Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 17, 2020

There’s so many things I’ve had to actively un-teach myself about life based on lessons I unconsciously soaked up from movies and television.  

And, look, I’m not just talking about the ridiculous personality distorting ones about women and their sexuality or women and their weight or women and… well, basically everything most movies imply about women. That’s a whole other column. Or two.

I’m talking about more trivial things I’ve picked up from movies that aren’t true to life. 

Like, I understand that movies can’t follow all the mundane goings on of the main characters’ lives. We’re not going to see their uneventful trips to the shops where they don’t run into their big love or the times they look out the window and there isn’t a heartthrob staring up at them with a boom box over their head. That would make for a boring movie. I get it. 

But movies often have people meeting who they want to meet at the exact moment they would like to. At the airport departure gate. At the school prom. In the hallway of a hospital as the woman is being rushed to the delivery room minutes before her unborn baby claws its way out of her. 

The timing of meeting these people of interest is always impeccable. And that’s totally unrealistic. 

After nearly three decades of living, I have learned you can’t expect the rules of the movies to apply to your own life. 

KNo one is going to meet you on the outskirts of town and tell you to “pick out a white dress”. You’re not going to get a message over the PA system of the airport. And the late-night text message you hope is from your sweetheart declaring their affections for you is most definitely going to be Optus, informing that you’ve gone over your data limit and you’re going to be charged an extra ten bucks for each gigabyte you use.

So when I was sitting at the pub the other day, wishing for a certain someone to step through the door, I knew it was in vain. 

I’d gone out to dinner over the weekend, deciding to shout my mother and sister to a cheeky pub feed with all the trimmings (which is to say, we got garlic bread to start off with). 

Throughout the meal, I’d remembered previous visits to that establishment, when I’d go out for a round of ribs and beers on a Friday after a long week of work. And it seemed that, whenever I was being shouted a meal, this one character happened to be close enough to the action to overhear that someone else was picking up the tab. 

They were never around when I was paying, though. They seemed to have some kind of cosmic timing to only ever be passing by when it was someone else’s shout. Eventually this became a bit of a running joke. They’d always make some remark about how I’d scabbed a beer or tricked someone into getting the garlic bread.

So, as I was mopping up my mashed potato the other night, I briefly entertained the idea of this person popping by just as I was going up to the counter. But only for a second, because I know this isn’t how the world works. Life is a random combination of inconsequential coincidences, not a series of events expertly timed to give a satisfying payoff. There’s no meet cutes. There’s no grand gestures. And you never get the closure you crave. 

So when I went up to pay, I’d resigned myself to the fact that this character would never be forced to eat their words. 

But then, footsteps. A greeting from the bar staff. A familiar voice. 

It was my tormentor (I mean, don’t get the wrong idea, it was good-natured torment). 

And while I rarely ask for a receipt for my meal purchases (I don’t need to be reminded of my frivolous spending by a judgmental piece of paper) I made an exception this time. 

I took my receipt and waved it right in the face of my pub persecutor.

And, look, maybe everyone gets one chance to run into the person they want to run into right at the exact moment they need to. And maybe I could have spent mine on a grand gesture at an airport or being stuck in a lift with some dreamboat, but instead I spent it on this petty exchange.

But, if that’s the case, I regret nothing. 

Read the receipt and weep, mate! 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 10

I know someone with very strong feelings about bananas. 

This opinion-haver says the fruit – which, after a quick Google, I’ve learned is botanically a berry – has no place being eaten after lunchtime. He says it’s a morning fruit and recoils at the idea of bananas in dessert form. 

Personally, I disagree. In fact, a cracking desert is a few slices of banana being fried in a bit of butter and then being slopped on a bit of Greek yoghurt with some shredded coconut. 

I thought it extremely close-minded of him to completely shut off a food just because of where the little hand happened to be pointing to on a clock, you know?

Like, I like to think of myself as a free spirit. A renegade. Someone who doesn’t confirm to the norms of society, mahn. I mean, I detest those meal delivery boxes that force you to cook according to their strict regulations and use only the meagre provisions they provided. I can’t follow those kinds of rules. As that unnamed spice company’s commercials say, “why cook when you can create?”

When I was a youngster, I was always rubbish at colouring in competitions because I never coloured between the lines.  And, yes, it may have been because I was messy and lacked the fine motor skills to stay within the lines, but I tell myself that it was because I couldn’t conform to the constraints of the lines before me.

So I thought I wasn’t someone who restricted themselves to these petty kitchen rules. 

But then, as I thought about it more, I began to realise that I actually held a lot of discriminatory views on foods.

