I’m back!

Posted by trish on Jul 29, 2011 in Blog | 7 comments

Hello, lovely internet!

I’ve been moving house.  We are in, we are 100% unpacked and 90% ‘settled in’.  I’m sitting in my room, typing at my desk

OMG I’m sitting in MY ROOM

Sorry.

I’m sitting in my room, typing at my desk, admiring the view out to the garden… and so much more has happened in the world.  Cadel Evans – deadset legend – won the Tour de France.  Amy Winehouse died.  I don’t really know who she is but she was very young so that’s awful.  But, more awful for me is what happened in Oslo.  Anyone who has been reading me for more than twelve months knows that I spent a week in Norway last year (most of that time spent in Oslo) and completely and utterly fell in love with the place, so I have been really upset by the horrific violence that was unleashed by the good-looking madman.  Now that we’re unpacked and my computer is up and running I’ll try to put some words out there, for me as much as for anyone else.

Also?  I’m back in my skinny jeans.  Amen.  Or somethin’.

Anyway, just wanted to check in, let you know I hadn’t abandoned the blog altogether (my Twitter stream is proof of my continued existence) and that I’ll be back with some regular posting VERY soon.  Like, tomorrow.

dying of cute

Posted by trish on Jul 22, 2011 in Shoot | 6 comments

Meet Darcy and Millie… they’ll be coming to live with us just as soon as they’re old enough… old enough to leave their mother and that’s an aspect of the whole adopt-a-puppy scenario that I don’t want to think about lest my ovaries start aching.

Darcy is Ella’s and Millie is Madeleine’s.  They are King Charles Cavalier Spaniel x Poodle puppies, aka cavoodles.  The girls have been asking for puppies since forever.  Madi’s favourite toy when she was little was one of those toy puppies with wheels for legs that you pull along behind you.  She went everywhere with her.  And her first word – I kid you not – was “woof.”

(this photo was taken by the breeder)

unpalatable

Posted by trish on Jul 21, 2011 in Eat | 4 comments

When I was a kid I went for a sleep-over at somebody else’s house and for dinner that night was served something that I could barely force myself to eat.  I was old enough to know that it was impolite to refuse a meal, so I ate it.  But I can’t recall what it was. 

You may not remember the shape of the light but you will remain dazzled forever (Clive James).

On Tuesday night we had dinner at the hostel we stayed at near the ski fields that will be remembered in all its awful detail for the rest of our lives.

It was advertised as ‘curried chicken.’  In fact, it was very small, almost undetectable pieces of shredded chicken, with about a tablespoon’s worth of diced carrots and beans, swimming in a gelatinous white sauce that had been flavoured with something that made it vaguely spicey but not at all curry-like before being poured over an entire plateful of overcooked white rice.  There was a single floret of broccoli in the centre and then, dotted around the plate – for no apparent reason – were half a dozen walnut-sized dumplings.

Dinner the previous night had included an entree of a pretty decent chicken and sweetcorn soup.  I suspect the chef had found himself with a large quantity of soup left over and figured he could thicken it up with a bit of cornflour, chuck in some veggies and add a spoonful of out-of-date curry powder.  In fact, I’m 99% sure that’s what he did.

Madeleine couldn’t eat it, and I could hardly blame her.  It was really unpleasant on so many levels, not to mention the fact that it was obviously devoid of any nutritional value – the vegetables had been so overcooked as to be barely holding themselves together.  She was so ashamed at her lack of appetite that she actually left the table at the end of the meal so that she wouldn’t be there to face the chef or the waitress when they returned to clear the plates.  I ate as much of mine as I possibly could so as not to upset the staff but with every bite I wished I had ordered the alternative; a home-made meat pie with a massive serve of vegetables and chips that the people on the next table were devouring with smug glee.

There were plenty of people in the communal dining room who seemed to be quite happy with their Curried Chicken.  I don’t know what that says about the other people but there’s an offensive over-generalisation to be made here.

