youngblood; yellowbelly

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<<audio "heavensyolk" loop play>> <<set $gameact to "I">> <<set $gamescene to 1>> <<type 65ms>> youngblood; yellowbelly TW: cannibalism, animal death, gore <</type>><<type 65ms>> //WHAT IS, IS WHAT MUST BE// <</type>> <<nobr>><div class="choices"> <<link '<div class="choice-item">even me</div>' 'aprilspring'>><</link>> </div><</nobr>>

<<type 70ms>> MY NAME IS AMADEUS VU; if I leave one legacy, let this be it. a cookbook. ...a cookbook. THE FAIRIES SING EACH TO EACH: today the fairies sing: who are you, who are you, I am a man who will become GOD. no, not christ—who is christ to a man raised buddhist? GOD, GOD, I say, in the same way some people say Human, it is a species; some people become Human, I will become GOD. to become divine, you have to bring GOD inside you. no, not through fucking, though that is one form of possession, I mean through consumption. what do the christians do? the wine is the blood of christ, and the bread his flesh? if that’s wrong, I don’t care to know I am a learned man, (or mostly a man), but there are things even I disdain to know. a snake once said, the kingdom of god is within you because you ate it. so I’ll eat the kingdom of god. what else could you call the folk who live on this earth? <</type>> <<nobr>><div class="choices"> <<link '<div class="choice-item">NO ONE IS EXEMPT FROM RESURRECTION, NONE OF YOUR SUMMER BELOVEDS INCLUDED, IN THE APRIL SPRING THERE IS A HARUSPICING</div>' 'IAM'>><</link>> </div><</nobr>>

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<br><br>YOUNGBLOOD; YELLOWBELLY