Sure, there’s some elements to this that are purely chemical and biological. You’re probably not going to have an espresso right before you go to bed. And you’re probably not going to have mug of warm milk right before going for your morning jog.

But I hold some morning and evening food stipulations that, upon reflection, just don’t really make sense. It’s like these ideas about the appropriate time of day to consume a certain food are hardwired into my brain, but I never think about it. 

Here’s a few examples. 

I think you can only really have pancakes for breakfast, but I’m fine with pikelets for afternoon tea, even though pancakes and pikelets are pretty much the same thing. Like, I’d call a glob of batter cooked in butter in a frypan a pancake before 10am but anytime after that, I would classify it as a pikelet. 

A sausage could never be breakfast when presented only in a single piece of bread with onions and eaten with bare hands. That’s strictly a lunch, swimming club breakup dinner or hardware impulse buy kind of thing. I mean, it’s kind of the novelty of it. It’s an occasional thing -Like, you wouldn’t typically serve is a breakfast food but you could – and many do – eat on at breakfast time based on where they are (such as, for example, a particular brand of hardware store). It’s kind of like microwaving pizza from the night before for breakfast the next day. You wouldn’t usually go out of your way to prepare a pizza for breakfast, but you’ll eat it because it’s there and the idea of eating something at a time when you don’t usually eat it fills you with a thrill you don’t want to unpack too much because then you might realise that this microwaved pizza is the only thing you’ve been excited about in four months. But as soon as you start eating a sausage with a knife and fork, it becomes a conceivable breakfast food.

Corn is something you eat at a barbecue. Or in a cobb loaf. You pop it, smother it in butter and jam it into your mouth like you haven’t eaten in 14 days while you watch a movie at night. Corn is only an afternoon or evening food. But then you stir some kernels into a batter and turn it into fritters, maybe chuck a poached egg and some avocado onto the plate and by gumbo it’s a bloody breakfast thing. 

Eggs are absolutely a breakfast food. Poached, scrambled, fried, boiled. They’re all good. But while I love an egg and lettuce sandwich, I would never eat one for breakfast. Ever. The very idea of it makes me queasy. Because an egg and lettuce sandwich is very much a lunchtime food. Maybe it could be a morning tea food if it’s cut into tiny portions and served alongside assorted slices. Whatever if is, it’s certainly not a breakfast food.

And what about bacon? By itself, bacon is a classic breakfast food, but I’d never cook up a bunch of bacon for lunch or dinner. It has to be in something and it’s never in one full rasher that you eat with a knife and fork like you do at breakfast, it’s always chopped up – like when it’s in a risotto or sprinkled over baked potatoes.

It seems I’m not as free-spirited in the kitchen as I thought.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 3, 2021

It’s funny how one person’s set of rules is different to another’s.

I know someone who washes his pants after every wash. And I’m not talking about the British interpretation of pants – which is what they say when they really mean “knickers” – but the long “leg prisons” that society demands people wear in public. You know, trousers.

Now, I’m in no way attempting to berate him or rubbish his clearly incorrect position on pant washing but, to me, that seems excessive and equates to an unnecessary use of resources. 

This person works in an office environment most of the time. He doesn’t come home with the mystery liquids splattered on his clothing that, say, a nurse or a plumber would. He doesn’t sit on the ground. As far as I know, he doesn’t use his butt to touch high-traffic surfaces like elevator buttons and door handles. 

When I brought this up, his reasoning was this: he believes that pants are in greater need of being washed every day based on pure anatomical geography. The pants cover the parts from which things excrete – be they solid, liquid or gas excretions. As such, there are particles that are embedded in the fibres that make said pants dirty. 

And, look, it’s sound logic. 

My view, however, is a little bit different. 

I don’t wash my pants after each use. If there’s no visible dirt, grime or gravy stains, I pop them back in the wardrobe to see another day. This not only saves me from overloading the washing machine – and cuts back on water and detergent usage – but also means less time drying in the sun, which equates to less fading, thus increasing the lifespan of said pants.

But I will, more often than not, wash my shirts after each wear. It’s just something I’ve always done without really overthinking it too much. But when I drill down to why the tops are washed more often than the bottom, I think it comes down to the armpit.

Shirts have un-buffered proximity to the armpit, which gently emits a stench as the day goes on. With nothing between this source of stench and the skin, the smell is transferred directly into the fabric, infusing with each individual thread. As such, it must be washed after use. 

I explained this to my daily-pant-washing acquaintance who retorted “what is between your legs but one big armpit?!”

