Lentil Pie

4 tins lentils
lots-of-mushrooms (1 brown bag)
1 carrot
2 sticks celery
1 zucchini
1 head broccoli
1 tin diced tomatos
clove of garlic
1 tub tomato paste (the yoghurt-tub ones)
1/2 - 1 cup of stock made with vegemite (nutritional yeast'll do if you're in the US)
splash of red wine
bit of soy sauce
salt pepper etc.
10 sheets of puff pastry - UNsweetened.

In a seriously big pot cook the mushies in oil and garlic till soft. Add all the other vegies (finely chopped for god's sake!) except the lentils. Simmer in vegemite stock and soy, with wine, till soft (this takes ages).

IMPORTANT!!!! Be careful not to add too much stock/wine/sauce. It's a pie, not a soup.

Add tinned tomatoes. Cook a bit more.
Finally add drained lentils and tomato paste and more vegemite stock/soy/wine till it tastes goooood.

Line a greased pie dish (a big one, this is a lot of pie you're dealing with) with puff pastry. Put in oven, which you've had the foresight to preheat to 180C, for 5-10 minutes till it puffs. Take it out. Spoon in the filling and fold edges of pastry in. Lay more pastry on top, tucking down the sides of the tray. Make some cool shapes in the top. Put in oven for another 5 - 10 minutes. DON'T BURN IT!

Take it out. Get a plate. Eat the shit out of it.

Tuna Cat

Feeling hungry?

Me too...

I can't offend you more than I offend myself..

I’m feeling a lot of doubt, in myself as a person, as an actor, as a woman/girl/female (it doesn’t feel right referring to myself as a woman but that’s an issue I’ll have to leave for another day).
I wonder, all the time, so much so that it’s almost not worth mentioning, whether I’m deluding myself with this whole acting malarkey. But that inevitably leads to thoughts of whether I’m deluding myself with this whole life business.
Sometime in my past, somehow, I latched onto the idea of acting to give myself a purpose. And now, at 28 years old, I’m returning to the moment when that decision was made and once again asking, “what now?”
And so indeed, what now? If not an actor then what? A director? Well, that’s just as delusional as the so-called career I’ve already got. An Olympic equestrienne? Hah! A teacher? Where’s the bottle of cheap wine and sleeping pills please. A writer? Well we’re back to the impossibleness of the realm of the actor and director. So….
A prostitute? Financially lucrative but I’ve never been much good with men. And I have tiny breasts. A dog trainer? Wonderful fun but pays just enough to keep a small poodle in kibble for a couple of days with owner living in cardboard box. Hmm…. I’m drawing a blank. What else interests me? Retail sales manager? I can see my future now. Forty-five and dressed like a girl, telling some insecure brat that she looks ‘hot’.
What else? What else? Fucking God please tell me what else?!
I. Can. Not. Think. Of. Any. Other. Profession. That. I. Would. Be. Good. At.
What do I do? Starve myself to death to avoid my inevitable descent into middle-aged mediocrity? But I’ve already tried that and I’m bored with the self-indulgent narcissism it demands.
What would I be great at? I could watch DVDs for a living. Read books. Look up celebrities on the internet. Browse for weight-loss tips. Tan once a year. Do cryptic crosswords. Eat breakfast at a cafe everyday. Forget to call my parents. Stay up late. Download TV shows. Park illegally. Take mediocre photos and post them on my blog. Buy clothes. Buy cosmetics. Try to find the cure for acne. Eat my own weight in popcorn. Pick up other peoples rubbish while tsking audibly. Write down ideas for outfits I will never wear. Read Amazon book reviews for book I will never buy. Look up IMDb profiles for actors I have never heard of. Doubt myself. Doubt myself. Doubt myself.
I’m so exhausted with the thought of the meaning of the pursuit of fulfilment in life that I cannot even bring myself to think of a way to end this bitter diatri…

How to Tell a Girl You're Interested

Today, hungover and tired I took my first walk through Central Park and stopped at the Ballplayer's House Cafe for a combined breakfast/lunch at 3pm. I hassled my Californian Jack Black-lookalike-only-younger-and-thinner waiter about what I should order in my listless state and then set about ingesting my Vegie Burger goodness along with the accompanying packet of crisps while reading Joseph Campbell and eavesdropping on uninspiring nearby conversations. After wiling away a good part of the day in this lazy, indulgent fashion, I packed up my stuff and put a $20 bill in the bill folder and waited for my change.
I waited.
I waited.
I waited.
I worried that perhaps they assumed I wanted to leave a big tip.
After making subtle googly eyes at random staff members, my waiter finally returned with the folder before quickly disappearing.

Inside the folder, along with my change, was this:



I should be honest with you and admit that I don't intend on calling him. But man, did he sure make my day.