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<<type 70ms>>haruspicy is the act of divination through entrails.<</type>> <<type 70ms>> the first recipe i have for you is less a recipe and more advice. rather than recipes, this "cookbook" will consist mostly of "advice"; it can be considered a thesis, or a teaching methodology that is less about "CAN A PEON FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS?" and more "listen; and listen carefully. if my teachings go on to shape your mind, then at least they will have been of some use. THE KEY TO COOKING IS LEARNING THE PHILOSOPHY; i have learned it, let me teach you." the most important part about cooking "game" "meat" is getting rid of the "game" element. OF COURSE ALL HUNTERS WISH TO BE PRAISED FOR THEIR WORK! but they don't want to //taste// it. (as for the butchery, the skinning: any high school student that's ever skinned a cat, or slipped a scalpel beneath the skin of a cat, can tell you that it's all about slicing the thin connective tissue, getting the blade beneath, and then stripping it off piece by piece.) (for small game, like squirrels, once you get the blade beneath... the skin comes off in one piece.) (the most important part of butchery is not precision but patience, exercise, and a clear mind through the tedium.) anyway; "GAME" "MEAT" //(the most dangerous game, after all is...)// did you read that as well, listeners? did you read that story as well, you who were raised within an age of me. "the most dangerous game." hint: it isn't the type of "game" children play. unless you were a child like i was, i suppose. IN MY AGE...i have begun to ramble; excuse the ravings of an aging man. past my prime at 50...with another 50 years to go, if luck resides by my side, and if i fail my aim at god. (BUT I HAVE ALWAYS SHOT TRUE.) I am delaying. THE WAY TO GET RID OF THE "GAME" IN "GAME MEAT," as international cuisines could tell you: the way to get rid of the taste of otherwise unsavory meat is to spice it heavily, mince and grind it, or cook it so long and slow it falls apart. any excellent world cuisine can tell you how to make the most out of cheap meat. this "meat" doesn't come cheap, certainly, but it has a peculiar...tang, that must be cooked out, such that the "unusual" element can be attributed to one of the seasonings. there are many seasonings in the world; my favorites are ginger, garlic, onion, fish sauce, lime, salt, and sugar. like my mother taught me, and likely hers before her. GARLIC AND ONION ARE NEED-MUST-HAVE but ginger is more of a personal preference. but the work that garlic and onion do is worth more than any billionaire's weight in gold. (I say this easily; I am quite rich.) there are other such seasonings that i learned. including coriander, fennel seed, white pepper, black pepper, and lemongrass. everything short of lemongrass should be toasted before it is ground in a mortar and pestle, if you are old-fashioned, and a food processor or spice grinder or whathaveyou if not. toasting the spices is essential to maximizing their flavor potentiate. the lemongrass is best if you can find it fresh, or fresh enough will not harm you, even frozen shall do. fry the lemongrass with green onion and shallot in sesame oil. for a pho (i'm afraid at my age i forget the diacritics; it's been too long, too far gone from the language...i speak only the imperial tongue) broth, coriander / fennel / black pepper / black cardamom / clove / star anise / cinnamon stick all need must be present, but if you can only scrounge a few of them, that will fare well enough, too, i suppose. the flavorings of pho are distinct enough that they forgive the meat. you can "mix-and-match" these spices with a range of results. if you do it competently, any combination lacking some will fare unsurprisingly well. such is born and bred tradition (or learned, too. or learned...) (I am a learned man...or mostly a man.) a final spice tip would be annato seed. you must fry it in oil over medium-low heat until it gives up its color, and emits a delightful fragrance. the fragrance is difficult to explain...it is almost as rusty and blood-red as its color, if you imagined the "color" RED, (LIKE HOW SAFFRON TASTES YELLOW), or somesuch thing. it smells red. as if blood were to be found in a naturally occurring plant. but you must not burn it. the instant the vibrant red of the seeds go dark, you must turn off the heat. do not eat the seeds; it is mighty unpleasant. simply strain out the vermillion oil. it will add additional flavor and color, similar to turmeric's effect in the cuisines that favor it. if you are //lazy,// fish sauce / onion of some sort (green onion / shallot / sweet / white / vidalia / etc) / garlic alone will take you miles. but do not forget the coffee (tea) spoon of sugar; in vietnamese cuisine, balance is key. i am terribly bad at doing things in the order i say i will do them. therefore i forget what order this was supposed to be in. and will simply go on to MINCED MEAT. "pocket" foods such as pate chaud (meat puff pastry), dumplings, banh bao, egg rolls, and wontons all take well to MINCED MEAT. when you mince the meat and include a few vegetables and a few spices, some garlic, onion, salt, pepper, fish sauce, pinch of sugar, some MSG (should you like)...well, then the pocket will disguise many a kind of meat. I learned this trick with pate chaud: my mother made it simply, with garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of sugar. that's all. some MSG, sometimes. anyway: she used to make it with pork, but when my precious baby sister complained, she would make it with minced chicken. to be frank, i couldn't tell the difference. IT'S BECAUSE I COULDN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE THAT I KNEW: the meat you mince inside a "pocket" has no "identity." it's why unwanted scraps will be used to form "chicken nuggets" (disgusting) and how a butcher's "scrap cuts," will be turned into sausage meat filling the cleaned intestinal lining of pork. needless to say, i became an expert at folding wontons, egg rolls, hand pinching dumplings shut, and twisting up the tops of banh bao, though this i honestly only rarely managed this since the wait time on the yeast for the bao dough is quite frankly nothing more than an extreme irritation in time management. ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING RESEMBLING "BREAD" IS BEYOND MY CAPACITY, NOT AS A CHEF BUT AS A "HUMAN BEING" WITH "LIMITED PATIENCE" and "THINGS TO DO, VASSALS TO KILL." one of my points, about the slow-cooking, was mostly in reference to soup stock made of bone marrow. i actually find the texture of stewed meat extremely distasteful, even though i made the dish a thousand times, braised fall off the (mysterious, unidentifiable) bone meat and egg for my guests at my dinner parties. how did it go? something something boil then a slow simmer fish sauce, soy sauce, water, sugar, msg, or some such thing. cut onion, garlic, bay leaf. carrot and potato if i wanted to make more of it, but not if i wanted to keep it simple. it is efficient, however, at ridding yourself of...an overabundance, overindulgence, of meat taking up too much room in the freezer. as much as I would LOVE to credit my mother for my aptitude as a chef...she taught me very little. the little? i treasure it. but she... my mother was a ghost; she hardly taught me anything, she hardly spoke except to nag and persist in fronting off her EXTREME anxieties on me. my father in his childhood in the homeland was akin to a noble's son, running around amok with siblings abroad in the fairer nation-states across the sea and a father respected in the army, whose mother had "connections" across the ocean to the imperial lands...where she eventually took her remaining children when the capital fell and her husband, my father's father, my grandfather...was captured by the war's victors and imprisoned in "re-education camp" for seventeen years. my father...had maids at his //estate,// but who am I to complain? when he "died," I took over his inheritance. the only thing I regret to say is that I wasn't the one that killed him. a brutal man. who hated my mother. and hated me in turn, for resembling her. but was a kind and gentle soul to my baby sister... needless to say: i was the one that taught myself this cuisine. i was not the only one. there was another woman...who thought of me like her son. who i abandoned. willingly. (REGRETFULLY.) who i abandoned...this woman, this auntie, she did not... TO HER, I WAS NOT A "MAN" WITH AMBITIONS TO BECOME THE EMPRESS OF HEAVEN. with the violent ambition to become god. i was a lost soul. like the sons she had lost. i was a lost, and vietnamese, soul, and that was enough. for once, my mere existence, as the shining star of a surgeon brought down by organ rot and fairy sick...only to be revived by fairy wick...i, lost and afraid and barely human...SHE TAUGHT ME I COULD BE AFRAID AROUND HER. and she would teach me better things to do, better things to learn, and grow... but mostly she was a sad, lonely old woman who wanted her legacy not to die alone. so i learned her recipes. i learned her heart. and do you know how i used her recipe for yellow noodle soup? mi vang, the diacritics i don't remember, she simply called it mi vang. I WASHED THE IMPURITY FROM THE FEMURS I CRACKED OPEN THE WAY SHE TAUGHT ME, cracking open the pelvic cradle, dropping in the vertebrae each to each, i washed the impurity, rinsing once after boiling for 15min, the scum surfacing, and then i set the soup to stock. with sweet onion, green onion, (shallots i added later; she didn't prefer them for their expense), a hunk of ginger, cinnamon, pounded garlic (when you crack garlic open, crack it with the heel of the knife so it's smashed, you should always smash it, it makes it more fragrant and easier to peel as well, but in this case i minced and then smashed with a meat tenderizer in a ziplock bag), the bone, of course the bone the bone the bone, the specific brand of bouillon cube i can no longer find, and therefore substitute with natural ingredients and long, long cook time. the recipe for soup stock was honestly very simple, but so humble and true i could barely accept it. she said i didn't have to add cinnmon, i often don't, but she preferred it. even though she rarely added anything too extravagant, outside of black pepper, white if i pushed and persuaded. most of the flavor comes from a balancing of fish sauce, rock sugar, and black pepper, in addition to the cinnamon and ginger kick, and the bone. of course: THE BONE. she didn't know...i used her recipes for this. she didn't know, her love for me was rotted into this, like my organs sick inside me. you know, i don't remember her name anymore. only her face. co...co, i don't know. co [_____]. i remember her recipes. i remember her legacy. AND HOW I ABUSED IT! but you, listener. i wonder what you will do with it. <</type>> <<nobr>> <</nobr>>

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<<type 70ms>>the doll i made of you, dao hien, collapses like moth silk in an empty coocoon. HOW MANY HAVE THERE BEEN, DAO HIEN. momo, oh momo. how many have there been of you in my history, how many failures have i made, (there is no one exempt from resurrection, and no doll irreparable) but the many many nightmares and histories suggest...i have repeated the same thing more than once. > HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I DONE IT? i don't know. i only know there is MOMOJINTAROU and dao hien. and that it is no one's fault but me. such thoughts remain in my head, rolling, rolling like a corpse in bed...sheets. and i think as i take a drag of my long pipe and return to reality. the reality is that...i must learn to love myself, and stop hurting myself, and become someone on my own, so i stop coming home to ghosts. sitting on the plush red velvet sofa with a tiny round wooden table with clawed feet...sipping the ice cold fresh-squeezed lemonade slush...i think to myself, //WITH EVERYTHING I'VE DONE, I'M STILL LIVING SO LUSH?// but a pilot's life is such. full of pleasure and destruction. <</type>> <<nobr>><div class="choices"> <<link '<div class="choice-item">DAO HIEN: </div>' 'haruspice'>><</link>> </div><</nobr>>