There was one family who struggled to eat theirs, but they managed – I overheard the mother tell the kids that “you have to have the rice but you don’t have to eat anything green or yellow.

“The chef had no doubt cottoned-on to the type of guests his hostel attracted, and so wasn’t bothering to put too much effort into the meals.  The kids meal on the second night was chips and nuggets and dim sims.  Not a pea or carrot in sight.  Why would you bother dishing it up if the kids aren’t going to eat it and the parents aren’t going to care?  For a chef, that particular job must be incredibly demoralising.

The cool kids

Posted by trish on Jul 17, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments

Tomorrow morning I’m taking the girls to the snow for a couple of days of fun and frivolity and no broken bones thank you very much*.  They both learned to ski in 2005, just before Ella turned five, and we’ve managed to take them often enough since then that they’ve become pretty competent little skiers.  This year, just for kicks, we’ve convinced them to try snowboarding.  I have my fingers crossed that this will turn out to be a really good idea.  If, like I did, they get five minutes into their first lesson and fall heavily on their backsides and call it a day**, it won’t be easy to switch back to skiing; we’re hiring all our equipment from a place an hour away from the snow fields, and we’ve paid in advance for everything.  So, there will be no going back.  There will be no quitting.  They will have to suck it up, dust the snow off their butts and get back out there, goddammit, because snowboarding is what the cool kids do and I’ve always wanted to be a cool kid and the next best thing is to have cool kids.

This is my 23 year old cousin, Luke.  He’s been working/snowboarding his way around the south of France this year.  I’m keeping up with his adventures on his facebook page.  I love watching his new friends notifications pop up – he’s no doubt filling his address book with people who’ll help him couch-surf his way across the entire continent.  What a life, eh?

* There will be no blogging, but there may be tweeting.  If I can get a signal from on top of a mountain.  You just never know.

** I know that sounds quite pathetic, to have quit after five minutes, but at the time I was still recovering from a very bad fall on concrete, right onto my tailbone, that had happened about six months previous (and was still sore three years later).  I never had an x-ray but I’m pretty certain I must have cracked it, to still be sore so long afterwards.  I really, really wish I had learned to snowboard as a kid, rather than trying it as an adult.  Next life maybe…  unless I get to France, where the landing is a bit softer, what with all the powder snow.  We just don’t have that kind of soft snow-cover in Australia.  When you fall, it’s generally onto the packed-down 30cm deep base.  Which might as well be concrete.

Spinning Skirts

Posted by trish on Jul 15, 2011 in Shoot | 0 comments

My friend Sophie has somehow found the time to sew some new Spinning Skirts for her etsy store.  We bought one for PJ’s niece, Ava, for Christmas last year and I took this photo of her twirling in it.  Sophie finds the most beautiful fabrics for these skirts, and she has a great eye for putting complementary colours together. These are great for a special occasion but also just for having fun!I was shooting in shutter priority mode.  I chose the shutter speed (and focal length) while the camera selected everything else.  I boosted the exposure in post-processing.  So, yeah, totally cheated.

ISO 80050mm  f/6.3  1/13 sec

This was a bit more successful – and PJ did the post processing on this one.

ISO 32050mm f/1.4  1/100 sec

basics

Posted by trish on Jul 14, 2011 in Eat | 1 comment

I’ve got about three versions of this recipe in my enormous recipe file, but until now I have never actually got around to making it.  I seriously don’t know what’s taken me so long.

This is one of those recipes that is really easy, very quick, and ridiculously tasty – get the best quality ingredients you can find. I bought some excellent bacon at the Farmers’ Markets a few weeks ago, froze it in 300g portions, and I’ve been using it bit by bit since then and the flavour is really amazing.  You’ll never buy it from the supermarket again.  Supermarket bacon tastes crap.

