You either do what you want to do or spend your life just waiting for week-ends to come around. I think that pearl of wisdom might have come from a successful Austrian or Moldavian philosopher inside a mountain cave deep in thought and wholly absorbed in ‘Weltanschauung’ contemplation of the importance of doing nothing much except occasionally sweep out his cave.
It is all in the broom, some say. The broom that sweeps our lives of all the debris that never found any use in our lives. Lately I noticed the debris building up again. Has anyone noticed that shops now try and sell even more with big discounts on multiple items? You are urged to buy six loaves of bread and get 50 cents off for doing so. The latest that caught my eye is to buy scissors in packets of six. Six scissors?
What is there to cut still? Do peoples cut the cloth for a twin set or blouse, make boys trousers? My mum was a fervent cutter and sewer of the cloth with one of those pedal sewing machines. It was a ‘Singer’. Her feet would go up and down so fast; today it would be seen as an early form of rap-dancing beating the BigBang boys or even a Moon Walk.
My mum had one pair of scissors her whole life. Sometimes a man on a bike would come along. The bike would be put on its stand and knifes and scissors would be sharpened by him peddling the bike that drove a round sharpening stone on top of the handle bars.
This sharpening device has never been improved since. In any case nothing gets sharpened anymore. People chuck it all out and buy multiple sets of knives and scissors, six at the time. The happy shopper comes home with six loaves of bread and six pairs of scissors. It fills their lives, gives substance to an existence so thread bare that my mum’s Singer could well be in for a revival.
Those ideas of the past don’t easily let go. How come that people were more connected with sharpening knifes or scissors? Even enameled pots and pans were repaired with patches put into bottoms when rust had worked a pin-hole into them. Of course, it is nice we can afford to buy stainless steel that doesn’t’ rust but do we need to be so much on the rampage to consume? Why not take pride in a saucepan that has cooked meals for decades on end and try and keep it going as long as possible.
We used to have kind, friendly and benevolent relationships with all sorts of utensils. My mum’s green enameled milk bucket at the bottom of the stairs used to get filled by the milkman when ordered by my mum from above shouting ‘three liters to-day, please”. That bucket experienced entire generations of kids growing up. I can’t remember if this bucket followed us to Australia but I would like to think it did.
Our housed are now so full of everything. Cupboards piling over, scissors behind settees, drawers full of knives with a giant butcher block blocking access to the kitchen. Ikea boxes in the garbage bin. An Allen key looking forlorn, just cast away with all the other debris. We are groaning with debris.
We need a new broom.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
AND another secret is, I leave it in the fridge overnight and consume it the next day. Yum yum. bon appétit.
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Curried Prawns, Garlic prawns … oh! you are torturing me! If only I wasn’t too lazy to cook this weekend!!! …well actually I’m busy with a small mechanical job outside.
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Oops! This popped up here instead of down below. Of course I mean the curry-dish in the fridge….
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I like many things better the next day, the flavour has really settled…I prefer Pizza, cold, the they after…this morning I had last night’s baked vegies (cold) for breakfast…my Borscht is better by the day……
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Helvi, I like vegetables raw, cooked, warm, cold as long as they don’t rot before I eat them. Obviously not every vegetable, such as eggplant or potato, can be consumed raw -doesn’t taste good either-, so they have to be cooked.
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I wish I have had four compartments in my stomach. It would have saved me from cooking all together. …Would have been cheaper to live only on grass too. 🙂
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I laughed at ‘scissors behind settees’. I have been away for a couple of days. On my way out the front door I noticed lying on the ground to the left hand side of the door one of those standard pairs of orange handle scissors. I have seen them there for quite a number of consecutive days, lying open where I abandoned them after getting them to cut open a bag of garden chook poo. Lo, I actually bent over and picked them up rapidly putting them inside the door. I can’t recall. I hope they’re not mixed up with the kitchen herb scissors or the cloth cutting ones, the paper pair or the child safe pair (all orange handles). As long as The Kid doesn’t find them and lick at the chook poo;. 😉
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It is not that bad Gerard. Even possible that a pack of 6 scissors would be useful for a large family – kids all need scissors for school. Those cheap ones can’t cut much though and you would be hard put to cut cloth with them. But I do understand where you are coming from and going to. I think the trend is not as bad as you perceive. To cheer you up I have two pairs of scissors – one for the office and one for cutting hair and they are always kept separate. They are about 30 years old. Hard to find really good scissors.
Pots and pans – mine are mostly cast iron (le Crueset) and 38 years old. I recently bought two new good stainless steel fry pans mainly for breakfast cooking. The teflon coated cheap jobs don’t last long unless you treat them with kid gloves.
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Yes, we too have those enameled cast iron pans. They last forever and used often for slow cooking curries or stews. We have one large Teflon saucepan that still is cleaned by a simple wipe with a cloth. The cheaper ones were chucked out a long time ago.
