Year of the Cupcake #5 - Gluten Free Pumpkin Cupcakes with Vanilla Icecream Icing

It would appear that for the last couple of months when posting about Challenge #1 of my 101 Things I have neglected to use my awesome, official Year of the Cupcake heading. So I feel it to be my duty to (colourfully) announce that this is November's installment of....

YEAR OF THE CUPCAKE!!!

Now that that's out of of the way, this month (November, that is *sweeps the fact it is December 3rd under the rug*) I was at a bit of a loss as to what kind of cupcake to make. In the end, I caved in to the Americanisation of the world and was swayed by all of the pumpkin/autumn/Thanksgiving-style recipes out there in the blogosphere, particularly following Aussie expat Tori's post on sweet potatoes, brown butter, yoghurt and seeds as a side-dish (ironic that an Aussie's blog was what convinced me to go down the path of American flavours...).

I figured my first port of call would be The Cupcake Project, because obviously the lovely Stef specialises in cupcakes. I trawled through call the cupcake recipes and all the frosting recipes, and finally decided on Pumpkin Cupcakes with Rum and Maple, and Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting. True to form, I bastardised the recipe a little so that mum could eat it ( =deglutinated it... it's a word now. Deal with it.), so I've given you the links to the original recipe. Below is my artistic interpretation, which is quite representative of the way I copy out recipes by hand (only with no arrows or flow charts, and, unless you're a real grub and cook with your computer on the kitchen bench, no smears of flour or cake batter on it!):

INGREDIENTS GROUP ONE:

1 1/2c gluten free flour

1/3tsp xanthan gum

1tsp cinnamon

1/2tsp ginger

1/2tsp nutmeg

1/2tsp allspice

1tbsp baking soda*

1/2tsp salt

INGREDIENTS GROUP TWO:

1 1/2c sugar

3/4c pumpkin puree

2 large eggs

INGREDIENTS GROUP THREE:

1/4 dark rum

1/4c maple syrup

1/2c vegetable oil.

Whisk Group One ingredients together in a bowl that fits it all (this bowl will hold only these ingredients).

Beat Group Two ingredients in larger bowl until smooth (this is where everything ends up).

Mix Group Three ingredients into Group Two, then slowly add Group One ingredients until all incorporated.

Fill (this is where I diverge from the recipe... you know, besides the GF thing) 18+ cupcake liners 3/4 full of batter and bake at 180oC for 20-25mins.

NOTES - The original recipe said 12 regular cupcake liners. I guess a regular cupcake liner is a LOT bigger in America. Unless they meant those pretty ones you get that sometimes have the laser-cut patterns on the edges?? Who knows...

Also, being GF, these cupcakes did not really rise to the occasion. They were flat as tacks, and sprawled out of the wrappers. To remove them from the tray I actually had to get a large biscuit cutter to cut around each cup neatly and to get them out of the tray without ripping the tops off.

I probably overfilled the wrappers, maybe because I expected to make 12, stretched it to 18 and still had a bit left so I topped them up. Silly Nessie. So I guess if you're making them GF, try making 24 of them. And if you're not, well hopefully your cupcakes will rise up and not out!

Also, this is the instrument I used to over-fill the wrappers, and it's really handy. It's a sauce ladel. I think. I highly recommend it. It's easier to control than a spoon, and holds more.

Lastly, this is how much pumkin makes 3/4c of puree:

Okay, more to the point, imagine that the pumpkin is still in the skin. Each of these was a wedge of butternut pumpkin. I just thought I'd give you an idea of how much to cook (I steamed mine in the microwave, skin on). You're obviously better off cooking too much than too little. And I used one of those stick mixers to puree it.

Oh yes! One last note - True to form, I ate a cupcake while it was still hot and the rum taste was still quite prevalent. At this point I began to wonder whether I ought to have replaced the Square Bear with maple syrup, but once they cooled the alcohol seemed to have evaporated off quite well.

(For those who don't know, this is Square Bear - Bundy rum. Generally it comes in a larger, squareish bottle. I bought this flask of Bundy cos it was the smallest increment I could buy it in, and I'm only ever going to use it in cooking. So today, it's more of a curvy bear...)

*But wait! There's more notes, and this one is the really imporant one!!! Whilst editing this post I realised that I had written that there should be 1tsp of baking soda, but the original recipe has 1tbsp. BUT, I added 3tsp of baking powder to the flour out of habit because I am accustomed to adding it to cake and cupcake recipes at the rate of 2tsp per cup of flour. Theoretically that goes a little way to balancing out that error, sort of, because baking powder is 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part of baking soda. So I was probably 1-2tsp down on the baking soda. No wonder they were so flat - it wasn't just the GF flour that did it!

ICING:

Beat 1/2c (approx. 110g) butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add in 1 1/2c sifted icing sugar, beating all the while. Add 2tsp vanilla bean paste, and a little milk to soften (the original recipe says 1tbsp but I used less and I think a whole tablespoon would be too much). Spread onto cooled cupcakes.

Note that this quantity was just enough to spread on 18 cupcakes, including one (the one below) which I heaped the icing onto in order to make it pretty for the photo. It was pretty well flat on all the others, which, combined with a flat cupcake, made them not very pretty at all. But it does mean that they pack well! You can fit eight into one of those square Sistema plastic containers that you get at the supermarket - you know, the ones with the blue clicky things that hold the lids on and a blue rubber o-ring style seal around the inside of the lid, the size that looks like it would hold 2 decent sandwiches stacked on top of each other.

THE VERDICT:

Delicious.

The cupcake itself was definitely a dessert food, which I had been a bit concerned about given that my previous pumpkin baked goods experience was a savoury pumkin loaf. That pumpkin lends itself well to sweet baked goods didn't really surprise me greatly, considering how sweet pumpkin is naturally (*cough*maplesyrupandrum*cough*).

