HB QEII

Hope everyone had a nice Queens Birthday Public Holiday. 

I hate how it's the last public holiday until the big horse race in November. That month is so many months away.

But I love how QEII nails the monochrome for life style. She takes it by its family jewels and nails it to the wall. Way to go, QEII. 

Queen's Birthday Holiday

Today is not the Queen's birthday, but it is the Queen's birthday holiday. Weird. So let's celebrate my favourite thing about QEII.

#monochromeforlife

Hot salt beef (PM)

As I've mentioned before, having a slice of salami in my hand creates thes most difficult of struggles between my inner vegetarian and my inner fat and spice lover. A struggle that I am constantly amazed the vegetarian always wins. And while I'm sure a hot beef roll with mustard is delicious, happily chunks of beef, at least in pictorial form, do nothing for me. But delicious good at midnight, well I sure as hell like the sound of that. Well done, London.

Hot Salt Beef (AM)

A hot salt beef bagel with extra mustard on the way home at 11:15PM is the best thing about London. 

That's all.

Northern Crab Life (? -2)

So do I respond now? I have no idea how this topsy turvy crab life is meant to go. All I know is that I want to eat the heck out of a toasted cheese sandwich. In fact I think this is the week I will have to make Heston's toasted cheese sandwich. A sandwich I have been coveting for so long but, frankly, have been too lazy to make. But if K can go all the way over to England to eat at Heston's pub and eat the best toasted cheese sandwich in the history of man I can make an 8-step sandwich in the comfort of my own home.

Northern Crab Life (?)

Hi you guys. 

Being on the other side of the world, facing six weeks without working, and not really being online means you never have any idea what day it is or what the time is. It's kind of great. But it means that my Crab Life suffers. I'm sorry for that. When every day feels like Sunday it's hard to recognise when an actual sunday comes around and you need to get some stuff ready for Monday's Miss Soft Crab. That's what happened to me yesterday. I was so busy wandering around the English countryside I totally missed the  opportunity to get my act together and tell you guys about it, as well as all the other jazz I've been doing. And right now I'm at the Victoria and Albert museum, using their free wifi while I wait to go in to the David Bowie exhibition, so I'm afraid I won't be able to fill in the blanks now either. 

Oh alright then, very quickly, here are a couple of things to tide you over. First, the best toasted cheese sandwich anyone has ever had, ever, in all of history. 

It was from Borough Market. Sure, it may look like all the other cheese sandwiches but it tasted like nothing I have ever tasted before, ever, in the history of my life. It was sublime. 

After eating it, I didn't really want to eat anything else so I could retain the memory of its perfection in my mouth for as long as possible. By I thought a light dinner couldn't hurt. 

That stuff on the plate is black pudding. Light. 

Yesterday I went to the countryside to go to Heston's pub, The Hinds Head, for a Sunday roast (beef, served rare with Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and horseradish cream). We had to walk along the river for a while to get there and while doing so, stumbled across this. 

It was a great day. 

Ok, David is waiting for me so I'd best be off. Thanks for be patient crab friends. 

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

Some things never change (PM)

First of all, sorry for the late post you guys. Being in the northern hemisphere is the the worst when you have a southern hemisphere deadline. Late at night is the best time to blog I think, but staying awake past 10pm is hard when you spend all day walking around, or when you are me. 

But enough excuses. We'll sort something out as the weeks progress. And right now we've got shit to talk about. Literally! Ha. Not really. But check it out: I am totally writing this from a very cold bathroom! Its 8am over here and i didn't want  to disturb the sleeping Appleheart so I snuck in to the bathroom to write this. I'm perched on a bath under an open window. Before I even read the AM, I was thinking sheesh, London, warm up why don't you because it was cold in there. And you can believe getting out of bed was no picnic. Which is what's waiting for all of us on the other side of dragging ourselves away from the heater, brushing our teeth and getting in to bed. Sleep, then getting out of bed in to the cold morning. Which is where I am right now! How do we break the cycle?!

I don't want to be negative because I am holidays and after I write this I am going to have a hot hot shower and then see this. So a little coldness between the bed and the shower is obviously not too much of a hardship. But you know. Heaters might be the way forward.

Also, maybe, just maybe, this is the way forward. It's a down puffer jacket in a pink gingham pattern I tried on yesterday and felt troubled by how much I liked it.
Would it be crazy to get it?
I am thinking more about the Melbourne winter, rather than walking from the bed to the bathroom.
Mate, what do you think?

