An open letter to Andy Murray (PM or PS)

Oh, hi Andy Murray.

Yeah, I'm really sorry about the other day. That sucks.

But like K said, Roger is probably the best tennis player to have ever lived, so really you should not feel bad. Even though Roger is definitely not at his peak and people probably thought you could beat him, the truth is that he his Roger Federer and the guy has the psychological edge over you. You have to toughen up Andy. I mean, you have beaten him a bunch of times but something happens to you in the Grand Slam finals.

Where's this guy when you need him?

I'm not saying this to be mean. I like you, Andy Murray  You have that Scottish accent. Seriously! The other day I heard this Scottish doctor talking on the radio and I thought he would have to be handsome so I googled him. But he wasn't handsome. That is how powerful the Scottish accent is, Andy Murray. Maybe you could somehow learn to harness its power? I don't know, I'm just putting ideas out there. They aren't really thought through.

Anyway, every time you open your mouth I fall a little bit in love with you. I want you to win, that's why I'm saying these things to you. I want you to win a Grand Slam. Also because I don't want to see you cry anymore Andy Murray. You should be happy. You play tennis really, really well. And I bet I'm not the only girl falling a bit in love with you when you talk. I mean, I know you have a girlfriend, but that's gotta make you feel good about yourself.

So, Andy Murray, good luck to you. I  hope you win a Grand Slam one day, I really do.

Love
J

An open letter to Andy Murray (AM)

Dear Andy Murray, 

I'm really sorry about the Wimbledon thing the other night. You really are a very good tennis player but you seem to find it extremely difficult to win grand slam finals, especially those that are against Roger. 

Roger. 

I bet you sometimes wish you hadn't been born at the same time as Roger. Wish you didn't have to see that perfect ball placement. Wish you didn't have to bear witness to his power and his grace. Because it must be said, Andy Murray, if it weren't for Roger, Rafa probably wouldn't be Rafa, Djokovic wouldn't be Djokovic and you Andy Murray - you would probably be number one. But instead, fate had you born and born with a gift for tennis in the same era as the Roger, the best tennis player that ever has been and ever will be. It's a tough break Andy Murray, and I feel for you. But check it out, Andy Murray: to hep you get through this difficult time, I have prepared a list of things that I think you are better at than Roger. Perhaps you will look at it from time to time, and perhaps it will provide some consolation to you during these times. 

1. Having a lovely accent.

Andy Murray, You have a really nice accent. I actually have no interest in hearing Roger speak, but I could listen to you all night long. Everyone loves a Scottish accent and that's exactly what yours is: Scottish. It must be nice to sound so nice, Andy Murray. Don't bother asking the Roger what it feels like - he wouldn't have a clue!

2. Looking really handsome when you smile

It's the elephant in the room, but I'm going to come out and say it. Roger looks a bit weird when he smiles. Does he have a slight underbite or something maybe? 

It's weird. right?

I'm not sure what the problem is, but there's something a but wrong with it I think. Not you, Andy Murray. You look really handsome when you smile. See?

Just jokes. 

There you go, Andy Murray. Nice and handsome. Roger wishes he looked like that when he smiles (maybe he does, I'm not sure). 

3. Being lanky

Andy Murray, as a young Scottish man, you are very lanky and that's quite nice.

Roger can not look lanky to save his life. 

Nothing lanky about that, am I right?

But you, Andy Murray, you nail  it, my lanky brother!

Having said that, you don't look terribly lanky in that picture, but I have it in my mind that you are lanky, so lets just go with that shall we.

Speaking of my mind, it doesn't seem to want to recall further areas where you perform better than Roger.
But I'm sure there are heaps and heaps. These are just three. And three out of four ain't bad! Its actually quite good, because Meatloaf tells us that two out of three ain't bad, so the logical next verse would be and "three out of four is quite good".

Good luck at the Olympics!

Love from K

Thanks for nothing C.Thomas Howell (PM)

Wow, I forget how many people were the film version of The Outsiders. It's a who's who of stars of the 1980s and people who had moderate success in the 1990s and 2000s. And Tom Cruise.

