Not everyone loves Valentine’s Day. In fact when I talk to some people about Valentines Day their reaction is to sneer at it and talk about “crass commercialism.” I’m not sure what to answer to that because of course it is quite true and I can only offer “But this is a day to eat more chocolate! Why the hate? Have some chocolate!” A friend of mine hated it because she thought that it was silly to celebrate on just the one day when you should celebrate it every day. To which I answered ”But this is a day to eat more chocolate! Here, have some chocolate!”
Chocolate and I are sort of new found lovers. For the first 17 years of my life I hated the stuff and every time I was given some chocolate I would pass it onto my sister. A couple of times I got curious about what it tasted like and ate it only to and how do I put this delicately…I would throw it up afterwards. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to go through that every time that they ate chocolate (I didn’t understand that my reaction to chocolate was not normal and thought that everyone did this) and I left it alone until I was at uni.
It was then that our love blossomed and I came to love and appreciate chocolate-in moderation of course. I know that there are people that have been saying lately that sugar is the cause of obesity and should be regulated or banned for minors but I still believe that everything should be eaten in moderation. Also I am one of those difficult people that if you banned me from doing something, I will only want it that much more 
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| February 8th, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
Someone once left a karaoke microphone behind at our place (if I were to hazard a guess when it was probably one of our theme nights) but since it doesn’t connect to anything I use it to annoy Mr NQN by pretending to interview him and sing to him. I think he has hearing like a dog because his face cringes whenever anyone but certain people with perfect pitch sing. And that means that whenever I emerge from the study bedroom ready to sing at him he looks as though in pain.
That’s because I cannot sing.
Sometimes he puts up with it for longer but sometimes he gives me a look that says “enough!” One evening I was making a jam and waiting for it to boil and I was killing time while waiting for it to finish. A recent trip was postponed due to a cyclone so I found myself at home alone for most of the day. I tend to get so excited when there’s an actual human in front of me so I talk a million miles an hour. So I combined the two and interviewed Mr NQN on my karaoke microphone about the jam.
Let me tell you about this jam or really, a preserve. From Macedonia, slatko as it is known, is a jam made up of the white part of the watermelon that we usually discard. I first tried it at an Elliott gathering. Our brother in law Laporello is Croatian and his parents came over to cook for their wedding. One day when we dropped something off, his mum was making this with the summer fruit that we had a glut of and I was fascinated by how unusual and delicious it was.
He tells us that you have a tablespoon of it first thing in the morning with a glass of water or very bitter coffee. It is extremely sweet (the name slatko translates into sweet) and it is also made with cherries and apricots but since we have so much watermelon at the moment I wanted to try it with that.
There was the bonus of making something out of something that would have been discarded. I hate to waste food (see banana skin cake) and if it is perfectly edible I’m willing to try and see what it tastes like. The sample that Laporello’s mum gave me was so delicious I wanted to make it again. So one hot summer’s day I sliced up the watermelon separating the white (pith) and green (rind) from the red part (best to slice it before teeth get into it for sanitary reasons) and then cut it up.
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| February 6th, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
Although my parents are usually quiet and relatively well behaved there are times when their eccentricities come out. Like when my father first interacted with Aura, Mr NQN’s new 14 month old niece. Whenever small children are around he generally pays them no attention (sometimes he does this with adults too) but he was faced with baby Aura and forced to interact with her, if only for a moment.
Adults can play with a child one of several ways. See if you can choose the way generally not recommended to interact with a child.
1. Say hello and make waving gestures and talk in baby voice
2. Pinch cheeks and tickle a child
3. Threaten with planting your palm on their face
If you chose number 3 yes that’s the one my dad chose. He means well but he is just not a kid person and when he lunged at her face with an outstretched palm she reacted as you would expect – with a genuine “W.T.F.” face. Mr NQN laughed and recalled the story to me and then added “I guess you didn’t turn out too badly after all, considering!”
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| February 2nd, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
There are certain things that you remember from childhood. Seeing your friend’s mother naked is one of them.
I should explain. My parents were and are very conservative. Particularly on some topics although on others, they don’t really care. But getting naked was not something that we as a family did (unlike Mr NQN’s family whose photo album has page after page of naked bottoms). My mother was a strict, knitting, cross stitching mother who cooked food that my father liked and I thought all parents were like them.
I remember when I would visit a friend Erica’s place. Mother would say that Erica’s mum was “alternative” or “European”but as for me, she just seemed cool. I enjoyed being over there because Erica was allowed to do pretty much anything that she liked. Erica could eat donuts. Erica could play wherever she wanted. Erica could eat ice cream (are you sensing a food theme?). Until one day, we were playing and the electricity went out and we went squealing to her mother. She was in the bathroom and stepped out of the shower stark naked in front of us.
I had my first encounter with what I now know to be hippies.
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| January 31st, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
When Mr NQN turned two years old, his authority as the head boy and one and only child was threatened by the addition of two sisters. To add insult to injury, one was a baby and garnered more attention while the other one was an adopted older sister who snatched place as the eldest sibling directing the traffic and family.
Poor Mr NQN was suddenly in no man’s land, with no schtick to cling onto-literally. And he didn’t like it one bit.
With his two new sisters, they visited Finland where his now older sister was quite sick and had to be weaned off her diet of sugar and junk food that was the cause of her intestinal distress. She was given the Elliott treatment of natural, raw vegan food. One of the items that they made to help sell her on the new diet was raw, vegan pancakes. They were made the evening before by their “mummi”, aka their grandmother and stored in the fridge for the next morning’s breakfast. Mr NQN went to sleep no doubt dreaming of these pancakes and so did his new older sister. Because by the time they woke up the next day they were gone. His new sister had snuck into the kitchen and eaten the entire family sized stack during the night!
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| January 27th, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
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