Originally published by The Clifton Courier, January 12, 2022

Yeah look, I’ve been pretty sloppy with the reposting lately. But I’ve had a bit on. Maybe this year will be different and I’ll actually get up to date – stay tuned!

I’m taking a little holiday. 

I’ve always found that having time off over the Christmas and New Year’s period never leaves you feeling all that refreshed. There’s so much rushing about and frantic prepping and it’s all a bit full on. It’s weirdly hectic for a celebration that bangs on so much about peace on Earth, and it can make you a bit frazzled. 

So I worked all the way through that period*.

* I also worked all the way through that period because good heavens was I not up for being around happy families and happy couples and happy people in general back then. And even though I was thoroughly depressed, I didn’t want to ruin it for everyone else with my sad sack vibes.  

I mean, I obviously had a few days off here and there. For example, I celebrated Boxing Day by watching most of the first season of Emily in Paris* (it was glorious trash and I’m saving the second season for when I inevitably get COVID and have to isolate for week). 

* See, I told you I was depressed!

I decided to instead take my time off at the beginning of this year, which just so happens to coincide with my 30^th birthday. 

I told my boss it was important I take this time off because it was my Saturn Return, which was cloaked in sarcasm but also had some earnestness to it. In a nutshell, Saturn Return is when Saturn, after a 29.5ish year orbit around the Sun, returns to the position it was in when you were born. You get one at around 30, 60 and 90 and the astrologists out there say it’s a time of great transformation. Of course, there’s a lot of social and practical aspects about those ages which means they coincide with big life changes, but the astrologists’ explanation gives you a free pass to be hedonistic and throw your life into chaos, so I’m going to lean into that a bit. 

And when I’m going full “it’s my Saturn Return, babes!” I can’t be trusted to submit a column on time. The invisible forces of the planets won’t let me, or something. 

So I’ve decided to plan ahead by preparing a few little pieces before I let the universe take me. 

And you be better believe they’re recipes. 

I actually have recently been reposting some of my columns from last year and have just come to the end of my very, very, grim comfort food series*. And I can assure you that we shan’t be going back down that road again. Ooof. 

* Yep, it was worse. There were some really, really grim recipes/cries for help. Some were kind of wholesome like Tiger Toast, but others were just sad, like the muffin with spaghetti from a tin marketed as being “for one”.

While I was cooking these things during some of the dark times of last year, they’re being relayed to you now through a happier filter. And, sure, this first one is a little on the mundane side, but I think it shows progress of some kind. 

One-handed egg

This is something I’ve been making myself for breakfast, but it’s entirely dependant on me having leftover parsley and those tortillas in the green and red bags that look real authentic (I usually buy them in bulk because they’re my means of making my barbecues seem fancy – I’ll come to that in a later recipe). 

I used to be a strict two-boiled-eggs-with-a-handful-of-microwaved-spinach kind of girl, only having toast on weekends. As much as I actually love boiled eggs, having that day in, day out is no way to live. And after the last two years, we want to live, not merely survive! Carpe diem, and whatnot! 

So here’s how I carpe a diem via breakfast. 

I gently heat a bit of garlic infused oil (bought after watching Nigella Lawson use it so much) in a frypan – I’m talking the lowest of the low settings – with a pinch of chilli flakes. Slice five or six cherry tomatoes and put them cut-side down into the pan. Flip them after a few minutes, once they start to get a bit of a char to them. More them to one side of the pan and crack one egg into the remaining oil (but tip in more if those greedy tomatoes took it all). Sprinkle another pinch of chilli flakesinto the gloopy egg – I usually break the yolk to spread the chilli flakes around evenly, but I totally understand if you’re a runny yolker joker. 

Once the egg is cooked, lift it out of the frypan and put a medium sized soft flour tortilla in its place. Then rest the egg on top of its bready mattress. After 30 seconds to a minute, take the tortilla out, put it on a plate, sprinkle with salt and top with a small handful of torn flat parsley leaves. Dump the tomatoes on the side. Roll up the tortilla like a fat cigar and hold with one hand then grab a fork for the tomatoes with the other. Eat greedily, congratulating yourself for truly living life to the full… all because you had carbs for breakfast on a weekday. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, December 22, 2021

This is it, that’s my last column from last year. And what a year it was.

