CARROT CAKE REVIEW 19 - The Gluten Free Deceit - Again!

Stamford, Lincolnshire.

As we returned from our North Yorkshire holiday we diverted our route home to take a B L F break ( bum, leg & food ) in Stamford. We also wanted to investigate a local fabric shop to see if they had anything to suitable for Cottonwood Home (there was).

Stamford as a market town, is a place with it's own distinct charm, full of beautiful honey coloured stone fronted buildings, most of them significantly of a certain age and maturity. Though it looks as though Stamford ought to be a county town, it isn't, it is, however, slap bang next to Burleigh House and its estate. It is clear that this and its position by a main north south axis road have always left both hands deeply plunged into the lucre. But like any small town with a shopping centre across this island, in this era, it has significant missing teeth in its high street's dentures. There is also an uneasy 'ghetto zoning' of high and low end shops that betrays an unevenly spread wealth divide.

On a previous visit we'd had quite a lovely lunch in this cafe, so we had no qualms about returning. This particular bright winter's afternoon its windows were steamed up very badly. This is never a good thing for a cafe, not to be able to see inside until you enter. It is, however, despite the condensation, definitely a popular destination even in January.

After giving the cake range a greedy scan, I spotted a carrot cake, ordered it with my preferred afternoon thirst quencher, an Earl Grey tea. Sat down at a somewhat wobbly table, trying not to rest my arms heavily on upon it whilst perched on an modern style clear perspex chair. Thus I awaited my tea and cake expectantly.

When it came, my goodness it was a massive wedge. Whilst its ingredients appeared evenly sized and distributed it looked far far far too near beige for my liking. Had a carrot been anywhere near this cake? Had a framed picture of a carrot just been left on a shelf nearby? Had a carrot been used instead of a wooden spoon? This was too pale a tint to be anything like a true representation of the sacred edible carrot cake classique.

Nevertheless I opened my gob and shovelled a fork full in. What happened next was the most actively unpleasant taste sensation I've experienced in quite a while. The moment this morsel of cake landed upon my tongue it immediately sucked up all the saliva from it, becoming this doughy clag sticking to the roof and basement of my palate. God, I've been deceived, affronted by a gluten free carrot cake.... again!  No amount of telling myself to be calm, just keep your cool, don't get too worked up, it really isn't worth it, was working. Just think of all the people for whom a gluten free carrot cake is a lifesaver. Yes, I was thinking of them, in very sharp definition.

Hubby assures me, the claggyness indicates it was rice flour that performed this abomination of a carrot cake. There were plenty of nuts, the texture, before it congealed into a playdo-de-goo, felt strandy, but tasted not of the venerable carrot, nor, suspiciously, of any spice mix. Well, at least it wasn't a spice cake I offered myself as consolation, to a sotto voche response of a sneering grunt.  Though definitely lifted by the cream cheese topping, this sat looking a little flushed and sweaty on the top as if all the responsibility placed upon it to save the day, was giving it a nervous breakdown. An excess of sugar never saves a cake, no matter how beseechingly it behaves

But the question as my teeth, tongue and mouth struggled to disentangle, work around and through their burden, was - what exactly was this cake? Its wasn't by any stretch of the baking almanac a carrot cake, self-evidently. Was it a walnut cake? What on earth did this cake taste of? Its as though an alien from outer space made a carrot cake based solely upon a fuzzy photo. So, basically, this was of no distinct flavour previously known to humankind.

There was no sign, no forewarning, no excuse - so its a 2 for you.... Pah!


CARROT CAKE SCORE - 2/8

WHAT MAKES A MAN A MAN - Part 3 - Holding Out For A Hero

Four years have passed, its 1973 and more than my height has changed. The side parting forsaken for centre parted longer hair that never grew quite long enough. My fine hair when grown long became greasy and lanky rather than the full bodied wildly romantic wind blown curls version of my dreams. Deep Purple and Hawkwind were current musical heroes, so the hair, coloured flairs, necklace bling and a denim bomber jacket with badges (not in picture) were de rigueur for any self-identifying fans. Though the pink flip flips, perhaps not.







I'd had a 60's childhood where Cilla Black ruled, by the early seventies Marc Bolan pouting in a pink satin suit was the new queen. By 1973 with much more seemingly at stake masculinity wise, 'macho 'progressive' music ruled my turntable. Full of dramatic, flamboyant musical flourishes and wildly inventive over indulgences. My enthusiasm hovered between envious voyeurism and vicariously basking in the fame and glory of these revered giants. I so wanted to be that hairy.

