As you know, I is well fancy, and I might have mentioned to you once or a thousand that I had dinner with Jamie Oliver last week. Which is amusing to me mainly because I hate cooking and most things to do with cooking.  Other than the eating bit.  I’m fine with the eating.

Which is why I decided to score myself, and some lovely ladies who lunch, a ticket to go and get fed by one of the judge-chefs from My Kitchen Rules.  I have watched the show enough times to know he is the ‘mean one’ and so I was gleefully rubbing my hands together (maniacal laugh), thinking of all the things I was going to find wrong with his cooking, and then write them up here on this blog for all to see.  I’ve dined with JO, remember.  So I’m basically a food critic, yeah?

Problem 1:  Colin wasn’t doing the cooking.  They were his recipes, sure, but the Berado’s dudes were cooking them.  So there went that blog idea.  Fkit.

So I thought I could still make some funny about him anyway.  Because he’s the mean one, right?  So that means open season, doesn’t it?

Problem 2:  When the dude got up to speak, he was blushing.  And kinda cute (that makes it hard for me to be mean right there- call it a character flaw of mine).  And we all* know I’m a sucker for an Irish accent.  Then as he spoke, we found out that he wasn’t the mean one at all, he was really very charming and candid, and grounded, with a wife and family, and the same concerns about making a living and a life that we all have.  He told us how he went on the show to promote his brand and his restaurants, at a time when friends of his in the industry were being forced to shut their doors due to the global financial concerns.  He told us about how hard he works, and why he is a chef (Yep, it’s a passion for food), and told us a bit about his creative process.

One thing I especially liked was how he claimed all of the recipes in his new book (which he just so happened to bring about a hundred copies of along, ready for signing) are the result of mistakes.  Of things he tried, found to be wanting, made some variations and eventually resulted in something tasty.  (I suspect the fennel icy-poles in the book are still in the development stages.)  I think that’s a great reminder.  I still don’t give a shit about the cooking idea, but I like it as a metaphor for other stuff in our lives.  Mistake>Edit>Correction>Success.  Or something like that.

So all in all, in a week of two chefs, it was a funny one for this little food-bogan.  I met Jamie Oliver and he was exactly like he is on telly.  Casual, a little scruffy, funny and just like one of my mates.  Just like I thought he would be, in fact.  I met Colin Fassnidge and he was nothing like he is on telly, and so probably has to spend a whole lotta time not reading stuff about himself on the socials, and explaining how he isn’t like that actor at all.  So basically, the opposite of how is presented.

I know who I’d rather be.

Perhaps there’s a lesson in that…?

“Be yourself.  Everyone else is taken.”  -Oscar Wilde

PS I forgot to say, Colin let it slip who wins this season of MKR… I can tell you, but I will require recompense.**

*Well maybe YOU didn’t, but the entire staff and patronage of PJ O’Brien’s circa 1997 does.  (And now so do you.. Don’t say I never tell you anything.)

**I may be lying, but you will have to hand over the moula to find out.

…From The Ashers xxx

Okay everyone, have at the hits:

1.  This book:

SO good

I don’t really want to even tell you about it, because I am insanely jealous that I didn’t write it, but I must. I underlined so many passages, I don’t even know what bits to tell you about.  Just get it.  And read it.  It is a thing of beauty.

PS I don’t usually do book reviews because it reveals too much about my heart, but this time I’m compelled.  So I’m making it compulsory reading as your blog assignment. GO.

2.  These Espresso Martinis.  I made them myself, thanks to the explicit instructions from the QT Sydney, and they were goooood.

Made by me. And god knows I don’t make many things..

3.  This view:

Check out that … beer

I know everyone talks about the view from the other direction, but you can have that, with the shitty bridge in the way- this side is the business.  With the added bonus you get of walking through The Rocks and sitting with an excellent beer on the roof of this bar:

4.  This dude:

I guess I’ll wanna name drop, and write you a post about what he was like, sometime.  But for the moment, let me say that the dude was grouse, and exactly like he is on telly.  And he got this  motley lot together again, and THAT is a good thing.  Warms my heart.

I hope my husband wasn’t giving J.O. the bunny ears*..

5.  My Mum.  She looked after the kids and the cat all weekend, whilst we explored Sydders and wined and dined to our hearts’ content.  Shame one kid had a cough and the cat had a urinary tract infection and was pissing all over the floors.  Who’d be a parent, eh?

* He was

…From The Ashers xx

Dinner One

When Hayley was scared and about to start the serious chemotherapy, but was acting tough, I went down to Newcastle for a visit.  It was winter, and as Nath would say, “As cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss.”  But Nathan wasn’t with us.  He was back with the kids in the humid faux-winter that is Noosa.  John was working his skinny-whippet arse to the bone in the calm of before, so it was just us.

