Swine Flu Sentiments

i suppose, i will be making quite a few entries on my blog in the next few days. i am alternating between bouts of feeling ok, usually for a period of an hour or so after i take my medications, drifting off to sleep for an hour as i am feeling extremely worn out by the fever then waking up shivering when the fever comes back full blast. by that time i know i need to take another paracetamol.

i don't know if i am tired because of the move or i am tired because of the fever. or both.

i am listening to jules massenet's meditation from thais to calm me down. and when i am feeling ok i go through the pages of my beautiful new book which i lusted over for 6 months which my wonderful friend arnold gifted me with this christmas.

if i were a book - this is it: I would be Venezia - food and dreams by Tessa Kiros.

this was the cookbook i would have written but she beat me to it. i was insanely jealous she did it first. the pages are filled with beautiful photos of venice taken in the soft light. interspersed with the recipes are her thoughts on the trip she had taken, written down as a journal. i'm not sure if it can even be called a cookbook. more like a travel memoir.

the food is served on beautiful, homely, rustic platters. bread sticks shaped like bracelets lie on masks worn to a carnivale. the cover shows scallops baked in their shell lying on a silver platter, beside a vase of hot pink roses, an antique almost kitschy candlestick holder holding a lit stubby, melted one adorned by a necklace of pink beads.

tessa kiros writes in the foreword: There is not much I can tell you about Venice...you will have to come and see it for yourself...The city is like a beautiful mysterious woman who everyone wants to watch and stand as close to as possible; an ever changing powerful lady who flows with the cycle of nature and commands profound respect for her beauty and uniqueness. Like a mermaid sprung unruffled from the deepest waters, she moves and gives with the tides. She is, I find, most beautiful from a distance...These are the things I ate in Venice....Venice is like when you hear a piece of music that scoops down into your soul or notice a real tear getting ready to drop from the eye of an unlucky child. One of those rare moments when you grasp the magnificence of this world. Yes, Venice is one of those moments. You will have to come yourself and see...

she wrote two more of these life journals/cookbooks. one called "falling cloudberries" and the other 'apples for jam'

what i wouldn't give to have been the one to have written Venezia. the first moment i saw this book, i fell in love and i knew without a shadow of a doubt that if i were a book, i would be Venezia.

never mind....the chance to have done so is far overshadowed by the fact that one day i will wake up to find all of my dreams have come true. in fact....I am Venezia....