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Today I went to Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula and learnt to make cheeses from goat milk. They're currently sitting in cloths on my sink, draining their whey and waiting for me to rub them down with salt. Yum!
I learnt many things today, about cultures (the microbiotic kind), about goats, and some other stuff too, but mainly I learnt that there is no such thing as Too Much Cheese. I ate cheese in the morning, and from the batches as we were tampering with them in very controlled ways, and then I ate lots of cheese at lunch, and then seconds of the lunch cheese, and then some more in the afternoon, and honestly, I could just keep eating cheese. Especially with some wine.
I came away with cheeses, and Greek yoghurt, and wine and olive oil (to marinate my fetta with some rosemary), and lots of fliers! I can't see myself making cheese at home regularly, especially in my current house. It requires the dedication of some clean kitchen space for a couple of days, and a range of bits and pieces. But I definitely plan to go to another workshop or two this year, and get me some more CHEEEESE!
On Thursday Gavin came round and he, Leith, Andrew and I had Deep Fried Night #2: Oil Overload. We fried a bag of potato gems (Andrew dipped these into oyster sauce, which was very very wrong), a bag of potato wedges (which we ate with salsa and sour cream), four chicken schnitzels (which were the unquestionable winner of the night), dim dims and spring rolls.
Then we ate doughnuts and watched Twin Peaks.
Twin Peaks was originally the reason for getting together, but the deep fryer stole the show, as deep fryers often do.
Later, my sleep was disturbed, not by visions of Bob crouched at the end of my bed (eurghghghgh), but by a sort of slimy sloppy discomfort in my tummy which required several night time excursions to the bathroom and the Eno jar.
Deep Fried Night always leaves me with a greasy regret, and foolish statements such as "I'm only eating raw vegetables for the next three days!". But who am I kidding? Deep Fried Nights are super awesome. Newcomers to Deep Fried Night stand around awe filled, Leanne pretends like it's gross and she wants nothing to do with it but manages to hang around long enough to eat the wedges, and Leith gets all excited and weilds the oil soaked basket with a flourish. Deep Fried Night #2 was another such success, although I may have gone too hard too early on the potato gems, but then hey, I'm only human!
And it can't have been that bad, as I followed up on Friday with pizza for lunch, and then pizza for dinner (from a different pizza parlour - I do have some dignity). As I rode to Mel's house with the dinner pizzas I sang:
"Oh who eats the pizza in your neighbourhood?
In your neighbourhood? In your neigh-bour-hood, oh
Who eats the pizza in your neighbourhood?
It's the pizza that you eat each day!
Natasha eats the pizza in your neighbourhood!
In your neighbourhood..."
You get the idea.
When I was about Two I forgot to eat snails. I looked down at them, and where I once saw food, I only saw snails. I guess I ate other things instead.
When I was Five and starting school I forgot that I liked the colour blue. I'd always known that I'd liked it, but suddenly I stopped liking it, and started liking pink instead. Just like that.
When I was Nine I forgot that I knew anything at all. It seemed that all knowledge was relative and nothing was fact. Ever since then I've been forgetting to forget this, only to forget it again for fleeting, clarifying moments.
At 11 I forgot how to throw temper tantrums. Sure I could still rant and scream, but the old days of 'stomping' and 'bellowing' were over. My desire to reason my way into getting what I wanted forever after trumping my raw emoting.
I woke up one day and forgot to that I'd been supposed to be scared in the night. I'd just slept peacefully through till morning.
When I was 13 I found a resilience I never knew I had, and a fierce sense of protection for my individual family members. Getting these cost me the knowledge that my parents were faultless, but I guess that always had to go sometime.
In my late teens I forgot that I was beautiful. There was always something very noticeable to remind me that I wasn't. Usually my nose, or otherwise my hairy legs or my knees or some other innocuous body part.
At 19 I forgot what it was I wanted to do with my life, my one grand plan dissolving and leaving only hints and hunches in its wake.
