Have you ever had one of those conversations where you’re doing your level best to be polite, articulate, sensitive and winsome only to be told that you’re condescending, insulting and annoying? If so, it was probably on the Internet. Adding little smilies and self-deprecating jokes will only get you so far. Eventually, unless you’re on a different ‘net than I am, your “opponent” will completely misconstrue all of your carefully worded arguments and take them as a personal affront.
Is there any way to break out of this cycle? When I want to say “actually, you are the one who is being condescending”, is it time to let the thread die? If I walk away now, will all my hard work come to naught? Is naught the very best I could possibly hope for anyway? Perhaps the lesson here is never to get involved at all.
Sadly, I don’t have any answers to these questions. But, as C said, writing them down is probably more constructive than responding to the thread that gave rise to them. It’s going to be hard, vast audience, to resist that thread. I offered to leave several times, and was repeatedly asked to stay. The things they are saying are crying out for a response. They need a sense-injection! But, alas, they cannot recognise sense in me. I am a Christian and therefore necessarily preaching, rude, aggressive, insulting and condescending. But not wrong, no, no, they would never say I was wrong.
Tg
Despite all appearances, this is not a cookery blog. I have been thinking about, and experiencing, things other than food in the last few months, but none of them have made it onto your screens. Some of them would be inappropriate, some of them would be boring, but mostly they would be my PhD. Yes, I am in the final phase of the final phase. My deadline is the 31st of October. It is particularly unfortunate then, that the only “writing” I managed to do today had to be undone because it was wrong. *sigh*
Well the icecream van has stopped playing the incessant tones of a nursery rhyme I can’t quite place, or else has moved out of earshot. The Boy Next Door is not playing his guitar, strains of AC/DC riffs degenerating into random twiddling. So why am I writing this, instead of writing that? Responsibilities in the morning and celebrations in the evening are sandwiching my day, and the sandwich filling (work) has all squeezed out the sides. If only my work were more like jam. I do hate that feeling of doing a few domestic bits and pieces, grabbing a bit of lunch, reading a few mails to settle in, and then realising that there’s one hour till I have to get ready to leave, and nothing on my todo list that could be satisfactorily done in less than two.
Rest assured my friends, when I have fallen off the cliff of graduation, doggy-paddled in the sea of directionless-despair and swum to the shore of whatever’s next this blog will return to its standard, scintillating service.
Tg – in the court of king Caratacus
Last night we had the kind of dinner that you see on cookery programs and go “yeah right”. Chicken and goat’s cheese pizzas, lamb & veg skewers, and home-made coleslaw. The coleslaw was based on the one my Mam used to make, and it was such a strange feeling. I grated the carrot, and thought “that looks right”. Then I grated the cabbage, and it mixed a bit with the carrot in the food processor and I couldn’t believe how right it looked. Then I added the salad cream and I was right back at number 55 (before the council changed the door numbers) with the little fridge by the arch into the kitchen. I couldn’t believe how good, and homey it smelled So here’s the dead-easy recipe for “coleslaw 55″:
Ingredients: 1 large carrot 1/4 of a white cabbage Heinz salad cream
Method: Grate carrot and cabbage in food processor (the bigger the holes in the grater, the better) Mix thoroughly Add salad cream sparingly to taste
MMMmmmmmm
P.S. I made the stuffing again the other night with olive oil, and it was actually nicer
Ingredients: Chopped pecans (1/4 of a tescos bag for two people) Breadcrumbs (gluten free breadcrumbs are *so* easy to make ) Honey 1 onion, quartered and sliced
Method: Mix the ingredients, put them in the pan under the chicken Pour the oil from the chicken onto the stuffing whenever it’s pourable (anyone know if chicken fat is worse for you than olive oil?)
I guess it’s got something to do with the fact that our kitchen has been on the edge of being installed for at least a fortnight (the finishing touches are going on as I type), but the temporary kitchen has been rather under-supplied of late. This has led to some (rather successful, if I do say so myself) improvisation. Here’s how I made tonight’s.
Ingredients: 1 large parsnip 2 medium potatoes 2 small sweet potatoes 2 onions 6 cloves of garlic 1 carrot 2 large tomatoes 1 chicken stock cube Kettle of hot water
Method: Chop em up (if you want thick soup, cut the potatoes small so that they can dissolve completely) Stick em in a big pot with the stock cube Pour on enough hot water to cover most of the veg (if you cover it all it’ll be too much water) Bring to the boil and then simmer till done (about 30 – 40 mins)
I don’t know how to pronounce it, but I know it tastes good!
