Faux Foodie

.... And in a jump to the left, right back into the banality that is C&C, I just wanna know,

For someone who professes to be such a foodie, why does crappy crappy junk food hold such desirability for me?

Case in point: Tuesday night being Two-for-one at Pizza Hut we will occasionally succumb to the easy option (especially, if like last night, there has been a run of 2am finishes (MrB had a uni assignment due) and dinner just seems too damn hard). MrB, coz he's the bestest husband ever as well as understanding my penchant for bones-covered-in-sauciness, ordered me a 6 pack of Saucy Wings along with the usual 2 pizzas. I finished said wings (but refrained from the BBQ Meat Lovers (Miss M's choice - blergh)) and promptly got back on the phone to order a 12 pack.

WHY??????

Especially when I woke up this morning feeling crappy as, due to a combination of: surfeit of saucy wings (and their associated preservatives and artificial add-ons), a leetle too much grenache and too little sleep. The lack of sleep I have only myself to blame for unfortunately - I was finishing the SYTYCD recap and got to bed at 12:45... whoops!

The Good Life

Was it not the most glorious weekend?

Bright and sunny and warm, reminding me yet again that Spring is my favourite time of the year. Pleasant but not ridiculously hot.

Frabjous day, calloooh callay etc.

So I let the sun go my head and started channeling Felicity Kendall in a big way. I didn't go blonde and adorable (much to MrB's annoyance - he luurrves Felicity K), but I did buy a whole heap of tomato, cucumber, lettuce and snow pea plants, so we can go all self-sustainable.

For, like, salads.

But it's a start!

So we planted plants. We weeded'n'feeded. Which prompted a discussion about the vagaries of the English language - because I tried to say we'd 'wed'n'fed' but we hadn't. We'd weeded'n'fed. Stupid, stupid stupidness. I am SO glad it's my mother tongue because I'd be stuffed trying to learn it!

And then... drama!

Because Inigo has caught a couple more rabbits in the last few days (prompting Miss H's question "Daddy, did you not realise an animal has been torn to shreds in the bathroom?") I bought him (the cat, Donnie) a new collar with a chunky big bell attached. He was sunning himself in the garden when I grabbed him to fasten on the collar, and during the resultant struggle I noticed a tick sticking out of his head, just above his eye. We tried to get it out, but to no avail, so MrB had to rush my Schminigo off to the vet, leaving me sobbing and stressing and generally carrying on like the drama queen I am.

It was like this, but white and freakier-looking

He's OK.

Phew!

It turns out he's probably been building up an immunity to iocaine powder over the last few years.

Parklife

I'm having conflicting feelings about the local birdlife right now...

Pros:

• They're purdy...
• They twitter (and squawk) quite delightfully.
• They've finally triumphed over the nasty mynahs.
• They make me feel like I'm living a Swiss Family Robinson type existence in a big treehouse in the middle of nowhere, rather than in mundane suburbia...

Cons:

• They crap all over my washing...

You see, our back patio area has a grapevine... which has been quite productive this year. And grapes = birds.

grapevine also = squished grapes on the patio, and an interesting eau-de-compost fragrance in the near vicinity.

But worst of all is the grapes+birds=grapey birdcrap all over my washing. I have now finished washing one particular load of white for the third time! It's so damn frustrating...

Although I'm not going to take Miss H up on her suggestion, freely given in her own special vague way, after I'd been ranting and stamping and carrying on (as is my wont) "bloody birds, bloody grapes etc etc"

"I know! Lets just kill all the birds..."


"..."

Oh dear. What have I spawned?????

Domestic Slattern

I've been cleaning the house the morning, and have come across a quandary...

No, it's not another native animal that Inigo has brought home! (hahaha, I crack myself up!)

Windows.
How do they get dirty on the inside????

I mean, I never bother cleaning our windows because we face directly East and they get battered with salt spray and what not. And I can't be bothered. So our windows are always filthy, and I assumed it was all outside grot. But it isn't. Because I just cleaned the windows in my bedroom, and now I can actually see through them. Weird.

