Just Because I Could

How To: Teach Your Partner to Cook

I’m consistently gob-smacked at the number of people I know who do all the cooking in their household because their partner ‘doesn’t know how to cook’.

What the hell?

Maybe I’m biased by a childhood spent learning to cook, but surely – cooking ISN’T rocket science. RIGHT? I firmly believe that just about anyone can learn to cook. If they actually want to, that is.

So, if you’re one of the multitude with a clueless-in-the-kitchen partner, here are some basic rules that I’ve used to help hubby out over our marriage.

RULE 1: Work out how they learn best. Sometimes it’s easiest just to ask something along the lines of ‘if you need to learn how to do something, how would you prefer to learn it?’ Would they prefer, for example, to read a manual? Be shown through the process step-by-step a few times? Be talked through the process once? Be given a few basic tips, and left alone to figure it out themselves?

RULE 2: Find some simple recipes that they’ll enjoy eating. If they’re a ‘read the manual’ type, find an ‘intro to cooking’ type book that’s easy to read and simple to follow. I’ve seen a couple of ‘cooking for blokes’ books that fall into this category.

RULE 3: If you’ll be giving lessons – never start a cooking lesson when either of you are tired or grouchy.

RULE 4: Relax your standards. It doesn’t have to be perfect. A learner WILL make more mess than you. They may discover different ways of doing things, and this may be irritating – but unless it’s going to cause actual health problems or more work for you, let it be. If you’re too uptight, your partner is likely to give up before they even start.

RULE 5: Be kind, and be encouraging. No ‘I can’t believe you don’t know _____!!’

RULE 6: Make use of your partner’s preferred learning style. If, like my hubby, your partner learns best when taken through something step-by-step, you’ll need to be very hands-on. Demonstrate at the beginning of each step (if needed), and offer suggestions on important aspects of technique. Try not to give too much information at once, though.

RULE 7: Compliment the chef.

I Hate to be a Critic…

But man, I bought a Cosmo for the first time in years (I was sick, thought it might amuse but not strain my brain). And they’ve got a sex blogger. Holy crap. This person gets PAID for blogging in a mag? And blogging in a mag? What the HELL??

*mutter*

(and the quality of the above post is about the same as the sex blogger)

(maybe I should talk about sex more)

And The Rains Came Tumbling Down

Live blogging through a thunderstorm.

This could take off, yeah?

*cough*

I’m sitting in bed in a house in Ipswich, listening to the grumbles of a double-front storm heading my way.

Wanna see something a bit closer?

Much more rumbling afoot.

Ooooh… purty lightning…

Ummm.

There goes the TV channel!

Whups.

Where the Hell Have I Been?

Puking my guts up, and lying around feeling sorry for myself.

Fun.

Buckets of it.

Bah humbug.

On the bright side, I managed to have a decent weekend before falling under the spell of Madame Upchuck. Bogan Boy (12yo son) was down for the weekend, so we bought a new christmas tree and decorations, and went to town. W000t! I love christmas decorating 🙂 Childish, but there you have it.

In other news…

Ummm…

Don’t have any. Except an exciting appointment with a doctor this afternoon so I have a medical certificate ‘proving’ to work that I’ve been sick.

I was joking about the ‘exciting’ bit. It better not be.

MWAH.

I hope you coped well without me.

Bet you did.

How To: Make a Facebook Fan Page

A Facebook fan page allows fans of your product, website, blog or business to receive important updates, talk to other fans and communicate with you – all via their familiar Facebook interface. If they have one, obviously!

Instructions

1. Find a graphic you’d like to use on the page. Irritatingly, the ‘thumbnail’ option for pages just takes a small piece of the large graphic – you can choose which bit, but not a zoom option. So, if the graphic has a small icon on it, so much the better!
2. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
3. Select a Category (website is under Brand or Product) and click on Create Page
4. Once your page is created, you can modify graphics and information presented on the page, and add or remove Facebook Applications. NOTE: Not all applications work on pages. Blog RSS Feed Reader is one that does, however.

Want to see one in action?

Visit Nomesque Fiction’s page on Facebook

Wednesday Wisdom

I was worried about how many cups of coffee I was consuming each day…

So I bought a bigger cup.

Now I’m not worried at all!

*twitch*

Open Letter to Milton Drivers

Dear Milton Driver,

In the interests of public safety and of decreasing occasions of madwomen shouting and gesticulating wildly from the (relative) safety of the footpath, I would like to bring some points to your attention.

1. It is alright – even legal – to indicate more than 1m before a turn.

2. For that matter, it’s alright to indicate. The police will not book you.

3. Parking spaces are rare, I understand. But that does NOT actually justify you swerving madly to the left and executing a mad u-turn at 80km/hr in the middle of traffic.

4. Please make an attempt at a consistent speed as you drive. Clearly, you’ll need to slow down for traffic lights, stop momentarily after hitting pedestrians, etc. But when you drive at 10km for 5 minutes and then immediately accelerate to 80km/hr, it is a little startling.

5. Parking spaces are for parking. Roads and streets are for driving on (and walking across, so don’t get cross when I’m in the way so you can’t reverse madly down the street to grab that spot 50m away). Please do not park in the middle of the road just because the person you’re meeting for coffee happened to approach from the other direction, also looking for a parking space.

6. GET OFF THE MOBILE PHONE AND CONCENTRATE.

7. If you have a contract out on me, for God’s sake just fulfil it, OK? I’m sick of the near misses.

Musical Monday

Let’s go back.

RIGHT back.

Back to these days…

Wham – Wake Me Up Before You GoGo

I LOVE this clip. It’s my quintessential 80s music clip. And dear God, George Michael WAS a spunk! I’m drooolin’… no wonder so many women were crushed when they found out he wasn’t interested.

PS. Check out the little shorts!! When are THEY coming back in for men?

PPS. Can anyone remember the name of the man who used to prance around an aerobics show in a pair of excessively tight ‘aussie flag’ shorts, in the 80s/early 90s??

PPPS. In case you’re not yet traumatised…

Wake Me Up Before You GoGo – REMAKE

BAHAAHAHAHAHA

Disambiguation – German Sweet Stuff

I’ve had a few people find this blog recently via searches requesting information about strudel vs streusel. So for the sake of the puzzle, here’s some piccies:

Strudel

Streusel

(now, the streusel doesn’t look the way I make it – I’m a traditionalist, meaning I cook it the way Mum did – as a huge slab cake! But near enough)

There. Unconfused, unknown searchers?