Bygone days of nothingness

I'm currently reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert and this book SPEAKS to me. Proclaiming that "I can really relate to her" is somewhat of an understatement.



No, I'm not going to give a book review but there IS one concept mentioned in the early chapters that got me thinking and writing this post:

"Bel far niente"

"The beauty of doing nothing"

All my friends would scoff that a statement like the above is rich coming from me since I, more than anyone else on the planet, am constant victim to boredom.

I've explained to many uncomprehending individuals (who are content with doing nothing, or even just one thing at a time) that I frequently would be multitasking: tutoring, chatting, blogging, eating, watching TV and listening to music and yet... STILL BORED.

This was my curse of the holidays.

And the curse has been lifted. When else should I start appreciating nothingness than when uni has commenced and I'm off my feet with chores, errands and stuff to do?

Once again, I've taken to scrawling in my diary lists of tasks and I take great pleasure crossing them off as I go. On Monday, I had even written down 'shower' as a task.

I realized how much it meant to me to have spare time when I spent all of Sunday sleeping. Literally from 10am to 5am on Monday, I was drifting in and out of sleep, leaving bed maybe once just to microwave some food.

Suddenly now, the holidays look good. Why was I complaining?

This post is a small collection of photos representing random bits and pieces of the holidays that were awesome to me. Let it be a tribute, to compensate for my lack of appreciation at the time.

Summer fruit

I had the BEST nectarines ever at my parents house last week. No idea where they sourced that stash but each sample of fruit was divine: juicy, sweet (but not coyingly sweet) and fresh.

Cake puddle

This is the product of playing with my food. I know now that I'm not the only one who does it because I was having coffee and cake with my best friend and the 'OK' is our combined effort. The unappetizing puddle of brown is actually residual honeycomb mud cake. Never would have guessed, huh?

Brissie sky-line

The night before uni started, I was with a couple of mates wandering through Kangaroo Point. This is an example of the below-amateur photos I took with my point-and-shoot camera. There's no quality there at all but the colors are pretty and hey, it's a nice memory. I did try to fight my urge to photograph everything (didn't want to scream "Hi I'm a tourist") but needless to say, the battle was lost.

Carpet python

I was gazing half-dead out the window at mum and dad's house and spotted a snake. It was an incidental occurrence because I happened to be sitting at the seat opposite to where I normally sit and my visions not great but I spotted the camouflaged beast any case. Dad caught the snake and dropped it off into the bush near our estate. Mum deemed this incident to be extremely good luck

Chilled, bubbly wine in plastic cups

Technically this happened just the other night, after uni had already commenced but it's a nice reminder that life has not ended. We did pre-drinks and as you can see, it was real 'classy' - plastic and low kJ wine: cheap and chic.

Mudcake fondant monster

My neighbor got hit with mudcake cravings and we set about making one. The aim was: most squidgiest mudcake in the entire universe. Did we set our goal too high? Likely. The first attempt turned out nothing like a mudcake and bordered on dry, chocolate loaf. In the second attempt, we ampted up volumes of butter, chocolate, cocoa and vegetable oil. It still wasn't a mudcake though I can never be certain since from my experience, mudcake obtains its ideal consistency the day after. This cake never saw it to the day after because we started hacking away at it as soon as it came out of the oven. The inside was gooey and we basically picked away at the shell to dip into the interior. Far from gourmet but it was fun.

My study table

Play 'Where's Wally' with this photo. On it, I have:

• "Oral and maxillofacial surgery" text book
• Prescription glasses
• Cacharel Amour Amour perfume
• Hair straightner
• Seinfeld seasons 8 and 9
• Uni exercise book
• Coat hanger
• My do-all beloved chefs knife (please don't query why it's home is my study desk)
• "A Fortunate Life" biography
• Letter from girlfriend in Canberra
• Australia Post work shirt
• Skirt for clinic
• I'm not sure what that orange piece of paper is...

That's the end of this life-sharing session. Now you all know a bit more about me :D. I know this food blog is lacking in the actual FOOD posts. It's not my fault I'm poor! (well actually, it is)