Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

Easy as ABC

by

I booked in September on a whim.. I mean, I’ve been an Aussie Blogger since 2004, it would be a shame not to attend the first ever Aussie Bloggers Conference, right?

So, I booked – anticipating being the only person I knew there, and embarking on what I thought then was just a random incident of getting out there to meet people ‘in real life’.

As it happens, it won’t be the first this year … but that’s another story.

So then, as I got involved with a blog project for my honest to goodness real life friend Clare from Girl on a Swing it seemed silly that she shouldn’t be there, so the invite was issued and accepted and all of a sudden I wasn’t going to be the only person I knew there…

THEN as the awesomeness heaps upon the awesomeness I chipped in a tiny bit to bring Kelley at Magneto Bold Too up to the conference from south of the border, because, quite frankly the conference would be all wrong without her – she’s ‘teh awesome’ of Aussie Blogging. And thus my joy was complete.

So, there you go, I’m going to the Aussie Bloggers Conference, and I’m not going alone.

PS: Don’t tell the Aussie Bloggers I’ve forgotten how to blog…

PPS: Neither tell them I’m not a Mommy Blogger.

[Edited to correct unfortunate spelling error…]

Diagnosis: Geek

by

As is not uncommon at this time of the year I’ve been mentally revisiting the previous year which actually was somewhat extended into revisiting 1981 – my first year at high school (and the years following up till the late 90’s).  I believe if I knew then what I know now my life would look very different.  Not necessarily better… but different.

  1. I preferred to spend my lunch hours in the library.
  2. While I was rubbish at maths and physics I was rather excellent at biology and other natural sciences.
  3. I wrote programs in BASIC and Pascall in Applied Computing and was actually quite good at it.
  4. I saw a mouse for the first time demonstrated on an Apple IIc – this made a monumental impression on me.
  5. I loved movies like Tron, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T, Ghostbusters, Goonies and Gremlins.
  6. I read MAD magazine at the public library (there was no budget for our own copies) rather than whatever the equivalent of Dolly was at the time.
  7. I had no idea about formal dresses and so had my mother make me something dreadful for my High School formal.  I cringe still, and no, there aren’t photos.  I didn’t go with a boy.
  8. I didn’t have to sit my University Entrance exams due to the  (now outmoded) process of accreditation… This was due to natural smarts and having sucked up to the teachers throughout the year sufficiently that my only marginally above average marks (due to lazy arse) scraped me in… had I had to sit the exam I would have been a quite badly off.

These are only some of the indicators that as a teenager I was a bit of a geek; I didn’t even know what a geek was and neither did my family. None of my quirks in the area of computing were encouraged, I mean, it was a country school and I was  GIRL and no one had any idea where things would go with computers… so I went to work for a bank.

I was never cool.

Geekery is cool these days… and Katie is a case in point – a little girl with a thing for StarWars became an internet sensation… and out of the woodwork came all these other people, girls and guys alike who like geeky things.  She’s by no means the spearhead, geekery has been becoming cool for a while (think the Big Bang Theory, Bones, ).

I would have liked being a geek to have been cool when I was at school and for people of the internet to be behind me in the things I loved back then (oh, wait… the world wide web really didn’t exist then) … but I’ll be happy instead that being a geek now is basically pretty darn ok, and that I can see what I was then and be happy that not loving girly frou frou and preferring the indoors and books and computer games is nothing of which she need feel ashamed.  I can look back and hug that geeky teen in me and tell her that one day all those things she loved would come full circle…

…and she’d be part of the cool crowd.

Just Desserts

by

Well, you can tell I’m on holidays – two posts in ‘virtually’ one day…

A fair portion of yesterday was spent in the kitchen cooking up another epic batch of fudge (see here) and also the Dessert of Amazing for lunch today.  I need to write the Dessert of Amazing**’s recipe down so I don’t lose it given the current state of the recipe (below)… yes, very well used… While I’m writing it down I shall also share it with you… with pictures. Because I’m generous like that…

First… Get a recipe – I got mine from Lyna – she probably doesn’t remember me sitting in her kitchen copying all the recipes I could find that looked good… I must have rushed it because the method doesn’t make sense towards the end… so I made it up… if you try this and it’s rubbish… don’t say you weren’t warned…

1. The Recipe

Ingredients:

1 250g packet of biscuits – I used wheaten something or other because I like a bit of texture in my crumbs

125g butter

1-2tbs Gelatine – (I used 2 – and I was ever so hopeful that gelatine doesn’t go off… lost count of how long since I’d used it and the supermarket was all out.. seems like I’m not the only one setting stuff this Christmas.)

1 Can of Boysenberries (I used raspberries due to absence of Boysens on the shelf… seems like I’m also not the only one making this recipe)

200g White Chocolate (I used 250g Nestle Bits)

300ml Cream – (I think the recipe only req a cup – that bit of the recipe was missing) but as I didn’t want to waste any I used the full 300 – oh, and whip it good.