I tried to think of some child stars who are maybe working in offices now but you're right Mate,  child stars seem much better at fading in to obscurity than staying in my mind. The only one I could think of was the asian kid from The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, who's name is apparently Jonathan Ke Quan.

Here he is next to Samwise Gamgee, Josh Brolin, one of the Coreys and the heavy-set kid from The Goonies. Wikipedia tells me that the last thing he was in was a Hong Kong movie in 2002. That's 10 years ago, you guys! He must have had to get at least a temp job in an office between now and then.


And just quickly while we are on the topic, I hope these guys fade in to obscurity and get jobs in offices like the rest of us. 

You'd better be waving goodbye, LeBeouf

Ewwww.

I note that they are not children, but they are certainly annoying like child stars can be. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for nothing C. Thomas Howell (AM)

E.T. was on TV on Saturday night. Turns out I remember very little about that movie. And I didn't watch much of it so I'm really no wiser. But I did learn that C. Thomas Howell was in it. Who cares? Look, not me really, but it did get me thinking.

As a very young teenager I kind of had a crush on C.Thomas Howell. Dude played Ponyboy Curtis, of course I had a crush on him. It was just lucky for him I guess that he got to play a guy that was so adorable in text to 13-year-old girls. But in truth by the time I became aware of him his star was already on the wane and I had other hunks to think about. So basically he is just some guy. But it got me thinking about what happens to child stars. I know this is something people talk about on occasion, but it made me think, are there ever successful actors that act for a while and then totally leave the business? Didn't they used to say that the not-George Michael from Wham became a mechanic? Well according to Wikipedia he writes music under a pseudonym and lives with his ex-Bananarama girlfriend. Mechanic my eye! Or maybe I'm confusing has-beens.

Anyway, does this happen to anyone, they just move on and work in an office or something? I wondered if such a person existed. And on Saturday night I started to wonder if maybe C. Thomas Howell was that guy.

Nup. Turns out he has had a continuing acting career that I just happen to be unaware of. The guy is in the new Spiderman movie! I could not have been more wrong.

So I decided  I wanted to try and find someone who just moved on from the industry. But the problem was I can't really remember anyone who disappeared into obscurity, 'cause of, you know, the obscurity. And it seems that with the advent of reality TV there is a place for every star of yesterday.

Jennifer Grey on DWTS. Probably thinking about how she'll never have it as good as when she danced with Swayze.

 Jennifer Grey was on Dancing with the Stars. That seems pretty unreasonable. She was only the star of a little movie called DIRTY DANCING! Where she pretty much spends the whole movie DANCING. How POed would you be if you were a contestant on the show that year!

Ralph trying to explain the Crane move to his partner - unsuccessfully

 Ralph Macchio was on Dancing with the Stars too, which seems to me moderately unfair given his karate experience.

Of course there are shows like The Two Coreys. Cut tragically short by Corey Haim's death. I guess Feldman will be on Dancing with the Stars soon enough.

****************************************************Time lapse*********************************************************

Strike that. Turns out Corey Feldman was was already on a British TV show called Dancing on Ice.

Corey Feldman on ice

Even the guy that played Doogie Howser's best friend Vinnie is still working. Yep, IMDb says that he is working on the new Woody Allen movie. Shit man, he probably never had it so good!

I guess if I've learnt anything it's that actors can have longevity. I guess I feel kind of heartened.

Crab Cakes: the Miss Soft Crab Bakery Workshop (PM)

When K told me her great idea for the Miss Soft Crab Bakery Workshop you can bet I jumped on board right away. Like K, I also want to bake sweet treats all the time but don't feel I can justify it. Though I do sometimes bake biscuits because they keep for a while, you know? And you can just have one or two or five with a cup of tea and feel ok about it. Cakes and cake-like things though seem ridiculous to cook for no reason. You just gotta eat those babies up. And I do not feel good about eating a whole cake in 2 days, which is basically what happens when I make cakes. But if it is for the good of the greater Crab community, I'll do it. I'd do that for you guys!

But today is about biscuits! Like K, I decided to go for a classic. Choc chip! I used Stephanie Alexander's recipe from The Cook's Companion. See?

The recipe is right there for you to see. But the run down is, you chop up some chocolate.

