Thursday, June 27, 2013

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Haiku Thursday revisted (AM)

Some feelings can only be expressed through haiku.


Ah, nuts 

Hey, Kevin, go back 
To oh seven, when you were
Good for something. Dick.



Monday, June 24, 2013

The best bowl I ever bought (PM)

What a pretty price for such a pretty bowl. And what a fine looking pudding.
Speaking of fine looking things, here is a miniature brownie. I ate it a couple of days ago and have been thinking about it ever since. 

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The best bowl I ever bought (AM)


I didn't want to go on about this to you guys, 'cause, you know, I guess I figure that you don't want to hear about some bowl I bought. Or at least you think you don't. But you guys, this is seriously the BEST bowl I have ever bought. Remember at Easter time how the lady crabs visited Pickle and Minderbinder in the country? Yeah, you do. Pickle cooked fish pie in her Falcon dish. She has a whole set. About a million of them. And they are so nice and simple. A few weeks later I had the idea to make a chocolate self saucing pudding. But you can't just make chocolate pudding for no reason on a Sunday night. Plus, I didn't really have a good dish for it. And then. Then I found this pudding dish for six bucks. Yep, Falcon, the most affordable of enamelwares. A bowl so nice I bought it twice. And a few days later was mother's day and I had an excuse to make pudding!



But this bowl is so much more than a pudding bowl you guys. First, it is adorable. Second it is the perfect size for so many things! Six-person pudding; two-person salad; two-person pasta bake using leftover pasta. A small fruit bowl. Mixing small quantities.


I never knew I could feel this way about a bowl. I mean it's just a bowl. But it does everything. I don't want to worship things or love things. I don't really approve of that. (Even though of course there are heaps of things I feel that way about. We are living in a material world, you know.) I just really never imagined a bowl would make me feel these feelings. I love how simple it is. How versatile it is. I love this bowl, you guys. I wish every bowl in my kitchen could be like this one. There! I said it. Sorry other bowls,. but this bowl is something really special!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Very German (PM)


Being very German sounds rad!

Very German (AM)

On Tuesday it was very warm so we went to the German countryside to frolic by a lake like the Germans do. We took two trains and then rode for 30 minutes through some forest to get there. Just like Germans do!


At one point, there was a woman selling fresh strawberries by the side of the road so we stopped to get some. A kilo for six euro. That's German value for you.

The forest was lush... 

...and the lake crystal clear 
 After about five minutes we saw our first naked Germans bathing in the lake. It was very very German.
We ate the strawberries and drank some beer. Again, very German. 

We took a dip in the lake. While doing so, a duck swam past with three ducklings in tow. No joke. Three fuzzy little ducklings. It was almost too much but we'd had a little whiskey after the beer so were feeling pretty groovy and just accepted it.

After a few hours, we dragged ourselves away and started to head back to Berlin. I only fell of my bike once and that was due to a particularly vigorous tree root protruding from the ground which seemed very German to me. On the way back, the ticket inspector told us off in German, we think because we had accidentally entered the train via the door in the first class carriage. We had already moved to the regular carriage by the time the ticket inspector came along, so I don't  know what she was complaining about. But being told off by a person in a uniform seemed so totally German! It was the icing on the cake of a really super day. 

Monday, June 17, 2013

Sunday in Berlin (PM)


A few years ago (five, shit five years ago!) I was in Berlin. Just for a few days. Not one of those days was a Sunday, so I guess I know nothing about what that would be like. I loved Berlin heaps of course. I didn't see any theatre but I sure can imagine someone there yelling into a microphone. Alls I can say is if you happen to be in Frankfurt I 'd suggest skipping the theatre because that yelling monologue is likely to be followed by a punch in the face.* I'm guessing.

After K asked me about Berlin in an email the other day I read my notes from when I was there. The impression I had of it was that the food was delicious, people were stylish, smileless, and it was big. I got there straight after visiting Amsterdam, where people are not very stylish, the city is is tiny, and restaurants are expensive and shit. I was so struck by one woman that stood in front of us in the queue to see Santogold I wrote about her in my book. "Straight bowl haircut, high-waisted skinny jeans", you know, like every second person in Melbourne now looks.
 