Five men flaunting frizz, fur and their feminine side

Such musical heroes offered solace. I felt that my abilities and interests largely fell outside the traditionally held areas for boyhood pursuits and prowess. Pop culture presented to my teenage yearning, meaning and purpose, a place crowned with a transient specialness. A wailing air guitar in hand liberates you fron the circumstances of education, class, race, gender orientation and even talent. The classic seventies teenager, I imaginatively performed along with my favourite pop stars, alone in my bedroom, whilst broadcasting my choice of music through a wide open window. For the world will know me through this music and hear it loud and clear.

I was a sixteen year old holding out for a hero, looking for a distinct affinity, someone embodying a myth that I could emulate. The men I hero worshipped, appeared to model aspects of the dreamed of self.  Whilst 'what you are' is still barely mapped as a territory, you can safely imagine yourself as a rock star. Whether you'll have sufficient talent, confidence, ambition, pluck or luck to make that a reality, remains covered in a mist of juvenile hope.  Significant individuals who might help you fulfil your potential, are yet to be found. Encountering the trustworthy male hero is always the tricky bit.

Its hard to keep hold of male heroes, they easily slip off their somewhat wonky pedestals. One of my 1980's heroes, Morrissey, once seemed the charismatic opinionated challenging poetic outsider, has aged into a curmudgeon, spouting nationalistic garbage unbecoming of a supposedly intelligent person. Let alone someone who loves his country so much he lives abroad. Yet I can also see how that youthful waif could become the stodgy middle aged man, things fossilise as you get older.  I adore the music of The Smiths, but that affection has been put under retrospective strain now their former front man has 'gone rogue.' The past and the present now at loggerheads.

An obstacle to admiring the achievements of anyone, can be their less palatable ideas, morals, opinions and actions. In the aftermath of retrospective scandals and revisionism, both judicial, historical and feminist, what a good decent male role model could be is even harder to imagine, let alone maintain. We know far far too much.  Everything, though done to establish a much needed corrective, to create a more balanced view, can still be one sided. Our default position may just  be switching from loyal unquestioning defence to slavishly pandering to puritanical dismissal. In our search for 'the truth' fault finding becomes a compulsion, an addiction to believing that only their worst side embodies the truth about a person.

In traditional folk tales heroes are often initially portrayed as flawed individuals,. The classic 'puer aeternus' - the naive unformed boy/man. This idealistic hero is the impudent possesser of foolhardiness, recklessness and flawed with imperfect behaviour. Paradoxically these help identify with his journey, and reassure us that the human potential for good, though often in a titanic struggle, will re-emerge and assert itself. The difficulties a hero encounters whilst on this quest forge transformative changes in them, as the twilight of childhood moves into adulthood. Sketching the first outline of the mature adult male. This is one male heroic archetype.

Today celebrity can rise up really quickly. We then observe their subsequent sins and often ignominious tumble from grace. For Jung, there is always a darker shadowy side to any human psyche. The principled often sitting uncomfortably perched upon the knees of the unprincipled. As the shadow side of a hero passes by, it bristles the hairs of our own shadowy side.  What we consider heroic is an archetype being projected onto the face of fallible human beings. If they are to remain a hero they'd have no impure thoughts in word or deed, which is well nigh impossible for even the best of us.

Generally we find it hard holding uncomfortable moral contradictions, of the wholesome and the unwholesome when they are present in ourselves. so god help anyone else. The active presence of both pleasure and aversion towards someone, demands a resolution we cannot always find. Its easier to go into denial or dump our heroes as being altogether worthless. Is it feasible to fully face the complex messy mix of a person's qualities without writing them off completely because they failed the perfect hero test? Heroes, once fallen, are rarely forgiven or allowed redemption from past stains upon their character.  As we are currently finding out, many talented men, brilliant in one particular sphere can be serial abusive sex pests in another. Talent, power and hubris leading them to believe they live 'divinely gifted lives' outside the application of normal moral standards. Yet on a collective level there is also social catharsis going on, as we put the archetypal 'bad man' into the stocks to give them a well deserved public kicking.

To maintain any human being as a hero requires selectivity in what we focus on and value. To admire the best in someone, without endorsing any of the dodgy stuff. This is morally tricky ground to traverse. But generally, if we already admire someone, we will, at least for a while, turn a blind eye towards anything that stains or contradicts our favourable constructed viewpoint. It's been common practice for a man's talent or genius to be used as a get out of jail free card, skipping over violent abusive behaviour as insignificant or even excused as eminently reasonable, for a man.