Mix it in with chopped nuts and flour, salt and bicarb. I used all the nuts I had on hand - almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts! Yeah boyeeee!

Cream your butter and sugar, mix in an egg, add it to the dry ingredients.


Log it and chill it.

Chop it.

And bake it. Twelve minutes later you've got these bad boys!

Now I know you guys have eyes and brains so I'm pretty sure you can imagine how delicious these are without me having to tell you. But I tell you anyway. These are delicious! 

My nana used to make chop chip biscuits and these smell just like them. The butter! The nuts! The choc! And though they are not exactly the same I could not care less, cause these are some beautiful babies, right here.

Crab Cakes: the Miss Soft Crab Bakery Workshop (AM)

Miss Soft Crab is popping cherry's all over town this week. On Wednesday, we brought you the very first installment of Imaginary TV Show Workshop! which reader, TJ described as "some of the best crab work ever", even though it was in fact mostly written by people other than us.

Today, we are taking another Miss Soft Crab vessel on its maiden voyage. This one, which you may have guessed from the title, is called  Crab Cakes: the MSC Bakery workshop. FYI, if you're reading this before starting work, you should consider coming back at morning tea time. Seriously, I think you'll enjoy it much more. 


OK, i'm not going to over hype this guys. Basically, I wanted to bake something and eat it and then write about it here so I could feel like the baking and the eating are about more than just my desire for sweet treats. You see, I  try not to bake things unless I have a reason to, i.e. someone is coming over for dinner or it's someones birthday or something like that. But I guess all those occasions aren't enough to satisfy my needs, so I had to invent another occasion to bake for. Hey preston,  Crab Cakes: the Miss Soft Crab Bakery Workshop was born and happily, J's arm didn't need much twisting to get on board. Hooray! Shall we begin?

Ok, because I am a simple girl with simple pleasures, I thought we should begin Crab Cakes with one of the simplest pleasures going around: biscuits. Specifically the Melting Moment. 

For those of you who didn't grow up with the Australian Women's Weekly Beautiful Biscuits cookbook,  you may not be familiar with the Melting Moment. Readers: get familiar. It's basically a light buttery biscuit sandwiched together with lemony creamed butter. To the naked eye, it looks a little like a yo-yo but it is far superior. If, like me, you found the 1990s disappointing because biscuits that looked like Melting Moments but did not taste like Melting Moments because in fact that were a different biscuit were everywhere you looked,  then the Melting Moment is for you. 


Check out how easy they are to make. 


You cream 250g of butter with a third of a cup of icing sugar. Add one and a half cups of plain flour and half a cup of cornflour. Women's Weekly likes to pipe them in to fancy shapes, but like I said before, I am a simple girl with simple pleasures. I just make them in to biscuit shapes. 

You bake those babies for a mere 10 minutes on 190 degrees, then let them cool down a little. 

Then you sandwich them together with a combination of butter, icing sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. 

Then you eat them with a cup of tea and have a wonderful time. 

I wanted it so bad I couldn't focus the camera properly. 

It couldn't be easier, right? And as someone who is forced to eat a lot of assorted cream biscuits at work, including Delta Creams, let me tell you, the Melting Moment is just so much better. In my opinion. Maybe you guys like Delta Creams, which of course is totally fine. It's just that for me, nothing beats the Melting Moment. 


Unless J bakes something more delicious. Lets come back at  afternoon tea time and find out, shall we?

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Haiku odes to my favourite winter fruits

The Kiwifruit

Kiwis. Love the fruit.

Love the peoples. Just LOVE the

Fuzzy Animal.

The Apple

Good to eat while nude

In a garden with your beau.

Also good in pie.

The Orange

I hope this tribute

Is as good as when they named

That colour 'orange'.

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Beautiful birds

As if for years

I was blind to your beauty

Eyes are open now

No relief

Rainy winter brings

Frizzy hair. Sweaty summer brings

Frizzy hair. Shit.

Avocado
Damn, avocado!
Why you gotta taste so good?
Wanna eat you up!

