Since last spring, I’ve been going to Body Pump classes a couple of times a week at my local gym. And, by golly, I love Pump. I love the daggy music, especially the bicep track to a dreadful cover of ‘Eye of the Tiger’. I love that my local gym is run by the YMCA, and, as such, is a bit more budget than other gyms I’ve gone to in the past. I love that there are no mirrors in the group fitness room (seriously, I do not need to see myself from all possible angles as I tone). I love that I can feel my body getting stronger and that, after that first ten minutes, the endorphins kick in and I’m having a blast even though muscles I never thought I had are aching. I love the smug feeling I get when reading health recommendations regarding physical exercise, because I’m Just Do(ing) It. I love the sexual-political innuendo that Pump instructors slip in (tee hee) – yes, I can go deeper, can you? YES, OH, YES, WE CAN.
What I don’t love, though, is gym fashion. It’s the (sweaty) pits. I personally can’t do the Lorna Jane esque work out outfit – a singlet in a pastel colour, motivational slogan optional, and a pair of three quarter length leggings. Which, incidentally, become transparent when sweaty – your call as to whether you want the person behind you to know far too much about you after you’ve shared a deep and meaningful squat track together.
Some people can get away with the cute gym girl look. Specifically Elle Woods. Others can’t. Specifically me, although Elle and I share a lot of other commonalities (a subject for another post). See the problem is, I’m no gym poser. When I go, I go hard (tee hee). So, I get hot. Really hot. And Sweaty. Really sweaty, and sweaty everywhere, even, bizarrely, my elbows. It’s like they’re crying little tears of sweat. That cute pastel outfit? It’s soaked and clinging two minutes into the squat track. Me? I’m just a hot mess (and not in a good way).
So what I’ve been wearing of late to the gym is my around the house outfit - Gasp – because it is comfortable and I don’t have to be distracted by it during my workout. I can instead concentrate on perfect form, and that bead of sweat about to drip from the end of my nose. I’m OK with the bottom portion of this outfit, namely my country road grey marle track pants – they’re cotton, so they breathe, and they’re dark enough to not show sweat. They’re also rather flattering, if a pair of track pants can be called such. (Next winter I’m buying myself three pairs: one for home, one for gym, and one for those visits to Costco or greater Queanbeyan when only your best going out trackies will do).
On top, though, is where the real problems begin. I’ve been wearing my grey marle ANU tee shirt. Which I love to bits, like all my ANU tee shirts before it. It’s big and baggy, which means I’m deliciously cool and comfortable in it. It’s also long, which is great for my longer torso, particularly as I don’t want to share my belly with everyone in class during overhead lifting sets. It’s also got a super high crew neck, so I, and my Pump classmates, are safe from accidental boob flashes (I have seen this happen A LOT at gyms. I refuse to let my nipples become a pair of bouncy statistics)
Problem is, though, it’s the most singularly unflattering garment in all creation. I honestly feel the need to walk around each member of class after we finish, and explain to them that, actually, I’m normally pretty stylish, and, actually, yes, I have a waist, a real one, under the overhanging outcrop of my bust, and, actually, no, I’m not a swamp creature, and, actually, yes, I do dress in colours other than grey marle. Although, to be fair, most people, myself included, are so thoroughly Pumped out that they don’t give a damn about style, waists, busts, swamps and grey marle. Just get me a hot shower and some tiger balm, stat.
Maybe this whole ANU tee shirt thing is a good learning exercise for me, proving that yes, I can look like a total dag, go out, in public, with other people, and still have a great time. But I still think (to use a Pumpism) that I ought to BRING IT a bit more in the style stakes at the gym, without compromising the physicality that is, after all, the aim of the game.
So this week, in between setting exams, grading papers, and writing thesis, I’m going in search of Gym Tee Shirt Perfection. And I’m going hard. Because, OH YES, I can.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Fifty ways to leave your hair care regime
Dear Trichomania American Cream (Lush Trichomania Shampoo, DISCONTINUED, Lush American Cream Conditioner, $33.95 for a 500g bottle),
They say breaking up with a hairdresser is one of the hardest breaks a woman has to make. It’s not true. This is by far the hardest thing I’ve done (since this morning’s Pump class). Tirchomania American Cream, you’ve been my hair care regime for the last two years, but it’s over. The writing has been on the (shower) wall for quite some time.
You came to me at a difficult point in my hair cycle. I was growing out of some unhealthy colouring habits, and had been abusing silicone based hair care products for far longer than I care to remember. It’s a common phase for young girls in their early twenties, but I now know, being common doesn’t make something OK.
In many ways, you saved my hair from a downward spiral of aggressive dyes and smothering repair treatments. From that very first time in the shower, you unleashed something powerful on my follicles. Your smell alone – vanilla, coconut, a hint of citrus – intoxicated me. Your deep conditioning thrilled me. You were smooth, banishing my flyaways and frizz with your honey-sweet caresses. You bought my hair, gently, back to life after one too many bleach jobs.
We were good together, you and I. Never had I had such good hair. People stopped me in the street to ask what I was doing, and my answer, immediately, joyfully, was you. I thought I’d found the one.
