I don’t generally blog results of survey memes and so forth, but I’ll make an exception in this case.
(Note: I’m not actually sure how much I weigh, so I took a guess.)
Food and drink in Australian English
In Lynne Murphy’s blog Seperated by a Common Language, she routinely discusses dialectal differences between British and American English. I recently left comments on a number of her posts from 2006 and 2007, in most cases adding an Australian point of view.
I’d like to take up some of the points I raised in those comments about Australian vocabulary, but for the time being I’ll only list the ones pertaining to food and drink. I’ll save some of the others for a sequel.
Giving it a good grilling
In September, I acquired a new oven/stove (i.e. what British people would call a cooker). One of the hotplates on my old stove had stopped working, you see.
I used the grill today. This was the second time that I’ve used the grill in my new oven, but the first time that I’ve done so entirely by myself. (Last time, Dad and I cooked some beef parmigiana, of the home-made sort that consists of schnitzel topped with sliced tomato and cheddar cheese.) In fact, although I’ve helped to grill food on several occasions, today was the first time I’ve ever done so without supervision, anywhere. Nobody to ask whether or not I’m doing it right, or what I should do next.
So what did I cook for my first-ever unsupervised grilling? Fish (whiting) topped with canned asparagus and cheese, that’s what. Not an original recipe, but a new departure for me personally. I am pleased to say it was successful. Not perfect (and I’ve made some mental notes for next time) but definitely successful.
To see a photograph, click on this thumbnail.
P.S. Some cauliflower, heated in the microwave for a few minutes and a pinch of salt added, is a good accompianment.
I cook chicken
Every now and then, I write about things I eat (e.g. here). Not as someone who can advise people on how to cook, but as someone who feels that when food works even for someone of my few skills, it’s worth sharing.
In this post, I’ll describe (with pictures) one way that I like to cook chicken. In summary, I marinate it in the “macadamia satay” from Taylor’s Wild Harvest range, and then sprinkle sliced black Spanish olives on it. Details below.
Drinks and a dessert
One of the posts that I pruned from this blog in June 2007 was about personal preferences to do with drinks and sweet food (e.g. I mentioned that my favourite milkshake flavour is banana-malt, that my favourite softdrink is ginger beer, and so on). In hindsight I included too much detail, but I think some of the things I mentioned are worth saving (particularly the links).
Favourite spelling error
Do you have a favourite spelling error? One that made you cry with sheer delight when you noticed it in print? That you’ve vowed never to tell the perpetrator about lest they fix it and thereby deprive the world of abundant pleasure? That you would like to nominate for a prestigious award? I do, and I’m going to share it. I’m also going to recommend a nice place to eat.
Fruithenge
For old time’s sake, I recreated something with a piece of toast today that I haven’t made for years. Strawberries and grapes atop chocolate spread, like this:
I also had ago at implementing an idea that I thought of years ago but have never actually tried before. Sculpting Stonehenge, out of the above ingredients. This is the best I can do:
It’s not exactly a success story. It’s messy, wastes a lot of fruit, doesn’t look terribly good anyway, and you have to demolish it. But I just had to give it a shot.
A humble bowl of food
I’ve decided to do a food post. Not because anyone should listen to my opinions about food, but because my cooking and eating habits are one aspect of my lifestyle, and therefore a suitable topic for this blog. The meal I’ll be describing tonight is one that I prepare regularly, and belongs in the same order of sheer highclassness as, say, instant porridge. While describing this meal, I will make some parenthetical remarks about some of the ingredients, and I will also display some photographs.
(I originally got the idea for this meal, incidentally, from money-saving at a university refectory. Its evolutionary ancestor is baked potato covered in beef sauce, cheese and lettuce, but one day I realised it was cheaper to ask for potato chips instead of baked potato. I made other changes - such as changing the greens from lettuce to watercress - after I started cooking it for myself.)
Indispensible kitchen implements
This post is about some of the implements in the kitchen that are, in my opinion, widely underrated and not as common as they might be. I’ll cover three: the convection microwave, the rotary cheesegrater, and the old-fashioned bottle opener.