Imaginary TV Show Workshop! (PM)

It was very nice of K to make it appear as if I was part of the imaginary TV show workshop. But I wasn't. Trivia is not my sport and I don’t have that many friends, so instead of sharing with you a bunch of wonderful TV ideas from buddies, I have to share the ones I make up by myself. Sitting in my room. Alone.

Strange Daze
When hypnotherapist Martin Strange helps a patient identify her rapist through hypnotherapy, by-the-book investigating officer Fiona Daze has to concede that the treatment helped find the perp. When Daze enlists Strange to help on another case the unlikely pair become an unstoppable team, using the unorthodox technique with victims, witnesses, and even perpetrators, all in the name of the truth. But with Strange and Daze approaching their work in such different ways, is this a partnership that can last? And what will the two end up learning about themselves?

Side by Side
Newspaper editor Matt Side and his journalist wife Jane have it all: a great marriage, two kids, a beautiful home. But Jane's life is thrown into a spin when Matt dies in a car accident surrounded by unanswered questions. Jane struggles to cope until the day that Matt shows up again – as a ghost! Matt promises to stay with Jane helping her get her life back together and to unravel the truth behind his death. Matt promises to stay by her side.


A Stitch in Time
New York fashion designer Nancy Stitch is having a bad day, after rejecting her boss’s advances she’s been fired only to arrive home to find her boyfriend in bed with her best friend! When she answers her phone after storming out the door she learns that her seamstress aunt, Missy, has died and left her estate and her business to Nancy. There’s only one problem, it’s all in the tiny town of Time, Minnesota. After this bad day, a new start seems like a great idea to Nancy and she makes the move to Time, but has this big city girl got what it takes to make it in small town Minnesota? And has she got what it takes to keep her aunt’s 30-year-old business alive?

Imaginary TV Show Workshop! (AM)

You know readers, in all the years (one of them) Miss Soft Crab has been around, we have never ever used anyone else's content in our posts. Sure, we refer to other people's stuff, but on the whole, all the stuff eaten, seen, thought about then communicated in these crabby pages comes straight from our brains to you. That is, until now!

Readers, hold on to your hats because have we got something pretty special in store for you.

Today, Miss Soft Crab is delighted to bring you the results of  MINUTES and MINUTES of creative effort put in by Miguel, Legsley,Tickle, J and I in a little electronic-mail based game we like to call Imaginary TV Show Workshop.

First, What is Imaginary TV Show Workshop and why is it a thing?

Ok, very quickly now because I have a tendency to go on about things.

Imaginary TV Show Workshop is a series of imaginary TV show concepts we have come up with to add some colour and movement to the emails we send one another when arranging our weekly catch up at the Edinburgh Castle of a Wednesday night.

We do it because one night, whilst at the EC, we were discussing how lame it is when TV shows put too much double and sometimes triple entendre in their names. Par example: Hart of Dixie, which, as Wikipedia advises, stars Rachel Bilson as Dr. Zoe Hart, who after her dreams of becoming a cardio-thoracic surgeon fall apart, accepts an offer to work in a small medical practice in Bluebell, Alabama.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. 

Oh, brother.

The day after this conversation took place, Tickle sent us an email with his very first Imaginary TV Show Workshop concept and from then on, there was no stopping us. Readers, you would not believe how easy and addictive coming up with fake TV shows is.You know how Thomas Edison said genius is 1 per cent inspiration, 99 per cent perspiration? Well there is no doubt in my mind that that brother NEVER played Imaginary TV Show Workshop because all the gold you're about to read came out in about 25 seconds flat. We are the 1 per cent, everybody!

OK, ok I've gone on long enough and I don't want to make you guys wait a second longer for what's coming. It's time to let the imaginary TV shows speak for themselves.

First up, let's check out the original concept Tickle sent us. 

The Real Paige Turner

The Real Paige Turner follows the story of ghost writer, Paige Turner, who struggles to get her talent recognised, even though she’s written the last four manuscripts for famous romance novelist, Lacy Silke.

Note: We didn't discuss it, but I'm picturing Melissa Joan Hart from Sabrina the Teenage Witch to play Paige. 

Next, from Miguel. 

