things that the fish was supposed to come with well apparently someone got that ass backwards because it was literally nothing but mushrooms.

When we called the restaurant to see what could be done, the manager basically said “yeah and?” And hung up.

TLDR, after Schmorgusborg of inedible swill that cost nearly 200$ we got food from a chain restaurant with Golden Arches because we were starving and just over everything. I’m going to draft a very scathing review if posting this doesn’t calm me down. I may drive the food back and just leave the bag of it along with a not on their doorstep. Might do it in the morning so the critters don’t get it. Or let the critters get and hopefully trash it everywhere. And we will never ever go back and will deter others from going as well. It’s sad that a place that holds so many happy memories has become this.

[awolfroams]

2017 Summer in Asia, Part 7: Kyoto, Japan

July 9, 2017 5:30 pm Still on the bus from Nagoya to Fukui

I keep procrastinating writing about Kyoto because it was so much crammed into two days. And even after all I walked and saw and climbed and did, I still came nowhere close to seeing all of the temples and shrines. The night we arrived in Kyoto, after checking into Hotel Gimmond, we set out to try and find some dinner. After looking at a couple of places that didn’t grab our attention, we poked our heads into an elegant-looking but fairly-priced, mom-and-pop restaurant literally around the corner from our hotel. @taketheshield pretended not to speak Japanese, for reasons I still don’t understand, so the very nice woman gave us a cobbled-together English menu of some of their entrees. Kyoto is known for its fried tofu and fried tofu skin, so I ordered a fried tofu dish with lychee-flavored shōchū to drink. @taketheshield got an eggplant and fried tofu skin salad, and we each swapped a bite.  The food was the first cooking we’d had that rivaled the monks’ back in Koyasan.

@taketheshield had already been to Kyoto several times and seen most of what was worth seeing, so the next morning, I set off on my own for Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. I wandered through the bamboo grove for about an hour, stopping to take photographs and buy a couple of postcard prints from a friendly local artist. I then made my way down to the river and across it to hike my way up my first mountain of the day, to Arashiyama Monkey Park. There, I snapped some photos of tourists feeding the monkeys, and a couple of the monkeys playing and cleaning each others’ fur. I then hiked back down the mountain (it was about twenty-five minutes to hike each way) and back across the bridge to catch the bus to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion.

Kinkakuji is situated in a small pond surrounded by a Zen garden, and true to its word, the walls are clad in real gold. On the estate grounds is also a ceremonial tea house. After touring the grounds, I caught another bus to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion, but the buses were running a different route behind schedule, so by the time I got there, between being behind schedule and feeling hot and tired, I decided instead to duck into a nearby café for some shaved matcha ice with red bean and rice balls, and to charge my phone for a bit.

After I’d cooled down a bit and prepared a fresh coat of bug spray, I set off along the Philosopher’s Path to Nanzenji. The path is supposed to be the prettiest in cherry blossom season or in autumn, but I still found it to be lovely, walking along the creek with tiny wooden bridges where people sat with their legs dangling over the edge, all framed by hydrangeas and tiny wildflowers.

By the time I got to Nanzenji, I temple itself was closed, but I was still able to pass through the formidable gate and wander the grounds until I found the aqueduct @taketheshield had told me about. It reminded me of the one in Segovia. Later, on the train to Fukui, @taketheshield would point out the lake far outside of Kyoto that the aqueduct had been built to reach as the primary water source for the city.

With the sun starting to set, I hurried to the metro to Fushimi Inari. Fushimi Inari is a Shinto fox shrine up a mountainside known for having a stretch of mountain climb called the “1,000 Torii” because it is framed by at least 1,000 Torii gates. And that’s just one stretch. That’s how long it is.

After photographing the main complex of temples, I looked at the map of the mountain for reference, and started to climb. Fun fact: maps of stairs and hiking trails in Japan are not to scale. I should have learned from the monkey mountain, which I’d thought was an exception. I was wrong.

Climbing and panting my way up the mountainside, the sun rapidly setting over the city below, I started to see signs in English and Japanese warning of wild boar. They stressed to be careful, “especially at night.” I ran into another lone traveler, from Ireland, and asked her how much further up to the top of the mountain. The said she wasn’t sure, but it seemed like quite a ways, and she was turning back because of the boar signs. I was tempted to do the same, but she said if I climbed a bit further there was a great view of the city, so i thanked her and continued on a bit longer. At the clearing she had described, I took more photographs and turned around to head back down, when I overheard a couple of Spaniards trying to gauge how much further to the top. I told them it was far, to which they replied, “Aun somos jovenes y fuertes.” I wished them luck, but they insisted I go along as well, because apparently I am also still young and strong. Three people were more likely to keep a boar at bay than one, so I decided to go along with them for a bit. They introduced themselves as Carlos and Pol from Barcelona. I told them how I’d lived in Madrid the year before. We chatted a bit as we heaved ourselves up and up, through countless Torii, until finally I reached my limit on a particularly steep pass, swarmed with mosquitoes. I explained to them that I have asthma and would be turning back. They offered to accompany me back if I waited for them, but it was pitch black and getting late, so I thanked them and declined.

Carlos was staying in Japan for a few more weeks, so he asked to stay in touch and we swapped contact info. I then sprinted back down the mountain, slightly panicking over being alone and unarmed in darkness with the idea of contending with a wild boar. After about thirty minutes straight of sprinting, the path became better lit, and I started to pass more people.

I overheard a family of Spaniards puzzling over the same very-not-to-scale map I had seen on my way up, trying to figure out how long to the top. I told them it was quite a hike, and when they found out I was there alone, they turned back with me to talk me to the metro station. I found out they were from Madrid, so I told them how I’d lived and taught there for a year. They’d also been to Bangkok, so I asked them for tips for when we went there later that summer. They told me to be prepared to haggle prices, and to watch the taxi meters to make sure I wasn’t overcharged.

We chatted right up to the metro platform, when suddenly a voice cried out, “Hey, @awolfroams!” from behind me. It was the Barcelona guys. Apparently we had only been about a ten minute-further hike from the summit, but when I asked what was at the top and they said just another shrine like the ones along the way, I internally called worth it for turning back. I wished everyone safe travels and headed back to meet @taketheshield for dinner, where I recounted my mountain escapades.

We decided to go back to the same restaurant. Kyoto is also known for its green tea, so I had a bowl of green tea broth with rice and seaweed, and a side of the house special - tuna and spinach salad, which was delicious. I washed it down with peach shōchū, and then we thanked the woman at the restaurant, took a goodbye picture, and went back to the hotel to pass out.

***

Tuesday, July 11, 2017 12:45 pm Fukui Prefecture Dinosaur Museum, Katsuyama

The buses in Katsuyama only run once about every four hours between the station and Heisenji Hakusan Shrine, so it looks like I won’t be going to the “moss palace” on this trip. :( I could take a taxi, but it’s 2,000 yen one way because it’s 7 km from the station, and I don’t want to spend ~$40 round-trip to go to a shrine, even if it’s 1,300 years old. Oh well. I am currently at the third-largest dinosaur museum in the world, so I am trying to console myself with that. My phone has been eating through battery on this trip, probably because of all of the texting, Snaps, and Google Maps use, so whenever I find an outlet, I try to take advantage and charge, especially since they are not too common in Fukui Prefecture. This one is around the corner from this bench in the Earth Sciences exhibit, tucked under a phone and behind an emergency call box. I’m hoping no one notices or minds that I’m using it. Since I now have about two extra hours to kill at the dinosaur museum, I figured I’d rest for a bit and finish my Kyoto log.

For our second and final day in Kyoto, @taketheshield made an itinerary of places he was willing to see again so that we could travel together. We started with Nishiki Market. The long stretch of covered shops and stalls sold food, clothing, and basic home items. I saw a pair of stocking-topped socks like my ones back home that I was tempted to buy, but my bag is already heavy enough, or so I told myself, and moved on. We hadn’t yet eaten, so I got a skewer of three pieces of smoked duck for 200 yen, and then we shared fried calamari for I think 300 yen. I tried a ginger-cabbage fish paste patty for 200 yen that was okay, but not my favorite, and washed it down with a mango passionfruit peach smoothie which was expensive at 600 yen, but worth the price in the humid heat.

From the market, we walked the 20 minutes to Chionin Temple, passing through Gion district, where we didn’t see any geisha, but I did find a porcelain calico cat sitting on its hind legs like my Misha for my mom. @taketheshield said the inscription was to bring luck with money, which lord knows we could use. I also bought a small geisha figuring designed to bobble and always land upright, and tucked it into the same gift box for my mom.

Chionin Temple, like so many other temples, was up an incline into a mountainside, and, of course, the map of steps was not to scale. Nevertheless, I made my way up to and through the gate, up the steep steps (Japan loves massive steps the height of my knees) to the temple complex. The main temple was under restoration, but I got some nice photographs of the smaller surrounding buildings, which included a pagoda similar to the one in Koyasan.

From Chionin, we trekked through the boiling heat, up another mountain path lined with tourist shops and ice cream parlors, to Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddhist temple situated on a hillside, as if jutting out from a cliff. This temple was also, sadly, under restoration, but we were able to pass through it and see the massive Buddhas inside before walking along the cliffside to a fountain where visitors could use UV-sterilized metal cups on long sticks to catch pure mountain water at a small shrine to drink from while making a wish. I wished for snow. @taketheshield must have wished for new sweat towels, because he lost both of his to the waterfall stream below while drinking. 

I was exhausted from all of the mountain climbing in Kyoto, but @taketheshield insisted I’d appreciate our final stop, Nijō Castle. He was right. The castle had been designed as a residence, not a fort, so unlike the other steep castles we had visited and climbed in our travels, it was entirely flat, a sprawling maze of hallways nicknamed for the chirping bird-like squeaks the floorboards emitted beneath our bare feet as we passed chambers of beautifully-painted sliding doors with tigers, lakes, and pine trees, framed by ornamental woodwork carved into vines and flowers. The faded ceiling panels still held massive floral designs that must once have been a much brighter red, and the castle was surrounded by a pretty Zen garden with rock islands and tiny waterfalls where koi swam lazily in the summer heat. 

It had started to rain, so we hurried back to the hotel to grab our things and catch our train to Fukui. I’m off to potentially see a dinosaur movie. More later.

[thisislizheather]

September Shenanigans 2020

The leaves are starting to fall, the colder winds are coming, the pumpkins are starting to appear and I’ve never wanted an October more than I do right now. This time of year stirs up so much inside of me, I can barely breathe. However you enjoy this season, I hope you take some time to bask in these autumn days that are typically so fleeting. Here’s what went down last month.

I recapped what happened off of my summer list.

I made an autumn list of things that I’d like to do this season.

I cannot stop playing this John Legend song on repeat. Especially in recent days.

Some other songs I have on repeat: Never Let Me Go by Alok & Bruno Martini & Zeeba, Savage Love by Jawsh 685 & Jason Derulo and that old Sarah McLachlan song Ice Cream for some reason.

Absolutely in love with the limited edition apple pie flavoured Kit Kats. Unreal.

I made these pumpkin pie overnight oats and they were a big hit. Great autumn breakfast idea.

I ate at Buvette and their snails were definitely the highlight.

