Family

Spending the long weekend with close family made me realise how much I miss being around them.

I used to think that working and living hundreds of miles away from family was a good thing. Observing other families over the years bickering, fighting and trying their damnedest to wreak havoc on one another’s lives, I thought I was lucky to be isolated from my own. It’s strange how we tend to colour our own lives an unflattering shade by observing others.

However, my infrequent visits over the years did bring me closer to my own family and created very close bonds with them. So in a way it was perhaps a good thing.

I’ve been pretty lucky to have a great bunch of friends – friends who have been my family away from family. And for this, I’ll be eternally grateful.

But now I realise that I miss my family too much and feel the need to be around them more permanently. Perhaps its got something to do with the fact that I’m getting older. Or maybe its got something to do with losing too many family members over the years through death, without getting the opportunity to spend much time with them.

Either way, I feel the time is right to drop everything and go back home…

Men who don’t cook

Many years ago, I cooked nearly every day. Living alone, it was a necessity. Over the last few years I stopped cooking altogether, except for the occasions when out with the guys camping, fishing or spur-of-the-moment holiday trips, when I helped out, playing second fiddle to better cooks.

Being able to buy take-away dinners and dine out has gotten so easy, one tends to become inured to its lazy charm.

Walking through the kitchen today, I stopped to gaze dissolutely at some of the utensils and gizmos I’d acquired over the years, when I actually bothered to cook for myself. Gathering some serious dust, they were.

I pulled down a Kenwood electric wok I ‘d bought many years ago and used only a few times. I don’t know why I picked this appliance, as I didn’t particularly have any ingredients to put it to proper use. But for some strange reason, I felt I had to do something with it, anything; just to experience what it felt like to cook again. I soon had that sucker washed and ready….. but for what?

Scratching around I found free range eggs, onions, a couple of chillies that had grown ripe, a piece of chorizo sausage. And in no time I was gazing at an omelette in the wok, which looked like a kings lunch. I soon wolfed that sucker down, and felt an unbelievable sense of satisfaction and achievement.

Yes, it was only an omelette this time, but next time I’m going to climb the culinary heights once again. Men who don’t cook may not be missing much, but I’m convinced they’ll never be complete men.

Rant Alert: But it’s juicy!!!

Image by _dorothy_ via Flickr

I do love mixing the odd cocktail and invariably the recipe calls for fresh fruit juice.

But I’ll be damned if fresh fruit juice can be found in a hurry anywhere in South Africa. Unless you buy fruit and extract the juices yourself, the gunk passing for fruit juice on all major retailers’ shelves, including the over-hyped major supermarket chains, is absolute rubbish.

What the fuck is 100% blended fruit juice or pure blended fruit juice? Since when is blended, 100% or even pure?

Why can I not get pure 100% orange juice or cranberry juice that is NOT MIXED with a blend of apples or other berries? None of my cocktail recipes call for a mixture of apple and orange and whatever the fuck else the manufacturers decide to throw in to create their concoctions. Why can’t I get just plain orange juice or plain apple juice or plain cranberry juice?

If I wanted orange juice with apples and other fruits, I’d mix the fucking thing myself. I mean who the hell would prefer a blend, rather than the pure unadulterated thing? Am I the only person who thinks that these blends are a scam by the manufacturers who use terms like “pure” and “100%” to mislead customers? Are customers even aware that they’re being scammed?

Perhaps I’ve got it all totally wrong and the manufacturers have conducted market research that indicates that people like the mixed up shit. Am I?

And while we’re still discussing the issue, why, oh why are all the bottles of 100% blended juice always so fucking sticky? I remember a dairy company that delivered pure 100% orange juice [only] to my door when I was a kid, and the bottles were never sticky. Is it that the manufacturers these days not only care so little about quality, they couldn’t bother to package the crap they’re selling in a presentable manner too?

Oh, the disdain…