Then, about a year in, things changed. Was it just me, or did your once sweet smell become cloying? Did your smoothing and conditioning drag me down? Every hair care regime goes through a period of adjustment. Maybe this was ours? Each passing week, though, bought no change. Instead, my hair became increasingly suboptimal.
And, then, I cheated on you. You were out of stock. I was desperate. My hair was filthy. It needed a wash. So I found a little bottle of I Love Juicy (Lush I Love Juicy Shampoo, $10.95 per 100g bottle). Although I Love Juicy’s banana-ey overtones made me gag, it did leave my roots voluminously invigorated. It was then I realised what was missing between us. I’d glimpsed what life could be like with bouncy, full, luscious hair. I threw away that little bottle of I Love Juicy, willing to give things another shot with you. But I couldn’t forget that incredible root lift that my sneaky bottle of I Love Juicy had given me.
Things went downhill fast. Rinsing thoroughly, I was still overwhelmed by your sticky residue. My hair clung limply to my scalp. I was using a can of dry shampoo (Batiste Tropicana Dry Shampoo, $9.95 per 100g bottle) a week. You know that’s not healthy - for hair, for the environment, for my budget. My ends were split and frazzled from too many attempts at the inverted-head-vigrous-hair-volumising-brush-up (don’t try that without a note from your chiropractor) by way of a desperate attempt to shake some life back into my hair. And yet we still couldn’t get the volume up.
So it’s time for us to part ways. No, I don’t want to keep trying till the end of the bottle. I’ve gone out and got myself a new regime, so I’m afraid it’s bin time for you. It seems cold, such an unceremonious goodbye after so many good times together. But Big Veganese (Lush Big Shampoo, $25.95 for a 330g pot, Lush Veganese Conditoner, $23.50 per 250g bottle) gives me root lift and volume like you never could. It’s entirely vegan too. Not that that matters, but I admire commitment to a cause.
I’ll remember you fondly, even though things got so lank at the end. I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who will appreciate all you have to offer – your sweet smell, your deep conditioning, and your soothing smoothness. Indeed, I heartily endorse you as a hair care product, and wish you many happy shower times together. But I’m no longer one of those women who wants what you have to offer. My hair needs invigoration, my hair needs energy, my hair needs the fresh smell of lime and sea salt, my hair needs root lift, root lift you just can’t give me.
Take care, we’ll always have Chifley (not quite the same as we’ll always have Paris, is it?)
Peg
Xoxo
Ps: this post, as with every post on this blog, is unsponsored. It’s just hair care advice from one woman to another, no subtext, no hidden messages, no financial incentives. Enjoy!
They say breaking up with a hairdresser is one of the hardest breaks a woman has to make. It’s not true. This is by far the hardest thing I’ve done (since this morning’s Pump class). Tirchomania American Cream, you’ve been my hair care regime for the last two years, but it’s over. The writing has been on the (shower) wall for quite some time.
You came to me at a difficult point in my hair cycle. I was growing out of some unhealthy colouring habits, and had been abusing silicone based hair care products for far longer than I care to remember. It’s a common phase for young girls in their early twenties, but I now know, being common doesn’t make something OK.
In many ways, you saved my hair from a downward spiral of aggressive dyes and smothering repair treatments. From that very first time in the shower, you unleashed something powerful on my follicles. Your smell alone – vanilla, coconut, a hint of citrus – intoxicated me. Your deep conditioning thrilled me. You were smooth, banishing my flyaways and frizz with your honey-sweet caresses. You bought my hair, gently, back to life after one too many bleach jobs.
We were good together, you and I. Never had I had such good hair. People stopped me in the street to ask what I was doing, and my answer, immediately, joyfully, was you. I thought I’d found the one.
Then, about a year in, things changed. Was it just me, or did your once sweet smell become cloying? Did your smoothing and conditioning drag me down? Every hair care regime goes through a period of adjustment. Maybe this was ours? Each passing week, though, bought no change. Instead, my hair became increasingly suboptimal.
And, then, I cheated on you. You were out of stock. I was desperate. My hair was filthy. It needed a wash. So I found a little bottle of I Love Juicy (Lush I Love Juicy Shampoo, $10.95 per 100g bottle). Although I Love Juicy’s banana-ey overtones made me gag, it did leave my roots voluminously invigorated. It was then I realised what was missing between us. I’d glimpsed what life could be like with bouncy, full, luscious hair. I threw away that little bottle of I Love Juicy, willing to give things another shot with you. But I couldn’t forget that incredible root lift that my sneaky bottle of I Love Juicy had given me.
Things went downhill fast. Rinsing thoroughly, I was still overwhelmed by your sticky residue. My hair clung limply to my scalp. I was using a can of dry shampoo (Batiste Tropicana Dry Shampoo, $9.95 per 100g bottle) a week. You know that’s not healthy - for hair, for the environment, for my budget. My ends were split and frazzled from too many attempts at the inverted-head-vigrous-hair-volumising-brush-up (don’t try that without a note from your chiropractor) by way of a desperate attempt to shake some life back into my hair. And yet we still couldn’t get the volume up.
