Hooray! Brigita got her care package from me. It takes a lot to get me to cross stitch, you know. The design comes from Subversive Cross Stitch. And how adorable does Miss Violet look? What a cutie!
Author: Kris
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Bacon Curls
Bacon curls – the perfect garnish for your Meat Cake!
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Trainer Bob Speaks
Trainer Bob says that Australians are lazier when it comes to losing weight. Ouch. I don’t know that I’d go that far, but I felt pretty bad when I saw the numbers that Rachel and JJ have posted since leaving the house. Maybe next year the producers will cast people who have a genuine desire to lose weight over those who just have a desire to stir the pot.
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“Hot and Smoky” Baked Beans
I was chatting to the Snook over IM this afternoon about what we were going to have for supper when I suddenly got a massive craving for baked beans. And I don’t mean crappy beans out of a can — REAL baked beans. So I went looking for recipes. I settled for these Hot and Smoky Baked Beans, which seemed like a good compromise between my desire for mostly-homemade and my lack of thirteen hours to soak dried beans. I used Toohey’s Old for the “dark beer,” and I substituted treacle for the molasses (since we already had some in the cupboard). I don’t see Great Northern Beans here very often, so I went with the much more common cannellini beans instead. Other than that, my only substitution was in using dried chipotle powder instead of canned chilis. (Since Australia doesn’t have a big Hispanic population, stuff like that isn’t easy to find. We get our chipotle powder from Herbie’s.) The Snook was dismissive of my plan at first, as he’s not a huge fan of American-style baked beans. (He says they’re too sweet.) The smell of these won him over though, and he heartily approved of the nice smoky flavour from the chipotle. My only complaint was that I wanted the dish overall to be a bit thicker and stickier. Part of that might be because I only used five cans of beans instead of six (on the recommendation of some of the reviews). The next time I make them, I might use more beans and let ’em cook a lot longer. I think these would be great at your next big family dinner though! -
Sydney meetup for Damo
In case you didn’t see it over at Ravelry, “Damo” from ACS is going to be in Sydney on Wednesday and I’m organising a little meetup for him. Since the shop won’t be open that night, we’re going to have it at the “Crossroads Bar” at the Swissotel on Market Street from about 5:30ish. If you’d like to meet arguably the most influential guy in Australian knitting right now, let me know and I’ll add you to the list.
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Trolls.
I hate trolls. In case you didn’t notice, I’ve been being attacked on this website over the past 24 hours for sharing an opinion that 68% of Australians also hold. (Or it might be that I’m also American. Or that the person hates George Bush. They’re not very clear.) Anyway, my attacker(s) aren’t even debating the issue; they’re trying to deny me the right to have an opinion on the matter. I tried arguing my case, but you know how well that goes. So now I’m just going to delete the crap. (I’d block them outright, but they share ISPs with several of my legitimate commenters, and that would block you all from the site. That said, if w-g suddenly disappears for you, that’s what’s happened. Drop me a line and I’ll grant you access.)
I’m not really sure what else to do. These people really don’t deserve any more of our attention, so perhaps we should just leave it at that. I guess I could force a sign-in for comments in the future, but I’d really hate to have to go to that option. Man, what kind of pathetic, antisocial jerk picks fights with people over things they say on their personal websites? We’ll just have to ponder.
Update: I’ve locked down commenting for the time being. Those of you who’ve commented before shouldn’t have any trouble, but please let me know if you do.
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Qantas = Ripoff Merchant
I have no idea how the airlines can get away with this crap. Using Qantas’s website, I get a fare of $1998 for a return trip ticket between Sydney and San Francisco. If I switch to their US site and use the exact same cities on the same dates (just going in the opposite direction), the cost is USD $1229. Even allowing for the exchange rate, that’s still a $500 premium that they levy on Australians. I got so mad I just called them. “We’re very sorry, Ma’am, but there are certain fares that are only available to North Americans…” yada yada yada. Qantas is supposed to be an Australian company, right? Why shouldn’t we be getting the special deals? This sucks. I’ll fly Air New Zealand instead.
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Kaffe Fassett
Ooh, I knew that Kaffe Fassett (textile artist and knitwear designer extraordinaire) was also famous for his paintings, but I’d never seen them before! So pretty.
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RunningBlog
Five miles. Eight kilometers. My legs felt great, except for the persistent feeling that I was wearing 2kg ankle weights. Why do you feel really heavy some days and really light on others? So weird.
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Picky Eaters
Another day, another picky eater question on MetaFilter. This time it’s somebody who’s looking for healthy recipes… but doesn’t like vegetables or meat. Man, that just makes me sad. What the hell are these people eating? (It reminds me of a chick I lived with in London, who refused to eat anything but pasta. She had it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.) I remember being shocked while watching The Biggest Loser last week, when they had a “temptation” to see who’d eat various foods, and Rachel nearly gagged at the thought of eating bruschetta. Because it had fresh tomatoes on it. That’s the most pathetic thing about these people, in my opinion. They’re not eating good food. They’re just stuffing themselves with empty calories. Yeah, I’m still weighing in on the chunker side of the scale these days, but that’s because I can’t resist blue cheese and wine and risotto and steak. If you’re going to be fat, you should at least be fat from eating tasty stuff, not from stuffing your gob with the culinary equivalent of wallpaper paste.