Autumn Leaves
When her mother's latest no-hoper boyfriend gets fresh, Autumn Winters, a sassy teenager whose incessant wisecracking is just a defensive mechanism, has had enough. She steals a car, rescues her frail and demented grandmother from a nursing home, and goes on a wild cross-country ride to find her father.

That man has a gift. I'm picturing Suri Cruise as Autumn, and Fran Drescher as the Grandmother. 

Not to be outdone by this, from Legsly:

Frieze Frame

Penelope Frieze, a successful TV executive, is about experience life in an unflattering spotlight. When her star actor and toy-boy lover Splice Jordan goes missing, she is framed for the murder. Her assistant Frieda might the footage to clear her name ... if only she wasn't missing too.

And here's a little something I came up with. 

Saul O'Wit*

Father Saul O'Wit is devoted to two things - God and stand-up comedy. Every Sunday he combines the two at the parish of Saint Mary's, where the worshippers are on their knees alright -  doubled over in laughter! With his sympathetic ear and gift for one liners, he's giving the community at St Mary's - still hurting from 9/11- the kind of spiritual leadership that would make any blind man see. Watch out Father Saul, you're gonna give the Catholic Church a good name! 

*Truth be told, Miguel had a hand in this one too...

There are many many more I could share, but I think I should save some for  a future spin off post.
So let me finish with something from Miguel that, in my opinion, is the best show anyone has ever thought of ever, not just as part of Imaginary TV Show Workshop. I sure do hope all the American TV producers read Miss Soft Crab, because the world needs to see...


Wieners & L'Ouseurs
In early twentieth-century Vienna, the von Wieners (an establishment Austrian sausage-trading family) are feuding with the L'Ouseurs (upstart nouveau riche French bankers, who are revealed in the last episode of the first season to be secretly Jews named Lewinstein) over a Dalmatian land deal gone wrong. The beautiful and feisty Katharina L'Ouseur goes undercover to sabotage a von Wiener sausage warehouse from within, but sparks fly when she meets handsome von Wiener heir Franz, who is working incognito as a sausage-grader to learn the family business. Can their love survive their parents' hatred and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire?

Tagline: Not everyone can be a Wiener.

NB: With minor revisions it could be moved to Vichy France and retitled Brest & Wurst.

Loving myself sick (PM)

OMFG.
I'm sure I speak for the entire crab community when I say that I want that delicious looking pasta shell bake in and around my mouth right now.

And readers, I can assure you that J really is loving herself fully sick about this dish, because she didn't breathe a word of it to me before now, and normally, she totally would have told me about it yesterday. Right around lunch time. That she kept it under wraps this long just goes to show that this little baby really is something special.

I'm afraid I have no equivalent stories of making delicious things straight out of my imagination. But I did make this delicious tart on the weekend.

This is not a picture of the actual tart I made. I made mine in a tin in the shape of a love heart, so it looked like this but more adorable. Sorry Ottolenghi but it's true. 

It's an Ottolenghi recipe called Surprise Tart Tatin. I was auditioning it for the Plenty Potluck! dinner I am going to on Saturday night at Crimpy's with Blephanie and Legsly. If you're wondering, the Plenty Potluck! dinner is an exciting concept where we each make a dish from the hit book Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, and then we eat them and all have a wonderful time.

The tart was pretty damned good, I must say. All potatoes and caramelised onions and goats cheese. It was a tad dry though. But maybe a little sour cream on the side would fix that right up.
It remains on the shortlist.

Loving myself sick (AM)

I'm as full of self-doubt, and at times self-loathing, as the next person. But every now and again I just love myself fully sick.

Like on Sunday for example.

I went to the shops for a few groceries and I had no idea what the eff I would make for dinner. You know, it was Sunday, so I had a little time on my hands, but I felt totally uninspired. And then I realised that the shop nearby would sell all sorts of interesting things. Like giant pasta shells. Which I would show you a picture of but, you know, they look just like regular pasta shells when there is no comparison.

For a long time I've wanted to make some sort of stuffed giant shell pasta bake thing. And on Sunday, I just freaking did it!  

I didn't even follow a recipe. I just made it all up from my brain! Wanna hear about it?

I made a nice rich napoli. Yeah I did.