Whilst they were cooling mum thought they smelt of caramelised onions (all I could smell was rum!) but once cooled, and with the vanilla icecream icing on them, they were just divine. They are sweet, in a complex way - there are three competing levels of sweetness in them, instead of one big WHAM of sugar, so you don't feel over-cupcaked quite so quickly (= you can go back for seconds). They were also light and fluffy, which was a pleasant surprise. Also, if you eat one hot, slather some icing on it. It melts deliciously and decadently, just like vanilla icecream does *drools*

(I don't need to be encouraging you to eat baked goods, do I...)

This has opened my mind to putting weird stuff in baked goods. I'm not sure what is next on the agenda, but I think I have chai cupcakes brewing (Ha! Ha! Geddit?), and maybe some Christmas-themed ones, and who knows what else.

Lastly, please excuse the cruddy exposure and composition and so forth - I took all the photos in mum's kitchen at about 10pm under a fluorescent light. Yecht.

*     *     *     *    *    *    *     *     *     *     *    *    *    *     *     *     *     *    *    *    *    

Grammar lesson (small segue, incited by editing this post): I have come across numerous instances on the interwebs over the last few months of the incorrect word used to describe gathering information or to search for something, and it drives me stark, raving bonkers. Until about seven minutes ago I was convinced that I was unequivocally correct about this - that it is TRAWL not TROLL. Example: I trawled the sales for the perfect pair of shoes. I trawled the cupcakeproject.com for the right recipe.

At first I thought it was an accent thing - in an English or Australian accent, "trawl" and "troll" sound quite distinct from one another, but with an American accent the distinction is less marked. For example, just now I tried to come up with things that each rhymed with and realised that when you applied an American accent it just didn't work. But then I realised there is more to it.

As I am wont to do, I looked it up to make sure I wasn't going to make an arse of myself, and for a second I had a small crisis of faith, but then I was reassured that I am, in fact, correct. At least, dictionary.com tells me I am.

Trawling is a type of commercial fishing using a net that is dragged through the water behind a boat.

Trolling is also a type of fishing, sometimes commercial but often recreational, that involves dragging multiple baited hooks or lures through the water behind a boat (similar to, but apparently not the same as, long line fishing).

So, both imply fishing, but one is casting a net and one is actually using bait. I would imagine that if you apply this poetically to the English language, that if you're looking for something and know roughly what it is then you're trawling (examples as above), but if you're going out to get something in a very specific and baited manner then perhaps you are trolling (trolling for men at nightclubs, with a short skirt, cleavage and a slutty attitude as bait??). I don't know for sure. But I DO know that, in addition to being primarily about fishing, dictionary.com's entry for "trawl" also applies to seeking information, and the entry for "troll" applies to scary monsters that lurk under Norwegian bridges and scare billy-goats.

So I think my first instinct was correct - if you're looking for something, you're trawling, not trolling. But it's a very easy mistake to make, and I for one didn't even know that trolling existed (and if asked, I would have presumed it was the act of leaving a series of mean comments on others' blogs; or having a really bad day that involved stomping around with PMS, unkempt hair, unshaven legs, some sort of conspicuous and unsightly wart or pimple and severe halitosis!). I'm also open to comments/information/suggestions on the whole trawl/troll thing because I really am quite interested in what other people use and why.

Over and out.

Book Review: We of the Never Never, by Mrs Aeneas (Jeannie) Gunn

Well, I finally changed my settings so that I can post directly from email, but it’s freaking me out a little bit because I’m not sure how the formatting will go. I also had a bad dream last night that I posted something highly inappropriate, forgetting that I’d changed my “email to draft” setting to “email to publish”. Eep! So best I read these email posts verrrry carefully, and make sure I don’t email half-finished posts and ideas to myself, believing them to be sitting safely with all my other drafts, when really they’re out there in their incomplete (and possibly inappropriate) glory for all the world to see!!!

Finally! A book I feel more enthusiastic about, and as such I am going to make more than a half-arsed attempt at reviewing it, as per my previous two (one of which I kind of sort of didn’t read – check out the review for the Awakening. Also, not the one I originally picked up to be my next read. I had decided upon Murder at Mansfield Park, and in preparation for it, assuming it to be much like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies insofar as the storyline and characters would remain intact but that frequent zombie references would be thrown in (“braaaaaaaains” Yeah, y’all know who you are!), I did a little preparation by way of re-reading Mansfield Park.

What a fool I was!

Murder at Mansfield Park was, when I put it down about half a chapter in, absolutely NOTHING like the original and was so very confusing to me when read hot on the heels of Ms Austen’s creation. Mainly, the characters are all scrambled up and the family trees are all over the place. Thus far it seems a little ham-handed as the roles are more or less reversed, Fanny Price now being the wealthy heiress to be revered (with several character traits of Mary Crawford) rather than the sweet, impoverished cousin to be pitied. DON’T BE ME!!! RE-READING MANSFIELD PARK FIRST WILL SCREW WITH YOUR HEAD, VERY, VERY BADLY!

So I decided that the most sensible course of action would be to pick another couple of books of a completely different genre and clear my mind of the original roles the Mansfield Park characters play, before re-attempting to proceed with reading it. The first of these books was We of the Never Never, the second is The Ballad of Les Darcy (Peter Fitzsimons) and the third is Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell). The latter two are still on the go (I have a “weekday” book and a “weekend” book; suffice it to say, the “weekday” book is always slim enough to fit into my laptop bag with minimal inconvenience, so I’ll give you one guess as to which of the two is my “weekend” one!), but We of the Never Never was read, enjoyed and finished in a couple of days.

I picked it up for a few dollars at a market, and the title caught my eye as I vaguely recalled that there had been a film adaptation of it and had always wanted to watch it (older-style film/TV adaptations of Australian texts such as On Our Selection and All The Rivers Run are a big favourites of mine).

We of the Never Never is based on a true story – it is more or less an autobiography over the course of one year (the year being 1902), written in the style of a novel rather than a diary with names changed. It was written by the new wife of a man who buys a share in Elsey cattle station in the Northern Territory (which in modern geographic terms was somewhere near Mataranka). Much to the dismay of the stockmen on the station and the horror of the ladies in Darwin, he opts to bring the “missus” out there with him, and that is how Jeannie Gunn came to be in the Never Never, in a place with no roads or bridges, and just a telegraph line running past their front “gate”, some forty miles from the homestead.

