Trysting Fields

Harira

Another culinary adventure inspired by the house of Rorsch & Semi (see also).

You will need:

• 500g of lamb


• Olive oil


• 2 chopped onions


• 4 cloves of crushed garlic


• 1.5 teaspoons of cumin & 2 teaspoons of paprika


• 1 bay leaf


• 2 tablespoons of tomato puree


• 1 cup of soup stock (Rorsch recommends VeCon if you can't be bothered making your own stock. I recommend Bovril.)


• 500g of washed, soaked and cooked chickpeas


• 2 cans of chopped tomatoes


• 3 tablespoons of fresh, chopped coriander


• 3 6 tablespoons of fresh, chopped flat-leaf parsley


• Turkish bread

1. Saute onion and garlic until soft.
   


2. Add meat, and brown.
   


3. Add cumin, paprika & bayleaf, and cook "until the fragrance makes your eyes start to water".
   
   
   


4. Add tomato paste and cook for a couple more minutes, stirring continuously.
   
   
   


5. Add stock & chopped tomatoes, stir and bring to boil ("by now you should be able to feel the spice on the back of your pharynx").
   
   
   


6. Add chickpeas coriander and parsley.
   
   
   


7. Bring to boil.
   


8. Simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours or until lamb is tender.
   


9. Serve, garnished with extra coriander and parsley, and warm turkish bread.
   

Alone Again

For the moment, anyway.

And you know what? That's the way I like it. Baby.

Don't get me wrong, people. I love yiz. I do. You remind me so much of me, in so many ways.

And some of you are really cool.

But let's face it.

You're way over-rated.

I Just Successfully Applied For An ABN

You can do the whole thing online.

Takes about ten minutes.

So, if anyone would like to pay me for my services, rest assured that I can now issue you with a tax invoice quoting my ABN, in accordance with applicable laws.

Once my new business has made $540, maybe I'll register a company.

Apparently that takes about twenty minutes. (And $540.)

Evening With ~

A memorable night. (I think, based on what little I can remember..)

My Housemate's Stuff Is All Packed In Boxes

He, and his little brother, are moving out next Saturday.

Soon all of this:

.. will be just a distant memory.

And they're leaving me the espresso machine! Score.

I think a party may finally be in order.

I Found A Scarf

It's quite nice. I like it.

I encountered it on the northern fringes of the CBD late this afternoon, tied to a lamppost in the manner depicted:

I hope I didn't spoil anyone's carefully laid plans by taking it. But if one will insist on leaving a perfectly good scarf tied to a public facility, these things will happen.

Toenails.

Continuing the theme.

I've been meaning to do this for ages.

Being An Isolated Recluse May Seem Pretty Sweet, But It Has Its Drawbacks Redux

In other flashback to June 2005 news, the stable contact I eventually acquired thanks to this post flaked out on me about six weeks ago.

And if I don't get some fucking weed soon, I may well go quite demented.

It could be entertaining, I guess. See it as a form of reader participation. Help a desperate man out (nb and earn his eternal gratitude) ... or don't.

Choose your own Teigan's Blog adventure!

Update: Sorted.

Retarded Right Thumbnail

As requested.

See also.

Salmon Semi-Functional (ala Teigan)

You will need:

• Roasting potatoes
• Pumpkin
• Broccoli
• Dill, rosemary & salt
• Ginger & garlic
• Salmon cutlets
• Spinach (or alternately lettuce, if perchance the spinach you thought you had looks like this:
  
  ... and smells even worse)
• Soy sauce
• Honey
• Parsley
• A lemon

1. Preheat oven to 200C whilst parboiling chopped potatoes for 5 minutes.
   


2. Put the potatoes in a pan with olive oil, dill, rosemary and salt. Roast in oven for 30 minutes.
   


3. Remove pan from oven. Turn the potatoes, and add the pumpkin. Return to the oven for a further 30 minutes. Turn once more, then return to oven again until serving time.
   


4. Commence steaming broccoli.
   


5. Meanwhile, melt butter in a frypan and saute garlic & ginger for 1 minute on medium heat.
   


6. Add salmon cutlets.
   


7. Turn heat to high for one minute and sear both sides. Return flame to medium.
   


8. Add a few of drops of soy sauce, a smidgeon of honey, and a handful of chopped coriander and a little parsley. Cook as one would a steak.
    
   


9. Five minutes before serving, remove salmon from pan (keep warm in oven), add spinach lettuce, and stir through the juices in the pan.
   


10. Serve salmon on bed of spinach lettuce, accompanied by boiled roast potatoes in their jackets and some steamed butternut pumpkin and steamed broccoli.
    


11. Lemon juice to taste.
    

It worked for this fish wuss.

