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so i was talking to my aunt on the phone over the weekend, and when i mentioned that i had the house all to myself, she became quite concerned. “you musn’t forget to eat,” she advised. i may have laughed out loud. and then i told her that i had made wontons the night before, and i had a brown bag full of bagels.

high on the carb rush from our saturday bondi bagelthon, deborah and i returned to the city and trawled the aisles of harris farm at broadway, coming away with such treats as a quarter of a cabbage, a tray of oyster mushrooms, a bag of bean sprouts, a punnet of strawberries, a wedge of peppery pecorino, two ruby red grapefruit and a bag of small salty pretzels.

for the premium sweet and salty snack, the pretzels will be dipped in lindt 70%. rather than, y’know, the easter clearance chocolate i pounced on in the shopping centre foyer: a kilo of quality milk chocolate for $10… but that is really a story for another time.

the mushrooms, cabbage and sprouts went into the inaugural homemade saturday night wonton noodle soup (mushroom broth), and made me very happy.

the strawberries, i am eating right now, after my third pork fried rice dinner since friday; there was a lot of pork mince leftover from my wonton-making exercise. but last night saw an addition of shredded cabbage and bean sprouts, and tonight, lovely, crunchy, greeeeen celery.

i discovered this afternoon, that my local supermarket sells individual wands of trimmed celery! this is perfect, because no-one else in this house eats celery, and anyway, a whole bunch never fits into my crisper drawer. at $3.98 a kilo, three batons cost me all of 67c. sliced finely and fried with minced ginger and garlic, it was a delicious addition to an already satisfying meal.

who doesn’t love fried rice?

posted by ragingyoghurt on 9 April 2007 at 7:35 pm

permalink | filed under chocolate, dinner, kitchen, shoping

in between our morning tea bagel and our lunch bagel, deborah and i popped into wheel and barrow, where everything was beautiful — especially those clear ice-cream glasses in the shape of ice-cream cones — and where we didn’t buy anything.

at one point i positioned myself directly behind a narrow shelf so i could surreptitiously photograph a beautiful test-tube filled with beautiful pink dragees. it didn’t work though, because a sales assistant pushed through with a large box of something that she had to stack onto that very shelf i was standing in front of, right at that moment. after she’d returned to the counter, we heard whispers wafting over to us: “…taking photos!”

three seconds later another sales assistant appeared at my side. “what are those pictures for?” she asked, not rudely, but not offhand curiously either.

i paused. and then i shut off my camera. and then i said, “actually, these are for my own amusement, because i found a cockroach in your dragees!”

i handed the tube over, and she might have recoiled. “well. i think i will dispose of these,” she said, reaching for them finally, “and normally, we don’t allow photographs.”

why did i stop listening to spiderbait? this is just great.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 7 April 2007 at 11:02 pm

permalink | filed under around town, shoping, soundtrack

i was passing by the deli counter at the supermarket the other day, and a guy was trying to buy some chicken breasts.

“they just aren’t big enough,” he said.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 12 March 2007 at 4:21 pm

permalink | filed under misc, shoping

the third time the swede caught sight of us, according to deborah, he had to look again, just to make sure. i didn’t notice; my attention was on the daim cake.

he had first seen us four hours earlier. we had worked our way through the magical maze that is the ikea showroom, and had arrived at the cafeteria, only an hour and a bit into the adventure; we had a modest haul of wooden cutlery caddy (to double up as pencil organiser), teddy bear bedlinen and two notebooks. it was still early, as lunchtimes go, but i figured if we ate early then there’d be an opportunity for afternoon tea later. we joined the queue and filled our trays. organic apple-guava juice, salmon with chips and vegetables for me, organic apple-guava juice, meatballs and chips, herby bread roll for deb. potato salad and beets to share.

“can we have chips and vegetables with the meatballs?” asked deb as the efficient lunch ladies plated up.

“no.” said the efficient lunch ladies.

i suppose we had already taken up too much of their time deciding if we should get ten meatballs, or fifteen. we were going to split everything, but lurking in the back of my head is the awareness that there can be too many meatballs. even if meatballs have been the main drawcard for a long-overdue ikea excursion.

it only seems like i have too much spare space in my brain, for lurking.

the swede, you remember, from the start of this story, checked us out., by which i mean, at the checkout. “ah!” he exclaimed, on spotting the pink juices, “this is organic apple and guava juice! it is new.” he seemed pleased that we had chosen so wisely.

