Mutinous Musings on Hairdressers ....

Yesterday I had to go to the hairdressers again.  I hate going to the hairdressers! With a vengeance!

But there is is, every two months or so I drag myself in and endure the routine.  Yesterday it was worse than usual, because my regular hairdresser, a charming lady in every way, was replaced by a young man who was overeager and keen to please ....

I hate everything about the process.  First you have to make an appointment, and argue with a silly young person who has only been there for a week and is completely clueless.  No I don't want to book for the next three appointments, just the one.  No I can't come in during the week - if I could I wouldn't have asked to come in on Saturday.  No, opening late won't help me - 18:00 is no good since I don't get back until after that from my work, thanks all the same.  It has to be Saturday, with my regular stylist.  No I am not going to take a day off work to come in on a Wednesday.  It is Broken Record Technique all the way, really, if you say often enough what you want, eventually they relent and give you the appointment you want.  Sometimes you have to threaten to go elsewhere.....

So Saturday I marched into the salon, fortified with a good breakfast and having read all about the Greek crisis, just to put my impending sufferings into perspective - let the pain begin!

First they put you into special clothing and try to divest you from your purse.  My purse!  The receptacle of all my money, credit cards, keys, passport, asthma inhaler - and I am supposed to relinquish that to some giddy young person who can't even spell my name right?  No way! Then they wrap a towel around your throat and secure it by stuffing it into the neckline of your top, thus widening it and spoiling the line - I now always wear my oldest clothes when going to the hairdressers.

In a bad mood I follow the shampooist into the back of the salon, to get my hair washed.  I already washed it this morning, barely two hours ago, but that isn't good enough, no Sirree!  They must wash it again.  They do this by making you put your head backwards into a bowl, thus cricking your neck and causing muscle spasms.  Every so often they ask you to lift your head - like, HOW?  So I use my hands to lift up my head, only to be told to put it back.  By now I am a growling hissing menace.  The shampooist tries to insist on washing my hair twice and conditioning it to within an inch of its life, which would result in limp hair for a week, and I protest.  If they argue, I snarl and threaten to leave the wretched chair.

Usually they acquiesce, and proceed with their next horror - massaging my scalp.  Did I asked for this?  How dare a complete stranger take liberties with my intimate body parts in this fashion?  Couldn't they at least ask?  Everyone likes this, they claim.  I doubt it.  People just get taken by surprise and don't want to make a fuss, so they let the apprentice hairdresser take out their excess energy on their roots.  Me, I am never afraid to make a fuss when it comes to protecting my personal space.

Visibly shaken the shampooist asks whether she might be permitted to add conditioner to my hair.  What sort, I inquire suspiciously - I am not going to give her another session of head back-bending.  It is the sort that remains in the hair, apparently, so I allow her to put it on.  She surreptitiously tries to do a bit of massaging while putting it on, but I cast her an outraged look and she desists.

Throughout this struggle I also have to rebuff numerous attempts from the shampooist to entangle me in meaningless conversation.  Why does she want to know where I am from, why my accent is funny, where I work, what I have planned for the weekend, etc etc?  Can't she just wash my hair quietly and leave me to my thoughts?  She cannot.  She witters and chatters and fails to get the hint that I am no more interested in her boyfriend than in telling her about my own sex life.  Why would I be?  She is a complete stranger, for goodness sake!

Finally she takes off the towel and sends me on my way.  I have to wait for a few minutes before my stylist has time, which is fine.  What is not fine is having numerous people come by offering to bring me coffee, biscuits, newspapers, magazines, and glasses of water.  Such offers are good when I have to wait for a while, say if I arrive early, or if I have streaks done and have to sit in my chair for 20 minutes.  But waiting for three minutes until my stylist arrives?  Am I supposed to drink piping hot coffee in two minutes flat, before the hair-cutting commences?  Do they expect me to interrupt the snipping every few minutes to take another sip from my glass of water?  Show some sense, people!