A Crepe a Day

I'm sitting in the food court at Australia on Collins, eating my spicy noodles and taking advantage of the free wireless interweb. It's been an interesting experience living in a new house that is as yet unequipped with ADSL. I feel I've grown as a person. I've watched more TV, read more of my book, taken longer showers, and last night spent a romantic evening with myself, a cup of tea, and the pile of promotional mail and local gazettes that had accumulated on the kitchen table. What I haven't managed to do however, is face the stomach-turning task of Unpacking Boxes of Miscellaneous Ephemera. Could I not just burn it all and then deal with the consequences later? Surely I can be reissued copies of all my old tax return statements, university reports, pet vaccination cards, letter from ex-boyfriends and 3 year old birthday cards that were particularly heartfelt.
I've also just lived through another bout of Easter and have a residual chocolate addiction which no amount of Nutella crepes from Aix Creperie (see below) are able to cure.
Although, maybe one more will be the clincher. In fact, I'm off to try that now. And perhaps a little more of The Age Cryptic Crossword - another addiction I'm having difficulty shaking.

Tiger Tiger

I'm sitting at Tiger Tiger in Perth, digesting my Granola Muesli with Poached Pears. No-one in Perth serves porridge; it's a little disconcerting. They also don't know the difference between a long mach and a strong latte, but Tiger Tiger do have free wireless so I'm not about to complain.
At a nearby table sits Peter from Create Digital Music with his entourage who are in town for the byteme festival. They have commandeered an entire table and covered it with an assortment of macbooks and other digital paraphernalia. One of them has an iphone which he's allowed me to play with for a couple minutes. Hearing him rave about it in his Californian drawl has sparked a new feedthegirl obsession.
I. Want. One.

Perfect Porridge

So Benn and I went to Caffé Cortilé in Block place on Saturday for a late breakfast. While we waited for our food we entertained ourselves by sending random Bluetooth messages to other Saturday morning breakfasters commenting on their coffee and asking what food was good to order. I never knew this game existed. It’s good having tech nerds as friends.

Benn ordered the Eggs Atlantic, which looked to me like a small serve for $13.50 but he said they were very good and the balance of Hollandaise and Balsamic was just right.

I had my usual – Porridge – and by God, I think I’ve found porridge paradise.
The porridge usually comes prepared with water and cream but I asked for my usual Skim Milk and the flavour didn’t suffer in the least.
It was served HOT. This seems to a basic element of porridge preparation that is just too hard for most eateries to comprehend.
It was a perfect grainy consistency – still rough and oat-like and neither too soupy nor Clag glue-like.
The berry compote was sweet and warm (thank God someone understands that this is essential).
It was sweetened with Vanilla Honey! Did you get that? Vanilla Honey! Sweet god of culinary goodness.

The café is in a cute, covered alleyway but is itself neither cute nor particularly cool. The clientele were mostly upper middles with some young trendies thrown in for colour. Benn and I were probably the coolest people in the place but, to be honest, what Caffé Cortilé lacks in eliteness it makes up for in its mastery of The Porridge (I may love the dirty, dingy mess that is Degraves but you couldn’t pay me to eat the soupy slop they try to pass off as porridge). At $8.50 a pop it errs on the side of expensive but, once again, the quality makes it a reasonable sum to part with. Just don’t ask for Diet Coke too or you’ll be walking out $12.40 poorer.

The Porridge Manifesto (or something)

Now porridge is an interesting dish. Seemingly simple and uncomplicated, a good bowl of porridge is warm comfort itself. But it is not as simple a meal to get right as one may think. There are a number of factors that must be considered when preparing the perfect bowl of this most underestimated of breakfast foods.

Type of porridge
While quick oats may be good enough for on-the-fly at home preparation, when I pay upwards of $5 for my porridge, I expect good quality rolled oats that maintain their roughness and don’t resemble a slimy sludge once heated. Rice porridge is also a good alternative for the gluten-intolerant, as is plain white rice heated with milk.

Type of milk
This is very much a personal preference and for me the ideal is hot water with a little skinny milk. But full cream milk, soy milk, cream or coconut milk are just as good, if a little less kind on the Tsubis.

Temperature
Hot, hot, hot! There is NO excuse for lukewarm porridge. None. That is all.

Embellishments – a subject worthy of its own list.
- Due to the current banana crisis, my favourite porridge additive has been unvaryingly impossible to come by so I’ve been branching out into the world of fruit compotes. These vary greatly in palatability and are therefore a risky addition to what may otherwise be a perfect bowl of porridge. Too sour and they require a mountain of sugar to redeem the flavour of the dish. Too cold and they mess with the delicate balance of temperature. But if done right, a good fruit compote will add a new element to the porridge and help bring out its grainy goodness.
- Honey and cinnamon – old favourites that never go out of style.
- Brown sugar – not as good as honey, in my opinion, but for those that find honey too sweet it adds a pleasant and unassuming flavour.
- White sugar – One word… No.
- Nuts & grains – Flaked almonds are excellent under any circumstances. Quinoa is also good for those wanting to feel like they’ve eaten something really healthy.
- Chocolate – belongs in a croissant, not on your cereal.