A Rock and a Hard Place

Rut, be gone! Yesterday I drove 300 kilometers into the country, climbed a rock in the middle of nowhere and then came home again.

Well, more or less.

The new (also annoying) guy at work was trying to motivate me to do something different the other day and suggested I go for a walk around the (drug dealer) park near my house. It didn't actually strike me as a terribly enjoyable thing to do in 41 degree (celcius) weather, but it did make me get off my arse. I decided that I'd go and find Mollerin Rock out north of Koorda somewhere.

I drove out a different way, through Toodyay this time. It was meant to be a shorter route, but I meandered, stopping here and there to enjoy the peace and quiet. I saw lots of birds and goannas and a big green snake and a dead mammal or two. At one point I thought I saw a kangaroo on the side of the road, until it flapped it's wings and a huge wedge tail eagle flew off. I went north to a tiny town called Beacon and then east and I felt like I was on the edge of civilisation. You can feel the emptiness of the outback starting out there. The land is harsh, the desert begins not too far away. I found my way after a time of feeling a little lost, I hit a road to Koorda, found the dirt road to Mollerin Rock and turned my mother's Honda down the track. I passed pastures, farms, flocks of sheep and kicked up a red trail of dust and dirt behind me.

I was relieved to finally find the damn rock. I had to traverse a windy dirt track that lead off the dirt road. I parked the car at the base of the rock and bounded up the sloped side, barely remembering to watch out for snakes as lizards zoomed out of my way at the speed of light. I have never seen a living thing move as fast as that lizard. It didn't feel so high as I was walking up it, but once I got to the top I had the most amazing view. I took a few photos, got pestered by a zillion flies and whipped by some crazy winds.

And then I was gone.

Bad taste

Last week I ate the most appalling meal that I have ever had to pay for in my life and that includes the raw chicken stir-fry from San Francisco's House of Nanking. I had gone to a new mexican restaurant with my mother and sister to celebrate my sister finishing her dissertation. My sister had chosen the place, not that I blame her at all for subjecting my tastebuds to such abject horror. Anyhow, you get more authentically mexican food out of an Old El Paso packet than at the restaurant we went to. Ever since then I craved something to eat with actual flavour. Something actually edible.

So I got quite excited when I was reminded (thanks TUS!) of the Puerco Pibil recipe on the DVD of Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I'm a big, big fan of any meat cooked for a very long time and doubly so if it's pork. This particular recipe is just about perfect for me (it's maybe just a little on the tart side and I don't know if I'll fuck up the authenticity by adding onions to make it sweeter). But truly delicious. I highly recommend it to kickstart your tastebuds. It'll cure what ails you.

Robert Rodriquez' Puerco Pibil:

5 lbs. pork butt, cut into 2" cubes
1 tbsp. black peppercorns
5 tbsp. annatto
2 tsp. cumin
8 allspice berries
1/2 tsp. whole cloves
2 habanero peppers
8 cloves garlic
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vinegar
2 tbsp. salt
splash of good tequila
juice of 5 lemons
banana leaves or use foil if you can't find any leaves

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.



• Grind peppercorns, annatto, cumin, allspice, and cloves in a spice grinder and set aside.



• Chop habaneros and puree with garlic, orange juice, vinegar, salt, tequila, lemon juice, and reserved spice mixture.



• Rub the marinade all over the pork



• Line a deep baking pan with banana leaves. Place pork cubes on banana leaves, cover with more banana leaves, and seal with aluminum foil. Roast for four hours, or until pork is falling apart.

Imbalance

I have spent my morning off today doing absolutely bugger all. While I may have watched a biography of Brian Epstein and a documentary on some tunnel in Iceland (I wasn't really paying too much attention to that one) and I have waited for several hundred different websites to load in my browser, I don't really count that as doing anything.

I could have cleaned my living room - which I really should be doing because someone is coming in the morning to install digital cable and I'm sure they'll be very impressed with my hovel-like living conditions. I could have washed my dishes, or put away clothes or cleaned the bathroom. I could have done something constructive like some sewing or wrapped christmas presents or made some more body butters to give for christmas or read something or made an appointment to get my hair cut or a massage or any number of other things that don't involve sitting on my considerably sized arse, wasting time.

