Originally published by The Clifton Courier, May 22, 2019

Yeahhh sorry, there’s no real impressive illustrations today. I got knocked around by a bastard of a sickness today and, for a while there, felt like I may have pooed the Uber. I don’t know what kind of fines you get for shitting the seat, but I imagine it would be higher than a the standard vom rate. 

Anyway, I managed to keep all fluids/chunks inside me and came home and slept for like five hours and, while I’m feeling better, I’m still a wee bit fragile.

Maybe I’ll get bored and come back to this piece with some whizbang drawings but, for now at least, you’re going to have to make do with your imagination. 

I’ve invented a new kind of workout.

It’s my take on high intensity interval training. I wouldn’t recommend it as a regular thing, but it certainly motivates you to move, raises the heart rate and generally tuckers you out.

It’s important to warm up for this workout, which starts the night before. You want to set yourself up to crank up your cranky levels.

To get yourself nice and grumpy, set your alarm for 6am to hit the markets before work. Go to bed much later than you planned and stare at your phone for at least half an hour before you actually try to sleep.

The next morning, be abruptly jerked from the few minutes deep sleep you experienced that night by your alarm.

Have a pre-workout shake alternative – a cup of tea – to get you going.

Use GPS to direct you to the markets, letting it take you not to an entrance you can use as a private citizen, but a large commercial gate that is both closed to the public and on the wrong side of a vast market complex.

When you finally do arrive, be sure to cut your finger on the car’s window guard when you hand over the cash to pay for parking and accidentally squash the large sack of spinach you bought. Then, to make sure you’re good and ready for the workout, miss an important turn on the way back.

Once you arrive home, have your green bag’s strap break as you try to unload your market goods from the car in one trip.

By this point you should be sufficiently miffed, so put on your running gear, including shorts with a tiny zip-up pocket on the butt. Lock the house up, grab your phone for music and chuck the keys in your pocket, being too irritable to muck around fiddling with the zip. Just assume you’ve zipped yourself in. This is essential.

Jog around a 25-minute loop in your neighbourhood, finishing with a killer hill you don’t really ever want to do again. As you run, let your stress levels lower with each huffy exhale until you return to your house calm, hungry and with just enough time to shower and get to work for a nice al-desko (a depressing spin on “alfresco” where you shovel food into your face at your work desk) breakfast.

Feel the pocket for your keys and realise they are gone.

Immediately, you heart rate will shoot back up.

Now realise your housemates are away, you can’t get into your house and that your car keys are also on that key ring.

At this point, your ticker should be beating madly. That’s what you want.

Start running the length of your street, looking on the ground for anything that may resemble your keys. Call work, partly to let them know you may be late, partly to hear the soothing voice of a concerned, authoritative adult.

Next, run back up the street to your house, hoping you missed said keys on the ground. Then call your parents to ask if they still have the spare key to the car that is now undriveable. Feel a little less stressed. Then, call a level-headed mate to calm you further. Have her distract you by talking about herself while you powerwalk along the entire loop you took before.

Get that heart rate back up as you near the end of your route still keyless but also facing the dreaded hill.

Return home empty-handed and let yourself get so panicky you start doing what I like to call the anxiety shake (it’s where you fidget violently and look like you’re trying to swat an invisible fly).

Now it’s time for a mid-workout cool down.  Walk slower along the route for the third time, stopping nearly half-way to wait in line for 10 minutes at the Post Office to see if someone handed them in. Then go to the police station and dismay to find it closed. Call Police Link to report your keys missing and to hear a firm but kind adult in control. Take big, deep breaths to stop yourself from wailing in public.

As you wait to receive the online missing property form link on your phone, walk a further some 20 metres away.

Spot your keys on a low wall along the footpath.

Time for the end-of-workout stinger. Sprint back to your house, keys in hand, and shower faster than you ever have before so you can get to work.

Refuel yourself with a post-workout shake alternative – another cup of tea – when you’ve finally had a chance to stop.

Check your smartphone’s health stats and find you’ve covered a distance of more than 14 kilometres all before 10.30am.

And exhale.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, May 22, 2019

I made these the other day when the great void inside me yearned for something cake-y and lemon myrtle-y. I’d recently had a piece (and the unattended leftovers of several strangers) of lemon myrtle cake a friend’s party and bought a sachet of the quintessentially Australian flavouring at a market stall. I had a hankering that just couldn’t be satisfied by the pumpkiny lumps I’ve been making so much of and thus these… things* were created.

* They’re not exactly biscuits, but not entirely scones. I mean, I COULD have called them sconscuits or biscones, but I guess I didn’t have the foresight to invent a culinary term at the time. You better believe that I shan’t lack the bravery to boldly invent new terms in my ground-breaking cook booklet that leads to a cooking show that leads to a career of towering highs and crushing lows before a nice, comfortable period as an extremely wealthy and wise 50-year-old with a massive kitchen and a refreshing outlook on life.

