DUCK!

I went grocery shopping in February and have no intention of going again until September. Except for milk and eggs. I suppose I could manage with powdered milk, but unless I clear a sizeable portion of the OK Bay bush for a chook run, eggs are a problem.

Actually I tell a lie. I admit to a mid siege toilet paper re-stock. It is after all rather difficult to store 7 months’ worth of the essential tissue. (Mind you, I did vacuum seal 6 dozen rolls for the Tonga sailing trip. They reduce to about 1/8th volume, a fact of which you may have previously been unaware. You pay for an awful lot of air in a dunny roll.)

So now in month six of my shopping embargo, I’m at the “interesting” stage of the weekly freezer forage to see what’s on offer for the coming culinary week. Bags labelled “prawn shells”, “leftover Christmas ham”, or worse, “liver” seem all too prevalent. I decide it’s time to liberate the duck from its icy grave. He is christened Donald and placed in the fridge for two days to thaw. I ignore the fact that Donald might be a Daffy and doubt that he/she will be offended if I got it wrong.

Saturday. Duck Day. Being a duck-cooking virgin, dealing with Donald requires research. I plough through a score of cookbooks and 35 years accumulated recipe cuttings. My, how one’s tastes have changed since the 70’s! I get side-tracked wondering how the hell I ever thought Boston Sausage (a bright orange casserole of boiled sausages, carrots and curry powder, cooked in a tin of Watties condensed tomato soup) was a dish worthy of repetition.

As it would be glutinous (I’m thinking that should be gluttinous?) to roast a whole duck just for one, and being unwilling to let friends witness what could be Duck Disaster, I conclude that Donald’s breasts (that just sounds all wrong doesn’t it?) are best suited to pan frying, and the legs to a slower method of cooking. I’ll make duck soup from the leftover bits, not to mention all the fabulous duck fat I’ll have for roasting potatoes at a later date.

It seems that confit legs are the way to go, but as this apparently involves simmering them in an obscene amount (like half a kilo) of fat for 3 hours, I decide that Braised Duck Legs with Pears and Spinach will be a little less scary. I also like the sound of Pan-Fried Duck Breasts with a Berry Sauce, “the sharpness of the berries offsetting the richness of the duck”. I choose Mat Follas’ berry sauce recipe, which involves only blackberries, redcurrants, rowanberries and a wee bit of sugar (noting that one should “err on the side of tartness”). I also note that I haven’t got any redcurrants and doubt that we even grow rowanberries in NZ, but plenty of frozen blackberries (foraged by my boss and swapped for a jar of my tamarillo chutney), strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.

I wonder if a strawberry and blackberry sauce would be just too weird? The strawberries would sweeten up the blackberries which, being wild, are bound to be on the sharpish side, but would the strawberry perfume overpower? I Google “duck + strawberry” and get 177,000 hits, so decide to run with it, disappointed that I haven’t invented a new culinary sensation.

Donald is lying on his back on the chopping board, legs vulgarly splayed, looking a lot less like a chicken than I would prefer. I reckon I could joint a chicken with my eyes closed, and even bone one out completely with just the odd peek, but the duck breast/leg demarcation doesn’t seem very pronounced as I nervously raise the knife. The end result looks a bit butchered, and I don’t mean in a skilled craftsman kind of way. There’s a hell of a lot of Donald left over, an inordinate quantity of frame, fat and skin.

I decide to roast off the large leftover bits/bones ready for making soup. I don’t know why I decided to do that instead of just boiling them up. Maybe I saw it on TV? The smaller bits I throw in a hot frying pan with a view to rendering the precious fat.

The oven is now spitting in a 2-cans-of-Mr-Muscles-will-be-required-to-clean-it kind of way, bits of Donald are leaping out of an exploding frying pan and the smoke alarm has gone off twice before I decide I should Google “how to render duck fat”. It seems the best way is to boil it up and scrape the fat off when it’s set the next day. Ooops. However you can do it in a frypan if you cut the duck into very little pieces (ooops) and continually drain the fat off (ooops) as it forms, leaving you with very tasty duck “scratchings” which of course I most certainly will not eat. Numm, numm, numm.

The cooking process is interrupted when I realise it’s getting cold and dark and I’d better bring the washing in. I put a pair of wool trousers in to soak, hoping that Napisan will remove duck fat.



The blackberries, strawberries and raspberries (what the hell, at least I drew the line at blueberries) go into a frying pan that I really should have cleaned more thoroughly after last night’s Po Kor Curry. The smell and look of the berries is heavenly (despite a faint curry overtone) and I somehow refrain from adding anything else, following Mat Follas’ recipe religiously (well, apart from omitting two-thirds of the ingredients). I push the berries through a strainer and think the pulp will go nicely in next week’s banana smoothies. The sauce I could bury my face in, it’s so utterly divine.

A phone call from Mother, a visit from Betty, and I’m starting to get mighty hungry. What would go well with Donald Breast and Berry Sauce? I think a potato or parsnip mash, or maybe cauliflower puree? The problem is they’re all so white and look rather sad on a white plate, which is all I’ve got. But maybe some green beans with butter, lemon juice and zest will save the day?

By now the best part of a bottle of wine has been used in the cooking process (and I don’t mean as an ingredient), a sauvalanche warning is imminent and things are slightly losing shape. I put the potatoes on to boil, noting that there are only 2 left, none growing and no prospect of producing any until Christmas, which is a shame now that I’ve got all that lovely duck fat and nothing to roast in it. I could buy some spuds I suppose . . . .

Donald’s breasts are seasoned and scored, fried skin side down for 5 minutes, finished in the oven for a few minutes and left to rest. Unlike chicken, the flesh should be pink. I put the potatoes through a ricer (it really does make good mash), mix with hot (yes, it matters!) milk and butter, overcook the beans dreadfully and serve up something that doesn’t look very attractive at all.