When I was 23 I lost all my romanticism and trust on the corner of Little Lonsdale and Exhibition streets. I just bundled myself into a cab, smeared away my tears, and didn't think to check for them until it was too late. The great thing about my romanticism and trust is that slowly but surely, they've been finding their way back to me. I could probably help them out a little more. HALLOO THERE. I'M IN NORTH FITZROY!
Last Sunday I forgot not to eat potato gems twice in one day. Them's the breaks.
I am at the office on a Saturday, and feeling a bit bummed about it until I just realised a moment ago that I can burp really loudly and no one will know.I did a nice big juicy one, and immediately feel much better about being here. Who knows, maybe I'll undo the top button on my pants later?..
Sometimes I just wish I were a puppy. I would get fed everyday, rubbed down every morning, and in hot hot weather I'd get to run around the park at night with a bike light strapped to my collar like a Disco Puppy!
For the last week or so I've been wanting to write about the return of the truly excruiating period pain that I used to get as a teenager, and which hit me like a drunk on King St again last week. But to be honest, I couldn't summon the energy. During the actual pain I was very inspired to write about the whole experience, and afterwards I was both tired and also over it.
To clarify, I wasn't interested in cataloging my pain, more the conundrum of feeling like it wasn't 'done' to be able to own it frankly. So I found myself hiding it, while at work anyway, to save others the awkwardness of having to acknowledge my imperfect endometrial system. Anyway, the short of it is that I begrudged this. But it also led to some misunderstandings. It was clearly quite obvious to a few of my workmates that something was wrong, they'd ask if I was sick and I wouldn't know how to explain that I was unwell, but not sick, and there was nothing to be done.
Because menstruating:
- isn't illness, it's symptomatic of something quite normal and natural;
- isn't contagious, and doesn't need to be quarantined (the only thing worse than being at work while in period pain is being at home, bored and panicked about missed work while in period pain);
- is going to keep on happening to me for a large part of my exisitence; and
- I'll be fucked if I'm going to miss out on anything (work, fun, anything) because of it.
That said, I would like a little leeway to:
- go to the toilet at 45 minute intervals without sneaking;
- wear a heat pack across my navel;
- curl up on the floor periodically, as necessary (I would be more than happy to stay late at work to absorb all floor-curling time); and
- the basic ability to acknowledge it, since it's perfectly goddam normal.
There. That is my rant about menstrual pain. A bit gross, and a bit depressing, but true. And now let us sit back and think about Disco Puppy, racing her little red light into great whirling streaks around and around at the park.
Okay, so I just wrote that last post, then went checking some of my favourite blogs and comment streams. A comment I'd posted on my friend Nattie's awesome blog had required that I type the word "sperm", which I naturally thought was fantastic, so I'd included this info for the delight of others in the bottom of my comment. Mel commented below and also added her word verification "broslato" which she imagined as describing a particularly manly Italian dish. And then I had the brainripple (let's not call it a wave) of compiling a fake dictionary of word verification words and their meanings.
If anyone is even slightly taken with this idea I ask you to please do one, or both, of the following:
a) tell me your thoughts via the comments in the usual fashion; or
b) tell me your word verification and what it means.
As a childhood lover of the game Balderdash I anticipate that this shall be both amusing, and a good insight into how many people ever read my blog. I'm hoping for as many as five!
Leith - accusingly, to me:
"You shook your goodies at Flava Flav."
Leanne - hypothetically, then again moments later to Isobel:
"You have a mad rack, don't you."
Leith again - post triple-fried donut incident:
"I regret everything...and nothing!"
Dion - pondering the deep-fryer:
"Tash! Tash! KFC, Tash!"
Brendan - as Public Enemy announce they are going to perform It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back in its entirety:
"Oh. My. God." (accompanied by a slightly hysterical facial expression)
Also worthy of inclusion in this list is Nat Graf's resolution to grow two inches. He didn't specify where...ladies...