Here’s something I wouldn’t so much call a recipe as a creative process:

Pulse three cups of rolled oats in your food processor – this is apparently my base for all food items these days. Sure, it’s gluten free and probs like low GI or something, but I genuinely love oats. It’s possibly because horses like oats and because I have the soul of a wild mare with a flowing mane, galloping into the sunset.

Next, get three teaspoons of baking soda. Consider what’s at stake here – the satisfaction of your cravings – and add another teaspoon to put a bit of fluff into these fellas.

Then grab a decent pinch of salt, being the fancy kind from the sea that required you to grind into your fingertips a little. I’m sure other salt is fine, but using fancy salt makes me feel good about myself.

Next, get two tablespooons of brown sugar and four teaspoons of ground-up lemon myrtle stuff – I think they’re leaves, but I don’t actually know.

Then get two heaped tablespoons of margarine. I felt this recipe called for marge instead of butter, even though I haven’t got either the baking nor the chemistry background required to understand why. Plus, I was trying to get rid of the stuff to clear space in the fridge.

Rub the shameful butter alternative into the crumbs until you have something that looks like wet, dirty sand.

Dump in one beaten egg and mix.

Now add like three tablespoons of milk and stir again.

Add a cup of dry, un-pulverised oats.

Next, fret that it looks too dry and far too dense. Remember that you have another egg in the fridge you need to get rid of because it’s slightly cracked and therefore can’t be boiled for breakfast.

Decide to get a bit of phat air in there by chucking it in the food processor you haven’t yet put away, pulsing it until it’s all bubbly.

Dump this in, mix and then add another two heaped tablespoons of milk (of course I know that liquid cannot heap and that this is a illogical instruction that requires the follower to defy the laws of nature, but it’s my way of saying that I was overzealous in pouring the milk in the spoon and a bit dribbled over but I’m not sure how much).

Mix.

Then fret that it’s too wet and add another half a cup of oats. Yes, this recipe requires a metric buttload of oats. I’ve started buying them in bulk.

Get tired of all this wetting and drying and decide that it’s time to be bold, dammit.

You lump the mixture into sloppy balls, whack them on a baking tray and chuck them in the oven.

Check them after about 10 minutes, rotating the tray.

Stick them back in for another five minutes. Let the timer go off but be distracted for about two or three minutes before you remember the lumps of goodness at risk of burning into crispy humiliation.

Now I’m usually a massive goo lover. I love my dough  as raw as my emotions but in this instance, you want to let these babies go slightly brown. In fact, you want a bit of crumbly crunch to them. Trust me on this.

Also, even weirder, the finished product doesn’t actually need to be smeared with butter. In fact, added butter kind of spoils it. That was very hard for me to write, but I felt it was important to add.

Let them cool slightly before biting into one and just let yourself feel a comfort you’ve not felt before. It’s like if the nicest, cuddliest person you knew was somehow inside your abdomen and was giving your stomach one of their famous hugs. Of course, this is very sad because this grandmother figure has found herself in quite a difficult and frankly horrifying position, but at least your tum feels great.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, May 8, 2019

This is the perfect dinner to make when you want to cook, but don’t actually feel like cooking.

It fills your house with hearty, delicious aromas but doesn’t require much in the way of stirring, sautéing or much any “ing”ing, really. It’s more of a cut, slop and smoosh kind of dish. And you don’t even cut that much, come to think of it.

It’s a rip off of a tray bake, but when I first made it I felt like some kind of freeballing cook, boldly chucking things together led only by my chef instincts. It almost certainly already exists, but I felt like I was breaking real ground at the time. I was in a flurry of inspiration, thanks to my gourmet muses: tinned tomatoes and microwavable rice.

I feel this dish would pair well with a cheap red wine and Ratatouille (the Disney movie about the French rat who loves to cook).

Step one: Rip off a piece of baking paper, violently scrunching it in your hand to squeeze out your rage. Not only does this make you less likely to write angry, rambling Facebook statuses taking aim at people you’ve never met, it will also help the paper to better sit in the baking dish when you unfurl it. Shove this paper into the corners of a square baking dish and exhale, letting go of your hate.

Step 2: Preheat an oven to 210 degrees. I mean, you should have done this first, but you were busy cleansing your soul. If your oven has a grill function, engage that bad boy. We want crispness here, people.

Step 3: Slice a chicken breast in half lengthways, so it’s about two or three centimetres thick. Think schnitty.

Step 4: Season this raw slab of flesh with a few good pinches of salt, rubbing the grains into both sides.

Step 5: Remember that thing you read about salting raw meat ahead of time, and regret spending your morning buying out-of-print DVDs and pony ceramics from an op shop instead of caressing raw chicken. Set chookie aside.

Step 6: Open a packet of microwavable rice – I get something with the words “wild” and “medley” in the name, because it makes me feel fancy – and tip into the paper-lined tin.

Step 7: Roughly chunk a medium-sized onion. I used “chunk” as a verb here, because it’s sounds slightly better than “slice and dice it, but fatly”. Just cut it into medium, irregular pieces for a rustic vibe.

Step 8: Crush about three or four cloves of garlic, smooshing with the flat side of a knife under most of your weight (plus the added weight of your existential dread, that can only help at this point). This makes it easier to pick the skin off and saves you from having to chop it like a chum.

