I'd posted this at Jazz Corner yesterday but for those who don't trawl those waters:

At Record Club, Nina brought some pashmak, a gift from her Iranian boyfriend's mom. Pashmak (pictured above and also known as, seriously, Persian Fairy Floss) is essentially cotton candy, spun sugar flavored with almond or vanilla extract except with a very fine, silky texture. It comes densely packed in a cake about the size of a loaf of rye bread. It has the interesting property of greatly expanding once released from its confines. I'm not sure if it ever stops. It filled a large bowl on Sunday and after we'd each helped ourselves to a few handfuls there was more there than before. But that's not its most salient feature, especially to me.

Pashmak looks and feels exactly like my faithful hound Nanook's fur. I mean to a t. (crosswordese sidetrack--I hate when "to a t" is a four-letter answer to a clue such as, "Exactly". Inevitably, no matter how often I encounter it, I sit there for a second going, "What the hell's a toat?") So I took a small but exapanding bagful home, got it into the pantry without Linda's knowledge and planned.

On Tuesday, the stage was set. I had gone down to the pantry with a Baggie, filling it with a handful of pashmak and putting it my pants pocket for easy access. Ate dinner with Linda. When she finished her main meal, she got up and went to the kitchen to get a mango. Nanook, ever mindful of the possibility of a food handout, tagged along, standing patiently behind her as she prepared her fruit. I ambled over, having discreetly palmed a hank of pashmak. "Did you ever taste Nookie's fur?" I asked. Linda, distracted while slicing the mango, goes, "What?" and half-turns around. "Nookie's fur," I say, "It's really good." I reach down, pull an apparent tuft and munch.

Linda gives me a priceless look. "What the hell's wrong with you?! What are you doing?!" She seriously thought I'd lost it, both my eating the fur and pulling it off Nanook in the first place. I actually managed to keep a straight face for about 15 seconds....Excellent.

*****************

Enjoying the Eco very much some 100 pages in.