Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 17, 2019

Well well well, here we are again.

I’ve got a small slot to fill with my dribble this week and that means one thing: you’re looking down the barrel of a totally unprovoked outburst from me about some innocuous, insignificant thing that shouldn’t affect me as much as it does.

This week, it’s the loudness of microwaves.

Now, I get it. The microwave beeps because, once they’re done reheating your food, they want to make you aware of that. They don’t want you to forget that you’ve just warmed your fruitcake to the perfect temperature and they won’t stand idly by while your cake goes so cold that the butter you planned to smear on it doesn’t even melt by the time you remember your treat. It’s excited for you. “Wooooo your food is ready beb,” it shouts out to you in microwave speak, which is a series of piercing beeps.

And, look, that’s a noble goal. But when other people are the house and they’re trying to sleep/watch TV/live their lives in relative harmony, those beeps translate to something else. It’s no longer a friendly reminder, but a declaration to the entire household that you’re tucking into another ill-advised snack. “Oi,” it shouts, with a digital sneer, “this loser is filling up the dark void inside her with slightly-warmed pumpkin scone again!” It’s even worse if the beep sounds late at night, alerting the whole household to the fact that you’re ingesting food at weird times. “Hey!” the malicious microwave shouts, “this scone-scoffer has completely lost control of her life!”

It also has the power to wake housemates from their slumber, transforming using a microwave from a simple act of raising the temperature of food to an act of aggression. It could be interpreted as an audible middle finger to your flatmate, shouting at them that you care more about melted butter than their quality of sleep (I mean, that could very well be true, but you don’t want to go broadcasting that).

No matter what microwave you use, it’s the same thing. Sure, the beeping may be a different tone or the completed cooking time might be alerted via a passive aggressive tune, but the nuke boxes still make some kind of sound.

I don’t understand why this has been allowed to continue for so long. I mean, we have been to the moon, but we can’t have a microwave that doesn’t beep?!

I’m not trying to say that we need to neuter the microwave completely, silencing their robotic voices forever, but I can’t understand why the beep is the norm. I feel like it would be more effort for manufacturers to programme beeps. The beep is a deliberate thing. The powers at be that design microwaves intended for them to screech their obscenities and you have to wonder why we as an opposable-thumb-wielding species haven’t evolved past this.

I try not to be political or push any kind of agenda with this column, but I think I can speak for a great many folk when I say that something must be done. Action must be taken. Enough is enough.

And I’m not saying that I would use one of my three genie wishes on this (unless I was able to get away with wishing for more wishes, in which case it would be a free for all) but I would very much like to have the option to mute my microwave.

A girl can dream.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 11, 2019

Working different hours to the majority of people means you live by a different set of rules.

In the past year I’ve joined the army of shift workers who keep things ticking along while everyone else enjoys eating dinner at a normal time.

There are many are many positives that come with the unusual hours which I have come to depend upon. I mean, I get to go grocery shopping when most people are at work, which means I never have to elbow anyone out of the way to get at the good strawberries. My non-rush-hour public transport commute means I never have to deal with the uncomfortable proximity to other people one dreads in an enclosed space of a sticky Brisbane afternoon.

I have much to be thankful for.

But I have also come to realise that shift work – namely working late shifts – enables some of your worst traits.

Because your hours are different to the normal nine-to-five, it’s like none of the other rules of life apply either. And you have the added bonus of horrified sympathy from those nine-to-fivers who couldn’t fathom functioning beyond 10pm, you practically get a free pass for being a deadbeat. It’s the ultimate excuse for not actively trying not to be the wretched person you are deep down.

While I’m in the midst of a queen-of-the-night stint and am somewhat unable to coax enough intelligible thoughts from my brain to string together a coherent composition, I’ve decided to put together some bullet points detailing some of the behaviours you can get away with when you’re on night shift.

