Nailed It!

I love food. I eat it every day. But the cooking of the food? That's dangerous territory when I'm in charge.

Because I can't cook.  And I'm not exaggerating. I have set fire to the oven, the stove, even the microwave.

It mostly comes down to a reeeeally low attention span when it comes to hanging about in a kitchen while things heat up.


The NAILED IT half of this picture was my first attempt to fry an egg...two years ago. I sent this picture to my husband and he, of course, showed everyone and NOBODY believed it was real!

The thought of standing over the stove watching stuff simmer, or change colour and consistency, stirring stuff, incessantly, checking to see if it needs salt...
*My muse chimes in* "What's that? Oh, that's right!  I have that book to read! Or email to check! Or something that needs doing! I'm off!"

Over time I've discovered one thing that that keeps me from setting things on fire.

Reading WHILE I cook.

Here's me 'cooking' tomato soup...from a tin. And reading while stirring.  No fire!  

And here's me cooking an omelette. And, again, reading.  Notice, once more, the lack of flames.

The muse is distracted, I don't burn down the house. Win win!

Thankfully this is what it looks like when my husband cooks.

That would be curry laksa. A super fresh summery pasta.  And something else cookey and delicious.  I know, right?  The guy is a total keeper!

I say that without him I'd live on cheese on toast and coffee and I do not kid.  He's the kind of person who thinks "I feel like *insert fancy dinner idea here*" and then goes ahead and figures out how to make it.  No recipe.  Just using whatever ingredients he has on hand.  I look in a fridge full of food and only see the chocolate.

If you're a foodie, check out the Instagram pages of Love Cats Clare Connelly and Amy Andrews as they're full of rich, nutritious, mouth-watering, elegant home cooking.  And did you see Bron's post about her trip through Rome? Yum!

If you prefer pics of coffee with funny pictures found in the milky swirls, I'm your girl :). (See last month's post for proof :))

How about you - are you more of a cooker or an eater?

To Keep Or Not To Keep...?

During January I did a major clean-up of my office.  Not only the surface areas -- the accumulated materials from my last project -- but this time I opened every cupboard door and pulled out every drawer to take a long hard look at the accumulated junk.  

Well, okay, only some comes under the classification of junk.  There is also valuable research material -- magazines and newspaper cuttings and other items of interest which I go through every so often for inspiration -- and my keeper shelves.  During my clean-ups I generally close the cupboard door on my keepers.  They're classified as "keepers" for a reason.  They stay.

But this time I got to thinking.  Why am I keeping these books?  80-90% of my reading these days is digital.  I've started to recollect my favourite authors, favourite series, in digital format.  Do I need the paperback version when I'm not selecting my reading material from these shelves?  

And so I got to work.  

I couldn't let go my absolute favourites.  I still have a reduced-by-half keepers cupboard.  Many are hardbacks and/or signed copies.  Another selection of favourites was moved into this box, currently located beneath my writing desk.  It could take a little while longer to convince myself to let them go for good.

So, tell me, are you a keeper?  Has the shift to digital reading changed your "keeping" habits?  And which one series -- or author -- could you never part with?