Monthly Archives: December 2019

This one did not

A Christmas interview

In my final post for the year, I’ve decided to treat myself.

Yes, this is yet another interview selfishly-appropriated for my own personal needs.

This one comes from the Brisbane News, which is a property guide delightfully tarted up as a free lifestyle magazine. I like it because it is fancy in an accessible way – I may never be able afford the lifestyle the classy women in these pages lead, but I could walk past the places they like to go. I snagged this glossy-paged gem when I took myself out for breakfast at a place that makes carrot jam and sells expensive preserves before getting a haircut, which really speaks to the bougie millennial I undeniably am.

As the universe’s present to me, this special festive edition has three Christmas-themed questionnaires, where “style setters” share their Yuletide outfits and reveal details from their Christmas pasts.

I’m going to give myself the same treatment as these luxe ladies who holiday at Noosa, dress their children in Ralph Lauren and have very, very different Christmas celebrations to me.

Ho ho ho, here we go:

Dannielle Maguire, 27, Nundah

Online producer who refers to herself as “a writer” when she wants to feel whimsical, newspaper ranter and occasional garage sale merchant

Where will you be on Christmas Day?I’m going to start the day early at the Maguire House in Clifton and, when it gets too hot, we’ll migrate to my eldest sister’s house in Toowoomba as it has better air con flow.

What will you be wearing? In the morning I’ll be wearing my festive pyjamas, which will no doubt be damp with my morning musk, but have sweet little deer wearing red bows around their necks. Then, when we’ve finished opening presents and carrying on at about 10am, I’ll change into a pair of high-waisted denim shorts, some earrings shaped like prawns and a sweet button-up Christmas shirt my sisters and I found hanging in the toyroom wardrobe at my Grandma’s house after her funeral. It’s red with holly leaves and bright green buttons and seems like Grandma made it to be accessorised with a XXXX heavy.

What makes a good festive outfit: It’s all about the statement earrings. The gaudier, the better.

What’s your process? Picking out something I can post on Instagram that will reinforce my I’m-not-like-other-girls-I’m-funny-and-a-little-bit-country-but-not-too-country brand. Usually this means scouring discount shops for garish gear or saving op-shop gems, but I think the whole Grandma-made-this vibe will really elevate things this year.

Is there a favourite frock you can recall? I know I’m going hard on the Grandma-made-this thing, but when I was a little girl, Grandma made us all Christmas dresses with matching scrunchies and sweet baby cheeses was that wholesome.

What’s the best gift you’ve received? When we were little, my sisters and I were given a motorised go-cart, which probably went faster than those eclectic scooters everyone rides around on in Southbank. We would drive it around in the spare paddock and up and down the nature strip on our street feeling like hot shit. We were an extremely popular family after that.

The worst? My sister gave me a set of four cat figurines, which I kind of love, but am not allowed to part with. It’s funny, because she makes all these comments about me being a hoarder, but has made it clear I’ve got to keep this gift. As such I have to display these weird, smiling wooden cats in my room, which I can only imagine would be quite unnerving for guests. I mean, paired with my Harry Potter figurines and the swans I have dotted around the place, this really undoes all the work I do trying to convince people that I’m not a deranged sicko.

 Your favourite Christmas traditions? Pretending that I’m going down for a nap when I’m really just staring at the ceiling for about half an hour, enjoying the oasis of solitude in an ocean of forced togetherness.

I also really enjoy taking myself out for a slice of pie or a red wine while listening to sad Christmas songs on my headphones and looking out windows wistfully. I love pretending I have a broken heart, but it’s especially delicious at Christmas time.

Fave festive flick? At the moment, I’m going to say Sleepless in Seattle. It’s not explicitly a Christmas movie but Meg Ryan sings some carols, there’s festive lighting and I love the way Rosie O’Donnell eats in it.

What’s on the menu this year? Gingerbread bickies, cherries and, hopefully, a bunch of prawns – otherwise my tacky earrings won’t make any sense.

