Writing & cooking when things are hectic

Things will get a bit more interesting here next fortnight, I promise.

A slightly shorter edition of What’s Cooking this fortnight. I’m cramming for an exam (my first one since the age of 17 LOL) and there ain’t room in my brain for much else.

One relief; the inspiration/motivation to cook has returned. It’s been so nice to spend time in the kitchen and to be honest, eat vegetables, which I love but sometimes struggle to fit into my diet. Like we all do, I’m sure.

I went to a nutrition workshop the other week, as part of a health and wellbeing program. I have a LOT of feelings about the wellness movement, which I’ll be writing about in further detail within the next month. Learning more about nutrition on the other hand, have no qualms about.

The session provided a good reminder of how much you really have to think and plan ahead for, if you want to ‘eat well’.

Shopping can’t just be a mindless task – you really get the most success when you meal plan and check the nutritional value of every packaged item you buy (in Australia, it’s best to refer to the table on the back of the packet, as whatever is displayed on the front can be deceiving in its vagueness).

And never do the food shop on an empty stomach! That’s when the snack monster strikes.

I didn’t feel I learned anything ‘new’ personally at the workshop; but there were some great reminders. And yeah, one was how hard it is to eat a balanced diet.

You gotta sneak those veggies in! To soups, to smoothies, to muffins, to salads. There are ways and means, my friend. But as with everything else, it just takes time.

Looks mostly fresh…

A quick hack

And after that short rant about the difficulties of eating healthy food…

Well. There’s been a bit of leftover pizza lurking around the house lately. Pizza is obviously really tasty at all stages of its life journey (apart from decay).

Follow these simple steps to enjoy it as if it’s just popped fresh out of the oven.

1. Spray a frying pan of choice with oil

2. Heat on high for a minute to warm up the pan

3. Add pizza slices and cook for 1-2 minutes, depending on how you like your base (just cooked or blackened, you do you)

4. Throw a couple of tablespoons of water onto the pan and quickly cover with a lid

5. Let cook for around 30 seconds.

The frying pan heat warms everything up, while the condensation from the water makes the cheese particularly gooey and delicious. Enjoy!

What’s Cooking recommends…

• Read: It’s been on my TBR pile for an age, and whenever I’d had a free moment, I’ve been diving straight into Anna Funder’s very excellent Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life. If you want to read a fun and true story about how the patriarchy diminishes women’s work and in some cases, erases them entirely from history, then this is the book for you! Not much is known about Eric Blair/George Orwell’s wife Eileen Blair (née O'Shaughnessy), with Funder basing much of this work on the six surviving letters she wrote to her friend Norah. Plus, Orwell seemed to go out of his way to not acknowledge the impact his wife had on his work, let alone thank her for giving up her own career/moving to a rundown centuries old cottage with no heating/taking up all the domestic work and overall mental load, to allow him the space to write. NOT TO MENTION THEN EDITING AND TYPING UP HIS WORK FOR HIM. Where did this woman find the time to sleep. Plus more than one acquaintance believed that Orwell would not have been able to write a work like Animal Farm without Eileen, and she may have sparked the ideas that came together to form 1984… anyway, please read this book. It will enrage you, but it’s so brilliantly written that it’s well worth it. Rage inspires change.

• Watch: All I ask from television at the moment, is that it allows me to completely switch off my brain and enter my mental happy place. I am getting this in Goosebumps. The latest silver-screen adaption of the beloved 90s ‘children’s books’ (some are legitimately terrifying!) is based around a group of high-school aged Gen Zs who break into a haunted house, unlocking a decades-old mystery. Throw the marvellous Justin Long into the mix and well, IMO you have a winner. Currently screening on Hulu/Disney+.

• Listen: I’ve written previously about the lengths small towns in Australia go to, to get tourists to stop. Was very much overjoyed to hear that an Australian historian has dedicated her career to one particular oddity - Aussie Big Things. Listen to a very amusing conversation about how this became her life’s passion.

• Cook: The weather is sort of warming up in Melbourne and as I mentioned earlier, I’m trying to make friends with salad. So far a winner has been mixing boiled barley and lightly steamed asparagus with greens of your choice and currants. Drizzle balsamic/ACV (perhaps homemade?) and olive oil over the lot and perhaps throw in some goats cheese if you’re feeling bougie. Bellissimo.

‘Til we meet again, stay well and well-fed.

-Celine

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