It was delicious though. A lot better than prawn shells or liver. And despite setting a new World and Olympic record for Most Number Of Dirty Dishes Produced By One Person, I’m officially a duck convert.

GETTING STARTED

Sunday afternoon, and it’s bitterly cold. Despite having the heater on (unusual for Ms Frugality), long johns, track pants, 2 pairs of socks, thermal shirt, sweatshirt, polar fleece and beanie, I’m still freezing.

The last of the rat poison has just been distributed into the ceiling and “call exterminators” noted on Monday’s To Do list. I can hear Elvis, Janis, Michael (and friends I think) cavorting around up there and I’m throwing the towel in. Time to get a man in.

So, a couple of hours to spare before the next scheduled task. What to write about? Nothing springs to mind. But they say when you’ve got writers’ block you just need to start.

Waiting . . . .

Hmmm . . . .

Ummm . . . .

Have a coffee . . . .

OK, OK, I’m doing it . . . .

Betty from 3 doors down called in yesterday. She often stops by on her daily walk and being a keen gardener herself we swap drought/flood/snail stories. More often than not she catches me engaged in some ridiculous activity (this time threading toilet roll inners over the leeks, it’s supposed to help produce nice white stems), which I suspect is the real reason she interrupts her constitutional.

Betty: “I got rid of him last week, you know”

Me: “Who?”

(Worried. After the unfortunate experience of finding my other neighbour dead in his garden last year, I’m alert to anything suspicious.)

Betty: “My partner. “We’ve been together 11 years but he’s impossible so I kicked him out”.

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that”.

Betty: “He’s probably not going to change is he?”

Me: “Well . . .

Betty: “He’s 81”

Me: “Possibly not”.

I showed Betty “Trouser Carrot”, my mutant vegetable of the week.

It’s a shame she never saw “Loch Ness Kumara”, which has been my most spectacularly deformed vegetable to date, even better than “Hard-on Tomato”.

I took Loch Ness Kumara to work to show the girls, but not before torturing them with a week-long build up to The Big Reveal. With daily clues such as “It Took Patience and Commitment” and “It’s Been a Long Time Coming”, some rather unkind guesses were made as to the subject, namely that I had been asked out on a date, and crueller, that I had had sex. Needless to say they were bitterly disappointed when LNK was revealed.

Betty went on to tell me that her dream house at OK Bay had become too much for her to handle, and she was selling up and moving to a unit in Orewa. And that she would miss my antics. Uh oh. Just how much has she witnessed?

I know she knows about the snail hotel because she caught me feeding lettuce leaves and spring onions to a large plastic bin tastefully decorated with rotting wood, dirt, a lid punched with airholes and occupied by a dozen of the largest late night harvested snails.

Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . . ?“

(she’s forgotten my name but too many years chatting have elapsed to enlighten her without causing embarrassment. I once cleared the letterbox while we were talking and held a letter with my name on it as strategically as possible, to no avail).

Me: “We’re having a snail race at work on Melbourne Cup Day”.

Betty: “I see”.

I don’t think she did though. I should have invited her down a week later when I was attaching race numbers to the shells, then she might have got it.

Then of course there was the Mrs McKee (a scarecrow I made for the vege garden 2 houses ago) incident.

Complete with wig, beret, handbag and matronly op shop clothes over a stuffed double-F sized bra (an embarrassing item to purchase even if it was from a clearance bin) she really was rather lifelike. Unfortunately Mrs McKee’s neck was broken during the move to OK Bay, so I had her laid out on the deck and was removing her cardigan, blouse and bra, with a view to effecting repairs, when Betty stopped by.

Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . .?“

Me: “Trying to fix Mrs McKee’s broken neck”

Betty: “I see”

Which of course she didn’t, the whole scene not improved by Fluffy playing toss-and-chase with the double-F.

I know Betty’s also seen me washing my car in the dark, working on the roof in a sunfrock, gumboots and a builders apron, constructing a coconut bra, blow drying a stuffed buffalo, disguising a cow as a reindeer, not to mention walking past her house every Boxing Day with my extended family variously attired as (for example) Tarzan, Speedy Gonzales, Caesar, Athena the Greek Goddess, Heidi, Pania of the South Seas, and a Geisha Girl, on our way to the beach for the OK Bay Olympics.

However I sincerely hope she didn’t witness the Undy ‘n Apples 500 trial-on-the-deck run. A new event for the OK Bay Olympics must of course be tested for suitability before being unleashed. Especially one that involves sprinting in a pair of men’s white waist-high 4XL Jockey Y-fronts with two large apples shoved down the front. Objective: cover the course as fast as possible whilst retaining the apples in the gusset region.

It was dark on my deck. I hope. And as you can see from the photo, despite a practice run, success on the day is not guaranteed.

So there you have it. It’s true, you just have to make a start and before you know it you’ve achieved the written equivalent of verbal diarrhoea . . .

ELVIS

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Elvis has not left the building. He’s in my ceiling. A rat.

When I first heard him a couple of months ago he sounded like a mouse, but he’s put on a awful lot of weight. Next he’ll be starring in crap Hollywood movies and performing in Vegas.

I could live with Elvis when he was younger, but the late night partying and anti-social behaviour has become intolerable. And now he’s got a girlfriend. Janis.

Why didn’t I deal with him when he was a mouse? Too busy. Getting the death-trap-ladder out of the garage and into the house, sticking my head up the manhole and lobbing poison around never made it to the top of the infinite Weekend List. Plus I have a problem with animals suffering. I don’t mind eating them, but they must have led a reasonably happy life and be dispatched quickly and humanely. One of the worst things about owning a cat (Fluffy, RIP) was having to rescue the birds, skinks and mice she tormented, assess their likelihood of survival if liberated, and finish them off if necessary. A truly hideous task.

