fuck me, it's hot

This is from my little weather widget thing, from 7.30am.
Neither my good self nor my black cat look as jolly as this couple

why I had a good day and great things about Adelaide

Today I worked from home. ooooooooo.... it was divine. I still got up at the same time, and made my tea and gave the cats their food and injection.

But!

I didn't get tom, the deadly treadly, out. Nor did I snort and snarl my way to campus cursing the day my fellow motorists were born. No. Instead I walked to the kitchen table and turned on the laptop. I was working at home, and I was loving it. Still in my pyjamas I'd done a couple of hours work by the time I was normally heading in the door. And I'd got more done than I normally did in a day by then.

However by around 11am the stomach was starting to make itself known, so as I didn't have to justify my whereabouts to anyone, or write 'gone for lunch, back in 10' on my office door, I went into town to do my food shopping.

When I was younger, I hated living in Adelaide. It was small. It was quiet. The good bands never toured. Now I'm older, and have lived the high life in some of Europe's most famous capital cities - I still think Adelaide's boring but I'm old enough not to care. I don't have the energy to go out anymore and young persons music bores me to tears, so it's just as easy to stay at home in Adelaide as it is Melbourne or New York.

But no matter what my age, there's always been one thing about Adelaide that has made the place worthwhile - the Adelaide Central Markets. They're one of the largest covered markets in Australia, or the Southern Hemisphere, or the World, or the Universe or something. I'm not sure and as a tourism person I should know. Don't try to over analyse it, they're just great.

And they're where I come from.

At least they could be, as they're the first thing I remember. Truly, it's the ONLY thing I remember from being young. I remember going there and my brother being in an indigo blue canvas backpack thing, that were de rigeur in the 70s, on my father's back. So he must have been about one, so I must have been about three. I really don't remember anything before that.

Of course there was food involved (is it any wonder I've become a fat foodie). I'd eat kabanas at Con's chacuterie, doughnuts at the bakery, and at Lucia's I'd eat kitkat. Lucia and her husband Pasquale opened Lucia's Pizzeria sometime in the Pleistocene era, and were the first in Adelaide to serve up pizza. Back then it was a tiny, two table place and I clearly remember sitting on Pasquale's knee as he served me pieces of chocolate. Mother and Father having been in Europe not long before my birth were no doubt slugging back the short short Italian coffee.

I remember many birthdays there, Saturday morning outings with Miss Quinn the slightly mad old cat lady from next door (I aspire to Miss Quinn) and later lazy student days eating pizza and buying cheap veggies at closing time.

These days it's still one of my favourite places on earth (I even dated one of the staff very briefly - and very disastrously). The coffee's wonderful and if you order right the breakfasts are close to heaven. I highly recommend the baked beans on continental toast. I have breakfast there every week with Opera Boy and we always sit at the same table and laugh and snort until we run away to our respective places of torture a little happier than on other days.

And it's still a place of habit for me. Same fruit and vegetable shop
Same baker, some butcher. There's a lot more Asian food available than when I was little. Then it was all Italian and Greek and not nearly as fashionable as it is now. But the sights and smells and noise and range of delicious things is always amazing and you always see something new and come away with something you didn't plan, unless you're very very good.

Today I came away with fried pork dumplings for my lunch. They were a little cold by the time I got them home (and changed back into my pyjamas), but still a very delicious thing to do on a busy day working at home.

So really, I worked a long day, 10 hours, got about 12 hours of work done but still managed to have a blissful day with the cats by my side, a long trip to the markets, a coffee at Lucias and dumplings for lunch.

I really, really need a job where I work from home.

insert pavemet here

Nervous Breakdown Averted.

Nothing to see here.

Move along.

Go about your regular business.

OK: So the days are still long, and the work still overwhelming. However:

1. took no home work with me last weekend and did no study - it was divine
2. all industry presentations over, successfully
3. have purchased food that is not pizza or take away Indian
4. beer
5. i've had an incredible amount of sleep
6. just generally decided to not be such a big fat girl and just get on with it, damn it!

Also my new hot water system that wasn't working had decided to kick in (just in time for summer), my house guest is gone leaving my evenings blissfully kittenesque and I've actually done some social stuff (it's been a while. Work can just take over some times).