Eating far too much food: I work the same hours when start before dawn as I do when I walk past people enjoying a round of after work drinks on my way to the office. And yet, I still feel the need to have extra food on hand for those late nights strapped to the beast. I always have a handbag full of plastic containers of snackery, as if I were going on a bushwalk and fully expecting to get lost. I regularly find myself having a progressive dinner involving various courses arranged on Tupperware container lid platters. You eat lollies at 11pm. You have second dinners. You order a standard serving of fried chicken as a side dish for your already large meal. You can be reasonable about your approach to food but if let your self-control slip just a little, you find yourself eating like a 12-year-old who has the house to themselves for the weekend for the first time. It’s a slippery slope.

Being terrible at replying to messages: I am genuinely shithouse at responding to messages, but if I’m on a stretch of late shifts, I may as well be texting from the moon. It’s not that I don’t love good chinwag, it’s just that I find typing on smartphones so tiresome. Usually the social norms that dictate the length of time you can leave someone on read without responding pull me into line within a few hours, but night shifts absolve me of those restrictions. Because I can just tell people “sorry, I was on a late shift – am all over the shop!” and suddenly you’re not a lousy mate but a sleepy kitten who just needs a nap. This is especially true if you message people back at the time you finish work.

Being a bit much: Today I decided that we should start calling mangoes “mangs” and sent out a memo advising people to change their behaviour. It was late, so people will be inclined to thing it was late-night delirium instead of a reflection of my true self. I also can get away with repeatedly singing the same line of Kris Jenner’s classic banger I Love My Friends for much longer when I’m on a run of nights. It’s not that I am in any way more tolerable, but people somehow tend to tolerate more of me when they know I’ve been working late.

Dressing like a slob: I think my style could accurately be described as yeah-she’s-definitely-dressing-for-herself, but over the years that self I’m dressing more tends to value comfort over much else. And never is that more evident than when I’m shuffling around in a shawl with a mess bun and a pair of offensively-loud “office socks” on with my sandals. “I’m a creature of the night,” I tell myself, “I am free to be my daggiest self in the shadows”.

Being forgetful: I’ve been let off the hook for forgetting important details of my friends’ lives divulged during in-depth conversations and how to reverse out of a carpark simply because of my “late shift brain”. Somehow, I’ve managed to escape looking like a terrible friend or incompetent human being and am instead seen as a charming hard worker who just needs a little lie down.

It’s not that I’m telling you how to live your lives, but my theory is that, if you want to be an unreliable or ridiculous person, you can get away with much more if you work late shifts.

At least I’m hoping that theory is correct because I’m filing this column at 3.44am and I’d really like to get away with being deemed unreliable and ridiculous, thank you very much.

Originally posted by The Clifton Courier, September 4, 2019

Travel is supposed to open your mind. Expand your horizons. Expose you to a way of living vastly different from your own.

Sometimes this makes you consider changing your ways and sometimes this gives you a renewed appreciation for what you have at home.

The latter was very much the case for me after a few weeks gadding about with my sister. As exhilarating and enlightening as it was, I found myself longing for the comforts of home. The specific comfort I’m referring to, of course, is that of a top sheet.

You see, most of the beds we slept in comprised of a bottom sheet on the mattress and some kind of doona. The top sheet, which acts as the Kraft single in the ham and cheese sandwich that is your bed (your body is the ham in this equation, the mattress and doona being the bread) was absent.

It was quite confronting.

Now, before I go into this, I acknowledge that some people just aren’t top sheet people. And I don’t want to go sparking divisions between those of us who use top sheets and those who don’t. It’s an issue so serious it has the potential to tear a society apart.

But I am very much on team top sheet.

So, each time I found myself without one, I would strip my hotel bed, take the cover off the doona, tuck it in as a top sheet and layer my bare doona on top.

I was willing to risk being aware of just how stained and yellowed the hotel doona was underneath the cover and copping the judgement of housekeeping staff for a solid night’s rest. I mean, I did try to sleep without one, but it was a restless night. There’s no new tricks for this old dog. I’m set in my ways. And I need that extra layer of fabric when I sleep.