So it’s time for us to part ways. No, I don’t want to keep trying till the end of the bottle. I’ve gone out and got myself a new regime, so I’m afraid it’s bin time for you. It seems cold, such an unceremonious goodbye after so many good times together. But Big Veganese (Lush Big Shampoo, $25.95 for a 330g pot, Lush Veganese Conditoner, $23.50 per 250g bottle) gives me root lift and volume like you never could. It’s entirely vegan too. Not that that matters, but I admire commitment to a cause.
I’ll remember you fondly, even though things got so lank at the end. I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who will appreciate all you have to offer – your sweet smell, your deep conditioning, and your soothing smoothness. Indeed, I heartily endorse you as a hair care product, and wish you many happy shower times together. But I’m no longer one of those women who wants what you have to offer. My hair needs invigoration, my hair needs energy, my hair needs the fresh smell of lime and sea salt, my hair needs root lift, root lift you just can’t give me.
Take care, we’ll always have Chifley (not quite the same as we’ll always have Paris, is it?)
Peg
Xoxo
Ps: this post, as with every post on this blog, is unsponsored. It’s just hair care advice from one woman to another, no subtext, no hidden messages, no financial incentives. Enjoy!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Celebrity Chef Redux Chicken, Sweet Potato and Amond Stew
I think someone (hello, former students of mine) should do a sociological study of Australian food culture as expressed through the recipes section of Good Weekend magazine. (If you would like someone to help you prepare and taste test recipes, I am your go-to girl). Charting the social, economic, ethical and aesthetic dimensions of food consumption in Australia would be fasciminating indeed, as my friend Mimi Goss would say.
If a student of mine were to undertake this course of study, I would strongly hope that they would come out swinging against the current celebrity chef responsible for the food pages. I won’t name names, but he is, I find, singularly irritating, to the point where I’ve begun to skip his columns as, firstly, I, and no one I know, could afford the first five items on the ingredients list for an ‘everyday meal’, and, secondly, no one I know would want to spend the five hours in the kitchen sharpening our Furli knives to slither kingfish sashimi between coming home from work, running out to the gym, or just, you know, having a life.
Except, every now and then, I look at a recipe and go…hmmm, with a bit of tweaking and a simplification/economisation, there is potential for a halfway decent recipe. Sometimes even a good one.
Such is the case with my Celebrity Cher Redux Chicken, Sweet Potato and Almond Stew. The initial recipe provided by He Who Shall Not Be Named featured lamb backstrap, but I modified it to use rump steak, and then, as in the following recipe, chicken thighs. I liked the beef stew, but something about chicken, cinnamon and sweet potato is too terrifically right for me to not give you the white meat version.
If you’re worried about the whole stew-in-summer thing, don’t be. This actually tastes fresh (I think it’s the lime and mint) and, if you serve it cooled down a little from piping hot, it’s rather pleasant on a balmy evening, particularly if you wash it down with chilled sarsaparilla as Clementine Kemp and I did this past Friday.
Celebrity Cher Redux Chicken, Sweet Potato and Almond Stew
Serves 5
600g chicken thigh fillets, cut into inch-ish chunks
Olive oil
2 onions, chopped
Heat a little oil in large casserole dish (I use my le cruset). Fry onions and chicken over medium heat with a pinch of salt until chicken begins to turn white. Throw in the following…
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 bruised cardomon pods
And cook until fragrant. Now add in…
1 teaspoon chicken stock powder
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
Enough water to ONLY JUST COVER the chicken
(or, instead of the above, a carton of liquid chicken stock)
Bring this briefly to the boil and turn to the lowest simmer possible. It’s now time, while you wait for the pot to boil, to add…
About half to three quarters of a cup of chopped pitted dates
A really generous splash of lime juice (we’re probably in the vicinity of a quarter cup)
A teaspoon of palm sugar (or brown sugar, or just some extra dates)
Put the lid on your casserole dish and leave on a very low heat, while you peel and chop into inch-ish chunks...
Two medium large sweet potatoes
Which you then place on a baking tray, toss with some olive oil and salt, and roast at 200 degrees or until tender. By this time, your chicken should have been in the pot for just over an hour, and well on the way to being tender and delicious. If you chicken is not quite slow-cooked enough, leave the potatoes in your (turned off) oven. Once the chicken has cooked until it’s tender and lovely, add in the roasted sweet potatoes and allow to sit off the heat for ten minutes to infuse. Meanwhile, chop a large handful of fresh mint and a large handful of almonds, and garnish your stew.
Serve with steamed rice and some quickly pan tossed greens. As one of Farmer Wants a Wife’s more…special…farmers would say, winner winner chicken dinner.
If a student of mine were to undertake this course of study, I would strongly hope that they would come out swinging against the current celebrity chef responsible for the food pages. I won’t name names, but he is, I find, singularly irritating, to the point where I’ve begun to skip his columns as, firstly, I, and no one I know, could afford the first five items on the ingredients list for an ‘everyday meal’, and, secondly, no one I know would want to spend the five hours in the kitchen sharpening our Furli knives to slither kingfish sashimi between coming home from work, running out to the gym, or just, you know, having a life.