I saw the movie The Car and it was phenomenal. You have to see it. The dialogue is atrocious, but a young, smokeshow James Brolin? Christ, he can get it. It’s a perfect bad movie.

I went to Gramercy Tavern and of course that place never disappoints. The service, the food, everything is impeccable. Some photos below.

Above Photo: Of course they have their own sanitizer

Above Photo: The Harvest Daiquiri with Frozen El Dorado 8 yr Rum, Green Chartreuse, Caradonna Farms Apple Cider, Lime

Above Photo: Chilled Corn Soup with Pickled Cauliflower, Beets, Avocado

Above Photo: Campanelle Bolognese with Kale, Basil, Pecorino

Above Photo: Tavern Bacon & Cheddar Burger with Smoked Onion Sauce, Duck Fat Potato Chips

Something new: did you know that Sephora has in-store rewards available that are different from the rewards shown on their website? Something to check out near the front cashier the next time you’re in a Sephora.

New favourite potato chips: Torres Selecta Black Truffle.

I bought the Mario Badescu Drying Lotion again because it’s such a great product for calming down acne and one bottle lasts at least six months or so.

A great piece about the arts scene in New York City right now.

I rarely listen to podcasts, but I listened to the Conan O’Brien episode of the Michelle Obama podcast and it was great. The episode is about marriage and I liked it so much because I love hearing about how couples first met and fell for one another.

With SNL returning this weekend, I rewatched one of my favourite sketches in recent memory.

As with every other person on earth this month, I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix and then immediately deleted all the games off of my phone. I know the whole message was to delete Instagram and Facebook, but I’ve never had Facebook on my phone (what am I, 90?) and I truly don’t go on Instagram that much (not by choice, I have a shite battery that lasts about eight minutes a day).

This girl helping senior dogs is an absolute angel on earth.

Fighting ever urge in my body to immediately buy this emerald beauty.

I started watching Girlfriends and even though the pilot is rooooough (as most pilots are), it’s an all right show. It’s insane that Sex And The City basically stole this entire premise. I did, however, stop watching because all of the women are so wildly tiny, it warps my brain to sit and stare at skinny women for long periods of time.

I bought this scalp massager and holy hell, it’s incredible. It elevates a shower times a thousand.

I tried a sample of Fab Pharma’s Rescue Mask and it’s pretty great. It’s weird to not wash a mask off yes, but your skin feels amazing in the morning after use.

My friend Dusty had his movie reviewed by Roger Ebert’s website which is so huge and amazing. Wildly proud.

I started watching Sister, Sister on Netflix and Lisa is the greatest character of all time.

The new autumn candle at Trader Joe’s? Honeycrisp Apple! Already bought! Already sold out! Will I light it or just keep it to smell every so often? None of your business.

Another great New Yorker cover.

I was fortunate enough to eat at Atoboy (thank you Katie & Greg!) and it was perfection. I’ve never eaten tuna so heavenly. Such a wonderful meal and the service especially was warm as hell.

A roasted oyster cheat sheet for NYC, if you should find yourself in need.

A great piece talking about how people make up voices for their dogs.

I rewatched Grease and I can’t believe how often I forget how good the music is in that movie. Every song smashes.

One of my favourite restaurants in Astoria, Mars, opened for lunch recently, very grateful.

REVELATION: Not drinking before bed gives you a crazy, deep, restful sleep. How on earth did I not remember this?

I finally bought those Aerie bike shorts I’ve wanted for months and they’re incredible. Bike shorts should always be this damn soft.

Finally ate at Arte Cafe on the Upper West Side and loved it.

I visited the Krispy Kreme flagship in Times Square and it was pretty great. Most locations in every suburban city have glass windows where you see the donuts being made, so I didn’t get the huge appeal?

I may or may not have indulged in some of the seasonal desserts at Comfortland in Astoria, I won’t tell you details because they weren’t anything amazing. Honestly, nothing compares to the apple fritters at San Remo’s in Etobicoke.

I watched the Surviving R. Kelly sequel on Netflix and it didn’t really have any new information, which makes sense because there hasn’t even been a trial yet.

I also watched all of season one and some of season two of Twin Peaks (for the first time) and I have some thoughts. First things first, the pilot is incredible. But… why is the background/theme music so terrible? It never matches any of the scenes in tone and it just leaves me confused most times. Some parts are so fucking off and bad (acting-wise, script-wise) that I literally googled certain scenes to see if they were supposed to be funny or if I was missing something. What the fuck is with all of the dancing? And THIS scene? What in the good holy fuck?? UGH, and then David Lynch SHOWS UP IN THE SHOW? Kill me. The entire series should’ve lasted one season. I can officially say that I don’t give one shit about who the fuck killed Laura Palmer, she’s the luckiest character of them all to be dead. Blow me, Lynch.

Hot tip: wine bottle as a ravioli maker!

Neve Campbell is definitely onboard for the next Scream!

Best tweets of the month can be found over here.

Some things that I’m looking forward to doing this month: I must decorate, I really want to make this fall kale salad that sounds incredible, I’m planning a visit to Sleepy Hollow for the day, if I can find the time I really want to try these vegan burgers, I need to finalize the details for my costume this year, MUST BUY these winter stamps, I cannot wait to get my hands on these again, I’m intending on doing my 31-days-of-Halloween celebration yet again (which means that I’ll try to do at least one spookily themed thing each day), and I will definitely be watching some of these 90s sitcoms Halloween episodes. Also, I’m not a huge cronut fan but the flavour this month is a combination of cappuccino and hazelnut! Already pre-ordered.

If you’ve got any interest in reading last month’s roundup, you can see what went down in August over here.

[clamjumper5-blog]

A Healthy Hedonist’s Guide to Paris: Gluten-Free Eats + Sights in the City of Love

Paris has been a gluten-free beacon of love and carbs for us over the last two years.

I’m usually not that into Hallmark holidays, but last year, for whatever reason, when Charlie told me he’d be traveling on Valentine’s Day, I got a little diva-like pit in my stomach.

I pictured myself sitting alone watching Sandra Bullock reruns with a 3-course meal of matcha truffles, modestly-priced steak, and salted caramel pudding. Then I immediately moved on to a superior alternative that made me a lot less sad: having dinner with my OG Valentine, my dad.

I don’t know why I cared so much about doing something special last year, when on most other Valentine’s Days my preference is to avoid prefix menus like the plague and do nothing at all. But I’m sure it had something to do with all the book-related work that left me craving an evening of being coddled and pampered. Other sugar daddy to the rescue!

The biggest reason I can’t give Charlie a hard time is because for my birthday this year, he already showered me with the most romantic gift a girl could ask for: a long weekend trip to Paris. Had he pulled that super Romeo move on me on February 14th, I probably would have rolled my eyes and barfed a little in my mouth (diva!). But in November it was the perfect gift. And come December, when we finally woke up on the tarmac of Charles de Gaulle airport, it was the beginning of the most make-out and food-filled trip I’ve taken in adult life.

(see?)

Paris is the city of love, yes. But for me it’s always held memories of a different type of romance. Back when I was three years old, my OG Valentine (along with my mom) moved our small nuclear family across the Atlantic for a few years. We lived a stone’s throw from Les Invalides on the Right Bank, which I used to call the Emerald City because of its gold dome and sprawling Oz-like greenery.

So my favorite moments of our trip were not the pounds of steak frites or kisses shared under the Eiffel Tower, it was getting to share all those childhood fragments with Charlie as we covered the city on foot from end to end, having him humor me as we played the game my mother and I always used to play of guessing what color the seats would be at the following metro stop, and humoring me even further when I wanted to take us another mile out of the way to relive what a chocolate eclair tasted like in gluten-free form.

Speaking of being gluten-free in Paris, it’s a lot easier than it used to be. I’ve included some of the recommendations below, but just know that like in the States, not every loaf of GF bread is created equal. Take a detour to Chambelland early in your trip and buy a loaf and carry it in your purse for the rest of your stay. I tried the ones at Eric Kayser, No Glu and Helmet Newcake and they weren’t as good. This is key, because you’re going to need something to soak up all that restaurant butter.

If that’s recommendation 1.a. for the GF folks. 1.b. for the rest of you is to balance your trip with a mix of old and new. You’ll see in the itinerary I laid out below that I didn’t give you a back-to-back bistro highlight reel. There’s some incredibly inventive cuisine happening in Paris right now that is worth taking a break from cassoulet and soupe l’oignon for. Plus, if you eat on the healthier end at home, you will burn out from this particular French brand of hedonism very quickly. Pace yourself, folks.

My last recommendation is to walk as much as you can. It’s truly the best way to see the city. We managed to log 10 miles a day! Pack your shoes accordingly, and bring a second pair, since you will inevitably get blistered from your first. We loved the little AirBNB we stayed in on the 5th floor of a immeuble in the 9th, even if it meant many more blisters walking up all those stairs!

This time around, it was definitely a sobering experience for us bourgeois lovers of Parisian oat milk to experience the Gilet Jaunes lighting the city on fire literally and figuratively with their anger. You can see some of the scenes below, juxtaposed of course with my favorite 3 euro macarons. Needless to say, I couldn’t feel more grateful for the life I was born into that allows me to see the world, and savor every morsel.

Just being able to reminisce about this trip feels like a gift. And let me just say for all my Galentine’s: you don’t need a date to have the most glorious time in Paris. My last two trips 7 years ago and in college were both solo, and I had an equally magical weekend reading, wandering and day drinking in cafes.

Read on for my favorite gluten-free finds and ways to spend a long weekend in the city of luuuuurve.

From one healthy, Francophile hedonist, to another,

Xoxo Phoebe

THE BEST PARIS FOOD DESTINATIONS (& WHAT TO EAT IF YOU’RE GLUTEN-FREE)

Afternoon

*Breizh Cafe, The Marais.

This was our first food stop in Paris, after fighting our jetlag to make it through two floors of the Pompidou Center on an empty stomach. Needless to say, I was extremely hangry by the time we arrived at this little gem in the Marais, and almost had a meltdown when we were told there was no table available. Luckily, the maître d’ took pity on us silly Americans and found us two seats next door at the small to-go shop. We actually got the better experience, I think. As we waited for our gluten-free buckwheat crepes to arrive, we sipped a carafe of their in-house hard cider and drooled over all the delicate tins of sardines, cases of smoked meats, rich butters and countless products made from the restaurant’s signature buckwheat. Just make sure to read the back of the packages, as many of the pastas and crisps also include wheat flour. As for my order, I went with the special, which included cured duck, mushrooms and comte. But you can’t go wrong with the complet.

L’As du Falafel, The Marais.

Back when I could eat gluten, this was a very necessary stop when visiting the old Jewish quarter of the Marais. The streets are worth visiting anyway, as the trendy boutiques suddenly tapper off into a jam-packed block of Judaica. The falafel is the best in the city, but they also have schwarma for the GF folk.

Miznon, The Marais

Down the street from all the falafel shops in the Jewish corner, is this Israeli outpost with creative spins on classic sandwiches. The lamb pita is excellent, but they will also do any of their sandwiches as a plate for the GF folk. I got the beef bourgingnon, which is not something I would think to try at an Israeli restaurant, but their take on it was incredibly light and flavorful, especially with a dousing of green sauce on top. The highlight for healthy-minded folks is the whole charred cauliflower, which emerges still attached to its leaves and roots. New Yorkers: you can also find a stand in Chelsea Market, but it’s not the same as the original.