I can live with killing slugs, snails, white cabbage butterflies and a gazillion other bugs if we’re competing for my vege crop, although finding a suitable murder method has been problematic. I’ve tried the bucket of salt water, but watching snails attempting dog-paddle is way too upsetting. Likewise throwing them on the road. Ditto over the neighbours fence, their shells shattering on impact. The only acceptable solution is to squash them dead instantly, which turns my stomach but at least it’s quick. Of course since starting Chef School I don’t have a whole lot of energy for midnight snail-raids, so I’ve taken to planting way more than I need. The gastropods and I share the spoils.

So although poisoning is not really an acceptable solution, discharging my air rifle in the ceiling would undoubtedly put my life at risk. Apparently the “drugs” I’ve solicited for Elvis and Janis will make them rather thirsty and they’ll leave the building in search of water. What happens after that I do not want to know. This is assuming they “come to the party” which so far they haven’t. Obviously the random toss of a handful of large blue pills in the general direction isn’t sufficient. This weekend I’ll have to actually crawl over to their hideout and somehow make the deal look more attractive. Maybe a credit card, a $100 bill and a glass coffee table will do the trick?

Elvis’ favourite playground is directly above my bed, in the most inaccessible part of the ceiling. Until last week he stayed outside until about 2:00 a.m. when he’d scuttle along the corrugated iron roof, find an ingress (which I’m loathe to block up, even if I could find it, until he’s definitely left the building), party up large for an hour or so, no doubt snacking on ceiling insulation and electrical cables, before leaving via the same route, possibly back to his wife.

Banging on the wall with my fist and the ceiling with a broomstick used to shut him up until I got back to sleep, but now I think he takes it as encouragement, kind of like the band warming up, or a sound test. Twice last night I rolled out of bed in a Bruce Willis style dodge-the-bullets manoeuvre, certain that Elvis was coming through the flimsy ¼” ceiling tiles. I do NOT want to be showered in rat shit, nor have a furry creature spread-eagled on my face in the style of Daniel Boone’s coonskin cap worn back to front.

Speaking of rat shit, and still clutching onto the hope that it was a mouse, a possum, or the neighbours’ cat, I consulted a male friend after I’d been up the manhole and surveyed the debris:

Me: “What does ratshit look like?”

Friend: “You on a Saturday morning”

Me: “Thanks. I mean rat shit”

Friend: “Like mouse shit, but bigger”

Me: “Shit”.

Even I know that possum shit looks more like sheep shit, and we all know what cat shit looks like. And it sure as hell was bigger than any mouse shit I’ve ever seen, bugger it.

No offence intended to the real Elvis by naming my rat after him. Nor Janis for that matter. I’m a huge Elvis fan, and remember exactly the day he died. I was emptying the rubbish after school, into a paper Kleensak, and the rubbish was wrapped in newspaper. (Stop! I feel myself getting started on another topic i.e. do we really think plastics are progress?) when the news came over the radio. I was wearing powder blue hipster bell bottoms with a desert scene painted on the legs, a yellow/orange tie-dyed grandpa shirt (no doubt purchased from Cook St Market and not made in China. Oops, there I go again!), topped off with a very trendy “shaggy” haircut, achieved through the liberal use of the Comet 4-in-1 razor comb.

Anyway, I was devastated. Only a couple of weeks prior I’d won an Elvis book via a competition on the radio. Can’t remember what the question was, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever won other than the odd chook raffle and meat tray at the pub.

But undying love notwithstanding, I really want Elvis to leave the building, and ultimately my “visitors” will meet the same fate as their namesakes, given their outrageous lifestyles.

To Elvis’ (the rat’s) credit, he’s highlighted the need to remove an old unproductive plum tree scraping against the roof, get rid of piles of rotting vegetation lying around the place, install ceiling insulation (having finally stuck my head up the manhole and discovered there is none), and he actually woke me up in time for the NZ v Italy FIFA football match when I forgot to set my alarm.

During a girlie weekend at Orua Bay a couple of years ago we spotted a sign at one of the classic Kiwi baches: “This parking space is reserved for Elvis”. Priceless. Unfortunately this parking space is not.

Long live Elvis. Just somewhere else please?

GREAT POT

You’ll never catch me cavorting through kitchenware shops wearing undies over tights and a snug “GG” emblazoned skivvy. Gadget Girl, I am not.

In fact I’m a consumer nightmare. Most of what I own is home-made, pre-loved or scrounged. The more they jack up GST and lower income tax the happier I am. I just hardly ever buy stuff. The “operators waiting now” will be on a pension by the time they get my call, even if I only have to make 43 easy payments of $29.95 and they throw in set of free steak knives that can rip through a ripe tomato after cutting a shoe in half.

I just seem to be able to somehow manage without the Amazing Fly Gun, Handy She-Wee Portable Urinal, Realistic Microphone Shower Radio and Hilarious Farting Keyring. Hell, I don’t even have a dishwasher, or a toaster that pops up. My washing machine has knobs not buttons and the drier belonged to Great Aunty Alice.

Which is why when I do make a new purchase, it’s so life-changingly spectacular and evokes such wonderment and joy, that I can scarcely take my eyes off it.