Yep, I’m ending the year with another recipe.

This one came about earlier this month, when I was trying to get into the Christmas spirit by baking and force feeding my artificial cheer to my long-suffering colleagues. I started off making a shortbread based on Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How to Eat because it called for 100 grams of butter and I only had 100 grams of butter left in the house. I knew it was 100 grams because of those helpful notches on the packaging.

It was a very unusual and quite alarming situation for me to be in because I typically have at least half a kilo of butter on hand – and that’s on top of the slab of butter ready for action in my butter dish. I don’t understand how I got to this crisis point or why I didn’t do something to address the issue before things got so dire, but I had to play with the cards I’d been dealt.

I was committed to and excited about following a recipe to the letter for a change – I even made sure I used the exact amount of sugar. The recipe was in grams and I don’t have a set of kitchen scales so I had to look up how many cups 50 grams of icing sugar filled. It turned out that I needed a quarter of a cup and one tablespoon of the stuff. And even though I could have just gone with a heaped quarter cup measurement, I broke out the tablespoon measurement, dirtying two measuring vessels just to ensure I had the correct amount. I was going By The Book and I was very smug about it…

…then I realised I had no cornflour and the recipe didn’t call for the egg I’d taken out of the fridge earlier to come to room temperature. So rather than sourcing cornflour or putting the egg back in the fridge, I decided to once again go off-road, recipe-wise. 

And this is what I did in case you want to copy:

I creamed 100 grams (or five tablespoons) of very, very soft butter with six tablespoons of sifted icing sugar (yes, I measured it out in tablespoons to save excess washing up in the future) with an electric mixer.

Then I added a few drops of vanilla extract and a teaspoon of cinnamon and mixed it together. 

I thought that I’d stay as true to the recipe as possible and thought I’d just add the egg yolk to the mix instead of the whole egg. 

I then looked up how many cups 100 grams of plain flour was in cups. When I say it was half a cup and two tablespoons I thought, “meh, let’s just go a whole cup and be done with it”. I made sure to sieve it though because even though I was being reckless with my baking, I wasn’t going to be sloppy. There’s no excuse for lumps of flour.

It was at this point I realised that I wouldn’t be finding a use for that egg white within a timely manner decided I may as well just use it. And since I’d already dirtied an extra tablespoon measurement, I may as well create more washing up so I decided to whisk it until it was the consistency of thickened cream (I could have gone harder but I grew impatient). 

And then I whisked about a tablespoon of this leftover jammy cherry butterscotch sauce I had sitting in the fridge into the egg white, creating a greyish mix that looked like the scum you’d skim off the top of the wastewater in a sullage pit.

I then mixed this into the dough with the electric beater, therefore cancelling out all the work I’d done trying to get air into the whites (I made this recipe again by just cracking in the egg and adding a tablespoon of jam and it was pretty much the same thing so all of this faffing was very much for nothing, but did make me feel like a serious baker).

I then wrapped the dough in cling wrap and chilled it in the fridge for about half an hour, while I halved the leftover cherries in my fridge. 

I then rolled the dough into tiny balls, pushed one cherry half into each mound and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. 

I then baked them at 160 degrees for 20 minutes and presented them to my colleagues.

I was later congratulated on how soft the bickies were, as if that softness was something I purposefully set out to achieve. Considering my last bickie offering was described as a jaw workout, I’ve decided to chalk this up as a win.  

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, December 1, 2021

I mean, to be honest, this is more a recipe for a salad dressing rather than a whole salad because aside from the dressing, there’s not really much to this extremely sophisticated concoction.  

And I can’t really take much credit for it, because the dressing is a bastardised recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi. A few months ago I made his Aubergines with Crushed Chickpeas and Herb Yoghurt dish for a vego mate and, while it was real good, I haven’t been arsed to make the whole thing again. But I had a yearning for the zestiness the dish provided and I couldn’t get that zest from my life so I tweaked the chickpea mush element of it to turn it into a low-key salad.

