That’s A Wrap: February 10, 2019

 

I’m writing this at the Sunshine Coast Airport as I wait for my flight to Sydney.

I’m in town for the week for work and whilst I’m dreading the daily commute into the office it’s always good to see my family and catch up with friends and colleagues. Although it might sound weird – me coming from South East Queensland and all – but I also dread those ridiculously hot suburban Sydney days. We might have dreadlock inducing humidity, but our temps rarely get above 33C #firstworldissues

Anyways, enough about the weather, let’s wrap this week up…

What I wrote…

Normally a short walk or change of scene at the end of the day job day is sufficient to switch my brain out of corporate mentality and into the world of the characters that I’m writing about, but not this week. It’s been so incredibly and constantly busy that at the end of each day my brain had room for nothing else – not even the simplest of decisions. I’d spoken to so many people during the day that it was that dialogue I heard and not the voices of my characters. The “pages” in my new book remained blank.

I still haven’t contacted my editor to slot myself into her diary – and must do so this week. Once I have that date set in stone I won’t be able to use the excuse of a hard days work in the day job – the words will have to get written. I intend getting at least 1500 words a day done each night I’m in Sydney…although I am booked to catch up with friends on 3 of the 5 nights already. What can I say? It’s all so social…lol.

What I blogged…

• My wrap-up of January
• 48 hours in Melbourne
• My latest instalment in my Nigella Kitchen Diaries – About Roast Chicken. This week we looked at Sunday Lunch. I even included a recipe for the Yorkies…

Who I met…

I managed to escape the office on Wednesday and catch up with some other fabulous bloggers for lunch in Brisbane. Here we all are:

From left to right is Sue from Sizzling Towards Sixty & Beyond, Leanne from Cresting The Hill, Deb from Debbish, me and Min from Write Of The Middle.

While I’ve met Sue, Deb and Min in the past, Leanne had travelled all the way over from Perth just for this lunch…okay, maybe not just for this lunch… Although we all met online – through each other’s blogs and social media – catching up with these ladies really was like talking to friends I’ve known for years.

It might have been a manky day outside but the conversation was sparkling in the Riverbar- and the prawn cocktail rolls were yummy.

What I read…

With over 3 hours to spend on the train into Brisbane the other day, I devoured Jill Mansell’s latest Maybe This Time. It was my 2nd 5-star read of the year.

I also finished Prue Leith’s Food of Love. While I love Prue in Great British Bake-off and previously in Great British Menu and could hear her voice loud and clear, I didn’t enjoy Food of Love as much as I thought that I would.

What I cooked…

Nothing healthy at all this week – I simply didn’t have the bandwidth. I’d had such a shocking day on Tuesday though that once I logged off I declared that I needed to chop something and concentrate on a different process to bring my heart rate back down and get my brain out of work mode. Given that it was Chinese New Year I made some prawn toasts to have before the stir-fry hubby was doing for dinner.

There’s something so comforting about the golden crunch of a good prawn toast – and these were good. I sort of used this recipe and they turned out beautifully (the photo does them no credit at all). To make dinner even more like a Chinese takeaway we also had cut up segments of orange and fortune cookies to finish off with.

We had friends for dinner last night and kept it simple with a lasagne and green salad plus a pudding from How To Eat – which I’ll tell you about in the next instalment of About Roast Chicken – The Nigella Kitchen Diaries.

Finally, I had a go at making honeycomb – although I do prefer the Cornish (or Kiwi) name for it: hokey pokey. Apparently, the Geordie version is known as “cinder toffee” and in some parts of the U.S., it’s called “seafoam” or sponge candy.

Whatever you call it, it’s relatively easy and a tad theatrical to make. Golden syrup, caster sugar and bicarb soda become a gorgeously yellow foam before setting into something you can smash into the shards we’re familiar with. I dunked some in melted chocolate, left some whole and grown more into a powder that I sprinkled over the pudding last night. Ms T has it in mind to mix these through her ice cream while I’m away.

Anyways, if you’re interested, the recipe is here.

How was your week? Highlights?