Favourite Christmas carol? Oh Holy Nightor Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – the latter being the perfect pretend heartbreak carol.

Fondest Christmas memory? Giving Dad a “who cares?” look when he tried to get us excited about the go-cart when there was a Barbie Picnic Van under the tree. In my defence, it was a pink station wagon with a barbecue on the back, which is what dreams are made of. The go-cart obviously was much, much better, but it took us some time for us to realise this. Sorry Macca.

 

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Food fights

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, December 11, 2019

Alright, we’re coming into a special time of the year when we’re mingling with more people than usual.

It usually means the presence of arancini balls and fairy lights, which is awesome. But all the deep-fried risotto and ethereal lighting in the world cannot take away from the fact that, at the pointy end of the year, there can be lot of heated arguments.

Because when you corral together a bunch of family members of varying ages and backstories who don’t see each other that much and ply them with festive beverages, the opinions tend to come spewing out.

It’s not unexpected. When you’re stuck in a room/festively-decorated shed/backyard with a group of people and you run out of things to talk about, someone’s bound to fill the void with a hot take about current events.

There’s so much for people have opinions about. And that’s great – people having strong opinions about the way our country is run and voicing those views is how democracy works. If we didn’t share our views and were ignorant of what’s going on, our democratic society would eventually crumble into some kind of authoritarian regime. Opinions matter. Being an active member of our democratic society matters.

But political and philosophical debates can sometimes unravel into all-out blues when they take place in hot kitchens, when the esky is half-drained and there’s a bunch of screaming kids in the background.

Christmas time, perhaps, isn’t the best time to be pushing your views about climate change/water management/franking credits/millennials vs Baby Boomers/land clearing laws/veganism… I could go on forever. Your opinions are valid, but geez, now is not the time to voice them.

But, let’s face it, a bit of verbal argy bargy makes for an interesting conversation. It’s fun, it gets people talking and distracts you from the sweat pooling up under the folds of your December flab.

The key is to stick to topics that won’t break up the family. Something that everyone has an informed opinion on. Something mild that evokes passionate debate. Something that will give you a chance to put your case forward without deeply insulting people you’re related to or leaving you open to an ideological assault.

My favourite topic to debate without fracturing families? Food.

If you’re someone who likes an argument, here are some extremely trivial, food-based topics of discussion to diffuse a tense family affair:

Which way the sausage should go on a single piece of bread? Whether the saussie is packed with chickpeas or the thigh offcuts of Miss Piggy is irrelevant. The real meat of this question is: diagonal or straight across? We all know diagonal is the norm, but should because something is, does it mean it should be? Why diagonal? Is this a mere convenience or is it actually the best way to enjoy a cylindrical item wrapped in bread? Should saus to bread ratio be constant? There’s more to this issue than you’d think.

What should be smeared on the scone first – jam or cream? Jam first, cream second? Or is it cream first, jam second? This argument has been raging for years and has yet to result in the formal split of the United Kingdom, so hopefully your family can withstand the battle.

Does a pie need sauce? Some would say that a pie is nothing without a good squirt of tomato sauce. Others would agree, going on to say that, if a pie doesn’t taste good without sauce, it must not be a very good pie. Are we just deluding ourselves into thinking we like the taste of pies when we’re really only in it for the sauce? Are we living a lie? Who does this lie serve? Are we all being manipulated by Big Pie? And why are they shacked up with Big Sauce?!

Which bickies should be hard and which ones should be soft? You might be tempted to immediately put yourself into team crunchy or team chewy, but the world is more complex than that. I mean, would you really want a soft Jatz? And do you want to be cutting your mouth on a triple chunk choc brownie bickie? What if you want to dunk in milk? What about bickies in the context of ice cream sandwiches? You might find you have more in common with those on the other side of the fence than you first thought.

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Friday night peanut yolkers

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, December 4

I started making these bickies on a Friday night while I was waiting for an ill-fated pav to cook.