There was also some currywurst consumed. Not by me. But by others. And gummi. So many gummi. Mmmmmmm gummi.

*You know, Frankfurt had some real delights, like the most bestest apfelwein soft-serve  sorbet I have eaten and this totally awesome hammering man statue. I mean no disrespect to Frankfurt.

Sunday in Berlin (AM)

Hi you guys.
So check it out, I totally thought I had PM'd J's post about the winter warmers last week, where I said things about how great my PJs are and how I was surprised J thought I was loopy for getting them because she seemed so supportive at the time. But it looks like that post never saw the light of day. Which is ironic, because I actually wrote it from Iceland where there is nothing but light of day. AND NIGHT. I don't want to bang on about it but midnight sun is the craziest thing. Anyway, sorry that the post didn't work. I wrote it at 5am before we left Sykkisholmur in West Iceland to drive back to Reykjavik in order to squeeze in a dip in the Blue Lagoon before flying out. So it was hard to focus on anything other than the excitement of the Blue Lagoon and the need not to crash the car while driving in the most dense fog ever.  But that's a story for another time.
Right now I'm in Berlin and it's warm during the day and dark during the night just like a good city should be. We spent the day wandering around flea markets and sites of civic importance like the Brandonwalsh Gate and the Reichstag and eating Currywurst and crinkle cut chips. It was a lovely day.

Then, we went to the theatre.  We saw the postmodern classic Die Hamletmaschine by the famous German playwright Heiner Muller, in the original German. Readers, I am sure it will come as no surprise to you that I had never heard of it and knew nothing about it and now that I have seen it, I know even less about it.
One part involved a woman standing alone on a stage in a yellow dress screaming in German in to a microphone. Boy did she seem upset. And boy is German a harsh language when it is being screamed in to a microphone.
The only bit that made sense was when the play ended, the applause stated and the actors came out to bow. I knew EXACTLY what was going on and I clapped like a woman who wanted to show it. The fact that the applause lasted for about 5 minutes (seriously) and there were several bows had me questioning things again but at least there was no screaming.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Winter warmers (AM)


Last winter (or was it the winter before?) I remember K wanting to buy some pyjamas. I all but scoffed at her. Where the hell is the joy in pyjamas? In winter, it's tracksuit pants you want, fleecy and snug, this is where real joy comes from. I was vehement in my brain if not in my derision of her quest for jarmies. I know she found some and I know they brought her great joy. A joy I did not believe was real. Fleece track suit pants was the only way to find winter peace.

Well that is all well and good when one owns a good pair of tracksuit pants. Dare to dream, I used to say. Also, I used to own joy-bringing pants, a fleecy, warm pair. But time wearies all things of beauty, so too these pants and we had to part. Last year I was on a mission to find what I like to call BSMs, or Bella Swan maternity pants, the pants Kristen Stewart wears during Bella's entire pregnancy in Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.


Here are Bella and Sparkleface enjoying at tender moment as they await the birth of their vampiric progeny



They are sort of fitted, yet tracksuity and I thought they would answer my tracksuit prayers. But lo, like vampires, such a pant seems not to exist outside of the realm of fantasy. I found a poor approximation but they pilled to all git out, which really negated any softness and comfort they had, and they too had to go.

This year I started my search early but my usual go to, Bonds, do not even have a fleecy tracksuit pant in their range! The best they offer  is a terry loop, and where is the joy in that! There is none. American Apparel have fleece pants but I find it difficult to part with the kind of money they want for such an unflattering item.

Guys, I've been despondent. And then, last week it hit me: flannel pyjamas. Sure I felt a traitor to myself, but once it came to me I could think of nothing else. I left work on a lunch break and returned with the most joy bringing pyjamas.


Mate, I'm sorry I scoffed at your love of pyjamas. I know happiness and I know flannel can bring it.

Monday, June 10, 2013

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

Thursday, June 6, 2013

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.

Monday, June 3, 2013

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