Hard News: Slumpy Cashflow
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Based on my experience, high density housing can actually help create a better "sense of community" because of the spaces you're required to share.
When I lived in an old apartment building in the city a few years ago, we had far more to do with our neighbours than we do now, because we would meet in the laundry, at the mailboxes, in the lift, waiting outside for a taxi etc.
Similarly, my first house was the original home on a massive section that had been subdivided. There were 9 houses that shared our driveway, and we got to know all of the occupants because, when we were out in the garden, or on our verandah, we would see them and talk to the as they collected their mail, took out the bins, came home from school etc.
It also goes a long way towards exposing people to 'different' neighbours. We had a large Maori family, two very traditional Indian family and one very modern one, a Chinese Jehovah's Witness family, a group of fairly wealthy Asian students, a middle-aged Pakeha couple...and we all got along well, and got to see a bit of 'other' ways of living.
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It also goes a long way towards exposing people to 'different' neighbours. We had a large Maori family, two very traditional Indian family and one very modern one, a Chinese Jehovah's Witness family, a group of fairly wealthy Asian students, a middle-aged Pakeha couple...and we all got along well, and got to see a bit of 'other' ways of living.
Good point, we're you living now?
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Sorry, no sympathy, for private people to borrow to invest is just mad. Greed is not good.
Actually, I'm very symapthetic to the guy, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. However, I wouldn't shy away from criticising his stupid decision to borow to invest or his decision not to diversify his investment, that's just lunacy.
If I had $5k to invest (let alone $500k), borrowed or not, I wouldn't simply buy shares in Fletcher Building (for example), would I?
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got any feijoa jam recipes?
Anathoth might be able to help.
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It's funny how, whenever the topic of absinthe comes up, you'll get a stream of people talking about how they had absinthe once in some back-alley bar in the Czech Republic and got high off their rocker.
There is very little evidence that thujone has any hallucinogenic effects. It acts on GABA receptors, and as such, in large doses it may cause muscle spasms, convulsions, and potentially death, if you're into that kinda thing.
The amount of thujone that is in absinthe is such that you would be well dead from alcohol poisoning before it had any of these kind of effects. I suppose you could up the wormwood content massively to increase the amount of thujone, in which case you'd probably be dead from wormwood poisoning instead. Plus, it would taste really, really bad.
What absinthe does do is get you extremely drunk very quickly. If you're expecting to get high then for one thing, that in itself can have a placebo effect on your perception, and for another, it's very easy to attribute the effects of alcohol to the magical green fairy dust.
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not illegal and NOT FRAUD
That's because our level of securities industry regulation is grossly inadequate. In the UK (and I think most of the EU) it's illegal to operate a securities business (which the miscreant is doing) without proper licensing and compliance. But here we have this dumbass belief that one disbarred accountant working from a room above a dairy should be allowed to operate a bank/broker with zero controls.
Stupid.
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I reckon the government now uses immigration like the OCR - as a macroeconomic lever, but without the consideration and control that goes into the reserve bank
That would be more sensible than what they actually do, which is to mount a kneejerk response everytime Winston plays the race card.
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The problem with us all having a house on a quarter acre section is that it leaves us with (as has already happened in Auckland) a city stretching to the horizon and a multi-hour commute from outer-suburb home to outer-suburb work. That sort of density leaves public transport hopelessly uneconomic, not to mention creating communities that require a car to reach any kind of facilities.
Eventually, you wind up with "edge slums" as happens in Sydney and LA - places which are part of the city but don't have any decent jobs in their travel-to-work area.
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Here's one I made earlier:
EASY FEIJOA AND GINGER JAM2 cups roughly chopped feijoas (or scooped out feijoa pulp)
2-3 tbs chopped preserved ginger
1 tbs lemon juice
1 cup sugarPut feijoas, juice, ginger in a large bowl and microwave on high, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and nuke again for another five minutes.