Yes, it’s the new 8.5 litre stainless steel glass-lidded no-plastic-components calibrated stock pot, including air bags, ABS braking, turbo charged fuel efficiency and TomTom GPS. Na, I just made those last bits up. Although after a thorough road test this weekend I can report that fuel efficiency is remarkable – I’d swear the element was closer to “off” than a poorly wrapped piece of blue cheese in the back of the fridge, yet the stock was still bubbling away merrily. This could be attributed to a very thick bottom with a near perfect match to the stove element. Size does matter. In fact as far as bottoms go, this pot rivals Jennifer Lopez. It's also very, very good looking. I reckon you could get away with plonking it straight on the table to serve from, maybe brimming with cheerios for your next cocktail party, with a side of home made sauce in a tomato shaped squeeze bottle and paper napkins folded into swans. Rather styly.

Side Comment: The Stove. Damn, if this isn’t the best stove/oven I’ve ever owned I’ll eat a half cooked sunk-in-the-middle fruit cake in one sitting. I’ve owned state-of-the-art wall ovens, fan assisted, self cleaning, rotisserie enabled, thermo nuclear convection/conduction, multi faceted cooking appliances both gas and electric, but this baby takes (bakes?) the cake. It’s at least as old as I am. The oven is BIG - with a bit of strategic manoeuvring you can easily do a roast (including all the veg) for 10, facilitated by 9 (yes nine) different shelf positions. It’s got a warming drawer the size of a small Japanese apartment and lift up/push down elements for easy cleaning. Of course there’s no fan-bake, and only 3 coil type elements, the supports of which are so rusted I have to choose their position wisely after cleaning (it doesn’t do to have your element collapse under the strain of a bechamel whilst entertaining). Presumably I’m the only person left in the first and second world who still uses this type of cooking appliance, because those pie-dish style aluminium foil drip catchers that go under the elements have disappeared from the supermarket shelves.

Back to the Pot.

My uncharacteristic display of extravagant consumerism is the result of a 4 day, 2 Goldilocks and half kilo of baking soda attempt to shift burnt tamarillo chutney from The Old Pot. Honestly it’s arse is so thin it could be a Super Model, or at least moulded into a pie dish. Why, given the amount of preserving that goes on at OK Bay, have I persevered? Is there a relationship between preserving and perservering other than the obvious? As chance would have it, Farmers had a half price sale. There were cheaper (mine was $70 half price) stock pots and bigger ones, but my pot was aesthetically pleasing, and it called to me. Hell, I might even have to give it a name. It even came with instructions. WTF?

Of course when you've got a new toy it can't just be left in the box:

Road Test #1: Tomato Sauce: Boil up 3kgs of tomatoes (homegrown, frozen), 2 onions (homegrown) and 5 apples. Push though a sieve when soft. Add vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice, cloves, allspice and ginger. Cook for 1¼ hours. Pour into (scrounged) sterilised bottles. Smells divine, and no matter how many times I checked (and despite 750g sugar) it never stuck to the bottom. Miraculous. I can now no longer stomach the bought stuff, it tastes like thickening agents, emulsifiers and numbers, which of course is what it’s made of.

Road Test #2: Blanching broccoli and cauliflower for freezing: Find gumboots and sharpest knife. Harvest heads when firm. Cut into florets and plunge into boiling water in a large stock pot (ooh, lucky there!) for 2 minutes max. Slugs and snails will float to the top, skim them off. Freeze free-flow on trays and bag up for later use.

Road Test #3: Place towels on spare bed. Empty entire contents of 3 freezers onto same. Identify frost-bitten items, have those for dinner. Resolve to cook that duck. Find several packages labelled “chicken frames/bones – for making stock”. Do so, in your large new beautiful stock pot (hey, lucky again). Jam everything back into 1½ freezers and switch one fridge/freezer off, thus saving on power bills.

On a cold winter's day bubbling stock fills the house with divine comfort smells (and fogs the windows). No wonder books have been written about chicken soup for the soul. It's now settling in the fridge, waiting to coagulate so the fat can be skimmed off and made into soup. (The stock I mean, not the fat).

Hmmm. Am I getting old when "Great Pot" means exactly that?

Octopus Brains

5:00 a.m. is a nasty time to get up for work, particularly when nerves have resulted in roughly 4 hours sleep. I simply daren’t look in the mirror at that hour, nor any other hour for that matter. When it comes to how you look, a strategy of blissful unawareness has a lot going for it. Importantly though for this head-in-the-sand approach is that you must have at least one very close work colleague who will promptly alert you to any grave and socially unacceptable facial transgressions, such as sleep in your eyes, stray whiskers, nasal debris or spinach in the teeth. Of course on weekends (if you live alone) you’re stuffed, and you must bite the mirror-bullet, which is unfortunate as chances are you’ll be looking especially rough around the edges on a Saturday and/or Sunday morning.

After 3 hours at the office I did a Clark Kent in the Orewa public dunnies. Enter Poncy Corporate, exit Trainee Chef. A bit like Stars in Their Eyes: “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be . . . . “ a complete failure no doubt. Incidentally, does anyone actually use baby changing tables in public toilets? They’re jolly useful for keeping an assortment of costume changes off worryingly wet floors. Likewise disability handrails – very handy for getting-legs-into-trousers balancing manoeuvres. I then drove 30 kms to Riverhead to begin Day 1 of Chef School Restaurant Work Experience, feeling refreshed, calm and confident. Ho, ho.

The Head Chef was very kind and immediately impressed me by roasting off chicken frames to make his own stock. Doubly impressed that he also had a batch of ciabatta underway, using the brewers yeast from their beer production (it’s a boutique brewery/fruit wine outfit as well as a restaurant). And trebly (is that a word?) impressed that he’d installed chickens (live) for egg production, albeit yet to lay, and had plans for a vege garden. All rather right up my culinary alley. (Oooh, that sounds gross, like alimentary canal or something equally intestinal). I thought to myself “I’ve nailed it. I’ll love it here and they’ll love me”. I made a mental note to check Riverhead property prices so I’d be able to nip home between shifts at the restaurant after they’d begged me to work there permanently.

