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Funnel cake is but once a year
May. 30th, 2022 10:24 pmSorry I've been quiet. My anxiety has been awful between the time my book came out last year and Dorian leaving us. Moggie's presence has been incredibly helpful, as has been my overly kind husband's, but threading two thoughts together to be social is extremely difficult. My cat, a known Creature of Dorkness, is a tiny wrecking ball. I mean that in the loving, patient exhaustion of a cat parent way and the fucker peed on my chair again kind of way. He's done that twice in two weeks. Each time, my chair goes on the porch to get washed and dry for three days. He genuinely hates me working at my desk. We're in a lull between patches, or I would have a swirl of squeaks around the same chair about two hours into doing some Extreme primal fight followed by him sounding like he's destroying my coat closet. As it is, I just get a cat who helps me type while I work. Maybe he almost sits on my jammy toast. Maybe he'll steal Seth's chair if he gets up for longer than five seconds.
Carnivale happened last weekend, the first time in two years. I only realised it when I saw the paper cut-outs lining the street and folded barricades at each corner the night before. On Saturday, it was oddly quiet. Usually, I can hear it through my kitchen in the morning. Seth went out to get meat on a stick and empanadas. I got a Ctulthu cat shirt as a present. The empanadas were way bigger than I'm used to, more like a flat meat pie. Our cat kept making attempts to escape with the chicken on a stick. On Sunday, I could hear the celebrations from my kitchen. We both actually went to explore because Seth thought he saw an Afghan food truck when he was out. I have learned that Afghan food is very, very good. Afghan kurma is now a rotation on the menu at home. Alas, there was no Afghan food truck, just the Hella Halal meaty food items truck.
We caught some of the actual Carnivale parade. The Brazilian contingent is always fun because they bring their own percussion band, unlike some of the other teams that may have a speaker truck and/or some live music. Carnivale managed to happen on a warmer than usual day this year, but it was still cold. Between the spangled bikinis and heavy-looking headgear, I always admire the gumption of the dancers. To prance around like that in our normal weather, and especially if you're also eschewing a body suit, seems like hard work.
The merch booths went on for about four blocks each way, I reckoned. Every so often, a random stranger would hold up a No to H sign and we would be proud to see them. FYI, please keep Chesa Boudin in office. In spite of what the news is suggesting, San Francisco is not in the middle of a "crime wave". There's lots of problems in our city. But the homeless are not the DA's job to fix, drug addicts needing access to safe needles and services that actually help them stay clean are not the DA's job to fix and seeing either of these on the street is no reason to clutch your pearls and blame the DA. Putting money into social services helps everyone. Voting to help increase social services and access to them helps everyone. Incidentally, these will also help bring down crime in the long term. Getting the DA who was voted into office recalled so he can be replaced by someone the Mayor chooses is, apart from generally unhelpful, not how democracy should work.
The other cool thing we saw at Carnivale were outreach booths to register folks to vote and from the Public Defender's Clean Slate program. I like being reminded why I love where I live. Also, whoever decided to stick the one Republican candidate's booth in the middle of all the GLBTQ+ service outreach booths was a genius. Even if it was providence and not deliberate, it was hilarious.
There was so much merch but sadly way less food this year. Some nice folks from Bayview were selling local-sourced, low sugar jams so of course I had to go spend money on homemade marmalade. The lone stall for corn dogs, BBQ and funnel cake was doing great business with the longest and most annoying line. I got fish and chips because that stall was way faster (plus, I love fish and chips). The same stall claimed to have shrimp chowder and I was not brave enough to see how I would juggle a bread bowl of shrimp chowder through the crowd. Seth kindly lined up for funnel cake while I dragged home a giant fish fillet and shrimp tacos with enough chips between them to last three days. He took so long returning after me I was starting to worry. Used to be there were so many of these BBQ pits lining the Carnivale route we'd walk through smoke three doors deep. It was so smoky, I would hope it scared away mosquitoes. Lines would still be long but not aggravating. I guess there's a reason funnel cake is but once a year.
Thinking about it, the reason funnel cake resonates with me is because funnel cake reminds me of the batter-based fried snacks of my people. Stuff like (savoury) murukku at Deepavali or kueh ros at Aidilfitri. You can buy both outside of the festive season these days, but they're very much celebration food in my mind. It truly doesn't help that the funnel cake booth often also sells fried plaintains—which is an everyday snack in Malaysia (and possibly most of Southeast Asia). True story: I once gained five pounds in two weeks on a trip to Bangkok because the Thais make the best fried bananas in the entirety of ASEAN. Note: My husband doesn't quite do bananas.