Test for doneness - put 1/2 tsp of jam on a saucer and wait 15 seconds, then turn saucer sideways. If jam is done it will wrinkle a bit on top and run slowly or not at all. If it is too runny, nuke again in 1 minute increments, testing after each.
Put into hot jar(s) and seal when cold.
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I reckon the government now uses immigration like the OCR - as a macroeconomic lever, but without the consideration and control that goes into the reserve bank
That would be more sensible than what they actually do, which is to mount a kneejerk response everytime Winston plays the race card.
Yeah, I was thinking that too - what an excellent lever, with so many more nuances than the blunt instrument of raising and lowering the OCR.
everyone "deserves" to live on a quarter acre. i'm not sure how doing nothing but going to school, then going to work, makes you "deserving" of a huge house in the suburbs...
Que? If it's what you want, and you're prepared to pay for it, then that's deserving enough, in my book. It's got jack shit to do with a sense of entitlement. A sense of entitlement would be that someone else should pay to put you there, but I don't see that much evidence of that in NZ.
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For a good comparative discussion of absinthe I recommend Montreal journalist Taras Grescoe's book "The Devil's Picnic" (a Pan Macmillan paperback) in which he pursues various banned substances worldwide. He has a chapter on absinthe, original recipes etc. His book looks at the nature of prohibition and how what a society bans will reflect its phobias and political enmities.
One interesting claim he makes: that Coca-Cola has obtained a special loophole in the United Nations convention banning the sale of cocaine worldwide, to enable the Coca-Cola Corp to annually import 175,000kg of high quality coca to New Jersey. That's what Grescoe reckons, anyway.
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Personally, I find the whole "quarter acre" thing is a bit of a myth anyway.
Yes, quarter acre sections (thats 1010 sq metres) do exist.... but even before the infill housing of the last decade and a half, they were no longer the norm.
I don't know when sections that large stopped being the norm.... but many houses on "full sections" built in the 60's are only 7-800 sq m.
I understand the "quarter acre" is just short-hand for "single house on a decent suburban section"... but there are many perfectly desirable suburban houses/sections that are by no means high density that don't measure up.... What I mean is they ARE what people want or feel entitled to.... they fulfill the "dream"... they just don't fulfill the name we've given the dream.
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Beaten to it, but anyhoo...
Feijoa Jam
This is adapted from a recipie for guavas in a big Krishna-style book I've got at home. Is also from memory.
You will need
Equal amounts by weight of fruit and sugar (as per any jam expect berries). You might include some jaggery or brown sugar in the latter for flavour.
Some whole spices (think coriander seeds, cumin, cardamom pods), grated fresh ginger and dash of chilli - just enough to make it gently warm on the tongue.
Ghee or clarified butterScoop out the feijoa, chop it a little and cook it until it's the texture you want - I like little lumps but you can go for smooth pulp if you like. Add you sugar a bit at a time, keep cooking till it dissolves and the mix starts boiling. Keep going till it's ready - I generally see if a little bit on a spoon forms a skin as it cools. Take it off the heat.
Melt some ghee in a frying pan and cook the whole spices a bit (you might add the ginger but not the chilli, I think), then mix this a lot and the other spices into the jam.
I put the pot in a sink that has cold water to cool it quicker, stirring as I go. When it gets thick and warm rather than hot put it in sterilised jars. Seal when cooled closer to room temperature.
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Mind you, on the bush the landlord put in the other year there is currently one feijoa, which is a slight comedown from last year. Seem to be heading for some lemons tho.
Growing up in Dunedin with a family house in Queenstown, when used to go through central otago in summer a lot. Om nom nom. While some year have been awful for stonefruit in Wellington lately, this one hasn't been so bad - I did make some decent peach jam when they were really cheap. It's just that the apricots, for instance, taste of nothing.
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Put feijoas, juice, ginger in a large bowl and microwave on high, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and nuke again for another five minutes.
Microwave? What's the world coming to?