Finally the stylist arrives, full of good cheer and anxious to make a good impression; I hate him already.  He introduces himself and tells me about his life.  I don't care.  He asks how I want my hair cut.  I like it as it is, just shorter, please.  This is never good enough, unless you always go to the same stylist.  For stylists like to experiment. They want to unfold their creative talents on your head and turn you into a different person.  I always resist this, I am good enough as I am.  Stylists rely on the shampooists to break your spirit, they think by the time you fall into their hands you have no strength left to fight your corner, and they can do what they want with your hair.

This never works with me.  I always stand up for my defenseless follicles, and am impervious to charm, flirting, admonitions, references to fashion, and celebrity examples.  This stylist claims he can't tell from my current hairdo what it was like two months ago.  I quote several previous stylists who could, and suggest the salon get a digital camera and take photos after each cut, store them on their database, and when the client comes next time the stylist knows exactly what is required.  This suggestion pains him deeply, and he mutters something about sterility and the need to try new things. I ignore this and tell him to get on with it, since I have things planned after my visit.

As he is clipping away I get a repeat performance of idle chatter and inane small talk.  My regular stylist is great, we have discussed anything from the financial crisis to tadpoles, but the current one has no conversational depth.  Anyway, until he has cut my hair at least half a dozen times he qualifies as a stranger and needs to keep his own counsel - not that he will get the chance, I shall insist on getting my regular stylist from now on.

When he is almost done, he insists on using hot tongs on my locks, which I suspiciously query - why is he doing this?  My regular stylist never does?  Apparently it helps him cut off the last few bits of errant hair that stick out.  I let him do it this time, but never again.  It took ages, and having washed my hair this morning I notice no improvement to my regular cut.  So either this was another experiment, or this guy can only do a good job if he is allowed to perpetrate unusual techniques on my defenseless scalp.

Finally I get to see the back of my head, and it looks different to me - at least two millimeters shorter than it should be.  And he hasn't shaved off the little hairs that are now below the hairline.  He does this reluctantly when I point it out, and when finished doesn't show me the back of my head in the mirror again - not a good sign!

I escape from my chair, anxious to be gone, and hear his parting shot, 'See you again soon! Always happy to cut your hair if your regular stylists can't make it!'  I kind of feel sorry for him, and guilty for thinking such mean thoughts about his efforts, because he so clearly means well and tries so hard, but frankly, all I want is a simple haircut!  I don't want a social experience, or a physical encounter, or a makeover, or a style change, or any of the other fancy nonsense these frustrated artists dream up and try to inflict on me.

No, I don't want to buy their salon products, and why do they need my postcode and my e-mail just so I can pay my bill?  I don't want their e-mails offering me new products, and I don't trust their protestations that they will never send me e-mails and that they just need it for their records.  My name is all they need, and even that I give grudgingly!

And no, the offer of a free head massage if I come more than five times a year holds no attraction for me!

All this aggro just to shorten my wispy strands by an inch!  Honestly!

Judee Sill - The Kiss

The most beautiful love song ever .....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdnQkQYT63E

Love rising from the mists,
Promise me this and only this,
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss

Sun sifting through the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away

Once a crystal choir
Appeared while I was sleeping
And called my name
And when they came down nearer
Saying, "Dying is done,"
Then a new song was sung
Until somewhere we breathed as one
And still I hear their whisper

Stars bursting in the sky
Hear the sad nova's dying cry
Shimmering memory, come and hold me
While you show me how to fly

Sun sifting through the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away

Lately sparkling hosts
Come fill my dreams, descending
On fiery beams
I've seen 'em come clear down
Where our poor bodies lay,
Soothe us gently and say,
"Gonna wipe all your teas away."
And still I hear their whisper…

Love, rising from the mists
Promise me this and only this,
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss

The Return of the Great Snail

Tecuciztecatl awaiting his star-turn at the Shindig

In his party finery - notice the monocle?  Sadly he only has one eyeball, being a snail.

The newly appointed office mascot - power to the Great Snail!