and then a long and leisurely lunch, where i discovered a couple of the carrots had a strange frosty appearance, even though they were perfectly… room temperature. despite being hard and crunchy, they had an un-carrotlike texture. i was flummoxed, and then in spite of that, i decided that ikea should launch a string of ikea cafés around town — no furniture or curtains on show, just a refurbished mcdonald’s with cheap meatballs and salmon meals behind the counter, and a room full of coloured plastic balls for the kids. you would go, wouldn’t you?

it only seems like i have too much spare space in my brain, for lurking.

and then a long and winding wander through the downstairs maze of the market hall, where our restraint from upstairs was gradually undone. damn you, kitchen department! but we got through it. we even sat down on a saggy, discounted sofa in the bargain basement and reviewed our loot. one of us, not me, even put stuff back on the shelf. we joined a short queue and paid. and then we came face to face with the ikeafood(c) store.

sigh.

at least i had known ahead of time, had not pretended that the rows of swedish jams and cordials and ginger thins would not move me. too soon a shopping bag — “the taste of sweden” — was filled with cloudberry jam and blueberry jam and lingonberry jam, a single daim bar, a bag of salty licorice fish (for the boy; i shall not touch the stuff again), a bag of dillchips — and this is where the swede bumped into us again. “ah, these chips are really good! but i like these ones better,” he said, pointing to the american style sour cream and onion. but, ch, you can get sour cream and onion potato chips anywhere. dill-flavoured chips are hard to come by.

remember, in greece, all those oregano-flavoured potato chips you ate, not because they were so delicious, but because, where else will you come across these exotic crispies?

things that didn’t make the bag this time: creamed crab in a tube (30% crab meat!), gingerbread house kit, instant meatball sauce powder. as it was, the magical display of pulling rabbits out of this hat was quite a sight to behold, this show i put on at the checkout counter.

we were pleased, but wilty. the girl on welcome duty at the foot of the escalator looked confused as we rode back up; we were already weighed down with sweden’s best. back in the cafetaria, we sat beneath jaunty polka-dotted lamps and ate cake and drank tea. that’s when the swede did the double take. we’d been there about five hours. by the time the last crumb had been eaten, we’d have nudged it closer to six.

the feeling we had on realising it, i do not think that you could call it pride.

but it wasn’t bad.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 27 November 2006 at 2:42 pm

permalink | filed under around town, lunch, shoping, snacks

sometimes you know the solution to a problem. that is, you know of its existence, independent to the relevant problem, but you haven’t quite put the two together.

for example, i’d known about the orange grove organic market since shortly after i moved into the area. i’d also known that the 445 bus sort of headed in that direction. but to me, the market was always just a little bit too much of a walk. i’d say it would have taken over half an hour to hoof it. it was only recently that it clicked that i could take a bus there, and that the bus actually stopped right outside the market. brains — what would we do without them?

saturday morning, we walked to the bus stop with a spring in our step, and not too long later, we were on the bus with three other families with young ‘uns. off the bus, there were kids, and dogs, and sunshine, and bouncy castles. it was spring!

we did a couple of laps around the market, with no particular plan, just to see what was available (which was lots). i take a little while to warm up at markets, but then once the first purchase is out of the way, it always spirals out of control.

as it happened, that first crucial purchase involved standing in front of the artisanal lemonade stall for longer than you might expect. there wasn’t actually a queue, mind, it was just me trying to decide if i wanted the pineapple lemonade — a great beehive of glass filled with sunny yellow, with small chunks of fresh pineapple floating inside — or the raspberry lemonade — deep red, and copiously seeded. there was also a rather complex looking ginger ale with bits of chopped up chillis and other vegetation, but i thought that i’d save it for when i didn’t have to share with the kid. the lemonade guy recommended the pineapple… and it was nice and all, but i was too busy trying to drink my share of it, before maeve guzzled it all. the last i saw, her grimy little paw was sloshing about in the dregs, fishing for the fruit.

but so. now the purse strings had been freed! there was interesting bread, but we already had two loaves at home. there were two stalls with pink lady apple pies, but it was too soon after breakfast. there was some lovely rose geranium soap, but it was $5.50 a bar. we worked our way through the maze, accepting samples of nougat and oranges and raspberry ricotta cake. the south american food was inviting, and the calabrian too. the g–zleme ladies were there too, with variations i hadn’t yet encountered: organic chocolate and banana (must have been $15 g–zleme).

i bought: a brown bag of pink ladies; a packet of eumundi smokehouse double smoked bacon and a red wine and garlic salami; a small tub of gympie farm butter; a tomato and olive pastry, for sustenance; and some mushrooms.

ah the mushrooms. they were spread out in boxes across the counter: button, swiss brown, oyster, king brown, shitake, enoki, chesnut. i wanted them all. “can i buy a mixed selection?” i asked the mushroom man, and “how much are they?”

