The Last Supper

Is there anything more depressing than the last night on holidays when you realise it’s pretty well all over and you’re flying out the next morning?

You’ve pretty well scoped the place and gotten into the groove of the place. You know your way around, and have figured out the sort of places you want to hang out in your time there, and then suddenly it’s all as good as over.

We hit this point pretty much straight after our trivia disgrace. And then missing the courtesy bus back to our accommodation. It was pouring (who would believe it would be 14 degrees and raining, even in winter, in Byron Bay) and taxis were pretty much non-existent.

We decided to go get pizza and try to catch a movie.

Well, on the cusp of end-of-holiday depression, we stumbled upon the most amazing pizza. Bloody amazing!!

Is there anything that pizza can’t fix??

Burger Etiquette

There are as many ways of eating a big fat burger as there are people. What’s your preferred technique?

I personally go for the “cut into quarters and eat from the outside, in” technique, whilst trying to drop as little as possible all down my front. What does everyone else think?

For the record, in case you were wondering, it was a tofu burger. And a Damn good one, at that!

Sharing is Caring

So, hypothetically, say, this couple (friends of mine, you see) were out to dinner. It’s a Thai meal (hypothetically, of course), and they share a couple of dishes and have a drink each.

At the end of the meal, the girl has hypothetically half of her drink, a red wine, left in her glass. As she is finishing, the waitress brings over the bill, and with it a plate with 4 scorched almonds on it. A lovely touch, I though. Umm, she hypothetically thought.

Not wanting to ruin her palate, she decided to finish her wine before partaking of her tasty scorched almond dessert treat. Her dining companion, chatting away about how delicious the meal had been, hypothetically eats three scorched almonds off the plate.

Do we hypothetically think maybe a manners line was crossed?? You know, hypothetically speaking?

Office Politics

Do you think it's bad form for a grown woman, making sandwiches in the office kitchen, to cut the crusts off?

Just wondering.

J.

A shout out

Hi to Karen, NTB's sister, who's been back in Sydney tonight, from Brisbane, and took us back to her old Uni job premises, the best Indian food ever.

Thanks for a great feed and a great night!

Mmmm...Tasty

So I was at the supermarket the other day. I spotted a pack o f"low carb" pasta.

Given that I love pasta, but find the fact that it's pretty high in kilojoules and fat, so try to only eat it occasionally, I thought I'd check it out.

I read the label, and true to the headlines, it was substantially healthier than my usual brand, I bought a pack.

Tonight I decided to cook it up. MMMM...Tasty!

But I bet I could replicate the recipe, without shelling out the $5.40 for the pack of pasta. Check the recipe below:

1. Buy normal pack of pasta
2. Cook pasta according to instructions
3. Discard pasta. Retain cardboard box pasta was packaged in.
4. Rip cardboard into pasta-shaped pieces
5. Pour source over.
6. Eat.

So now I have half a pack of foul-tasting pasta. If anyone's interested in trying it out, I'll sell the remainder of it to you for $2.50...bargain.

Kidding. I'll let you have it free.

OK, you drive a hard bargain...I'll give you $2.50 to take it off my hands.

Ahh, bugger it, it's going in the bin.

All Hail the Queen

Is there anyone out there who doesn't love new gadgets?

If there is, they're nothing like me.

I have a new gadget (other than my new internet connection. YAY!).

It was actually quite an exciting story...well, for me, anyway.

I've had a bit of bad luck with rice cookers. I managed to kill 2 in a matter of a couple of months. Don't even ask. It's not relevant to the story anyway.

So consequently, I decided that I would actually invest in a good quality rice cooker (I'm sure if you've read even a few posts on here, you'll realise I take cooking very seriously).

Being me, I did my rice-cooker research. Checked up on the internet and a few stores, compared brands and features and reviews, and settled on the exact brand and model of rice cooker I was after.

It was quite a pricey one. I figure you get what you pay for. For that reason, I put off actually purchasing the coveted rice cooker. I love a bargain, so I thought I'd wait until somewhere had it on sale.

3 Weeks ago I was logging onto my internet banking. I was doing my usual bill-paying and pay-redistribution activities, when I saw that the balance on the rewards points I get for using my credit card was getting up there. I usually like to use my balance fairly regularly (I got totally stung when I lost bucketloads of frequent flyer points I'd been saving up in the Ansett collapse, when I ended up sitting at the airport for 3 hours, only to be sent home, frequent flyer points and flights down the toilet).

I clicked the link to the catalogue of things I could cash in for...and right there was the exact rice cooker that I wanted!! And I had enough points!!

I may have had to wait for delivery by post, but the whole thing is so much sweeter now that I've used my points on something I really wanted and was prepared to buy anyway!