The book chronicles the ins and outs of station life, including musters; camps; dealings with the erratic behaviour of the domestic help (being a dodgy Chinese cook who is later replaced by a far superior Chinese cook, and several Aboriginal maids); death and illness; improving the homestead (which involved cutting and processing timber by hand); the people who visit the station as they pass through; and the privations caused by the isolation and the challenges brought by both the Wet and the Dry.

If you’re not into Australiana like I am (I’m a bit of a junkie for any book about life in the outback, and the older it is the better, probably because they tell it like they saw it and are not frightened of voicing an opinion on just about anything, a characteristic that I admire. They are also generally written with a greater regard for grammar than their modern counterparts, which I appreciate!) this probably won’t float your boat. But the day-to-day lives of these pioneers, who went through hell and high water to shape our country has always captured my imagination and always will. It is written in a style that, whilst a little quaint in the vintage of the language, makes you feel like you’re part of the excitement. The author’s shrewd observations of human nature coupled with her (apparently rare, in that time) ability to poke fun at herself endears the reader to the author.

It’s also very interesting from an historical perspective. I suspect many a feminist would be up in arms at the way the Missus is spoken to, and about, by the people on the station, generally in terms of her (in)capabilities, so here comes my anti-feminist rant. I think it was okay that they didn’t want her there or poked fun at her or expected to have to look after her. Let’s face it – she was a city girl, thrown into the bush with zero preparation. She was hampered by long skirts and long hair (seriously, has anyone been to Darwin in summer, or any time of year for that matter? Try doing it in a heavy floor-length skirt, petticoats, long sleeved shirts, hats, gloves and boots!) and city expectations and had a lot to learn in a very short period of time.

I think that it’s okay that they didn’t want her there initially, because the respect the stockmen had for women meant that they knew she may have other (and probably mysterious!) needs that they weren’t accustomed to catering for (for starters, I’m sure, no more peeing on trees or taking shirts off at will), and that they knew they would have to curb their behaviour and language around her. I work in the construction industry and have on multiple occasions very clearly busted the boys talking about something filthy, because they will fall silent as I approach. And you know what? I’m okay with that. In fact, I really appreciate it. I don’t need to hear about their conquests or desires. Eeuw. The stockmen were also concerned that she would be the sort of missus to try and change the way the station was run, or the sort who would be “too good” to lend a hand, which were both quite legitimate fears. Luckily for them, she was neither of those things.

I think it’s okay that they poked fun at her, because she really did have some very odd (although unsurprising) ideas about life in the Never Never before they “Educated” her. She poked fun at herself, too. And she learnt a lot, with a sense of humour. It didn’t mean they thought she was stupid, it meant they acknowledged she was green.

And I think it’s okay that they perceived her to be a weak little thing that needed to be taken care of. She was a five-foot-nothing city girl (from Carlton) with no idea how to survive out there, and who wasn’t hardened to physical labour or tough conditions. If I were her, especially back then, I would love it if six men and a tribe of Aboriginals decided that they were my personal protectors and kept an eye on me.

Maybe I see it this way because I am quite often the only woman in an all-male working environment, and I encounter chivalry on a daily basis. I don’t think it’s sexist to hold open a door, or help me carry something, or be polite to me, or buy me a drink, or offer to see me home instead of letting me wander the streets alone at night. It’s manners, and consideration of others, like they had back in 1902, and it’s sad that it’s dying out. Perhaps it’s controversial to say, but I can nearly guarantee the divorce rate would be lower if men and women were both a bit more old-school. Jeannie Gunn’s marriage didn’t work out because Mr Gunn died of malarial dysentery shortly after 1902, not because they fought over the remote or he forgot to ask if she needed a hand cleaning the gutters. Maybe if more men took a leaf from this book, and more women swallowed their misplaced pride and accepted help when it is wanted or needed and not just when it is demanded, we’d be better off. I can’t say I blame the men, mind you, because they keep getting abused for trying to be considerate and then abused when they’re not. Poor bastards.

Heh heh, way to turn a book review into a rant on the shortcomings of modern society!

That is all.

101 Things #51 - Visit a Theme Park - Sea World

Well, as it turns out, I was in no way exaggerating when I mentioned the other week that the weather in Queensland was going to be appalling. My work trip to Brisvegas showed me that not only is "The Sunshine Coast" a total misnomer, but that it really is quite a bit like Vegas (not that I've been), or at least the Gold Coast is, and particularly Surfer's Paradise. I once heard the place described as Darwin's older, sluttier cousin. Snap.

Ooh! I smell sausages and potatos! Yum! Sorry, mum's cooking dinner and I got a little distracted. I haz the hungriez. Where was I?

Oh yeah, the appalling weather in Queensland. It sucked balls. Although, Sunday afternoon was quite pleasant, which is when I happened to be leaving. That'd be right. So obviously our trip to Sea World was a little damper than we had expected (which could more or less be blamed on me for my stupid flight times). Precisely, it was damp enough to be wearing awesome raincoats like Kaye's:

By which I mean, damp enough for KAYE to be wearing an awesome raincoat like Kaye's. It was quite a bargain, actually - $4 if I'm not much mistaken. At least she can re-use hers, unlike the droves of people wearing disposable ponchos from the gift shop. I personally was wearing my red one that I bought for South America, and Danielle was sporting an umbrella instead of a coat, which kind of makes sense in Queensland because the focus isn't so much on keeping warm.

It rained.

And it rained (check out the size of the rain drops).

And it rained.

And then we saw the awesome playground at Castaway Bay and decided to play on it, even though it was still raining (although, to be fair, it wasn't raining very hard at this point).

And then we got wetter than we had been before.

And then we decided we may as well go all in and get wetter still and so jumped on a ride. My bum was already wet so I figured it couldn't get any worse.

SPLASH!

