Posts by John Armstrong
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Very sad to hear about Chris Sheehan. Too Many Dogs still sits as a dark little diamond in my music collection.
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Hard News: Kitchen Hacks, in reply to Hebe,
Shouldn't you have stayed with Frying Saucers?
Ha! It's like you know me! I would have but the vegetarianism came between us.
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Hard News: Kitchen Hacks, in reply to giovanni tiso,
That's the only way it's going to cook properly.
Yeah, I really must try and plan ahead more..
For instant pizza victory, just add capers.
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Hard News: Kitchen Hacks, in reply to Samuel Scott,
MAKE YOUR DOUGH IN THE FOOD PROCESSOR!
I thought hacks were supposed to save dishes?
My counter-pizza hack: prepare a normal pizza-dough or bread recipe (in a bowl, Samuel, in a bowl), but don't worry about letting it rise fully. Twenty minutes or so is enough to give your base the body it needs. Pizza is supposed to be flat, isn't it?
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I couldn't forgive myself if I let this opportunity go past.
The world should know about Peanut Slop.
It started life as the ultimate vegetarian bachelor meal twenty-two years ago but has since attained legendary status among friends and selected family. It's basically a hybrid chili/satay thing, and, as the name suggests its strength is not its appearance. However, it is 10-minute easy, everyone has the ingredients, and it is really very nice. Indeed, my wife, who is a foodie, can tolerate it approximately monthly.There are two versions:
The Original
Saute half a chopped onion, two or three cloves of chopped garlic and as much chopped fresh chilli as you like (2 whole chillis is about right for most people). When the onion is soft, squeeze in the juice of one lemon and a little slosh of soy sauce. Then the fun bit. Empty in a tin of baked beans and mash them. Follow this with a tin of chopped tomatoes, stir, and then add a dollop of peanut butter. When this has melted through, you're done. Serve on rice with a spoon of sour cream. In 1991, this recipe would provide enough slop to allow me to eat myself to sleep, but in mature adulthood it serves two and a bit comfortably.
The Gourmet.
As above, except include two finely-sliced kaffir lime leaves at the saute stage. If you really want to impress that special someone, you can use chili beans instead of baked beans, but you run the risk of being seen as someone prone to affectation.
(Also, like Emma's frozen ginger, I freeze our home-grown chilis and grate them frozen too. Means you can use a half without wasting the rest, and also allows you to really release the demon from the seeds. Honestly, why would anyone throw out the best bit?)
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He considered leaking, but didn't. Possibly because of the $15,000 fine that Warrior got.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Ben Gracewood,
here's a sped-up version of my commute home to Te Atatu
Jesus that was nerve-wracking at high speed! It's a miracle that anyone survives biking anywhere other than their own back yard.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Richard Wain,
helmets don't stop death. You hit the road or a car with your head, you're fucked.
Na. I hit a car side on (my fault, riding on footpath past driveways), went over the bonnet and landed on my head. Even with a helmet, I cut my eyebrow open and was out for a couple of seconds. Without a helmet, very probably worse. I doubt that mine doing its job was a statistical anomaly.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to JackElder,
Yep, as you say, it's a minor pain. I'll happily concede that. But, so what? So is getting sweaty on the way to work, finding a place to lock the bike up in town, locking and unlocking, headwinds, slow leaks etc etc. If we are honest, there is lots about biking that is a minor pain. I am just surprised that for some people putting on a vest seems to represent some kind of line in the sand beyond which biking is no longer viable.
Again, not arguing for compulsion, just pointing out what looks like a wee imbalance between the actual level of inconvenience and the response to it.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Sacha,
I understand while helmets are good for individual cyclists who do crash, collectively they affect vehicle driver behaviour in a way that increases crashes.
I would be interested to look at the evidence for that.