Thursday, March 4, 2010

Beige: and The Attack of the 28,000rpm Dentures

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Poor old beige.  It tends to get a bit of a bum wrap even if it is a 'hot tone right now' for the upcoming Paris fashion season.  Apparently.  It does not help that it is now a colloquialism for something that is dull or boring.

As you might have worked out by now, I believe that we are all one.  We are all the one colour.  And that colour is beige.  Some comedian once opined that after so many generations of mixed marriages we will all eventually be beige.  It's deeper than that though.  Be patient, I'll get there.


This is my Vitamix 5000 series blender.  It is one of the best machines - of any type - that I have ever encountered.  It is heavy, with a milled steel baseplate on heavy duty rubber feet.  It is simple, with two speed range settings ('Variable' and OMFG!), an on/off switch and an analog dial for the slower speeds.  It has a 2 litre jug which is probably bulletproof for all I know.  The blades can spin so fast (28,000rpm, meaning the tips can do over 240mph - nearly 390kph) that it actually cooks food by friction.  No fooling, you can tip some raw veges in there (don't bother peeling or even cutting them up), a few herbs, some stock-type stuff and, say, cold water, ramp up the motor (oh please do remember to secure the lid) and in 3 minutes or so steam is coming out the top.  A few minutes after that you have soup, perfectly smooth.  It will blend a mobile phone - to dust -, although this does void the warranty on both the blender and the phone.  Its 2.2 peak horsepower motor is very nearly as powerful as my old Vespa scooter.


And my scooter was red like the one in this picture, so it was a really powerful one.

Seriously, if the kitchen appliances were to suddenly wake up and look for evidence of the divine walking among them, they would proclaim the Vitamix a deity.  Even the power tools in the shed would give obeisance.  It is designed with all this power to not just puree food, but to smash apart cell walls, and make more available to the body all the wonderful nutrients in food that we so often do not digest. 

As I cannot eat, it is my teeth.  In the same way that as I cannot swallow, my PEG tube is my oesophagous.

I put all manner of stuff in there - it doesn't matter what it tastes like after all.  Each blend is different, but a recent sample blend would be:

A medium sweet potato (raw, everything is raw), a couple of small homegrown paprikas, bunch of basil from the garden, handfuls of sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds, a bit of wakame seaweed, a small lebanese cucumber, a handful of mung bean sprouts, garlic, a very big splash of olive oil, a bit of flaxseed meal, cumin, dill, and topped up with oat milk.  I have used allsorts of juices and stuff for the liquid.  Blend on high for a few minutes only, I don't like my ingredients getting too warm.

Here's the thing.  It always turns out beige.  It takes an awful lot of beetroot to change that, and even then it is just a pinkish beige.  I have to do a nearly pure concoction of leafy vegetables to get it to go green at all if there is any sort of carbohydrate in there.  Basically, all food turns out beige.  Think of what your food turns to.  Just a very dark beige, is all.

 

In 2002 a bunch of astronomers measured all of the visible stuff in the universe, and averaged out its colour.  Can you guess what colour the universe is?  Yep, beige.  I don't know if you know this, but colours are actually pretty well defined as a place on the RGB map or as a "Hex triplet."  True beige is known as  #F5F5DC while the universe is just slightly different at #FFF8E7. It was eventually labelled

Cosmic Latte.

Although I do like some of the other names suggested - Primordial Clam Chowder, Big Bang Buff, Univeige, and my personal favourite, Skyvory.

We are all stardust.  If you subscribe to the theory involving the conservation of mass and energy, then it is obvious that everything material is made of the same stuff, including our good selves.  And as it seems that life's tendency mirrors that of the universe; a dance of movements into complexity and back again into new forms of homogeneity, with entropy pulling towards sameness just a little more each time around, then beiger and beiger is our fate.  Back to the great Beigeness.  Perhaps beige is the colour of divine connectedness?  Is beige God?

I am now wondering what we might look like run through a Vitamix.  If this were Mythbusters we'd just blend a whole pig.  I'm not going to do that, especially as my blender is a vegetarian.

So next time someone tells you that something (apart from maybe your interior decor) is "so beige", you might want to consider that they are also talking about themselves.  Beige is not a valid judgement, it is the stuff of life as seen through a telescope.  Or a very high-powered blender.  Or perhaps they are referring unwittingly to a very highly advanced instance of life - something or someone who has already travelled far into the ultimate beigeness.

Still, I find it very hard to think of this.....

 .........as beige, don't you?

Our other dog, Lola the Tibetan Spaniel X Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Nope, not beige at all.  Just lovely.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for having me on here Aadhaar to start things. My other brother, is a term that sits with me well. I was absolutely laughing my arse off reading your posts, and as well as being a crack up, was educational. You are truly a great philosopher, and I think your findings are worthy of publishing. lol Beige is something I've never thought of, but your dead right. Is this the answer to racism, injustice and bad fashion sense we've all been looking for? Should the Star Trek outfits all been beige, as your future would tell us? How you work your personal analogy into it is brilliant. Apart from a fantastic love and appreciation of music, I am surprised to find such a great writer here Aadhaar. Being someone of mediocre writing talent, and a great lover of Hunter. S. journo/author (gonzo) writing, you've got a dedicated fan. I've beeen reading your old posts, and your honesty and sense of humour shine. Give me more! To the man with whe forever happy voice down the line, take care brother, and please keep it coming. I need a good chuckle too. Love, Matt XX

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  2. Glad to make for happys Matt. Enjoy, and thanks for popping by.

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  3. If I were to start a religious cult, our deity would be the Vitamix and our suicide pact would somehow involve being ground up. Nice post Eric; thanks for making us laugh! -Brian

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  4. I knew you as a baby and have followed your story intermittently for 40 years. It was wonderful for me to find your blog site( I didn't know such things existed so I am learning still as you are. What a refreshing attitude you have and bring your philosophy to life for us on the pages you write. Wonderful humour to help others of all walks of life and with all sorts of burdens to bear. I keep you in my prayers always Ettenyl Yesnek

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  5. Amazing, such a thing these internets! I must admit I have no idea who you might be (sorry) and your name (is that really your name, what a beautiful thing!) rings no bells for me. Then again my earliest really clear memory involves my sister, so I'm 4 at least then. I'd love to hear more and find out who you are - drop a line, or an email address? You can get me at my secondary email, ericog68@yahoo.com Thanks for the kind words too.

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  6. Ah, of course, I see now. It took me nearly a week, but I see.

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  7. We go back and forth between beige and green. One time I managed to make his blend neon green. Gross.

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