I usually serve this without the chook and chips when I have friends over for a barbecue, but as we’re now officially in The Silly Season I figure it’s time to do something special, something festive, something that’ll really wow your holiday guests.

And what could be more special, festive and “oh yeah geez wow” than a store-bought hot chook?

Right, so, the first thing to do is heat up a dry frypan on a medium heat. Once it’s good and hot, tip about a tablespoon of cumin seeds in there to brown slightly – keep an eye on it, otherwise it will burn. I mean you could probs skip all this and sprinkle in some dried ground cumin, but that’s probably because you have other things to hang your self esteem on besides using slightly more difficult ingredients for dishes – as I do not, I opt for the cumin seed… plus the flavour is probably better this way, or something. 

Now grind these toasted seeds in a mortar and pestle, or with whatever grinding implements are at hand. The mortar and pestle is only a new addition to my musty kitchen – before then I wrapped the seeds in baking paper and banged them between two wooden chopping boards. The mortar and pestle is best(le) because it’s way quieter, much quicker and makes you feel like a bit of a witch, which can only be a good thing. 

Then tip this fragrant dust into your salad bowl with a good grinding of black pepper and a generous ’tis-the-season pinch of salt. 

Then you want to chop the skin off a whole lemon, remove all the seeds and pick the juicy lemon flesh away from the pith. I can heartily recommend a good pith pickin’ to calm nerves, as it’s an all-engrossing task which gets more and more satisfying as you go. Could you just squeeze in the juice from the whole lemon instead of mucking around with pith? Absolutely, but that’s not really the point. And, I mean, I don’t know what The Point is anymore, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that. 

Anyway, once you’ve just got the lem flesh, chop it roughly and dump it in your bowl. 

Then Ottolenghi (he’s one of those people who only needs one name, but unlike Nigella, he’s a last name kinda guy) wants you to only add one tablespoon of olive oil. But since we’re butchering his recipe, what he wants doesn’t matter. Add at least one tablespoon of olive oil, mix everything up with a fork and then decide you add another glug, but this time straight from the bottle, tipped with the kind of flair your cooking skills don’t warrant. 

Then really roughly chop a whole bunch of parsley and a whole packet of rocket leaves (the rocket from my local shop generally comes in a container the size of a dog bowl, so I suppose a dog bowl is the right unit of measurement here) and dump it into the zesty oil mixture, rubbing the sludge into the leaves. 

This is where I generally leave it, most of the time. But, again, it’s Christmas so I’m now suggesting you dump about $5 to $7 worth of hot chips in the salad too. I obviously recommend chicken salt on the chips.

Then break up a hot chook into mouthful-sized rips and mix that through. 

Serve with a flourish, by slapping the bowl down in front of your guests with a heavy thud and ignore all their questions about why you wouldn’t just serve the chicken, chips and salad separately to ensure chip crispness. 

This isn’t about crisp chips. This isn’t about them. This isn’t even about you.  I don’t know what it’s about anymore. Just eat it. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, November 24, 2021

I am now in possession of my own birth certificate. 

For anyone who isn’t keeping up with every detail of my life (that’s a weird choice to make, but that’s your decision I suppose…) there was a time when I was unaware of where my birth certificate was. 

And for quite a while there, I was unaware that I was unaware of where it was. It was only when I was on the phone to my friend who was looking for her own birth certificate that I realised I didn’t know where mine was. 

I assumed it was somewhere safe, but where exactly that safe somewhere was had completely eluded me. 

Thankfully, after shamelessly abusing of this column for personal reasons, I was able to ascertain that it was at my parents’ house and over the weekend I was given custody of the document that proves I was born.

But now I don’t know what to do with it. 

Because it’s now up to me to keep it safe, and that’s a big responsibility. 

If I can’t find it after this, I’ll be the only one to blame. No one else will be able to shed any light on where it could be. I won’t be able to put out a public callout to Mum asking where it is. 