Reality. Head Chef set me to work shaping, flouring, egging, breadcrumbing fishcakes, prepping Kiddie Burgers, slicing spiced beef, peeling/slicing roasted beetroot (very serious death-trap slicing machine), chopping garlic and parsley, butterflying prawns. I tried to work as fast as I could, eager to impress, but ultimately you just feel like an utter muppet, where’s this, where’s that, how does this work, is this the right size? Plus, unless you’re into limbo, being of hobbit height is of no advantage whatsoever, particularly in a commercial kitchen - benches at chest level (yes I know, that used to be higher), having to lasso overhead power leads to plug in machinery, and not being able to reach high (OK, medium) shelves.

My last job took the cake:

Sous Chef: “I’d like you to clean the octopus”

Me: “No problem”

I was thinking about those cute little ones you get in Asian restaurants, I mean they probably just need a quick rinse, right? The sous chef came out of the cold room with a 30 litre bucket full of octopus. Turns out there’s only two octopi to a bucket. When he emptied them into the REALLY deep sink they almost filled it. I mean seriously, they should have been in the Smithsonian. Minimum four feet long each. I’m sorry to be vulgar, but they looked the collective afterbirths of a herd of recent cow mothers.

Sous Chef: “First you turn the head inside out”

Me: “uh huh”. Watching intently, not sure if I should take notes. This could be one of those apprentice piss-takes.

Sous Chef: “Then you pull the brains out like this”.

Octopus: “brlooomghaphooomph” That was the sound of brains the size of footballs slurping into a bucket.

Me: “uh huh”.

Sous Chef: “Now cut this bit here, remove the beak and skin the whole thing. OK?”

Me: “Sure” Trying not to smile.

When you’re a virgin octopus cleaner, it takes roughly an hour to de-brain and skin two four foot octopi. It’s very laborious in the tentacle region. (Oooh, that sounded rude again). I couldn’t help chuckling to myself - a few hours earlier I was wearing high-heeled boots, my arse planted on a swivel chair in an air-conditioned office, glued to a computer screen and shuffling paper. Now I was elbow deep in pink/purple gelatinous gunk, my chef’s “whites” adorned with fish, beetroot, prawns, mince, and brains.

I trimmed the side off my finger 10 minutes before knock-off time (3:00 p.m.) but managed to conceal it in a paper towel and not drip blood anywhere. Except on my jacket, but that would have gone un-noticed, all things considered. At this stage pride did not permit requesting a plaster.

I drove back to Orewa and did another Clark Kent dunnie change. Unfortunately it’s a good few metres walk from the carpark to the public toilets, past the library, where I’m personally known due to constantly having a dozen food/gardening books out on loan. Or at least I used to, in the days when I had time to cook and read books about cooking. God only knows what the mild-mannered librarians made of me legging it from car to dunnies, a flash of white, purple, pink, red, brains, checks, clogs. Back to the office for another couple of hours paper shuffling, absolutely honking of seafod, garlic and sweat. Nice.

The octopus wasn’t a piss-take. Just before I left, the head chef gave me a sample of the de-brained, skinned, boiled and marinated end product and it was utterly delicious.

Squid Pro Quo?

Soup Update, Depression, and Golf Balls

SOUP UPDATE
Today the Use-By-Date Soup went down the drain. It was simply beyond redemption. I struggled to eat/drink it last week, to no avail. On the weekend I defrosted the remaining 2 litres and bought a bottle of cream with a view to rescuing it in some way, but today off to sea it went. Moral of that story: start with good ingredients, and it's not always possible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Fortunately yesterday I picked 3 beautiful heads of cauliflower and 2 of brocolli (with loads more still on the way) so here's hoping for better things to come in the soup department.


DEPRESSION
It's a very rare day when I can't find something to laugh my socks off about, but today was one - I must have been a total joy to work with (sorry team). Even though the most childish and absurd things usually bring tears to my eyes (which I hope is a fine quality to possess, albeit probably a pain in the butt for everyone else), today absolutely nothing was even remotely funny.

Another (dubious?) quality is that I always think the impossible is possible. "Why not?" is generally the first thing that springs to mind when I concoct yet another mad scheme, and I'm prone to attempt things way beyond my skill level, thinking if I really really want something badly enough it will just happen. Which is all well and good if you can pull it off because the rewards are incredible, but this kind of attitude also leads to a great deal of disappointment when reality checks in, and the laws of the universe prevail. I mean some things are about as likely to happen as asking Johnny Depp which side of the bed he'd prefer. Doesn't seem to stop me dreaming though . . .

I had a mad scheme brewing on the weekend and I didn't pull it off. Worse still, I probably made a complete arse of myself in the attempt. Occupational hazard I suppose if you dream big? Hence today's depression, but I've learned tactics over the years to get my sense of humour/perspective back (which I must employ before tomorrow's chef school work experience - I have a feeling I'm going to need it):

1. Set a time limit. Maybe it's 6:45 p.m. and you're as miserable as shit. Allow yourself say 15 mintues of self-pitying-wallowing and go for it. Na, I mean REALLY go for it. Let all life's disappointments come crashing down, have a good bawl, feel totally sorry for yourself, be noisy, sob, the whole nine yards, use a whole roll of dunny paper to mop up the tears . Then, when time's up at 7:00 p.m.. . .
2. Stand in front of a mirror and smile. Force yourself. Stretch those facials. If necessary use your hands to manipulate your face. Honestly, it looks so ridiculous with your puffy eyes and lips stretched back in a false kind of grimace that you can't help but laugh. Somehow, a bit of perspective seems to be regained. Then . . .
3. Get on with it. Concoct another totally impossible mad scheme and try again . . .