Some things never change (AM)

In my early twenties I lived in a great flat with Miguel and David. In those heady days of Playstation 2, Nintendo 64, instant mee goreng,  driving around aimlessly, drinking, and working part time I could do what I want. Go to bed when I wanted. Wake up when I wanted, I guess. What a sweet life. I'd go to bed late for all sorts of great reasons, like Tony Delroy's quiz was a really good one or someone came home with a bottle of vodka or we had a really competitive game of Tekken going on. But without doubt the thing that kept me up most was my aversion to that time in between leaving my usual post in front if the heater and getting into bed. Teeth brushing time. Don't get me wrong. I love brushing my teeth. In fact back in those days I even wrote a song about it.  I guess this is really just a winter thing, but the memory is strong. I'd be lying in front of the heater and be so tired I'd just want to be in bed. But if there was one thing I can not do, it is go to bed without brushing my teeth. Ughhhh. But I would be so warm and comfy I would not, for love nor money*, be able to rouse myself to go to bed, because the cold bathroom and time between floor and bed were so repellent. Eventually I'd get to bed, teeth clean, but it was so hard. Until I was doing it, really it was fine then. And after the teeth, I would be in a warm bed and I'd be the happiest I'd been all night. 

Perhaps the memory is so vivid because I felt the exact same way last night. Lying in front of the heater, warm and sleepy and a cold bathroom between me and bed, but now it's even harder because there is a smart phone to keep me company. Well last night, as every night, I got up to go brush my teeth and go to bed. And of course, it was fine. It's always the pulling away from the heater that is hardest. But I couldn't help look back over my life, at all the nights I didn't want to walk that bridge from warm room to bed and wondered why the fuck I can't just get a warm house?!


*lie

Found (0(k goes global

Hi guys, you know I wouldn't usually start the week off with something like FC, but let's look at the facts.

1. FC is a winner every time.

2. In the very recent past K just stepped off a plane after a real long flight. Do we want her to worry about responding to a post? Hell no! So we are giving girlfriend the day off! (Unless you want to chime in, Matey. Always welcome on your own blog.)

3. I have some excellent FC that I think really pay homage to K's trip. Because I have cock from close to home and far flung cock and I just thought it would be timely to look at it today. So let's get into it. Shall we?

Soon, we will look at some international FC, but first I want to celebrate the gifted cocks from friends closer to home. We all remember the time a penis-like eggplant turned up on my phone from an unknown number, right? Of course we do. Well, being a great brother, Russeth did not end there. One night I got a delightful message with this in it.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! This time I had a reasonable idea who it was from. At least I could narrow it down to a few of Russeth's freinds. And guys, there is nothing that warms the cockles of your hear like the receipt of hilarious cock in your inbox. The next night I got this:

 

I can only assume that the giant phallus behind that footy player's head is a symbol of the Fremantle Dockers ground. It's dockers guys, with an 'o'! Idiots.

Obviously, FC has really touched the hearts and minds of many. In the early days of FC all the way over in the US of A, Mondonna and her friends had a field day with it. And things got real creative.

 

Great work, guys!

Here's a picture CarLovers sent me from the city of food and romance, gay Paris. Onc!

Courgette

But by far the most exotic cock is this one, simple and classic, found in Valparaiso by Toni. Thanks Toni! FC in Chile! Nice!

It just shows you can find cock anywhere in anything. But let's finish off closer to home. This delight was found by K herself. Mate, let's hope your travels are full of fun and FC!

Eeeww, chewy!

Hightailing it (PM)

K is leaving in 2 days. She is really lucky. I bet it was almost impossible to focus on writing that post. In truth it is essentially impossible for me to focus on writing this post because I have been bedridden for 2 days after a night of spewing and if I didn't have a small child to look after I would still be in bed now. In fact I barely know what I am writing.

I miss things too. Mostly the feeling of normal and not having the desire to spew all the time. But you know what is good about missing stuff, having a beautiful reunion when you are reunited.

Have a great trip mate. I'll miss you.

Hightailing it (AM)

I'm about to hightail it out of here for a six week that's right six week holiday.
I'm heading north to a bunch of places I've never been.
I'm so excited I start to quake a little when I think about, it so I have to stop thinking about it.
Back to the here and now.