Chambelland, 10th.

This gluten-free bakery was the only place I found that did French bread the right way. It had the same crispy exterior and tangy sourdough flavor that characterizes the best of the table baskets. Get a loaf to-go, or simply enjoy a tuna sandwich or square of focaccia (tomato-olive is amazing) as a mid-afternoon snack. Also, get a bag of the mini financiers.

Helmut Newcake, 1st.

In addition to being the best-named patisserie in all the land, Helmut Newcake has the type of highfalutin pastries that make you think you’re staring at a jewelry case—and they’re all gluten-free! It was such a treat to get to have a chocolate eclair after all these years. The chocolate chip cookie is also insanely buttery and decadent.

Claus, 1st.

Breakfast isn’t as much of a “thing” in France as it is in the states. Usually, people just grab a croissant and cafe on the go. One morning when we were craving eggs, we ended up at this cute spot near our hotel. Honestly, the breakfast was pretty underwhelming. But it’s worth a visit for the gluten-free green tea financiers, which were the most delicious treat of the trip. Had we done it over, I would have saved my breakfast for when we visited Canal St. Martin (see below).

Holybelly, Canal St. Martin.

We didn’t manage to squeeze in some eggs or black rice porridge from Holybelly, but walked around the cool and quaint surrounding area of Canal St. Martin, where there are a bunch of up-and-coming juice bars (Bob’s) and gluten-free cafes (Ten Belles) popping up. This is definitely the neighborhood to go to if you want a break from butter. And I loved capturing the heart-shaped lock picture above.

Hotel L’Amour, 10th.

This hotel restaurant has a quaint fashionable interior with a beautiful garden to sit outside in warmer months. It’s an excellent spot for brunch, with a whole array of vegetarian options. The vegan butternut squash soup was delicious, as was the poulet roti and plate of scrambled eggs.

Ellsworth, 1st.

This brunch spot has all the usual Southern fixtures—French toast, fried chicken, duck hash—but they’re prepared in a distinctly French way. The hash was a gluten-free favorite of mine, and I also loved the beet salad with homemade light-as-air Greek yogurt.

Au Petit Tonneau, 7th.

We wandered into this little neighborhood gem during our day of exploring the right bank, as we made our way from Musee D’Orsay to go make-out under the Eiffel tower. It was everything we wanted in a bistrot: small tables, chalkboard menus, old ladies ordering whole bottles of wine at 2pm, and husband and wife waiters, who took breaks in between busing our tables to enjoy a bite of lunch with their family at the back table. The most notable dish here is the veal stew, which is served over cardamom scented rice. Unfortunately, it’s thickened with flour (hey-ho France), but I snuck a small taste of the sauce and it was mind-blowing. Equally good (and gluten-free): the escargot, salad Paysenne with thick lardons, and the sautéed scallops.

Le Comptoir de la Mer, 6th

The two small bars next to one another, one dedicated to seafood, the other to meats, are a fun concept based on basque-style pintxos, where you order small plate after small plate, standing up, before heading to the next joint and doing the same. I love that they serve butter in a giant ball on the counter that you can scrape off to your heart’s content.

Pierre Herme, 6th

Perhaps the most famous macaron purveyor in Paris, Pierre lives up to all the hype. The cookies are light and tender, while the filling isn’t too sweet. More importantly, they offer a variety of surprising and creative combinations. My favorite was the half raspberry, half pistachio, and the pomegranate and cream.

NoGlu, 6th

As I mentioned above, I was not overly blown away by the bread at this gluten-free cafe. Still, it’s a nice place to grab a sandwich, and if you’re craving a croque monsieur, theirs certainly hits the spot. I’ve also heard good things about their quiche and madeleine’s, but generally prefer chambelland and helmet newcake for GF goodies.

Evening

Le Grand Bain, 9th

The menu changes daily at this veg-centric small plates joint. The chef is young and inventive, but also can turn out French classics like moules with aioli that rival the best bistros in town. They were willing to adapt almost the whole menu to be gluten-free and also had plenty of vegan options. Besides the moules, my favorite dish was the broccoletti with caviar. Charlie could not resist the fois gras stuffed quail.

Balagan, 1st

We went for lunch at this upscale Israeli restaurant near The Louvre, but it’s chic design and cool lounge in back would make it even better as a nighttime destination. The kale salad with turmeric aioli and Mediterranean take on steak frites (both GF!) were fabulous. The waitstaff was also very knowledgable about my allergy.

Le Villaret, 10th

Right down the street from Chambelland, is this classic bistrot that serves up impeccably cooked steak and other French fare. It’s been renovated to be slightly more modern on the interior, but still feels homey and cozy. It’s a great option for a casual, yet refined meal that’s unfussy and worth the price tag.

Bistrot Paul Bert, 11th.

Though a bigger operation than Tonneau, it doesn’t get more classic than this French institution. It’s a little off the beaten path, but worth a visit for a traditional meal of all the things you came to France for: sole meuniere, steak frites and soufflés. Gluten-free folk are good to go on the steak and fries and simple butter-soaked scallops in their shell, but sadly have to sit out dessert. My favorite part of our meal is that they decanted our wine into a giant wine glass, which made for some wonderful photo opps. I’m pretty sure they stuck us in the front room with all the other English speakers for this very reason.

Le Clown Bar, 10th.

This was both Charlie and my favorite meal in Paris. I was skeptical at first, as I’m not one to opt for trends or novelty over the classics (in Paris, no less). But this meal was truly the most inventive and delicious one I’ve had in any city in recent memory. Much to my surprise, the highlight of the night—in addition to the whole pigeon that arrived talons-on, and still smoking on a plate—was the bowl of brains. As you can see above, they did very little to distract or disguise the main ingredient, which I suppose is what good French cooking is all about. The texture was similar to tofu, and combined with a delicate dashi broth, each spoonful melted in your mouth. It’s best to get a reservation in advance, but there’s a great little hipster cocktail bar around the corner called Bespoke if you have to wait.

Le Relais de Entrecote, 6th

An institution with locations in New York and London, this steak and frites chain never disappoints. And somehow, there’s nothing like the real thing in Paris. It’s also a perfect venue for celiacs, since the famous secret sauce is gluten-free and there’s nothing else on the menu but salad, steak and fries, so the fryer is also fair game. Save room for dessert, as their sundaes are legendary!

Le Servan, 12th.

I loved the neighborhood vibe of this place, which made me feel like we were back in Brooklyn. The food was simple, elegant and if I’m being honest, slightly underwhelming. We ended up here because of this Eater list, which said that the clams were one of the best dishes in Paris. Unfortunately, said clams had soy sauce in them (wah wah). Add it to your list if you want to check out a new neighborhood that’s more residential and bohemian. The one dish that really stood out and was worth returning for was the scallop with butterscotch. The menu changes daily, though, so perhaps we just ordered wrong.

Cocktail Hour

Le Mary Celeste, The Marais

If you’re looking for a great spot to grab oysters or deviled eggs before or after dinner, this divey spot in the Marais is it. Compared to most cocktail bars in Paris, this one is a nice mix of tourists and locals.

Le Syndicat, 9th

Another small cocktail bar with creative drinks, including one with kombucha and cucumber that I enjoyed.

The Hemingway Bar, 1st

If you like 30 euro cocktails in a lavish setting, nothing gets more classic than this hideaway in the back of The Ritz. Go early and put your name down. Be prepared to take out a second mortgage to cover your martini.

Le Meurice, 1st

Slightly easier to get into than Hemingway, and equally expensive drinks in ornate surroundings. Charlie swears by a lunch time burger here as well.

ITINERARY: AN IDEAL LONG WEEKEND IN PARIS

If you have an extra day, the Louvre is an obvious must. It’s so ginormous though that we chose to cross many of the smaller museums off our list and spend more time walking between neighborhoods. Another favorite that we didn’t fit into this itinerary is Sacre Coeur, which has an unparalleled view of the city at sunset and is a fun neighborhood to grab a pre-dinner glass of wine. Definitely go if you have one more night. Also, it should be noted that we went to Paris in December. If it’s warm out, a meat and cheese picnic in the Tuileries or Jardin du Luxembourg is also a must. But the gardens around the Louis Vuitton Foundation are also beautiful for a picnic or romp.

Friday, the Marais + Left Bank >>Start the day at the Pompidou center and explore the contemporary and modern collections >>Spend the afternoon exploring the Marais neighborhood; stop into Merci for home goods and decor, and wander the shops and boutiques. >>Have an early lunch of gluten-free buckwheat crepes at Breizh, along wtih a cup of one of their hard ciders (you’re in Europe, after all!). >> Pop into Musee National Picasso >> Grab a mid-afternoon snack at L’As du Fallafel or Miznon >> GF folks should make a detour to the 10th to grab a midafternoon snack at Chambelland, along with a loaf of gluten-free bread for the rest of the trip >>Head to dinner at Bistrot Paul Bert or Le Villaret for an authentic Parisian experience with all the typical fixings. You’ll be too buttered out by day 3 to handle this.

Saturday, the Right Bank >>Start the day at Musee D’Orsay to take in the vast impressionist collection and early work of Manet and Van Gogh. >>Wander through Napoleon’s old stomping grounds, Les Invalides (with optional detour to either the Musee De L’Armee or the Rodin Museum around the corner) >>Stop for lunch at Au Petit Tonneau for a classic red gingham tablecloth meal of escargot, salad Paysenne and veal stew. >>Continue walking off your meal to the Eiffel Tower for your requisite photo opp. >> Either pop in for more contemporary art at Palais de Tokyo, or metro back to the St. Germain-des-Pres area and enjoy a cafe at a one of the old literary haunts – Les Deux Maggot or Cafe de Flore (touristy, but fun!).

>> Check out Musee de L’Arme for French firearms and battle garb or to say hey to Napoleon in his tomb >> You can also make a pit stop at Bon Marche for some foodie keepsakes >> Take a break from all the butter with some nouveau French cuisine at Le Clown Bar or Le Grand Bain. Get past the ick factor and order the brains—it’s a must. >>Have a nightcap at the Hemingway bar at the Ritz.

Sunday, Further Afield >>Start the day with a Franco-American brunch at Hotel L’Amour or Ellsworth (make a reservation in advance), or if you’re feeling overwhelmed by 48 hours of French food, a healthy bite at Holybelly, where you can also stroll by the water in Canal St. Martin. >>Venture further afield to check out the new Louis Vuitton foundation near jardin d’acclimatation, i.e. the coolest kid’s park that ever was. You can also swap this for a day at the Louvre. >>Enjoy a mid-day cafe and pastry at Helmut Newcakes, which has the best GF eclairs in Paris! >> Head home to wherever you came from, carrying all the shoes and baguettes you can fit in your carry-on.

READER RECS

I got a lot of recommendations from readers on gluten-free and healthy restaurants in Paris. Especially in the Marais and the 9th, there are a ton of Brooklyn-esque smoothie and avocado toast spots cropping up. I didn’t find many of them to be worth it, including Wild & The Moon, which is now a chain. Their GF scone and acai bowl were sub-par, if I’m being honest. The produce in France is better across the board, and I’d personally, much rather enjoy veggies in the context of butter, cooked simply and traditionally, doing what Paris does best, than another culture’s attempt at avocado toast. That said, I’m including the full list below in case you want to try any of them, along with some more restaurants that I’ve been dying to try but haven’t been able to get to!