I had an open bottle of red wine, was home alone and was free to take over the kitchen, so I decided to make the most of it. I also had my laptop open to jot down notes about what I was doing. A few weeks have passed and I’m now ready to turn those garbled letters into some form of recipe-like piece of writing.

I do ask for your patience, because the notes from that evening look like of like the script for a slam poetry performance, so stitching it together into something coherent took a bit of work.

Step one: Make a pavlova that calls for the use of four egg whites, saving the four yolks in a container for later. Ensure you a wearing an apron tied up around your middle and Nora Jones is playing in the background, to make this a classy affair.

Step two: Pour yourself a glass of wine and sip until you find yourself in the Christmas spirit, despite it being mid November.

Step three: Research what to do with leftover yolks and decide the sugar cookies you’ve seen pop up a few times in the search results seem easy enough to replicate.

Step four: Decide to go four-wheel-driving in the kitchen. You’re not going to need a map to get where you’re going; all you need is your gut instinct and few ingredients from your housemates’ shelf in the pantry.

Step five: Open the fridge and see you only have a little bit of butter left. Decide to use three heaped tablespoons of your own salted butter, leaving a little left for your toast the following morning. Then take two heaped tablespoons of your housemates’ tubbed “extra soft butter” which apparently has 25 per cent less fat (and 75 per cent less soul) than the normal stuff. Cream in a food processor with three quarters of a cup of brown sugar, stopping every now and then for wine sips and to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Step six: Add in a few drops of vanilla essence and then blend again.

Step seven: Add the four egg yolks and chuckle to yourself just as Nora sings “my poor heart” in Turn Me Turn and the tie around the middle of your apron comes off. These aren’t heart-smart bickies. Beat again.

Step eight: Have a taste and loudly declare “holy… sheet, that is reeeeeally bloody good” in your outside voice.

Step nine: Add two tablespoons of peanut butter. I used the natural kind, which has only peanuts on its ingredients list (not sure if a list with just one item qualifies as a list, but whatever) as it’s what my housemates had in the pantry. Add a quarter of a cup of salted peanuts and blitz.

Step 10: Notice how chunky the mixture is and sing “hey there chunky boi” in the same tune as Georgy Girl. Yeah, you’ve moved on to your second glass of bad, bad wine and you woke up at 4am. You’re a little tipsy right now.

Step 11: Add one cup of cup of rye flour and a quarter of a cup of oats, another quarter of a cup of salted peanuts and blend.

Step 12: Put on Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas is You. Again, you have had wine and no dinner.

Step 13: See the mixture is pretty claggy, so melt another tablespoon of the imposter butter and knead through, using just one hand so you can still sip from your glass with out getting gunk on it.

Step 14: Decide you want there to be a bit of fluff to these boys, so add half a teaspoon of baking soda. Now, I’m certain I added a small amount of self-raising flour here, but that’s missing from my notes. I’m going to take a punt and say I added a third of a cup, because the measurement cup was already dirty.

Step 15: Knead again, moistening further with a teaspoon of the imitation butter, which melted a little because you left it on the bench on a warm summer’s night.

Step 16: Skip the Mariah Carey playlist to Hero and belt out your highest notes while you roll the peanut gunge into ball and place them on a tray. Flatten them slightly with the back of a fork.

Step 17: Put in a moderate oven for 16 minutes, rotating the trays about seven minutes in.

Step 18: Eat the tiny tester bickie you made specifically to sample straight out of the oven with the last of your wine while watching a Netflix Christmas movie. I went with Let It Snow, but there are many, many underwhelming Christmas movies you could go with instead. You can’t work out if it’s good or not yet, but you don’t hate it and that’s good enough for you at this point in your life.

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Reunion CV

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, November 27, 2019

I’m staring down the barrel of my 10-year high school reunion.

Reunions, as I’ve learned from a lifetime of watching Romy and Michelle’s high School Reunion, offer the chance for redemption, bragging and showing off your interpretive dance moves.