I'm the red blur at the front being doused with water. I already had a wet bum, and added a wet crotch to complete the look. It was awesome :)

The animals there were great - they had big aquariums filled with all sorts of critters, including sharks (here's some useless trivia for you - the Chinese word for shark is "shayu" which sounds kind of like shark, huh? And the "yu" bit means fish. And I'm going for yum cha tomorrow (sorry, my mind associates sharks with Chinese food. I know it's wrong but the connection is there. It doesn't mean I advocate eating shark fin, but I'd be lying if I said I'd never eaten a shark fin dumpling. That's right, I'm going straight to Tree Hugger Hell...but hey, at least I'm honest about it!))

...and rays...

... including BLU-RAYS!!! Geddit?? Heh heh. Seriously, I think it's a blue spotted (?ribbon tail?) ray or something. He saw me coming and chose to hide from me. I think I knew what I was thinking about his mate, the shark...

...and all manner of colourful fish. I particularly liked this fellow. I called him Freaky Fish (in my head) for reasons only known to myself. I think maybe it's cos he was so fat and looked like he was blowing raspberries at the world. I liked the cut of his jib.

They even let us touch some of them! I like touching critters. It makes me very happy. But I didn't get to touch the very coolest critter because I avoided eye contact with the guy up the front of the seal show, and so Danielle got called up.

I'm obviously insanely jealous. So that leads me to declare that it is the rays and not the seals which were the coolest critters there (Actually, I genuinely do think they were cooler. I have wandered about seal colonies down on Kangaroo Island for uni work, and they stink to high heaven. I have also sifted their poo (yes, really, and yes, I was wearing gloves, and yes, I had to keep fighting the urge to projectile vomit) to find out what they ate, specifically, ear bones from fish (again, yes, really - you can actually identify fish species from the shape of their ear bones, which seem to be the only bones that make it through the digestive process, and so by wandering about a seal colony, picking up poo in plastic bags and then basically straining them, you can figure out exactly what the seal has been eating). So I'm a little disenchanted with the pinniped genus, even if you can train them bring you large bags of money. Rays smell nicer (... I think?? I didn't really sniff one...) and appear to be less inclined to maul you... but that's another story for another day!).

To the rays! This one appears to have a hungry look about it. No wonder Kaye didn't much care for them, because it really does look like it's contemplating leaping out of the tank and attaching itself to your face and sucking your brains out of your nose, doesn't it Kaye... Kaye? Are you there? You can't run, Kaye. The Ray is Watching...

And then feeding time began. The photos aren't very clear but I got to touch quite a few of them. They have this amazing texture - kind of soft, and a little slimy but I would be more inclined to call it velvety, only wet. Some are more rubbery, and have little bumps around the top of their fin. I wanted to keep one but I don't have a bath tub and I don't think one would much care to live in a bath tub even if I had one, and I don't think they'd be terribly good at cuddling, which is what we all want in a pet, really.

I also touched a sea cucumber - they're quite soft, and some have little bumps, and for something that looks like a large, decorated turd, they're really quite mobile!

And I touched a starfish (or was it a sea star? I don't know whether there is actually a difference. Wiki, bastion of scientific accuracy, says no. Does anyone have a more authorative opinion on this?). I told this fella that I had dissected one of his mates back at university, and I could tell by his surly silence that he was not at all impressed. But he let me touch him anyway.

Basically, touching critters = very happy Nessie. I really am that easy to please. Seriously. If they has somehow incorporated a petting zoo into maths class, I would have achieved far better grades.

The dolphins were also quite amazing. The kid in front of us was supposed to go touch one, but then his mole of an older sister (or it may have been his cousin) got over-excited and ran down before he could even get to his feet. The poor little tyke was so disappointed.

  

The fact it was raining was kind of a blessing, I think, because it meant that there weren't a bajillion people wandering around, getting in my way, and it also meant that I didn't get sunburnt. Score!

We also saw penguins, both swimming

...and waddling...

... and saw some polar bears...

... who decided that it was all a bit too hard for them.

All in all, $80 to basically go to the zoo is quite a lot of money, but I didn't resent it as I did the $44 you pay to get into Tooronga Zoo in Sydney, which is odd considering it was nearly double the cost. It must have been good! If you got one of those 3 Park Super Pass things which I think are about $140 it would certainly be decent value. Touching the critters alone made it totally worth the trip, although in the future I'd probably pay the squillion dollars it costs to dive with the animals.

Also, the gift shop totally miffed me - there wasn't much marine stuff in it, let alone Sea World branded stuff. Most of it was random, ubiquitous crap such as friendship bracelets, thongs, stuffed toys of all sorts of animals (not just seals, dolphins etc), key rings with your name and random decorations such as hearts, flowers and butterflies on them (WTF?? None of those things are from the sea!!!) and Dora the Explorer products (only a couple of which had any Sea World branding or some vague mention of marine life or beaches on them). I think their branding/marketing department must be smoking drugs. It's also likely that the work experience kid was told to do the ordering on the same day that the marketing department were out the back, sparking up. Seriously. Most of the stuff there **just didn't make sense** and there was NOTHING there that caught my attention. Except perhaps the stuffed fish toy. It looked like Freaky Fish, only orange. I can see already that my kids are going to have somewhat un-orthodox soft toys...

This is where I feel the need to add the tag "rant" to this post. I loved the animals - don't get me wrong - and I had a fantastic day out with my my Home Girls, but Australian tourist attractions have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Value for money is low and so is the quality of the products and services they provide. No wonder nobody comes here. Tourism Australia shouldn't be asking "where the bloody hell are ya", they should be knowing that nobody is bloody well here because we cost too much, give too little and are too hard to get to!

But I'm still glad I went :)

Sometimes Life Gets in the Way

Hey everyone!

Just letting you know that I haven’t been slack and forgotten my whole resolution to blog weekly, but the normal time I would allot to blogging each week was spent on a plane; stuck in a holding pattern for half an hour; waiting for baggage at a broken baggage carousel; waiting for 3 buses to the long term car park (there were SO many people in line!); and then driving 3+ hours back to Barham. I am glad to report that I didn’t flatten any critters along the way. Except maybe a mouse, but they don’t count because you don’t feel the bump (yes, really.). So suffice it to say, I lacked the energy to get into it at 11pm.