If you have all your ingredients prepped and ready to go, it takes less than ten minutes to cook.  So you have to work fast.  (This is a Jamie Oliver recipe,  I think!)

PENNE WITH BROCOLLI & BACON

Serves 4.

350g penne, orrichette or whatever you have on hand.

2 large heads of broccoli or two bunches broccolini – chopped into bite-sizes pieces.  (If using broccolini, use the stems as well!)

6 slices short-cut bacon, cut into 1cm-wide strips (variation: pancetta)

2 cloves of garlic, squashed but kept mostly whole

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 slices day-old ciabatta or other woodfired bread – use a food processor to blitz into crumbs.

Half a cup of grated parmesan cheese, plus a little extra.

1.  Put the water for the pasta on to boil and start preparing the broccoli, bacon and bread.

2.  In a frying pan over medium heat, heat the olive oil and fry the bacon until it is starting to get nice and crispy.  Tip the pan so the oil drains to one side and remove the bacon onto a plate lined with paper towel.

The water is probably boiling by now, so tip the pasta in.  Set a timer to tell you when it’s got two minutes left to cook (ie penne takes about 8 minutes, so set a timer for 6 mins)

3.  Let the oil heat up again before adding the garlic.  Allow to cook for a couple of minutes but don’t let it burn.  You’re just trying to flavour the oil with the garlic.  When it’s done, remove and discard.

4.  Let the oil warm up again and tip the breadcrumbs into the frying pan.  Stir around so they absorb the oil.  (optional extra: toss in half a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes… I reckon the same quantity of lemon zest would also be nice).

5.  When the timer goes off, tip the broccoli into the pot with the pasta and reset the timer for two minutes.

6.  The breadcrumbs should be getting nicely brown and crispy by now.  Remove from the heat and tip them into a bowl.

7.  When the pasta/broccoli is ready, use a coffee cup to take half a cup of the cooking liquid from the pot and set aside.  Drain the pasta in a colander then return it to the pot over a very low heat.  Toss the bacon into and stir it all around; if it needs a bit of loosening up add some of the cooking liquid.  Add the parmesan cheese and keep tossing to coat.

8.  Divide the pasta into four bowls and top each bowl with a generous sprinkling of the breadcrumbs and even more parmesan cheese. Eat!

A room of my own

Posted by trish on Jul 13, 2011 in Blog | 7 comments

Tracey just asked the most interesting question on her blog and my response was going to be far too long to put in a comment, so here goes.

Actually, she asked three questions.

Have you ever lived alone? No.

Have you never lived alone? Yes.

Do you think it’s made a difference in your life? Yes.

I moved out of home and straight into an apartment with a friend.  A year or so after that, I moved in with PJ and he’s been my roommate ever since.  There’s always been somebody else to help me with the grocery shopping and to remind me not to leave my undies on the bathroom floor.  There’s always been somebody else to cook for, or to come home to, or to frighten with my scary morning-hair.  I’m a herd animal;  I’m better when there are others around.  I think I would have been bored to live alone, and would have been constantly inviting people to come over for dinner, just so I didn’t have to be by myself.

So yes, I think that NOT living alone has made it impossible for me to consider such a scenario.  It would be wierd. However, I would like to have my own room.  We’ve found a house to move into, and it has a small room that will by My Room.  I don’t have to share it with PJ – he’ll have his own office.  It’s a long way from the noisier parts of the house and nobody will go past my room to get to the toilet or to their bedroom.  It has a big window that overlooks the garden.  I’m going to have a desk and a day bed and a shelf for my favourite books and things.  And I’m going to have an enormous Vision Board, complete with pictures torn from magazines of things that will help me finish my gosh darn novel, goshdarnit.  Because I really want to finish it.  I really want to see how it ends.

I don’t regret not ever living alone, but I do think that everyone should have their own room.  Even if it’s just a little one, you should have your own space that has a door on it so you can be in there and alone with your thoughts and your things (men get sheds; women should also get she’ds).  Yes, it’s a luxury, and it’s not always possible, but from now on I am going to insist on it.