Eat funnel cake (and whatever other unhealthy food objects you picked up at the fair) in the afternoon, then feel like you'll never eat again for the rest of the day. It's not a good thing if you're under ten, but worth doing once a year.
Carnivale happened last weekend, the first time in two years. I only realised it when I saw the paper cut-outs lining the street and folded barricades at each corner the night before. On Saturday, it was oddly quiet. Usually, I can hear it through my kitchen in the morning. Seth went out to get meat on a stick and empanadas. I got a Ctulthu cat shirt as a present. The empanadas were way bigger than I'm used to, more like a flat meat pie. Our cat kept making attempts to escape with the chicken on a stick. On Sunday, I could hear the celebrations from my kitchen. We both actually went to explore because Seth thought he saw an Afghan food truck when he was out. I have learned that Afghan food is very, very good. Afghan kurma is now a rotation on the menu at home. Alas, there was no Afghan food truck, just the Hella Halal meaty food items truck.
We caught some of the actual Carnivale parade. The Brazilian contingent is always fun because they bring their own percussion band, unlike some of the other teams that may have a speaker truck and/or some live music. Carnivale managed to happen on a warmer than usual day this year, but it was still cold. Between the spangled bikinis and heavy-looking headgear, I always admire the gumption of the dancers. To prance around like that in our normal weather, and especially if you're also eschewing a body suit, seems like hard work.
The merch booths went on for about four blocks each way, I reckoned. Every so often, a random stranger would hold up a No to H sign and we would be proud to see them. FYI, please keep Chesa Boudin in office. In spite of what the news is suggesting, San Francisco is not in the middle of a "crime wave". There's lots of problems in our city. But the homeless are not the DA's job to fix, drug addicts needing access to safe needles and services that actually help them stay clean are not the DA's job to fix and seeing either of these on the street is no reason to clutch your pearls and blame the DA. Putting money into social services helps everyone. Voting to help increase social services and access to them helps everyone. Incidentally, these will also help bring down crime in the long term. Getting the DA who was voted into office recalled so he can be replaced by someone the Mayor chooses is, apart from generally unhelpful, not how democracy should work.
The other cool thing we saw at Carnivale were outreach booths to register folks to vote and from the Public Defender's Clean Slate program. I like being reminded why I love where I live. Also, whoever decided to stick the one Republican candidate's booth in the middle of all the GLBTQ+ service outreach booths was a genius. Even if it was providence and not deliberate, it was hilarious.
There was so much merch but sadly way less food this year. Some nice folks from Bayview were selling local-sourced, low sugar jams so of course I had to go spend money on homemade marmalade. The lone stall for corn dogs, BBQ and funnel cake was doing great business with the longest and most annoying line. I got fish and chips because that stall was way faster (plus, I love fish and chips). The same stall claimed to have shrimp chowder and I was not brave enough to see how I would juggle a bread bowl of shrimp chowder through the crowd. Seth kindly lined up for funnel cake while I dragged home a giant fish fillet and shrimp tacos with enough chips between them to last three days. He took so long returning after me I was starting to worry. Used to be there were so many of these BBQ pits lining the Carnivale route we'd walk through smoke three doors deep. It was so smoky, I would hope it scared away mosquitoes. Lines would still be long but not aggravating. I guess there's a reason funnel cake is but once a year.
Thinking about it, the reason funnel cake resonates with me is because funnel cake reminds me of the batter-based fried snacks of my people. Stuff like (savoury) murukku at Deepavali or kueh ros at Aidilfitri. You can buy both outside of the festive season these days, but they're very much celebration food in my mind. It truly doesn't help that the funnel cake booth often also sells fried plaintains—which is an everyday snack in Malaysia (and possibly most of Southeast Asia). True story: I once gained five pounds in two weeks on a trip to Bangkok because the Thais make the best fried bananas in the entirety of ASEAN. Note: My husband doesn't quite do bananas.
Eat funnel cake (and whatever other unhealthy food objects you picked up at the fair) in the afternoon, then feel like you'll never eat again for the rest of the day. It's not a good thing if you're under ten, but worth doing once a year.