The painter Caravagio was an aggressive, tempestuous person, known to have murdered at least one man. Yet his artistic reputation and career survived this, for his paintings remain striking and significant pieces of art despite his recklessness in a sword fight. So many artistic heroes of the Renaissance were talented but violent street thugs. Genius, talent and, one has to say, historical distance, diminish how their frankly shitty behaviour is now seen. Too quickly overlooked or excused. Perhaps it is easier when you've never known someone personally and only admired their artistic output, to gloss over what a pain in the ass they were towards friends and lovers. Male reputations have undoubtedly benefited most from this. Yet this selectivity in what we focus on when turning people into heroes, is a process that goes on regardless of our gender. The heroic image always requires careful curating in order that it stays 'on message'.

No one who is truly human gets their lives morally correct in every respect. Male or female, we are all erratic beings, exhibiting a wide range of moral contradictions. However, in the anti-hero, human fallibility, eccentricity, of not conforming or fitting in, become the very stuff of greatness. We cheer as they cry 'fuck off' to the world even if they exhibit tendencies of being an cruel gangster. The anti-hero is an impure archetype, the shadow side of the pure hero. Living outside conventions, unwilling to conform to other people's social codes of behaviour, by nature self-indulgent, aberrant individuals with lives teetering, often drunkenly, on the edge of the gutter. You gotta sat yes to another excess, turns their lives into a squalid magnificence, It can be just a pose these days with self appointed anti-heroes everywhere. For the real authentic thing just examine the life, times and writings of the poet and author Charles Buckowski. a deeply rough cut man with more than a few irredeemable features.

Charles Buckowski on the loo

Tribal communities would ritualise the bringing of men and women into adulthood. This entailed removing young men and women from their parents and putting them into the hands of female or male elders. And its probably true that for the guiding mentor role your Mum and Dad are often not the best people. Parents stand too close, hampered by their love and the flaws in their own sense of themselves, they tend to see what you need to do through their own needs of you. So it usually falls to someone one step removed such as a grandparent, uncle, teacher, or an older more experienced friend, who might share a similar enthusiasm, spirituality or talent as yourself. And if this starts to raise safe guarding issues in your mind, this reveals another element bedevilling a masculine mentoring role - the default mistrust of masculine motives. Not without its own history and justification. But it has a consequence that further muddies the waters of how to recognise 'a good man's' face.

So most men continue to hold on to the traditional narrowly defined version of what it is to be a man. Even though this appears more and more like a doomed captain going down with his sinking ship. Its possible this may be concealing a more troubled level of conflicted impulses over quite what is best to do. What from the old style of manhood can stay, what must really go, and how will this all hang together? Alternative guidance for what any new type of man might be like, lacks clarity. There are so few reliable mentors and no manuals. Insecurity then may be making men stay put, holding on grimly, even aggressively, to that which is familiar. Modern masculinity would then seem stuck in this bardo of indecision, a between place, that is neither here nor there.

Robert Bly once commented that young men lacking adult guidance and a defined route into adulthood, will try to create one for themselves. They'll form gangs, cults, allegiances to niche groups of one sort of another that come together to share a task, a lifestyle, a political ideology, an enthusiasm, or ownership of a space, and forge a collective sense of personal identity from it. Bly also said that this attempt at collectively growing up would inevitably fail, as it is the blind leading the blind

I certainly used my taste in music to define me. I constructed an image of myself as the sort of guy who liked weird arty music, the more outlandish and challenging the better. The downside was that there was no obvious gang for this, very few people to share my enthusiasms with. But a singular isolated individuality, alienated from the general mainstream, can also serve a dysfunctional function, creating a vision for oneself as this distinct individual with an 'extra special perception.' Obscurity creating a delusive aura of uniqueness. The hidden, unacknowledged man, self defining, the isolated loner, living in a fantasy world of their own creation, this is an all too common occurance.

To have not encountered beneficial role models, nor found a vocation, nor feel yourself purposeful is sad. Yet to over identify with the trash you own, the team you idolise, the computer games you play, the music you revere, the lifestyle you possess, as compensation for this shortfall in fulfilment can be even sadder. Underneath all of their frontal bluster, all men understand what a shallow unexamined life looks like, because its seen in the dim lifelessness of their eyes that faces them every morning in the mirror.

What makes any hero a hero appears to be a willingness to go beyond a narrowly defined sense of themselves, to push out into less familiar territory. To feel themselves moving forward towards something, as yet undefined, that could be better. This does not sit easily with the sense of stability and creature comforts that comes through staying put. Yet just keeping going requires stoical heroism. Humanity stagnates whenever it stands still for too long. Refusing to adventure or move on prevents the evolution of who we are. This is when masculinity turns toxic.

