HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe)
mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Chinese Curry Sauce Secret-Cracking Progress...

GOOD NEWS on my protracted search for an authentic Chinese takeaway-style curry sauce. As dumped over chicken curry mix vegetable fry rice or sold in a pot with chips (which (for you Americans) are a chunkier version of "fries")...

Basically I just had to find the right curry powder to start with and the nearest Chinese shop has a good one only it's far too heavy on the chili for my preference. Indian curry mix will not do. West Indian is better, though the "jerk chicken spices" I have are way too heavy on cinnamon plus a bit too coriander-y...

I fried an onion in butter (great money-saving tip for those on dole: buy cheapest unsalted butter instead of frying oil when in desperation (you can't spread frying oil on bread...))... added a mug of water plus 4 or 5 teaspoons Chinese curry powder (cannot name brand: all in Chinese) this I threw in the blender and whizzed for 2 mins on max.

But this "curry" that I'd painstakingly compared to that of the local Chinese takeaway last night by tastetesting their curry plus my curry powder (a near perfect match)... man! It was GROSS! Seemingly something of EVERYTHING was missing. I was in despair as to how to fix it.

Until I remembered my "Chinese salt" this is 50-50 Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and ordinary table salt. A flat teaspoon into this mugful of curry sauce worked wonders I'd seen only heroin do before. (E.g. the wonder of turning me from a human block of ice in agitated despair into a peachy even-breathing human actually feeling like a "being" not a mistake... anyhow...

The curry sauce still needed thickening:~

So then I gradually added value self-raising flour by the half-tsp (again more multipurpose than cornflour, which is barely any better for thickening (so I'm told) and definitely doesn't make as good dumplings as Value Selfraising... thereby thickening curry sauce. Fished out the worst of the inevitable lumps. It was still lumpy though. So I shoved it yet again in the blender and wahey! Curry sauce of a perfect consistency! I must've added about 4 tsps.

The only problem was my specific Chinese currymix was too heavy on chili as I said though the remainder of the spicemix was bang-on correct. Do not use Indian spices or supermarket "mild/medium/whatever curry powder" this will only give a Madras-like flavour which is wrong. You must get Chinese curry mix, which is lacking ingredients, but I can tell you has a distinct whiff of star anise (which you'll never find in Indian curry powder) ... and the MSG is ESSEMTIAL. Suddenly from a less than amateurish failure of a sauce you get precisely the right warmth and heat and mysterious oniony lingering flavour (which is more down to MSG than actual onions in the mix)...

tra la la la!!

16 comments:

Monogram Queen said...

You do love your chinese don't you? I love Thai best! Mmmm...

Crushed said...

It's the Monosodium Glutamate makes it so tasty, did you know that?

It enhances all flavours. whatever they are. It tricks your taste buds, basically.

Akelamalu said...

When MWM wants curry and chips (usually after a few pints) I use Dinaclass curry powder it's just like the local chinese takeway, it even has sultanas in it!

Baino said...

Curry and chips! GAH! Its like that 3-in-1 stuff that the Irish eat, curry, chips and fried rice. Tis true my friend English Cuisine is an oxymoron! I'm with Monogram Queen - Thai rocks!

Lucinda said...

I think I'm going to stick with buying my Chinese food. = )

Unknown said...

Hey - if you want authentic Chinese curry sauce, log on to www.kingasia.co.uk. You can buy on-line and they deliver internationally. You won't find anything more authentic and you don't need to add anything else to it apart from water!!

CrystalChick said...

I love to try different dishes but find alot of spices bother my tummy anymore. :( Hub and I would occasionally meet at an Indian buffet but I'd always ask the waiter which dishes were mild!
Hub can eat things so hot your lips would melt. He grows assorted peppers and has been into these crazy habaneros lately. Once they turn orange, they are so hot his lips go numb. That just doesn't sound fun to me. lol

I haven't visited in so long so there are a bit too many posts to catch up and comment on, but I did want to say that I'm real sorry to read of your friend Lucky's death. Hope you are okay.

Bimbimbie said...

Not a curry lover ... always wonder what's hiding within all the sauce and spices ;(

Puss-in-Boots said...

I can't ingest MSG...gives me awful migraines, so I generally stay away from Chinese food unless I make my own. I put Chinese Five Spice in...gives a lovely flavour. But after Italian, one of my favourite foods is Vietnamese...yummm and very healthy, too.

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

MSG also makes me wig out without headaches from hell. Sometimes it is worth the pain for some fantabulous Chinese food. I have to agree with puss-in-boots, Vietnamese is great food!

Gledwood said...

MQ: the spicey dishes are what I really like... Chinese is work-a-day food for me ie what I could eat every day. Indian is more delicately spicey... my all time favourite's halal Malaysian-Chinese (ie no seafood or weird bits: the best of Indian-Chinese-Thai all together...)

Crushed I mix it 50:50 with Saxa table salt and call it my "Chinese salt"... really it needs ordinary salt to really make it kick in (so I've found) the 2 flavours have a definite synergy...

Akalamalu: I did quite a good curry sauce.. goes REALLY WELL with chicken. Not quite so well with beef... which is what I had to finish it off with

Baino: I know what you mean, but couldn't do Thai everyday. Chinese I most definitely can (and do: my own (after a style...))

Gledwood said...

Lucinda: I couldn't afford that... and just end up craving craving CRAVING it even reading the takeaway menus like some kind of longing pathetic food porn thang :-<...

Gail: I will: cheers!

Bimbimbie: i wish they'd give full ingredients to that curry. VERY ANNOYING ... I just know star anise is part of the makeup as I can taste it...

Crystal: I'm surviving, cheers...

%-/...

Gledwood said...

Pussinboots: I know lots of people don't like MSG (or the thought of it) ... but it's fine by me!!

Eileen: never knowingly ingested Vietnamese... in fact they used to surreptitiously open CHINESE takeaways until Vietnamese became trendy after its own fashion in the 90s

Nicole said...

Gled, give Chinese Five Spice powder a go. This might be your missing link.

Liz Hinds said...

Good grief, gledwood, are you still on the hunt for Chinese curry sauce?!!!

Sorry, I've not been by for a while. I've come in via Robyn in Australia again. Seems to work well this way.

xx

Gledwood said...

Found an industrial version (just add water and stir continuously)... but want to know PRECISELY WHICH SPICES and to be able to make from scratch. I hate feeling in the pocket of the industrial multinational food business and am sure Chinese takeaway chefs don't use industrial premade mixes! I'm sure they would know precisely which spices to add and in what quantities and that's what I wish to do...

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

Manic Magic

Manic Magic

Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

Copyright 2011 by Gledwood