“they all cost the same,” he replied, “$4.50 for a hundred grams.” he even measured out 100g of oyster mushrooms, so i could see what 100g of mushrooms looked like. and then i asked for a 400g mix of the five more exotic funghi.

there were so many, he packed them into two of his sturdy brown bags. “$18,” he said.

see, i know that four times $4.50 is $18, but somehow i didn’t do that calculation in my head when i put my order in. and so when we caught the bus home, i had just under a dollar left in my wallet. but a bounty! of tasties! in my shoping bag.

dinner was fettucine with a myriad of mushrooms, fried with bacon and garlic in gympie butter. all together now: mmmMMMmmm.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 3 September 2006 at 9:05 pm

permalink | filed under around town, dinner, drink, kid, lunch, shoping, snacks

ah, blogging, that thing i used to do.

such is life in balmain…

we went to the toyshop the other day, and while i paid for the kid’s latest booty: two paintbrushes and a fetching nylon smock, the counter lady asked if i was a member of their loyalty scheme. she went on to explain that the scheme was: for every dollar i spend “on toys”, i get a point, and when i have collected 400 points, i get a $40 voucher.

thing is, i actually do like to collect points and get vouchers (and the like), but i also like to be realistic, and so i asked if the points had an expiry date. she hesitated, looked momentarily bashful, and then said that i would have six months.

“wow. um, i don’t think i could spend $400 on toys in six months,” i said.

“people say that,” the counter lady said encouragingly, “but then they do!”

“it’s true!” said a lithe woman who had just entered the shop. “you’d be surprised! it all adds up!”

i paid the counter lady $20.45, and she printed out my receipt and showed me where i could see my points balance. “only 380 points to go!” i exclaimed gamely… except it wasn’t — the computer had only given me 19 points. i’ve barely begun and already it’s a losing battle.

then we walked a block up the street to a café for some orange-ginger juice and a babycino, and the counter guy was steve bisley.

but the reason why there’s been no time for anything else is that for the last couple of weeks, i’ve been immersed in the eye-straining, RSI-inducing, yet educational world of laying out (and proofreading, and copyediting) a manual on wound care. oh the three different numbering/labelling systems in the same chapter! oh the glamourous photographs of sliced-open toes! oh the email of amendments that arrived yesterday, which says: “page 225 should be relocated to page 180. urgosterile is a dressing! you may have to renumber the pages! sorry lah!”

quite.

so.

now for something completely different. my head is in sandwich mode, and springtime, and picnics! these last couple days i have washed many mixing bowls, and many things have been mixed in-between. i’m waiting for a pot of chocolate ganache to cool down. and already there is a sweet and tart by-product of yesterday’s eggwhites: today’s lemon curd.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 19 August 2006 at 2:49 pm

permalink | filed under around town, kid, kitchen, shoping, werk

i’d thought that posting my $70 grocery receipt was an invitation for admonishment or ridicule, but no. well, perhaps there was some eye-rolling at your screens, or mutters of “why don’t you give that money to me instead?” that i don’t know about. still, i was touched by the outward show of support and understanding of my spendthriftiness. which is how i found myself back at the very same emporium, with deborah, attending a short presentation on how to increase our energy.

it amounted to the instore nutritionist sitting at a small table reading a short essay off a sheet of paper, while showing us a variety of grains, legumes and other healthy things that would help with the necessary nutrients. there was a brief and awkward pause while a girl’s baby choked on a mouthful of apple, and then there was question time, during which another girl asked what effect on her blood sugar it would have, to put four or five spoons of sugar in her cup of tea.

but of course, the food tour was just an excuse (for me anyway) to trawl the aisles of wonder once again. it was enough fun just to look, and think about buying the box of inca red quinoa, or the carton of italian chocolate cornflakes — it had a lovely illustration of a monkey on it. in a fit of restraint, i bought just a loaf of bread (sprouted rye and spelt, with a whiff of caraway), and a piece of cheese (organic parmesan).

that morning, it had rained until just before the kid and i left the house, paused for the ten minutes it took for us to walk up the hill, and then resumed. and then it stopped again. and started again, harder. it was all right for maeve, under plastic, but i was quite sodden when we pulled up outside the store. and so after the morning lesson and the circuit round the shop, when we looked out the windows to see that it was pelting down again, we thought it was best that we sit down to something to eat.

hurray!

before too long we were all perched on the shiny white stools at the counter. “babycino!” yelled the kid, as the miniature paper cup approached. and then coffee and hot chocolate and deb’s enormous stack of brown flour pancakes with marscarpone, maple syrup and strawberries — how’s that for healthy and decadent — and a great platter of smoked salmon, brie and dill omelette with thick slices of wholegrain sourdough for maeve and me. we tried our hardest to eat everything, and then we surrendered and went across the road to the common ground bakery.

