Month: January 2009

Progress

You know, six months ago the feedback and ‘no’s from the MasterChef judges would have sent me into a tailspin of self doubt and hate.
The internal dialogue would have been along the lines of ‘I’m so humiliated’, ‘I’m hopeless’, ‘I knew it, I can’t really cook at all’, ‘they hated me’.
I would still be crying.
INSTEAD
The internal dialogue is more along the lines of ‘GOD I hope I don’t look like an idiot’, ‘I wasn’t what they were looking for’, ‘I made the wrong sort of dish for the judges’

I realise know again just how debilitating that self doubt hate is.

Yesterday, the third day of the school year, saw the boys ride their bikes/scooters to school with me pushing Grover in the stroller.
I was joyous.
Sweaty but joyous.

Life, it is good.

Master of teh House

OH DUUUUUDES

The last two days of my life have been somewhat awesome in the weirdest way.

There was intense boredom (due to lots and lots – as in 13 hours – of waiting around yesterday and 11 hours today) coupled with exhilaration (at being where I was) , stress (about what I had to do) and excitement (at just being a part of it).

Is the cryptic-ness of it all driving you all mad?

Well.

Does that help?

I got an audition for the inaugural Australian Master Chef.
Yesterday was the first round.
I was there at 7.30am and finally went into the culling room at 8pm.
It was a long long day on two hours sleep and a hell of a lot of adrenalin.
They rang me at 9.45pm last night to say I’d been selected to the next round.
So from the 200 chosen in NSW I had got to the Top 50 of the State.
I was back there today to cook for the judges.
Again, 7.30am start.
I went in to the studio for filming at 6pm.
Again, another long day with a lot of adrenalin.
Two of the judges didn’t like what I’d cooked – not as in it was bad but just that it wasn’t good enough.
The third judge loved it.
Go figure.
I was given the arse.
Of course, after all the excitement, adrenalin and waiting my immediate reaction was a lot of crying.
Idiot.
When it airs in Australia just look for the fat sweaty red-faced woman blubbering and that will be me.
GOD.
Anyway, it was an absolute blast.
I was just stoked to get to today.
Quite frankly, the thought of being away from my family for up to 12 weeks was not high on my list of life goals.
It was a great deal of fun, I got to meet a stack of wonderful fellow foodies and I have a fridge full of vanilla creme, chocolate mousse and lemon curd (which was left over from yesterday’s dish we had to take with us – for which I did a trio of tarts) to ease my wounded ego (not).

AND

In far more important news, Felix had his first day today at his new school. There were a LOT of tears last night when he realised I wouldn’t be able to take him this morning but my big brave boy sucked it up and soldiered on.


He had an AWESOME day. Played handball with some boys in his class, found out one boy in his class lives a few doors down from us AND loved it.

When I got home tonight the bigger boys were all over me and Felix said, ‘Don’t worry mum, you’ll always be the best chef in the world to me’.

Sniff.
Smile.

First Day

This
doesn’t seem that long ago.

But suddenly we are here

The first day of pre-school

It’s funny you know, he wasn’t having a bar of any of it until I said he could take Arboo with him.
He replied, ‘and my rockets?’

Everyday when he went to his long day care (from 4 months of age to May last year) he would take his Thunderbird rockets. They weren’t allowed out of his bag but I guess he drew comfort from knowing they were there.

When I replied in the affirmative it was like some memory from the recesses of his mind kicked in and his reticence disappeared.
He packed his bag, just like we used to every morning, requesting sultanas for play lunch and cruskits for lunch. A tricky one the cruskits – you can’t put anything on them as by lunch they’re all soggy. So the kid took dry cruskits. Goodness knows what the kindy think of us for sending the kid to pre-school with dry cruskits.

He was very aware and very happy for the morning to be ‘all about Jasper’

I think having his big brothers there was helpful. Their excitement was endearing and infectious.

He is pretty darn happy about inheriting Felix’s play-lunch bag (in Thomas the Effing Engine fabric) and cot sheets (in the same fabric. Natch.) and was well skilled at the drill of finding his locker. Which they hadn’t labelled for him yet as he was a late enrolment. They fixed this during the day and he was pretty excited to show me his ‘real’ locker when I arrived to pick him up.

He was pretty happy about the set up and then saw a Thomas the Effing Engine T.A.B.L.E.
And that was it really.
He looked a bit downcast when I said we were leaving. There was a little no under his breath but a nod and a hug when I said I’d see him that afternoon.
And with that, we all left and he embarked on his first day at pre-school.

When I picked him up this afternoon he was walking around on stilts having a grand old time.
He said he’d had a good day and when we got home Oscar rushed out to greet him.
Jasper, ‘Oh look, here comes Oscar! Oscar! I went to school and I came back! It was fun.’

Naturally this evening featured all manner of meltdowns and ludicrous demands but our little man of silly walks is on his way.

Watching

the WWE Royal Rumble with the family.

Chef has decided that the security and safety at the event is so shoddy the Fat Controller must be involved.

Thomas the Effing Engine taking on John Cena

Now there’s a Royal Rumble I’d like to see.

Australia Day

So today is the day we celebrate everything it is to be Australian:
Straight talking
A penchant for swearing
A dry sense of humour
Lamingtons
Pavlova
Anzac biscuits
Lamb and prawns on the bbq
The beach
The bush
The unlikely combination of one of the youngest countries on the oldest continent with the oldest indigenous cultures and nations in the world.

This morning we walked down to the park by the lake for our local area’s Australia Day Breakfast. We went early to avoid the crowds. So did the crowds.
Me+crowds=hell.
Once two boys started losing it I declared it was time to go home.
Which it was.

I’m uncharacteristically m’eh about it all today.
Normally I tear up at least once about being Australian on Australia Day.

Maybe it’s the humidity.

Or the thing that is on my mind that is happening this week that I’m busting to tell you all about but can’t for fear of jinxing myself.
Which is stupid I know.
And I should just tell you.
But I’m not going to.
So there.
But then I think maybe I should and get your votes on what I should do for this event.
Because I keep changing my mind.
And that is not good.
For anyone.

I mowed the lawn today.
With a Victor.
I guess that’s my nod to our national day.

Mum, my brother, the boys and my niece went down to the lake fishing today.
Jasper was the only one who caught a fish.
A little bream.

So maybe it was a true Australia Day after all.