Except, every now and then, I look at a recipe and go…hmmm, with a bit of tweaking and a simplification/economisation, there is potential for a halfway decent recipe. Sometimes even a good one.
Such is the case with my Celebrity Cher Redux Chicken, Sweet Potato and Almond Stew. The initial recipe provided by He Who Shall Not Be Named featured lamb backstrap, but I modified it to use rump steak, and then, as in the following recipe, chicken thighs. I liked the beef stew, but something about chicken, cinnamon and sweet potato is too terrifically right for me to not give you the white meat version.
If you’re worried about the whole stew-in-summer thing, don’t be. This actually tastes fresh (I think it’s the lime and mint) and, if you serve it cooled down a little from piping hot, it’s rather pleasant on a balmy evening, particularly if you wash it down with chilled sarsaparilla as Clementine Kemp and I did this past Friday.
Celebrity Cher Redux Chicken, Sweet Potato and Almond Stew
Serves 5
600g chicken thigh fillets, cut into inch-ish chunks
Olive oil
2 onions, chopped
Heat a little oil in large casserole dish (I use my le cruset). Fry onions and chicken over medium heat with a pinch of salt until chicken begins to turn white. Throw in the following…
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 bruised cardomon pods
And cook until fragrant. Now add in…
1 teaspoon chicken stock powder
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
Enough water to ONLY JUST COVER the chicken
(or, instead of the above, a carton of liquid chicken stock)
Bring this briefly to the boil and turn to the lowest simmer possible. It’s now time, while you wait for the pot to boil, to add…
About half to three quarters of a cup of chopped pitted dates
A really generous splash of lime juice (we’re probably in the vicinity of a quarter cup)
A teaspoon of palm sugar (or brown sugar, or just some extra dates)
Put the lid on your casserole dish and leave on a very low heat, while you peel and chop into inch-ish chunks...
Two medium large sweet potatoes
Which you then place on a baking tray, toss with some olive oil and salt, and roast at 200 degrees or until tender. By this time, your chicken should have been in the pot for just over an hour, and well on the way to being tender and delicious. If you chicken is not quite slow-cooked enough, leave the potatoes in your (turned off) oven. Once the chicken has cooked until it’s tender and lovely, add in the roasted sweet potatoes and allow to sit off the heat for ten minutes to infuse. Meanwhile, chop a large handful of fresh mint and a large handful of almonds, and garnish your stew.
Serve with steamed rice and some quickly pan tossed greens. As one of Farmer Wants a Wife’s more…special…farmers would say, winner winner chicken dinner.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Home.
You unload box after box. You haphazardly assemble furniture on the run, chugging pickled tea. You realise your bookshelf is missing a crucial brace to hold it true – you resolve to leave it leaning until you can get another brace from IKEA. You put off perfect pantry planning for a later date. You place vases wherever there is a clear surface. You plug in the new kettle, microwave, toaster, at the nearest power socket.
You know, one day, it will be Home.
A week in you rearrange the pots on your balcony – the thyme and oregano die in the deep shade and from your overzealous watering, but the lemon balm thrives.
Within the fortnight you have changed the position of the futon. You have hung all the pictures, you have scrounged new ones to go alongside. You are developing quite the collection.
A month has passed. You spend an afternoon DIY-ing that old dresser you picked up from the dumpster at your old place. You admire the results, and yourself admiring them, in the dresser’s oversized mirror.
You wonder, after five weeks, how so much dust can gather in a bathtub.
You realise, in week six, it’s because you love that breeze sweeping through the apartment when you leave all the windows and doors open, the breeze that brings dust from the renovations across the road. You swipe the dust from the bathtub each week when you clean, because you love that breeze.
Two months in, you journey to Sydney, amongst other things, to go to IKEA and get a brace for that precariously leaning bookshelf. Homeward bound and just passed Sutton, you realise you spent $300 and forgot to buy the brace. Your bookcase reproaches you every time you walk through the front door and see it, leaning.
Nine weeks after you collect the keys, and after working from home grading papers and coordinating distance ed for two courses, you realise that the study is not working. You rearrange some pictures, put some fresh flowers in a jug, swap some cushions over, and it works again. But that rug, you think, that rug will need to go sometime soon. You resolve to workshop rug options another day, you must get back to work.
Between Christmas and New Year, your father comes over and braces your bookshelves with steel webbing from Magnet Mart. You walk in the front door, you see your bookshelf, braced true and straight. You, and your books, are home.
You know, one day, it will be Home.
A week in you rearrange the pots on your balcony – the thyme and oregano die in the deep shade and from your overzealous watering, but the lemon balm thrives.
Within the fortnight you have changed the position of the futon. You have hung all the pictures, you have scrounged new ones to go alongside. You are developing quite the collection.
A month has passed. You spend an afternoon DIY-ing that old dresser you picked up from the dumpster at your old place. You admire the results, and yourself admiring them, in the dresser’s oversized mirror.
You wonder, after five weeks, how so much dust can gather in a bathtub.
You realise, in week six, it’s because you love that breeze sweeping through the apartment when you leave all the windows and doors open, the breeze that brings dust from the renovations across the road. You swipe the dust from the bathtub each week when you clean, because you love that breeze.