“ah,” deb had said earlier, as we stood in the bread aisle, debating, “that is the bakery where the men all have beards [an anagram of ‘breads’!] and all the girls have long hair.”

it is true. the girls also wear long skirts, and blouses of flower print. such a girl, behind the counter, talked up the maté latte, and sold me a loaf of mountain berry bread. the same bread is sold back across the road at about life, but when you buy it at the bakery, it comes with a festive sprinkle of flaked almonds.

contrary to its name, it is packed with plump raisins, dates apricots and walnuts. it has a sugary glaze and an aura of brandy. these bearded men and long-haired lasses, they sure know how to have a good time.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 23 July 2006 at 12:50 pm

permalink | filed under around town, breakfast, shoping

as good as a holiday.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 16 July 2006 at 4:48 pm

permalink | filed under shoping

there has been too much frivolous spending of late. the innocent (haha) stroll up to the park which resulted in the popping into the sale at the fancy boutique across the road, which resulted in the procuring of several $10 pairs of trousers and shirts and a handsome wool and mohair coat that had been reduced from $187 to $20. followed by the online spree which resulted in 2 “maisy” DVDs, a “charlie and lola” DVD and a “babe” DVD. the rainbow stripey beanie. oh all right. it’s all for the child… but really, the “charlie and lola” DVD is secretly for me.

so you see, even though i have just seen some extremely cute little plates at lori joy’s new little store, i feel i must remain strong and resist… the urge… to… buy… plates.

but they would be perfect, perfect, for me and the kid. a matching set, even. look:

posted by ragingyoghurt on 4 July 2006 at 10:13 pm

permalink | filed under shoping

do you eat chicken? do you watch sunrise? i do, quite a bit, and i, um, do… only sometimes, and in small amounts, honest. this morning they had a lady from the chicken board on, to set the record straight on the state of today’s poultry.

and now that i’ve googled “australian poulty association”, i see that that the board are actually called the australian chicken meat federation, and three days ago revealed in a press release that “almost 80% of australians believe that something is added to the australian chicken to make it grow artificially larger, with a staggering 66% of australians believing added hormones are a contributing factor making chickens larger”. ok.

well, i mean, that’s what i thought! have you seen the size of those chicken breasts in the supermarket deli counter? monstrous! sometimes, from my old supermarket at least, they even tasted like chickens of death. but in fact, what the chicken board woman said was that modern chickens are a different breed from the dainty specimens of the past, and comparing the two was like comparing a shetland pony with a workhorse. (and also that any antibiotics given to the birds are no longer in the meat by the time it reaches the consumer, and that organic chicken is no better for you than the other kind is.)

so. you’d believe it wouldn’t you? this chicken lady on a tv show where businesses and tourist attractions pay money to be included in the lineup?

it’s just, having read “my year of meats” (ruth ozeki) a couple of times, and sort of wanting to read “the way we eat: why our food choices matter” (peter singer) — but being sort of afraid to — and to be honest, the size of those chicken breasts is still a little disconcerting…

it’s just, the kid really likes chicken.

hormones and antibiotics aside, organic may not necessarily be better for us, but it probably is a bit better for the chickens. but then after the playground we went to the supermarket to buy a roast chicken for lunch, and the woman behind the counter asked if i wanted the regular $8.48 chicken, or the reduced-for-quick-sale $6 one.

“why’s it reduced for quick sale?” i asked.

“because it’s been out here for more than four hours,” she said, almost like a challenge.

the unspoken question, i suppose, was, how much longer than four hours had it been out here? (and also, did the chicken have a good life?)

but i took it. it fell apart in the woman’s tongs as she wrestled it into a bag. it made a tasty sandwich, on soy and linseed, with avocado, tomato and cheese for the kid, and avocado, sesame seed furikake and chili pepper sprinkles for me.

i still don’t know how i feel about the chicken debate. i want to read the book, even though i know it will make me (more) uneasy about the food i choose to eat. i mean, we can’t all be fruitarians, can we?

posted by ragingyoghurt on 30 June 2006 at 9:45 pm

permalink | filed under bookshelf, lunch, shoping, tv

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