Dearest Reader, did you know that I spent the first six years of my life upside down?
Every day when my father would come home from work he would find me, upside down, my head buried in the soft cushion of the couch. Every night, when we would gather in the lounge room to watch television while my father popped sunflower seeds in his mouth from a large jar and my mother knitted rhythmically *click clack, click clack* and my sister sat quietly, there I would be, upside down.
“Her brain will dislodge” my parents said to each other.
“Just make sure her school marks don’t go down” they said eyeing me.
Then, after six years, a girl at school told me that I would break my neck if I spent so much time upside down. It seemed logical enough-a spindly neck surely couldn’t hold up a body and frightened, I decided that being right side up was probably the sensible thing to do.
What’s my point? Well six years is a long time to do anything. And six years is the amount of time it took me to perfect this tuna dip recipe. Why six years on a tuna dip? I should explain that it wasn’t six consistent years trying to make this dip. A friend of mine Teena used to bring a tuna dip to our place for dinner parties. I loved it so much and assumed that she made it so every time when she’d ask what she could bring I’d mention the tuna dip. Then one day she brought it in the container that it came in and I realised that a) she didn’t make it and b) that it was really expensive because she bought it at a Woollahra deli. So feeling guilty about having asked for it I didn’t ask her to bring it again and sought to make my own.
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| November 16th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
I have an excellent memory. Well I should clarify, I have an excellent memory for food. Names and so called “important things” …well unfortunately not. Last week I was in New Zealand and I had met so many people and animals (with human names) that when someone asked me about “Tom” I said in a confused manner, “Who was Tom again?”. Turns out Tom was a sheep…Oh dear!
When my family and I discuss various events it’s always with the prompt “Don’t you remember? That’s when we ate the chicken dish that we all really liked.” One of us would say “Who else was there?” and inevitably we’d scratch our heads and wonder who our fellow company was, at a complete loss. However we all knew that the chicken dish was there as company.
When we were small my mother took my sister and I into the city to get our passports to travel overseas. As such we had to behave and not act up. As a reward, and she knew the only kind of reward we were really interested in was food, we would get a sausage sandwich. Our eyes widened. We had never tried one before. Sure we had had hot dogs and sausage rolls (my tuck shop item of choice) but not a grilled sausage sandwich. When she handed me the soft bun with the sausage and onions I melted. The city around me ceased to exist as I ate the sausage and the bun stopping halfway worried that it would be another nine years until I tried another one. It must have taken me about 10 minutes to eat it and my mother didn’t lose patience with us. You see she was also enjoying it too having not had many of these. You’d think we were very sheltered to these things and I suppose we were!
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| November 10th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
Mr NQN came home from the neurosurgeon one day, plopped down on the couch dramatically and turned to me.
“Guess what the doctor said?” he asked.
“What’s wrong?” I prepared myself for the worst.
“The doctor said that I have to go kitesurfing to get rid of my headache!” he said grinning broadly every tooth in his mouth gleaming in happiness. He raised a hand for a high five. I did not return it.
“Nice try” I said unimpressed.
“Don’t leave me hanging!” he said as I walked away.
Of course I’ll feel terrible if he does have a brain tumah and I was making light of it but I suspect that these man headaches that lead to kitesurfing are an elaborate, expensive extension of the man flu. Because once the doctor told him this the headaches disappeared only to reemerge when housework needed to be done. He actually once clutched at his arm suddenly as if stabbed and writhed on the couch in pain when I asked him to vacuum, I kid you not.
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| October 3rd, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
One of the best parts of being a food and travel blogger is the travel component. Going on these trips allows me to visit and explore areas of the world that I’ve never set paw on previously. I know that some of you may be curious about the travel and what happens on these trips so I shall tell you a bit about them.
Some of these trips are just Mr NQN and I whereas other trips involve small groups of food and travel journalists. Most of them are really fun and lovely to be around and make group trips a pleasurable way to travel with virtual strangers, many of whom with which I become good friends after a trip and don’t regard us with suspicion in the way others do. Travel writers are generally some of the nicest people I have met and are very open minded about things such as blogs. A couple of journalists are not, although I can count only one trip in which I wanted to throw every other member of the group off the boat. I resisted, instead swearing into my scarf and hopefully counting my karmic points for not performing a murderous deed on those ghastly souls.
Everyone of course has their own angles and what they want to write and when a tourism body is hosting you (and I don’t know if many of you know this but most travel writers are hosted by a tourism body or an accommodation provider as it is very hard to fund that sort of travel whether you be a magazine, a newspaper or a blog) you always try and respect the tourism body’s agenda which is to show you as much relevant as possible. Turning up on late for a start will get you in everyone’s bad books and being polite will do the opposite. But I didn’t have to tell you that right? 
After a day spent together you usually go back to your hotel room to change, do some work and have a shower and everyone reconvenes later to have dinner. It’s usually over dinner and some wine that some funny stories emerge-I remember one story that an editor shared with us about a previous trip where a fellow journalist greeted them as his usual self-all very fine and good. Then the next day that man came downstairs dressed as a woman and asked to be addressed by his drag name. He went through the whole trip as this transvestite personality only changing back to his male self before the flight back (which made me think of this fetching gentleman below who made the headlines recently for his travel attire)!
Howard the cross dressing traveller (image: www.smh.com.au)
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| August 18th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
“I’m right!” Mr NQN said.
“No, I’m right!” I answered.
“No. I’m the boss of you because I’m taller and bigger than you!” he reasoned.
“So what, everyone’s taller and bigger than me!” I countered.
Don’t tell him Dear Reader, but sometimes Mr NQN is right (I hope he doesn’t read this story teehee ). But it isn’t because he is taller than bigger than me. He was after all the person that suggested putting up the really super easy recipes that I frequently make for the two of us onto the blog. I always considered them not really blog worthy but your enthusiasm and kind response to them has convinced me that he was right.
This is one of the most delicious and easiest dips you can make. It is also low in fat and you don’t even need a food processor to make it. You can mash it with mortar and pestle of a potato masher, add the other ingredients and voila, you have a dip that is somewhere in between hummus and baba gannoush. Unlike a chickpea hummus you use a single tin of four bean mix to do this which also has the added benefit of being softer and easier to crush if you don’t have a food processor or when you can’t be bothered washing one up. This time I did it in the small bowl of a food processor and it was done within minutes-call this a dip at the ready in case friends drop by or you get peckish and want to eat something healthy but tasty. Perfect for the weekend and done in about five minutes!
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| August 5th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
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