Two months in, you journey to Sydney, amongst other things, to go to IKEA and get a brace for that precariously leaning bookshelf. Homeward bound and just passed Sutton, you realise you spent $300 and forgot to buy the brace. Your bookcase reproaches you every time you walk through the front door and see it, leaning.
Nine weeks after you collect the keys, and after working from home grading papers and coordinating distance ed for two courses, you realise that the study is not working. You rearrange some pictures, put some fresh flowers in a jug, swap some cushions over, and it works again. But that rug, you think, that rug will need to go sometime soon. You resolve to workshop rug options another day, you must get back to work.
Between Christmas and New Year, your father comes over and braces your bookshelves with steel webbing from Magnet Mart. You walk in the front door, you see your bookshelf, braced true and straight. You, and your books, are home.
Monday, December 19, 2011
A Very Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year
Well, people, the 2011 blogging year is drawing to a close for me. Long story short, I’ve decided that due to work commitments this will be my last post for 2011 – but I will be back, all engines running, the first Monday in January to keep on sharing my thoughts and ramblings with y’all.
I suppose, then, that it’s appropriate to reflect on 2011 as a year. The more I speak to people, the more I realise that 2011 has been…well, if 2011 were a student, and I was talking to her parents at Parent Teacher Night, I’d probably say something along the lines of:
‘While I’ve really enjoyed having 2011 in my class, certain aspects of her behaviour have been…challenging. Problematic. Disruptive. Hurtful to me and the other students. Why can’t 2011 just leave me alone? I don’t understand!! I want my classroom back!!!!!!! I want my life back!!!!!!!!!’ (exits, sobbing, to the staffroom).
I’m not alone in feeling this way about 2011. Everyone I have been speaking to about this in the last few weeks has been looking forward to putting this year to bed and welcoming a new one. Change has seemed to be a pretty major element of what people in my life, and what I, have had happen in 2011. The kicker is, it’s not been easy or exciting change. Believe it or not, I normally like change. Shake it up, baby, turn and face the strain. What’s made this year’s changes that my crew and I have experienced non-easy and non-exciting is that they’ve been hard changes, changes that required leaps into the dark, naked without a parachute. Changes that, for some, involved painful choices to separate from significant others. Changes that involved for others giving up on some dreams. Or moving houses and lives, or just taking on a whole lot of hard hard hard work with the end in sight but a long way off. My year included all those things, and TWO bouts of the worst food poisoning I’ve ever had in my life, within a month of each other. If I’d have known what was ahead of me, gastro wise, in 2011, I would not have laughed so hard in the food poisoning scene in Briedsmaids. Just saying.
What I’ve learnt from 2011, other than sushi is always a seriously bad idea, is that people are made of pretty tough stuff. Because, in spite of 2011’s better attempts to break our spirits and run amok, we are all still here, still talking, still living, still believing in each other, and, most importantly, still hoping for a brighter 2012.
It’s in this spirit of hoping for a brighter 2012 that I’m sharing with you my wishlist for 2012. I stole this idea from Kitty Gilfeather, who, rather than making new years resolutions, writes a wishlist of what she hopes for in 2012. It takes away the threat of failure implied by resolutions, and instead replaces them with the warm, happy glow of anticipation. Here’s what I’m working with so far:
• Read more good books.
• Wear matching underwear at all times.
• Buy a fabulous thing for my apartment each season (I’m thinking my summer purchase might be a cowhide rug for le boudoir– thoughts?).
• Kick corporate wardrobe butt.
• Update my CV every 6 months to reflect awesomeness.
• Keep fresh flowers at my desk.
• Listen to albums in full, rather than skipping to singles.
And, most importantly, I feel:
• Drink mojitos, with lots and lots of ice, on my balcony, watching thunderstorms.
So bye for now, lovelies, and see you in 2012. Which, might I just say, already looks pretty swell.
I suppose, then, that it’s appropriate to reflect on 2011 as a year. The more I speak to people, the more I realise that 2011 has been…well, if 2011 were a student, and I was talking to her parents at Parent Teacher Night, I’d probably say something along the lines of:
‘While I’ve really enjoyed having 2011 in my class, certain aspects of her behaviour have been…challenging. Problematic. Disruptive. Hurtful to me and the other students. Why can’t 2011 just leave me alone? I don’t understand!! I want my classroom back!!!!!!! I want my life back!!!!!!!!!’ (exits, sobbing, to the staffroom).
I’m not alone in feeling this way about 2011. Everyone I have been speaking to about this in the last few weeks has been looking forward to putting this year to bed and welcoming a new one. Change has seemed to be a pretty major element of what people in my life, and what I, have had happen in 2011. The kicker is, it’s not been easy or exciting change. Believe it or not, I normally like change. Shake it up, baby, turn and face the strain. What’s made this year’s changes that my crew and I have experienced non-easy and non-exciting is that they’ve been hard changes, changes that required leaps into the dark, naked without a parachute. Changes that, for some, involved painful choices to separate from significant others. Changes that involved for others giving up on some dreams. Or moving houses and lives, or just taking on a whole lot of hard hard hard work with the end in sight but a long way off. My year included all those things, and TWO bouts of the worst food poisoning I’ve ever had in my life, within a month of each other. If I’d have known what was ahead of me, gastro wise, in 2011, I would not have laughed so hard in the food poisoning scene in Briedsmaids. Just saying.