Step 9: Place the garlic and onion atop the rice.

Step 10: Tear up two large handfuls of fresh spinach with your hands and scatter on top of the rice.

Step 11: Open up a can of crushed tomatoes, dumping it into the baking tin and marvelling at how it mirrors the a rapid evacuation of one’s stomach. Slop the chunky liquid so it covers the entire surface of the rice.

Step 12: Glide out to your slowly-dying-but-not-dead-yet collection of pot plants, serenely plucking a dozen or so basil leaves from your garden. Ignore the silent cries of the plants you’ve failed, telling yourself that you’re an earthen goddess. You could also buy fresh basil from the shop or ask a neighbour skilled in the art of not killing stuff if you can pillage in exchange for whatever you can scrounge around that might be worthy of a basil trade – perhaps they’ll take pity on you and insist you take the leaves for free.

Step 13: Rinse and tear the basil, scattering it over the tomato and squelching it into the mix.

Step 14: Delicately lay the chicken atop layers of goodness, because slapping them in there would give you serious splashback which would be annoying to wipe up.

Step 15: Crumble over a few cubes of goats cheese, preferably the super wanky kind that comes drowned in olive oil with thyme and pepper. I wouldn’t judge you for using the whole jar, but do keep the oil for drizzling on assorted hot breakfast items to keep that luxe feeling going.

Step 16: Drizzle with oil of some kind – either the goat’s cheese oil or that garlic olive oil you bought on a whim when it was on special and only used once like three months ago.

Step 17: Chuck into the oven for about half an hour, until the chicken has browned to the point that you’re certain it won’t give you violent diarrhoea.

Step 18: Using a spatula, dig under one of the chicken pieces and dump the claggy mix on your plate.

Step 19: Keep returning to dish to pick at the rice until you’re so full you can only communicate via groans.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 21, 2019

I’m showing Clifton off to a Sydneysider and it’s a pretty big deal.

A friend I used to work with mentioned she wanted to venture up into the Sunshine State for replenish her depleted New South Welsh soul and I decided to take on the role of tourism guide.

I have the stereotypically Aussie hat. I have the booming voice. And, thanks to an overly theatrical primary school principal who took an interest in the town’s history*, I have some local stories up my sleeve.

* We also did what I like to call an arena spectacular dramatisation of the Stations of the Cross one Easter which was a theatrical triumph. The audience sat in the middle and the torture, death and subsequent resurrection of your boi Jesus happened around them. It was delightfully extra and absolutely worth all the hours of practice. 

On a side note, I probably owe said overly theatrical primary school principal a great deal for nurturing and enhancing my extra-ness as a child. His ambitious productions really fostered my melodramatic nature. Bless him. He’s made the world a better place. 

I used to give this tour all the time, when my mates from school would come out for a sleepover. It was honestly one of the highlights of their visits (for me and my mother, at least).

Mum would pick us up from the bus stop at Nobby and as soon as those seatbelts clicked, the official driving tour of Clifton began. We’d slowly snake through the streets, pointing out places of both historical and personal significance to our guests/hostages, not giving much of a toss if they weren’t as emotionally invested in the decision-making process behind the town Christmas tree*. It was more than pointing out the iconic buildings, it was about the stories each street had. And when you have two excitable ramblers in a car, you can imagine how many slightly-disjointed stories we had to tell. What should have been a short ride home would take more than half-an-hour, sometimes longer depending on how long daylight held out.

* In the television series I plan on writing about this town, the Christmas tree issue is going to need a two-part episode. There’s a lot of meat to that topic. Lots.  

It’s been about a decade since Mum and I have given one of these tours, so we’re pretty excited to receive our lucky, lucky guest. We usually go off the cuff for these tours – play it by ear, as my mother says – but I have a few attractions that must be included in this particular excursion:

The church with the dead man under it: This building is another testament to the thrifty and somewhat crafty nature of this town. Back in the day (I’m not sure exactly when but it was back before black-and-white TV, so that’s a long way back) Clifton’s growing Catholic community needed a bigger church, but they didn’t have the dollars to build one. What they did have was the inside knowledge that James Mowen, a wealthy bloke about town, had left aside a large sum of money in his will for a monument to be built over his grave. I’m guessing he didn’t stipulate what this monument would take the form of, as the parish decided that a church could technically be a memorial… so long as it had the right plaque. So they dug him up from his spot at cemetery, plonked his body into the ground on the empty lot and built a church over the top of it, using his money. They named the church St James and St Johns, which I suppose was a sufficient-enough nod to old Jimmy to warrant the use of his money*. Pretty clever.

* So, as we were giving this part of the tour, the local priest was coming back from his afternoon walk and spotted us casing out the joint. He let us in and showed us around, which allowed me to brag about the stained glass windows… because that’s where I am in my life now. Bragging about the stained glass windows in my hometown’s church. Anyway, turns out they also put a plaque up for old Jimmy, but they put it right up the back. 