Additionally I've asked for an extension for my final assignment (there have to be perks to working where you're a student), and the student whose thesis I've been proofing has been told the cold, hard truth that there's no way she's going to be able to graduate this December - by proofing I mean adding or removing articles, not proper editing which is what I've told her from the beginning she needed.

Not only that, but I've received some more excitement in the post. I still can't upload photos, but if you take this post - and supplement 'pavement', you 'll get the idea

ever feel like an idiot?

Tears. Everywhere - tears. I'm a fairly standard neo-feminist. I hate crying. A lot. But it's all I've been doing lately. I cried at my mothers. I cried at my fathers. I cried in front of no less than four colleagues today.

I fear there's some stress in my life. A straw too many was placed upon my camels back. I could give you photos, but my fucking computer's still not got functioning ports.

Life sucks sometimes.

R2D2 update

I am having beer for dinner. Again.

some days you just can't catch a break - or - there's no point crying over spilt beer

It's been a while since I wrote a post that was more than copying a recipe of someone else's site.

'Oh, has it?', you all say... 'hadn't noticed frankly'. Well yes, it has been a jolly long while.

There are several reasons for this:

1. Work has been crazy busy. Work is always crazy busy, I know. For us all, I know! But trust me when I say mine is extra crazy busy at the moment, summed up mostly by this shiny little droidy friend:
I know for most of you this will be meaningless, but for those in the know it's rather cute and funny, so please allow me this little in-joke.

Also, almost all of the positions for staff who work under me are soon to be vacant due to impending motherhood, pure selfishness and the joy of retirement (obviously not all in the same person).

2. Study has been equally busy, connected with that is a number '3'.

But first, let me tell you a story.

It all started a week ago today.

Well, actually it started on a warm August afternoon in AD79, when a little mountain call Vesuvius opened up the bowls of its molten body and started the eruption that would end the lives three cities, Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum, as well as the lives of many of their residents.

Going on two thousand years later some of the remains of these towns are on display in an exhibition 'A Day in Pompeii' at the Melbourne Museum. As a great lover of all things Classical I was all a-quiver about this development and immediately chose a weekend in October and booked flights for a day trip to Melbourne. That day was 10 October, last Saturday.

In the past when I've done these trips I've tried to get on the first possible flight out of town so I can have as much time as possible at my destination. The older I get the stupider this is, as by 3pm I'm dead on my feet. So this time I get a sensible flight time. Bus to the airport works a charm - only 5 minutes to transfer in the city. Row to myself - fabbo. Quick connection to the shuttle in Melbourne and I'm on my way. Walk down Spencer Street to Flinders Street and only just miss a circle tram.

Unfortunately I'm waiting nearly 30 minutes for the next, and I'm starting to think it would have been quicker if I had walked. When it does come, it's packed, but I'm happy to stand. At Russel Street the driver announces that because there's a rally at Parliament he's stopping here. That's OK, I respect the right to protest. Out I hop.

Now, Melbourne has a reputation for gray, wintry weather. However on this particular day the sun was hot and harsh and I was not dressed appropriately for this, mmmmmm.... starting to get a bit sticky. OK, not much further now. At Parliament I see the protesters, not many of them but they're blocking the whole street. As I push my way through I realise that they're trying to tell me that they know what I want with my body better than I do and that my choices should be removed by an act of legislation.

Blood pressure rises.

Keep going, BHG, keep going. Don't punch them and spend the day in the lock up.

Finally at Melbourne Museum. And it is HEAVING. Entry is timed, and despite the fact that it's only 1.30pm the earliest I can gain entry is 3pm. Bugger. I have to be back at the airport at 5.30, but that's OK, maybe I'll just have to pay for a cab. I get my ticket and decide to peruse the rest of this fine institution's collections.

But first a bit to eat, just need to get past this queue. Oh, hang on, this queue if for the restaurant. Not really moving either is it. Sod, that, I'll just pop out and find a cafe.

Yes, well, the Melbourne Museum is not really geographically located in a sensible place for weekend bites to eat. I'm setting up a hotdog stand out the front I think. By the time I've walked all the way to Swanson Street, only to end up with a bag of crisps from the 7/11, find an ATM to get money for the inevitable taxi fare and leg it back to the Museum it's nearly 2.15, and I figure I should go and stand in line so I'm the first of the 3pm'ers to get in.