Those of you who used to attend my Slugs & Snails Parties will recognise the chap above for who he is:  Tecuciztecatl, the possibly only god of slugs and snails that ever was.  In the olden days, when my garden was overrun with these pests, I used to hold an Anti-Slugs & Snails Party each Spring.

Various weirdos, including myself, would gather in the twilight of a cold March evening around the specially appointed for the occasion Snail Priestess.  Illuminated by the flickering light of the odd candle or two, she would recite the official Ode to Tecuciztecatl (penned by yours truly, who else?) in a sonorous mournful voice.

Afterwards we would pour libations to the much-forgotten god, and also recite whatever snatches of appropriate poetry we could dredge up from the murky basement of our memories for the occasion.

In this we were usually watched in amazed wonderment by various neighbours, who, though used to my assorted eccentricities, were nevertheless spiritually dislocated, and, one hopes, permanently emotionally unhinged, by the ghostly nocturnal ritual that unfolded before their astonished eyes.

To the surprise of those amongst my readership who do not believe in the astonishing powers of Tecuciztecatl - few, to be sure - those evenings were amazingly successful, so much so that I did not have to hold an Anti-Slugs & Snails Party for several years now.  No doubt the Mighty Mollusk asserted his powers and restrained his slimy followers from laying waste my herb garden.

Since those heady days he has been eking out a lonesome existence in my attic, mothballed and deprived of most of his stuffing, with only the Christmas decorations and  assorted storage chests for company.

However, a recent London event I participated in necessitated the presence of a large flightless mono-pod, and Tecuciztecatl agreed to slip into the breach.  He was without a doubt the star of the occasion, and everyone became quite fond of him. There was even talk of making him the official mascot, and relying on his bulk for assistance after the sort of party that necessitates firm support.....

Just in case you have problems with slugs & snails in your garden, and would like to perform nocturnal snailish rituals, I include both the official Ode to Tecuciztecatl, and The Lament of a Gardener, at the end of this post.

If you plan to set it to music, and make any money out of it, I expect a cut, naturally!

Ode to Tecuciztecatl

Hear us Tecuciztecatl

Listen in your rocky tomb

Hearken to your faithful servants

And avert our snailish doom.

Every year we struggle greatly

Cultivate this plot of soil

Trying hard to make a living

Night and day, we toil and moil.

But alas, we labour vainly

Every year our effort fails

And the cause, I hate to say it

Are your kin, the slugs and snails.

Hardly have the first spring sun rays

Warmed the earth of hill and dale

Got the timid seeds to waken

They get eaten by some snail.

Vegetables, herbs, and flowers

Fruits and grasses without fail

Anything that’s green and growing

All gets eaten by some snail.

We are loathe to seem ungracious

We’re prepared to share our kales

And our other garden produce

With your ever hungry snails.

But your small and slimy kindred

Crawl along destructive trails

They don’t share, they leave us nothing

Those voracious, selfish snails.

Be aware we face starvation

Without food we’ll grow too frail

To grow further garden produce!

Starving, too, will slug and snail.

Thus we fervently beseech you

To restrain your hungry kin

So that our ravaged landscape

Will bear fruit and veg again.

Otherwise we might take action

Which you surely would bewail

With the help of many poisons

We might murder every snail.

Gracious Tecuciztecatl

Do not tempt us to betrayal

Speak to your voracious kindred

Summon every slug and snail.

Abstinence might be the answer

Tell the women and the males

Sex is nasty and unworthy

Of all self-respecting snails.

Tell the snails they’ll lose their houses

Like the slugs did, without fail

If they don’t reduce their numbers

To a manageable scale.

To the slugs promise new houses

If their breeding they curtail

Cosy, comfy, rent free dwellings

With a stove and curtain rail.