Correction: This is awkward…. I just credited the new purple mug to my friend Sophie, when in fact it came from Penny, Nina, Helen and Karen.  This is what happens when you have 25 people in your living room for half an hour before the party bus leaves and you are opening all the wonderful presents!  The green mug is from Sophie, and now it shares the shelf with my new Penguin Books mug.  Two mugs that remind me to believe in myself… and to be thankful for wonderful friends.  When I unwrapped the present and saw “A Room of Ones Own” I couldn’t help smiling at the coincidence of it, because we’d just found the house that week.

UPDATE: Kathy mentioned my trip to New York.  I went to New York in 2004 by myself, for ten days.  Kathy and another friend came to stay for a couple of those days but the rest of the time I was on my own, until the 11th day when I went to North Carolina to stay with Cristina.  In 2010 I went to Bangkok and then Oslo by myself.  I was gone for three weeks, but when I was in Oslo I spent time with an old school friend and Cristina, and then saw other friends during a quick side-trip to Sweden.

I did enjoy travelling by myself, but I also wished quite often that I had some company, and I was glad when Kathy showed up in New York and when Rod, then Cristina, met me in Oslo.  I just like having someone to chat with, a familiar face, someone to talk about stuff with and to help me decide what to do next.  Especially when I’m travelling I can feel overwhelmed with new places and things to see.  Maybe I’ll travel alone a bit more often once the kids have left home, but it’s more likely that PJ and I will go somewhere together, and we’ll take half-day trips by ourselves to see things the other isn’t interested in, as much as to have some time alone.  I’m sure I could manage without him… but given the choice, I’d much, MUCH rather have him along for the ride.  In fact, I’m sure that’s how it will be – him and me, seeing the world, doing stuff together.  Happiness is only real when shared.

I sometimes think about what might have been, if I hadn’t taken the path of least resistance and stayed here in Canberra.  I might have gone overseas or moved to Melbourne to study or done a thousand other things.  I might have lived by myself in a little flat above a delicatessan in downtown Manhattan (I used to think that would be a fantastic place to live… above a deli in New York!)  But these are the choices I’ve made, from the options that were available to me (and to PJ) and I can’t imagine being more happy.

(sorry Kathy… we’ll get a room)

Wow.  This got a whole lot more introspective than I thought it would.  Thanks Tracey!

Bangkok

Posted by trish on Jul 12, 2011 in Shoot | 0 comments

Somebody asked me the other day if I’ll get another trip with THAI Airways.  I don’t think so.  But I’d like to go back to Bangkok one day.

(You can read my THAI Airways blogs HERE. If you like. Thanks.)

guns for show, knives for a pro

Posted by trish on Jul 11, 2011 in Eat | 6 comments

Several weeks ago my good friend Clare taught me to debone a chicken, and the most important thing I learned during that lesson is that it is essential to have a decent knife.

You can’t debone a chicken with anything you’ve already got lying around in your drawer unless you’re a chef with a good set of knives or your mother is a chef and she bought you a set for your 21st and she still comes over regularly to sharpen them for you.  I meet neither of these criteria so for that lesson I borrowed one of Clare’s knives.

Clare and I were going to blog the deboning of the chicken for the HerCanberra website (she’s a contributor) but there were more than 100 step-by-step photos so now we’re thinking we might do a video instead… stay tuned.

My Dad is a champion knife-sharpener and some of my earliest memories are of him sharpening mum’s knives for her in the kitchen when I was growing up.  I learned to cut herbs and slice tomatoes and fillet fish using sharp knives in my mother’s kitchen.

