Dorothy Parker's Parakeet

Divination is a process by which people attempt to determine the future from events in the present. In years past, some methods of divination that have been used include ailuromancy (by observing the behavior of felines), cartomancy (by reading cards), cheiromancy (by reading palms), oneiromancy (by interpreting dreams), and scatomancy (by examining droppings, usually of animals).

Recently I discovered --– never mind -- how – a new method of divination I call viagromancy. It’s quite simple really. I masturbate onto a newspaper, then interpret the size and placement of the stains and observe what words they cover. It may be possible that I am not the originator of this method; after riding New York City subways I must admit that I feel some doubt if I am indeed the first person to discover this.

At any rate today, for example, I am going to take a trip to the Netherlands Antilles, have absolutely nothing to do with JonBenet Ramsey, and will save 30¢ on a can of Del Monte peaches. Yesterday I was to talk to someone from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, discover a seven-letter word that means “coquette’s trait” and refinance my house for a low fixed rate of 4.8%. Yesterday’s divination was a little off: I don’t own a house. I attribute that to sneezing at the moment of truth.

The more proficient I become at this form of divination, the more inclined I am to launch a daily syndicated newspaper column that uses this method to provide an augury for each of the signs of the Zodiac. I do have to confess that I feel some trepidation about being required to masturbate 12 times a day, but I feel that is outweighed by actually getting paid for it. “Astrolojism by Hulles” is what I think I’ll name the column. Look for it in your newspaper soon (the column, that is, not....).

As a curious aside, it occurs to me that if work requires that I masturbate 12 times a day, if I ever date someone again I'll have to marry her right away so we don't have to have sex.

And finally, whence the title? It is said of Dorothy Parker that she had a parakeet named Onan, because he spilled his seed on the floor.

- Hulles

A Poor Person's Guide to Substituting Ingredients

This is very important information for us extremely poor people, because we so often don’t have (and can’t afford to buy) an ingredient that is called for in a recipe. Since I’ve written this, I’ve referred to it a number of times myself. I hope you also find it useful.

Substitute Thickeners

1 tablespoon of flour = ½ tablespoon of cornstarch
¾ tablespoon of instant tapioca (shudder) = 1 tablespoon of flour

Substitute Sweeteners

1 cup of honey = 1 ¼ cups of sugar (use ¼ c. less liquid in the recipe)
1 ounce of chocolate = 3 tablespoons of cocoa (use 1 T. less fat in the recipe)
¾ cup of granulated sugar = 1 cup of brown sugar

Substitute Fat

1 cup of butter = 1 cup of margarine (use ½ t. less salt in the recipe)
1 cup of butter = ⅞ cup of lard or rendered fat (use ½ t. less salt in the recipe)

Substitute Leavening

1 teaspoon of baking powder = ¼ teaspoon of baking soda (you may need to add an acidic ingredient like ½ T. of vinegar to the recipe)
1 tablespoon of double-acting baking powder = 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
1 tablespoon of double-acting baking powder = 1 ½ teaspoons of phosphate baking powder

- Hulles

Turnout Low for Ladies’ Night at the Misogynists’ Club

"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think." – Dorothy Parker

This entry is about words, not prostitution. I love words. I’m not sure how I feel about prostitution, the so-called first profession. In fact, I’m not sure I’m qualified to judge the morality of prostitutes and prostitution. See the New Testament for justification of my position. For some reason, however, I was recently thinking about how many words there are in English for a prostitute or promiscuous woman.

First, let’s distinguish between the two terms above: let us define a prostitute as a woman who engages in sex for money, and a promiscuous woman as a woman who engages in sex with many partners, for whatever reason. The connotations of the following words sometimes blur the distinction, because many of them are pejorative, and imply that a woman who has many partners is the same as a prostitute.

Some of the words I came up with mean something different if they are said by a man or a woman. One woman calling another a slut, for example, means that the other woman slept with someone the first woman wanted to sleep with. A man calling a woman a slut, on the other hand, means the woman slept with someone besides him. So it goes.

At any rate, here are some of the terms I came up with just while thinking about this, in no particular order. I include my own definitions of the terms:

• Prostitute: See above.
• Whore: A cheesy prostitute.
• Call Girl: A fancy prostitute.
• Hooker: A prostitute who stands in the street.
• Woman of the night: A hooker being referred to in a somewhat Victorian, roundabout way.
• B-Girl: For “bar girl”, a woman (sometimes a prostitute, sometimes not) employed to work men in a bar, generally in foreign (non-US) countries.
• Harlot: A whore by any other name….
• Slut: Maybe a prostitute, maybe just a promiscuous woman, but certainly someone who is being disparaged.
• Tramp: A higher class of slut; maybe just someone suspected of being a slut.
• Libertine: A promiscuous person, but the connotation is one of secret envy on the part of the speaker.
• Wench: A lower-class woman who may or may not be a tramp.
• Bawd: See tramp; archaic.
• Concubine: A one-man call girl.
• Courtesan: A very high-class call girl with a certain panache. France, for example, might have courtesans; America has call girls.
• Streetwalker: See hooker.
• Trollop: See slut.

