When I was a child the only pet that I was allowed until a certain age was a goldfish. Cats were too much like a fully grown organism for my parents to handle (and therefore for us to handle as children) and my parents have never been dog people although I desperately wanted a cat or a dog. So my first pet was a goldfish. We had a rectangular fish tank that sat on the wall unit and we’d buy the goldfish in a plastic bag and bring it home. I used to find the transporting of the fish in the plastic bag the most exciting part of fish ownership. It seemed the closest I’d ever get to taking a fish for a walk.

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There are those who love playing games and those who don’t. I come from a family that like playing board games but loathe any sort of game where they have to test their physical dexterity. Mental dexterity is fine but anything where you have to act silly or have fun making silly gestures is out. When we used to go away with Mr NQN’s family and mine for Christmas and someone would suggest charades  my family would opt out and simply watch from the sidelines watching everyone have fun. I think it’s a cultural thing where they were afraid of embarrassing themselves but to me, they seemed to be missing out on all the fun.

I love to participate in things and if you want to play a game I will be there although I have a firm rule: no cheating. Otherwise what is the point? I was determined to participate in this month’s challenge as Lauren from Celiac Teen is one of my favourite bloggers. She’s articulate, smart and mature and still at school which is a fact that constantly surprises me.

Australian bakers may relate to the frustration when we see cheesecake recipes and see that the recipe specifies graham crackers. They’re next to impossible to get here although common as muck in the U.S. I was so excited to try these when I visited the U.S. many years ago that I jumped up and down in the supermarket aisle and said “Oooh look graham crackers!”. People around me must have thought that I was very strange or easy to please (either that or I had just gotten out of prison) and I tried these honey and vanilla flavoured biscuits and thought they were delicious and I was excited to be able to make these again. I made sure to make a lot so I could process them into crumbs and freeze them in case of emergency cheesecake making (or to top my 5 minute cheesecake). I wasn’t sure how to style these-after all they’re just bars and what else can you do with a bar but then I though of the game Jenga and decided to do a Nanaimo Bar Jenga.

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I’m a relative latecomer to 30 Rock. It hasn’t been helped by Channel 7 screwing around with the programming and scheduling it haphazardly and relatively late at night where it should be a prime time show in my humble opinion. My favourite character is Liz Lemon as she is someone I’d like to be friends with (and yes I do realise she is fictional). She is obsessed with food, gets angry if anyone touches her food, a little bit awkward and does poor imitations of characters from 80’s sitcoms. I even wear glasses – well inside the house I do, I’m a bit too vain to wear them outside as they’re thick black rimmed spectacles (I thought they were chic at the time).

Her food obsession is what endears her to me the most of course. She had walked around with lettuce in her hair and I only recently discovered that I walked around all day with royal icing on my dress. I like to think we all have a little Liz Lemon in us – I certainly do. Allow me to demonstrate my own Liz Lemon moment. My husband belongs to a sailing club where every week they have a sausage sizzle and everyone can help themselves to a barbecued sausage sandwich or two. We don’t have a barbecue at home and I do occasionally crave the special charcoal taste that comes with a BBQ’d sausage. I asked him if he could bring me a sausage sandwich home and he point blank refused.

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