They also make you reflect on what you’ve become, whether you’re happy with who you are and how you’ve spent the past decade of your life.

And while I’m thrilled I’ve finally learned that side fringes and greasy foreheads don’t make for a smart mix, I was keen to assess what else I have achieved since leaving school.

There are, of course, many measures of success, but not many of them are very good.

The most obvious one is about finance and career. Having a business card and using phrases like “investment portfolio” does sound pretty cool. But one person’s measure of career success are starkly different to the next person’s. To some people, my career might seem pretty alright, while others might think it’s not all that crash hot.

Then there’s relationships. I mean, sure, some people might thing that I’m not married with children is a little sad, but others might view me as a free spirit with a heart like a wild brumby that cannot be tamed.

And I don’t want to judge myself based on possessions. This isn’t because I’m a non-materialistic person. I am a material girl. I love stuff and I’m very sentimental about objects, to the point that my sister is a little concerned. It’s because, again, people’s measures of impressiveness vary. I know a few people who think my collection of novelty swan figurines is cool, while others find it unspeakably dumb.

Not to sound preachy, but if you try to grade yourself on other people’s measures of success, you’re always going to miss the mark somewhere along the line. So you’re better off figuring out your own criteria and judging yourself against that.

At this point in time, my metric of success is having interesting stories to tell, stories that would make me sound like a wild bit of gear when I tell them to my grandchildren (should I ever produce fertile offspring, that is). I mean, you could argue that this is fuelled by my desire to appear cool, and you would not be wrong there.

So I’ve collated a list of the coolest things I did each year since I graduated, which took a bit of digging through old photos to jog my memory. Social media had just became a thing as I was making my way into adulthood, so I didn’t have to rummage through shoe boxes of photos – this saved me a bit of time, but I feel this would have been more dramatic than scrolling through images with my laptop sitting on my stomach.

2010: Made a paper mache Golden Snitch helmet and paired it with a yellow tracksuit to wear to a Harry Potter movie premier.

2011: Was the first girl to do a keg stand a party where girls were only invited to look pretty (I was my friend Megan’s plus one, in case you were wondering how I got in there).

2012: Was one of two people who started the first ever d-floor at a UQ Wine and Cheese Club event. I’d arrived a little late and, just as I entered the room, the delightful Michael Bublé song Everything started, which was mine a friend’s favourite song at the time. She was on the other side of the room and just happened to have locked eyes with me as the Bubes started singing. We danced towards each other into the centre of the room and our graceful moves prompted others to join in. She was later told that this was the first time in recent memory that a dance floor erupted at an official club function, so we essentially made history.

2013: Was chucked on the shoulders of some enthusiastic guy during Dammit at the Blink 182 concert I went to with all three of my sisters.

2014: According to my Instagram account, cooked hot cross scones.

2015: I was dubbed, and I quote, Queen of the Dino Snacks by Steggles’ social media team for arranging dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets into an edible diorama with broccoli trees and a sweet potato volcano spewing out gravy lava. I was never officially coronated or given a crown, but I did receive 18 kilos of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

2016: Made the guy who sings Eagle Rock sign my shoe and drink some of my rosé.

2017: I vomited nine metres underwater. Twice. And didn’t die.

2018: Swam in the Irish ocean in April. That was cool, but mostly in the temperature sense.

2019: That remains to be seen.

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Friday night pav

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, November 20

I had a Friday night off. I had the house to myself. So you bet I was going to do some baking.

I’d promised Grandma I’d attempt making her a pavlova having just recently seen Nigella Lawson cooking one on her show and decided that Friday night was the night. I was going to do to it.

Luckily, I have Nigella’s How To Eat, which has a nice, basic pav recipe that I learnt was adapted from Stephanie Alexander. It was our own Australian kitchen queen who came up with the best pav tip I’ve ever heard – turning it upside down to pile the cream on the soft, goey underbottom and leave the crust which formed on top to contain the creamy slop. My words, of course, not hers.

