steamed fish with ginger, chilli and shallots

During dinner at Kai Mayfair last Friday night, somewhere between indulging in the perfectly cooked Chilean Sea Bass and me licking my plate (for reals), the question of ‘how does one cook fish at home?’ was posed. I’m surprised at how often this question pops up in conversation, I know a million people who refuse to cook fish at home. But it’s a completely odd question to me, because I’ve always cooked fish (I’ve even dabbled with fish curry), and I don’t find it particularly difficult.

So this question was specifically about steaming fish, and ok, my steamed fish is a bit of a fraud, it’s actually kind of baked, but if it tastes the same and looks the same, who cares how it got there, right? It’s called innovation, people.

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honey lemon glazed chicken drumsticks

I always pictured that back in the day of the caveman, men ~ rugged, muscly, grunty… dirty, hairy, smelly (hmm, time seems to have changed not very much at all) ~ would wield their giant (chicken drumstick) clubs and trudge off with fellow grunty cavemen to hide behind some thorny scrubs and stake out their prey. And here they would sit patiently, occasionally scratching their derrière (an acitivity which seems to have thrived over the millennia), waiting for the perfect prey. 

Eventually, they’ll hear a rustle of movement as a gaggle (gaggle? I don’t actually know the correct term for a group of women, except for god-fearing-stampeding-horde during the Christmas sales) of cavewomen return from their daily mudbath, cleansed and all up to date with the most current cave gossip. At the sight of the soft curvaceousness of this fairer gender, the cavemen leap from their hiding place, brandishing their (honey glazed chicken drumstick) clubs in the air and charge, clubbing their chosen prey over the head.

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low fat blueberry muffins

There’s this person in my kitchen. She looks a little like me, a tornado of a midget whizzing around, pouring, clanking, mixing, wiping ~ generally making an atomic-flour-bomb of a mess. I think she’s baking, which is simply a bizarre concept for me to grasp because she looks like me, but I don’t bake. I just do not bake.

And there are  good reasons why I don’t bake, the main one being that I have trouble with measurements. I don’t own a measuring cup, measuring spoons, kitchen scales or any other tool of a self-respecting baker (including the obligatory cake tin, muffin tray and mixing bowl). My attitude towards measurements is nonchalant at best and I’m a true believer that a ‘pinch’, a ‘dab’ and a ‘splash’ are completely acceptable measurements for the perfect amount of spice/sauce/anything.  

So while she looks curiously like my doppelgänger, I’m still sure she isn’t me because damn if I’m ever going to be caught using measuring spoons.

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penne arabiata with spicy chorizo & sundried tomato

I was recently reading a forum about the everyday things that happen in movies that just do. not. happen in real life. Like having untouched eye make-up after an all night session of bosom-heaving crockery-flinging sex, for example. And having kept your bra on that whole time.  Movies are movies and believe me when I say eye make-up smudges if you so much as flutter your lashes at the man of your dreams and as for the bra, well shit you gotta get that off because you don’t want him to see you wearing a bra from Target, do you?

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coffee at The Breakfast Club; breakfast burrito at The Breakfast Club; latte at Flat White

I’m a firm believer that there are few things in life finer than waking up to my own bodyclock (and not the worker ant up-at-7am-without-an-alarm bodyclock ~ I really need to do something about that! ~ but the one that lets me sleep til at least 11am) and then falling back asleep again because guess what? There is nothing I need to get up for today! If you’ve never tried the Second Sleep, I strongly recommend it. It leaves you well rested and revitalised, ready to take on the world – that is, until nap time three hours later.

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