Gluten-free restaurants and healthy cafes:

Sitron (GF bakery) Echo Deli Cafe Woodies Le Coulauncourt Maisie Cafe The Broken Arm Republique of Coffee Cuppa Cafe BigLove (GF pizza) Cafe Berry Cafe Mareva Cafe Mericourt (shakshouka) Jay and Joy (vegan cheeses!)

Nouveau French restaurants and wine bars: 

Vivant CAM Brutos Frenchie Clamato

***

Have any of you recently been to Paris? Any new or old haunts or must-see’s that I should add to my list for next time? I’m dying to go back! Let me know in the comments section

Source: https://feedmephoebe.com/healthy-hedonists-guide-paris-gluten-free-long-weekend-city-love/

[theblessedseed-blog]

I Tried to Treat Cancer with Black Cumin Seed Oil

I like to share my experience using Black cumin seed oil and black seed herb to try to treat my Hodgkin's lymphoma that I was diagnosed with when I was 14 years old and I'm 26 years old now. The disease is still there and I used a great deal of many different natural remedies after trying very strong chemo and 3 ( 20 session rounds of radiation).

I'd like to share all the different remedies that I tried in order to try to guide someone who may be experiencing a form of cancer and would like to try a natural solution. Before I talk about what I tried I'd like to mention and say that I don't have a cure and I can't actually tell you that this is a cure. I tried a great deal of different remedies and  herbs, spices, different kind of drinks; so I tested many different things and here's what I found out. 

After taking chemo on and off for three years and radiation in 2011 I found a hard bump in the left side of my neck. By that point I decided that if the disease comes back and I even mentioned this to my doctor two years before that I am not going to take any chemo or radiation, I will now try natural remedies.

Typically whenever I find a lump or bump and the symptom of itching, the doctor would say you need to CT-scan and PT-scan. Even the littlest bump he would always say this, but this time he said I'm not concerned even though I have the same symptoms I had originally which was severe itchiness all over the body and the bump felt bigger than the original one in my neck in the beginning. I think because he knew I wouldn't be taking any chemo and he didn't want to expose his field.

I also had a small one on the other side and multiple ones under my chin. I was sure the disease had returned and I decided and accepted that it's there and I decided I need to try to treat it naturally. Around that time I wanted to go on a trip to Mecca to make umrah, and it was a dream that I had all my life and even though I did not feel healthy, I thought if I don't go now I may feel sicker and not be able to go latter.

As you all may know Saudi Arabia is a very complicated country and requests many different things and a very complicated country to deal with. After all the struggles we left, I drank zamzam water in the mosque and drank a gallon worth and the bump did not go down whatsoever.

After coming back I was starting to panic and I was depressed and I didn't really know what to do. I kept contacting Herbalist or Islamic herbalists to try to get a remedy and all of them were not replying. I knew of the black cumin seed oil of course from the hadith of the prophet that says black seed is cure for all diseases but death. I tried it before and did not feel better but this time I thought maybe I did not give enough time so let me try again.

I took about two tablespoons based on what a Muslim doctor told me, and I asked him did you test this dosage and he said no. I said so why did you tell me two? He said it's just a guess I came out of my head lol. Meaning based on nothing, and he said you can try your own remedy that you make and see what works.

So I just went with the general dosage that he gave me and I used to take it down with orange juice and it tasted absolutely disgusting. I would grind the seeds in a coffee grinder otherwise I would literally choke to death. I tried it for some time and itchiness wasn't going down, I even found some of the lumps were getting bigger or spreading. I already knew that when I would take back seed by itself it was not really working and I concluded by that point that I don't know the proper dosage and usage for it to work.

So I kept searching for different remedies and I was literally stuck and didn't know what to do. So I found a herbalist on YouTube talking about a certain remedy, and the herbs that he mentioned I know have anticancer affects and I know about them from my own reading so I thought why not give it a try. It was that you would combine Cumin, Curry, Garlic, Carrots, Celery, and a few other things in a soup and then drink it. I tried that and of course, I didn't get any improvement.

I kept on searching very, very hard for other remedies and I stumble upon the lady who claimed that she killed her stage four cancer with carrot juice. I heard before about carrot juice having anticancer effects and I thought okay, this is the answer for me. I told my parents that I need to try this remedy and buy me a huge bag of carrot juice.  And a few days later they did and I started the remedy of juicing carrots.

I would drink a large 32 glass cup every day and I did that for eight months. What I found was that it seemed that the tumors were slowing down in growth and spreading less and the one in my neck was slightly smaller but not that much. And the itchiness was not all that better. I forgot to mention I was drinking a large cup of green tea every single day for about a year and also found that it was slowing down the growth of the tumors and made them smaller slightly but not that much and likewise the itchiness was not that much better.

So I decided to stop those two remedies and search for new remedy. This is now 2014 and I had severe bone pain. It was so bad that I almost concluded that it must've spread now to my bones and I was almost accepted that fact. I was crying and begging God to help me cure the severe bone pain and direct me to a remedy if not to cure it, just give me relief.

A few days later while was searching online, I found a man who claimed he had advanced testicular cancer and he said that have Habanero cured it. He said that is a very, very spicy pepper. I researched some medical sites to see if it could be possibly true that peppers have anti-cancer affects. I found that a certain ingredient known as Caspian is in fact a ingredient in peppers that have anticancer affects. This was all new to me, I never heard that peppers or hot peppers have anti cancer affects.

I knew they were healthy and my parents told me they are good for the immune system, but I never knew they have anticancer affects. I also read that it has anti-pain effects and it's a natural painkiller. I thought okay, I hit two bones with one stone, I get rid of tumors and reduce the severe bone pain. I already had cayenne pepper in my home so I started to use that and I would put them in gelatin capsules. And I did it as a test to see if it would reduce my bumps and remember at that point, that the cancer must have spread to the bones because of the severe bone pain that I had.

So after the first dose or a few doses I felt a improvement with the bone pain, and I thought wow! this actually worked. I feel the severe bone pain is better. That means this it is so strong that it is even able to kill tumors in the bones that means it will likely be able to help me. Then after a few hours the pain would come back.  I concluded that what must be happening is the Caspian must be reducing the bone pain due to the natural painkilling effect. The bone pain was likely due to low Vitamin D I latter found out after I treated it with long period of sun exposure. 

I didn't feel much improved with the itchiness or the sizes of the bumps. I thought okay let's try the powder so I bought some. It is one of the hottest peppers in the world but I didn't know it is literally a volcano. I filled 4 gelatin capsules as I did in the past for black cumin seed oil and filled them to the brink and took them all in one shot on an empty stomach. After that I ate a salad and as you know water makes spicy foods more spicy. At first it didn't feel too bad, just a slight burn or sting in the stomach but wasn't too bad. Then I went to go eat my dinner or lunch, which was canned tuna or sardines with sauce and as you know sauce also makes spicy food more spicy.

The first bite I felt like my guts were being torn to shreds and I was gonna vomit. I went running into the bathroom and I was moaning and groaning and my mom said it sounded like somebody giving birth. I heard my sister laughing and talking as if nothing is happening while I almost die and I pray that she feels the worst type of pain one day while everyone laughs as if nothing is happening.

Despite my Cancer she cut me off for years and my other sister as well and I hope and pray that they will be thrown into the flames of hell forever. My mom kept asking how much did you take? I kept telling her get the milk! I am gonna die, and she kept asking how much did you take? And she didn't have any consideration of the severe pain that I was in. My dad was traveling to see his mom at the time and mom doesn't drive and my sibling at the time couldn't drive and she said where will I take you?

After that she took my Habanero powder and she said don't use it until my dad comes back. So I started using cayenne and overall there was no improvement with the bump sizes or itchiness and I started to develop bad cramping in my abdomen. After my dad came back and I went back to use that and I kept getting severe stomach pain that I got the first time, sort of the same but not exactly as bad. I would get that pain many times and I kept taking it for about 6 months. Then I moved on to buy black cumin seed oil. I need to try something different because habareno is too harsh to the stomach and it could cause me a ulcer or poisoning or something.

So I bought a 16 ounces bottle of black seed oil and I tried that as a remedy. The first place that I bought from was a company known as piping rocking. I bought from them because they were the cheapest price that I can find online and if it's cheap it may not be good but it may not be bad either. I did not have any other option so that's what I tried. I kept buying from them for about six months and I found some of the tumors were bigger and spreading. The itchiness is not any better either so I decided to try another company, the more popular one which was amazingherbs. I tried them for about a year but it was not any better- it was just kind of stay the same.

After that I decide to stop and try to search for new remedy. I went back to the Habanero powder and I took a smaller dose and I just kept on doing that until I was able to find some other remedy. I kept doing that for about a year and at this point I started to eat sugar. I started to feel like the tumors were going down at this point after all these years of different various remedies and it felt like I'm very much close to the border of being cured.

I thought it seems as though the tumors are going down and I maybe cured soon. So now I can start eating sugar but all this time, all these years I wasn't eating any bit of sugar. I thought any damage the sugar does- as you know its fuel for tumors- I will just make up the difference by taking more habareno powder.

8 months latter I found a very large mass in the left side of my chest on my breast. I knew that it was because of eating sugar and disappointed I thought what did I just do it myself?

I was very close to being cured and now I have a very large bump in my chest. By this point my stomach was really damaged from the habanaro powder and I needed a break from it. When my dad saw the bump in my chest he started to panic and he told me to eat a lot of curry, a lot black seed herb, lemon and vinegar on the salads.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back, I have developed a severe ulcer at that point. A year later while typing this I still have the ulcer. What I decided to try next was flaxseed 2 tablespoons of flaxseeds Recently I started to take onion juice of 2 tablespoons with water or with salad. So what I noticed after all these remedies that worked best are two things.

The number one was Habanero powder and number two was onion juice. I suggest that you try those two remedies with black cumin seed oil or with the whole herb.

[everettslife]

Day 17 - 10/5/17 Paris, France - Madrid, Spain

We woke up at 3:30 and called an Uber to get to the airport. I actually wasn't too tired. The airport went smoothly and I slept on the flight over. Boom. We're in Madrid. We go from 50 degree to 85 degree weather. The people here seem way nicer than Paris or Germany. So we had two issues on metro. 1. The ticket machine stole my money and a ticket agent came by to help me get it out. 2. We got out at the wrong exit and a different ticket agent swiped us back in so we didn't have to pay for another ticket. Arrival to the hostel was without incident and wow. It isn't the nicest place but all the staff here are amazing. They're so accommodating and friendly. You can tell that they really love what they do. As of right now they're tied with Copenhagen people for kindest people. We went on a walking tour after we stored our baggage and man. The tour was so dull. There was only 4 people on the tour so we stuck it out for 3.5 hours. It would be too awkward and insulting to him if we just left. I thought it was just me until Eric said he was totally bored too. It takes a lot for Eric to complain something was bad.