What I’ve learnt from 2011, other than sushi is always a seriously bad idea, is that people are made of pretty tough stuff. Because, in spite of 2011’s better attempts to break our spirits and run amok, we are all still here, still talking, still living, still believing in each other, and, most importantly, still hoping for a brighter 2012.
It’s in this spirit of hoping for a brighter 2012 that I’m sharing with you my wishlist for 2012. I stole this idea from Kitty Gilfeather, who, rather than making new years resolutions, writes a wishlist of what she hopes for in 2012. It takes away the threat of failure implied by resolutions, and instead replaces them with the warm, happy glow of anticipation. Here’s what I’m working with so far:
• Read more good books.
• Wear matching underwear at all times.
• Buy a fabulous thing for my apartment each season (I’m thinking my summer purchase might be a cowhide rug for le boudoir– thoughts?).
• Kick corporate wardrobe butt.
• Update my CV every 6 months to reflect awesomeness.
• Keep fresh flowers at my desk.
• Listen to albums in full, rather than skipping to singles.
And, most importantly, I feel:
• Drink mojitos, with lots and lots of ice, on my balcony, watching thunderstorms.
So bye for now, lovelies, and see you in 2012. Which, might I just say, already looks pretty swell.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Recipes That Keep On Giving: Fusion Dahl
Fusion cooking, a blending of two culturally diverse cuisines, was an early noughties fad. Like many fads, the concept was good, the execution problematic, and the adoption by plebs too high to sustain lasting chic. See leggings, chai, flares and boho anything.
However, when fusion works, you find yourself in a land of culinary world peace, ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony on your plate. Or, in the case of the recipe I’m about to share with you, Anglo stodge and Indian spice combining in one of the best, cheapest and easiest dinners going.
The quickest way to take you on this journey is to get you to do the following. Imagine a full English breakfast. Imagine a bowl of dahl. Imagine if we merged the two. What would you get? East meets West. Stodge meets Spice. Fusion dahl.
The basic concept of replacing the beans component of a full English breakfast with lentil dahl was one that A Bite To Eat, a Canberra institution, trialled a number of years ago. (A full English, for the uninitiated, consists of bacon, sausage, egg, beans, toast, and some sort of fried vegetable, usually tomato, mushroom, or spinach, or all three. In my opinion, a full English is not a patch on a full Scottish, the latter being superior on account of the sheer amount and type of sausage on offer, but let’s leave that simmering ethnic tension for another post). On an evening when I was at the buy-the-two-cents-a-tin-cheaper-tin-of-tomatoes end of a pay cycle, I decided to turn my favourite poor-girl supper of red lentil dahl into an experimental cross cultural peasent feast, by adding crispy bacon, sausage, egg and toast. And that’s when I blew my mind.
Something about the combination of salty spicy dahl, salty meaty bacon and sausage, gooey egg, crisp toast, and sweet butter speaks of the best of multiple culinary worlds. Indeed, it was the dish I cooked, in a fit of Rule (Modern, Multicultural) Britannia, to eat whilst watching the royal wedding earlier this year. It has been on high rotation ever since.
Last night, I played with the formula some more. Conscious of the looming Christmas meatfest (and sugar fest, and grog fest, and general fest fest), I decided to replace the sausages with green veg, the toast with mashed home grown parsnips from PapaK’s garden, and loose the egg altogether. The result was incredible, all the more so for being a virtuous cousin to the nutritionally cheeky salt and carb overload of the original.
Recipes for the cheeky and the virtuous are supplied below. Pick according to need.
Cheeky Fusion Dahl
Serves 2 hungry people
1 cup red lentils, soaked in hot water
Butter, oil, for frying
3 cloves crushed garlic
2cm knob ginger, grated
Teaspoon garam marsala
Teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon massell vegetable stock powder
1 teaspoon massell chicken stock power
Hot water
6 Rashes bacon, rind trimmed
6 sausages
4 slices toast
2 eggs
Heat oil and butter in a medium saucepan until butter is frothy. Fry garlic and ginger, with a pinch of salt, until softened. Add spices, stir till aromatic. Drain lentils and add to pan, turning down heat to prevent catching. Sprinkle over stock powder, cover with hot water, and simmer over low heat until lentils are tender and dahl is at a dahl like consistency (if I were Nigella, I’d ladle in a couple of innuendos here, but I’m not, so I’ll go tautological instead).
While dahl is simmering, cook bacon and sausages until crispy, keep warm on a plate in the oven. Fry eggs in bacon and sausage pan, at the same time toast your toast until toasted (tautology, again!).
Assemble as you see fit. My preference is: toast, buttered, topped with steaming mound of dahl, topped with runny-yolked fried egg, sausage to the side, bacon balanced delicately on top. And a sprig of coriander, for a token bow to greenery.