As one might expect of our society, I could only think of one and a half words that fit men in similar roles:

• Gigolo: A guy who is supported or paid by women for his company.
• Consort: Used in one context, the equivalent of a male concubine. This is the half word; it can also mean husband, e.g. a Prince Consort (as opposed to a Prince concert…).

The odd thing is that it seems to me that women must have invented most of the disparaging labels for their wayward sisters. I feel this is true because men, at least of my acquaintance, think that promiscuity is good in a woman if it means she’ll sleep with them. As long as they are not married to them, of course. Why would men invent bad terms? Who would they think they were fooling? Nope, it must be women who invented all those nasty terms. Or Puritans. I don’t know any of those. This is okay, because I doubt they would like me very much.

So ladies, ease up on your freer and looser compatriots, please. If you must, think of them as a buffer between you and the ravening hordes of sexually frustrated men who would otherwise despoil you and yours.

And all you sluts, hang in there tough and don’t go changing. And send me emails.

- Hulles

Case Study: Bacon Ranch Rice

Recently I was at a point worse than some others, where I had only rice to eat. This had been true for several days, and I was thoroughly tired of eating nothing else. Under these conditions, I find that I am constantly walking to the pantry, looking in it, finding nothing I can eat, walking to the refrigerator, finding nothing to eat, then walking back to the couch. I was performing this circuit for about the 20^th time, delaying the moment when I put yet another pot of rice on the stove, when I spotted a bottle of bacon ranch salad dressing in the refrigerator. There was about an inch of dressing left in the bottom of the bottle. I had been ignoring it -- in fact not seeing it -- because of course I had no salad on which to put it. This time, however, I said to myself, “Hmm. I wonder what it would taste like if I mixed this dressing in with the rice.” So I went for it, bearing in mind that the price for making something inedible was that I would have ruined one cup of rice, and I only had a cup and a half left.

So I made the rice. As it was resting, I got out the bottle of bacon ranch dressing and opened it and sniffed it, just to make sure it was still good. Not that I would know what bad ranch dressing would smell like, but some things you just do. Anyway, I had to laugh at myself at that point: I was quite literally salivating at the thought of eating bacon ranch rice! I mixed the dressing with the rice, and checked it out. It was really beige, and looked sort of like gooey oatmeal. It desperately needed some color, but I had nothing to add to it, so I ate it beige. Believe me when I tell you that I savored that dish as I have savored few others in my life. I’m salivating again as I write this just remembering how good it was to me. Would I make it again? Who can say? But it was certainly memorable in its time.

- Hulles

A Poor Person's Guide to Rice, Part II

Cooking Rice

Preparing rice rapidly becomes second nature, but I still remember that at first I had to cope with many failed batches. Good thing I had money then. So follow these directions, and learn from my mistakes, ‘cause when you fuck up a pot of rice and you're really poor, that’s one day less to live. Okay, I’m being dramatic, but only sort of dramatic, and that is another one of those things that is altogether too close to the truth for comfort.

1. Rinse the rice in a sieve, and pick out any foreign material. I never do this, but all rice cooking directions start with this step, and I’m seeking legitimacy.

2. In a two-quart sauce pan, combine one cup of rice – measure it, damn you, you want this to come out right the first time – with the amounts of water from the table below. If you wish, you can also add a tablespoon of oil, butter or margarine to the pan. Some people add a pinch of salt; I never do. Bring it to a boil uncovered: you need to be able to see it boil, otherwise you’ll get engrossed in doing something else and wonder what that burning smell is.

3. Reduce the heat on the burner to low, and cook covered for the amount of time in the table below. Sounds simple, yes? It is. But this is the step where you get the hours of experience I have to offer. First, Low Means Low. Not 2, or 3, or whatever other number is on your stove control, but Low. Second, don’t lift the lid. Don’t check on it. Don’t stir it. Trust me, trust the times below. Don’t peek. You’ll scare the rice.

4. Remove the pan from the burner and let the rice sit, covered, for 4 or 5 minutes. Give the rice a little time to get used to the idea that it’s going to be eaten.