Here’s how I spent my evening, should you chose to replicate it:

Step One: Put on some Nora Jones. You’re a mature woman now, the kind who bakes thoughtful desserts and attends Tupperware parties and buys high thread count sheets (when they are heavily, heavily discounted, but still, you care about yourself). You deserve some Nora.

Step Two: Consider lighting a scented candle but light a citronella coil instead because the mozzies have infiltrated the house because beautiful old Queenslander houses apparently don’t have flyscreens to keep them out. I’m sorry, but how superior can this home design be if it doesn’t keep the mozzies out?! You shouldn’t need to light citronella coils inside your home. I personally quite like the smell citronella gives off, but that’s not the point.

Step Three: Pour yourself a glass of red, because it is Friday night after all and you’re a classy woman, remember?

Step Four: Question if the wine you’re drinking is bad, considering you opened it more than a month ago and there’s winey residue stuck to the inside of the bottle.

Step Five: Drink regardless. You don’t know what good wine tastes like anyway.

Step Six: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Step Seven: Break four egg whites into a bowl, using your hands as the separator so you can enjoy the feeling of goo in your hands. Delight in how soothingly gross this process is. Collect the yolks in a container and refrigerate – you’ll deal with them later.

Step Eight: Look for salt to sprinkle in and realise your household is too extra for normal table salt. Decide that the crumbly French stuff might be better than the pink Himalayan rock salt and the peri peri salt. Hope for the best.

Step Nine: Realise you don’t have a stand mixer and the food processor probs won’t be the best thing to beat air into your whites, so arm yourself with a whisk, take a deep breath and beat. Note that Nigella wants you to keep going until you get “satiny peaks”.

Step 10: After four minutes and 11 seconds of beating, swearing and rest breaks*, decide the mixture is satiny and peaky enough and move on to the next step.

* I wouldn’t say that I’m the strongest or fittest woman in the world, but I go to Body Pump enough to delude myself into thinking that my biceps have a bit of go about them. And, sure, I’m a long way off having Michelle Obama’s arms, but I thought it was alright. Whisking these eggs made me realise I have got a long, long way to go. The experience was truly humbling and completely exhausting. 

Step 11: Nigella wanted 250 grams of caster sugar to go in next but you don’t have kitchen scales. Google the conversation and learn one cup of caster sugar is about 225 grams. Measure out a cup and a bit of caster sugar, assuming you’ll be right.

Step 12: Add this in a third at a time, beating those dam eggs again.

Step 13: Nigella says to beat the mixture until it goes stiff and shiny. Decide it looks shiny and is becoming tricky to beat with your very, very tired arm, and assume that’s stiff enough. Never mind that it’s still pretty runny.

Step 14: Sprinkle in two teaspoons of cornflour. The recipe called for a teaspoon of white wine vintager, but there’s only apple cider vinegar in your house, so tip that in and use extra drops of vanilla essence, hoping it covers the taste.

Step 15: Be thankful this just needs to be gently folded in.

Step 16: Note Nigella’s advice to heap this mixture into a circle, attempting to do the same. Also note that your mixture is a bit too runny to heap… it’s more of an ooze.

Step 17: Place in the oven and IMMEDIATELY (Nigella used all caps so I will too) turn it down to 150 degrees. Set your timer for one hour and 15 minutes. Decide you should use this time wisely.

Step 18: Use your time freewheeling a bickie recipe with those old yolks, thinking you’ll really impress the girls at the Tupperware bridal kitchen tea you’re going to tomorrow.

Step 19: Pull it out of the oven even though Nigella says to let it cool completely in the switched off oven. But those bickies need their time in the oven too, so you have to make a sacrifice. Hope the pav won’t take it personally.

Step 20: Realise the pav did take it personally, because it’s more of a flat, crumbly disc than a heaped marshmallowy dream.

Step 21: Decide you’re done for the night, reconcile to cover your disgrace in cream, which you hope will be enough to stop people noticing they’re eating sugary Styrofoam when they tuck in.

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