Feeds: 2 (actually, the amounts below are what I’m going to make next time, what I made today wasn’t enough)
Ingredients: 1 yellow pepper 1 courgette 1 onion 4 cloves of garlic 1 handful of mangetout (all chopped as you like them) Olive oil for frying 1 and 1/2 cups of brown rice 1 vegetable stock cube a little salt 4 cups of hot water
Method: Fry the onions and garlic until they smell great Add the courgette Sprinkle with some salt (this really improves the taste of the courgette) Fry up for a couple of minutes Add the hot water to the stock cube and mix well Add the pepper and mangetout and fry up a bit Add the stock Add the rice Boil till the rice is cooked and the water’s gone (should hopefully happen at the same time) If you can, let the stock/starch stuff at the bottom caramelise a little Leave to stand for 5 minutes
Yum!
You may have heard of these guys. It’s a service C&I are subscribed to. You pay a monthly subscription based on the number of DVDs you want to have at a time. Then you make a list of films you want to watch, they send them to you (we get two at a time) and as you’re finished with each one you send it back. When they receive it they send you another. It’s a great way to get to see loads of films you’ve been meaning to get around to, and the whole thing is very well organised. The DVDs arrive in pre-addressed and stamped packaging so returning them is super-easy. You can keep them as long as you like too, since the payment is just monthly subscription; there are no late fees. And if you let me “recommend” you, I get a free month!
Very simple meal, but tasty:
Serves 2__ Chop up a carrot, a parsnip, a sweet potato and an onion into bite-sized chunks [1] Chop the root-end off *loads* of garlic cloves [2], but leave the rest of the skin on Pour on some olive oil and herbes de provence and mix well Lightly oil two chicken breasts (preferably on the bone with skin on) and season with salt, pepper and herbes de provence (fresh thyme is a major plus) Pop all the veg around the chicken on a shallow baking dish Roast for about an hour (juices run clear, yada yada)
Chop up enough cabbage for two, and boil for about 20-30 mins (I wasn’t timing it) in water seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika
[1] Next time I’m going to steam the carrot and parsnip for about 5 mins before roasting them [2] There’s a high possibility, unless you’re a garlic-hating freak, that while you eat you’ll be wishing you’d put in more garlic
So, as you probably know, we’ve bought a house. Said house is not exactly in tip-top condition, and that’s where the request comes in. We need to get quotes for the following services and products. Any suggestions would be appreciated (preferably by email, but a comment will do )
Fireplace (to buy and install) Electrician Heating system Plasterer Kitchen appliances Kitchen cabinets Wooden floor sanding and varnishing
Thanks! Tg
Zoomie mentioned e-voting recently, and reading it reminded me of a post I had intended to write.
In case you haven’t figured this out yet, let me tell you that I’m a democracy nerd. I looked forward to getting the opportunity to vote so much that when I finally turned 18 I found out how to have myself added to the supplementary register so that I could vote in an upcoming referendum. I couldn’t have done what I did to stop e-voting here if I didn’t care as much as I do. Which is why C and I sat in front of the TV from 9am till 11:30pm on Friday watching the election coverage. We found it *exciting*.
Late into the evening John Bowman had Joe McCarthy on to talk (briefly) about e-voting. He introduced Joe by saying that he had “perhaps single-handedly” stopped the introduction of e-voting in Ireland. Before I go on to gripe, let me make two things clear. First, I don’t begrudge Joe the attention. Joe did amazing, wonderful, and important work in the fight against e-voting in Ireland. Not only that, but he’s much better at being interviewed than I am. He enjoys it, he gets the point across, and he’s fun to listen to. Second, I don’t have any interest in being on TV. I’m not in the least bit sorry that I was sitting comfortably on a couch on Friday evening rather than sitting across from John Bowman on live TV. I’m *glad* that I haven’t been on radio more than twice in the last two years.
Here’s my complaint: I’m fairly convinced that the reason I wasn’t asked to speak to John Bowman, and the reason he is able to think of Joe as fighting alone, is that I’m a girl. It’s not as if John Bowman’s never heard of me. I’ve discussed e-voting with him *in person*. He had me on the panel of Questions and Answers for goodness sake. But I’d be willing to bet I didn’t feature in his “from the archives” on e-voting on Sunday morning (I didn’t hear it all). And it’s not just John Bowman. When RTE’s Scannal did a review of the history of e-voting in Ireland they didn’t use footage from my appearances on either Questions and Answers or Primetime (neither I nor ICTE featured in the program at all, that I recall). Mind you, I don’t in the least blame Joe McCarthy; he’s probably said *my* name more times on radio than he has Martin Cullen’s. He didn’t mention me on Friday, but he didn’t have time.
Maybe I sound bitter, but it gets my goat. I can’t think of any reason why I’d be ignored this way other than my gender, and it makes me angry.
