Beyond My Control

Random #220

Confession:

When at home alone (i.e. frequently) I:

(a)    usually cut up my spaghetti (& fettucini & linguine) with a knife before eating it to make it easier to pick up with the fork; and

(b)    often hold my wine glass by the 'bowl' of the glass instead of the stem smothing it in warmth and grubby finger marks.

Yes, at home I fail the sophistication and foodie tests repeatedly.

My napoli sauce with chilli does rock though.

 

I have been eating. And there's been some drinking.

Never fear, I have been eating recently.

I've also been working too much and traveling a bit and house hunting and generally, without intention, not blogging about food or anything else. 

I have also been cooking, and photographing the cooking, and mentally composing the posts, and yet not quite getting to the actual posts.  Balancing that out, however, I have also been racing around and eating crap and drinking too much and getting fatter.  Gah.

Today's non-diary eating list is an example of how things have been working recently:

1.    My morning diet consisted of three cups of tea (black, one sugar), 600ml of water and 1/2 a chocolate wombat.  Granted, usually there's no chocolate wombat involved (at least it didn't attack me and put me in hospital), but otherwise, there's nothing unusual about that on a weekday.

2.    At about 12.30 I ducked across the street and picked up a couple of sushi rolls and a miso soup.  This is not usual either, though, frankly, I wish I did it more often.  The eating of this meal was entirely symptomatic of recent weeks, however.  Because often I instead walk down the street and pick up the Best Chicken Schnitzel Sandwich in the World (post to come).  Three sips of the soup and two bites of the first roll in the phone rang.  Someone who I knew was in meetings most of the day so there was a very narrow window for conversation.  So much so that during our 15 minute phone call he ate a sandwich and I finished the soup.  Once I got off the phone I finished the first roll, and between the slow eating and the chocolate wombat I wasn't hungry any more.  I set the other roll aside.

3.    About 4.30, having only consumed another 600ml of water since 2 above, I was hungry and sleepy.  I acquired a can of Diet Coke (I'm cutting back again) and took two bites into the 2nd sushi roll when the phone rang again.  An international call I'd been waiting for.  I finished the roll about 5pm.

4.    Arrived home between 7 and 7.30 and crashed on couch with a glass of wine, wholly ignoring the fact that last night's somewhat excessive wine consumption has resulted in no ill effects whatsoever (something I regard as simultaneously great and horrible).

5.    8pm, an old, not that hungry because I ate part of lunch at 5pm, standby.  Omelette with mushrooms and spring onions - thin sliced mushrooms, chopped spring onions, 3 eggs, a little grated parmesan, pepper and salt.  Done.

6.    Wine.

7.    No photos, though it looked pretty.

Regular posting to recommence now.  With catch-up posts re stuff cooked an eaten previously.

A bit Italian

This week in food had something of an Italian flavour.  It wasn't deliberate, it just turned out that way.

Aside from making pasta and meatballs, I also had lunch with colleagues at the distinctly Italian Benito's during the week. 

Benito's is one of that string of small restaurant/bars in the block of Little Collins Street between Queen and William Streets that are great for lunch in particular.  I worked it that general vicinity for a long time, but had never been to Benito's before.  It's a nice little place with friendly staff, though it suffers from some truly horrid acoustics - small room, high ceilings - which are okay for talking amongst a group in a booth but really bad for hearing accented specials and questions from the staff.

They do some great anti-pasto, and we had a very nice fruity but dry Italian white wine (even though they were trying too hard to sell us something boring from New Zealand), but I have to say I wasn't completely overwhelmed by my main.  Salmon with potatoes, roasted capsicum and saffron aioli, it was pleasant enough but not anything to rave about.  Still, it was a very pleasant weekday lunch.

On Saturday, after lunch at Miss Marmalade with friends, we look Percival around the corner to introduce him to Mediterranean Wholesalers in Sydney Road which, amazingly, he'd never been to before.  To quote: "It's a Wonderland."

Indeed it is.  I'm always quite grateful when I go there that I don't have a car, because it makes me restrict what I buy to what I can carry, and what I can carry usually equates fairly well to what I can store.  Otherwise I'd probably being making cubby houses of tinned tomatoes and beans.  I made sure to enforce that rule even yesterday when I had a lift home.

We also stocked up at the fruit and veg down the road and somehow I managed to buy only green things, and lemons.  Green capsicum, limes, mint, sage, leek, other green things.  Green, green, green.  I did already have red and white and purple things at home, but it still looked very monochromatic as it was loaded into the green bag.

And accordingly I suspect that next week's posts may have a greenish tinge.

Benito's Cafe & Wine Bar - 445 Little Collins St, Melbourne - 9670 5347

Mediterranean Wholesalers - 482-492 Sydney Road, Brunswick