The path which used to have a coin glued to it: “There used to be a coin glued here,” I’ll say, pointing to roughly about the spot where the coin was once glued, “I’m not sure who finally managed to pick it up or what they did with it, but I imagine they’re a rich soul indeed.”*

*Unfortunately, I missed out on this opportunity, but there’s always next time. I’m hoping that featuring that coin in the paper will prompt someone to come forward with the tale of who finally managed to snag the 20 cents from the footpath. I imagine it’s quite a story. 

My favourite rock in town: This would hands-down have to be the large clump of geological material near the flagpole at the Scout Hutt. It was great for sitting on.

My favourite log in town: Obviously this would be the log in a small clump of trees at the old preschool. If you don’t know the one, I feel sorry for you. It is a brilliant log. It was instrumental in my development as a emotionally-rich, ever-pondering person.  It was the place I could escape the foolish chatter of my peers and find solace in my own deep, complex thoughts… while pretending to be a lion on Pride Rock.

The cement-filled bottle tree: This is without a doubt my favourite Clifton landmark. It just speaks so much to the character of this town. Now, I have no idea how the tree came to be filled with cement, (please do enlighten me via a Letter to the Editor if you know the tale) so I have illustrated the story with my own dialogue. I imagine it went something like “geez, the bottle tree has a hole in it, better do something about that,” to which some cluey person chimes in with a “ya reckon we could just fill her up with this leftover cement?” The group all shrugs in agreement with a chorus of “yeah righto”s and a few “too easy”s. There was no mucking about, nothing fancy, just good, honest concrete-aided problem solving. That tree may have been planted by our banking forefathers, but it’s thriving because our no bulls–t spirit. It’s beautiful.

The Clifton Courier office: Obviously.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 14, 2019

No matter how accomplished or mature you are, you still revert to your old ways when you return to the family home.

There are certain things I’ll always do when I get back to the Maguire House. I’ll kick my thongs off at the front door and not put them on again until I leave. I’ll open the pantry, freezer and fridge to take stock of the good food in the house. I’ll tidy the clutter on the counter.

And when it comes to eat, I’ll revert back to the pretty, territorial teen who fiercely defended her seat at the Maguire Table.

Each mealtime, I’m seated at the shorter side of the long, rectangular table with my back to the fireplace.  Depending on your way of looking at the world, you could say I’m at the head of the table.

It’s a commanding position that means I’m sometimes backlit by flames, which paints quite a badarse picture, come to think of it. It makes me sound like some kind of matriarch on a quest for world domination, which I quite like.

Sitting opposite me, at the other end of the table, is my father.

Come winter, Dad moves my chair from the end of the table so he can gaze into the fireplace and, I don’t know, think about burning his enemies or something.

When the cold winds blow, he attempts to dethrone me and have me relinquish my position at the table for his own personal gain.

To which I say, bugger that. You chose to bring me into this world; you now must now live with the consequences of your decisions. And one of the consequences of that decision – along with a lifetime supply of happiness, sass and excessively cheesy risotto (the secret ingredient is about half a block of Bega!) – is seeing my freckly face at the end of the dinner table.

This stoush becomes a matter of pride, for my position will not be simply scrapped from the seating plan like a third cousin’s problematic boyfriend with bad sideburns on an already overcrowded wedding guest list.

It’s not just about a simple chair, but the acknowledgment of my belonging in the family.

And while I have been known to occasionally break ranks of a breakfast time to be closer to the butter and honey, that end seat is my dominion.

I’m not the only one who has such an emotional tie to a vinyl-covered chair.

Each of the Original Six (which is a super cool way to my immediate family, which makes us sound like a team of super heroes rather than a bunch of short-than-average, slightly-pink Caucasians who all apparently say “off” funny) has their positions, which have been voluntarily enforced for at least two decades.  I don’t know how we came to sit in these positions; I don’t believe we ever discussed who was supposed to sit where. We just did. Each and every mealtime.

I don’t want to say “we knew our place” because it has some very uncomfortable connotations of gender roles and power imbalances and what have you, but we did.

But it’s not just about my personal power struggle or my superiority complex.

It also just made things easier when it came to setting the table.

Because setting the table required intimate knowledge of each family member. The butter dish had to be kept away from my younger sister, who would pick at the butter with her tiny fingernail. My father had to be given the small but long-handled spoon for dessert, as it allows for a stylish wrist flick and forces him to take smaller bites, thus dragging out the eating experience. Another sister has a particular fondness for a certain butter knife. Mum likes to gnaw the bones of our “finished” chops, so the scrap plate is best placed by her.

Everything had its place, but for a reason.

And while the Original Six has a few new characters, they’re also adapting to the unofficial-but-strictly-enforced seating plan system. Thankfully, the table Dad scored from a relative whose workplace was getting rid of stuff is big enough to squeeze around more people between the six seats, so there’s no need for a separate table for the outsiders.

I’m not going to shy away from it – I like my power position at the end of the table. It’s a skerrick of superiority I will continue to cling to as my self-esteem withers with age and each realisation of my unfulfilled potential. I will be struck down with the blow of a sword before I renounce my title.

