I have an inordinate love of fresh basil.
I heart basil.
I order Thai food, just for the basil dishes.
I love the scent, the soft feel of its leaves, its rich, rich green, and that taste, mm mm mm.
I finally found the Wednesday farmers market downtown in Portland's South Park blocks, an came home clutching a bunch of basil. Happy homemaker, I put it in a glass of water near the sink and off I went, back out into the day.
That night, when I walked into my studio, I went straight to open the window. WHAT is that smell? It's like...grapefruit...rind...no, it's like B.O., old, stale, stinky B.O. that has been sitting in a gym shirt in the corner too long.
I did the laundry. The air circulated. The scent diminished. Until the next day. I came home, and there was that...grapefruity, no, stale, six-day-old sweat stink again. Trash out, recycling emptied, I nosed around the house to discover it was the basil, the pretty, thriving in its glass, scentsational, scentrageously overpowering essence d'sweat herb.
Who knew that's what basil smells like in an urban studio?
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when you come visit, you can croon over the basil plants on my front porch and in my garden.
ReplyDeleteI can relate. Couldn't figure out for ages why the kitchen sink kept smelling like the cat litter. Of course we do not empty our cat litter into the kitchen sink. Finally, we became aware that it was radiating from our live basil plant on the windowsill. Washing the dishes is less pleasant now, but we do have fresh basil. :)
ReplyDeletedan, i'll start crooning now. btw, did you know you can puree it and pop it in freezer ice trays to make that yummy summer taste last throughout the year? hmmm, what if you put some sugar and lime into your puree, then poured bubbly water over the ice cubes, omg, see, i'm crooning now.
ReplyDeletere. the kitty litter, oh complex basil, how can you be so right, and yet so wrong?
ReplyDelete