Arisia—The Necessities of Life Part 1: Food

[slipjig3]

(I've long been saying that Arisia is not just a fun lark but a necessity for my continued well-being. This is why I was not surprised to realize, as I began preparing my ridiculously long list of Arisia wrap-up posts that I need to do, that the stories I wanted to share aligned themselves nicely with the Great Necessities of Life. What follows is the first of several posts on the matter.)

My oft-stated New Year's resolution to eat something new every day in 2010 is a fun and intriguing idea, but it does not without some effort on my part. So by the time Arisia started on Friday, what with con preparations and the usual Work Skedyule of teh Stoopid, I had been slacking from my task for a few days. Luckily, I was descended upon by hordes of bright souls just dying to help me along my way. First of these was enderfem, a longtime LJ friend whom I'd never met in the real world (not that the phrase "real world" has any bearing on Arisia). Before rafaela and I had even gotten our junk out of the hotel lobby, in the midst of hugging shadesong hello, enderfem came dashing up to say hello to her as well, adding, "Oh, if you see Slipjig, tell him I have something for him." I grinned and waved from three feet away, at which point she grinned back, said, "Oh, it's you!" introduced herself and gave me a hug.

And then handed me a bag of crispy fish bits.


It's pretty much what it looks like: paper-thin fish fragments fried up, dried and bagged for your convenience ("Oxygen Free," the bag proudly announces). The package is labeled, "Crispy Gourami Fish" for us Yankees, but we much preferred the official name visible in the upper right: "Salid Thong." Go, team.

Call me prissy, but I tend to get a little nervous at non-frozen, non-canned fish products that have an expiration date sometime into the next Presidential administration, but being brave souls, enderfem and I both nibbled a bit for the cameras in the hotel bar, and...well. Have you ever tried pan-frying fish and accidentally burned the hell out of it? Salid Thong is like the portable version of what you'd lick out of the pan afterward. Yeah. Still have most of a bag left. You want?

The adventures continued at dinner at Middle East (with rafaela, felisdemens, mianathema, maxymyllyn, albemuth and enderfem), where I played catch-up on my resolution by ordering the kibby labaneh, a beef-and-cracked-wheat sort of meat loaf in yogurt sauce that was way yummy, and then tried some of the RoseFail. This was a dessert ordered by someone else that was rosewater-flavored (which was fine) but had the texture somewhere in the foam rubber-clumping cat litter continuum. One person after another tasted it and immediately developed a silent glazed stare as they tried to parse what the hell this stuff was that crawled into their mouth. I liked the stuff. I was quite alone on that count.

Finally, felisdemens brought me a few items from Florida for nomming purposes. One was a package of guava wafer cookies, which looked good and were, although a bit too melon-ish for some. The other was a can of Goya Guanabana Nectar, filled with the juice of the guanabana, known in this country as the "custard apple" because "green spiny horse testicle" doesn't sell well. I was a bit wary of this one, as the jug o' carbonated Coppertone of January 1 was a Goya beverage as well, but although it was rather odd, it was not wholly unpleasant. We'll call that one a mild victory.

Stay tuned for Arisia—The Necessities of Life Part 2: Water.

Comments

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Fresh guavas are great, but I've only seen them in Southern California.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

I really need to be hitting the produce aisle on this project more than I am.