... Toklas' [culinary lanes] meandered back to the heyday deliciousness of pre-war France, her and Stein's adopted country, to a time when English cooking, declined from its Beeton peak, still languished as meat cooked to the consistency of old carpet and two veg whose identity dissolved into the water they were boiled in."

- foreword to the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, by Maureen Duffy

i had such a laugh over this.
i don't know - due, perhaps, to my dry english humour.
have no idea how that made its way into my nonsensical head.
no laughs, though, when i ploughed my way through two chapters of gertrude stein's narcissistic the autobiography of alice b. toklas
and. gave. up.
might give her alphabets and birthdays a swing, though.



finally found (and bought) the alice b toklas cookbook, as mentioned.
for a song to the tune of AUD10!
funny how, when i'm not actively looking for books, they seem to find me instead.
says a bit about life too, surely.



last saturday it was pouring all day - too bad i didn't find any stray kitties or pups, or i'd've taken them home for a good pampering and indefinite period of being mine.
but i digress.
it was pouring so bad, that if there darkened bits of splashes showing up on my shoes within 15 minutes, it was nothing compared to the soggy clumps they were by the end of my 4hour walk.
i felt relatively protected under my umba-rella-ella-ella eh eh eh.
heh. it's not my fault. i blame iTunes. and youtube.



there was nothing more that could dampen my mood after i chanced upon this cosy lovely secondhand bookstore/treasure trove on george street in brunswick.
gah!
and i was offered an orange dinosaur gummy by the nice lady too.
"sugars while you browse?" she smiled as she proffered a bowl of sweets.
you had me a 'sugars', honey. :)
or, you had me at the endless shelves of lovely books.
which is rather, y'know, the same.



and i went to see ann shelton's photographs of a collection of books.
to scale.
it blew my mind.
i'd much rather have the real thing, thanks.
but not on an art student's budget.
and even less - perish the thought of having to move 'the real thing' from one rental property to another.



but i'd like shelves and shelves of books from floor to ceiling.
in my house.
when i grow up (i'll be stable).

can you imagine the size of the stencil that was used to create that bit of art on the wall?
and almost half a can of spray paint, i reckon!
sheesh! but the beauty!



i think i buy lots of books about cookbooks for a girl who subsists mainly on junk food.
am currently reading
fish, flesh and good red herring by alice thomas ellis
the alice b. toklas cookbook by (who else but) alice b. toklas
and not starting on anything else in anticipation for deathly hallows.

oh! and can i stop gushing over the order of the phoenix already?
as a film which doesn't do justice to the book, i still put my money on re-watching this at the cinema.
perhaps next week?
or when my penultimate presentation is over end-july?
*hopeful
hate it when work/deadlines gets in the way of play.