Allow me to introduce you to my Spring shoes. Every year I take them out and this signals the beginning of Spring. It’s like a yearly ritual. I think they’re perfect for picnics, shopping and pretty frocks. Except of course the cone shaped wooden heels mean that you end up sinking in the grass. Let’s not spoil that moment with reality shall we?
Spring shoes
I was thinking about what I should do with pineapple, actually eight pineapples. I mean it’s not every day that a courier knocks on your door and delivers you eight lovely specimens of pineappledom. These Queensland pineapples are called “The King of Fruit” Pineapples and they are a particularly sweet breed of pineapple that doesn’t give you that awful reaction in your throat and mouth that others can. I tweeted about it and shortly after the lovely Bronnie from Nowhere like Queensland blog suggested that I make a pineapple meringue pie.
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| September 2nd, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
I’ve heard that Oprah doesn’t like using the word “luck” or “lucky’ to describe happenings. For her, using the word luck takes away the hard work someone has done and she chooses to define luck as “when preparation meets opportunity”. I used to think that people were just lucky to be able to do things that they loved and that somehow an angel had tapped them on the head and ushered them through some gilt edged doors and they had gone to meet their destiny.
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| June 1st, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
I may have mentioned it once or twice before but a while back Mr NQN had a DNA test done to try and trace his ancestry. He’s rather dark haired and olive skinned for a half Finn so we just assumed that his father’s side had some Aboriginal blood in it. We had somehow, blindingly, completely dismissed the fact that when he has long hair he looks just like Rafael Nadal and when we got the results back, we found out that he has a significant amount of Basque heritage in him. It made sense of course and we were literally laughing at how silly we’d been. His father’s mother had always told him that they were of German royal blood and oddly enough there was very little German heritage. I guess the genes don’t lie and neither do the looks.
When Myriam invited Mr NQN and I over for dinner she told us that she and her fiance Jean would be making a Basque themed dinner as Jean is also from Basque. I volunteered to make dessert and I searched for a typical Basque style dessert. Gateau Basque came up repeatedly and you can’t really deny the validity of a cake named after the region. I had to make it. It was a cake that was made with a thick tart dough filled with creme patissiere and cherries and it had a lot of history and pride attached to it.
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| May 20th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
I’m pretty good when it comes to shopping now. However a few years ago it was an entirely different matter and I was firmly involved in the concept of retail therapy. When I worked in the corporate sector I absolutely loathed my boss and to compensate I used to shop like a demon buying things in every colour, stopping only when my arms were too tired to carry the shopping bags (I am living proof that it is possible to get rope burn from those fancy shopping bags if you are carrying a dozen of them). Buried under the weight of shoes, handbags and clothes I would collapse into a taxi and head back home. I know it was wasteful but I loved the boxed, tissue paper wrapped goodies and fancy bags and opening them up would be like opening up a present (albeit one that I had myself paid for).
Now I’m a much cannier shopper. Gone are those days (and I do miss them in a way) and whilst I still buy these things I don’t buy one in every colour or blow thousands in a day. I weigh up my options and wonder “Will I really get any use out of this?”. Shoes are the exception as are bags (I’m sticking with the investment theory 
) but clothes are always judged based on the number of wears and versatility -hats of course are not included, they’re my indulgence.
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| May 11th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
My friends and I are terribly busy people. So much so that when this dinner idea was first conceived it was around the time of the Global Financial Crisis last year. And whilst we love dinner parties, the fact was one friend was mid renovation, another mid toddler and we were mid moving so our GFC themed dinner ended up happening a little after what we had initially anticipated, almost a year later in fact, but we thought that the idea had merit and most importantly, the potential to have fun and be creative. After all when you dine out you can pay quite a pretty sum doing so, so we wanted to explore whether it was possible to eat a delicious three course meal for a mere $5 a person. And usually every time we entertain, it usually involves buying the best quality items and not really paying attention to cost as it’s all about spoiling your friends so we wondered whether putting together a dinner party this way would change the dynamics of a dinner party.
My main: Chicken & Pea Pithivier
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| March 8th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
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