What's important?

I've got to a point in my life, where I am currently assessing what's important. What matters and what doesn't. Sorting through what's real and what's habitual. What's worth my time and what wastes it.

And this applies as much (perhaps more so) to things as it does to people.

Last week I forgot the anniversary of my Hobbits death. 

I have a myriad of excuses, but the fact remains that for the previous 5 years, the first week of Feb has loomed large and treacherously, from Xmas onwards.

And this year it passed by in a flurry of "other things".

So, in making an active decision to spend more time on the good, and less (if not none) on the bad, and PARTICULARLY, the ugly, I've sorted my life into what's important and what isn't.

And when you are authentically.. I mean REALLY committed to this process, it's quite confronting. From the ring my first real boyfriend gave me, to the very last thing my Hobbit purchased for me, I've gone through my life and discarded what I no longer need.

And in some cases, kept what I thought I didn't.

And, because this is a food blog, and this post is in SERIOUS danger of becoming a self-indulgent, maudlin middle-aged emo sook-fest,I give you a small taste of what, after 45 years on this planet, is important to me.




A wine rack, a coffee plunger, a print of Monet's garden in Giverny, my stick blender, a mirror overlaid with KwanYin, my antique marble slab,my silicone cooking gear (but only because my non-stick ripple pan is my most prized possession!) and my cookbooks. My Aqua Sulis and a bag filled with mezzalunas and my antique butchers knives.

And my PNG panga and my hand-made bilum.

The rest was dross.

AGITK and I will be taking a wee hiatus, because this blog IS one of the things I have decided is important to me, and when we return, in about 2 week, things, my friends, will be very VERY different.

As they say in the classics, "strange things are afoot at the Circle K"

See you all on the flip side.

A trip to Rosedale.

There is a chapter in that most ubiquitous of "self-help" books, "Men are from a, Women are from Venus" entitled "Women Talk and Men Go To Their Caves"

Now I freely admit to never having read the book, but for some reason the fact that this chapter exists sticks in my memory.

And it is, I believe, a universal truth.

When men are working through "Stuff" they get all quiet and insular and like bears, they hibernate until they're ready to come out.

Women?

We talk.

We head off with our nearest and dearest besties and talk. And rave. And plot. And scheme. And talk. And bitch.

Rinse.

Repeat.

And the girls would never dream of offering solutions. They just sit and listen, and refill your glass, and pass you the tissues and tell you "it's not because you're fat" and refill your glass and hold you while tears trickle down your face.

And if your friends are really all they are meant to be, all they should be after 30 or so years of supporting each other through marriages (good and bad), births (good and bad), cheap tawdry one-nighters (good and bad), they know what you'll need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, hoik up your Big Girl's Boggers and SUCK IT UP, TIGER.

For some women it's chocolate. For some it's wine. For some it's a new man, for some it's a day spa.

For me, well, you can probably guess.

It's food.


Herbs still fresh and warm from Tee's garden. Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

"I bought them so you could cook for us"

Oh Goddess, does that girl know me!!





Chicken in Pajamas at the Rosedale Pub, courtesy of Sue. Good, hearty country pub fare. No pretentious twattage, no bullshit. Just food and non-judgemental company.

Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

"come to my house and just be."

It's not Chicken Soup that nurtures a Soul, it's chicken parma and a pot, and the deep, abiding laughter of someone you've known more than 30 years.



And then to come home to Widdie, who doesn't bother to bring anything but the main ingredient because "I know you'd have everything else I need", and smoked salmon roulades, to talk about being mad old cat ladies together.

Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

Nodding in ALL the right places.

In 2010, make sure you forget the crap chain emails, and the bullshit forwarded Face Crack status update, and remeber to tell your 'festy besties" that Women Talk, and that is what nourishes our souls.

Getting older.

If you are of a certain age, and lived in a certain southern Australian capital city, you will remember with fondness, the coming of the next month. The countdown would start in September, with your trannie tuned to 3XY, you would spend the school holidays counting down to

ROCKTOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not too sure what we did during Rocktober, but I remember Barry Bisel, Richard Stubbs, Lee Simon and Greg Evans telling us all "ONLY 12 DAYS LEFT UNTIL ROCKTOBER!!!"

I have vague memories of Under 18's concerts for the princely entry of $2.99 and I possibly attended a "Rocking with the Royals" concert during one ROCKtober. And I am sure I saw the OILS (**insert appropriate clenched-fist-punching-air movement**) play in a circus tent opposite Kooyong staduim.

I also have a vague disquieting sensation that ROCKTOBER-fest , at the Dandenong Showgrounds might have featured highly in later ROCKtobers.

I do clearly remember that hits of ROCKTOBER 1982 (the year of my HSC) being "Pass the Dutchie", "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go"

I defy anyone of my age not to be humming:

"It's always tease, tease, tease,/ You're happy when I'm on my knees"

Anyway, fast forward to 2009, and things have changed. A trannie is now something quite different from what is was back then, Blondie split up, Peter Garrett sold out and the Royal that we Rocked with got divorced and then died.

And 28 years on from that most seminal of music years, 1982, ROCKtober has become

ocSOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just like 1982, the 10th month of the Gregorian Calender year is STILL all about the booze.

or now, the benifits of giving it up for a month. The web site, found here contains some startling facts about alcohol and alcohol-related disease. Funds raised go to help Ted Noff's Life Education, an awesome charity that

" empower (s)children to make the right choices for a safe life, free from the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol. These programs are delivered by a team of 120 qualified educators, through a fleet of mobile learning centres equipped with the latest technology to create a unique and exciting learning environment for children.Topics covered include:Healthy food choices, Bullying, Safety with medicines,Negotiation and refusal in peer pressure situations, Effects of smoking, The dangers of alcohol misuse, Illicit drugs (secondary school programs)"

The web site also has an awesome page to help with the detox process, should you decide to go the whole hog. You can even buy a leave pass, if you need to attend an event and want a drink or two.

Me, it's about losing some weight, getting back in shape for Summer (and for Furry's return **evil wink*) and realising that at 44, I really need to devote at least one month to being slightly healther.

And while, in my mind, it's still 1982, Andy Marron is still drumming for The Painters and Dockers, there's a Scrumpy bottle on the upturned milk crate cum coffee table that someone has turned into a bong, and I am looking HOT in my Lubervicher slash Boy George hat, the reality is that I am 44, hit 100kgs after giving up the fags, could do with some healthier life choices and my liver (and skin and hair and nails) will thank me.