There are actually some good displays in the entry hall, and I watch a couple of videos. What I would like is a catalogue so I can have a browse before. Of course it's only available from the exhibition shop, which is at the end of the exhibition and inaccessible to the rest of the world.

sigh

At 2.40 I decide to give the door bitch a sob story about flight schedules to see if I can slip in early, to be told that it would be bedlam if we all got in at 3 and I should feel free to go in now.

Go in where? It seems like all of Melbourne is in the exhibition. It's shoulder to shoulder jostling for every glimpse. They're all pieces I've seen before, and the interpretation is simplistic at best. I know not everyone there has an Honours degree in Classical Studies and a Grad Dip in Archaeology (they're too smart to have done that), but really, they could give those of us with an interest something to read.

After 15 minutes I can stand it no longer, and leave annoyed, frustrated, on the verge of tears. And the catalogue's crap and totally overpriced.

At least I could use my return shuttle ticket back to the airport. Where I had the worst sandwich of my life (half went in the bin) to be on a cramped flight where the woman next to me spilt her drink on me. At the end of it all I stopped at the pub near my bus stop to get some beer to drown my sorrows.

Half way home the holder broke, they fell on the ground and smashed.

Now truly this is a sad story, but how is this connected to my study and point number '3'? Well, I was going to take a photo of my ticket receipt as an illustration to go with my story of how I paid nearly $300 to spend 15 minutes in the Pompeii exhibition.

But unfortunately for some reason my computer has decided not to read memory sticks. So I can't upload photos.

I also can't access all of my study documents that are on my flash drive, meaning I'm wasting time and will have to go into the office tomorrow to access my presentation that I'm giving to a crowded audience of Barossa Tourism operators on Wednesday.

There is more things to be upset about. I have a searing hangover (remember, the last bottle is always a mistake), one of my favourite bloggers in hiatus meaning my almost daily relaxation read has been removed, and there's no food in the house.

Good news on the horizon? I have discovered a few new blogs that may help to fill the void (but never the whole thing AFM!) and I'm looking a burgers online. I love burgers - provided there are no yellow arches involved of course.

And I have an exciting new project to work on. I'm not actually allowed to tell you, or anyone, what it is, but it it involves this fuzzy, purple fellow

daring cooks, pho

Long time, no post. And it's another noodle recipe.

This month's Daring Cooks challenge is bought to you by Jaden of the Steamy Kitchen. Jaden rightly points out that we're not cooking fhow. These delicious spicy and sour noodles are pronounced fuhr? Like you're asking a question. Or fourth tone for those with a sinophone background (I think Vietnamese has more tones than Chinese. This is why I will never, ever learn to speak Vietnamese. Or Cantonese. My understanding is that Cantonese has about a billion tones, and that is one or two more than I care to master). But sorry, I 'm distracting from the noodles!

For Pho, you'll need
2 tbspn whole coriander seeds
2 whole cloves
2 whole star anise
2 litres chicken stock (As clean as you can make it. Don't buy it. That's cheating)
1 whole chicken breast
1/2 onion
1 5cm piece of ginger, bruised
1 tblspn sugar
2 tblspn fish sauce

...and some pho noodles. Also called Hor Fun in Chinese. You can buy these already sliced or buy them in a slab and slice them yourself.

For toppings you'll need
bean sprouts
lime (quartered)
fresh coriander
sliced red chili
Vietnamese basil
half a finely sliced red onion

Then you:
Heat a dry fry pan and roast the dry spices until just toasty
Add these to a sauce pan with the rest of the ingredients (I leave the sugar fish sauce until the end to test for seasoning)
simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked. Skim the liquid regularly to remove any of the scum that forms
remove the chicken, and add fish sauce and sugar to taste
shred or slice the chicken breast

Meanwhile cook the noodles.

Place the noodles in your bowl and strain the broth through a sieve to cover. Arrange the chicken meat on top, add a few drops of chili sauce, and serve with the toppings on a separate plate for everyone to add as they please.


I must say, I've cooked pho before, and eaten it plenty, but this is one of the best recipes I've ever tried anywhere (including Hanoi).

You gotta give it a go!!!