sour grape.

I wish y'all could've heard how quiet it was outside my window at 8:45pm tonight. Odd, I thought. Granted, it's Tuesday, but it's a pretty busy streetcorner, and the Dirk closes at 9pm so lots of people are usually dashing in and out before closing.

I myself was planning on dashing in and out to get the usual (cat food and buttermilk), so I decided to take advantage of this apparent lull in the action. I raced out of the apartment (then back into the apartment to get my housekeys), hurtled down the stairs, only to find: the Dirk was closed.

Closed early on account of World Cup football. And I was the only person on the street. The weird thing was, the air was permeated with the smell of "nearly-drunk person's breath". You know the smell, a smell you can often smell only if you yourself have not been drinking, which I hadn't: it's not just the smell of alcohol, it's the smell of a drinking person's breath after their sixth beer or so. It was a bit disorienting, like that (still pretty-effective) film cliche of seeing a still-lit cigarette dangling in the ashtray of an empty room.

And then, walking to De Trusty Avondmarkt for my shopping items, I passed our corner bar's outside terrace, which was simply thronged with a fire-c0de-violation's worth of orange-colored people outside, 75, 100 maybe, it's not a big terrace, all of them fixedly watching a precariously-perched giant TV in utter silence (there's not usually a TV outside there). Aside from the buzz of vuvuzelas onscreen and some hushed commentary from the announcers, it was totally silent. People were just watching. And exhaling a lot, I guess.

11:00pm. Silence no more. Vuvuzelas, which the cats do not like. Every kind of car horn imaginable. Pairs of men yelling in tandem as if dead-lifting several thousand kilos at the Olympics while some monstrously-spiked alien viciously gnaws its way through their bowels. Actually I'm pretty sure an alien attack would be quieter.

This sounds pretty cranky. Here's a true statement: Holland is the only team I want to win the World Cup right now, and I hope they do.

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Speaking of loud, Andy's having a party tomorrow. And his parties are loud, because Andy's deaf. And it's not only a party, some visiting Ethiopians are playing live. And I should make something, if for no other reason than to get rid of several of these 3,000 green olives I have. I'm thinking of this, possibly optionally (I love adverbs) drizzled with that great tahini-buttermilk-sriracha dressing from the other day.

UPDATE: This is really a great way to use up green olives. It's like you can't add too many (foreshadowing?)!!! It's pretty perfect right now so I'm afraid to fuck it up, but of course I want to add all of the other Moroccan possibilities to it to see what happens.

UPDATE 2: I did fuck it up...but the leftovers were awesome with a can of tuna thrown in it. More research and a recipe rewrite necessary.

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(tuna with) carrots, green olives, pomegranate, orange, mint.

1kg carrots, peeled, cut on diagonal into 1/4-inch-thick slices

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil or if your olive oil is boring try a smart mix of tahini and olive oil
1/4 fresh lemon juice or some equivalent amount pomegranate molasses
1 tbsp grated orange zest, minced
1 tbsp ground coriander (I was skeptical but this works)

4 balls of stemgember, crushed/pressed (ehh...I explain)
possibly a drizzle of honey
1 cup drained chopped pitted brine-cured green olives
1 cup chopped green onions

1/2 cup cilantro

1/2 cup mint

Makes a lot.

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