Unless of course a guest has popped over for a cuppa and a piece of fruitcake, in which case I’ll gladly abdicate to give the impression that I’m a reasonable person who has more important things to care about than where she sits at a table.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 17, 2019

Style is not about fashion.

A have a pair of tiny floral shorts that I like to wear on casual outings. They’re short, yes, but not short enough to be indecent. The print isn’t the most fashionable these days, but I wouldn’t say it’s outdated enough to be deemed ghastly. And they’re a little bit on the stained side thanks to my unfortunate pushing position when attempting to free a bogged ute from a muddy campground, but they’re respectable enough.

I like them. They go great with sloppy Joes and they’re unrestrictive in the crotch. They’re everything a look for in a pair of shorts.

And yet, every time I slip them on, I hear my friend’s voice*, telling me that I should not be wearing them out in public.

* I should probably point out that, normally, this particular friend’s advice is extremely sound. In fact, I’d trust her to be my power of attorney. If this friend had the authority to make my decisions on my behalf, I’m convinced I would be in a much better place. It’s probably something I should be seriously investigating. However, if she were to be given the power to manage my affairs, the contract would have to make an explicit stipulation about this particular issue.

Why?

Because they’re pyjama shorts, she tells me.

It’s as though the fact that I purchased them from a shop that sells pyjamas restricts them to household wear only, maybe as far as the backyard boundary if I’m among people within my inner sanctum.

But I reject this claim.

Firstly, on the grounds of the definition of pyjamas.

A quick Google search defines pyjamas as “any clothing suitable for wearing in bed”.

I actually don’t sleep in these shorts. In fact, I rarely sleep in in any of the cutesy little pyjama shorts I own. I actually sleep in the free t-shirt they gave me for finishing uni. It’s not really a t-shirt on me with my comically short torso, it’s more of a shapeless dress, which makes it the perfect size for optimum sleep comfort. It’s mildly-stained and the cheap fabric is impregnated with my personal musk due to overuse, but I feel like the fact that it confirms I somehow obtained a tertiary education balances all that out.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t actually wear these pants while I’m sleeping, with the exception of spontaneous daytime naps.

So, technically, said shorts are not pyjama shorts.

Secondly, who cares if they are, in fact, clothing designed to be slept in?

As my father says, “it doesn’t matter if you’re dressed like a bag of… [organic, all-natural fertiliser], someone will still take your money”. This isn’t a jab at his dress sense – if you’re not wearing dust covers on your boots, you’re probably underdressed – but is meant to that illustrate your worth is more than what you wear.

Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with looking swish in a banging outfit. I’m not suggesting that caring about what you look like is shallow. In fact, I’m saying the opposite.

When you wear something, you should go ahead and own it, regardless of what other people might think. Unless you’ve been asked to adhere to a specific dress code*, you follow your own damn code.

* When a dress code says “don’t we jeans because we’re not animals”, do not wear jeans. I bloody mean it. 

The saying goes that the most important thing you can wear is a smile (but, if you want to avoid indecent exposure charges, I recommend also at least wearing a smock* that covers the important bits). Any combination of clothing can be a killer outfit if you team it with confidence.

* Or perhaps some strategically-placed leaves. 

My filthy sister, who everyone thinks is some shiny glamourzon because she has blonde hair and is skinny, used to rock up to school with unbrushed hair nearly every day towards the pointy end of her schooling career. We had to get up fairly early to catch the bus and I suppose she just didn’t feel like dealing with the trauma of bushing knotty hair before the sun was officially up. Instead, she would tie up her hair and add a Barbie hairclip to the nest, which she said gave the appearance that her hairdo was messy on purpose. And then off she’d go to school in her little white Kia, blasting Britney Spears and leaving a trail of sass behind her as she went.

And that’s something I think we should all aim for. Forget about the haters and craft your own sense of style, be that ironically pink hairclips or practical lawn-mowing kit. Wear what makes you feel good – while keeping within the restraints of the law, of course – and own it.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 10, 2019 

I can be a little bit extra.

For people who don’t spend at least 59 per cent of their time on the Internet, “extra” is a term bestowed on people who are flamboyant, indulgent and, well, perhaps a little bit much.

It’s about the only word the young folk use that I fully comprehend, perhaps because it applies to me to on a fundamental level.

Extra is being someone who believes “corporate sequins” is an office-appropriate look. Extra is imagining yourself immortalised as a Barbie doll. Extra is writing about how extra you are and what you eat for breakfast in a column dedicated entirely to you and assuming people want to read it*.

* I had many more examples of my behaviour that qualified as a “extra”, which I didn’t have room to include. But because I have the luxury of eternal space on The Internet, I’m going to list those now: 

Extra is repeating Natasha Bedingfield’s made-famous-by-reality-TV-trash-The-Hills Unwritten the entire way home so you can nail the chorus.

Extra is demanding strong-looking strangers lift you Dirty Dancingstyle when Darryl Braithwaite’s The Horses plays on the dance floor.

Extra is having two going away parties, one goodbye breakfast and a farewell bottomless brunch when you move cities.

At least, that’s my understanding of what “extra” is.