Can anyone help?

Window Grot - what precisely is it?

Because this little domestic goddess wants to know.

Oh. And I'm making chewy fudgy brownies with proper bakers flour and 60% couverture. Read it and weep Chesty.

and now with extra protein!

Oh dear...

Let us mourn the passing of this poor lonely caterpillar. Plucked from it's munching existence by a heartless harridan...


I was testing out my new fish kettle the other day - poaching ocean trout for tea. I poured in some white wine, some water, salt and pepper, and a handful of freshly-picked parsley. And, so it would seem, a caterpillar. As I discovered when I opened the lid to put in the fish and saw a strangely-coloured bug floating in the simmering water...



Ha! I am Vlad the Impaler!




No! I am Shogun!

He boiled people alive.


I remember watching Shogun with Richard Chamberlain in Year 8 Japanese. That scene - it haunts me still. Everytime I get into a too-hot bath, I have flashbacks of blood-curdling being-boiled-alive screaming... And they weren't frogs neither.


Serves the bugger right - I'm sick of having my herbs and pelergoniums munched by rabid green caterpillars. Let this be a lesson to you all: no shipwrecking of yourselves upon my shores of greenery.

The GDO (Geek Day Out)

So, being the true blue aussie that I am, I spent Australia Day doing a spot of spring cleaning - no BBQs, no flag-waving, not even any beach-going - I had a gorgeously retro Australia Day, preferring to indulge my rampant nationalism on the inside...

It wasn't really spring cleaning, it was deeper than that... you know those boxes that accompany you from your parents place, to your first home, to your second home and so on... they reside, unopened in the shed, or the loft, or under the house. Or, in our case, in the Pit of Despair (aka the full-immersion Baptismal, aka the Wine Cellar). These are the boxes full of precious Stuff that you can't possibly bring yourself to discard, as they hold the intrinsic meaning of your life. Well, due to the getting of a Good Deal from Theos, I needed the space in the Pit for, well, wine. So the boxes had to be tackled.



Geez I've kept some crap over the years!



Highlights included:

• All my uni notes. And readings. And HSC exam papers. (And I still have them, but now they've been transferred into vermin-unfriendly plastic crates. In the cupboard-under-the-stairs. Like Harry) (Yes, I know, I'm sad. But you never know when I'll need to read up on the Arthurian Legend. Or Geoffrey of Monmouth. Or the Model Prisons...)
• Newspaper clippings of Bosnian soldiers and dead Burundian peasants. Yeah, I don't know either. Obviously a phase I went through.
• The armless Bo Peep figurine that I was given by a treasured aunt when I was 8. It wasn't armless at first obviously.
• MrB's gridiron jersey thingy.
• MrB's 'What I drew on my first day of Kindy' pictures. Hee! We kept them!
• All my letters and postcards received in the preceding 10 years. And when I said all my letters, I mean all... fines from the Finance Dept of Sydney Uni; reminders from the Blood Bank (when they wanted my blood); the monthly booklets from Doubleday and The Softback Preview. Weird. Why the hell would I keep them???

We spent all morning at it, and both ended up with shocking allergies, but the end result was 5 boxes of recycling, 2 big garbages full of assorted old crappola and a sparkling (well empty) Pit ready for the installation of wine racks. A job well done.

And I won't even think about the fact that there are still boxes in my parent's loft. That will have to be dealt with when they move later this year. No Way Jose am I thinking about that... How can I bring myself to discard my 20 year old eraser collection? If it's still there and hasn't been consumed by the rats. Oh bugger.

And sorry Donnie, can't do your post on the Illawarra Live Steamers, as MrB has obviously forgotten to hit 'Send & receive' on Outlook, and I don't have my photos... Tomorrow. I promise!

Cannot. Type.

Am. Totally Stuffed.

Have eaten too much...