250g Cream Cheese

1/2c Caster*  sugar (I think they call it superfine in the US)

2. Behold. The Ingredients

So, I couldn’t be doing with leftover bits of stuff I wouldn’t use later (cream, chocolate) – so I put in whole packets… I figured they were close enough… (proof positive I should in no circumstances be left in charge of experiments requiring critical measuring…)

3. 125g Butter

4. Smooooosh!

1. Melt the Butter and Crumb the biscuits.  In my younger days I’d have been given a rolling pin and the biscuits in a sturdy plastic bag or three and sent out to the front porch to beat the crap out of them… these days I’m allowed to use appliances…  it’s up to you, either way will work though an appliance will make finer crumbs.

5. Apply the Butter
6. Mix to Buttery Crumbs

Combine the butter and crumbs and press into the base of a springform tin.  You can see the lip of the removable base in the photo below, I’m careful to keep the crumbs below this line so things don’t get stuck when you take the tin apart revealing (hopefully) the true extent of the Amazing.  Then pop it in the fridge.

7. Press crumbs into tin and put in the fridge

Pour the gelatine onto 1/3c of hot water (not boiling – hot out of the tap is fine) and stir to dissolve.

8. Sprinkle Gelatine onto hot water
8. When it's dissolved it looks like this.

Pour half the gelatine mixture into the canned fruit, stir and place in the fridge to begin cooling/setting.

9. Ra Ra Ras-ber-ry - Summer's Greatest Love Fruit...y?

Then comes the fun part… beat up the cream cheese with the caster sugar so it’s light and smooth.

10. Before
11. Buahh haa haa; After

Beat up the Cheese and Sugar, in a separate bowl whip the cream – I whip it until it’s thick but not peaky so you don’t over beat it when you combine it with the other ingredients..

12. Whip it Real Good. Actually whip it mostly... see above.

Then melt the chocolate… I use the microwave… but you have to keep an eagle eye on it… this was on high for 55sec with a stirring at about 30s.

13. Oh, melty, melty

Then combine, the cheese, chocolate, cream and remaining gelatine mixture (see, you thought I’d forgot about that didn’t you!) and beat thoroughly –

14. White on white on white

Swirl the cooled/semi-set fruit into the cheese mixture and then pour onto the biscuit base. I noticed (and you will from the pix) that the Raspberries caused the cheese mix (the cream, no doubt)  to curdle a tiny bit… it doesn’t appear to have affected the final cake, and I can assure that it tastes fine.  I can’t remember if the boysenberries did the same last time I made it..

15. Swirly, Swirly
16. Rin Tin Tin

There you have it, I shall report on its reception at BFF’s house and post pix of the decanted masterpiece when that is done…

In the meantime, consider this my Christmas gift to You and I hope you and your families have a wonderful day, wherever you are and whenever Christmas gets to you!

*So named because it’s fine enough to go through a sugar caster or sprinkler…

** Officially a Boysenberry (or Raspberry) and White Chocolate Cheesecake

The Year of the Donkey

by

There are any number of reasons to love Christmas, the presents,  time off work, time with family and friends, food favourites.  Then of course there’s the significance for those for whom it’s a matter of faith. I’ve been known to love all of these, I mean, what’s not to love about a tradition that’s all about generosity, fun, faith and family?  It’s all fabulous.

The thing is, it’s all got a bit corrupted over the years… generosity has become commercialised and as often as not Christmas feels like giving for the sake of giving itself; for he sake of the tradition and in doing so actually completely loses the object, the person in receipt of the gift. Even in trying to get the perfect gift for someone we’re ‘competing’ with everyone else who is trying (in various degrees) to do the same. And the recipient (and of course we, in turn) end up with a pile of stuff we don’t need, or worse, don’t like.  Furthermore our kids end up with more toys than they know what to do with. More toys/stuff than they need, more than they can play with, and none of it’s significant at all.

I’m not in NZ for Christmas this year, I’ve been there 3x since Nov 2009 and decided to wait this one out and head home for birthdays in April (if I can hold out on visiting for that long).  Deciding to do that raised the dilemma of getting presents for 9 niblings, 3 siblings (and other halves), 2 step-sibs and 3 parental type units without breaking the bank and that’s before I even try to get it to them… becuase, you know the Postal Service, regardless of the wonderful work they do, has to cover costs and those costs are expensive… really, really expensive.

Now, in normal circumstances I have no beef with sending presents via Australia Post… I do it almost monthly for birthdays across the Tasman but this Christmas, sending a job lot of presents to be added to the job lot of presents everyone will be getting anyway began to feel uncomfortable.

So I opted out… I opted out by asking my family to send donations to their favourite charities as their gift to me and on their behalf I bought a donkey.  Now I’m off to write to them and introduce them to Hee Haw – whose significance to the family/community he will support goes far beyond any new pair of socks, jocks, books or chocolate I could have bought for them.