One cool thing about the tour was that we tried alcoholic fruits. Apparently bears in the area used to store certain fruits for hibernation but they fermented while the bear slept. By the time the bear ate them, the fruits were fermented enough to be alcoholic and the bears would get drunk. At this point the hunters would find and shoot them because they were easy targets. We tried some wine made from them and it was super sweet. I still don't like wine but if I did, I would probably drink this one. To celebrate finishing the tour we grabbed some calamari sandwiches for 3 euros and it was delicious for the price. Imagine calamari in sandwich bread. It tastes exactly like that. We decide to try some other traditional tapas such as clams, sausage, and Spanish pancake. Spanish pancake is basically fluffy hash browns. I couldn't really tell what else was in there. That meal filled us for a total of.....5.50 euros a person. Food is so cheap here! I love it. After heading back to the hostel to change we took a scenic hike through the city. The part I loved the most was the park. This park was enormous but it was actually a park and less of a tourist attraction. It's literally a forest in the middle of the city and I loved every second of our time there. We probably hung out and walked around for 2 hours. We made it back to the hostel after for our free dinner and to hang out with some other people. We had a great time! There was somebody from LA, Germany, Minnesota, Chile, and Italy. Everybody drank but I held off for tonight. The meal consisted of some sort of noodle salad dish made with noodles, canned tuna, corn, garbanzo beans, olives, tomatoes, and olive oil. This was actually extremely tasty and I had 3 servings of it. I'm probably going to make some of this at home sometime. At 2330 they cleared everybody out for quiet time in the hostel and most people went out to the club and the bar to continue celebrating. I'm pretty peopled out at this point and I just want alone time so I just crawled into bed and enjoyed time by myself. I have my paella making class tomorrow and I'm super excited for that! I'm loving Spain so far and it may or may not top my list for favorite city on the trip so far. Only time will tell. Highlight of the day: The German dude was hilarious and he was telling us how Germany was actually rated the least funny country in the world 30 years in a row. I learned so much about his country and that was cool.

[divorcedsoberginger-blog]

I Just Wanna Eat Cake...Not Cauliflower Rice and Quinoa

I am on an eternal diet.  Always have been, always will be, hence the word 'eternal'.

I know that I will always be watching my weight, not due to the health benefits of staying slim, but for the following reason...

I am a vain woman who is not liking what age is bringing.  Weight being one of them 'bringing' things.  

I know that 'dieting' is not healthy and that I just 'need to change my lifestyle to a healthier lifestyle' (that last bit was said in a really high pitched patronising voice).

I know that it's all about balance...balance....right....

You do know I'm a recovering alcoholic?  Balance?  Yeah, because I'm reeeaaallly good at that concept!  

I know that living on plant based foods will make you live longer, and will make you healthy and strong, and also will keep you slim.

But you see, the thing for me is...if I only live on plant based food for the rest of my life....just what is the bloody point?....please...shoot me now.  

Because that to me sounds sooooo bloody boring, and good food is the ONLY vice I have left.  

I don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't (and can't) drink alcohol,

FFS...Don't take my food away too!?!

I want chocolate.  A family-sized bar of it too, not one of those single-serve ones.   And I want to eat cake...like...with every meal.  

                                            My kind of sandwich...

But...

What I want and what I do are two different things, because as I mentioned before, I am vain, and that 'cake with every meal' is going straight to my fat layer.

Yet another fight on my hands...

'Vanity' versus 'Eating Bad Food'

And I'm not being funny, but here's a question...

Why do we not have that miracle pill yet?  

We can talk to each other face to face on a screen from across the other side of the world, we have spray on skin, 3D TVs, smartphones, and bagless vacuum cleaners, but we don't have a safe 'stop that chocolate going to your thighs' pill?  

And on another note...when DID my 'chocolate going to my thighs' STOP going to my thighs and decide it was all going to go to my middle??  Because that is really attractive....come on 'Life'....give me a break?!

Finally, 'having some fat' is in fashion, and mine is in the wrong place!  Kim Kardashian has brought back fat arses (her one and only gift to this world), and mine disappears into nothing and my original 'now acceptable' pear shape has changed almost overnight to an apple shape.  Really?  Because my 'man hair' problem isn't enough for me to deal with?

I have tried a few fad diets that all obviously didn't work. The minute I stopped them, I put the weight back on.

I have lived on cauliflower rice (still tastes like cauliflower, not like rice, it's just cauliflower that's fancied up a bit).

I have lived on soup, I have lived for on green juice, and I have lived on tuna and salad...you name it, I've lived on it.

Only last year, I lived nearly an entire 6 months on 'chicken and vegetables with gravy' alone.  I lost loads of weight and was even thinking of putting it out as a new fad diet....The Gravy Diet.  

But they are all Fads, and we know that Fad Diets don't work.

Here are some fascinating Fad Diets from over the last 100 years

The 1900's - Being round is fashionable for women.  Whoop! whoop!  But only the affluent could really afford to do this.  Oh bollocks...take back the 'whoop whoop'.  I would have been one of the poor people.

The 1920's - You Smoke Yourself Thin.  Like...obviously... you'll be 'dead-thin' because cigarettes are cancer-sticks.

The 1930's - Grapefruit with every meal. Grapefruits are actually really good for you.  I may add this to my future regime.

The 1940's - Diet the Ice Cream Way.   Sounds perfect for me...but you read a bit more and realise that it's too good to be true, and you are just restricting calories but eating ice cream for all the calories you do consume.

The 1950's - The Tapeworm Diet- Count me in baaabbbby.  I'm well vain enough to do this.  And I love pets!   I'd call him 'Fat Muncher'.  This is something I really could actually do.  

Still in the 1950's - The Cabbage Soup Diet.  I have tried it and could not stop doing cabbage farts.  I was not fun to live with, even I didn't want to live with me through this period.

The 1960's - Weight Watchers was invented.  Tried that.  It can work.  You are restricting calories.

In 1964 - The Drinking Man's Diet.  Yes...This was a real diet.  It says just under the title: 'or how to lose weight with a minimum of willpower (also recommended for ladies and teetotallers)'.  It is just The South Beach diet but with alcohol added into the mix.  Low carb, high protein, and it might just get you joining me in A.A.

The 1970's - The Sleeping Beauty Diet.  Apparently, Elvis was supposed to be a fan.  They tranquillized you so you couldn't eat anything as you were out of your head on drugs, you were literally completely soundo.  It would work....but not a good idea.  

In 1973- The Beautiful People's Diet.  They quote "For heightened perception without drugs, plus rapid weight loss, nothing beats the oldest known treatment for obesity: total starvation."   Holy shitballs.  I can't believe that is a real quote.  But it is.  It would work, but again probably not a good idea.  

In 1977 - Slimfast.  Tried this too.  It can work, but when I tried it I was hungry all the time.

In 1982 - Jane Fonda.   You just put a leotard on, legwarmers and a headband.  You permed your hair, then you exercised your way non-stop through the 80's.   Again, exercise works to a certain degree, as long as you're not eating a burger and chips for every meal with two bottles of wine.

In 1991 - Everything goes low fat.  It is a trick.  Because low fat usually equals high sugar.  But we didn't care and were happy to embrace this fad as it gave us such a great excuse to eat rubbish. You would just reply, "but it's low fat", then eat four low-fat packets of crisps followed by two low-fat trifles washed down with a litre of Diet Coke.  (I still say that phrase ''but they're low fat'' when I'm on my second bag of fruit chews).

In 1992 - Atkins Diet

In 1995 - Zone Diet

In 2000 - Macrobiotic Diet

In 2002 - 'What Would Jesus Eat?'  My fave diet for (comedy value alone).  I'm guessing he ate a lot of fish and drunk a lot of red wine.

In 2004 - South Beach Diet

In 2006 - Master Cleanse (which was a diet that was first introduced in the 1940's), which is mainly consuming maple syrup, cayenne and lemonade.

In 2010 - The Air Diet: Why Eat When You Can Pretend!  To follow this diet, you just pretend to eat your food, you cut it up and hold it to your mouth, then put it back on your plate (because that's not mental?!).  You then live on a salt soup instead.  

In 2011 - Inject yourself with Fertility Hormones......Yeah.....That sounds safe and like it's not going to have any re-occurring problems for your future self?!

In the last six years?  Paleo, Gluten Free, Quinoa, Kale, Juicing, the two come-back queens-Cabbage soup and Grapefruit Diet, the Alkaline diet, The Mediterranean Diet, The Breatharian diet, blah blah blah blah blah.  

I know for a fact that energy in versus energy out is the key to weight loss.  There are a load of other factors too, weight training, what type of calories, when you eat, blah blah blah blah blah.  

I am no expert, and I certainly do not pretend to be, but I what I do know is, you can do four hours of exercise every day, but if you are then having two bottles of wine every night with your dinner...weight loss is not happening for you.  

So what is my point to this blog?  

I HATE that I cannot eat all the nice stuff all the time, but, my pure vanity always wins over my naughty food consumption...so I stay slim.

I eat well in the week, watching my calories, exercising, eating fruit and nuts, don't eat chocolate, don't drink soft drink...

But on that weekend...it's chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner baaabbyyy.  I know it's not ideal, but it's the only way I get to stay slim and still eat my chocolate.  

Vanity? - She gets my weekdays

Eating Bad Foods? - She gets my weekends.

divorced-sober-ginger

[greasentease-blog]

Caffé La Tea: A Restaurant Review

INTRODUCTION

If you walk into a coffee shop today, you’ll find people engaged in an assortment of activities: checking the news, writing essays, reading stories and chatting with friends. Throughout history, these are the ways people have spent their time in coffee houses. We may get our news from the internet instead of a neighbor and write on a laptop instead of on paper. We might read on a Kindle instead listen to a storyteller, text our friends instead of talk with someone next to us and stalk old acquaintances on Facebook instead of people watch. People have always used coffee houses for getting news, exchanging ideas, listening to stories and visiting with friends, though. Even hanging out at a coffee shop for hours while spending almost nothing isn’t new, people would sit in a coffee house all day and only pay a penny for admittance.

BRIEF HISTORY OF COFFEE SHOPS

Coffee houses originated in the Middle East, one of the first places coffee was grown. The documents that we have suggest that coffee houses originated in Mecca in the early 1500s or late 1400s. We don’t know when the first one opened, but they were commonplace enough in the early 1500s that imams banned both coffee houses and coffee from 1512 to 1524. Their concern was chiefly that the political sentiments expressed in coffee houses challenged the current rule. Coffee houses were primarily a place for political gatherings.

Today, coffee houses serve the same purposes they always have: people go to their local cafe to get news, work, read and talk with friends. We people, as mentioned, just engage in these activities online.

 CAFFÉ LA TEA

Love for sumptuous food, creative drinks and a good chat with friends are what Happy, Ermina, Ciarra, and Rona all have in common. As the creative and entrepreneurial minds behind Caffé La Tea, they were inspired by their travel adventures in and out of the country, as well as their memorable food stories along the way.

All these motivated the cousin-sisters-friend group to offer the city something fresh, vibrant and original. Thus, Caffé La Tea was conceptualized with the aim to provide a cozy and lively place for friends to gather and chitchat, while filling their cravings for a great cup of coffee or tea, paired with the perfect dessert. The idea was brought to life in July 2012, built from the ground up with their passion for food, coffee and milk tea—not to mention the endless cheers and encouragement from their friends.

