The very first time I met Mr NQN I confess that thought that he was terribly handsome and interesting. I was however attached to another human being (not literally) at the same time. He and my then sort-of boyfriend worked at the same website design company and I recall them discussing a website they were working on which was Australian version of Elle Magazine. Mr NQN said something in passing that he was editing a picture of a girl wearing a scarf and thought that she was the most beautiful looking girl he had ever seen.
So I did what any girl who thought that a man was handsome and delicious would do. When I got home I quickly grabbed my copy of Elle and flicked through it until I found the photo. She couldn’t have looked more opposite to me, she had blonde hair and freckles whereas I was nicknamed Morticia after Morticia Addams. The next few times I saw him I was still interested in him but I had pretty much counted myself out as not his type. I did try and ascertain his type, as you do, and there was the screensaver of Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw and the occasional reference to other famous blonde models. I mean if the guy likes models then forget it then!
That’s actually a quote from Roger-what a smoothie!
Click here to read the full story
| February 22nd, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
I remember the first time I tried baking at Mr NQN’s. He lived alone in a bachelor pad in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Manly. He was so messy that I thought that he might have had some secret puppies that ran around tearing things to bits when I wasn’t there. His kitchen was full of empty yogurt containers and empty pizza boxes and he never threw anything out and had a rather fetching collection of piles of junk mail.
He had a box of forks and knives gleaned from his ex flat mate. Amongst these was one of those rotary beaters with a worn wooden handle. One day I got the urge to bake something, if only to test out if his oven worked beyond its use as a pizza box storage device, and I figured that I could try and bake cupcakes in the absence of a baking tin. I bought some waxed paper from the corner shop, beat the batter by hand, spooned it into the waxed paper “cases” that lined a set of cups and baked them. They came out not too badly all things considered and I proceeded to make buttercream and spread them on top. Two hours later I presented a cupcake to him.
He took a bite.
Click here to read the full story
| February 10th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
When I was young, I was a little (ok a lot) obsessed with Lady Diana. I possessed a scrapbook, my most treasured possession, filled with clippings about the Royal Wedding. I don’t know what percentage of girls or boys grow up wanted to be princesses or princes (and I suspect more girls want to be princesses than boys want to be princes) but I was certainly one of them. I wanted my hair like hers (thankfully my parents ignored that, that would have looked incredibly strange on an Asian child) and I wanted fluffy angora sweaters like she wore-shame that I am fiercely allergic to angora. I think I just really wanted whatever it took to be a princess.
Not so any more. Whilst it would be nice to have a staff of twenty or more attend to you, I think that being a modern day princess is not all that it is cracked up to be. I wonder if Princess Mary is allowed to be stupid, act like a child, throw a Halloween party or just go wherever she wants without an entourage in tow? In a strange almost twist of fate, back in 2000 when she met Prince Frederick, I was offered a job at the advertising agency where she worked. Now I just let my princess fantasies simply extend to being invited to the wedding. Yes a wedding guest at a Royal Wedding, I could do that. I could behave myself and act appropriately for a day.
Click here to read the full story
| December 7th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
This past week has been one of the most frantic of my life. I can’t quite reveal why just yet (although I’m dying to!), but I do have some rather exciting news to share with you soon. But with excitement comes much work and these past few days have passed by in a blur of sleepless nights-one evening involving a torturous one hour of sleep where I watched the projection clock goad me with it’s pulsing red digits and tell me that I was about to have the least sleep ever. I was tired and out of sync yet still I was deliriously happy.
In the midst of all of this activity I had promised to make Christie some cupcakes for her impending baby shower. She was having a Spring themed baby shower so I thought that making bees and ladybirds would be a good idea. I had some floral patterned cupcake liners and some sugar blossoms that I bought from the Adelaide Central Markets. I decided to make her some mango and poppyseed cupcakes as I’ve started to see some delicious mangoes in the stores.
I fashioned the bees much like Nigella’s chocolate bee cake by sticking some flaked almonds in some coloured fondant in place of wings. The ladybirds were sort of ad hoc and I made a vanilla buttercream icing (although a cream cheese icing would do quite nicely too). I rushed about and realised that I had no time to photograph them as I only had a tiny sliver of time between 7:30am and 7:45am one morning in between waking up, packing and catching a plane. Still, despite being a human kerfuffle, could not have been more happily frantic.
In this vein, shamelessly borrowed from the lovely Celia’s fabulously uplifting post from yesterday, this is my list of teeny tiny moments of happiness.
Teeny Tiny Happiness 1: I can pick a seemingly endless supply of jasmine from my neighbours from the bush that creeps out beyond their fence.
Click here to read the full story
| October 12th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
Jetlag is an awful thing. Just when you think you have gotten a handle on it, you start nodding asleep at inopportune times. We had just arrived back to Sydney after a fantastic 12 day trip overseas and at 9pm that night we were fast asleep. We had, somehow, and through the miracle of travel, turned into my parents 
.
I used to love flying but nowadays find it hard to sleep on planes as I can’t sleep in a sitting up position. I’ve often traded on flights being half full and so I can stretch out along four seats and sleep to my heart’s content. I’ve thought of bringing a blow up pouf so that I can elevate my legs but Mr NQN wouldn’t let me. Something about seeming like a lunatic or something…. So instead like a good husband he became my leg rest and I found myself sleeping a good eight hours on the flight home. It didn’t stop me from waking up at a bizarre time or nodding off at rather crucial times – try a business related phone call one afternoon. My impulse to sleep was so strong that I had to beg off the phone call and crawl into bed to sleep without drawing the curtains only to be woken up by the Winter sunshine a few hours later.
Click here to read the full story
| July 20th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
What is NQN up to now? 
NQN on Facebook
RSS