Virtuous fusion dahl
One quantity of dahl, as above
Good handful of parsnips, peeled, chopped roughly
Butter, pepper, salt
Green vegetables for two (I like kale and French beans)
4 rashers bacon
Make dahl as above, but place parsnips in a pot with water and set over high heat as soon as you start the dahl. Cook parsnips until tender. Drain, add a knob of butter to the pan, along with salt and pepper to taste, and mash until smooth. This improves if allowed to sit for five minutes. Cook bacon, as above, and toss your greens off in the bacon fat immediately before serving.
Again, preferences for assemblage vary, but I like a mountain of parsnip, foothills of greens, a volcanic flow of dahl on top and some precariously balanced bacon.
Of course, you could veganise this concept, if that’s your thing, by replacing the egg, bacon and sausage component with crispy fried tofu cubes, avocado, or oven baked mushrooms. Vegetarians can substitute haloumi for the bacon, or jut throw on some extra eggs. Whatever you do, it’ll be a brilliant, spicy, stodgy harmony.
However, when fusion works, you find yourself in a land of culinary world peace, ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony on your plate. Or, in the case of the recipe I’m about to share with you, Anglo stodge and Indian spice combining in one of the best, cheapest and easiest dinners going.
The quickest way to take you on this journey is to get you to do the following. Imagine a full English breakfast. Imagine a bowl of dahl. Imagine if we merged the two. What would you get? East meets West. Stodge meets Spice. Fusion dahl.
The basic concept of replacing the beans component of a full English breakfast with lentil dahl was one that A Bite To Eat, a Canberra institution, trialled a number of years ago. (A full English, for the uninitiated, consists of bacon, sausage, egg, beans, toast, and some sort of fried vegetable, usually tomato, mushroom, or spinach, or all three. In my opinion, a full English is not a patch on a full Scottish, the latter being superior on account of the sheer amount and type of sausage on offer, but let’s leave that simmering ethnic tension for another post). On an evening when I was at the buy-the-two-cents-a-tin-cheaper-tin-of-tomatoes end of a pay cycle, I decided to turn my favourite poor-girl supper of red lentil dahl into an experimental cross cultural peasent feast, by adding crispy bacon, sausage, egg and toast. And that’s when I blew my mind.
Something about the combination of salty spicy dahl, salty meaty bacon and sausage, gooey egg, crisp toast, and sweet butter speaks of the best of multiple culinary worlds. Indeed, it was the dish I cooked, in a fit of Rule (Modern, Multicultural) Britannia, to eat whilst watching the royal wedding earlier this year. It has been on high rotation ever since.
Last night, I played with the formula some more. Conscious of the looming Christmas meatfest (and sugar fest, and grog fest, and general fest fest), I decided to replace the sausages with green veg, the toast with mashed home grown parsnips from PapaK’s garden, and loose the egg altogether. The result was incredible, all the more so for being a virtuous cousin to the nutritionally cheeky salt and carb overload of the original.
Recipes for the cheeky and the virtuous are supplied below. Pick according to need.
Cheeky Fusion Dahl
Serves 2 hungry people
1 cup red lentils, soaked in hot water
Butter, oil, for frying
3 cloves crushed garlic
2cm knob ginger, grated
Teaspoon garam marsala
Teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon massell vegetable stock powder
1 teaspoon massell chicken stock power
Hot water
6 Rashes bacon, rind trimmed
6 sausages
4 slices toast
2 eggs
Heat oil and butter in a medium saucepan until butter is frothy. Fry garlic and ginger, with a pinch of salt, until softened. Add spices, stir till aromatic. Drain lentils and add to pan, turning down heat to prevent catching. Sprinkle over stock powder, cover with hot water, and simmer over low heat until lentils are tender and dahl is at a dahl like consistency (if I were Nigella, I’d ladle in a couple of innuendos here, but I’m not, so I’ll go tautological instead).
While dahl is simmering, cook bacon and sausages until crispy, keep warm on a plate in the oven. Fry eggs in bacon and sausage pan, at the same time toast your toast until toasted (tautology, again!).
Assemble as you see fit. My preference is: toast, buttered, topped with steaming mound of dahl, topped with runny-yolked fried egg, sausage to the side, bacon balanced delicately on top. And a sprig of coriander, for a token bow to greenery.
Virtuous fusion dahl
One quantity of dahl, as above
Good handful of parsnips, peeled, chopped roughly
Butter, pepper, salt
Green vegetables for two (I like kale and French beans)
4 rashers bacon
Make dahl as above, but place parsnips in a pot with water and set over high heat as soon as you start the dahl. Cook parsnips until tender. Drain, add a knob of butter to the pan, along with salt and pepper to taste, and mash until smooth. This improves if allowed to sit for five minutes. Cook bacon, as above, and toss your greens off in the bacon fat immediately before serving.
Again, preferences for assemblage vary, but I like a mountain of parsnip, foothills of greens, a volcanic flow of dahl on top and some precariously balanced bacon.