The gadget is great. I have been making rice galore, plus using the slow-cooker option to make risottos, curries and more. Just call me the queen of the slow cooker.

Hot Chilli Woman

Mmmm...I love chilli. Fresh chilli, dried chilli, chilli sauce, chilli stir fry, pickled jalpenos, chilli sin carne, scrambled eggs with chilli, hot curry, home grown chillis and anything else that's spicy (I'll even go for hot english mustard, horseradish or wasabi).



Recently, my regular supermarket chain, as they tend to do, decided (in their infinite wisdom) to discontinue stocking my favourite chilli sauce.



Byron Bay Sauce Company chilli sauces totally rock.



So, anyway, I was definitely feeling the loss from my vast collection of chilli sauces.



Thank god for the internet.



I found this amazing website that sells all sorts of chilli sauces. Some that even the greatest of chilli afficionados (me, of course) had never heard of.



I managed to order at least a couple of each of the range. I was a happy girl. A "Hot Chilli Woman" if you please.



Then I discovered the chilli heat ratings system.



One thing you'll be fully aware of if you eat a lot of chilli, but will be oblivious if you don't, is that the more of the stuff you eat, the more tolerant you become.



Since I eat chilli pretty much as a major part of three meals a day, I have a pretty reasonable tolerance. I laugh in the face of things that make NTB sweat and hear ringing in his ears. I can't even taste a touch of tabasco in a dish. I thought I was invincible.



So the new chilli sauce website had ratings, in heat, of 1 to 10.



The sauce that I spotted had a rating of 10+++.........the highest you could get. It was called "Dave's Insanity Hot Sauce". And it was supposed to be the hottest chilli sauce you can buy in the country. I was instantly hooked. I had to have it!!!!



Right up until the point where I spotted the product below it in the catalogue....



Dave's Ultimate Insanity Hot Sauce!!!!



Of course I ordered some. It was supposed to be even hotter than the hottest sauce ever on sale in this country.



On the label it warned - "Use one drop at a time"



I ignored that.



Well, the verdict could be weak, boring, couldn't even taste it. How disappointing. :-(



Except it wasn't.



Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Maybe I'll just have one drop next time.


IT'S AWESOME!!!

The Big Day

Today was the big day - my big television debut!!!

OK, that's a bit of a lie. I ended up on local TV news for Burnie, Tasmania, when I was in primary school for being part of a jump rope for heart team and met Fiona Coote. I suppose that was technically my television debut.

And then there was that time when that thing happened and I had quite a lot of TV interviews and such. But that's a whole different post for another day.

But anyway, today was a big day for me and Ronene and Australian television.

It was so weird seeing myself on a show that I have watched on many occasions in the past - Ready Steady Cook.

Before you ask (I know you're going to), you can check out the recipes here. For the record, I was soundly beaten by an outstanding strawberry meringue roulade. I think we did pretty well, though, with
Crumbed goat’s cheese with asparagus, tomato and saffron salsa
Mushroom and goat’s cheese arancini with pesto
Mushroom, asparagus and goat’s cheese risotto and, last but not least;
Upside-down apple and raspberry tart

I had to note that the whole thing somehow looked a bit like a home movie. Not because of any lack of production skill, but just because that's the only medium I'm used to seeing myself on the small screen.

I also noted that I found it pretty cringe-worthy. I think it's even worse when you know the daggy comments are coming. Something on par with seeing yourself telling a dad-joke.

I noticed that I liked my hair better that short. And that it has grown quite a lot since the taping.

So, that's it. All over and done with. Of course, if you watch this space, I'll see what i can do to try and work out how to get some of it online for friends and family. If you want to see it, you may have to pretend to be one or the other!

For those that caught it, hope you enjoyed it. For those that didn't, guess that's lucky for one of us!

J.

p.s. check out the continuity problem at the end. A prize for anyone (other than Ronene, Tresha or Harriet) who can pick it!

M&M Magic

The break up of my mini-pack of M&Ms:

3 orange
3 brown
3 yellow
2 blue
2 green
1 red

The correct order for eating M&Ms: Brown, Orange, Yellow, Red Green, Blue. Isn't it obvious?

Hair Colour moment

OK, I've just had it pointed out to me that I made an error on my post advising exactly when I am to become a big-time celebrity.

When programming VCRs, please set them for Tuesday the 3rd of July at 2pm on Channel 10 for the world premier of Ronene and I duking it out on Ready Steady Cook.

That is all.

55 Days until International Stardom & Celebrity

Yup, the wait is over for those who've been asking incessantly.

The episode of Ready Steady Cook starring none other than myself and Ronene will be going to air (that's industry-talk for "on the telly")

2pm, Tuesday, 3rd July 2007, channel ten.