When PJ and I got married we received a knife block with some pretty good knives, but fifteen years later they’ve been well and truly superceded by new and improved knife technology.  A few years ago I bought one good Australian-made Furi knife for PJ for Christmas and that kept me going for a while but after Clare’s chicken deboning lesson I came to the realisation that my kit needs updating.  Clare also came to that realisation and look what she and her husband Anthony got me for my 40th:

This is a boning knife.  It’s bloody sharp.  It’s a Kasumi which, according to the box, is a VG-10 Super Stainless Steel High Carbon 32 Layers Fine Stainless Steel Made in Seki, Japan.  I tried it out on a tomato.  I’m not even kidding, the tomato fell apart into five perfect slices just as I was sliding this thing out of its box.  This is a very, very special knife and I’m not nearly well enough qualified to use it.  But I’ll try.

Clare’s informed opinion that my knife collection needed updating was all it took to get me onto Peter’s of Kensington online to order a new set.  I couldn’t help myself.  Besides, they were on sale: $225 down from $599.  With a free sharpener.

These are Furi knives.  Like I said, I’ve got one of them (it’s a great big knife called the East/West Knife – it’s great for chopping vegetables) so I know they’re good.  Clare’s advice was to go to the store and ‘try them out’ which means to see how they feel in your hand – the weight, the balance, the shape etc are all important.  I use a Furi serrated knife at work to chop through enormous foccacia rolls and I’m pretty happy with it, so I took a chance and ordered the whole block.  But yes, it’s good advice to go and see how they feel.

So anyway the point of this entire post is to inspire you to buy yourself a decent knife, or maybe a whole set of knives.  Cooking is so much more pleasurable if you are using good quality equipment and it all starts with an excellent – and very sharp – knife.You’re more likely to chop off a finger using a blunt knife, by the way.  Blunt knives slip against the carrot rather than slice right into it, and it’s the slipping that’ll get your finger.

PS Who got the movie reference in the title?

long waits and snap decisions

Posted by trish on Jul 9, 2011 in Blog | 6 comments

We’ve been waiting on some information that we were told would come twelve hours ago.  We don’t mind waiting, if we know exactly how long it will be.  Tell me, from the start, that it will be twelve hours and I’ll arrange my day accordingly.  But don’t keep me hangin’ on.  I hate that.

In the last couple of weeks some people I know have made a fairly monumental, life-changing decision.  Months of agonising over possible outcomes, months of consulting with accountants and lawyers, months of writing lists of pros and cons have ended with a final, sudden decision about the way forward.  I’m being deliberately vague with the details but the reality is that it doesn’t matter what the decision has been about; what’s important is that these friends have made a huge choice and you can almost see them walking around a bit taller, without the weight of indecision sitting heavily on their shoulders. Now that they’ve made the decision, they wonder why they waited so long to do it.  Why they put up with the status quo when it was so obviously slowly destroying them.

Years ago I saw an episode of 60 Minutes that was talking about families who had over-committed themselves to enormous mortgages, and how they were now trapped in a cycle of working hard just to pay the house off.  There was one couple in particular who were shaking their heads at the ridiculousness of the situation they’d got themselves into.  But it had taken them a long time to get to a point where they were able to be that objective, because they really, really wanted to believe in the dream.

I don’t think you can see the problem until you have detached yourself from the feelings you might have, whether they are love or guilt or ambition or whatever.  Sometimes it really does come down to cold hard facts (and cash) and then maybe somebody on the outside saying to them ‘You know, you don’t need to put up with this… You have a choice.’  That little nudge is all-important.