I cooked and cooled the shells. Then I chopped a bunch of spinach up and mixed it with about 200g ricotta and 200g fetta. Yeah boyeeee.

Then I stuffed all that in the cooked shells. What an effing winning combo.

But check it out you guys, I wanted this bad boy to last a couple of nights and there's no way the yield would have been enough. So then...then! I chopped up a whole lot of mushrooms real small, fried them with some garlic and salt and pepper and stuffed that into the remaining shells! Are you hearing me people? Do you hear how delicious this sounds?

Then I put a little napoli in a baking tray, put in the shells in two layers, covered with napoli and some grated parmesan and baked that bad boy!

Seriously, that shiz was so freaking yummy, and the idea just came like a bolt from the blue. How could  I not love myself sick?!

So, do you like stuff? (PM)

OHMYGODILOVESTUFFSOMUCH!

But happily for me I have been house sitting other people's houses for the last month and a half and as a result I don't covet stuff for myself as much because I am not at home thinking about how I can make my space nicer. Also, I just wish I could find regular stuff in these houses. The other day I had to roll out pizza with a large jar. Do you know how hard it is to find a jar appropriate for rolling? Where is the effing rolling pin?

Usually, though, I am just coveting the shit out of homewares.

You know another thing that is distracting me from my usual homewares coveting is that I have an idea for rearranging my place when we get back home which is even better than buying new stuff! Free AND it makes you feel like you are in a new space.

But of course there are always things I kind of want.

Beautiful bedding.




Ralph Lauren, you sure know how to work navy.



Enamel cookware.

Want that

A large pot big enough for chutneys.

Thanks, Mate, now I'm just thinking about all the stuff I want.

So, do you like stuff? (AM)

People, I'm just going to get straight in to it today.
This post is about how I want my house to look really super cute and be full of super nice stuff, but  because I struggle to commit to making any major home decoration decisions, I just focus my wanting stuff energies on a bunch of small things I really don't need.

The only home improvement thing I have done since moving in to Chez K last July is put a wallpaper sample on my bedroom wall, as evidenced by the above picture of Niecey capering about on my bed. (Before we go on,  does anybody else find those little socked feet and those indentations her tiny feet have made in the bedclothes MEGA ADORABLE? I do too!)

But back on topic. The reason there is only a wallpaper sample on my wall, and not any wallpaper, is because I seriously struggle to make big decorating decisions. What if I spend heaps of money on something that doesn't even look that good, but I am forced to live with because I spent all that money on it? It could totally happen, and its something I worry to the point that it prevents me from following through. I know what the Spanish grandmother of Tara Morice's character in Strictly Ballroom would say about this. She would say "A life lived in fear is a life half lived" and she would be totally right!

But the small stuff, guys. The small stuff. Just as the world says, I really don't sweat the small stuff, I openly covet it and feel totally fine about doing so. Today, I'm going to show you a bunch of these smaller things that I want to buy for my house right now!

Lets begin with this throw.

You can buy it from Safari living for a tidy $470 if you like

Isn't it nice? I think it is nice and pretty and I want it.

I also want this cushion.

You can buy this one for 70 pounds from the Donna Wilson webbie.  

What's that, internet? You say 70 pounds is equivalent to  $110 AUDs? Gee, Thats better than I thought it would be, but it's still a lot for a cushion. Right? Right guys? No one should spend that much on a cushion, should they?

I want one of these planters too.

Aren't they nice? You can get them from Mr Kitly. 

Actually, this is something I may actually buy, because I love an indoor plant and I think that one hanging down over my staircase would look super cute.

Here's a trivet I want. Hey, do you think the sentence "Here's a trivet I want" is the dumbest one ever uttered on Miss Soft Crab?  It's definitely up there.

That pot looks really comfortable. The trivet is from RK Design. 

But it must be said, trivets are actually very handy.

Another thing I want is this really nice basket from Husk to put my dirty clothes in, replacing the blue bucket I currently use. But the Husk website wouldn't load for me, so I can't show you guys the picture. Just imagine a very expensive, but very tasteful basket.

That's all for now. I wonder what J wants for her house?! Lets meet back here at about 12:30pm and find out. Until then, crab friends!