Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 4, 2020

There’s lots of little things that irritate us.

I am a full time resident of the Internet, a place where people debate politics, reconnect with long lost friends and learn about the world around them without having to actually go anywhere. It’s also a place where people complain. A lot. 

And one thing I see people complaining about quite a bit is the sound of other people eating. There are many, many memes dedicated to this gripe.

And, look, fair enough.

There is a condition where people experience negative emotional reactions to specific sounds. It’s called Misophonia and it doesn’t sound like much fun at all. While the negative emotion triggered by a specific sound can be anger – something that’s very much reflected in the memes I’ve seen – research suggests stress, anxiety and the feeling of being trapped can also be triggered by sounds in people with the condition. So, yeah, not a lot of fun. 

But I gotta tell ya, I really don’t mind the sound of chewing all that much. I mean, I don’t want to see someone slurping up hot yoghurt or anything, but chewing sounds don’t seem to bother me. In fact, the sound of someone else crunching on something can be quite pleasant. Soya crisps – those things that look like musk sticks except biscuity – produce the most satisfying sound.

But there are a bunch of other sounds that do really, really irk me. I realise that listing them here is pretty much giving someone a set of instructions on how to rub me up the wrong way, so I may live to regret this:

Something being dragged across carpet: Just thinking about it makes me skin crawl. You know how when you think about paper cuts and it just makes you wince? That’s what carpet dragging does to me. I rationalise that it’s probably because I’d have some pretty intense carpet burn before and the sound reminds me of the unpleasant heat and confusing pain of it, but it feels like there’s something deep within my soul that morally objects to the sound. Like, I have nothing against carpet as a floor covering. It’s soft to the foot and helps to silence unnecessary sounds. But the fibre-y grind of something dragging across it is just downright profanity. What makes this worse is that one of my sisters loves rubbing her feet across carpet. I can’t say if this is in response to my extreme dislike of the sound but I will say that she does mostly keep it to a minimum when I’m around.

Dentist drills: I don’t think I need to explain this. Dentists are great. And I know there’s a purpose for drilling. But no amount of reassurance is going to make this sound any less distressing. 

People mispronouncing Allora: I don’t come across it al that much, but occasionally you’ll hear a news reporter or a friend unfamiliar with the area pronounce it as A-law-rah. And, look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Allora is the Shelbyville to Clifton’s Springfield (depending on where you’re from, you may swap around the names) in that it’s our rival town. But it’s a friendly rivalry. Kind of like it’s our sibling – we do share a footy team, after all. And just like your own siblings, you can hang s— on each other until the proverbial cows come home, but as soon as someone else picks on them, there’s hell to pay. So when I hear someone disrespecting the town that doesn’t even have it’s own footy clubhouse (cop that!) I feel compelled to step in.

Running water just going down the sink: I know that water needs to be used. I get it. But I just can’t handle the sound of water just going down the drain for no real purpose. This ranges from a drip to a full on jet of water. I know someone who likes to keep the water running when they brush their teeth because the running water means the spittle they cough up is flushed down the drain faster and it’s infuriating. It takes every gram of self control I posses not to storm in and turn off the tap. But I do continue to remind them about that time not that long ago when we used to have to take four-minute showers.

Someone saying “oh yeah, we’ve run out of milk”: It’s not so bad getting a text message to that effect while you’re in the shops, but hearing it when you’ve just got home and you’re fangin’ for a cup of tea after a long day is nothing short of soul crushing.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 28, 2020

Ok, so it’s been while since I’ve done a recipe and in recent weeks I haven’t done anything exciting enough to get a column out of it, so I’m going to tell you about making macaroons.

* Yeah sooo I know someone pretty fantastic who says “it’s not shit” instead of “it’s not bad” when trying to describe something that’s actually pretty damn good. The slang has rubbed off on my, and now it’s part of my vernacular. I say it so much, my housemate even said it the other day.

Now, don’t go thinking these are those fancy French biscuits that used to be all the rage when Masterchef first started. I don’t have the skill or patience to pull them off. And, look, I’m not saying I hate them, but they’re not my favourite things. Like, I’ll eat them if they’re around, but I’d probs opt for a croissant or a vanilla slice (although I think the French would have a fancier name for it) if confronted with them as choices at a little patisserie. Perhaps it’s because I think they think they’re better than me. And, look, they definitely are, but I just don’t think they deserved all the hype.

Anyway, macaroons are the macron’s more laid back Italian cousin. 

I got right into them recently after watching my spiritual guide Nigella Lawson cook them on one of her shows.

The recipe was in her first book How To Eat, which is some 500 pages and has no pictures – as a comparison, I’d say it was as thick as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Anyway, in the book she talks about ways to use up egg whites if you’re cooking something that only demands the yolks. She’s not one to waste anything, and she inspires her readers/followers/disciples not to either.

Anyway I’ve tweaked her recipe to make it my own, which is to say that I added a few extra ingredients without changing the process in any way, shape or form. 

So, you need 150 grams of ground almonds which, I admit, isn’t what most of us would class as a pantry staple. The stuff can be pretty exxy, especially because it’s billed as a flour alternative. In fact, I also use shelled pistachio nuts in this recipe, which I acknowledge is also among the fancier nuts. So, if you’ve ever had a sneaking suspicion I’m a bit of a wanker, perhaps you have reason to. 