We got a little nudge just recently and as a result we have decided to move house.  If you know me or have been reading for a while, you might know that we have been waiting and hoping – for years – for an opportunity to purchase a rural block of land so we can build a house from scratch and, just as importantly, get the kids puppies and horses.  But the opportunity hasn’t come along yet, and we are living in a home that doesn’t really suit us anymore.  We could stay here, waiting, for years if we wanted to, or we could leave and spend the waiting time in a better house.  So that’s what we’re going to do.  I’m very excited at the prospect of finding somewhere new to live.  I doubt we’ll be able to manage a horse for Madeleine but puppies are, as I’ve hinted, a distinct possibility.

wool

Posted by trish on Jul 8, 2011 in Shoot | 2 comments

I am a ‘VIP Customer’ at a store in the city that sells both mens’ and womens’ clothes.  For my birthday they sent me a $20 gift voucher, which was lovely.  I went into the store yesterday but couldn’t find anything that I particularly needed.  They were having a sale, though, with an additional 40% off for VIP card holders, so I kept looking.  Eventually I spotted this green 100% merino wool scarf in the mens’ section.  It was $69, on sale for $39, minus another 40% took it down to $23.40.  I handed over my gift voucher and $3.40.  Result?  Happy husband.  And I’m going to borrow it every chance I get.

basics

Posted by trish on Jul 7, 2011 in Eat | 1 comment

There’s a butcher who comes to the Farmers’ Markets only a few times a year, and he sells the most incredible beef.  I try to stock up on steaks when he’s in town, and last time he came he talked me into buying a couple of kilos of veal shanks to make Osso Bucco.  I’m so glad he did.  I really think the success of this dish is in the quality of the meat, so find yourself a good butcher.  If you’re in Canberra and you want to order some of Ian’s fantastic beef, you can get in touch with him via his website and find out when he’ll next be in town.  I’ve never tasted better steak in my life, and it feels good to be buying from a farmer who has such enormous respect for his animals and for Natural Farming techniques.

Sorry if you’re a vegetarian.

The pieces are cross-sections of the shank – the lower leg – of the animal.  I’ve made lamb shanks plenty of times but this is the first time I’ve cooked veal shanks.  The shanks I bought at the market were really thick and meaty – I’ve seen veal shanks at the supermarket and they aren’t particularly impressive. I never buy meat at the supermarket anymore.

Here’s what I learned about veal shanks: they have a membrane around them.  Each slice seems to be wrapped in a tight skin, a bit like you find on a slice of salami that hasn’t had its wrapper taken off.  You need to cut through this membrane at 1-2cm intervals around the slice of salami so that, when you’re cooking it and the membrane shrinks, the slice doesn’t curl up but instead lies flat.  You’ll need a sharp knife, and keep your fingers out of the way.

Once you’ve done that, you can make osso bucco like you’d make just about any casserole.  The thing with osso bucco is that the marrow from inside the bone adds a level of richness to the gravy that is other-worldly.  I’m not kidding, this was so delicious.

I think I had about ten pieces of veal, which was enough to feed six hungry people and have a little bit leftover for a couple of meat pies which I’m going to make for dinner tonight.  There was a fair bit of gravy left over so I tipped that into a big pot of bolognese sauce that was bubbling away on the stove.  Yum.

Veal shanks come in different sizes, so you might find it’s easier to buy two small pieces per person, or one large one per person.

(sorry this shot is out of focus… I hate trying to take pictures at night in my kitchen, the lighting is terrible and I don’t like to use the flash so I end up with a slow shutter speed.  But – look at the marbling in that meat.  And you can see the cuts I’ve made in the membrane on the piece on the right.)

This could be done in a slow-cooker (brown the meat first before adding to the pot) or you could cook the ingredients in a frying pan before transfering to an oven-proof dish (with a lid).  I used Le Pot.

There are a million variations of this recipe, but this is how I did it and it was delicious.

OSSO BUCCO

Serves 6-8

8 Veal shanks

1 large brown onion, finely chopped

1 celery stick, finely chopped

1 carrots, finely diced

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/2 cup plain flour

Olive Oil

2 x 400g tins crushed tomatoes

1 cup chicken or veal or beef stock (I used beef, out of a packet)

200ml dry white wine

Two large pieces of lemon rind

Gremolata to serve:

1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf/continental parsley

the rest of the lemon rind from that lemon, finely grated

1 garlic clove, crushed (optional – I find it a bit strong)

Preheat oven to 160 C.