So tune in. Check out our magic cooking skills, rapier wit and sparkling repartee. I'm sure Paris and Nicole will be knocking down the door very shortly afterwards, vying for our attentions and wanting to hang out with the latest and hottest celebrities on the block (us, in case you were wondering), so book in some time with us quick smart before that happens.

And try not to laugh at us too much, hey?

We now return you to your normal viewing

It's ANZAC day today. For any international readers it's an Australian public holiday that's a tribute to Australia's armed forces.

So I'm at home today and it's not the weekend. And because it's not the weekend I don't have all my usual weekend stuff to do. Plus it's miserable weather outside, so I'm not feeling at all guilty about the idea of staying in my PJs all day and not leaving the house.

I was looking forward to catching up on my daytime TV. Days of Our Lives is on at 2 and I haven't seen it in quite some time. No doubt I've missed out on about 3 days worth of drama.

I'm a little disappointed as there's no Ready Steady Cook due to live coverage of the Anzac Day Service. Luckily I have Saturday's Iron Chef on tape.

Hope everyone has as lazy a day as possible. I know that's my plan.

J.

The Wait is Over

Yep, that was probably a bit mean, leaving you all in suspense like that. I'll put you out of your misery now, I promise.

So on Thursday Ronene and I rocked up for our 15 minutes of fame and went to the taping of a TV show. Even more exciting, we were actually ON the TV show. Yes, that's right, we were contestants on Ready Steady Cook!!!

I won't give the game away and tell you who won...I'll update details of when it's being aired when I know them so you can watch and find out...

Instead, here's 10 things you may be interested in....

1. Professional hair and make-up is kind of fun...for the first couple of reapplications. After that I felt a bit like I could have scraped the layer of goo off my face with a spatula. And actually make that just make-up, there still isn't too much anyone can do with my hair (short of a wig or hat).
2. The food on the show actually tastes as good as it looks.
3. Janelle Bloom was always my favourite chef on the show, but now I've met her and discovered she's really nice as well, she's even more my favourite.
4. You can make food look really professional if you just present it right. (Yup, it's taken me 30-something years to figure this pearl of wisdom out)
5. Strawberries are more impressive than apples
6. You get to keep the aprons when you're a contestant
7. You also get special "knife-handling" lessons. After which you have to sign a waiver in case of knife injuries sustained on the show.
8. It's pretty nerve-wracking getting down those stairs. And the rest.
9. Professional chefs can do some pretty amazing stuff.
10. Lots and Lots of fun!

An other food brag.

After many year of preparing burritos, a commonly cooked recipe from my repertoire of vegetarian delights, I decided to get all adventurous last night.

I think that I may, just possibly, have perfected the burrito.

A list of things that are annoying me this morning.

1. My laptop. Stupid machine.
2. Mondays
3. My breakfast shop who put their prices up when they were already overpriced
4. My finger. It hurts. Jammed it when folding up the sofa-bed yesterday. Ouch.
5. The Internet. Well, it's OK now, but we have had no access all morning until now. How dare it be out there with all that information and me not be able to get any of it?
6. Sydney Water. Sending me nasty letters even though they were the one's who stuffed up and had my address wrong.
7. Whoever has been giving out my number as the contact for any number of resourcing issues handled by another area of my team. I don't know about this stuff!!!
8. Unhelpful Customer Service staff who automatically blame someone else for mistakes before even checking their facts.
9. Adobe Acrobat. Just didn't feel like working this morning, apparently. Making it necessary for me to manually produce all 86 reports this morning. A task that normally takes about 10 minutes. I've just finished and it's taken me 2.5 hours.

That is my whinge for the day. That will be all.

Request

I have a real thing going for bran muffins at the moment. A shop nearby sells great ones, but they're extortionately expensive.

Does anyone have a good recipe?

I might even make enough for everybody.

Some Improvement

I'm now only damp.

My lunch is really tasty. No less than 7 people walking past my desk (yep, tragically, I'm eating lunch at my desk again) commented on how good it smelled. Chickpea & vegetable curry with brown rice. Yum.

The internet seems to be particularly funny today. It started with CheddarVision, and was followed by Personal Submarines and my personal favourite: Psychic Museum Closes its Doors Due toUnforseen Circumstances.

I'd still rather be in a hot bath with a cup of tea and a packet of tim tams.

Carnivore Part II

Did you know you can stretch out the time it takes to eat a giant chocolate freddo longer than a twin peppermint freddo...even through they're the same size and basically the same amount of calories and fat?

Jacki's Carnivorous Cravings

There's an animal I'd love to eat right now.

Bite off it's head, nibble at it's feet, suck the insides out.

Freddo might be in trouble.