In conclusion, noble mollusc

Help us to contain your kin

So that snail and slug and human

Live in harmony again.

and, following in the footsteps of Goethe's 'Who never ate his bread in tears', 

Lament of a Gardener

Who never sowed his seeds in fear

Who never on a warm spring day

Discovered amidst rising tears

The ravages in early May –

Who never planted tender seedlings

Hopeful of luscious bud and bloom

Can ever understand the feelings

Of blood-thirst, pain and hate that loom

In ev’ry gardener’s anguished heart

When one fine morning with a mug

Of tea he makes an early start

To find the season’s first vile slug.

A stricken cry escapes his throat

The mug falls from his trembling hand

The milky tea spills on his coat

And forms a puddle in the sand.

“Oh woe is me!” he cries aloud

to wife and child: “Farewell my dears!”

“Tis time to darn and press my shroud”-

while sharpening the garden shears.

He is finally bend on Hara-kiri –

Dear Me!

My Pot Addiction - Whatever happened to the oval casserole?

Can you tell which one is the older pot?

In case you are wondering why there have been so few posts, and what I have been doing with my life, the answer is I have once again succumbed to my long-standing pot addiction.  Instead of getting out there and being 'the Firstest with the Mostest' I have been quietly at home, cruising for pots on the internet.

My addiction started a long time ago in the US, when I had to cook with some very sub-standard cooking equipment, and saw some likely Le Creuset saucepans on sale.....  Those pots were one of the few things I took with me when I finally left the conjugal home.  Though dirt poor, I supplemented them over time with three cast iron baking forms from Cousances (be still, my beating heart), a Dutch oven, and even - oh the extravagance of irresponsible youth! - a turkey roasting pan.  Alas I allowed myself to be persuaded by my mother to leave them all behind when I left Oregon, she claimed shipping would be too exorbitant.  Had I known then how expensive such pots are in Europe I would have ignored her advice, but I was still young and foolish and gullible.

I did keep the three baking forms, and when they finally arrived - I had shipped all my belongings in a small crate from Oregon to Germany - my mother cast one look at them and took them for her own, claiming that I wouldn't need them as a student.  But she held on to them like a conscientious leech long after I ceased being a student, and I only got them back after she had died, when I spirited them out of the house before my father discovered their virtues.  He had never baked a cake in his life, as far as I knew, but I wasn't going to take any chances!  Because cast iron baking forms are the best in the world, and are rarely made anymore.  I paid $10 each for those forms 34 years ago, and they are still giving sterling service.

Once in England I lived in just one rented room for a dozen years, paying off my student loans, sharing kitchens and bathrooms, but nevertheless started to amass another collection of Le Creuset cast iron pots soon after my arrival. When I bought my own house my fate was sealed, because having my own kitchen, and thus lots - comparatively - space for pots & pans, my pot addiction exploded onto the stage of Ebay with a vengeance.

It ebbed and flowed, depending on what else I had to attend to and what new information filtered into my addled brain.  Some time ago it was additional baking forms - a post in itself, then Griswold pans and miscellaneous pancake makers - another post should there be any interest, or even if there isn't.

My current junkie episode was sparked a few months ago when I stayed in bed for a few days with a cold.  My body was ill, but my brain remained active.  Casting about for something to entertain itself with, it soon began to muse about the defects and deficits of my stove.  There are basically two:

(1)  I have gas rings, which means that if you put a pot onto the hob the part that is immediately above the flame will get hotter than the rest of the pot.  Indeed, depending on the size of the pot, it is quite possible for the edges to be almost cold, while the centre is burning the food.  This has to do with the conductivity of the pot-metal; iron keeps heat well, but only after it is thoroughly hot.  If you want an evenly hot cast iron pot, you must put it in the oven.  Cast iron pots were designed to be used on an old style stove, which had one large cooking surface above a fire; they don't work so well on modern stoves with their little burners.

(2)  My burners are very ambitious, anxious to give good service.  No matter how low I turn the flame, the contents of my pot will still bubble lustily.  This is OK if I want to quickly boil up some vegetables of fry steak, but if I want to make stock this is a disaster!  To make stock I throw an assortment of bones and cheap meats into a pot, add water, and then let the lot simmer for six to ten hours.  Simmer - not boil lustily! Even a huge pot on a tiny flame does this on my super-efficient stove top.