I’ve got to put it in a place that’s easy to find but out of the way so robbers can’t use it to steal my identity but also quick to grab in case I need to evacuate in a hurry but also a place where it won’t get covered in honey. 

And that’s a tricky thing to do. 

The first thing I did when I got home was stick it to my fridge. 

The fridge door is a place where you keep important reminders like shopping lists or things you’re proud of, like paintings you did at preschool. I mean, my Hungry Jacks Crew Member of the Month certificate from 2010 is still on my parents’ fridge door so I feel like it’s a place with a certain esteem. And like a shopping list, my birth certificate is an important reminder that I was born and even though I didn’t have much to do with it, I guess I’m proud of being born. 

But I know the fridge door is just a temporary location.

It definitely ticks easy-to-find and quick-to-grab boxes, but given it’s in an envelop that says “Dannielle’s birth certificate” it’s not very well hidden from robbers. I don’t really know what a robber would do if burdened with my identity, but I wouldn’t like to find out.  And while I could absolutely prevent any thievery by crossing out “Dannielle’s birth certificate” and writing “nothing important in here, I honestly wouldn’t bother looking in this envelope when there’s all these cool horse statues in the house you could be stealing – but also please do not steal those, if you wouldn’t mind” there’s a real risk of spillage in a kitchen environment. 

So I’m now trying to figure out where to put it. 

I could put it in that folder I have with all my other important documents. It certainly would be a logical place to put it and, I must admit, it was the first place I looked when I realised I didn’t know where my birth certificate was. But then, it’s too obvious, isn’t it? Like if a robber was coming in to steal my identity, it would be the first place they’d look too. 

So then I thought I could put it up in the manhole to get into the ceiling. But there’s always a risk of ceiling possums getting to it, and I wouldn’t want a possum to either defecate on it or use it to steal my identity – that would be truly chaotic. And while the hassle of having to get a ladder, climb up into the ceiling and ferret around for it is the thing that protects it from the thieving hands of robbers, that’s also the thing what would make it tricky to quickly grab in an emergency evacuation situation. So the ceiling is out too. 

I could put it in the cover of a book on my bookshelf, but then I’d have to remember which book I put it in. And I’d have to make sure it wasn’t a book that  was so good that someone would want to borrow it, but not too boring that I’d donate it to an op shop.

It’s a big decision and one I feel underqualified to make. 

It makes me think that it might be best to just put it back where it used to be. I mean, I was able to locate it eventually. And it was in very good condition – there wasn’t not a single smear of honey on it. Hey Muuuuum… 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, November 17, 2021

Yeah, look, I wrote this months ago, long before those long queues and long wait times. And I have to say, I had a pretty cruisy experience when renewing my passport. I don’t mean to rub it, but I got my passport back in like two weeks.

I’m currently on hold with the Australian Passport Office. 

I’m attempting to renew my passport as both an act of both optimism and life admin, hopeful that may at some point in the near future, I might be able to use it again (well, as something other than a coaster, anyway). I mean, I’m not saying I wish the rest of the country were a miserable bunch of pessimists too, but I had hoped there’d be less people calling about renewing passports given we’re still living in These Uncertain Times. 

So far, I’ve been on hold for 48 minutes and seven seconds.

And, look, as far as hold music goes, this stuff is fairly nice. It’s kind of mediative music with didgeridoos and clarinets and choral refrains, so I guess I could chalk it up as a bit of a relaxation session… if that relaxation session was also a hostage situation. 

But I haven’t been relaxing this whole time. 

In fact, I’ve actually been able to get quite a few things done while I’ve been on hold thanks to the hands-free magic of ear buds. Here’s how I’ve spent the now 53 minutes and 24 seconds I’ve been on hold so far:

Paid my internet bill: This was something I’d meant to do yesterday, but didn’t get around to it because it required 1.45 minutes of concentration and me to enter a few details into the online form. Clearly, as a pencil-skirt wearing career woman, I had no time for that… until today. 