I've been writing here about heroes mostly in a knowingly mono gendered way. When I look at my own list of heroes there are a some fabulous women present there too. Women whom I admire, and exemplify qualities or talents I'd love to see more of in myself. Whilst I believe it is important for men and women to find heroes and role models within their own gender, because it helps us understand that gender, what it is and what we can become, it's also clear that this doesn't have to be exclusively the case. Heroes can transcend gender designation. Heroes in the broadest sense imaginable can help form ourselves into a more rounded human being.

What is heroic in a man can extend way beyond the narrowness of the macho male cliche. Yet what is it to be heroic now? Is there a heroism that goes beyond the stereotypes?  Heroism manifests across humankind, regardless of culture, time period, gender, race or class, rich or poor. What a shame it would be, should we fail to discover the life changing inspiration of another human beings life, because we were wearing racial or gendered blinkers at the time, or were expecting them to be perfect in every aspect of their lives.





'Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn
And I dream of what I need

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life!
Larger than life'

***

Except from the lyrics to Holding Out For A Hero

written by Dean Stanford & Jim Steinman.  

PS.
Cliche ridden lyrics written by men, sung by a woman with a voice rubbed in coarse grade sandpaper. Yet they do highlight other pressures to conform outside of men's expectations of themselves and from other men, such as women's expectations of men. However, women appear to be lumbered with the role of having to keep pushing rather reluctant men to change their views, not just of women, but also of themselves and how they operate in the world. Yet in the desire to liberate themselves from their own gender's stereotyping, men in general are still barely half awake and lagging way way behind.

That doesn't appear very heroic to me.

.

SHERINGHAM DIARY 32 - The Rise of White Vehicle Supremacists

After a brief Post Christmas Sale burst we closed Cottonwood Home for three weeks. Taking a holiday in Malton, North Yorkshire, visiting, Whitby, York, Helmsley and Castle Howard. Stayed with our friend Saddhaketu in Vajrasena Retreat Centre in Suffolk for a couple of days, and generally began preparing for our shop projects of 2020. On our way up to Yorkshire we stopped off in Lincoln to visit The Fabric Quarter and on our way back The Stamford Fabric Company in Stamford. We returned laden with great fabric choices for ranges of frames, cushions and bags we are now in the process of making for Spring. We can feel a bit daunted when we look at how much there is to do.

Cottonwood Home is only open three days a week at the moment, as The Courtyard has entered a succession of February 'Tumbleweed Moments.' So we do have more space available to just make in, should we want to use it. But we've also needed to take a break from the constant shop focus we've been living in for the last ten months. That's meant not rushing back into full tilt straightaway.

Future plans include finding new lines. We've already discovered another candle supplier The White Candle Company based in Suffolk whilst we were visiting Diss, on  a trip down memory lane for me. The rest we are hoping to find at the The British Craft Trade Fair in Harrogate early in April. Last year we bought slightly blind when we went there, and not everything we chose has been a  success sales wise. We know from experience what sells here and where our range of goods are currently lacking or weak. There are also plans to revamp our outside stalls, our jewellery stands and give some craft fairs in North Norfolk a go. All this plus promoting the shop, photographing stock, updating and marketing our online website. Not much on for 2020 then.

*******************

Its a truism of 21st century life that once you start noticing something, you do start to see it with more frequency. Quickly becoming this proven fact constantly reinforced by daily experience. Often refered to as confirmation bias, this is how all prejuduces begin. Observations create opinions that become the truth. So it has been with White Vehicle Supremacism. Whether its a white van, a full sized truck, a hulking SUV or a petite white Fiat 500, I started to notice that many white vehicle owners tended to noticably drive more frequently in anti-social ways, as if the road actually belongs to them, it is their road so they can choose what rules of the highway they break or obey and perform the most risky driving manouvres possible whether they're on the narrow endlessly winding A 149 coast road, or the relatively straightforward A140 to Norwich. White Vehicle Supremacists rule, sometimes flying the St George of England flag as windscreen bunting or stuck on the boot, as they pass you with a metaphorical up yours.

All of these things happen more commonly with White Vehicle Supremacists than you'll see with vehicles of any other colour. Evidence may be, as yet, anecdotal, we are still awaiting clinical tests, but perhaps there is indeed an identifiable quality within the colour white that communicates a sense or superiority and entitlement bordering on the aristocratic. As if owning a vehicle painted in the most impractical of colours automatically confers on you an elevated state of self-righteousness. I assure you now I have communicated this information, you too will start seeing White Vehicle Supremacism absolutely bloody everywhere.