Anyway, before you do anything, preheat your oven to 160 degrees. This recipe doesn’t take long to chuck together, so you might want to do it a little bit ahead of time. You need 150 grams of ground almond and, while Nigella calls for 200 grams I reckon 150 grams of caster sugar is probably quite enough (insert joke about being sweet enough here). Chuck this in a bowl with two egg whites and mix. 

I’d use a mixing machine of some kind because I’m lazy, but I can’t see why you’d need machinery to do the work for you for any other reason. It doesn’t really need to be whipped all that much. 

Then she calls for a teaspoon of almond extract, but I don’t have that in my pantry and I find that sometimes almond flavouring tastes kind of medicine-y. So I go with one teaspoon of coconut essence.

When I actually went back and looked at the book, I noticed she also says to chuck in a tablespoon of flour, but after making a few batches, this addition is news to me so I’m going to just ignore that. 

Instead, I’m going to tell you to added two tablespoons of shredded or desiccated coconut – I don’t think it matters either way, so long as you’re not scooping out the flesh of the coconut, but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad?

Anyway, mix all this up and then once you have a gluey-coloured kind of paste, wet your hands with water, pinch out about a tablespoon of the stuff at a time, roll them into little balls and place on a lined backing tray. I mean, you could use flour to stop the mixture from sticking to your hands, but I always find that a little wet spritzing is less messy. 

Then once you’ve rolled them all out, press a few pistachios on top. I like to do a little flower-like arrangement, but you do what feels best to you. you don’t even have to add them if you don’t want to. I’ve got no qualifications to be telling you how to live your life. 

Then chuck them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Leave them on the baking tray to cool for a bit before puling them off, otherwise they’ll stick to the paper. 

Serve these to your friends and family after telling them that, yes, they’re supposed to be a little chewy and if they can’t handle that, then they should take a long, hard look at themselves in the mirror.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 21, 2020

When mowing a communal lawn, where should you draw the line?

I make no secrets of the fact that I love mowing the lawn. I also like a bit of easy listening Fleetwood Mac. I like going to pubs where you can hear what other people are saying. I’ve caught myself thinking “oooh that would be a lovely place for a cup of tea” while watching Scream… I still watch Scream. I know I’m no longer classed as a “young adult”. I’ve reached that age, and I’m ok with it.

Mowing the lawn is a bit of a mid-week treat for me, except when I get out to the nature strip. Because there’s a lot to think about. 

Take, for example, a mowing expedition many moons ago. 

My house doesn’t have a paved driveway, so it’s just all grass between both neighbours’ driveways either side. There’s no clear border dividing the nature strip between houses, and when I tried to line up the mower with the fence line, I realised I’d overshot it by a metre or so. So I kept on going up to their driveway and then, thinking it’d be rude not to do it on the other side, when up to the boundary of my other neighbour’s yard. 

But then I was struck with a moral quandary, as I often am. Was this the right thing to do?

I mean, I don’t want to be cutting anyone’s grass, figuratively speaking. Because what if they were saving that job for the weekend and were really, really looking forward to the feeling of satisfaction of mowing the lawn. Am I robbing them of not only a weekend activity, but a sense of pride? What if they really needed that self-esteem boost and I just chopped them down like a rogue tuft of dandelions in the middle of a backyard?

I mean, I personally was a little disappointed when my housemate last mowed the lawn, because it meant it would be another week (well, I actually did it six days later, but we’d had a bit of rain so I think it was justified) before I could break out the mower again.  

And, let’s be honest, neighbourly relations can be highly political. There’s a lot of different ways someone could take a neighbour mowing their nature strip. 

Sure, there’s a school of thought that mowing a nature strip for your neighbour is a nice thing to do. You’re saving them the trouble of having to drag clunky piece of machinery around in the hot sun. You’re saving them making apologetic grimaces at passers by who get a few flicks of grass on their crisp white sneakers. You’re saving them from getting those sticky black weed seed things on their legs as they walk from the car to their home after a long day at work. You’re just a neighbourly person with a bit too much energy and a newfound obsession with cutting grass. 

But there are other ways it could be taken. 

It could be taken as a passive aggressive move, not so subtly telling your neighbours that they’re filthy grubs who need to clean up their act. That you’re sick of seeing their messy habits on display via a nature strip. That they’re bringing down the value of the entire street with their filthy un-lawn-mowing ways. It could be taken as a bold declaration that you think they’re incredibly lazy and that you’re better than them because you actually pull your finger out and get stuff done.

But, then, what if I’d mowed just my patch, what kind of message does that send? It would easily be interpreted as extremely petty, going right up to your fence line and only your fence line, especially when there’s a dividing driveway not far from your property boundaries. This might project hostility, in that you’re not willing to assist your neighbours, as well as a certain air of arrogance that goes beyond garden pride.

Would this be considered bad diplomacy? 

In the end, I reasoned that I’d made the right choice. If I’d half mowed one neighbour’s nature strip, I may as well have finished it. And I had to do the other neighbour’s side because I didn’t want to be accused of forming an alliance with one side and spurning the other. 

I just hope they never, ever return the favour, because I really don’t like it when someone cuts my grass, not figuratively speaking and absolutely not literally speaking. 

Keep off my lawn.