Caffé La Tea cemented its success story with the perfect site along the busy street of Mabini, Cabanatuan City. Literally steps away from two main universities and the provincial hospital, and just hundred meters drive from Maharlika Hi-way, the first Caffé La Tea store is right at the center of its dense target market. Soon, the 100 sqm space was transformed to what was bound to be the “homegrown tea and coffee pride” of Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija.

Located in KM14 MacArthur Highway, Malinta, Valenzuela City, Caffé la tea has its branches that open everyday from 11 am - 10 pm. Walking into Caffé La Tea instantly brings you a sense of comfort and positive energy. The cafe mixes the simplicity and earthy warmth of a bodega, made comfy with modern interior design. Retro-modern lighting pendant lights bring balance and details between the bare floors and the spacious ceilings. The walls come alive with tasteful art pieces, and shelves filled with familiar things that remind you of home. The staffs are very accommodating and kind. They can change your mood because of the smiles on their faces and the feeling of they are enjoying their job. For coffee lovers, you should try their different kind of espresso, I'm sure you will love it. Their other meals seem to look tasty (based on my observations because I won't able to try it). All affordable! Their pricing is somehow competitive to other local themed coffee shops but overall, it is very affordable. A cozy place, good food and refreshing drinks, Caffe La Tea delivers on these, so it’s no wonder why everyone tends to have a great time here.

Moving on to their products offered, Caffe La Tea has a very extensive menu and it can be tough deciding what to order. For the drinks, some of their favorites are the CLT Houseblend, which is hot coffee with secret blend; the Toffee Nut Blender; and the creatively named Americano Meets Tokyo, chilled espresso and matcha blended in milk and ice.

The menu also has a long list of dishes that range from salads to affordable rice meals. We started with the Crispy Baked Wings with chili-chili flavor. I couldn’t get enough of its addictive spicy sauce.

Both the salads – the Asian and Okinawa – I’m also delightful, with fresh vegetables and delicious dressing. They may be light dishes, but they’re filling and flavorful. They provide healthy counterpoints to all the calories we can’t help but consume.

The Tuna Sandwich is the perfect companion for those who need to chow on something while reading a book.

The Pomodoro & Meatballs, with its sweet tomato sauce and huge chunks of meatballs, should be a winner for kids, while the Creamy Chicken Pesto is meant to satisfy those looking for a less conventional but still familiar take on pasta.

The rice toppings are crowd-drawers, too, with the cafe drawing on classic Filipino favorites. The dishes are flavorful and don’t skimp on servings, they are really value for money when you think about it. A cozy place, good food and refreshing drinks, Caffe La Tea delivers on these, so it’s no wonder why everyone tends to have a great time here.

As I tried to talk to one of their staffs, espresso con pana is their best selling coffee which is an espresso with milk and some whipped cream on top. But, as their advice, I should try this beverage last. I tried first their one of the best selling milktea named Ooooooreos. As you notice in its name, it is a milktea with plenty of Oreos. I love Oreos so it made me excited how it tastes like. This Ooooooreos didn't disappoint me. It taste so good, you can taste the Oreos in every sip of this beverage and also the taste of the tea is not overpowering the entire milktea. The taste of Oreos and tea are balanced as well as the sweetness is also balanced, not so sweet and not so tasteless. Finally, I ordered their espresso con pana. I got excited because they told me that this is their bestseller. When I saw it, it looks so delicious. I'm not a coffee lover but when I tasted it, there is only one thing that I said to myself. I will buy it again when I return in this shop.

RATING

I believe that there is always a room for improvement even though a shop like this is already a hit. In a score out of 10, I will give Caffé La Tea a 9 because of their good ambiance, affordable prices, good service and delicious food.

 By: Jake F. Dagoy 

Pictures: https://ourvalenzuela.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/caffe-la-tea/

[3one3]

The Sequel - 810

How Long

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“What’s that delicious smell?”

“A whole salmon with honey, lemon, and garlic. I hope you’re hungry.”

“I’m hungry, but I don’t know if I’m eat-a-whole-salmon hungry. How much salmon are we talking about?”

“Like...this much...maybe?”

André smiled at Christina’s “diligent face” while she tried to demonstrate the dimensions of the large piece of fish she found in the fresh market. Stefanie and Kyle were trying to work on their cooking skills, so after everyone did their riding on Saturday morning they convinced their coach to go shopping with them for ingredients to make “something good that we can eat for a few days”. They spent a lot of cash on dressing up their apartment and were spending quite a bit on eating out too. They wanted to eat healthier and cheaper, and not have to drive so much. Their place was not close to the barn at all. Extra driving on top of the commute was not appreciated. Stefanie was used to oatmeal, salads, and really basic dinners. Kyle was used to buying out the ready-made section at the grocery store, being taken out by his parents, and having their in-house cook prepare things for him to take home from family dinner. Christina detected some collaborative motivation going on, as if the two young riders were inspired to do better in the kitchen because it could be a team effort and maybe that was better than judging each other for their regular eating and cooking habits.

Their motivation worked out to her benefit, because they found out about a great fresh foods market in the city. They bought three nice looking Pink salmon, which were “whole” but not “wholly intact”, meaning they were ready to cook, no trimming necessary, a 6lb chuck roast, and tons of produce. Their riding trainer walked Stefanie and Kyle through two meals right in her own kitchen while everyone watched Dortmund lose by two goals to one at Hertha Berlin. She showed them how to make a hearty beef stew with onions, carrots, potatoes, turnips, and green beans, and graciously allowed them to take it home in one of her Dutch oven pots, then they made two of the fish, the same way the third one was cooking when André got home from the airport. It was baked in foil first with a liberal helping of the sauce made from coconut oil, raw honey, lemon juice, and garlic, and then caramelized quickly under the broiler. The explanation he got for the quantity of fish was the same as they got.

“You eat it hot tonight and then you can have it cold in a salad tomorrow, or even in an omelette, and Lukas loves it cold with anything. I can even mix it with some plain yogurt and onion and celery and give it to him like tuna salad for a sandwich,” Christina told him. As Stefanie and Kyle came to understand, there are tons of ways to eat leftover salmon for a few days. Christina had no intention of eating any of it, but she also got a bunch of other food at the colorful, bountiful, and reasonably priced market, so she had plenty to eat before she even got started on the footballer’s fish.

“Okay,” he laughed. It was quite novel for him to see his girl back in “I want to do nice things for you” mode. He liked it when she tried to be the perfect housewife, not because he valued housewife behavior but because she was always cute about it, and she wanted to take care of her people for her own satisfaction rather than some obligation. He was also just glad that she wasn’t bursting at the seams to deliver a lecture about his team’s performance, which was lethargic, inefficient, and careless. Tuchel committed the same crime as many others before him. He tried to rotate, but instead of changing one or two players and still preserving the balance, system, and shape of his team, he made three changes and changed everything. The system they started with was dysfunctional and made no use of anyone’s talents or strengths, Matze Ginter made a typical Matze Ginter mistake and gave up a goal, they got their act together with a major tactical overhaul at half time, Auba got an equalizer, things were finally coming good, Tuchel used substitutions to overload in attack, his defenders were exposed on the break and gave up many free kicks, and Hertha scored a winner from one of them. André missed a chance in the first two minutes because he was overeager and desperate to prove himself. Auba missed a clear chance set up from some great team play. Other opportunities were not capitalized on. André wasn’t happy with himself, with the teammates who missed his better runs or couldn’t make something of the chances he created for them, and the manager, for not figuring out sooner than the way he set his team out was useless and duly changing the system to get his two forwards more involved. He knew Christina must have wanted to break the TV throughout that game, and he was mostly right. She paid as much attention as she could while tutoring her riders in the basics of stews.

“Go change if you want. It’s done in two minutes,” she advised in the spacious foyer. It had its own wood-burning fireplace.

“Mausi isn’t still up, is he?” The BVB man leaned to the left for a more complete view of the living room behind her.

“He had the last of the pot pies and pot-pie-passed out. In the highchair. With his cup in his hand.” His wife imitated their son’s posture when he couldn’t wait for her to finish making the sauce for the fish on the stove, and just got a head start on bedtime. She then shoved him by the waist toward the stairs and told him to hurry up. He took two steps and then paused to watch her literally prance through the living room in her furry slippers. Christina was just in a hurry to get to the broiler and make sure she didn’t overcook her fish, but André read it as excitement. He thought she was that happy to have him home again.

He’d been involved in a repair campaign since she made it clear to him on Thursday that she was lonely and bored because he was hardly home, and not just because she missed London, had no close friends around to do things with, and had little on her work schedule beyond regular riding and teaching. They went out for dinner that night, and he talked her into saving her riding for the afternoon on Friday so that they could hang out with Lukas at home until he had to go to Brackel and the team hotel. Some small courtesies were part of his effort to make his wife feel more at home. For example, he programmed an easy to navigate to set of favorites on the TV with all the pertinent UK-originated channels so that she could find all her regular shows without having to browse through all the domestic channels. He texted more too while he was away. Significant football match or no significant football match, he wanted to make Christina want to be home more than she wanted to go back to London. There was still no sex, but she was at least a little warmer to him while he was there. Her eyes weren’t so empty or sad.

There was a plate on the counter for him with a big section of the delicate but meaty pink fish, dark orange and almost crisp on top, moist and tender inside. It was garnished with the remnants of two lemon slices from the packet it cooked in, fresh parsley, and coarse ground pepper. There was also brown rice and a pile of greens dressed in the sweet and lightly acidic honey, lemon, and garlic sauce. It smelled even better than when it was in the broiler, and much to André’s delight, there were two glasses of white wine at the tall stools.

“You ate already, Prinzessin?”

“I had the same with but with broiled chicken breast. Sit. Eat,” Christina ordered. She was refilling the dogs’ water bowl.

“Sit with me.”

“I’m going to.”

“This looks very nice. Did you try it? Salmon is a fish you pretend to tolerate when other people feed it to you.”

“No, but I made it earlier with Kyle and Stef too and they had it for dinner and loved it. I don’t know how hungry you are, but there’s more rice and more salad.”

“I just ate after the match a few hours ago, so this is plenty. Cheers, pretty girl.” André clinked his glass of chilled Viognier with hers when she climbed into the tall wooden stool beside his. The new ones had backs to them, and were more comfortable than the more humble and basic round ones of their old place. They were also a greater ask to sit in since the eating part of the vast island was raised a few inches above the work surface part and they were tall to compensate. She took a big gulp of her favorite wine and then watched on with anticipation as the player sampled the salmon.

His attempts to improve the current state of their relationship were not unnoticed. Christina appreciated them even though they didn’t do much for her core problems. Missing Juan was still difficult. Believing things would get markedly better with her partner was still difficult. Accepting that different isn’t automatically worse was still difficult. And it still felt like the life she wanted to live was the one that happened when she was with the Spaniard, no matter which country that happened in. Those times were “good” life, and all the travel and back and forth with André was the “bad” life. Settled in Dortmund wasn’t as good as the “good” yet. It was closer to the “bad”. The Londoner was trying to open herself up to feeling good about those things- to remain ready to receive a positive feeling instead of constantly expecting only negative. And it was killing her that André was hurting because of her. He wasn’t just annoyed, or frustrated, or hurrying past that which he didn’t want to acknowledge in favor of getting closer to that which he did. He was actively upset about the state of their relationship too. It was painful for him too despite his questions about it surely being different from Christina’s.