Put the flour in a large freezer bag and toss the veal pieces in it to coat.  Shake off the excess flour and stack them up on a plate.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a large heavy-based pan over a medium heat .  Brown the veal a few pieces at a time, get them nice and brown and then put aside and keep warm under some aluminium foil on another plate.  When you have cooked all the veal, add a little more olive oil to the pot and add the chopped vegies.  Stir 5-10 minutes or until soft.

Add the wine and let it bubble up for a minute and reduce.  Keep stirring the pot, this will lift any bits that are stuck to the base of the pot – aka “de-glazing”.

Return the veal pieces to the pot, laying them flat in a couple of layers, squish them in if you need to.  Pour over the wine, stock and the tomatoes, adding a little extra water if you need to in order to bring the liquid level up so the veal is covered.  Tuck the lemon rind in amongst the veal.  Put the lid on and pop it in the oven (or turn the slow cooker on LOW).

Cook in the oven for two hours.  With half an hour to go steam some greens and make some mashed potato (or if like me you can’t be bothered cut thick slices of Italian bread).  The meat should be falling off the bones, if not you can cook for a little longer, and add some more water if you need to.

Combine the parsley and grated lemon zest in a bowl, and sprinkle this over the veal as you dish it up.

the making of me

Posted by trish on Jul 6, 2011 in Blog | 4 comments

We’ve been married fifteen years.  It’s been pretty wonderful, being married to this bloke.  We are so well suited to one another.  We don’t fight.  We sometimes disagree, but only about silly things and we always make up in the end.  We laugh, all the time.  We make beautiful children.  He likes my cooking.  I love the way he fixes my computer.  I change the lightbulbs, he sets me up with new domain names.  He says I’m beautiful.  I tell him he’s a sexy beast.  He still wears glasses but they’re not quite so big anymore.  He still looks at me just like that, with a look of half-contentment, half-smugness, that he got the girl he wanted.  And now that I’m 40 I can look back on the last 28 years and know for certain that I wouldn’t be this happy if I’d never met him.  Or have had so much fun.  He’s my reason for everything.

Happy Anniversary darling! xx

Miss Molly

Posted by trish on Jul 4, 2011 in Shoot | 9 comments

This is Molly, our next door neighbour.  She’s a cavoodle, and if the planets are as well aligned as I think they are then we’re about to get a Molly too.  Actually, two Mollys.  Can you even imagine?  Good golly.

le macaron

Posted by trish on Jul 3, 2011 in Eat | 9 comments

As you may have seen, my 40th birthday cake was a Macaron Cake, made by Owen of Dream Cuisine.  Our good friends Clare & Anthony had to leave the party before the cake was served, and since Anthony told me he’d never had a macaron before I told him to swipe one off the cake while it was out in the kitchen being dismantled and dished up.  We had plans today to meet Clare & Anthony for lunch, so yesterday I was at the Farmers’ Markets and stopped by Owen’s stall to thank him for the cake, and while I was there I picked up a selection of macarons to take to lunch today.

Except I forgot to take them, didn’t I.

It’s best to enjoy macarons within a day or two of picking them up.  I may never see Clare & Anthony again, ever.  I mean, they live south of the lake.  So really there’s only one thing for it.

Cherry & Chocolate.

Lavender and Honey.

Pecan and honey with salted caramel filling.

Pistachio and Lime

Lemon.  Light and crisp on the outside, gooey and creamy on the inside.  Oh my.

I cannot tell you which one I loved the most.  It would be like asking to choose between my children.  I love them all equally.

decorum, please.