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Microwave? What's the world coming to?
Outrageous, but actually pretty green. Who in this day and age doesn't have a microwave?
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What absinthe does do is get you extremely drunk very quickly.
Only if you drink it fast.
It's not called the "green hour" for nothing...
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Microwave jams wherever possible. Cuts the power usage by at least 75% . You might need to experiment a bit to get the right container.
I see a lot of chefs still giving out recipes for lemon curd using a double boiler and stirring for 45 minutes. Are they demented? You can get first class lemon curd in a microwave in just 7-8 minutes. Really surprised not more people know this.
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Thanx for the jam recipes, sometimes (actually a lot of times,actually most of the time)the feijoas do not make it past my mouth.Heaven!
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I'm all for the environment and saving power as much as the next guy - in fact, probably more.
But microwaving jam feels... wrong. Aren't there laws about preserving fruit and jams and whatnot that say it have to be done on top of an oven?
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I thought I'd google for a feijoa liquer recipie.
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But microwaving jam feels... wrong.
a lot of the prejudice against microwaves is warranted. try microwaving a roast dinner for example.
sometimes you need to cook things slow to let the flavours combine, the sugars and acids to change, and other tricky stuff i've seen chefs wax lyrical about.
people forget that cooking is basically just a big chemistry lesson.
substance A + process B = outcome
that said, it's only jam. </heresy>
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Microwaving works by cooking things from the inside out, conventional roasting and baking and frying from the outside in.
If you think of microwaving as a type of steaming or boiling, you'll get some idea of the recipes it works for. Basically it suits anything with an interior liquid content. Fat, it doesn't work so well on.So it's horses for courses. (Actually, I've eaten horse and it's not too bad casseroled right...)
I think microwaved jam can even taste fresher and fruitier than stove-top jam. And don't believe everything chefs tell you. They like to create some mystique around their occupation; much of it is phony.
With jam all you are doing wherever/however you cook it is heating fruit till the liquid boils and the fruit cell walls break down to slush or thereabouts. Then you are suspending that in boiled C6H12O6 syrup, which acts as a preservative. If it doesn't have sufficient natural pectin to thicken sufficiently, citric acid (lemon juice) will complete the chemical equation.
There are even recipes for jam made completely in the fridge with no cooking at all. Apologies if that damages your brain, Kyle.
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But microwaving jam feels... wrong. Aren't there laws about preserving fruit and jams and whatnot that say it have to be done on top of an oven?
Or you'll get burned as a witch, in your own microwave oven....
But microwaving jam feels... wrong.
It will feel so right when you get it in your mouth.
a lot of the prejudice against microwaves is warranted. try microwaving a roast dinner for example.
Yes, it's not a replacement for the oven. But when you use it for what it's for, it's the bomb. Reheating stuff, f'rinstance.
Us, but I'm on the look out for the magnetron tube out of one. I'm planing to build myself a death ray robot, to protect my herb garden from computer geeks.
LOL, if only you'd asked sooner, I had a busted one that went out in the last inorganic collection (or should I say it was instantly recycled by a passing scrounger). Anything to keep geeks out of your herbz!
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As for jam, I'd rather just gorge on the fresh fruit than spending hours making what I could buy in minutes for the cost of a few minutes work. I get that it's a good idea when you do actually live off the land, though. In which case a wood fired stove made out of garden clay for cooking the jam in home made earthenware would be the trick.
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As for jam, I'd rather just gorge on the fresh fruit than spending hours making what I could buy in minutes for the cost of a few minutes work.
That's OK unless you have several hundred fruit, berry & nut trees - it is such a waste to see the birds get everything you can't eat or palm off on friends & rellies.
Next year I'm seriously considering proper pipfruit storage facilities (rat proof plastic trays & moulded paper mache beds) Apparently they'll last for months if stored properly. And supplying the local farmers' market & filling the freezer.
Although we're not big on making jam & pies & stuff.
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