Being extra can be exhausting – particularly for those who have to endure your presence – but it has its uses, too.

This particular combination of intolerable personality traits means you eat quite well. You’re not content with just eating a stale, store-bought jam roll. You’re either going to opt for a insufferably wanky clean treat made with spelt and cashew butter, or you’re going to get a pastry so elaborate, it looks like something from Versailles.

When I’m faced with an office breakfast, I don’t settle for sad microwavable porridge packets or milky poppers promising a fibre hit. No, I go with something that looks like a full on café brunch. And all it takes is a wee bit of preparation the evening before.

If you want to be like me (may heaven help you) and eat like a non-gender-specific monarch, just follow these easy steps:

Step 1: Make yourself a cup of tea, because everyone deserves a decent cuppa at the end of a day.

Step 2: Boil two eggs. I’m currently dealing with an induction cooktop and have no idea what that means, so I just boil them until the kale’s done and my tea’s gone.

Step 3: Warm up a frypan over a medium heat, glugging in a good tablespoon of olive oil.

Step 4: Grab a few stalks of kale, give them a rinse and pat them dry. I know, kale is associated with a lot of douchbaggery, but rise above that. It’s a good, leafy bugger that’s excellent for your rig and can actually taste great.

Step 5: Rip the leaves off the stem and all its branch-like offshoots. Chuck the leafy bits in the now-warmed oil.

Step 6: Sip your tea.

Step 7: Fill the sink with about an inch of hot water and detergent.

Step 8: Once the kale has a bit of crispness to it and is coated in oil, tip it into a microwavable container, seasoning it with salt and pepper to make the kale taste less like kale and more like salty oiled dreamflakes. Place the frypan in the sink.

Step 9: Remove the eggs from the saucepan, whack them in the container and tip the boiling water into the sink. Place the saucepan in the dish rack to dry – as far as I’m concerned, that fella is clean.

Step 10: Group kale container with a piece of bread and an avocado in the fridge, ready for the morning.

Step 11: Pull the soaking frypan from the dishwater, give it a quick, effortless wipe clean and let it dry.

Step 12: Seize the night, whichever way you deem appropriate – I recommend staying up too late trying to decide on something to watch, falling asleep the couch, then struggling to empty your mind after relocating to bed.

Step 13: You’ve managed to wake up, dress yourself and, hopefully, arrived at work on time. You’ve succeeded in not being frogmarched out of the office in disgrace, so celebrate with breakfast. Walk to the kitchenette with a spring in your step.

Step 14: Put pre-packed bread in the toaster making sure to readjust the setting in case some heathen switched the dial to “burn-the-arse-out-it”. Remove the eggs from the kale kontainer and microwave dem leavez for one minte. Boil the kettle.

Step 15: Peel the eggs.

Step 16: Spoon half the avocado on the toast, using a fork to mush it up.

Step 17: Pour hot water over the teabag of your choice into the sassiest office mug in the shared cabinet.

Step 18: Slice eggs and arrange artfully atop the avo. You could microwave them, but I’ve learnt that may be too precarious a pursuit for a communal microwave.

Step 19: Upturn the kale on top of the toast so you have a mound of smugness – seasoned appropriately with salt and pepper.

Step 20: Finish making your well-steeped tea.

Step 21: Walk triumphantly back to your desk, batting off compliments about your healthy, café-worthy breakfast as you strut.

Originally published by Clifton Courier, April 3, 2019

Sometimes, you need to ask yourself the big questions.

And that big question is always a derivative of “Why?”.

Way back in the day when I was a goon-soaked journalism student, we were taught the basic building blocks of a story. We were given the five Ws (and the one H) to answer to keep our stories from being nonsensical dribble. You had the “Who?” your “What?” the “When?” and “Where?” and, most importantly, there was the “Why?” You also had to squeeze a cheeky “How?” in there too, but “how” doesn’t conform to the handy alliteration that we journos love so much, so it’s not given the same reverence. Despite my insistence on regularly destroying my brain cells, I eventually learned that the Why? was always the meatiest question. And, more often than not, it’s the juiciest part of entire story.

If you keep asking “Why?” like an annoying seven-year-old, you eventually boil away the bullhonkey and get to the real spice of what’s happening.

“Why?” is a powerful question.

I recently read about a great goal-setting strategy where you ask yourself five “Why?”s to suss out what’s really driving your desire to achieve whatever task you’re wanting to accomplish.

And I think this badgering method should be applied not just to council meeting reports or evaluating of your ambition create a cloak made entirely out of human hair (although, there’d be a few other questions you’d want to ask yourself if you had that goal on your vision board).

Being an introspective/extremely self-absorbed kinda gal, I decided to turn this method into a way to analyse my behaviour so I learn more about the type of person I am. Because learning more about myself is what I like to do for fun. I guess it’s a hobby. Some people climb mountains, others teach themselves to play the guitar; I sit in silence and think about myself.

But my personal “Why?” question usually comes in the form of “Why am I like this?”

It’s a question I would ask myself on average 2.7 times per day. And it’s usually more of a rhetorical thing.