Posted by trish on Jul 2, 2011 in Blog | 5 comments

There’s a thing on the internet this week that’s making its way around via the usual channels – I found it on twitter – about a Mother-In-Law-to-be who wrote an email to her Daughter-In-Law-to-be, suggesting that she might like to consider modifying her behaviour in anticipation of joining the family.  The DILtb was so offended that she sent it to a few of her friends, who thoughtfully sent it to everyone they knew.  The MILtb hasn’t been heard from since although I’d be willing to bet she’s saying plenty off-line, on Wednesday nights at Bridge.

If you would like to read the email you can find it over here.  It’s pretty sensational.  As in, causing a sensation.

So, now that you’ve read it, who do you think is the most wrong?

If you strip back all the unpleasantness and humiliation – that this private conversation has now been shared with the entire world – it becomes a story about a massive clash of generations.  Ms Bourne, the MIL, comes from a time when good manners were still considered a valuable asset.  Miss Withers, the bride-to-be, comes from a generation (Gen-Y) that not only takes a fairly laissez-faire approach to manners, but also embraces a tool that allows you to share your inner thoughts, your embarassing photographs, your mobile phone number and your relationship status with anyone with access to a computer.  They could not be more different, these two women.

Ms Bourne has obviously been raised (and raised her own children) in one way, and all of a sudden she’s faced with the reality of The Rest Of The World.

It’s like that scene in Pride and Prejudice when Mr Darcy, Mr Bingley and Miss Bingley show up at the country dance and see how incredibly uncouth the Rest Of The World has become whilst they were busy counting their fine carriages and learning the piano forte.

I read the email from Ms Bourne and could immediately sympathise.  I absolutely think she took the wrong approach, by putting it in writing, but she is clearly a woman who has no understanding of the incredible power of the internet and its ability to disseminate information so quickly and widely.  It would never have occurred to her that a) Ms Withers could be THAT hideous as to share a private letter with another person and b) that the other person might have an internet connection and see the potential for global humiliation and exploit it with glee.

But I could absolutely sympathise – empathise, even – with Ms Bourne’s dismay at her future daughter in law’s manners.  Good manners are a dying art, and that is a tragedy.  I think she is well within her rights to expect a certain level of respectful behaviour from somebody who not only spends a lot of time in her presence but is about to become a member of the family.  I hope that the partners my two girls eventually settle down with will – at the very least- be polite and respectful to me and PJ.  They can hate us all they want in the privacy of their own homes but when they come to my house I would be upset if they did some of the things that Miss Withers is accused of; the behaviours that Ms Bourne describes are pretty horrible, really.  (And I would expect my girls to be respectful of their in-laws, too).

In return for their good manners I promise never to write how horrid they are in 140-character bursts.

Actually, that’ll be part of my strategy.  I’ll threaten them with “ohmygod this is going to make SUCH a good blog post!!”

On re-reading the email, I take offence at this part:

I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters’ marriages.)

THAT part isn’t going to go down well with the in-laws-to-be, and it REALLY bothers me.  Commenting on anyone else’s personal financial situation is absolutely f*cking unacceptable.  Bad form, Ms Bourne.  In that paragraph you revealed yourself to be a complete Snob and it undermines what you were trying to say from the start.  Shame on you.

I’m assuming Miss Withers doesn’t have to live with Ms Bourne.  My advice to Freddie & Heidi, the groom and his bride, is to move as far away as is practical, and then carefully stage-manage annual visits where Heidi can minimise the risk of pissing her MIL off, and Freddie can limit the opportunity for his mother to berate him for marrying That Woman in the first place.  And, yes, I think Heidi could brush up on her social norms.  It can’t hurt.

rouge

Posted by trish on Jul 1, 2011 in Shoot | 1 comment

I bought several bunches of flowers at the Farmers’ Markets last Saturay morning, to decorate the tables at my birthday party.  I bought a lot of yellow tulips and gerberas but, having just been presented with the beautiful green vase from my daughters I decided to buy some extra tulips to keep at home.  I picked some red ones, and by the end of the week they were wide open.  I love the colours in this photo, and the sneaky iris in the top corner.