Paid my phone bill: I don’t think I get monthly statements for this and if I do, I’ve clearly ignored them for much of the year. I can’t remember the last time I was prompted to pay for my telephonic privileges and therefore can’t remember the last time I paid, so I just took a stab in the dark and transferred what I hoped was enough to ensure my lines of communication won’t be cut. 

Hung some washing on the line: I’ve started divvying up my loads according to light and colourful garments. It’s a very exciting development in my life, hey?

Wrote a post card to my sister: I went to an art exhibition like a month ago and bought a postcard of a famous painting featuring a pair of sisters. I have been recently quite slack at keeping up my postal correspondence with this sister, which we like to maintain despite the modern communication methods available to us (well, they’re available if you remember to pay your bills on time…).  I had been planning to send a the postcard with more exciting life updates than “I’m on hold right now” but things have been quite dull in most aspects of my life (except in the laundry, ammiright?!), I’d been meaning to send it for a while and I had nothing else to do with my time. So she’s got a nice underwhelming surprise coming for her in the mail. 

Wrote a note to my other sister: Late in September, I’d bought myself a set of really, really comfy knickers with a matching crop top. I was chuffed with them. I ended up back to that shop a few days later and, noticing it was in the midst of a sale, I decided to snag a cheap set for my sister as a little put-a-smile-on-that-dial mid-week mail surprise. I hadn’t got around to sending them and after so long, I felt like I need to accompany them with a note explaining the delay, so I wrote that while on hold. 

Realised I didn’t have anything to send my other sister in the mail: There’s absolutely nothing to read into that, but any chronic overthinker of a middle child could write a whole column on being casually excluded like that. 

Sent a hasty Facebook message to my ignored sister: I misspelled “you” in my rush to pre-emptively mend things. 

Started writing this column: Some might say I was being very meta, cheekily breaking down the fourth wall with a wink to my readers. Others might say I was seizing the day, taking what life thrusts at me and milking every opportunity out of it. And then there would be some who would say writing about being on hold is scraping the barrel, topic-wise.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 9, 2022

Sometimes I forget that I’m a middle child, but not for long. 

I’m from a squeal (that’s the collective noun I’m going with at the moment) of four sisters. I’m number three in the lineup, but my youngest sister didn’t come along until I was four so I spent a good hunk of my formative younger years as the youngest. Until I was four, I was used to being the baby and based on the adorable ringlets I had at the time, I have to assume I was absolutely doted on until my undeniably much cute little sister came along. So I suppose I’m a middle child with a youngest rising, which I feel like lends to certain attention-seeking personality traits. 

My second-oldest sister has a saying (which I always have to credit her for because otherwise that’s taking the spotlight off her brilliance and don’t want to be responsible for that) about being number two or three in a family of four or more: you have to share everything, even being the middle child. 

This might make it sound like we’re extremely competitive with each other, but we’re actually quite a cooperative sisterhood. And any past tension is now the source of dark but warm-natured jokes. But it has manifested in me personally in ways which, by now, would be quite obvious. 

I mean, I’m no psychologist but I reckon producing a 700-word column about my thoughts each week is at least partly fuelled by a desire for attention. The bright colours and bold waistlines that make up my wardrobe scream at people to look at me. And I have the loudest sneeze out of anyone I’ve ever known. 

But there are other things that pop up that make me think “oh yeah, I’m very a middle child”.

Like the other day when I was walking barefoot through a car park and felt the sting of some kind of insect bite. I made a comment about thinking I had been stung by a bee.

I was with my Curly-Haired Friend, who I have known for longer than my adorable and infinitely loveable little sister. This friend knows a heckload about me, so she knows that I am somewhat allergic to bees.  

Now, the phrase “allergic to bees” sounds pretty serious. We’ve all either been emotionally scarred by or at least heard of those gut-wrenching scenes in My Girl with Macaulay Culkin, the bees and, oh geez, that whole thing not being about to see without his glasses. Bee allergies can create life or death situations for some people.

But my bee allergy – at least, based the last time I was stung – is nothing like that. 