Part of this is related to the fact that, even when it’s thigh-sticking-to-the-car-seat hot, I like to be covered in some way while sleeping. Even if it’s an extremely-warn, pretty-much-see-through sheet of cotton, I feel as if that sheet gives me protection from the great unknowns of the darkness.

I know a thin layer of fabric will probably do very little in the way of protecting me from a knife-wielding axe murderer (this baddie is so bad he’s got both a knife and an axe and, in my head, is a hybrid of the huntsman from Disney’s Snow White and the robber from Dennis the Menace) or the spirit of a girl who was trapped down a well and can somehow transport herself around the world via video tapes. It’s highly likely that, if creatures of the darkness can sneak into houses through toilets (that scene in Spiceworld where the paparazzi guy climbs out of the loo haunts me to this very day) or walk through walls, they probably couldn’t be thwarted by a simple bed sheet. They probably wouldn’t say “well, I was going to feast on her flesh buuuuut she’s covered by a sheet, so I guess I’ll just take the steakettes from her fridge and skulk off back to the shadows”.

But if there’s a chance that a sheet will protect me, I’m going to take it.

I also like to have the sheet over my ear, to block out the sound of said sinister beings and to keep mice, bugs and any other small living creatures from crawling into my ears as I sleep.

It’s clearly a habit I developed as a child and, as a grown woman, I cannot see a reason why I should stop now. I mean, the top sheet protective lawyer might do nothing. But it could be the very reason I survived my childhood and was able to blossom into the reasoned, well-adjusted adult I am today.

When we arrived back in the Land Down Under, I was sad our trip had come to an end. No more cherry beers with lunch. No more waffles. No more buying new knickers to put off doing the washing. Those days were behind us.

But the nights I knew I had ahead of me counteracted my case of the post-holiday blues. Because no matter how dull day-to-day life would seem compared to gallivanting abroad, I knew there would be a top sheet waiting for me when I got home.

BONUS MATERIAL

**  Please think of this like a deleted scene in the DVD extras. If you could picture me sitting in front of a camera in a director’s chair, that would be very helpful. **

I did not have room for another reason I’m a team top sheet so I had to cut this out. I had already reached my ever-expanding word limit and didn’t want to start a war by basically implying that people who don’t use top sheets sleep in stink pits. 

I just think that, without the top sheet acting as a piece of cling wrap between you and your doona, that blanket is going to get stanky. Yes, stank. Not stink. Stank is a little more than a bad odour. It’s a combination of your dead skin cells flaking off, sweat and all the sins you committedbeing purged from your body in the form of pungent noxious gasses. When you have a top sheet, I imagine it soaks all the gunk up like a paper towel under a pile of freshly-fried schnitties. But without a top sheet to seal it in, all that filth is leaching into the fibres of your doona.

Unless you’re into basting in your own filth, you want to wash your bedding rather regularly. When you’re operating on the two-sheet systems, it’s relatively pain free.

But washing a doona cover and airing it out? That’s a lot of effort.

Shaking the doona out of the oversized pillow case it comes in is annoying, but stuffing it back in there after cleaning is the real hassle. You have to match up the corners and make sure there’s no bunching up, which involves a lot of vigorous shaking, cursing and questioning why you do these things.

Thanks to a top sheet, I only really ever wash my sooner cover if I spill something extremely noticeable on it. And, sure, you could argue that’s just as unhygienic and I’m sleeping underneath a blanket of germs, but I prefer not to do any research into issue in case that turns out to be exactly the case. I enjoy living in ignorance, thank you very much. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, August 28, 2019

Right, so this is the last of the pre-prepared recipe posts, and it’s as grim as you’d expect. 

This week’s challenge ingredients include:

A whole discounted chicken: I’ve been right into my roast chookies lately so when I see a pretty birdy for half price, I pounce on that headless lump of flesh. I’d had this one in the freezer and, as the countdown to my departure date was in single digits, I decided to take it out, cook it and use it as my main source of protein for the week.