Of course, you could veganise this concept, if that’s your thing, by replacing the egg, bacon and sausage component with crispy fried tofu cubes, avocado, or oven baked mushrooms. Vegetarians can substitute haloumi for the bacon, or jut throw on some extra eggs. Whatever you do, it’ll be a brilliant, spicy, stodgy harmony.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Summer of Steinbeck, Or, Why I Miss My English Major
Summer 2011-12 is the Summer of Steinbeck. There, I’ve declared it. Five days and two books in, it’s proving to be a most enjoyable venture.
In my hazy undergraduate days, I was both an English and a Sociology major at the ANU. If we’re judging purely by pleasure, I think I enjoyed my English courses slightly more than my Sociology courses, although I think that had something to do with the exceptionally good company offered by my English classmates (hello Clementine Kemp and Kitty Gilfeather). As I’ve gone on to do Honors and a PhD in Sociology, I clearly enjoy the challenge that Sociology presents, but English was, and remains, my first academic love. Whilst Sociology and I are happily, contentedly, farting-in-front-of-each-other married, I can’t help but miss my first tortured love, and yearn for the simpler days of reading big books and thinking big thoughts.
(In my darker PhD moments, I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d broken the mould of bright, bookish, sensitive girl and studied something wild and crazy like dentistry. I could be brining oral hygiene to the masses right now. A tempting thought, as I’m oral hygiene’s biggest cheerleader …but I digress.)
The thing I specifically miss about my English major is the discipline of reading, not just for fun, but with purpose and with a desire to understand something beyond just the story. Although I am a voracious reader (it’s the best way to pass the extra hours that insomnia gives you), I have allowed myself to become soft and slack over the last few years, when I’ve been reading solely for fast pleasure and not the deep satisfaction of reading a text that demands more from you.
So it’s in this spirit of wanting a more deeply satisfying reading experience that I’ve set myself the challenge of reading or re-reading all of Steinbeck this summer. John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors, and, fittingly, one of the first ‘serious’ writers I fell hard for. Steinbeck wrote a lot, which is partly why I’ve chosen him for this summer’s project – I needed a writer with a big enough titles list to keep me amused all summer long, and prevent my attention from straying to other, simpler, literary pleasures.
I began with The Grapes of Wrath, arguably Steinbeck’s most famous novel, and well worth a read. I won’t spoil for those of you who haven’t yet read it, but the ending makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Last night, I finished The Wayward Bus, which I hadn’t heard of until Veronica Silver suggested it and kindly loaned me her copy. I loved it, and was highly impressed by Steinbeck’s descriptions of clothing and make up in The Wayward Bus – I’d never had Johnny boy pegged as a writer of women and women’s secret mirror rituals. Today, on the bus to work, I began Travels With Charley, another loan from Veronica Silver, and am planning on tracking down In Dubois Battle later this week. Already, I’m taken back to those first heady days of my English major, deeply satisfied yet yearning for more.
In my hazy undergraduate days, I was both an English and a Sociology major at the ANU. If we’re judging purely by pleasure, I think I enjoyed my English courses slightly more than my Sociology courses, although I think that had something to do with the exceptionally good company offered by my English classmates (hello Clementine Kemp and Kitty Gilfeather). As I’ve gone on to do Honors and a PhD in Sociology, I clearly enjoy the challenge that Sociology presents, but English was, and remains, my first academic love. Whilst Sociology and I are happily, contentedly, farting-in-front-of-each-other married, I can’t help but miss my first tortured love, and yearn for the simpler days of reading big books and thinking big thoughts.
(In my darker PhD moments, I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d broken the mould of bright, bookish, sensitive girl and studied something wild and crazy like dentistry. I could be brining oral hygiene to the masses right now. A tempting thought, as I’m oral hygiene’s biggest cheerleader …but I digress.)
The thing I specifically miss about my English major is the discipline of reading, not just for fun, but with purpose and with a desire to understand something beyond just the story. Although I am a voracious reader (it’s the best way to pass the extra hours that insomnia gives you), I have allowed myself to become soft and slack over the last few years, when I’ve been reading solely for fast pleasure and not the deep satisfaction of reading a text that demands more from you.
So it’s in this spirit of wanting a more deeply satisfying reading experience that I’ve set myself the challenge of reading or re-reading all of Steinbeck this summer. John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors, and, fittingly, one of the first ‘serious’ writers I fell hard for. Steinbeck wrote a lot, which is partly why I’ve chosen him for this summer’s project – I needed a writer with a big enough titles list to keep me amused all summer long, and prevent my attention from straying to other, simpler, literary pleasures.
I began with The Grapes of Wrath, arguably Steinbeck’s most famous novel, and well worth a read. I won’t spoil for those of you who haven’t yet read it, but the ending makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Last night, I finished The Wayward Bus, which I hadn’t heard of until Veronica Silver suggested it and kindly loaned me her copy. I loved it, and was highly impressed by Steinbeck’s descriptions of clothing and make up in The Wayward Bus – I’d never had Johnny boy pegged as a writer of women and women’s secret mirror rituals. Today, on the bus to work, I began Travels With Charley, another loan from Veronica Silver, and am planning on tracking down In Dubois Battle later this week. Already, I’m taken back to those first heady days of my English major, deeply satisfied yet yearning for more.
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