nest

Taste

When I first moved in with Rod I made the move from Sydney to where he lived in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. The first things I noticed was that it didn't have a 24 hour supermarket or a chemist open on a Saturday afternoon (let alone a Sunday!) or an eatery that sold turkish bread... etc.  I was in the country now. Surrounded by coal mines and farms.

Rod and I believe in supporting local industry.

 
A very good friend of ours, Andrew (who Tom used to call 'The Farmer') was studying to be a wine maker and was working at a winery. What sort of friends were we if we didn't help him with his study? Assist with some useful tasting notes? 'Yes, I CAN taste the melon in that!', 'YES, CHERRY, I was just about to say that!', ' GOOSEBERRY IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING!'

Taste, of course, is very subjective where everyone has a different reaction to the same thing. It also is influenced by our other senses, the atmosphere of where we are tasting and the people we are tasting with.

I heard (read?) somewhere that even experienced wine tasters make basic mistakes in identifying wines when tasting blind folded. We decided to give this a try with friends of ours, Fiona and Adam. I was the pourer and kids minder and helped hands to glasses and glasses to mouths. They all know their wine... and yet two out of three blindfolded tasters questioned the COLOUR of the wine they were tasting... 'Ummmm, I'm going to say it's white... ummmm or maybe it's red?....' It was really amazing. Fiona found it quite liberating to sit blindfolded in her home without keeping an eye on her kids, that was my job, managing four preschool children and three blind adults (as in blindFOLDED).

Just recently I read that taste can be influenced by the music we are hearing, here.

They recommend the following....

Cabernet Sauvignon: All Along The Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix, Honky Tonk Women by The Rolling Stones, Live And Let Die by Paul McCartney, and Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who.
Chardonnay: Atomic by Blondie, Rock DJ by Robbie Williams, What's Love Got To Do With It by Tina Turner, and Spinning Around by Kylie Minogue.
Shiraz: Puccini's Nessun Dorma as sung by Luciano Pavarotti, Orinoco Flow by Enya, Chariots Of Fire By Vangelis, and Canon by Johann Pachelbel.
Merlot: Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding, Easy by Lionel Ritchie, Over The Rainbow by Eva Cassidy, and Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez.

So, I can only assume that those compiling this list would tick the 45-55 age box on a questionaire. Having said that, I can really see myself listening to Easy by Lionel Richie and sipping a merlot...

Coffee

Good old organic chemistry! Who said I wouldn't use it in later life?!

The caffeine molecule looks like this;

Very impressive, but coffee has more to it than caffeine molecules. 

I haven't always been a coffee snob. I actually used to drink instant often and regularly. When I drink instant coffee now (as sometimes I have no choice) I don't think of it as coffee but as a 'hot, brown drink', for coffee it ain't.

My favorite kitchen appliance is my coffee machine which Rod bought for me for my birthday last year. I use it regularly and often.

The Kitchenaid coffee grinder in red is a much loved possession also.

Every morning I have a coffee, either from my machine or from a coffee shop where I know the skinny flat white will be up to my standard (see, such a snob). I had a headache this morning and a coffee took it away. Addicted? Probably.

But in the scheme of things, a small vice. When kids stop calling out for me 3 -4 times a night, I'll give up. No I won't.

SKINNY

A month or so ago I stood on the scales, got off, checked the settings... yep, kilos, not pounds.... hmmmm. I was the heaviest I’d ever been not pregnant. Well, maybe I was pregnant! That would explain a tightening I’d felt around the waist band. A pregnancy test confirmed that I was just fat.

A few other things fell into place and I found myself in the weight loss ZONE.  Currently, 6 kgs down 6 to go.

Exercise of course plays a part in flab reduction. My exercise of choice is walking and I can walk faster and longer each week. Certainly faster and longer than I’ve been able to manage since May last year when I ruptured a disc in my spine (that story another time...). So, walking, in public... I needed some exercise clothes! Nice outfits that blended in with other people out walking, jogging, riding. Not the daggy comfies I wear around the house. I’d seen some tops I’d liked in the window at Lorna Jane. So in I went, motivated and psyched up ready to try on and buy!

The girl (for surely she was 12) behind the counter took me in with a glance from toe to head but forgot to look me in the eye. I was determined not to be intimidated (I did, however, feel a quiver in my hackles). Another retail child slave, obviously under nourished, approached me, smiling with vacant effervescence and said,

‘HI! What have you been up to today?’

Well, I ask you. What a question. It really is just plain rude. What if you’ve just had the most terrible day? Or, worse, nothing, I’m doing nothing, just another day of same old same old, thanks for reminding me of my boring, fat life. I was being uncharitable, she WAS only being nice, but I was a whale in minnow land. A grumpy whale.

‘Not much, just a bit of shopping!’ I beamed. Oh the effort.

‘That sounds like fun!’ Yeah, right, why aren’t you at school?

I assured her that I was ‘just looking’ and started a tentative wander around the lycra laden store. Except for the BLARING MUSIC (I must be getting old) there was only silence and the sound of clinking clothes hangers as I worked my way to the back of the rack looking for the XL. None.

I turned to Bubbles and asked, with all the courage I could muster, ‘Do you do an extra large?’

‘No’, she said, ‘but we do an extra small.’

That doesn’t help me, love.

When I’m skinny I’ll go back, Pretty Woman style and say, ‘Do you work on commission? Big, big mistake. Huge.’

And, no, I don’t have a photo for this post.