I mean, once you get past the obscene imagery that statement evokes, you do have to admit that he has a point.

The bottom region is where the majority of concentrated bodily odours are born. And, unlike the gradual release of pong you see in the armpit, the nether regions tend to be more… explosive.

But the pants have a layer of protection between the orifices from which stink is expelled and themselves – that’s where the knickers come in. They act as a buffer, heroically sacrificing themselves to shield the pants from the stink. It’s all quite heroic, really.

And, look, if you’re using your toilet paper correctly, no solid or liquid sources of said smells should be able to come into contact with the knickers, let alone the pants over the top. 

My daily-pant-washing comrade also says that you shouldn’t have different rules for laundry and perhaps that’s where we differ the most.

Because we’re not just talking about the washing here, not anymore. 

I happen to think that, rather than applying a blanket ruling to everything – laundry-related and otherwise – one must consider the nuances that apply to each individual situation. Because not every situation is the same, each situation should be taken on a case-by-case basis. And, yes, you can have a generalised rule that you use as a guideline, but you can and should veer from that if the situation calls for it. And when you do this, you end up making better decisions for each individual situation. 

Although, it must be said, you do end up spending a lot of your brain capacity deciding whether or not to chuck a pair of pants into the washing machine. You could argue that this is too much thinking to dedicate to a simple load of washing. And, look, that’s a fair point.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, January 27, 2021

Hot cross buns are back on the shelves. 

There’s no point fighting it, those spiced buns aren’t going away until any time soon. Trying to stop their pre-Lent emergence in supermarkets is like trying to stop waves from crashing on the sand. Resistance is futile. 

As a hot cross bun lover, I’m all for the over-commercialisation of this religious baked item. Capitalism has its flaws and there’s varying schools of thoughts on the benefits of the economic and political ideology, but I think we can all agree one of its major perks is the increased availability of spiced buns.   

And, just as there are robust debates about the merits of capitalism, so too are there debates about the best way to heat and eat a hot cross bun. 

I mean, there’s no law against just eating it unadorned and uncut at room temperature, but that seems like a wasted opportunity. And I think we’re all on the same page there. Think about it, have you ever seen someone just biting straight into a hot cross bun like they would an apple?

It would not be an unpleasant experience, but that’s just the base level – you can take a hot cross bun so much higher. The magic of a bun is in the temperature and the addition of butter.

This is where people vary. 

You’ve got the microwavers. You’ve got the grillers. You’ve got the oven bakers. And you’ve got the sandwich pressers. 

I must say that I dabble in all four options, depending on my mood. But when I’m warming a bun in the office, I go for the double-pronged approach: warming the halved bun first in the microwave and then giving it a lovely crust by putting it face down on the open sandwich press. 

I have seen people squishing buns by clamping the heavy sandwich press lid down and while I try not to judge anyone, seeing someone desecrate a bun in this way really tests my resolve.

But over the weekend I learned of a revolutionary new way of heating a bun to perfection. It came to me via a friend via her family friend via Facebook. It involves a toaster. 

Now, we all know that a halved bun is far too wide for a standard toaster slot. Jamming one in there not only smooshes the bun, but leaves you open to extreme charring – and while charring is great for the flesh of a cow, it’s not so delicious when applied to the flesh of a bun. 

But this friend of a friend suggested slicing the bun into thirds horizontally, thus creating slices narrow enough to fit in the toaster slot. It’s a revolutionary thought. 

So I gave it a crack and, as you can imagine, I had some thoughts. 

First, if you’re going to attempt something like this, you have to employ more knife skills than your standard bun halving. I sometimes forgo a knife and just rip my bun in two – it gives more surface area for crisping up, making it a good option if you’re going to whack it under the grill. Plus, there’s something nice about tearing at it with your own two hands; it’s violent but wholesome. 

But you can’t employ such methods here. You need to be precise. I would recommend keeping the bun in the fridge to firm up the bun flesh to make it easier to slice with a serrated knife. 

Also, you need to really watch your timing on the toaster, the bun is awful close to the heating elements. I recommend keeping it on the lowest setting unless you want to eat charcoal*.

* I mean you COULD just scrape the charcoal off with a knife, but once something is burned, there’s no unburning it. The flavour of ill-judged timing and kitchen negligence can never be scraped away. You’re then faced with two choices: throwing it away and living with the shame of wasting something so precious; or eat it anyway, knowing those extra calories you’re jamming into your post-Christmas body are not worth it. Save yourself the grief – watch the fucking toaster.