The dregs of some Greek yoghurt: I worship this thick dairy slop and always have at least one container in the fridge at a time. At that point in time, I had one-and-a-bit. I had to make a dent in it.

A lemon half that was starting to turn: A lady at work was going through a bit of a citrus surplus and offloaded them in the office. I grabbed two, when I really only needed one.

Some market-bought dukkah: Dukkah is a delicious Egyptian blend of herbs, nuts and spices and really makes a poached egg sing, but the stuff I bought tastes more like the seasoning mix from Maggi two minute chicken noddles.

Inspiration:

I’ve been reading Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat by Samin Nosrat and my girl Sam is a big preacher of the tenderising powers of salt and freeballing it in the kitchen without needing recipe. I have to say, her meat salting tip has changed my life (and, let’s be honest, probably has shortened it too, due to the sharp increase in my salt intake). Her recipe for a roast chook calls for buttermilk, but she says yoghurt is fine – I mean, probs go for a natural, plain yoghurt instead of a chocolate Yogo or raspberry ripple, but I’m sure anything goes, right?

I also adapted a rice salad from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty More for the stuffing.

How to do what I did:

Tip one tablespoon of salt straight into the yoghurt tub, I’m guessing there was about half a cup of yoghurt in there. Next, dump in three tablespoons of the dukkah dust – two tablespoons would have been fine, but I was trying to get rid of the stuff.

Mix that up with a fork and then grab yourself a plastic bag – I like to use saved bread bags because they’re a nice snug fit for chickens and it means less waste. Now, dollop about half the salted dairy into the bag and then slip in the chicken.

Take a second to appreciate how satisfying that was.

Dollop in the rest of the mix and then smoosh (a technical culinary term) the chicken around in the mix until it’s all covered. Samin says to let this marinate overnight, but I didn’t have the time and only did this pre-marinating regime at lunchtime so don’t feel bad if you don’t pull an overnighter. However, I do highly recommend an overnight soaking – it changes everything.

After you’ve let your chicken soak, it’s time to make the stuffing. But first, preheat the oven to 220 degrees.

Get a handful of nuts– I had almonds and cashews in the pantry, but I feel like any nuts will do the trick. Chop them roughly.

Grab a frypan and fire it up on a medium heat. Chuck in about a tablespoon of butter and a few sprigs of thyme and maybe some sage if it’s not dead until it starts smelling great in the kitchen. Chuck in the nuts, a large pinch of salt and a glug of olive oil. Once they start warming, add a handful of pine nuts, stirring gently. As they brown, add a handful of dried cranberries (I had to buy more cranberries because I used my leftovers in the cranberry drops, but I reason that I’ll eat them as snacks on the plane so I can live with that).

Tip into a large bowl.

Add maybe another teaspoon of butter to the pan, the heat right down and place in a quartered onion, cut sides down. Let them soak up all dem juices. Turn after a few minutes.

Cook a microwavable packet of rice (I went for a wild rice medley because it’s got this rustic flavour that makes me feel like a woman in a lifestyle magazine) according to the instructions on the pack. Dump into the bowl.

Scrape all the contents of the frypan into the bowl and give everything a good mix.

Let the chicken out of the bag, wiping off as much of the dairy sludge as you can.

Find a way to sit it butt-faced-up, so that where its head should be is pointing down. Tip the rice mix into the cavity where its organs once were, trying not to think of where those organs are now.

Block off the void with half a lemon and secure the citrus bung in place by daintily crossing the chook’s legs over the opening and tying with colourless string. Whack that in an oven tray deep enough to bake a slice in.

Save any of the leftover stuffing for lunch the following day – you can chuck in some shredded chicken with some spinach and Bob’s-my-godfather, you have a gourmet salad.