We mostly stayed inside; by then Hayls was bald and probably feeling the cold more than she would ever let on, and at home we had heat packs that Kay had sewn, either for Hayley, or for Ricki before her.  At home we had thick socks, and cups of tea, and heaters, and the oven.  Always the oven.  We were cooking a slow roasted bit of cow, and when I say we, I mean Hayls, because we all know I don’t give a shit about cooking, and I definitely wouldn’t dare offer to cook a meal for my mate, cancer or not.  Every time she told me to go and check on dinner, or DO things, I quietly shat myself, but I did it anyway because I can be tough when I need to, and I know she hated having to tell me in detail what she wanted done.  Decribing how she wanted the sourdough soaked and squished into dumplings, telling me the amounts of wine and herbs and things to add to the meat, watching from her spot on the couch as I cut up the veggies.  She would have given most anything to be the one doing the work.

Whilst we waited for dinner to cook, we talked about things, old and new.  We laughed at all we had done together so far, and of things yet to hatch.  Swimming through pregnancies, eating at organic cafes, jump dancing, drinking beer, family holidays in tents with leaches and open fires, and others with sticky tropical beaches.  We looked at PET scans on the computer and decided that the white hot cancer was definitely receding, definitely.

Olive and I danced together in the lounge room.  We spun around and jumped to test my pelvic floor to Michael Franti.  “Aunty Ricki loved Michael Franti” we were told, and I wondered if we should turn him off lest he was a bad omen.  And then to Rhys Muldoon and the Poo Song.  We danced and whirled, not because I wanted to- I don’t even like dancing- but because Hayley was puffy and achy-sore, and our dancing made her eyes shine.  I can be tough when I need to.

Eventually we sat down to dinner and the meat fell from the bone and the sauce was like nothing I’ve ever tasted and the dumplings were perfect, and I knew this was a good meal.  A meal of friendship and fear and hope and love.  We drank our cherry beers and I wondered if I would ever have a meal as good as this.  Because it was the meal of before.

Dinner Two

When Hayley had been gone six longshort months we were invited to a dinner in Sydney with a man she had worked for back in those days of endless adrenalin and boundless fun in London, back in the days before the grey shadow of cancer attached itself to her soles.

We were all in the dining room, waiting for Jamie Oliver to arrive, and the energy in the room was strange and it was nervous.  For some of us, the last time we had set eyes on each other was at Hayley’s funeral, and for all of us, the last time we were together was that long long day.  We were a gang, a group of people tied at the hearts by the light of our friend, united in our sadness and with each of us stuck in our memories of the one who would have put us all at ease with a twinkling tease.  What are a group of mourners called?  A sorrow?  We were trying to be bright and smart and funny, but we were, in the end, a sorrow.

He stepped into the room, this man who had made this night happen, but was somehow an outsider, he had a sadness, but he was not in our sorrow.  At least not yet.  I wanted to like him, and I thought I would, but he was an interloper in this party of his own design.

He stepped into the room, this man who had barely met any of us, and walked over to Little Olive.  He bent down to her level, and gently introduced himself, and befriended her with his eyes and his lisp, and in that moment I loved him in a way that made my heart almost rupture, because I knew that this man, on this night, had made a memory for Olive that she would carry with her forever.  A night when so many of the people who loved her Mum hard, and her Mum loved right back, were gathered together, in laughter and fun, the tears buried deep this time.

Eventually we sat down for our meal and it was delicious and plentiful and cooked to perfection.  We sipped our flowing beer and although I knew that this was supposed to be a good meal, a meal of friendships and love and commemoration, every single part that I liked just reminded me of something I didn’t.  Every delicious bite reminded me of a bite that Hayls wouldn’t have.  Every laugh was one not shared with her.  Every bit of light, reminded me of the shadow.

I know this was supposed to be a good meal, but it wasn’t, not really, because it was the meal of after.

A little thing to make it all worthwhile…Bless you J.O.

…From The Ashers xxx

HIts of the week:

1.  Blood donors. “Bloody” legends.  And lifesavers.  Our life is completely different this end of the week, with Coco all topped up with the claret.  Can’t thank all those anonymous donors enough.  Call 13 14 95 to find your nearest donation spot.

2.  The music therapy lady at Nambour Hospital.  I’ve got be honest, although my face was saying “Oh yes, music therapy whilst my screaming child gets treated like a pincushion, what an smashing idea”, my head was saying, “FFS you crazy bloody hippy, piss off and leave us to our misery and our work you friggin’ lunatic.”   Turns out, she was right and (gulp) I was wrong.  The music did help.  Go figure.

3.  Oh hello coffee delivery, yes please.

4.  And to go with said coffee, check out this mug.  I have no idea what or why this was invented, but who wouldn’t want one?

For the person who gives you the shits?

5.  These new shoes.  I know, I know, they’re bloody ugly, but in my other life I have a real job (No I’m not a highly successful and award winning author- who knew?) where I spend the whole day on my feet.  This week I finally chucked my old pair, and got these babies.  Just like going home.  Thanks Get Set Footwear on Gympie Terrace… (Tell ’em I sent you, they’ll give you a good deal.)

And a late entry… After my anti-bird rant, this popped up in my Instagram feed. Oh Jamie, I already love you, and then you wear this.  Not sure if its a turkey or a giant penis, but I like that you don’t look impressed. #birdssuck

What are you loving this week?

And what do you think of Hitwave Alison?  Should I also be including my top 5 shits?