*********************

I had time to kill before the beginners class at the Norwich Zen Priory  so I went to The Forum library in the centre of the city. I was sat reading a book when a thin ruddy faced man sat down beside me. He chuntered to himself, as with some difficulty he shuck off his gloves and sat down to read a newspaper. He descended with an aching sigh of weariness. He was a middle aged homeless man, gently but consistently inebriated I'd say, who'd come in for warmth and some human company. Within seconds of having sat down he started to converse with the man to his left. The man rebuffed these attempts at conviviality, eventually standing up and walking off. The homeless man delivered a far flung 'cunt' into the air after him. Then he turned round towards me.

While this was going on I'd been debating how to handle this. Should I too walk off somewhere else, or try to ignore him and stare unwaveringly into my book? None of this was passing muster with me. So I put my book down, and just gave him my full attention. His speech, though garbled at times, was coherent. He didn't understand what was up with the other guy, why he'd up and left. He was asking me what my name was, when he exclaimed 'Oh, fuck, I'm in trouble now'. The guy who'd stood up and left had reported him to the library staff and was pointing out the homeless guy to them.

A female member of staff turned up, probably the unlucky one specifically asigned for 'liason with the homeless' that evening. He'd been reported for being abusive and swearing, so he'd have to leave. The homeless guy kept intoning ' can you tell me what I've done ', 'the guy's lying' ,'I was just sitting here reading'. As he became more irrate and the swearing did ripen, the woman changed tack ' Will you come outside the library for a moment and we can talk about it there?. The homeless guy wasn't having any of it, referencing me in the conversation 'I've been having a quiet conversation with this kind man here' 'can't you just leave me' 'I'm not that mentally stable, I just want to be left alone to read ma paper'.

She persisted in her request to go with her outside the library. The homeless guy got more and more agitated, indignant, his language more colourfully anglo-saxon. She calls in security, so now he's surrounded by three people looming over him.  I tried to encourage the guy to leave quietly 'it might be easier for you if you leave now' but he either didn't, or didn't want, to hear this. Things were just rapidly escalating, he protested with even more vehemence, his general tone more despairing. I felt uncomfortable just being there. I wasn't sure my presence was helpful anymore, so I quietly left the situation to the library staff. So I've no idea how it turned out, but it was never going to go well for the homeless guy.

I felt sad, and some empathy for him. Yes, he swore a lot, it was habitual, so much a part of his way of communicating I don't believe he could rein it in. To me he came over as quite an affable sort of bloke who no doubt ended up in the streets because of his drink and mental problems. Asking him to be reasonable just would not register. From the point of view of human dignity, imagine how humiliating it must be to constantly be thrown out of places because you are homeless. For this man he certainly viewed it as another ejection from ordinary society, and he wasn't ever ever going to go quietly. A spirit of defiance still burned within him, suitably correscating and inflamed with injustice.

*******************

The Norwich Zen Priory that I attend had to move premises quite unexpetedly. So the Rev Leoma ,with Sangha help, had to pack up everything and park surplus stuff in garages in order to move quickly into smaller premises. Its also kick started the idea of buying their own premises, that was being only vaguely talked about before this happened. So the current premises are viewed as temporary until a more permanent place can be found. This all feels quite an exciting prospect for 2020.

Norwich Zen Priory

2019 was the beginning of reconnecting with my Buddhist practice, but this time in an explictly zen context. I'm not quite making a daily zazen practice yet, but its getting there. Ideally I'd like to try a retreat at Throssel Hole Priory this year, but with the shop taking up time and priority I think I'd better treat that as a hopeful aspiration. In the meantime I've taken to re-reading The Shobogenzo, Eihei Dogen's masterpiece of ninety nine chapters as an 'almost' daily practice. I was given a couple of commentaries on various chapters for Christmas, so I'm breaking to read through the relevant ones as I go.

Currently I'm reading Shoaku Makusa - Refraining from Evil, a typically dense piece of writing by Dogen, on the practice of ethics within a context of zazen, impermanence and conditioned co-production. The full Shobogenzo translation by Nishijima & Cross, has, to be honest, made a real hash of it. Making an already allusive text even more impenetrable. The translation with the commentary by Daitsu Tom Wright is by comparison relatively clear and more thoughtfully written. What I am noticing generally is that I feel I understand more of The Shobogenzo than I did when I first read it through between 2000-04. The following paragraph is a beautifully put description of the different approaches of faith and wisdom practitioners.

"There are those whose simple faith guides their capacity to move others and who base their practice on such faith, and there are those whose capacity to move others is based on their comprehension and understanding of good derived from the depths of their practice of the teaching of good. The functioning of each is very different. They almost appear to be teaching totally different Dharmas." 

Dogen- Shoaku Makusa ( trans Daitsu Tom Wright )