I tossed and turned on my bed of pain, torturing my brain for a solution to the problem, until a thought popped into my head, unexpected and unbidden: COPPER!!!

Copper is a great conductor, which is why some people use copper bottom pots.  I don't like these pots, because they are expensive and lined in tin, which wears off after a while, and re-tinning them is also expensive.  Using copper pots without tin is likely to result in the development of verdigris, which is highly toxic.  However, if one were to put a copper plate onto the burner, and the pot onto the copper plate, one would have all the advantages of copper and none of the drawbacks.

Moreover, one could increase the cooking surface of one's stove!  If you put a large copper plate on to a burner, it will become evenly hot, so if you then put a ten inch pot on top of it the pot will also become evenly hot.

Which brings us to the oval pots I recently discovered!  Oval casseroles are strictly for the oven, because it is impossible to properly cook in them on modern stoves.  Modern stoves have round burners, and if you put an oval casserole on them the two sides on the long end of the pot will not get hot.  Eventually this will ruin the pot, too.  However, with a copperplate you can extend the cooking surface so that the entire bottom of the oval casserole is in contact with heat.

Oval casseroles are useful for braising birds and roasts, because ideally a pot should fit around a roast snugly - if you cook them in round pots there will be lots of space between the pot and the roast, and it won't cook so well.  So with an extended surface, courtesy of a copper plate, I can first fry a roast on all sides, and then put it into the oven for a slow finishing off.

BUT ....  where was I going to get my copper plate from?  I googled around and look what I found!

Someone else had had the same idea, and since it was a engineer with a bit of get-up-and-go he actually produced the plates: Bella Copper in California!  If you are interested, see link below; but keep in mind that copper is very heavy!

http://bellacopper.stores.yahoo.net/

I bought several copper plates from them, and they work very well, both to increase my cooking surface and as a diffuser for slow cooking.   They are also supposed to defrost very well, but I haven't tried that yet.

So now I needed to buy oval casseroles!

Are you still with me?

Since I wanted them for frying and roasting I wanted naked iron, not enameled, pots.  These are hard to come by these days, so I started to haunt Ebay for them.  I bought two from about 1910, and two from the 1960s or so.  They are all different sizes, for different size roasts.

Once I had all my pots, I assembled them on a kitchen surface to admire and adore them, and noticed that they are rather different.  The old ones are long, narrow, and shallow, whereas the more recent one are more oval, and much deeper.  Why might this be?

I googled around but the truth was not found!  So here is my theory (you'd expect nothing less!).

These casseroles are made for roasting birds.  Before the war chicken and turkey was expensive; people ate mainly ducks and geese.  Ducks and geese are long narrow birds; chicken and turkeys are less long, but plumper and more compact.  Therefore I believe the different shape casseroles simply reflect the type of bird they were made to accommodate.

I do hope my biggest casserole can fit a goose; I am NOT- so NOT!!!! buying the Goose Roaster from Le Creuset.  It is so heavy I could barely lift it even empty, and probably it wouldn't fit into my oven.  Also it costs a small fortune. You can bathe a baby in it, apparently.  I am having these fantasies, of building a temporary fire-pit in the garden, so I can roast a massif goose inside this massif pot .....

I should probably go Cold Turkey, but I would have to cook it first, and I am really not sure it would fit into my large Goose Casserole, so probably I would have to buy another casserole to fit the turkey in....

Two large Cousances oval roasting casseroles from the 1960s or 70s

Same length different shapes

Same length different shapes

Isn't this little roaster the cutest thing?  Great for roasting Asparagus!

Large oval casserole on small stove

On a ten inch copper plate - result!

Two copperplates if you have a really big pot, or want to have more than two pots on two burners; the left one is pretty unused, the right one has seen action; they cleanup well if you can be bothered