Here are some things I'm going to miss when I'm gone.

I'm going to miss those sweet sweet winter fruits like the oranges and the apples. Also mandarins, which aren't too good yet but there getting there. Plus, they have the only fruit sticker that I don't mind.

Gaypak. Heh.

I'm going to miss going to J's place for afternoon tea, and seeing Baby on his birthday. That's something I'm going to miss.

I'm going to miss Niecey and Little Nut.

And Midbro's willingness to do whatever it takes to amuse us, including putting Niecey in a green bag. Which she really liked! That's Little Nut in the background, in the minimal supervision zone.

Yeah, I'm going to miss all of that stuff while I'm having a whale of a time, possibly literally. I'm going to keep you guys posted of course. But bye for now readers. Bye for now.

Sunday Baking (PM)

You know, readers, I actually heard about this cake yesterday while K was at my house eating a cake that I baked yesterday and it troubled me. I bake a sponge using the Stephanie Alexander recipe from The Cooks Companion. It is a really good one. One of the things StepAl says is that you can cook it in two tins or cook it in one. Now that sounds flexible. Me, I've cooked it in round tins cooked it in loaf tins, had a perfect sponge every time and it just makes me think, what's the point in having a non-versatile sponge recipe when there are super versatile recipes out there? Fail D-Smithy.

As for me I cooked a pretty perfect cake yesterday. I had a pretty great birthday haul this year including these:

And these:

And when K said she may drop in on Sunday I thought I better make cake. Plus with a KitchenAid and great recipe doing all the work all I had to do was put stuff I'm a bowl and flick a switch. Then let some dough rise. Oh, then roll out dough, smear it with chocolate goo, roll it up Swiss roll-style, cut the Swiss roll in half lengthwise, plait the two halves, let it rise in a tin and bake it. And after that simple affair I would have a babka! Or, as it is called in Jerusalem and probably Jerusalem, a chocolate krantz.

I've been wanting to make this babka from Smitten Kitchen for ages, because a babka is one of the worlds finest cakes, but somehow I haven't got around to it but when I saw the recipe in Jerusalem nothing could stop me. Really, it was about 3 hours before seeing the recipe and having the ingredients christening the bowl of my KitchenAid. It's the kind of recipe in which the author apologies for the fiddliness or difficulty but in truth it really is just a bunch of simple steps. That's what I have discovered about so many fancy foodstuffs, they are easy they just take time. Cooking is easy.  Just listen to Delia Smith.*



*Not really,what does she know?!

Sunday Baking (AM)

Delia Smith is a doyenne of English home cooking who has lately been mouthing off about the fact that cooking shows don't teach people how to cook. Happily, she has a website that does, or she says.  Yesterday, I watched her tutorial on making sponge cakes and then baked a walnut coffee sponge to take to Mum and Dad's for lunch. I felt like the combination of walnut and coffee was nice and autumnal, and had an old school quality that would make it appealing to my pezzies. The idea that I was making something that appealed to their tastes more than mine made me feel like a really great person, so that's what I did.

Here is some of the stuff that goes in the cake. 

Just the usual really. However, Delia uses self raising flour as well as baking powder. That confused me. And she doesn't separate the eggs and whip the egg whites. You know, to make the cake nice and airy. She just whacks them in there holus bolus. The only airiness comes from sifting flour. 

I was dubious about that.

Everything gets mixed together and then chopped walnuts are folded through. 

Then, the mixture is divided by two 18cm cake pans and baked for 25 minutes.  

Here is where my troubles began. In Delia's tutorial, she told me that tin size is very important in making cakes. But she didn't tell me why, nor the likely consequences of deviating from the recommended tin girth, which I was forced to do because I didn't have the right cake tins.

I don't know it was because of the tins or because my butter was melted instead of just being softened, or whether it has something to do with not separating the eggs, but my sponge cakes came out of the oven like pancakes, barely having risen at all. 

It didn't really matter when I sandwiched them together and slathered them with coffee cream. 

But still, I feel like Delia let me down. A sponge's raison d'etre is lightness and airiness. Without that, it's just a cake. Delia's recipe did not make a light airy sponge, and that makes me feel like she let me down. Did we eat it all? Of course we did, we are not crazy. Was it delicious? It was pretty damned delicious. But sheesh, if one of the world's problems is that no one teaches people how to cook anymore,  I'm not sure D-Smithy is the woman for the job.