Just had MrB's family (parents, brother + family, aunt + family) for a very belated Christmas lunch. And because I'm the original control freak, I decided the lunch would be held here in beautiful Bulli. This was so I could control the food that was prepared, because as well as being a control freak, I'm a culinary snob. Unfortunately this was decided at the beginning of December, and since then stuff has happened and I have a lot of stuff on my mind and am not sleeping the best... But, y'know, the show must go on and all that, so I was up all night cooking.

And it was worth it - I'm in that blissful bubble of over-indulgence, and I love it! And I mean to continue to luxuriate right through 'So you think you can dance' (to which I am still addicted, thanks very much)

It was very Italian - not the menu so much, just the different courses that kinda melded into one long afternoon of grazing. With fits and spurts of activity as another dish made it's way to the table. We sat on the deck, looking out to the Escarpment, watching the kids play in the garden, the lorikeets do their mad kiss-chase game through the trees... MrB made the table - it seated all 16 of us quite comfortably, although we're trying to work out if we could rig up some sort of sushi-train mechanism to get the goodies around to everyone, without having to actually move...

And I'm so proud of myself because I made a pavlova from scratch for the first time (I'm oddly petrified of meringues...) and it was perfect! And to use up the 8 egg yolks I made creme brulee (also for the first time - MrB not a fan of custard-based desserts), and they also turned out perfect. So I'm a happy hostess - all the guests have gone home contented and a little overwhelmed that the typical family lunch turned out to be pretty darn special.

Sometimes putting in the effort isn't just about control - it's about making people feel loved and appreciated.

Hideousness

The Guinea Fowl.

It was lovely - definitely a gamier, more complex taste than chicken. I could get to really enjoy it. The Silver Spoon has a number of recipes that I am now keen to try out (Except maybe the guinea fowl with pineapple - ewww)
Hideousness occurred when we opened the bag and discovered the GF was still sporting it's head and feet. Even the butcher was a little freaked. Or rather, the butcher's wife was a little freaked. The whole GF incident had become a little farce-like actually. Thirlmere Poultry forgot to 'process' my GF on the day I needed it, and so it had a 3 day repreive before finally being 'processed'. Lovely euphemism don't you think.
I can cope with cooking Dead Things, as long as they are no longer recognisable as Formerly Alive Things - heads and feet don't help with this. MrB had to wield the cleaver, in order to make it copable for me. MrB was quite happy to do this as it gave him an opportunity to provoke numerous squeals and screams from assorted females.
Anyway, once depacitated and de-ped-ated, I could get on with it: Guinea Fowl with sage. So, so yum.

Note to self: don't bother trying fancy scmancy new types of poultry when you have 4 grumpy girls, and one grumpy husband. They won't appreciate it.

The Foodie one

I realise this may come as a shock to some of you - indeed it shocked me when I thought about it, but on Sunday I cooked lamb shanks for the first time ever. I am now trying to analyse why it took me so long, being the self-confessed gourmand that I am, to cook something as definitively 'foodie' as lamb shanks.
Firstly - they seem expense. I know they're not, they just seem it - something to do with buying them individually (at my butcher at least). It's not as bad as lamb cutlets ($2 each!) but still...
Secondly - they're big and unwieldy.
Thirdly - MrB's constantly-reiterated aversion to 'stew muck meat' makes me think 'why bother?'

But, I made the decision, chose the recipe, and dedicated most of Sunday afternoon to preparing 'Slow Braised Lamb Shanks with Creamy Garlic Mash' And yay! I got to use my lovely Spanish smoked paprika in it's funky retro tin.
And it was damn good - munchkins were a little overwhelmed by the flintstones-esque bone on their plates, but they dealt with it admirably. And there was not a lot left at the end of the meal. Even the babes devoured it. After 3 hours of cooking, the lamb was falling off the bone, and the gently spiced sauce was rich and unctuous. So, so good.

And now I'm looking forward to braving guinea fowl on Friday night... "The elegant alternative to chicken" according to The Silver Spoon.