Running :: on empty
Alternative :: plan
Cope :: all the time
Lots :: of love
Sympathetic :: ear
Barn :: yard
Totally :: dude
Baby :: face
Undeniable ::beauty
Watermelon :: boobs
you can play too!
*****
Seeing as Rockstar is over – sigh – and Foxtel seems to have decided to stop running ANTM – grrrr – we’re left with the pathetic world that is Idol. Australian Idol. Or as I prefer to think of it, Australian Idle. (Chef just called it televised karaoke, which is as on the mark as his arse-plaque comment last night.)
Look, the talent this year is about a gagillion per cent better than last year’s crop, but the production standards, the set, the prevalence of Celine Dion songs, the love of the b.a.l.l.a.r.d., idiots like Mark saying to (very) young girls that their new look lights his wick (or as I keep remembering, sends fire down his wire) and fat little wombles like Kyle driving me to violence all combine to leaving me wanting.
But what I can say to its credit is this, it is infinitely more bearable and enjoyable than the tripe on Channel 9, Prehistoric Park. This pathetic drivel involves time travel (settle down all you Trekkies), a guy who looks enough like Anthony La Paglia that every time I see him I get that little “oh goodie, eye candy” heart skip for about a micromillisecond until this imposter opens his annoying English accented mouth and shatters my dreams. Combine that with a voice over by Charles Woolley, one of those perpetually sunny journalists who always did the tongue-in-cheek, funny, light-hearted, good-spirited stories on 60 minutes. You know the one you just want to smack to get rid of the smirk. Then there’s tell-it-like-it-is Kate-the-Vet. She’s the worst offender of the saying exactly what we’re seeing unfold on the television in front of us. Maybe she just knows how uncredible it all is, so by describing exactly what we’re seeing it might make it all a bit real. It doesn’t. It is about the most irritating television I’ve ever watched. Next to breakfast television, and insight-hysteria evening current affairs programs. Naturally Felix loves it, so I have to sit here and type out my frustration because I don’t want to kill the dream for him just yet.
*****
Chicken Puttanesca
1.5-2kg chicken pieces, on the bone (I use thigh fillets with the skin on)
plain flour
sea salt, freshly cracked pepper
2 onions, finely diced
4-6 cloves garlic, smooshed
1 tblsp small capers, rinsed and shopped
4-6 anchovies, chopped
2 bottles sugo
water
1 jar kalamata olives (375g)
handful each of parsley and basil, torn
– dust chicken pieces in the flour
– heat some olive oil in a heavy based pan
– brown the chicken, remove from pan
– saute onions and garlic
– add the capers and anchovies
– add the chicken pieces
– then add the sugo and enough liquid that to cover the chicken
– add the olives and herbs
– simmer for about an hour, or two.
Serve with salad and crusty bread, or as we did tonight on a bed of spaghetti.
*****
The weekend summation – we had the most awesome weekend. I think I drunkenly recalled yesterday last night.
Today featured – wait for it – gardening. I completed deforested the two vegie patches, that were a bed of weeds. I turned the compost and attempted to build its walls so the dogs don’t view it as the food bowl that keeps on giving and the possums don’t view it as the best ‘tree’ on the street. It all got a bit hard and I was getting a bit bored with it by then, but man, you should the empty, but weed free veggie garden.
There was also some bathroom floor scrubbing (just for you Bex!) and long overdue cleaning, washing and general domestic oblivion, but you know what, it was all still sensational.
*****
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