GOLF BALLS
Generally I ignore most joke/chain letter/touchy-feely emails and never pass them on. But this is one I printed out some time ago as a "keeper" which strangely had relevance to the weekend's activities:

(paraphrased)

A professor stood in front of his class and filled a large jar with golf balls:

Professor: "Is the jar full?"
Class: "Yes"

He then poured some pebbles into the jar, shook it, and of course there was room for lots of pebbles in between the golf balls.

Professor: "Is the jar full?"
Class: "Yes"

Then the professor tipped sand into the jar and of course there was room for sand between the golf balls and pebbles.

Professor: "Is the jar full?"
Class: "Yes"

Then he tipped two cups of coffee into the jar and of course there was room.

The moral of the story (in a nutshell) was that the golf balls are the most important things in life, like friends, family, loved ones, doing what you're passionate about, and that if you fill your jar with sand/pebbles first (things like housework, fixing dripping taps, mowing lawns etc) you'll never find room for the "golf balls". Whereas if you fill your life with the important things first, you'll always manage to squeeze in the trivial. Not to mention having a coffee with friends. I'm totally guilty of the pebbles/sand thing, and often let the golf balls (and coffee) get lost in the bunker.

This weekend I was invited to a friend's 50th (I used to walk to school with her when we were 5!) and I actually considered not going because I had to study. Thank God I found some (golf) balls and went, it was the best thing I've done in ages. And totally coincedentally, she read out the the above "golf ball" thing while we were sitting in the glorious sun at Takapuna beach. It was a priceless day.

Right, enough is enough. It's 7:45 p.m. and I have an appointment with a mirror at 8:00 p.m . . .

Use-By-Date Soup

METHOD:
Empty everything from the chest freezer onto the spare bed (yes, the freezer's in a bedroom). Identify the worst case of freezer burn. Luckily it happens to be a ham bone salvaged from the last family Christmas dinner, Lamb's Fry soup may not have been so appetising. Also grab a bag of frozen 1" diced red and green capsicums that are now mainly ice.

In a large buckled pot with a too-thin base, cover the ham bone with water, ideally collected via a rusty roof, filtered through decomposing vegetation and stored in a tank uncleaned for 3 years and containing (known items only) sunglasses, tape measure and four lead-topped roofing nails.

From the garden pick some forked hairy carrots, a few sticks of slug-chewed celery, parsley (going to seed) and thyme (looking good apart from cobwebs/spiders).

Fight your way through 30 years' accumulated garage junk to the root crop store and select onions (sprouting) and garlic (ditto).

Back to the bedroom and the bulk dry goods store (wardrobe). This is an excellent opportunity to use surplus galley items from a 2005 sailing trip. Assess the damage (sea air + tropical temperatures = rusty tins) and choose accordingly, namely chick peas and Italian tomatoes.

Finally to the kitchen for bay leaves (do they go off?), chillies (hanging beside the stove in possibly too humid conditions - is that mould?), peppercorns, salt, oil.

Bring the ham bone, water, roughly chopped hairy carrots, holey celery, sprouting onion, bay leaves, seedy parsley, peppercorns and cobwebby thyme to the boil. Suddenly realise you'll need to cook it for a least 2 hours to get a decent stock, so go and clean out the garage, wash the car and drain the flooded letterbox. Come back inside and clean the stove top, using baking soda and water to remove boiled-over baked-on ham stock.

After 2 hours strain into a too small bowl. Get a bigger bowl and repeat. Try to jam bowl #1 into the "dish drawer". Use newspaper to wrap broken wine glass and a screwdriver to re-attach sagging drawer slider.

From the sieve, pick out and reserve anything that looks remotely like it once had a curly tail and wallowed in mud. Hand feed gristle and fat to the neighbours' cat. Wash the floor with hot soapy water (messy pussy!). Realise you'll have to let the liquid settle overnight so the fat can rise to the surface, so abandon cooking for the evening and have a bottle of wine. When the stock is cool enough, transfer to the spare fridge (guess where?).

The next day, skim off the fat and have it on a sandwich. (Na, just kidding, I made that bit up.) Heat olive oil in the buckled thin-based pot. Remove from the heat when a blue haze develops and use a broomstick to de-activate the smoke alarm. Open all the windows. Gently fry hairy carrots, holey celery, sprouted onion/garlic and mouldy chilli, all chopped brunoise. (Sorry, but you'll have to pay $5500 and go to Chef School to find out what that means).

Spend 30 minutes reducing slushy pre-frozen capsicums from a 1" dice to brunoise size (ha! there's a clue) and add to the pot. The water content will help loosen the burnt onion/garlic. Add the ham stock which should come out of the bowl like a large jellyfish. Wear an apron. Have a big enough pot. Put the dirty jellyfish bowl on the bench with the growing mound that won't fit in the dish drawer.

Open the chick peas and rinse in a sieve (the same one you used yesterday that's still in the dish drawer, unwashed) then add to the pot. If the tinned tomatoes are whole, push them through the sieve for 15 minutes then give up and tip them in whole. Put the reserved pig back in. Bring back to the boil. Realise it will take a good hour for everything to cook, so get on the roof and clean out the guttering (again), mow the lawns (i.e. pull out the worst of the longest weeds) and fill the Commodore with oil and water. Think ahead and seach the garage for ice-cream containers (for soup storage). Empty bolts out of one and snap hardened glue off the lid of another. Sterilise.