You’ll have to bear with me a while longer, because last week was hellish and this week will be more of the same – only time will tell how hellish. Both weeks have/will involve aeroplanes, which is a sure-fire way to sap your time and energy and patience. Hopefully somewhere in the process I’ll have time to reset my blog settings and make posts such as this – which I wrote on my email but is saved as a draft – post straight to my blog, which will make it easier to keep things rolling. Again, hopefully, I’ll have time to blog this coming Sunday, but don’t hold your breath. I may have more important things to do.

I’m exhausted and I think I’m getting a cold (again!!! *shakes fist at air travel*), and this travel thing means the work I’m supposed to be getting done during the week, isn’t. There are so many balls in the air, one of which is “do laundry”, so I’m on the verge of purchasing new socks to save me the trouble!!! But in the last week I DID finish one of those books, and I DID visit a theme park – Sea World. It rained. But with skin like mine, better to be wet than sunburnt! So there are things to tell, but no time to tell it in.

Okay kiddies, I’m off to deal with some of these balls in the air (and "balls" really is the appropriate word for this!) before I drop one and it hits me in the face. Wish me luck...

A Cup of Tea and a Little Bit of History

Since I have been staying with my mum on weekends I have come to realise what a ridiculous perfectly wondrous variety of tea she keeps in the house. Sure, it’s nice to be able to pick out whatever tea you fancy, but I personally feel that if you have more than about six varieties (black, green, chamomile, peppermint, a variation on black tea such as chai or Earl Grey plus some sort of fruit infusion) you may in fact be bordering on OCD territory.

 

I really began to notice how much tea mum keeps when I realised that every time I ferreted around for the variety of tea I was after, I would invariably be hit in the forehead by a precariously perched box of tea that had decided to make a break for freedom.

It looks a little bit like this:

Bear in mind that this cupboard is also at least 2/3 the depth that it is wide, so there is more tea behind this tea!!!

 

The tea cupboard harbours the following varieties (in addition to the normal black tea kept in a canister on the bench):

Green tea; green tea with mint; peppermint tea; white tea (there were two of those); chamomile tea (3 different boxes); Sleepy Time tea; Roobis tea (whatever the hell that is); blackcurrant tea (actually, it was in there but I drank my way through it); honey and lemon infusion; raspberry, cranberry and strawberry infusion; rose hip tea; chai; Earl Grey iced tea powder circa 1986 (it still tastes fine but it’s a little more challenging to dissolve than it once was. I plan to finish it off this summer); Caro (caffeine free, barley-based coffee that tastes like crud soaked in pond water); and... well, check it out for yourself!

So now I’m going to let you in on my diabolical plan:

I intend to drink my way through  mum’s tea cupboard.

Heheh, not usually what you think of when the phrase “drink your way through” comes up, is it!

I’m just sick of the stupid little packets hitting me in the head when I open the cupboard. It's a perfectly diabolical scheme. I wonder how long it will take mum to realise that her tea stores have been depleted...

As for the history part of the post title, well when I was ferreting around for a packet of gelatine on Friday night to make a White Chocolate and Passionfruit Tart (forgot to take photos, but that's okay, because I got it wrong and will have to make it again to ensure that it's juuuust right... heh heh heh... although I'm sure that Al and Nat would say that it tasted fine, but I think this is one instance where perfection is important ;-) ), I came across this old cake glaze. I believe it’s normally used to glaze flans and fruit tarts. And that’s fine. Mum used to use it back in her catering days, when fruit flans were cool.

(Again, I apologise for the sideways nature of my picture, but they still won't stay turned (Kirsti, I haven't tried the Picasa thing yet but I will when I can be bothered have time). And thanks to those who offered the slightly condescending very sound advice of saving the photo after I have rotated it... the Sarcasm Fairy is knocking loudly at the door and I really, really want to let her in, but I'll just have to be satisfied by saying that I mastered the concept of saving changes to documents back in about 1994. I know you guys meant well, and honestly, thankyou for trying to help, but there are far darker and more mysterious powers at work here!

Also, sorry about the seventies-esque colours, but I had to play with the colour balance in order to allow you to read the packet.)

Aaaanyway, back to it - the bit that threw me a little was the fact that it was made in Germany. West Germany, to be precise. Now, I have a vague recollection of seeing the wall between East and West Germany crumble on TV in about what, Year One? So that's 1989. That wasn’t my imagination, was it???

WHAT THE HELL!!! I TOOK THIS PICTURE IN LANDSCAPE BECAUSE I KNEW THIS WHOLE PORTRAIT/LANDSCAPE THING WAS A GREAT BIG SCHEMOZZLE, AND BLOGGER HAS KINDLY OPTED TO DISPLAY IT IN PORTRAIT FORMAT!!! EVEN THOUGH THE ONLY CHANGES I MADE WERE TO THE COLOUR OF THE PHOTO, AND I DIDN'T TOUCH THE ORIENTATION OF THE DAMNED THING!!! I TOLD YOU THAT THERE WERE DARK AND MYSTERIOUS FORCES AT WORK HERE!!! AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!! I GIVE UP!!!

Ahem. Tantrum over.

I suppose it is quite fitting that such a luxury item as cake glaze was produced in West Germany and not East Germany. With that in mind, I should go and investigate whether that big ol' jar of sauerkraut in the bottom of the shed was in fact made in East Germany...

Death of the English language

A little while back I took the following photo with my phone:

I wasn't entirely surprised with the blatant misuse of quotation marks in this instance - it was, after all, on the bread rack outside an Asian bakery in Port Adelaide. I didn't question whether the bread was special  in any way (or perhaps not special at all!), nor did I question whether it was bread, or something else entirely - "bread" for example.

I'm not trying to stereotype, but I am personally somewhat less surprised when I see punctuation errors in an Asian bakery on the formerly rough side of town than I would be in, say, a book shop in a relatively toffee-nosed shopping centre.

