Spam No. 1: Bring more happiness into your nightlife

These fat little froggies will be making their way into a show tonight for lady printmakers. I'm not a printmaker, but at least I think I've got the lady part down. These little babies are the first installment in my series of drawings whose titles have been ripped straight from the subject lines of my spam box, and the spam boxes of other genorous e-donors.


I like a last minute challenge, and sometimes when opportunity knocks, you've got to draw some amphibians getting it on.

The Real Deal

I feel the need to offer everyone some real food after that fish food in a box bit. Here's a roasted chicken, stolen (and slightly adapted) from the treasure troves of Jamie Oliver that never fails to impress or taste good. It's not even hard to make. This is one moist bird.

The Goods:
1 4½lb free-range organic chicken
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4½lb potatoes, peeled
1 large, preferably unwaxed, lemon
1 whole bulb of garlic, broken into cloves
a handful of fresh thyme
Olive oil
a handful of fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked

You can use dried herbs if you're feeling cheap or lazy, it doesn't ruin the bird and I won't think any less of you. Or at least not much less of you.

The Instructions:
Rub the chicken inside and out with a generous amount of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Do this in the morning if possible, then cover the chicken and leave in the fridge until you're ready to start cooking it for lunch or dinner. By doing this, you'll make the meat really tasty when cooked. Preheat your oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Cut the potatoes into golf-ball-sized pieces, put them into the water with the whole lemon and the garlic cloves, and cook for 12 minutes. Drain and allow to steam dry for 1 minute (this will give you crispier potatoes), then remove the lemon and garlic. Toss the potatoes in the pan while still hot so their outsides get chuffed up and fluffy – this will make them lovely and crispy when they roast.

While the lemon is still hot, carefully stab it about 10 times. Take the chicken out of the fridge, pat it with kitchen paper and rub it all over with olive oil. Push the garlic cloves, the whole lemon and the thyme into the cavity, then put the chicken into a roasting tray and cook in the preheated oven for around 45 minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate. Some lovely fat should have cooked out of it into the roasting tray, so toss the potatoes into this with the rosemary leaves. Shake the tray around, then make a gap in the centre of the potatoes and put the chicken back in. Cook for a further 45 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked and the potatoes are nice and golden. (You can tell the chicken is cooked when the thigh meat pulls easily away from the bone and the juices run clear.)

Chum Bucket

This morning's bleary eyed commute was marked by a lone memorable mindfuck. The ad for something known as the Popeye's "Tackle Box." Now I've seen some pretty ineffective marketing strategies, but the tackle box? What is appealing about a grease soaked, cardboard tub of bait? Has economic downturn caused Popeye's to search for more affordable sources of product? A box full of fried night crawlers or meal worms, perhaps? Apparently this involves shrimp, fries, and a biscuit, but truthfully the only thing I can think of is that machine at the harbor that stands at the ready, waiting to devour fish bits and little girl arms alike. Popeye's Tackle Box? A big thumbs (flippers?) down.

A bicycle ride is an excellent, and perhaps inevitable way for one to truly get to the bottom of what's in one's own head. I've zipped through quiet side streets, my head swimming with the sort of thoughts that would possibly cause me to fail a corporate psychiatric evaluation. Today's 15 miles, perhaps ill conceived considering today was only my sophomore attempt at cycling since November, proved to be both an emotional and physical challenge. In addition to proving exactly how out of shape I am, suddenly I was experiencing the gamut of emotions. Anger at my lack of speed lead to feelings of failure and ineptitude. Plowing forward into the wind, pushing my way up hills, over bridges, and winding along the lake seemed like an insurmountable challenge instead of an accomplishment. By the time I reached my neighborhood, familiar smells of tortillas and onions in the air, tears were streaming in rivers down my flushed cheeks. Like many people, I relish a good cry, and despite being made painfully aware of my own feelings, I feel energized and ready to get back in the saddle, so to speak.

Grit

We drove through Gary, Indiana at sunset. I was sleepy from the sun and I could feel the sand grinding into my scalp and a sunburn already flushing across my face. As we passed boarded up houses, and the kinds of monolithic buildings that it had never occurred to me that anyone would abandon, it seemed as though we were driving through the Midwest's particular brand of Wild West ghost town. I felt the sort of sadness you can feel in the core of your teeth, in the very roots of your trunk, as it were, and then suddenly I was overcome by a rage so intense it made me want to see the entire city razed to the ground. At that moment, sitting side by side in the car, listening to Neil Young, I knew we would always be tied to one another. What I didn't know at that moment was that, like the founders of so many worn out Rust Belt steel towns, I had put all my eggs in one basket, and tied the handle to the bow of the Titanic.