Come inside and repeat baking soda stove cleaning exercise. Taste. If it tastes like vegetables boiled in water you're on the right track, so did mine. Add salt. Add more salt. If it now tastes like salty boiled vegetable water, head to the small freezer (guess where? WRONG, it's in the kitchen) and add a couple of frozen tomato paste cubes. (Admittedly home-made and a bit experimental). Still lacking? Give it a whizz with a stick blender. Thick salty vegetable water is somehow far more palatable than thin salty vegetable water.

Still tastes like s*it? OK, hit the main fridge (surprisingly also in the kitchen). Add a generous scoop of basil pesto. Don't worry if the pesto looks like a science experiment, underneath that furry stuff it's all good. Also drag out the parmesan which should be rock hard, cracked and almost incapable of being grated. Re-blend. Taste. Too salty? Add sugar. Shrug and realise there's nothing else that can be done.

When cool, fill ice-cream containers, one for work lunches (soup-of-the-week) and one to freeze.

Enjoy.

New Tutor . . . New Bottle Shop . . . Old Problem

NEW TUTOR
Our regular Chef School tutor, who is surely one of God's Chosen sent from heaven, is away sick for 3 days, so we had a locum tonight. It really threw us. The change in procedure wasn't helped by the locum having a rather strong accent, from Cuba or thereabouts, and a few instructions/ingredients got lost in translation. Like cumin, which turned out to be Chef's favourite spice, and unfortunately sounds a lot like "coming" in a Cuban accent: "I lufff coming, always lots of coming", which of course got no reaction whatsoever from a class already misbehaving like school kids with a relief teacher.

We were gathered around Chef's stove watching a demonstration and I must have looked a little confused or quizzical, because the following conversation was directed at me:

Chef: "Soooo hugh hargue weeth meee?" (That was supposed to be a Cuban accent)
Me (red-faced): "No Chef, certainly not"
Chef: "Whhhy not?"
Me (stuttering now): "Well, I jjjust never would Chef"

Silence. Mexican (or should I say Cuban) standoff.

Classmate: "I think she's asking if you agree with her, not if you argue with her"

Oops. God bless the English language for making two virtually opposite words sound quite similar.


NEW BOTTLE SHOP
Mondays - Wednesdays are normally AAFD's (Attempted Alcohol Free Days), however due to a very busy work day and a more than usually stressful Chef class (quite apart from my Cuban accent faux pas, it's my turn to be Head Chef this week i.e. you have to fetch all the tutor's ingredients, wash their dishes, assign cleaning tasks and mop the floor, in addition to your normal personal cooking/cleaning tasks) I felt the need for a bit of "attitude adjustment" on the OK Bay Bach deck before tackling any of the usual night time household tasks.

It was getting late and I knew my local bottle shop would be closed so I just pulled into anything that was still open (no desperation there eh?).

Bottle Shop Attendant: "Hello love, you look knackered"
Me: "Yes, hard day"
Bottle Shop Attendant: "What do you do for a job then?"

I might point out here that I was still dressed in full chef's uniform: checked trousers, double breasted white jacket, hat, neckerchief, and an apron with curry stains down the front.

Me: "I'm a jockey" (I thought she'd think that was funny, me being rather short)

Bottle Shop Attendant: "Oooh, that must be exciting dear"

FFS.


OLD PROBLEM
You know what I really hate? One of the worst things about living by yourself (or possibly the only worst thing) is stepping out of the shower and realising that your towel is still outside, draped over the deck furniture to dry in the sun, and that it's a good 5 metres to the linen cupboard, past windows with curtains yet to be been drawn, to get a replacement.

I tell you, for a 49 year old I can still move pretty damn quick when I have to.

Sundays . . . and Time Saving Tips

Sundays have never been my favourite day. Mondays are naturally worse, but the anti-anticipation (Unanticipation? Disanticipation?) of the looming working week somehow detracts from God's rest day. Friday on the the other hand, is bliss. There's no better night to celebrate in my opinion, unless you grossly over celebrate and consequently waste the only decent day off by lying in the recovery position.

Naturally this only applies if you're in a Monday - Friday job, and for that matter one that doesn't particularly make you fizz at the bung. I'm sure chefs for example have their own "Sunday's", but then they probably love what they're doing, or why the hell else would they do it?

Because at least half my "rest day" is spent preparing for the coming work/study week, here's some handy time-saving hints, which are particularly useful if, like me, you spent your most recent Sunday driving 400km to say "Happy Mother's Day" in person.

Don't Have A Sauvalanche (too much Sauvignon Blanc) Just Because It's Friday Night
Not only does the resulting lethargy cause under-achievement of Saturday's jobs, but you'll still be looking a tad rough when the 7:00 a.m. Sunday alarm signals it's time to set off for The Mother Visit.

If You're On Tank Water And Haven't Got A Dishwasher, Install A Dish Drawer
This is actually just a pot drawer, but it's used to stash a week's worth of dirty dishes until you get around to washing them.

Don't Take Dishes Out Of The Dish Drawer Late On A Saturday Night With A View To Washing Them
You know it won't happen, and Sunday morning will find the bench heaving with ants. Should this happen, douse the lot with flyspray and forget about it until you get home late Sunday afternoon.

Don't Speed
Yes, it may save you 10 minutes on the overall journey, but it takes an officer longer than that to issue a ticket. Guilty as hell of course, but I do think it's a bit mean to lurk at the bottom of Waiwera hill mid way between a temporary 80km and 100km zone just to clock someone doing 101kmh. I wonder if he noticed I was wearing the same sweatshirt as in my licence photo taken 6 years ago? Maybe that's what the ticket was for, crimes against fashion? In fact he could have nailed me for traffic and fashion offences for wearing jandals, but maybe he couldn't see them under the baggy track pants. Styling it, I was not.