Which is why this stunned me:

So... are they not new titles? Or are they new, but not titles at all???

Sheesh. I guess that's what happens when you shop at discount book shops - they can't afford to get their signwriters to edit their work. Nuts to that!

On Travelling for Work

I am home this evening after four nights away for work. I travelled this week to Alice Springs, Katherine and Darwin. For anyone who's not from around here, it's about 1500km to Alice, another 1500km to Darwin, and about a 650km round trip drive to Katherine from Darwin, which I did in a day as well as doing my work.

I haven't been truly homesick in more than two years living interstate, but this trip wore me down and I don't know why. I got to see Grant, which was fabulous. And I got to see my cousin Darren, who I haven't seen in ages, and also Grant's parents. But the monotony of fly-work-eat-work-hotel-sleep-eat-fly-work-eat (you get the picture) really started to get me down. I have no idea how people do this ALL THE TIME but there are people out there who do. People with families. I had only an empty house and a buttload of ironing to come home to, but I'd still prefer that to travelling for work.

Is it the lack of routine and stability? Is it the mould in the showers of hotels that cost $220 per night and really shouldn't have any mould in sight? Is it the continual eating out for dinner, buffet breakfast and whatever you are lucky enough to get hold of for lunch? Is it all the sitting around in airports, and having to make sure you've got everything you need? I never thought I was a creature of habit, but maybe I am after all. I enjoy sitting in our quiet little house in a quiet little street in quiet little Adelaide, doing little else with my weekends besides potter about the garden, doing the shopping, really being able to genuinely control what you eat, going for a walk and watching a movie or two. I'd enjoy that little routine in whatever city it happened to be in, as long as it was home.

Maybe it's because you're on a schedule when you travel for work, and you're a slave to it. Travel for holidays is one thing. I can - and have - packed up and moved every single day for a few months running, and whilst it is exhausting, it's all part of an adventure. You get to see the world, and the more you move on the more you see (although the opposite could be argued). But doing the same to earn a coin is just awful. Kudos to those who can hack it, but, unless I'm actually making a genuine positive contribution to something or someone by doing it, I just can't stomach it.

What do you guys think about travelling for work? What's your favourite bit? Your least favourite bit? Whilst it's kind of fun to have flights and car hire paid for, and have the lady at the hotel desk tell you the company is picking up your room service tab, and to arrive in your room of an evening to find that some kind soul has turned your bed down and placed a mint on your pillow, the novelty wears off rapidly. Or is that just li'l ol' homebody me?

City to Bay Fail

This morning, I sprang out of bed at 6:15am, keen as a bean to participate in the City to Bay fun run (or, in my case, fun walk - 3km will do me, cos the 12km would have done me in!). I was at the station by 7, ready to catch the 07:10 train into town, and then the tram down to the Morphettville Junction Centre, where the 3km leg started. I was questioning my sanity a little, because nobody else seemed to be up at this hour.

At 07:15 the train had not arrived, so I re-checked the timetable, and as it turns out I had been reading the Saturday timetable (working all day Saturday seriously screws with your head). No wonder nobody was at the station! So I came back home, did the dishes and went out again. The second time around, the train platform looked eerily similar...

... but this time the train showed up. Following some ticketing validation issues, once in the city, I got on a tram - like all the City to Bay information said I should (it spoke of a ten minute disruption of services while the 12km leg kicked off) - and the driver promptly told me that it wasn't running to Glenelg like normal, and that I needed to catch a bus from in front of the casino. So I moseyed down there, and, with a bunch of people also waiting for a bus, also discovered (from a volunteer who seemed to know as little as we did) that buses weren't actually running from there today because of the event.

Myself and two others who were trying to get to the same place then headed the four or so blocks to Grote St to catch a bus from there, as directed. When we got there a sign told us to head to Pultney St, which is on the other side of town. At this point we decided that if we couldn't get a tram from Victoria Square as we crossed it, that we would throw in the towel, because by now it was ten past nine and we had to be down there in time for a 09:45 start (and they recommend being there half an hour early).

So me, Lorraine (an Irish lass) and Harry (her husband) headed off for Hindley St (the only place in town likely to be open for drinking) for a pint of beer. Unsurprisingly it was the Irish lass' suggestion. At 09:28 we were sipping a nice cold pint of Draught at the Princes Berkely Hotel, surrounded by people still drinking from the night before, and served by a bartender who appeared to be either exhausted, or on drugs. Suffice it to say we got a few comments and whistles showing up in gym gear with our race numbers attached, but we managed to discourage the drunkards and found a quiet seat up the back (unfortunately close to where two dishevelled punters were making out by a pool table). I suppose it wasn't a dead loss because we must have walked close to 3km attempting to find public transport!

So this is what the City to Bay looked like for me this year:

Note that the glass is plastic.

Morals of the story:

1. Don't rely on weekend public transport in Adelaide to function sufficiently get you where you want to go (the fact that my train ran an hour later than I thought probably made it close to impossible to get into town and down to the race start on time, and that's WITHOUT the tram issues). You'd think they'd coordinate PT a bit better when there's a major public event involved, but no. I have used better public transport in developing countries.

2. Make friends with strangers - it makes what would have otherwise been a total write-off of a morning far more interesting.

3. Don't drink at the Princes Berkeley. The floors a sticky, the glasses are plastic and the patrons are seedy (no surprises there, though, because it was one of the only pubs open on a Sunday morning). Again, I've been to cleaner pubs in developing nations.

The End.

Tips for Tall Girls... FAIL!

I came across this article http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/survival-tips-for-very-tall-teenage-girls-20100902-14o35.html?autostart=1 in my lunch break today, and it is the biggest load of bollocks I have ever come across. I don’t quite know what I expected, but it wasn’t that. No advice was offered (except that you can snog older guys if you're a tall girl because you seem older – WTF???) and nothing was cleared up at all. I feel very sorry for any insecure tall teenage girls who read it, hoping for an answer.

