The confession (AM)

"Billy, this is your homework."

I have to tell you something. I love Miss Soft Crab, I love reading it, I love writing it, but sometimes I'm distracted or uninspired and it's hard, you know? I have some half formed ideas that may or may not work as a whole post. Sometimes I got nothing. That's just the bad weeks or the busy ones. This week I had so many half formed ideas and so much distracting me from them I forgot them all. 

Last night I was watching perhaps the most boring tv show in history. It's just this guy walking around parts of the English coast learning about the events of WWII in those parts. There were some interesting bits, of course, but really it's just a guy going for a walk. Anyways, there I was watching a boring show and thinking about how I really needed to go to the toilet and how boring that was. I guess I was feeling tired and our bathroom is cold and I just felt annoyed that one has to regularly perform this bodily function that requires one to get off the couch and go to such a cold room. May I also add that I don't sit on the couch all day. Mostly I'm up doing stuff and yet I never get around to weeing when I'm up either. All those distractions.  So there I was thinking about things I had to do that I didn't want to do: go to the toilet; clean my bedroom; and then, that's when I remembered I had to write a blog post, a wee reminded me. 

And then do you know what happened next? The movie Toy Soldiers came on TV. Now this is a movie that K and I used to watch all the time. Turns out I can still pretty much quote it all, presumably in its entirety, I didn't watch it all so I can't confirm that. Point is you thought it was hard for me to go to the toilet and write a blog post when I was watching an Englishman go for a walk, what hope was there once a teenage Wil Wheaton hit the screen!? So here we all are, me feeling bad I was distracted by a movie from writing a decent post and you wishing you watched Toy Soldiers last night. 

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!

The present question

I used to be a really good present buyer. I am pretty sure I was really good. Like, I knew what people would like and I would buy it for them and give it to them in a timely fashion. You were probably on the receiveing end once or twice, right mate? Not recently though. I was good at it but then something happened. I lost my mojo. Maybe when my friends started turning 30 or something and there was all this pressure. I don't know, but I just lost it.

Meanwhile, LB has gotten really good at buying presents. For me at least. When we started going out he was not that good. He had some good ideas but he would never have birthday presents for me on my birthday. He would tell me what he was thinking of buying me then make me go shopping with him. It was fine. I am not complaining, just saying.

Anyway, now he is really good. For my birthday this year he got me TWO awesome presents. Two kind of expensive things I really wanted. A couple of days ago for no reason other than he found them at an op shop he came home with two great pots for me. This great Le Creuset frypan.



And this pyrex baby to replace a recent, heartbreaking loss.



Lucky me, right? But it is LB's birthday in a few weeks and I do not know what the eff I am going to get him. Why does he have to be such a great gift giver goddamnit? It is very possible that it is because I covet more stuff so he just has to buy me a thing I covet. He just wants a VW Passat and zodiac boat but my coveting covers a broad, more affordable spectrum. So really I am making it easy for him. God, why can't he just want heaps of stuff, like me?!

Not as good as yesterday

Mate, your things are so nice. Starting with your dinner last night! Obviously I don't dig on roast beef, rare or otherwise, but roast potatoes! Beetroot and goats cheese salad! Horseradish sauce! Break me of a piece of that! YUM! I actually had a nice dinner too. I made super garlicy garlic bread and pasta with small cubes of roast eggplant and cherry toms all mixed through with some ajvar and superhot ajvar. It was actually delicious.

I am jealous of your relationship with your local produce providers. The butchers in my neighbourhood never respect me because obviously I only go in to buy food for Doggy and I buy the cheapest thing they have. So I guess our relationships are never going to go anywhere. But I felt like the guy in the fruit shop the other day really made an effort to say "have a nice day" to me. You know. I was all packed up and on my way, but he really kind of said it like he wanted me to have a nice day. Or at least hear that he'd said it. I guess it wasn't as moving as the interaction you had last night.

Anyways, you have some nice things in your kitchen. I can undertand your love of all those things you showed me. Especially the flowered pot. What a great size. And a great flower motif, that would remind anyone of their grandma (right?) and so nice that you have it because your grandma shopped at CNW for you rather than the more convenient Tuckerbag! I also understand your childhood love of goods in excahange for tokens. To me, in my childhood, I think I also saw this as something magical, and definitely something that happened in other people's houses, like white bread or mini packs of chips in your school lunch.

I have some nice things in the kitchen, but sadly I recently lost one of my favourite pots. It was basically this pot:



I have to use a tiny image from the internet because sadly I never took a photo of my special little guy. The other day I was putting it away and the lip hit something and broke. I couldn't throw it out for days. It just sat on my kitchen bench until I eventually had mourned it long enough and needed the kitchen bench space back in earnest. It was a great little pot. I bought it for $3 from an op shop in Geelong. I remember the price so well because it was years before I bothered to wash off the price which was written on it in semi-permanent marker. I guess it was a bit like your little pot, perfect for one person pasta sauces, 2 serves of porridge. God, I miss that little bastard.

But I still have some great pots.

Like these guys:



The bigger one at the back doesn't have a handle. But it is enamelled and so useful. Plus I bought it from an op shop in Kempsey on one of my first camping trips with LB many years ago, so it has nice associations. The reality is though, cooking with a saucepan with no handle sucks balls. But how about those other orange beauties. A Le Creuset frying pan and a little baby that makes one perfect porridge serve, melts butter good, and is also great for some other reasons. One or both of these came from a share house after all the original house mates moved out and I thought surely no-one would begrudge me expanding my orange empire.

And this:


My most grown-up pot. It was a Christmas present from LB's mother last year. It is great because it is huge and the stainless steel is so strong and stainless. I love it so much and sometimes make meals just so I have an excuse to use it. I hope I get a chance to use it over this 5-day weekend. And thank god for this 5-day weekend. Starting bloggy is practically like starting a new job - Thank Christ we get a reasonable break now.