And then there was football. Whether he was or wasn’t putting enough person pressure on himself, she saw him unhappy about his performances and contributions much more often than he was happy. Making dinner for him was supposed to provide an avenue to celebrate a great appearance. The ginger bearded forward was supposed to justify his inclusion and shut up all the doubters. Instead he blew that early chance and set the wrong tone for the whole match. The commentators said he should have done better. His wife thought they didn’t look that closely. He had to rush the shot. A defender almost got a toe on it. He didn’t have all day. It was probably his second touch of the match, after the first one to take it into space to get the shot off. They harped on it through the whole game. At one point he was in a good spot in the box and literally slipped and fell down while trying to get on the end of a cross. It was unlikely he’d get to it anyway, but it still looked bad and no doubt had critics facepalming. Blaming André for club problems was becoming quite popular among a subset of the fans and many of the established bloggers. He did the post-match interviews and said they lost due to small details, and that he wasn’t blaming anyone. He said it was a frustrating afternoon. His wife didn’t see or hear frustration coming from him. All she saw was sadness and disappointment. During the game, that frustration was real. It bubbled over into a late challenge at one point. During the brief periods when everyone had some rhythm going, and interplay was quick and purposeful, André looked pretty strong and capable. Christina was sure he thought he was going to get a chance to make up for the early miss. He even had a good shot just before being subbed late on, missing only by inches. His girl knew that sadness and dejection and disappointment. Her fancy salmon became a consolation dinner.

“I know I say this every time you make something new, but you are the best wife,” the target of her culinary therapy nodded while he chewed. “This is fantastic. I’m gonna want this all the time now.” I have like half of the wife perks back now, he added to himself. Tonight, I want the sex part back. She is so ugh, nom when she prances around in the boyshorts and her slippers. I’ve hardly seen her legs since she moved in.

“Well it’s very easy to make and it takes 20 minutes total so you can have it whenever you like. I got tons of berries and fruit today too.”

“So you had a good day, yeah? You said the horses were all happy to work outside?”

“Mhm. How about you, boyfriend?” Christina took a smaller sip from her glass and then turned her lip over in a sympathetic pout. “Do you want to talk about the game?”

“Not really. I could have been better, everyone else could have been better, and Tuchel could have been better. I bet you already know how I feel about it,” André shrugged, eyes on his food. Getting the rice, the fish, and the bitter leaves all together made for a really nice bite. I would rather discuss the food. When I say I know she knows how I feel already what I really mean is I hope she does, because she used to be good at that, and because I don’t want to have to spell it out. I can tell she’s not in the mood to do “I told you so”, or she just knows I don’t want to hear it, he thought as he felt a small hand arrive near the middle of his back. So maybe she knows what’s up with me better than I know what’s up with her lately.

“I don’t understand why he chooses to play Matze when Papa is out. Like, don’t take out the best defender you have and put in the worst. If you need to give Matze playing time, put him next to Julian, or if it has to be at center back then do it when Papa is playing and he’s protected.”

“I don’t know. Where you going?” the player asked unhappily when he realized the comforting hand lifted from his back and its owner was sliding off her seat.

“To put the rest of the fish away. I need to get in the shower so my hair has time to dry before bed. Excessive vegetable peeling, chopping, and juicing makes my arms tired. I can’t hold a dryer.” Christina shot her “poor me” face over her shoulder at him at the same time as her phone vibrated where she left it on the counter.

“What about your wine?” What about sitting with me while I eat, André complained in silence, reaching for the device.

“Cute picture. Didn’t you say you slept all the time as a baby and your mum couldn’t wake you up to eat?” he read from the message preview while she assured him she’d finish her drink later. Did she take a picture of Mausi passed out in his chair and send it to him and not me? That’s not nice. He tapped in her passcode so that he could look at the context in which the message was sent, and sure enough his wife had sent his old teammate a photo of their little boy looking a bit like a drunk, hugging his drink to his chest but completely out. There was a picture before that of two big pieces of fish just like the one the German was eating. He glanced guiltily up at Christina’s back, checking to see how close she was to being done trying to cut the salmon into pieces she could stack in a large plastic container. Spying on her text conversations always felt a little intrusive to him, whether there was anything to hide in them or not. It made him feel like an overly protective parent checking up on a child, firstly, which was disrespectful to his grown up wife, and then he felt like a controlling husband, which made him ask himself if he had doubts about her truthfulness. He didn’t. He trusted her. He had to. So checking up on that trust didn’t feel right. He closed the messaging app and opened her photos instead, because he could justify that in a less distrusting way. He could argue, to himself mostly, that he just wanted to see what else he’d missed the photo-documentation of that perhaps the Spaniard hadn’t.

What he saw created a shuddering pain in his chest. There were tons of recent photos she never shared with him. Some weren’t meaningful to him anyway, like shots of her horses in their new home, Spencer and Lucky sleeping together in one of their cubby beds in the tack room, and disorganized mountains of moving boxes. Then there were pictures that did matter- tons of landscape shots of Mallorcan scenery, sleepy selfies his girl took while leaning on a chest that wasn’t his, “outfit of the day” type shots he knew she never posted on social media or anything, cute Lukas things like him sitting in a saddle on a saddle rack or leading one of the horses in the barn, and most concerning, selfies with more than just Juan’s headless torso. There were a handful of photos of them making silly faces together, or Christina kissing him. There were photos of just the other player by himself. None of it was limited to just one trip to see him or anything like that, and they weren’t even all photos she took herself. She’d collected photos from Sweden from the professional photographers, including her champagne spraying but also her hugging Juan outside the ring, and Juan in some kind of standoff with Dirk. The Spanish midfielder was wearing her horse show backpack and holding her show coat over one arm with a plastic cup of something in his hand, and Dirk clearly wanted whatever was in the cup. He had his bridle and ear net on, and his ears were back. He didn’t get as far as the mirror picture of Juan holding and kissing his naked wife. He didn’t need to. Everything after that was bad enough. The hurt in his heart mixed with sickness and he didn’t want to eat anymore.

“Can you put the lids on these containers when you’re done eating?” she asked without turning around. “I don’t want to cover them while the fish is still warm. I used two separate containers so that they would finish cooling faster.”

“How long have you been in love with Juan again?” André asked back plainly. He heard something fall in the sink next to her. She takes selfies when she feels good about herself, or her thinks her makeup is really good. She only saves horse show pictures when the show meant something to her. She used to send me tons of Mausi photos- even uninteresting ones of him doing nothing- and I’ve never seen any of these. Who is she taking pictures of herself in the mirror for if not me and if not to post for her sponsors or whatever? They’re for him, he concluded for the second time since browsing her album. The rider briefly panicked, and dropped the pie server she’d been using to pick up the fish, assuming the noise made by her phone was Juan texting her something that wasn’t meant for André’s eyes. Her heart beat loud enough to hear it in her ears for a few seconds, and then the sound and the sensation quickly evaporated, replaced by something like relief.

“I’m not really sure,” she admitted, her back still to her partner. She was sure being rid of a sort of secret made her feel lighter on her feet. Each time she tried to talk to André about the core problems she believed had taken root in their relationship, she left out the fact that there was an outside influence at play too. She never framed any of her complaints or explanations in the context of the alternative she had going on- in context of the relationship that was highlighting all the ways her marriage was damaged and unsatisfying in that moment. The rider never really felt guilty about not giving André 100% of the details of the time she spent with Juan. She never felt guilty for not saying “You’re doing this, that, and the other thing all wrong and he does it right”, because she didn’t want it to be a contest. But she did feel like she was keeping something from everybody, and her partner had just nailed it. At some point, she went from loving her best friend to being in love with him again, despite her constant reassurances to herself that she wasn’t doing that, and wasn’t crossing a line, or giving to the Spaniard that which was supposed to be reserved for the other one- that thing that was supposed to demarcate the difference between her relationships with the two. She promised André that Juan wouldn’t become her partner. He wanted something reserved for him. Her hold on that gave out at some point.

“You told me a long time ago that you were trying to keep yourself away from him when things got too intense because you want to be with me, and didn’t want to put yourself in a situation that could lead to hurting us. So if you’re not doing that anymore, and you’re going on trips with him and having him at your horse shows, and being with him enough that you fall for him again, should I take that to mean you don’t want us to be together anymore?” he asked, tone still plain and steady. Christina squeezed her eyes shut for a second and then blinked a bunch of times, preparing herself to be completely honest. She was too chicken to personally shoot out the thread she believed her marriage was hanging on, but she wasn’t too chicken to load the gun and hand it to André. She’d tell him the truth and if it upset him enough, then it was he who would put an end to everything and not her.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I want us to be together no matter what anymore because I don’t know if either of us even likes being together anymore. I know that it’s so hard with you right now and it shouldn’t be. We’re finally in one place and everything should be great, and it’s not. It’s so easy with him. I feel good when I’m with him, and...I miss him when I’m not. I’m happy with him. You and I haven’t been happy together for more than a week at a time since last June, and even that was kind of an anomaly. Honestly, it’s not even a comparison situation anymore. It’s not like “which one is better?” It’s more like...I feel so good with him that it’s hard to ignore it. I used to just hang out with him all the time because I needed to get away from us fighting all the time. Now I want to be around him because...it’s just nice. Even when you and I aren’t actively involved in a war. It has nothing to do with you and me anymore. I go to him for him now, instead of going there for not-you, if you get what I mean. I don’t know. I can’t stop talking and I know it’s hurting you so can you say something so I can shut up? I don’t know. I guess the actual answer to your question is that I do still want us to be together, because I am here, and I am trying to give us a chance still, the way you asked me to.”

“But you’re not committed enough to giving it a chance that you keep yourself away from something that hurts that chance. Can you turn around? You can’t say these things to my face?” The BVB man put her phone down and took a sip of his wine and his girl did an about-face across the counter with a towel in her hands and a sorry, sad look on her face.

“I was hating it here when he asked me to go back for the match,” she explained, steady rather than protesting, or defensive. “It was before we talked the other day. I wanted to go back and be somewhere I’m happy for a day so that I wouldn’t just keep getting more frustrated and bored and lonely here. I had no plans to go anywhere until Omaha, because I know just leaving isn’t giving us a chance.”

“I don’t know why you can’t just tell me that something is wrong and give me a chance to help improve it. I don’t know why you have to just keep it to yourself and wait for me to figure it out while you run off and hide from it.”

“I did tell you. I told you on Thursday, and you have made it better. He asked me to come to the game an hour before we talked.”

“Yes, because you decided to tell him about it first. You called him when you were unhappy instead of me.”

“You were at training.”

“There was a time when you would have decided to wait and speak to me first, is all I’m saying. Protecting us used to be your priority.”

“And all that got me was 7 months of unhappiness and terrible riding. Sometimes I have to protect myself first, babe. Once in a while I have to put myself first instead of us, otherwise it actually gets harder for us.”

