the sanctity of my sandwich has been violated

Since I discovered the giant size of the danishes, cinnamon rolls and other pastries sold at Café Brahe, it's become my new favourite place. Not to mention it's on Universitetsgatan with a shaded terrace, which is a more convenient downtown location than Robert's Coffee (although that's still convenient if you're going to the movies of course).

Anyway, so today Wax and I had a couple of errands to discharge and we stopped for some juice and pastry there, and unwisely also ordered a tomato and mozzarella sandwich. "Unwisely?" you ask. "How could purchasing something as universally scrumptious as the combination of tomato and mozzarella be unwise?"

Well, I'll tell you.

On a baguette lies a row of tomatoes and a row of mozzarella slices with whole leaves of fresh basil, drizzled with just enough pine nut pesto. And horseradish. And mayonnaise.

Yes. Horseradish and mayonnaise.

Why, for the love of red shoes, why?

Who the hell looks at a perfectly sublime, already-scrumptious pile of mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and pesto, and goes, "Oh, what this needs is some MAYO and HORSERADISH." And for that matter, how the hell did they manage to miss the fact that the sandwich is essentially Italian food? And already fitted with an appropriately Italian condiment (PESTO), and thus not in need of any revolting, dairy-containing, white-bread slathering WASP condiments like mayo?

I don't even know how to mock the choice of horseradish - I'm not even aware of any legitimate uses for it off the Passover table, where it is used because it's the most bitter, digusting food imaginable and thus thought to be appropriate to represent the bitterness of slavery. ("Oh, yes! What this lovely Italian sandwich needs is some of the bitter savour of slavery!")

harry potter and the inconvenient character traits

For someone who loves Harry Potter fanfiction as much as I do, it's strange to admit that I dislike several characters.

In many ways Harry, in canon, is a blank slate, because the point of view is so thoroughly focused on him, and his main character traits are bravery and thickness. He's not as completely thick as Ron, but he's thick enough to get on well with him - he occasionally figures things out on his own, just never quickly. I don't exactly hate him in canon, but I hate to read his point of view. The books, while told almost entirely in his point of view, have some saving graces - like the fantastic world-building - but are still, in my view, somewhat of a trial to read (boring, long-winded, requiring frequent breaks to breathe deeply and think of calm blue oceans and rant about the stupidity of the characters). Fanfiction doesn't have those saving graces, usually, at least not in the same degree. Fortunately, most fanfiction isn't too accurately characterised.

I find that my favourite fictional takes on the world keep the thickness, stubbornness, recklessness, and loyalty (and not infrequently, some or all of the prejudice) of Harry and Ron but make them bearable to read. (If they don't, I back-button. I'm not going to put up with an accurate characterisation of Harry or Ron for anyone but Rowling.) I suppose it's not too hard to achieve these things - although I've never seriously written in the fandom myself (parodies, very short pieces, and somewhat purple now-jossed Marauderfic don't count) - because many writers manage it admirably, even when there are other flaws in the stories.

But it's a funny thing when edging closer to canon characterisation becomes a flaw in my point of view.