(Thanks, SFHB.)

Bonnie & Clyde

This morning I cannot stop playing the cover of Serge Gainsbourg's Bonnie and Clyde by Boyd Rice and Giddle Partridge which is currently available as a stream from their joint MySpace page.

Go and listen to it! It's great.

The first bit is, anyway. Unfortunately it fades out after two minutes.

I wish they'd hurry up and finish their album. I will buy it if I have to.

I Don't Want To Work In A Streetcorner Newsbooth, Apparently

So, as planned, I conducted some research this week into the question of how one gets a job in a streetcorner newsbooth.

This research took the form of patronising several of said newsbooths scattered around the Melbourne CBD, as a pretext for asking the people working in them how one comes to find oneself in their enviable shoes.

But not a single one of them would tell me - on the grounds that I was better off not knowing.

Quoth the guy in the booth on the corner of Queen & Bourke Streets: "It's shit, mate. You have to get up at 5am every morning.. stand in here all day.. It's - trust me, you do not wanna work in one of these."

They all said basically the same thing.

Inevitably, part of me suspects some kind of conspiracy.

But a larger part was basically convinced.

My Head Hurts

And we didn't end up setting fire to anything! But I expect it was for the best.

Remember, As You Stare Into The Lettuce..

...the lettuce stares also into you.

"The Nietzschean diet has its critics. Detractors say the diet's actual nutritional requirements are vague, that it provides no concrete plan for progression toward weight-loss targets, and that the book consists mostly of unclear and unusually harsh sets of inspirational logical lacunae."

(via Technoccult.)

Ambitions, Revisited

Last July I posted a list of ambitions.

Time for a review.

1. To work in a streetcorner newsbooth.
Partly a joke - but I'd still quite like to do this. I suspect they're basically owner-operator kind of deals, though. Gonna look into it this week.
2. To become a cult leader by rising to the front ranks of Neurocam and then either taking it over, or creating a sizeable splinter group.
Done. I became the head of Neurocam last August (and was subsequently deposed in November). Being a cult leader was fucking cool, if extremely intense and an insane amount of work. I want to be one again some day, in some form. It suited me nicely.
3. To write a throwaway novel ("which I am doing in November").
As things turned out, I was too busy fulfilling ambition no 2 to do this last November. So I'll do it this November.
4. To make an album, provisionally entitled 'Everyone's Too Stupid' ("which I will do next year when I have more time").
A change in outlook has seen this one deprioritised - although I might still release a compilation of Mishuki One's recordings for Hagakure 419 under said title, if a sufficient number of them accumulate.
5. To study for and obtain a degree in Creative Arts from Melbourne's premier university ("guaranteeing me a colourful and lucrative subsequent career as a Creative Artist").
I intend to begin persuing this one next year. Unless my career takes off stratospherically between now and then, of course.
6. To finish reading "The Magus" by John Fowles, and then to ritually burn it.
Done.
7. To have fun and not care about people.
8. To be beautiful.
9. To be loved.
Realisation of these three remain works in progress, although great strides have been made (admittedly, in some cases, made then lost) on all fronts.

Material things I wanted:

• An umbrella.
Acquired.
• A preamping device for my microphone.
Latterly I've been using my soon-to-be ex-housemate's guitar pedals for this purpose. But they've stopped working - I think because the audio-in jack on my eMac is fucked. (Along with several of the USB ports.) But - see above - evolved approaches have rendered this less important than it used to be.
• A Bigpond Movies membership.
With a Blockbuster just down the road, this has become less desirable. Although I would like to join ACMI, whose lending collection goes places theirs, frankly, doesn't.
• A region-free DVD player.
Acquired. (It isn't really region free. But it's okay.)
• A better camera.
Acquired.
• Peter Greenaway DVDs.
Some still pending, some acquired. In one case acquired (see previous link), then rendered unplayable due to careless handling.
• See also: Amazon wishlist.
Note: the DVDs on this list are for reference only - although I know you'd love to buy them for me, I'm better off with locally-purchased Region 4s (see above).

Updated want list:

• More driving lessons.
I started learning to drive in March last year, but stopped in September, due to being too busy & stressed. I'm no longer too busy/stressed, but I am too poor. Shall recommence when it becomes viable.
• A cat.
Once my domestic arrangement stabilizes somewhat - and again, given sufficiently consistent income.
• New trainers.
Soles of my current trainers:

• iPod Mini repair.
I bought a little 512mb Shuffle after my 4GB Mini broke for the second time late last year. At around $150 this was a substantially cheaper option than getting the Mini fixed. At this rate I will be able to get a Nano for less than the cost of getting the Mini fixed. In any case, I miss my Mini.

We'll see what happens.