Right now, I’ll heat up a curry made a few days ago.
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My scissors do not last very long, I use my good fabric cutting scissors for clipping plants cutting steel wire, thick cardboard et cetera….
Only the other day I had to replace my scissor set with a new one…Aldi had a nice one on offer, all six of them, in many sizes, lovely red handles and all that for $4.99….I’ll buy a another lot next year… 🙂
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Really, Helvi! Every good woman has a tool kit – wire snippers, secateurs, drills etc. And you do it all with scissors!
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I have mucked up all my good ( and very expensive scissors)…I used them because they stand in a special jar at the kitchen bench, so: easy access…I have even taken up Nigella’s custom of cutting the fresh herbs into salads and soups by using scissors…
I love all my gardening tools and I know where they are…I leave the rest of the tools to Gerard..
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I do a Nigella too but have kitchen scissors for that – not real scissors but a scissor action. Tell Gerard we had curry chicken last night with daughters here for dinner – nothing left over unfortunately.
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Yes, a good curry is a good family feed. Tell me Viv, do you use aniseed and cloves, turmeric etc? I often use a ready mix paste when feeling lazy. I never measure ingredients, just chuck it in and hope for the best. Of course, onions, garlic, coriander etc are vital. I also use sugar, vinegar etc. Sometimes it is heavenly, often a disaster. My last curry a couple of days ago needed restoring and a revival according to H. I followed her urgings to add some other things and it became lovely. She is probably a better cook than I but prefers to leave me to blunder on :).
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I make my own spice mix – no cloves, no aniseed. Coriander, cummin, black pepper, tumeric, cardamon, chilli, ground ginger (unless I have good fresh ginger to hand), salt – they’re the basics. I vary it depending on my mood and the protein (chook, lamb etc). Sometimes tamarind goes in. Sometimes cinnamon. Sometimes curry leaves. After 3/4 cooking the onion and garlic the spices go in with a little water to make a paste and then on with the rest of my recipe which is in my head. Sometimes I use coconut milk or yoghurt or just water. I never have a disaster !
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The ‘secret’ of course is in the proportions. All measured by the teaspoon.
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Vivienne, I have had great success with your ‘Curried Prawns’ recipe from a while back, but, of course, for work meals, I default to Red or Green Thai curry in the jar, with extra chillies, garlic, onion, etc. I always add Kaffir lime leaves, which get thrown into the top of the storage container at the end. Even a very poor effort is better than the shit they sell at the hospital. Don’t know how we expect the ill to recover without a decent diet!
Gez, I know what you’re getting at with the ‘throw away’ generation. Young people think that knives and scissors are buggered once they become blunt. It’s a wonder they don’t buy a new car when it runs out of petrol!
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Very pleased to hear that Big M. I’ve just cooked some crabs and have a bag of mussels to deal with – decisions.
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Ag Big M on the cars. We had our basket weaving section (read environmental engineers) at work, a few years back, with a new car; a pool vehicle. All twenty somethings they were anyhow after about a year there was the car sitting by the side of the road nobody saying anything until someone asked the question or someone wanted to borrow it. It sat there for three weeks. The problem a seized motor, they knew how to put petrol into it, didn’t realise that you needed to service the thing occasionally or check the oil. 45k on the clock and never a service.
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Wow.!. Vivienne.. My mind’s eye conjured up all sorts of images.. You weren’t thinking about certain people in the Liberal party as you were typing this, were you?
Call me up if you need an Assistant. I’ll be glad to give you a hand. 🙂
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Which comment was that hph? I try not to ‘think’ about the Liberal party other than wishing some rather awful fate for them. Whenever one of them comes on the tele I usually yell ‘fuck off’, change the channel or sometimes just turn it off for a while. ‘Thinking’ of them makes me ill in the stomach. But if you were wondering about the crabs and mussels. I had the crabs plain cooked. The mussels were done in onion/tom/wine sauce etc. I think I put the recipe in one of my cooking articles. Look under Vivienne on the right where I know I put the Burmese Prawn dish too.
Thanks for the offer though – I am not yet in need of help! But others have offered to help eat what’s on offer.
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“..wire snippers, secateurs, drills etc. And you do it all with scissors!”
🙂
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I was amazed with what Helvi did with her scissors ! You should see me working my block buster on stubborn fire wood!
Anyone watching Kitchen Cabinet. So far only Turnbull has come close to actually being able to cook – I refer to 1st and 2nd series. After all that time in Italy Amanda could only just manage to cook some pasta and make a very ordinary tomato sauce.
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Oh sweet Vivienne, you are so innocent! … I was thinking more in terms of ‘docking’
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Well perhaps not so much about my innocence but a bit more about your mind when thinking of maybe Tony Abbott. You do know that the job is done with a ‘lacky band’. Ah ha … too painless for the task you had in mind!!
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Yes, Algy, perhaps they needed an ‘app’ for that??
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