I just experience mildly more swelling around the site of sting than most people do. My tongue doesn’t swell, I don’t get dizzy and I don’t even get hives. I just have a little localised puffing. 

But because my reactions were slightly more intense than those of my sisters, I clung to it like a toy I didn’t want to share. 

A young Dannielle made it clear to everyone she knew that she was allergic to bees. She made sure to wear a thong on her mildly swollen foot because it couldn’t possibly fit in her regular school shoe. She always put down “bees” in the allergy section of medical forms. 

Once stung, young Dannielle gorged herself on the sympathy and bathed in the special attention.

And, look, I don’t think I’ve been stung by a bee for a while so I don’t know the extent of my “allergy” as an adult, but I have a feeling that it might not be as serious as a young Dannielle made it out to be. It’s got to the point that I don’t even think of it anymore, because I’m one of them well-adjusted, emotionally stable grown ups now (hahahhahaha so stable, so adjusted).

I was only reminded of my allergy by my curly-haired friend who dryly quipped words to the effect of “oh no, but your ‘bee allergy’!” in a way that expressed no concern whatsoever. 

The grown up me laughed, but the young middle child who still lives inside me was not at all impressed. Hopefully writing a column about it will make her feel sufficiently seen. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 6, 2021

I’ve recently welcomed an electric toothbrush into my life.

As someone who has a mouthful of fillings, I’ve been wanting an electric toothbrush for a really, really long time. 

In Grade 1, my teeth were so bad I had to go to the dental van outside of school hours instead of being able to skip in and out that government-subsidised mobile dentist like all the other squares in my class who used actual toothpaste when brushing their teeth. I think, at one point, I even had to go back for more fillings on a weekend. And, look, it wasn’t ideal, but those hours in the dentist chair enduring the pain and discomfort of filling after filling gave me the disassociation powers I now utilise to survive the horrific news cycle with some level of functionality (dealing with the awfulness of all that is Future Dannielle’s problem*! Besides, my inevitable breakdown will give me great fodder for the memoirs I’ll need to write** in order to support myself as an ethically-sourced-cotton-wearing “creative” with a vast collection of dessert wines).

But despite having earned my own income since Grade 9, I’ve never actually gone out and bought myself an electric toothbrush. 

Don’t ask me why. It’s not like I had any moral issues with electric toothbrushes. And they’ve progressively become cheaper and cheaper as the years have gone on.

Given the percentage of my teeth filled with amalgams and tooth-coloured composites***, paired with the stupid amount of cash I’ve dropped on novelty horse and swan items throughout my life, there is no logical reason I haven’t bought an electric toothbrush before now. And it’s particularly shocking to think that it was only when I was confronted with a half-price model in a flurry of impulse purchasing that I actually took the plunge. It shouldn’t require a state of emotional vulnerability and something costing less than a carton of beers to make me invest in my dental hygiene, but that’s what it took. 

So let’s not dwell on the past, because we are now in the electric era of my dental history. 

And now that I’m here, I’m not too sure about it. 

I mean, the general wisdom is that electric toothbrushes are much more powerful and effective than their acoustic counterparts. They spin and vibrate and sing out when you’ve been going for two minutes. Those are all great things, but I can’t help but feel the acoustic toothbrushes are more authentic, you know? Like, there’s very little work that has to be done on my part.

All I have to do is turn the toothbrush on and slowly run it over each tooth in a calm and steady action. There’s no scrubbing. There’s no up-and-down or side-to-side, just a limp surrender to the superiority of machinery.

And, again, I’m sure this is great for my teeth. They do seem to feel cleaner these days. I’m glad about that, especially because the last time I went to the dentist, she asked if I was a smoker. I had to explain to her that the staining was so bad on account of my tea drinking habit. I really want to impress her next time I get in the dentist chair and I feel like my electric toothbrush will help me win over this stranger.

But I also feel like it’s making me lazy.

It’s kind of like the way I feel about reversing cameras and dishwashers – they’re both great inventions that save a lot of time, effort and money spent at the panel beaters. 