Once you’re ready to cook the bird, Samin has some specific instructions but, honestly, I just chucked it into the oven. I know, it’s a bit radical – no oil, no butter, just skin and the memory of yoghurt. But trust me.

Reduce the heat to 200 after like 20 minutes, rotate the pan and then let it go until it gets brown all over. All up, it’s in the oven for about an hour.

Let it rest before carving, partly because it’s what you’re supposed to do and partly because it’s too hot to handle.

Carve the chook and serve to friends with roast veggies, or, if it’s a dinner for one, just sit there and pick at it until you despise yourself a little and have to put a fridge door between you and the succulent bird.

Keep returning to the carcass for leftover meals until there’s nothing left.

This week’s challenge ingredients include:

Cream cheese: I had one rye bagel leftover in the freezer and couldn’t not eat it with a slathering of creamy smear, strawberries and honey. Life is there to be lived and bagels are there to be smeared. Unfortunately, with a lack of bagels, the cream cheese just sat in my fridge.

Half a packet of fine semolina flour: I bought this when I was making vanilla slice from scratch, because I’m fancy like that. I also made another vanilla slice from a packet mix, which seemed to go quicker than my homemade stuff. Probably because my friends are fools who wouldn’t know a good slice if it slapped them in the face. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Shredded coconut: This was also a slice ingredient from months back. I like sprinkling this on my yoghurt, but because it was buried under other stuff, I didn’t know I had it and it went uneaten.

Margarine: I’m usually quite an anti-margarine person. I needed this for gingerbread and hid it at the back of the fridge so I wouldn’t have to look at it every time I went for a glass of milk. But eventually I found it and, even though I think it is mediocrity in congealed form, it still deserves to be used rather than chucked in the bin.

Coconut essence: I honestly hate myself for forgetting I had this stuff; coconut is the best flavour.

Inspiration:

First off, I had to Google just what the heck one can do with semolina. As it turns out, it makes for a nice cake. I stumbled upon one recipe with yoghurt and coconut from someone who just goes by Layla on a website called GimmeDelicous. It’s called basbousa aka harissa and the pictures made it look like the perfect cuppa accompaniment. I of course tweaked it, because I had to work with what I had and I’m a bit of a loose unit like that.

How to do what I did:

Straight off the bat, I went rogue. I decided to use up the cream cheese in place of the yoghurt or sour cream Layla suggested. I figured cream cheese was close enough. I Googled “cream cheese sour cream alternative” and learned that mixing cream cheese with a bit of lemon juice and milk does the trick.

So I tipped exactly 156 grams of cream cheese into my food processor, along with 27 grams of lemon juice (yes, I’m aware that’s not the way to measure liquid, but I was using scales and this just seemed easier than dirtying a measuring jug) and a tablespoon of milk.

Then I melted 133 grams of margarine in a large mixing bowl in the microwave. The recipe called for two cups of coarse semolina, but I only had one and a half cups of fine semolina, so I added that. I think the yoghurt/sour cream/vague dairy mix and butter measurements were off too, so I didn’t think it would matter too much.

I next added one cup of shredded coconut, a third of a cup of caster sugar and a teaspoon of baking soda and gave it a stir. Next, I added the yoghurt alternative, two tablespoons of coconut essenceand the zest from the lemon I just squeezed.

I gave it a mix and it turned into this weird, airy kind of dough. I pressed it into a slice tin and put it in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for about 30 minutes. You’re supposed to let it go brown but I think that’s because you’re also supposed to make a sugar syrup to drizzle over the top, which keeps it moist. But I like things slightly undercooked and couldn’t be arsed to make a sugar drizzle, so I ripped it out at the first sign of bronzing.

I quite enjoyed my first piece, but I quickly realised its dryness made very much a slice rather than a cake. I have a feeling more liquid would have changed this but, to be honest, I don’t mind a good dry slice.

I didn’t have any on me, but I reckon topping this with lemon curd would lift it from an average slice you eat like a Chiko roll to a dainty morning tea item you eat off a saucer with a cake fork.