And, look, each slice of hot cross bun was crunchy and warm. It was an efficient way of heating. 

But felt the essence of the bun had gone. The slices were thin enough to be bread. What I had on my plate was no longer bun, it was It raisin toast. 

The magic was gone. 

And while I don’t want besmirch raisin toast, it just wasn’t as a special as a hot cross bun should be. I mean, I think the real joy of the bun is in the fluffy flesh inside. It’s decadent. It’s not something you have every day. It’s special. 

But this felt wrong. 

What this left me in a philosophical dilemma. Is a hot cross bun still a hot cross bun if it’s sliced differently? What’s the point of eating a hot cross bun if you’re going to warp it into something that tastes like common raisin toast? What’s the point of anything?

So, I would only recommend this hot cross bun heating method if you find yourself without access to a microwave, grill, oven or sandwich press and you have enough time for a spiral about the meaning of hot cross buns and, indeed, life.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, January 20, 2020

The other day I went grocery shopping and it occurred to me that someone might judge me based on what I had in my trolley. 

To be clear, when I say “the other day” I mean “about an hour after the Premier announced a three-day lockdown for Greater Brisbane”. 

I had the day off and, because one of the four reasons for leaving the house didn’t include going out for a few cheeky beers for my birthday, I decided I may as well duck down to the shops for some essential supplies.

Of course, everyone else had the same idea. 

By the time I got to the supermarket, a long line had formed at the checkouts, snaking its way along the inside of the store. But it was a surprisingly nice time.  Shoppers were making lots of jokes while they waited in line and people seemed to be going out of their way to be polite. It seems we were all working towards the same collective goal – avoiding supermarket brawls over toilet paper. 

And that’s a good thing too, because some fellow with a bulky camera had ventured into the store talking photos for The Media. 

It made me consider what kind of impression someone might get of me if they saw my picture. 

Luckily, I had chosen to wear the coolest shirt I own – a sloppy, long-sleeve shirt with featuring a scene from that episode of The Simpsons where Bart gets a fake driver’s licence and drives to Knoxville. 

I was wearing a facemask, which not only made me compliant with health advice, but it covered any possible flecks of food stuck in my teeth. 

That would suggest I am fashionable, conscious of my impact on the community and that my teeth were clean. 

But what about the contents of my trolley? 

I know someone who once saw a bloke at the checkout with a few boxes each of gravy powder and KY jelly in his basket. Nothing else. It’s a combination that would raise eyebrows at any time. And you can make certain assumptions based on those two consumer choices. But as this sighting was on Valentine’s Day, that escalates things.

In a similar sense, given the situation that was unfolding, the choices I made were more significant and, therefore, more telling than a casual shop.

I took a snap of what I had loaded into the cart for reference and now I can go back to analyse said contents. Some of my purchases – like the wanky flour and an emergency roll of choc-backed Digestives – were buried in the middle and were secret. Only the items on the outside of the grocery mound were visible and thus open to judgement. Here’s my explanation for my choices:

Two bags of spinach: I have spinach for breakfast most mornings and that stuff wilts down to practically nothing. So while two bags might appear excessive, it was very much in line with my needs. 

A box of “proper strong” teabags: Look, I did already have half a box of teabags, but given I was going to be spending a full day at home, it was possible I may exhaust my supplies. And, look, it was a grey and drizzly day – reinforcements were necessary.   

Two bunches of flowers: It was my birthday and, at that point, the climax of Birthday Week. Flowers were a necessity. (I’ve since made the executive decision to extend Birthday Week to Birthday Fortnight).

Chicken goujons: These are essentially chicken nuggets, but goujon,  with its French origins, sounds fancier. I don’t think I need to explain the presence of this in my trolley. 

Potatoes: Because I don’t want to be longer than 40 minutes away from the perfect roasted potato.

Two types of butter: Even for me this seems a bit much. But one was for baking with. The other was for smearing on this rich, rummy fruitcake a real sweetheart of a friend gifted me. 

Two cake tins: I decided I was going to spend the day making an extremely extra cake, the recipe of which called for two cake tins. I’d just moved and didn’t have any baking tins to my name. 

Easter eggs: Because I’m not waiting for the onset of Lent to start consuming oval-shaped confectionary. I’m an anarchist like that.

A jar of goats cheese: It’s just good stuff. It’s not an unhealthy compulsion or anything. I could stop eating it if I wanted to, but I jut don’t want to. OK?!

Greek yoghurt: It’s just so versatile and feels healthier to binge on than ice cream.

Thickened cream: Because maybe it’s time to have another crack at making my own butter…