What disappointed me even further were the comments at the bottom from tall girls who are clearly not happy with their height and did nothing but whinge about finding clothes to fit. This baffles me. I LOVE being tall, and there is SO much more to it than having trouble finding clothes to fit. I even loved being tall during my awkward teen years (it was the being overweight part that made me unhappy, but because I was tall too, in my head I was somehow able to label myself as “big” not as “fat”), as a kid, and even now I love it, even when the jerk in front of me on a flight to London decides to have their seat reclined the entiiiiiiiire way (note that, in BA Cattle Class, the pitch of the seat (i.e. the distance from the part your back sits against to the pointy piece of metal on the back of the seat in front of you) is exactly one millimetre shorter than from my bottom to the front of my kneecap. Fabulous). 

Mum recently told me that when I was in kinder, a well-meaning mother of a friend suggested that they put me on growth inhibitors so that I didn’t end up too tall. I will be forever grateful that this did nothing but anger my mother (she still won’t tell me who it was, which makes me think it was someone closer, which is sad), and maybe even prompt her to hammer home that being tall was a great thing, and that I was beautiful the way I was (the former stuck; the latter took far longer to sink in). Maybe it’s got something to do with one’s upbringing, but my height has always been a mark of pride for me. I could always reach the biscuit tin (hmm… maybe there’s a correlation with the weight thing there…). I could be better than everyone else, particularly the boys, at something – being tall! And it’s a great conversation starter - I have never minded people saying “gosh, you’re tall!” (or equivalent - sometimes small South Americans will laugh in disbelief; try, in a combination of Spanish and halting English, to express how amazing they think your height is; or tilt their head up as they look at you and say “whoahhhhhh…”). It’s not an insult, it’s an observation, and eight out of ten times it's delivered as a compliment, too. It doesn’t really get boring, either, because you can mix it up a bit and say smugly “yeah, and you’re not” and then wait for a reaction. It’s great fun! I don’t even mind if strangers ask me if I play basketball, because it gives me an opportunity to bond with them – there’s nothing like a mildly self-deprecating joke (e.g. “Nope, I’m too unco”) to break the ice. Incidentally, that’s pretty much how my first conversation with Grant went!

Being tall is fabulous, and at 186cm (6’1.75”) I’m hardly a circus freak. Yes, I draw attention wherever I go, and yes, that takes a bit of getting used to, but I’ve had 28 years to do that (and one could argue that, because I hit six foot at the tender age of fourteen, I’ve been used to it for half a lifetime). I remember walking through Adelaide Central Markets with Grant in the early days of our relationship, Grant in a hi-vis shirt and workboots, and me in something a bit nicer, holding hands. This bloke stared at us, and Grant got a little bit defensive about it, perhaps as he assumed that the guy was somehow judging us, until I pointed out that most likely the guy was staring at me, not at us. It happens to me constantly. Every time I go shopping, at least three people will stare. The good thing about this is it prompts me to make a bit more effort and not go shopping in tracksuit pants, because yes, as the article says, you do become more visible. And you know what? Two out of the three will smile when I catch them staring. It’s nice and it makes me feel good.

Bizarrely, though, other tall women freak me out. I see them, and think “get out of my air space!!! This is MY zone!!!” I guess that’s testimony to how much I love being fairly unique. Being tall is awesome.

So here’s MY survival tips for tall teenage girls:

Look after your body – exercise and eat right, and don’t smoke, or drink too much. No amount of strangers stopping me at the shops to tell me I ought to be a model will help me to shift that last five kilos and tone my thighs and stomach – that’s up to me. The healthier you are, the better you feel about yourself and the more you enjoy life. Healthy doesn’t mean thin, it means feeling good, and I have personally found that the better I eat and the more I exercise, the more energetic I feel. Yes, it often coincides with weight loss, but the good feelings are because you feel more alive, stronger, fitter, and confident because you’ve achieved something for your own wellbeing.

Take heart - the boys will catch up one day, and when they do, the taller ones will make a beeline for you. But don’t discount men who are shorter than you, because you’re unnecessarily cutting out a large number of wonderful, lovely guys, like my man, who is a couple of inches shorter than me. It turns out that it’s not relative height of your partner that makes you feel comfortable with yourself as a woman – feminine, if you will - but, rather, how masculine he is. And in the long run, you will have a distinct advantage over the other girls, because in the first place you WILL be noticed, and in the second place, you are more likely to attract more confident men. Be patient and don't settle for second best.

Finding clothes to fit is more difficult for tall women than for some other (but not all) women, but it’s not the end of the world, and I haven’t spent a single day (involuntarily) n@ked as a result of it. Clothes come in standard sizes and fit very few people perfectly. Tall girls struggle, but so do larger girls, short girls, athletic girls, girls with generous mammary Gifts from God, fat ankles, no ankles, no necks, skinny legs, no b00bs. Suck it up. It’s your body. It’s part of you, like it or not, and you’re not the only one who struggles with it. So don’t struggle against it – make it work for you.

You just have to learn which brands and styles work for you, and in some cases, alterations that work for you. Always, always dress to your shape, not to the fashion of the day, even if it means shopping at stores targeted at older women. I, for one, discovered that JAG Jeans almost always stock a style with a large hem on it which can be taken down and give you an extra 2-3 inches. If you find a pair you love, go back and buy a couple more pairs because it’ll save the trauma of hunting for new jeans for another year or two. If you’re a bit shorter on money, Jeans West makes extra-long jeans, and Target makes their pants in three lengths, and the long ones are more than long enough.

I have the most trouble with tops, and, traumatically, spent my overweight teens years in the late nineties when T-shirts that exposed the belly were the clothing du jour. But eventually I realised that you can buy a long singlet from Cotton On for $5 and put it under shorter shirts in the name of abdominal modesty and self-preservation. Done. You may also have trouble finding dresses with waists to fit, but the secret there is either to wear a separate skirt and top, or to buy slightly looser dresses with a sash around the waist which you can tie at whatever height you want. As far as skirts go, aim for knee-length ones. If you go for long ones they will invariably sit mid-calf and make your legs look fat, and, unless you have deliciously toned pins, ¾ pants will do the same thing for you (as a side-note, I have a deep-rooted dislike for ¾ pants, possibly founded on a childhood spent in trousers that were too short).