But I’m wary of our reliance on them, like it’ll make us soft and useless and, I suppose, render our human abilities somewhat obsolete. 

I mean, the now-extremely-outdated-because-everybody’s-streaming-music-these-days CD player in my car doesn’t even work so suffice to say my car doesn’t have a reverse camera. And I think I’m a long way off having a house with an actual dishwasher in it****, so I’m safe on that front too. 

But now I’m an eclectic toothbrush person, I feel like it’s a slippery slope into oblivion. At least my teeth will nice, though. 

*Look, Present Dannielle is actually the Future Dannielle that Past Dannielle wrote about when she sat down to write this piece, and let me tell you that Present Dannielle is most unhappy about Past Dannielle’s decisions. She and the Medicare system are now paying for those decisions.

** Present Dannielle is hoping to all things holy that Past Dannielle’s optimism that our shared Future Dannielle be some kind of literary success was not just Past Dannielle’s delusions and was, in fact, some kind of premonition.

*** Yes, I had to do a lot of Googling to get the terminology right for this one.

**** But in case any dishwasher companies out there want to sponsor this post, I’m very, very open to whatever business proposals you have…

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 29, 2021

I had some friends house sit for me over the weekend and I tellya what, there’s a lot to think about. 

I wanted create a comfortable, lovely experience for them. Part of this is because I’m a deeply empathetic person with a big heart… and part of this is because I want them to think good things about me – you know, that I’m caring, that I’m hospitable, that I have great taste and that I don’t live like a total grot. 

I like the idea of being the friend whose house is the preferred option when people need a place to crash. But in order to secure this position, I need to make sure I’m a good host – because I can’t trust that my personality alone will attract my needy friends. I’ve got to be professional in my approach. 

So I’m conducting a review. 

Things to improve on for next time:

Get matching towels – I’m not saying all my linen has to be part of a set. Sure, it’d be nice, but I don’t need to have everything match aesthetically. What I’m talking about here is having at least two towels of the same quality. Because when my mates stayed over, I only had two clean spare towels and one was much better than the other, quality-wise. And that makes things awkward because then they’d have had the discussion about who got the good towel and who got the one that looked like the kind of towel you’d use to dry a wet dog. I mean, obviously it’s preferable to have two good quality towels – which is what I’m aiming for. However, if they had two bad quality towels they would think I’m a grub, but at least there wouldn’t be any arguments between them. 

Provide an iron: I don’t own an iron. I have an ironing board and the water container part of an iron because I just kinda ended up with them, but no actual iron. But the presence of an ironing board suggested to my houseguest that I had an iron to go with it, so she went looking through the spare wardrobe in a fruitless search. And while she was looking, she discovered my overhead projector and then I had to explain to her why I had teaching equipment from the early 90s but not an iron. 

Things I think I got right:

Fresh sheets – Because no one wants to wake up covered in someone else’s mystery hair.

Encouraging them to use the mixer to bake as part of my welcome note – not only was this suggesting a fun activity, but it showed that I knew them well because I was aware they’d been watching a lot of The Great British Bake Off. That’s a personalised experience. And that made me look caring. It also provided a cover for the somewhat excessive amount of butter I keep on hand. I’m not a nutjob butter fiend, I just bought ample supplies on their behalf. That’s all. 

A full container of teabags – I was having a cup of tea the morning before I left and it dawned on me there was only one teabag remaining. I’m surprised I let it get that bad but, to be fair to myself, I’d had a string of 3:30am wakeups that week so I wasn’t all that alert by Saturday morning. I went for a quick run to the supermarket to replenish supplies and thought, while I was there, I should grab some bonus toilet paper. I was very glad I did that, because I didn’t realise I was down to the final rolls. So, really, it was a good thing I nearly let the tea run out.