Prepare A Week's Worth of Breakfasts and Lunches on Sunday Afternoon
Yes, colleagues will think you're a pig when you load 5 boiled eggs, 10 slices of toast and 2 litres of soup into the fridge at work on Monday, but just smile knowingly and pat your tummy.

Try To Have Average-Tall Parents
This will avoid those midnight on Thursday new jeans-taking-up sessions just so you've got something to wear on Casual Friday. (Don't they make jeans for Hobbits?). I swore last Friday I would never again wear those old ones that make me look like Granny Clampett meets Farmer Brown.

Get An Old Fashioned Carpet Sweeper - It's Quicker Than The Vacuum
They work just fine on large-ish debris such as dead (and live) moths, wetas and corn chips. Not so successful with pins, big pieces of denim and inground dirt, but hey, I'm not expecting the Governor General.

Don't Spend Too Long Writing a Blog
Say no more. Done.

Rain

It's something we used to get at OK Bay, but not much to speak of since Christmas.

I clambered on top of the water tank on the weekend and lifted the lid to see if there was enough water to chance doing a load of smalls. I swear to God if I'd fallen in I'd have died of thirst before being found.

To add insult to injury, the council sent me a wastewater bill for $137. Are they serious? NOTHING goes down the drains, even the toilet only gets flushed on "special" occasions.

In times of water crisis (which is any day ending in a "y" so far this year) revellers at OK Bay Bach are invited to use the 5-pebble-method. A small container and 5 pebbles are placed on top of the cistern. Every time someone has a wee they put a pebble into the container. The person who puts the last pebble in the container has the privilege of pushing "flush" (usually accompanied by much whoop-whooping and applause). One must of course be sensible and hygienic - exceptions are made for particular "jobs". Tactics also play a role - if you pay keen attention, limit your fluid intake, eat loads of salty snacks and have a strong bladder, you can be the "flusher" far more than you deserve to, much to the disgust of fellow revellers. Honestly, it's hours of free entertainment, do try it at your next dinner party.

Having said that, it's no fun playing the game by yourself. The water truck is coming tomorrow.

Chef School

Don't ask me, I've got no idea why I'm doing it. I just had a particularly bad day at work, made a casual phone call, and two days later I'm standing in a stonking-hot kitchen with 15 people less than half my age, kitted out in full chef's regalia, three day's late for the course start, feeling like an utter muppet and wondering WTF had hit me.

Actually the fault in this latest hair-brained scheme lies with Mat Follas. Kiwi bloke who won last year's Masterchef UK. I was glued to the telly. I loved his food and his ideas, fresh locally sourced ingredients where possible, not over-worked nor particularly "cheffy", but obviously damn tasty. Plus he seemed like a hell of a decent bloke, and of course being a Kiwi helped enormously. I followed him on Twitter while he went on to start what is now a hugely successful restaurant http://www.thewildgarlic.co.uk/ in Dorset, quite an achievement given that the winner of Masterchef UK receives nothing but a trophy! I even tweeted him (and that took balls, one doesn't want to come across as a stalker) (even though one clearly is) to say it was his fault I'd started Chef School, and bless him, he responded!

I was catapulted out of culinary complacency. Despite being mad about food and cooking enthusiastically for roughly 37 years, I'd kind of sunk into the same ol', same ol' grub. You know, always cooking lamb shanks when people come for dinner and not being very adventurous at all.

So after two weeks of slightly regretting yet another random decision, week 11 finds me thoroughly loving school! And as happens when you just dive in the deep end, outrageous possibilities keep popping into my head. Like Antarctica. Always wanted to work a season there but never had the qualifications. Now all I have to do is get a couple of years cooking experience, a few months as a commercial cleaner, an Advanced Trauma First Aid qualification, lose 15kgs, get fit, develop "the personal attributes to be able to relate well with others", and I might be in with a chance as a Domestic/Kitchen Hand. Doddle.

Or what about cook on a superyacht in exotic locations? I have sailing qualifications and (more importantly) in 4 ocean passages and several nasty coastal "encounters" I've never been seasick. I can in fact down a double-serve of lasagne surrounded by 3 barfing crew members, clean up after them and still go back for thirds.

Or what about . . . . hmmmm.

A blog eh?

How very 21st century of me. Whatever will be next? Broadband? A phone that takes photos? A car with electric windows? A sewing machine that does zig-zag? Going more than 2 days without wine?

I suppose by going to Chef School at age 49 I ought to have something to write about, and I have been Twittering it (or should that be Tweeting?) http://twitter.com/OKBayBach but hey, sometimes a good story needs more than 140 characters to tell. Of course finding time for any stories at all is the issue. Being a full time paper-shuffler, part time potato peeler and sometime grower/gatherer doesn't leave much slack in schedule.

This blog idea is due to illness. Yes, she of the cast-iron-constitution who never gets sick (being the only person to scum it for 2 months in India on $7 a day, not get Delhi Belly and in fact put on weight) has had a filthy cold for 2 weeks. Come Friday and I realised if I didn't pull my head in and take it easy this weekend I might get really sick and I can't afford that.

Consequently out came THE LIST and off it I crossed everything that wasn't absolutely essential. No housework, no gardening, no preserving, no experimental recipes, no concocting homemade cleaning compounds, no boozing on the OK Bay Bach deck until all hours, no shopping for winter clothes, no bread making, house repairs or ukelele practice. Only washing, ironing, Chef School homework, a week's worth of dishes, food preparation for the next 4 days and phone calls to Mother and Father. As a result I found myself with an afternoon to spare, so why not start a blog?

Of course it took me way longer than the recommended "5 minutes" to figure it out and set it up (try an hour) so now I'm running into overtime without having actually said anything interesting. More to come, I hope.