I offer no consolation for tall girls who also have large feet – I’m an 8 ½ - 9, which is quite small for my height – but don’t be afraid to wear high heels. Just make sure you wear ones that are comfortable, because with extra height comes extra weight on the ball of your foot. Novo shoes makes pretty strappy sandals with low, wide heels that are relatively cheap. There are plenty of flat boots out there. Even “old lady” brands like Easy Steps and Hush Puppies make surprisingly fashionable footwear these days, and who the hell cares if your friends think it’s funny – you’ll be walking easy at the end of the day, and they’ll be soaking their feet and buffing their corns, and at the end of your working life, you’ll still be able to get about easily while their deformed feet will more or less have crippled them. And ballet flats have come back in during the last five years, and can be very, very pretty, classy, cheap and comfortable. (They can also be the reverse if you buy a pair that require breaking in (like my awesome purple patent leather Steve Madden ones, with leopard print lining), but once they’re broken in they are soooo comfortable.

  

Look after your mind. It's probably more important than looking after your body, because it gives you the strength to do what you want with your body. Your best friend is yourself, and having a happy and healthy relationship with yourself will make you feel less awkward about being tall when people stare. Don't berate yourself for being different; embrace the difference that makes you special. Read heaps - it's fun, it's cheap, it's educational and it lets your imagination take over. Don't let anyone tell you that it's nerdy or uncool, either. One of the coolest people I know has a lot of dorky hobbies - he's a whiz with computers, he plays with model trains, and he grows old-fashioned facial hair and styles it using moustache wax - but because he doesn't care what other people think of his hobbies, it makes it cool and gives him a sort of charisma.

My advice is simple, and applies to not just tall girls – your confidence comes from who you are, not what you look like. Step one is to believe in yourself. Yes, the clothes you wear can influence how you feel about yourself, so wear clothes that suit you, not what suits your friends. Develop your own sense of style. Dress to your shape, whatever it is. Look after your body – you only get one - as well as your mind. And be prepared to spend $120 on a pair of black pants that fit you really well and are long enough, instead of $200 on four pairs of black pants that don’t quite fit properly. Levi’s are onto it http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/jeans-to-suit-your-genes-20100902-14o8w.html

Things that probably shouldn't exist - Hot Chocolate... IN A CAN!!!

The other night I was at the supermarket picking up a few odds and ends to tide me over for the week, and I came across this.

Now, before you start to think that I have taken leave of my senses, I only bought it because it was on sale. I'm not sure whether it was on sale because it's a new product, or because they're trying to get rid of them. At this point, either option is a possibility!

The instructions seemed fairly straightforward, but for some reason I was a bit nervous about setting the wheels in motion. Step one was to remove the anti-tamper seal. Don't ask me who in their right mind would bother tampering with a can of hot chocolate, but anyhow...

Peeling back the seal revealed more - very specific - instructions.

I was half tempted to whip out a ruler to ensure I was pushing the button in precisely 1.5cm, but in the end I restrained myself because I figured I wasn't strong enough to push it in too far and bollocks it up completely. As I pushed it down, it felt kind of crunchy, like when you bend a cyalume stick to make it glow. My best guess is that when you push the button down, you're releasing something that mixes with another chemical that's in there and causes an exothermic reaction. Kind of like those hand warmer things you can buy from hiking shops.

Next, I was required to shake the can gently for about 20 seconds. That has to be one of the most daft instructions I have ever read, because "gently" is a very subjective thing. "Gently" to a two-year-old or to a frail old woman may not be the same as "gently" to, say, Arnold Schwartzenegger in his heyday. I started out flailing it about in a kind of pathetic, weak, manner, but decided that it wasn't hard enough so I shook it a little harder. And don't ask me how long I did it for, either. We've already established that precise measurements are not my forte, so why should timekeeping be??!

After I placed it down on the table nothing happened for a bit. Then, suddenly, the can started to vibrate and steam started to pour out of it and it made a high-pitched squealing noise. I began to worry that it would scald the top of our new dining table, so I picked it up with a potholder and put it on the bench. As a side-note, the jiggling motion and the high pitched squeaking noise that came out of it reminded me of a Paul Jennings story about these magical mushroom thingies that imitate objects that they are put next to, and then eventually jiggle and giggle and explode into a puddle of pungent goop.

I sure hope someone else remembers that story otherwise I'm going to sound like a total nutcase... YES! I Googled it! The story is called Yuggles, and basically, whenever someone nasty is around one of these toadstools, they turn into a brown, motionless replica of something nearby. But they're not very stable and eventually explode, just like I said.

Anyway.

Now, theoretically the temperature indicator was supposed to tell me when I should be drinking it, but it didn't. And patience isn't my forte, either (that's not true, I'm a very patient person... but rarely when it comes to food!), so I decided to judge it on how warm the can was to the touch.

For the purpose of this blog, and also because it felt weird drinking something hot out of a can, I poured the warm hot chocolate.

Hmm... it's a brown puddle... wonder if it's a Yuggle... kidding. I know that Yuggles don't really exist (or do they?), but this might as well have been one. I wouldn't bother with this product. I really, really wouldn't. But it doesn't resemble the frothy-topped hot choc on the label, at all (thankyou, Captain Obvious!), and it doesn't taste much like one of those frothy-topped speciems would. The hot chocolate was thick and syrupy but tasted plasticy, too. The texture reminded me somewhat of one of those Supa-Shakes you can get at the supermarket, where you shake them up and they turn into a thickshake. But hot. And plasticy. Eugh. I only made it half way through the mug (which was only about half full to start with) before I threw in the towel and tipped it out, which, if you know me and how I feel about food, chocolate especially, is really saying something!

So, although, in its defence, it was perfect drinking temperature, hot chocolate in a can shouldn't exist. DON'T DO IT, PEOPLE!!!

PS - they also make cafe latte in a can...