Towel chocolates – I wanted to play up the whole naff hotel experience, so I artfully folded up a corner of each towel, placed it at the foot of the bed and tucked in a little treat. I didn’t need to put out little soaps as I’d already put a jumbo dispenser of body wash in the shower (a communal bar of soap probably wouldn’t get me a rave review) so I went with an individually wrapped chocolate. I’d briefly considered Lindt balls, but I actually don’t think they’re as great as they make themselves out to be and they’re that little bit exxier than the other options so I thought, in the context of my particular operation, that would have been trying too hard. Instead, I went with strawberry Freddos because they’re honest and down-to-earth. Like, you wouldn’t have a beer with a snooty, social-climbing Lindt ball, but geez you’d have a few laughs at the pub with Freddo Frog.

Hanging the galloping horse print I inherited from Grandma in guest room: Because I have excellent taste and I need them to know that. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 22, 2021

There are few things that tap into the ugliest depths of humanity quite like a buffet. 

While I like to tell myself that I am a decent and rational person motivated by goodwill, I am aware this is something of an act. 

I mean, deep down, we’re all animals with biological needs, powered by ancient evolutionary forces. We could kill with our bare hands. We could let out piercing, guttural howls. We could grind the bones of our enemies down to make our bread (which not only is quite graphic for a children’s story, it would make for a very unpleasant texture).  

But we don’t – and that’s not just because there’s no amount of butter that could make a slice of bone-based sourdough enjoyable.

It’s because we’re also creatures of the mind. This consciousness means we can rise above the savagery that earned us our throne in the animal kingdom and style ourselves with some semblance of civility. This means our character is not just who we are naturally, but also the people we actively try to be. And I personally find that very comforting, because while naturally I can be quite awful, I can train myself to be… less awful. And that extra effort counts for something (well, in my convenient-for-me opinion, anyway).

I mean, it requires a lot of internal effort to fashion myself into the semi-decent person I present myself as. It takes work to be patient and pleasant and understanding. It’s not something I naturally do on instinct; it’s something I have to actively cultivate. 

Most of the time, I’m able to maintain that veneer of decency and rationality until I get to the privacy of my own car/home/soundproof capsule that prevents other people from hearing my pent-up rants. But there are certain situations when years of psychological coaching and self-discipline become undone.

For me, that’s at a buffet.

I went to one on the weekend and was confronted by a side of myself that had not been unleashed for years thanks to a combination of the pandemic, the collapse of the Sizzler empire and society’s general suspicion of mass-produced foods that sit under heatlamps for hours.  

I had forgotten how ugly I could become in front of a salad bar. 

I walked into an arena of bain-maries and realised I was the master of my own destiny… and that I should not have that kind of power. 

Because without the restraints of single-serve portions dished out to me by someone else, I use that freedom to load up my plate with vast quantities of food that go far beyond my nutritional needs. And when I’m able to mix and match food items, I slop entirely different cuisines together in ungodly combinations that have no business being in the same building, let alone on the same plate. 

I always end up eating too much and, often, I don’t even enjoy the food that much. 

So I’m trying to understand why I do this.

The problem with buffets is not so much to do with the vast amount of choice because, when you think about it, there are often just as many choices in a line of bain-maries as there are on a menu. 

I think it’s the lack of consequences that undoes me. 

Because when you order something from a menu, you’re stuck with it. But if you put something on your plate at a buffet, you just can leave it sitting somewhere and a staff member will whisk it away. You don’t have to think about whether you’d actually enjoy the food, so you turn down the volume on the part of your brain in charge of critical thinking. And when you pair that with the fact you’ve paid to eat all you can eat, you feel a desperation to make the most of it. 

When you’re not used to this kind of freedom, it hypnotises you – and it doesn’t help that the clattering of knifes, forks and tongs is so loud that it drowns out your voice of reason.   

And like a shark who has picked up the sent of blood, your pupils dilate and you become a mindless eating machine. It turns into a gluttonous, hedonistic free-for-all and you don’t realise you’ve lost yourself until you’re contemplating your second run at the dessert bar. And then you look down in horror that the half-cleaned bones, the jelly cups and the dregs of clashing sauces in front of you. You think about how hard you’ve worked to morph yourself into a decent human and are appalled to learn that all it takes to undo all that work is an array of salads.  

Or is that just me?