Food, food culture, food as culture and the cultures that grow our food

A weekend from sugar rushes

February 20, 2008

Sugar graffiti from Platform 21's Cooking and Constructing workshop given by Shane Waltener February 17, 2008
Sugar graffiti from Shane Waltener’s Cooking and Constructing workshop last Sunday at Amsterdam’s Platform21.

Growing up, my family referred to sugar as White Death. Consequently I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and I really prefer pickles or anything fermented to sweets. But in a period of my life when I was doing a lot of cycling I discovered that sugar could also be a drug, and therefore something to play with. You eat some sugar, get totally high on a fabulous rush of energy, come crashing down and want to take a nap, eat some more sugar and get high again. Crash. Repeat. In the past weeks dating was starting to take on some of the characteristics of recreational sugar use, offering highs and hyperactivity, exhaustion looming behind every rush.

Sugar graffiti from Platform 21's Cooking and Constructing workshop given by Shane Waltener February 17, 2008
Sugar, the writing is on the wall. Waltener’s edible graffiti, Cooking and Constructing at Platform21

Barely a few weeks into it and the Mediamatic Gastarbeider Dating site had to create new data structures to accommodate the flow of my datemail. My Gayfriends, having inspired me to date in the first place, were perpetually rolling their eyes complaining how much they suffered from my generalizing questions about male psychology and my rudimentary knowledge of courtship. (Sorry Gays, I’m not worthy.) Worst of all, I was becoming crazy from the breathless intensity of my own communication, the high level of attention from the heteros, (to which I am truly not accustomed) and all the excitement and fuss. My work was suffering, my yoga teacher was getting annoyed, it was time to stop dating.

After Saturday.

Sugar graffiti from Platform 21's Cooking and Constructing workshop given by Shane Waltener February 17, 2008
Sugar graffiti from Platform 21's Cooking and Constructing workshop given by Shane Waltener February 17, 2008
Sugar graffiti from Platform 21's Cooking and Constructing workshop given by Shane Waltener February 17, 2008

Pictured below and not above is the grand dessert produced by Saturday’s Date (not his real name), a man who understands the benefit of the slow and steady burn, someone who naturally sort of gets me. I don’t know what will come of it, but this guy… he smells like posse and he can actually compose a meal.

To be continued…

Dulce de leche de cabra, goat milk caramel - culiblog.org
Grand dessert: espresso, artisanal goat milk dulce de leche with (not pictured) baklava array and home made hash cookie.

debra at 16:37 | | post to del.icio.us

1 Comment »

  1. did you make the sugar graffiti? it looks like a fun way to pass time, and especially good if you can eat it. pardon me if I’m slow, but are you saying that you can go to a place to create sugar graffiti for a date?

    Comment by foodhoe — March 3, 2008 @ 22:31


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