what a dish...

As most of you know I am living solo currently. An ocean is currently between me and Mr C while our tectonic plates merge together. This is an actual ocean, I'm not being metaphoric :) There are many many downsides to this state of affairs but there is an upside that I experience pretty regularly, and that is my indulgence is eggs.

Mr C will eat eggs, he enjoys them in fact, but he is not an eggmanic like me. I will gladly and greedily eat them with almost every meal. I discovered the most amazing little device that helps one cook the perfect boiled egg. I ranted about it so much at work one day someone thought I was selling them as some kind of side business. I would you know, I love this device so much I would gladly encourage anyone to buy it.  But I'm not selling them. Actually, they are such a wonder they should be free, like fresh air, sunshine and education. I imagine its some kind of faux paus to show it on here. But none the less, if you have come to the blog today on a mission to find the perfect egg boiling device then look no further. Ta-Da.

taken by moi at breakfast with my family on easter saturday - I had scrambled eggs with truffle oil and chorizo

Many of you know my home town of Adelaide and you know it is a place that abounds with cafes like no other. You won't be surprised to know I love to meet for breakfast as this combines all the fabulousness of Adelaide, cafes, eggs and good company. My favourite places understand my love of the egg; you'll have me "one good egg dish" but you'll never get rid of me with "how would you like your eggs cooked".

I have taken to recreate a dish I had with the BFF recently. Grainy toast with avocado on ricotta with mint and chilli, and I added a poached egg on the side. The waiter was clearly impressed with my choice and told me what a divine dish I'd just created and it did not disappoint; my stomach told my brain it was very happy and would like more of the same, please.

In my home edition I boil the eggs - learning to make poached eggs is something I'm saving for retirement, along with growing roses and origami (yes, my retirement years are going to be a hoot) - and forgo the ricotta for good old butter and a decent squeeze of lemon. It isn't so much becoming a staple meal but becoming the only thing I eat.

I hope you're all well out there,
R xx

a lesson...

I work in a job with constant education, I kind of love it and feel pretty lucky that teaching and learning is part of my everyday. Sometimes we have teaching sessions where we create mock situations or use each other to demonstrate how to perform certain activities, like lion-taming or boxing, for example :)

So the other day I got to work and ran head first into a teaching session. I was running late though and the only seat available was right next to the teacher. I was wearing an "i love teach" t-shirt and had a gift apple with me, so it was all very seemly.

Until I realised the session was about how to examine a knee. While a knee is not as personal as some other parts of our bodies it is most definitely not a joint I wish to flaunt or, indeed, have examined with twenty of my colleagues looking on.

Naturally teach could not see past my t-shirt and was so enamoured with the apple that my attempts to squirm away did not register. My knee was examined. In. Front. Of. Everyone. And I was wearing new jeans that I had not entirely convinced myself covered my entire butt appropriately.

The session was taking forever. I was so aware of The Knee, which was exposed in all its glory and had taken on a life and personality all of its own. The Knee was clearly unrefined, class-less and dare I say, rather unattractive. I am ashamed to say I shunned The Knee, like a geeky neighbourhood friend you only play with out of school.

To be fair, I was also quite concerned how much of The Butt was covered with denim. But, it was mostly The Knee. And it was clear to everyone The Knee belonged to me. It began to feel like my life was trickling by and I would forever be in this session having my damn knee examined with my butt hanging out and my colleagues looking on and, no doubt, thinking this was a terrible state of affairs.

I couldn't even make eye contact with anyone in the room. I knew I'd see scorn of The Knee. I knew they'd judge The Knee. And you know, that poor knee needed someone to love it. What did The Knee ever do to deserve this? The Knee needed a body that was proud of it. Even the uglist knee needs love. And who the heck was I to not oblige. The Knee actually did alot for me. It deserved my love and gratitude.

The class ended. I gave The Knee a rub, told it what a good job it had done and stood proudly with it, ready to bear the taunts and ridicule. Me and The Knee. The Knee and Me. We made quite a pair. We could conquer the world together.

Teach was chatting away, telling us that we would be unlikely to examine many young, fit knees like this one. This One? This Knee? Young? Fit? Well, rhhhheaallyy, I scanned the crowd and thought "you bunch of judgy judgers, this is a young fit knee, and you were all poo-pooing it, shame on you".


And, so you see, a moral is discovered on LandSoftly.

Hope you're all well out there.
R xx

i'm here...

I am here, lurking and listening...

My quest to find the balance between total type-A-anal-ism and total throw-out-the-window-ism continues. Its tough not go all food-exercise-nazi and its equally difficult not to go all airy-fairy-it'll-all-work-out. 

I am about 6 kilos off my goal weight at the moment. A very big part of me is thinking "Go crazy. Drop your calories. Up your exercise. Lose it all pronto. And then you can go scoff a pack of Tim Tams". I realise, though, this is that damn food-exercise-nazi talking, with a little bit of airy-fairy-it'll-all-work-out bribery to entice me in to this crooked scheme.

But, as I've said before, Aesop told me I was tortoise not a hare in this race of Rachel vs BigButt and that kind of approach would never work for me. Aesop is extremely wise, he would kick food-exercise-nazi's butt; he would absolutely write a fable about my plight and tell me ever so eloquently what the best course of action would be. So I channel Aesop, take one Tim Tam now, enjoy it, move on and tell myself "Keep going just like this and one day, you'll get there".

from cuehappiness

I hope you're all well out there.

R xx