5. Fluff the rice with a fork. Recipes always say this, so of course I’ve tried many times to fluff it with a tablespoon or a mixing spoon, and it doesn’t fluff. And yet, with a fork[1] it fluffs. Go figure. I wonder what the physics are here. Let me know if you know. Also, you can try and fluff brown rice with any utensil (including a one-iron) until you’re blue in the face and it won’t fluff. This is its nature. It’s unfluffable. It’s the Chicago Bears Fan of rice.

Rice Water Amounts and Cooking Times

Rice Variety	Water	Cooking Time
Brown rice	2 ½ cups	40 – 45 minutes
White enriched rice	2 cups	15 minutes
White basmati rice	1 ¾ cups	15 minutes
Brown basmati rice	2 cups	40 – 45 minutes

Cooking Rice: Variations

If you are making rice as a standalone dish, one of the best things you can do to enhance it is to add bouillon to it. Bouillon powder and cubes both work just fine. Simply add enough bouillon to the rice pan (prior to cooking) for the quantity of water you are using, or perhaps a little less. If you don’t happen to like the brand of bouillon you have, add a lot less. I find the flavor of bouillon brands varies greatly, but when I’m stuck with a bad one I of course still use it.

Another thing that I often add to rice prior to cooking is spices, particularly curry powder. You can buy curry powder or make your own, or you can also use curry paste. Curry paste can be found in most Asian supermarkets. Be forewarned that most curry paste has some form of chili pepper stuff added to it, and can be quite hot.

If you have frozen vegetables, by all means add them as well. You don’t have to thaw them first; you can just add them to the pan before cooking the rice. Frozen peas are my favorite. If you do add vegetables, you can call what you’re preparing biryani, because it’s actually becoming an entrée.

- Hulles

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[1] Or with a rice paddle. They do make them, and I even have one, and they look like mixing spoons. And yet they still fluff rice, go figure.

A Poor Person's Guide to Rice, Part I

Rice University

If you truly become extremely impoverished, you will quickly learn that rice is an important food to you. Buy it when you can. A two-pound bag of rice can keep you alive for a week or two. That’s how I define important at this point.

Rice is a staple food – the staple food – of much of the world. If you aren’t used to eating rice, think of rice grains as tiny little potatoes. Like potatoes, rice dishes taste mostly like what else is in the dish. You do learn to like the taste of rice itself if that’s all you have to eat, though, trust me. And some rice, like basmati rice, is a treat in and of itself.

As you may have learned in school, rice and legumes make a complete set of proteins, so if you have a stock of rice and dried beans or lentils, you’re pretty much good to go for a long time.

There are several kinds of rice that you can commonly find in markets (or food shelves) in the United States. The most common form is white enriched rice. This is rice that has been milled to remove the brown stuff, then coated with vitamins and protein to make up for some of the nutrients that were lost. Incidentally, the reason that it is enriched is because of one of the ways that vitamins were first discovered: it was found that people who ate milled white rice got sick, while people who ate brown rice didn’t[1]. So, from a nutritional point of view, white enriched rice is the least preferred variety for us poor folk, but, boy howdy, it’s a hell of a lot better than no rice at all. Also, some dishes are better with white rice than brown rice.

Brown rice has the hull and germ intact, as opposed to white rice mentioned above. It has a stronger flavor on its own, as you might suspect, and is less fluffy when cooked than white rice. All the same, brown rice is stick-to-your-ribs good, and can be dressed up in any number of ways to make a pretty tasty meal just on its own. This should be a staple in your pantry, as mentioned elsewhere.

Basmati rice is a fragrant long-grained rice that comes in both brown and white varieties, although white basmati rice is far more commonly found in the U.S. Having a bag of this in the pantry is like having Gwyneth Paltrow available as a back-up date to the prom. Or something like that. Anyway, if you’ve never had it, it has a very delicate flavor, goes well with curries and such, and can certainly be eaten on its own.

Arborio rice is mostly used in making risotto, as nearly as I can tell, and I’ve never used it in rice dishes per se. I have used it in making risotto, though, and I love risotto, but this ain’t that kind of entry, so I’m going to ignore arborio rice from now on. However, if that’s all you have, use the white rice cooking directions below and damn the torpedoes[2].

Wild rice isn’t really a type of rice at all; it’s the seed of an aquatic grass-like plant. It has a nutty flavor, and has much more nutritional value than rice. If you have wild rice, I recommend mixing it with the other types of rice mentioned above. It needs about the same water and cooking time as brown rice, so it can be substituted pretty easily into the rice cooking directions below.

- Hulles

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[1] Casimir Funk was a Polish-born American researcher who first discovered that people who ate polished rice developed beriberi, caused by a lack of Vitamin B_1. He in fact first coined the term ‘vitamin’.

[2] Funny, my spell checker just told me that ‘torpedos’ is really spelled ‘torpedoes’. Hunh. Well, that makes me want to damn them all the more.