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.

Read More →

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?

Read More →

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.

Read More →

chilli dip with tuna and pickled vegies; grilled calamari; chocolate fondant; breakfast buffet

Hi! I’m now back from Tunisia (yes, Northern Africa) and am suffering from post-holiday blues so play nice, ok? Three and a half days of lazing by the pool, soaking up the nothing-but-blue-sky thirty-something degree heat plus a 60 minute massage has un-knotted my knots, un-stressed my stresses and really has me believing that I should just pack up and move out there. Seriously.

In the mean time though, reality is still biting, so here I am and yes this post is totally about BBQ pork!

Read More →

angelled eggs

So it is now only one more sleep until I hit the sunny shores of Tunisia for a well deserved three-day lie-on-the-beach/pool/bed/recliner holiday. Being as ridiculously geographically challenged as I am (I don’t think I’ve ever taken a geography lesson. I vaguely remember having to take Social Studies in Year 9, which in all effects and purposes should cover geography and history, but all I remember from that class was an unhealthy obsession with all things Egyptian, and an even unhealthier obsession with Stargate and pondering the gender identity of Jaye Davidson – the jury’s still out on that one), up until about a month ago, I thought Tunisia was in Europe. Anyway, Google Maps told me otherwise. Tunisia is actually in Northern Africa, right up there next to Algeria and Morocco, and a stone’s throw from Italy’s south coast. At least it’s close to Europe. There was a time when I thought the Caribbean was in Africa. Shame.

Read More →

toasted-muesli-with-yoghurt-mango-and-dried-fruit

We spent Saturday afternoon loitering amongst the antique at Portobello Market, trying to avoid breathing in mothball fumes while really trying to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic. Is there a reason why Portobello Road is still open to traffic on the weekend? Because, really, the antique age of antique buyers is already a force of nature against their ability to move quickly, and yet they are also expected to first identify and then dodge the numerous oncoming black cabs? My little twinkly toes were almost flattened by the tyre of a ruthless cabbie, and just to think, if that was a little old person who was flattened instead, or god forbid – one of the many chihuahuas scampering along the road! (Is it a concern at all that I am more worried about chihuahuas than the little old people? Hmm, no, I didn’t think so).

Read More →