But actually answering yourself can be enlightening.

For example, asking myself why I was feeling a little bit dusty the other morning led to a few revelations. This splintered off into two lines of enquiry, one related to the consumption of wine the night before. I had three to four glasses at the most, but was feeling rubbish the next day. Why? Because my body can’t bounce back from abuse the way it used to. Why? Because I’m getting older. Why? Because time marches on with a callous continuity and it stops for no one.

Cool, right?

The other line of thinking was related to my poor sleep. Why did I sleep so poorly? Because I was having nightmares about having too many leftovers and I kept getting so stressed in my sleep, I kept having to wake myself up to calm myself down. Why? Well I obviously have some problems with stress that I need to address before my frettings manifest as blood clots.

See? It’s a fun game!

It can help you rationalise behaviour that, to an outsider, probably doesn’t make much sense.

For example, if an outsider saw someone standing in the kitchen wearing an old t-shirt and no pants while eating cold stuffing out of the arse end of a chook, they might see a broken, irrational person. But by asking yourself “Why am I doing this?” you’ll know your behaviour makes total sense. Why are you eating just the stuffing? Because your body needed fuel after a long day and the brown rice and nut combo of the homemade stuffing was a nutritious choice. Why aren’t you wearing pants? Because you wanted to keep your work clothes stain-free and the oversized shirt was the fastest outfit change option available. Why are you spooning the stuffing straight out of the carcass, treating a hollow, dead chicken like an ice cream tub? Because you didn’t want to cause more washing up by using a plate.

I mean, this is all strictly hypothetical, of course, but it helps you to find logic in your behaviour.

So next time you find yourself asking “why am I like this?”, maybe try to answer yourself. Even if it’s not your idea of fun, at least it’ll be interesting.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, March 27, 2019

I’m someone who feels the need to achieve things everyday.

This makes me sound like some kind of young, enthusiastic entrepreneur with a bright future of property investments, bold blazer choices and eclectic collection of celebrity ex-boyfriends. It sounds as if I seize the day.

However, as my psychologist and I have worked out, I’m not overly ambitious. I’m not out there demanding my app/product/unnecessary social movement get more and more successful. I don’t really have any goals, at least not the big, life-changing ones. Nope, I think smaller. I just need to feel as if I’ve done something productive with the 24 hours I’ve been allotted to quiet the bees buzzing around frantically in the glass jar that is my brain.

So when I have a day of doing very little, I find myself feeling quite wretched and wasteful. I feel as if I cheated myself.

To avoid this, I write out cheeky to-do lists to keep myself on track so at the end of the day, my self-loathing is diminished ever so slightly because I’ve managed to organise my lunch for the following day or something.

But last week I was sick. And I actually called in sick rather than sniffing my way through a workday, spraying germs on my colleagues. This meant I had a whole 24 hours to fill, something that was not lost on me despite my losing my sense of taste and extreme tissue dependence. I was pretty much useless.

But at the end of the day when I assessed my productivity I was unable to accept that, by doing nothing, I was recovering, which would eventually mean my returning to full productivity sooner than if I’d tried to do something. No, that would be too logical.

So in the absence of a ticked off to-do list, I wrote myself a… did list; documenting everything I did that day. And look, it did help. Because I was able to go through that list and see that I did manage to achieve some things, however inconsequential they may be in the long run.

Watched a lot of TV: Specifically, one episode of Nigella Express, one episode of Grand Designs, half an hour of Morgan Freeman trying to answer questions about God, ten minutes of doco about Scottish witch hunts (I turned it off when a torture scene got a little bit too much), A Secret Garden, an hour of Anthony Bourdain hanging out in Budapest (which made me want to eat dense, meaty stews), three episodes of Ricky Gervais’ show After Life, four episodes of Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi’s show Miracle Workers and the first feature length film documenting the inspiring story of Paddington Bear. I mean, the sheer length of that list is impressive in itself. But I’m going to attempt to extract some meaning from it. Watching two newly released shows have boosted my pop culture knowledge, something I desperately need to top up after years of watching nothing but Cougar Town and Gilmore Girls reruns. Anthony Bourdain informed my dinner choice, Paddington lightened my soul and I got to revel in Collin’s “I’m not sour” face in The Secret Garden. It was extremely beneficial.

Showered: Considering I never left the house, you could argue that showering wasn’t entirely necessary but that’s why it was such a big victory. Showering when you’re covered in mud is something you do without requiring much motivation, because you can see the immediate benefits. But showering when you’re super comfy, have no energy and have a nose too blocked to be aware of your salty musk requires a lot of will power.

Followed Big Bird on Twitter: There’s a lot of snarky drams on Twitter, so I prefer to pad out my feed with as many wholesome contributors as possible. I also follow Paddington Bear. And look, I’m well aware that it’s a PR exercise and the accounts are written by social media managers posing as these fictional delights, but I don’t care.

Encouraged friends in my group chat to follow Big Bird on Twitter: I think it was the “thank u, nest” tweet of his that really did it for them.