I don't know if it's a symptom of a more serious malaise or if i'm just lazy. I do know that I feel like life has been on hold for the last six months or so and i have drifted out of contact with many meaningful things. I have lost touch with friends, both ones that life down the street and ones that life on other continents. I have let things slide in all areas of life. My hair has two inches of roots showing even though I have a box of hair dye in the bathroom and it would take half an hour to cover the ash blonde colour creep. My home is messy, really messy. My cupboards and closets are stuffed full of useless things and my floors and benches are covered with things I do need, all stacked higgledy piggledy around the place. My finances are shambolic - even though I'm earning a nice wage, I don't know where it goes and I'm spending wildly because buying things, any things, makes me happy for a little while.

I'm not unhappy though, just a bit bewildered about what has happened to me. If this is what being a grown up is all about, I don't think I'm handling it very well.

Summertime

Summer is not my favourite time of year. Heat and I do not good partners make. I am lethargic and depressed in summer, like I have a reverse kind of SAD. Today was the first stinking hot day of the season - the kind where it feels as though the flesh is melting off your body. Summer isn't all bad. Christmas time is fun, I enjoy the preparations and the gathering and the eating and drinking. On the downside is the New Year fuss. I never find it enjoyable unless I have someone to kiss at midnight. I tried to cheer myself up yesterday, I bought myself a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers (imagining a boyfriend, do you think?) but those kind of things are only temporary salves.

The very best thing about the summer though is the fruit. Peaches have only just come into season and they're not exactly cheap yet but I couldn't resist some lovely rosy-yellow ones yesterday and this is what I did with them. I was just planning to poach them with vanilla but I had a jar of chai style spices I'd mixed up in winter to make spiced hot chocolate and I correctly figured they'd taste mighty fine in this concoction.

Chai-Spiced Poached Peaches

2 cups water
2/3 cup sugar
1 vanilla pod, split in half and seeds scraped into the mix
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom pods
5 cloves
small slice of ginger
five black peppercorns
1-2 star anise

6 peaches, halved and stoned

combine everything, bring to gentle simmer, poach ten minutes until fruit is tender.

serve with marscapone sweetened with icing sugar

Re-introduction

It's been a while since I did this. Six months or so. I tell myself that I just don't have time for it any more but it's a lie. I do have time, except I spend that time with my brain turned off. My job, while seemingly menial and not mentally taxing, is sucking the will to live right out of me. I'm tired all the time. I don't turn off when I get home, I worry if the roster is okay, if I've ordered enough coffee, bacon, flour or icecream. I wonder if the fridge is still running, if I've left enough instructions, if they'll remember the cake cooking in the oven or if they'll burn it like they usually do. I want to leave my work at work because it's just not important enough to fret about at home. And it's something I'm trying not to whine about too much.

I don't know when I became a complainer. I think I'd probably explode if I didn't get to whine about how crap my roster is every week though. But not here. It bores me, it'll bore you too.

So what else have I been doing other than working 50 hours a week? Developing a deep fondness for a certain part of the west australian countryside for one thing. On a whim a few months ago, my sister and I drove out to the wheatbelt, north-east of Perth and had a wonderful time exploring the poky old towns out there. I went back a month or so later on my own. It was easily one of the most fun things I've done in a long time. I love the space out there. It's just so big and flat and beautiful. People seem to think it's boring or ugly and plain. I think it's so beautiful that I ached a little bit, wanting to stay there forever. Here's a photo anyway, I was on the road between Koorda and Bencubbin. What do you think?



It's quiet out there, too! When I stopped at the side of the road and turned off the engine of the car, all you can hear is the wind blowing through the wheat. I think people prone to lonliness and not at ease with being with themselves might think it was eerie but I just sat there and smiled. And dreamt about marrying a farmer and living out there in the nothingness.

I think I'd like to live around Koorda. It has a beautiful pub and a drive-in and not much else. I don't know what I'd do out there except pop out some kids and make jam and bake bread and join the CWA and drive back to Perth every now and again to buy books and records and visit the family. Sounds perfect. All I need is that farmer husband. Oh look, here's the Koorda Hotel.



So that's about it at the moment. I work too much and dream about running away to the country where there is space and silence and time.

Begin Again

So, something happened with my website and I can't log in to moveable type anymore and all my other free diary/blog sites have expired and been taken by some other individual with the fondness for derivatives of Isabelle and so here I am at blogger.com of all places. It's been a long time.