“Fine.” André picked up his fork and went back to his dinner. If the temperature of his fish were any indication, he wouldn’t have to wait very long to cover the leftovers. Christina even heated his plate first before putting the food on it, so the stuff in the containers was probably even colder. He had things to consider, and he didn’t want to hear any additional input from her. He wasn’t going to conclude that it was his fault that his girl was falling for someone else, but he wasn’t going to blame her for it either. For one thing, he gave her his blessing to have almost any kind of relationship with Juan that she wanted. For another, it wasn’t like things between them were great and she was still looking for something else. Christina was trying to tell him that it almost was like that, actually, because she really did believe she just loved being with the Spaniard and it had nothing to do with her husband, but he refused to believe that. Things were not good for them, and she was like pressure. She always sought to equalize herself. She’d always reach out for something good to counteract that which made her feel bad. Her husband knew his decisions and behavior over the previous year were responsible for the bad. Even before they decided to leave London, he stopped really engaging with her career and her passion, and that started the fights that existed in the background when it was time to start figuring out their future and the future of his career. He saw that when they began their horse show holiday. And he wasn’t like Juan. He didn’t believe that the strength of a relationship should lie in how it adapts to tough times. He believed it wasn’t fair to judge anything when their lives were so abnormal. For 7 months he’d been telling himself and his wife that they would be fine once they were together, and he needed that to happen for more than a week before he was willing to accept that their relationship couldn’t work anymore. Christina’s growing closer to his old friend did hurt him, a lot. He hated hearing everything she said. He’d fought through worse to hang onto her though, and he still wanted to hang on.

“Fine?”

“Chris, you haven’t been in love with me the way your phone pictures show you’re in love with him for like a year. Maybe until recently you just weren’t in love with anybody that way, and now it’s him. Or last spring you were in love with your career, and then no one, and now him. Whatever. I can’t really expect anything else when we haven’t been together enough in that time to be in love like we used to be. You have to do things together to be in love, and we don’t. Maybe I haven’t been in love with you for a long time either. I’ve always had to share you with the horses and with him. It’s fine. We start a new chapter now and as long as we treat each other like we want to be in love again, and we make decisions that go with that, then we’ll be good together again. That’s what I want. Like we said last week. The alternative is to separate, and then I don’t get what I want. So even though it’s hard, there is only one choice to take to possibly get what I want,” he finished up levelly, almost detached.

[theblessedseed-blog]

I Tried to Treat Cancer with Black Cumin Seed Oil

I like to share my experience using Black cumin seed oil and black seed herb to try to treat my Hodgkin's lymphoma that I was diagnosed with when I was 14 years old and I'm 26 years old now. The disease is still there and I used a great deal of many different natural remedies after trying very strong chemo and 3 ( 20 session rounds of radiation).

 I'd like to share all the different remedies that I tried in order to try to guide someone who may be experiencing a form of cancer and would like to try a natural solution. Before I talk about what I tried I'd like to mention and say that I don't have a cure and I can't actually tell you that this is a cure. I tried a great deal of different remedies and  herbs, spices, different kind of drinks; so I tested many different things and here's what I found out.  

 After taking chemo on and off for three years and radiation in 2011 I found a hard bump in the left side of my neck. By that point I decided that if the disease comes back and I even mentioned this to my doctor two years before that I am not going to take any chemo or radiation, I will now try natural remedies. 

 Typically whenever I find a lump or bump and the symptom of itching, the doctor would say you need to CT-scan and PT-scan. Even the littlest bump he would always say this, but this time he said I'm not concerned even though I have the same symptoms I had originally which was severe itchiness all over the body and the bump felt bigger than the original one in my neck in the beginning. I think because he knew I wouldn't be taking any chemo and he didn't want to expose his field. 

 I also had a small one on the other side and multiple ones under my chin. I was sure the disease had returned and I decided and accepted that it's there and I decided I need to try to treat it naturally. Around that time I wanted to go on a trip to Mecca to make umrah, and it was a dream that I had all my life and even though I did not feel healthy, I thought if I don't go now I may feel sicker and not be able to go latter. 

 As you all may know Saudi Arabia is a very complicated country and requests many different things and a very complicated country to deal with. After all the struggles we left, I drank zamzam water in the mosque and drank a gallon worth and the bump did not go down whatsoever. 

 After coming back I was starting to panic and I was depressed and I didn't really know what to do. I kept contacting Herbalist or Islamic herbalists to try to get a remedy and all of them were not replying. I knew of the black cumin seed oil of course from the hadith of the prophet that says black seed is cure for all diseases but death. I tried it before and did not feel better but this time I thought maybe I did not give enough time so let me try again. 

 I took about two tablespoons based on what a Muslim doctor told me, and I asked him did you test this dosage and he said no. I said so why did you tell me two? He said it's just a guess I came out of my head lol. Meaning based on nothing, and he said you can try your own remedy that you make and see what works. 

 So I just went with the general dosage that he gave me and I used to take it down with orange juice and it tasted absolutely disgusting. I would grind the seeds in a coffee grinder otherwise I would literally choke to death. I tried it for some time and itchiness wasn't going down, I even found some of the lumps were getting bigger or spreading. I already knew that when I would take back seed by itself it was not really working and I concluded by that point that I don't know the proper dosage and usage for it to work. 

 So I kept searching for different remedies and I was literally stuck and didn't know what to do. So I found a herbalist on YouTube talking about a certain remedy, and the herbs that he mentioned I know have anticancer affects and I know about them from my own reading so I thought why not give it a try. It was that you would combine Cumin, Curry, Garlic, Carrots, Celery, and a few other things in a soup and then drink it. I tried that and of course, I didn't get any improvement.

 I kept on searching very, very hard for other remedies and I stumble upon the lady who claimed that she killed her stage four cancer with carrot juice. I heard before about carrot juice having anticancer effects and I thought okay, this is the answer for me. I told my parents that I need to try this remedy and buy me a huge bag of carrot juice.  And a few days later they did and I started the remedy of juicing carrots. 

 I would drink a large 32 glass cup every day and I did that for eight months. What I found was that it seemed that the tumors were slowing down in growth and spreading less and the one in my neck was slightly smaller but not that much. And the itchiness was not all that better. I forgot to mention I was drinking a large cup of green tea every single day for about a year and also found that it was slowing down the growth of the tumors and made them smaller slightly but not that much and likewise the itchiness was not that much better. 

 So I decided to stop those two remedies and search for new remedy. This is now 2014 and I had severe bone pain. It was so bad that I almost concluded that it must've spread now to my bones and I was almost accepted that fact. I was crying and begging God to help me cure the severe bone pain and direct me to a remedy if not to cure it, just give me relief. 

 A few days later while was searching online, I found a man who claimed he had advanced testicular cancer and he said that have Habanero cured it. He said that is a very, very spicy pepper. I researched some medical sites to see if it could be possibly true that peppers have anti-cancer affects. I found that a certain ingredient known as Caspian is in fact a ingredient in peppers that have anticancer affects. This was all new to me, I never heard that peppers or hot peppers have anti cancer affects. 

 I knew they were healthy and my parents told me they are good for the immune system, but I never knew they have anticancer affects. I also read that it has anti-pain effects and it's a natural painkiller. I thought okay, I hit two bones with one stone, I get rid of tumors and reduce the severe bone pain. I already had cayenne pepper in my home so I started to use that and I would put them in gelatin capsules. And I did it as a test to see if it would reduce my bumps and remember at that point, that the cancer must have spread to the bones because of the severe bone pain that I had. 

 So after the first dose or a few doses I felt a improvement with the bone pain, and I thought wow! this actually worked. I feel the severe bone pain is better. That means this it is so strong that it is even able to kill tumors in the bones that means it will likely be able to help me. Then after a few hours the pain would come back.  I concluded that what must be happening is the Caspian must be reducing the bone pain due to the natural painkilling effect. The bone pain was likely due to low Vitamin D I latter found out after I treated it with long period of sun exposure.  

 I didn't feel much improved with the itchiness or the sizes of the bumps. I thought okay let's try the powder so I bought some. It is one of the hottest peppers in the world but I didn't know it is literally a volcano. I filled 4 gelatin capsules as I did in the past for black cumin seed oil and filled them to the brink and took them all in one shot on an empty stomach. After that I ate a salad and as you know water makes spicy foods more spicy. At first it didn't feel too bad, just a slight burn or sting in the stomach but wasn't too bad. Then I went to go eat my dinner or lunch, which was canned tuna or sardines with sauce and as you know sauce also makes spicy food more spicy. 

 The first bite I felt like my guts were being torn to shreds and I was gonna vomit. I went running into the bathroom and I was moaning and groaning and my mom said it sounded like somebody giving birth. I heard my sister laughing and talking as if nothing is happening while I almost die and I pray that she feels the worst type of pain one day while everyone laughs as if nothing is happening. 

 Despite my Cancer she cut me off for years and my other sister as well and I hope and pray that they will be thrown into the flames of hell forever. My mom kept asking how much did you take? I kept telling her get the milk! I am gonna die, and she kept asking how much did you take? And she didn't have any consideration of the severe pain that I was in. My dad was traveling to see his mom at the time and mom doesn't drive and my sibling at the time couldn't drive and she said where will I take you? 

 After that she took my Habanero powder and she said don't use it until my dad comes back. So I started using cayenne and overall there was no improvement with the bump sizes or itchiness and I started to develop bad cramping in my abdomen. After my dad came back and I went back to use that and I kept getting severe stomach pain that I got the first time, sort of the same but not exactly as bad. I would get that pain many times and I kept taking it for about 6 months. Then I moved on to buy black cumin seed oil. I need to try something different because habareno is too harsh to the stomach and it could cause me a ulcer or poisoning or something. 

 So I bought a 16 ounces bottle of black seed oil and I tried that as a remedy. The first place that I bought from was a company known as piping rocking. I bought from them because they were the cheapest price that I can find online and if it's cheap it may not be good but it may not be bad either. I did not have any other option so that's what I tried. I kept buying from them for about six months and I found some of the tumors were bigger and spreading. The itchiness is not any better either so I decided to try another company, the more popular one which was amazingherbs. I tried them for about a year but it was not any better- it was just kind of stay the same. 

 After that I decide to stop and try to search for new remedy. I went back to the Habanero powder and I took a smaller dose and I just kept on doing that until I was able to find some other remedy. I kept doing that for about a year and at this point I started to eat sugar. I started to feel like the tumors were going down at this point after all these years of different various remedies and it felt like I'm very much close to the border of being cured. 

 I thought it seems as though the tumors are going down and I maybe cured soon. So now I can start eating sugar but all this time, all these years I wasn't eating any bit of sugar. I thought any damage the sugar does- as you know its fuel for tumors- I will just make up the difference by taking more habareno powder.

 8 months latter I found a very large mass in the left side of my chest on my breast. I knew that it was because of eating sugar and disappointed I thought what did I just do it myself? 

 I was very close to being cured and now I have a very large bump in my chest. By this point my stomach was really damaged from the habanaro powder and I needed a break from it. When my dad saw the bump in my chest he started to panic and he told me to eat a lot of curry, a lot black seed herb, lemon and vinegar on the salads. 

 That was the straw that broke the camel's back, I have developed a severe ulcer at that point. A year later while typing this I still have the ulcer. What I decided to try next was flaxseed 2 tablespoons of flaxseeds Recently I started to take onion juice of 2 tablespoons with water or with salad. So what I noticed after all these remedies that worked best are two things.

 The number one was Habanero powder and number two was onion juice. I suggest that you try those two remedies with black cumin seed oil or with the whole herb.