Wrote a to do list for the following day: I had the next day off and I’d be damned if I was going to waste it. However, I did put really achievable goals on that list, such as lighting a scented candle and checking to make sure I paid a bill I know I already paid.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, March 20, 2019

I made up this recipe the other weekend, when I felt like eating something delicious but wanted to lie to myself that I was being healthy.

My answer was to celebrate the coming of autumn with pumpkin scones, challenging myself to use oats instead of regular flour (if that’s not the whitest, most basic middle class sentence I’ve ever written, I’ll burn my tasteful linen dresses).

I actually began writing this recipe down half way through, so I could recreate whatever I’d done in the event of it not being too terrible. Then I made it again, following the recipe. I think I’m a legitimate recipe writer now, so I’m just waiting for the Le Creuset pots to come rolling in. Any day now.

Important note: I love raw mixture and have no fear whatsoever of catching salmonella from eating raw eggs – in fact, I didn’t event know that was a reason people didn’t eat raw dough until I was a grown woman and I turned out fine*! So I made my recipe a little doughy, but please feel free to cook for longer if you like your baked goods as dry as your soul.

* LOL I’m absolutely riddled with defects. These fault can be traced back to a lot of things, but I’m pretty sure the consumption of raw eggs is not listed in the DSM as a determining factor for any of them. 

As such, please store these in the fridge*, because they go bad quickly if left out in the mould breeding ground of a sealed plastic container in a humid climate. The smell of rotting pumpkin is not nice.

* They keep for a good week if stashed in an airtight container in the fridge. They keep even longer if you make them look like sloppy lumps of dried vomit, thus limiting their appeal and warding off any rouge tasters. 

Step 1: Peel and chop about a sixth of a small pumpkin into tiny cubes – they don’t have to be exact cubes, they can be rectangular prisms if you’re feeling sloppy.

Step 2: Chuck these pump chunks into a saucepan, trying to mimic the kind of flair you would see on a cooking show. Perhaps pretending you have long fingernails will help.

Step 3: Boil the arse out of those chunks until you can jab a fork though them with such ease that you no longer get any catharsis from stabbing an inanimate object. Set aside to cool.

Step 4: Blitz three cups of rolled oats in a food processor until they have the consistency of sand. This is going to be your flour and forms the majority of the wankery in this recipe. Tip this powder into a large – preferably fancy – mixing bowl.

Step 5: This is one of my recipes, so you’re going to need to break out the ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and, my gourmet fave, the allspice. Go with two teaspoons of ginge, one-and-a-half of all spice, and about half each of the nutmeg and cinnamon. Go for a good pinch of salt too, while you’re at it. Tip all this added pizzaz into the mixing bowl, with as much flair as you can muster.

Step 6: This is one dense, grainy mix. If you don’t want to be eating rocks, add three teaspoons of baking soda. Yep, three teaspoons. Don’t be fucking shy.

Step 7: Fork this dry mixture together, in a vain attempt to lighten up the oaten gravel.

Step 8: Blend the pumpkin in the food processor until it has the consistency of Clag Glue. It should be clumpy but not lumpy, if that makes sense. In case this doesn’t make sense, just aim for a thick puree. Scoop about one-and-a-half cups of this gunk into the dry mixture.

Step 9: Mix, realising you’re probably going to add more liquidy goop to the mixture to avoid eating something with the mouthfeel of a dried cowpat.

Of course, butter is the answer to this question. Butter, is always the answer.

Step 10: In the already hot and dirty saucepan, add about 50 grams of butter, which works out to be two large/normal tablespoons. Then add two tablespoons of brown sugar before melting over a low heat.

Step 11: Beat an egg and consider adding milk, given it’s a key ingredient in the classic recipe.

Step 12: Remember that you forgot to buy milk earlier that day and decide against adding whatever dairy juice you have, because otherwise you won’t have enough for a cup of tea tomorrow.

Step 13: Stir in the sugary butter mix and the egg.

Step 14: Decide to add in a cup of normal rolled oats, because you really want to drive home the point that these guys are rich in wholesome oatiness.

Step 15: Slop on to an oven tray in golf ball sized clumps, spacing out if you can. Remember, clumsiness in presentation in the kitchen is merely homeyness, which is rustic charm. And rustic charm is pretty fucking trendy right now. So if your balls look like splats, don’t fret, pet.

Step 16: Chuck into a fan-forced oven set to 210 degrees, setting the timer for seven minutes so you can make a “seven minutes in heaven” joke… to yourself, because there’s no one around to hear it.

Step 17: Take out one clump to try as a tester, smearing in butter. Decide that, even though you love raw mixture, it could probably do with a bit more time in the oven.

Step 18: Rotate the trays, chuck them back in the oven and set the timer for seven minutes again. Again, realise that you’re all alone and there’s no one around to grimace at your “more like seven minutes in hell, because it’s so hot, ammiright?” remark.

Step 19: Take out of the oven, allowing the steam to disappear before you take a picture of your oaten treats to post on social media.

Step 20: Begin badgering your mates with texts that read: “I just invented a new wanky kind of oats. Come over!”.

Step 21: Sit in silence for hours before deciding it’s probably time to go to bed.