The other love of my life, there is psychedelics/healing, groundskeeping and number three is cooking. I don’t do it as much as the grounds work but the time I spend in the kitchen is my absolute favourite time.
I listen to msuic, sing, dance, walk in and out, smoke pot, and take my time to make simple food ridiculously beautifully. The last few days simple stuff, spaghetti that made me almost cream my pants, perfect hot chocolate’s, pancakes and then simple simple salads’s that are things of pure magic.
Oh, and the coffee that comes out of my space, consistently the best I have ever had anywhere in the world. My kitchen is a really nice place to be.
I don’t often take photos, unless I am trying to get some sex on dating apps but even then I don’t take photos, just set up the device with a phone taker timer and hopefully by the time I remember about it again there is a photo or three I can use. However, I do take photos when someone gifts me something and then I use it, I send them a photo to show my appreciation, this one is an ode to a beautiful friend called Eileen who gave me the figs, she is coming for lunch today too.
I do it simple because simple is easy to do, simple is beautiful, it comes with no stress.
Today, for lunch, I am making pumpkin soup. Slow time pumpkin soup, roasting the pumpkins, making sure it has every chance at full flavour without having to add heaps of extras, salt, pepper and sugar in particular. Learn to cook well and adding flavouring just to give food some flavour becomes a thing of the past. Learn to use vegetables to create flavour foundations and cooking becomes something else, without actually needing to do anything other that what you already are. You simply perfect it.
The pumpkin soup is cooked, finished, only needs to be heated up on the stove, being careful not to bring it to the boil so the cream does not split. I roasted the pumpkin and carrot two days ago when I was making dinner. Yesterday when I was making lunch I did the remaining part of the soup at the same time, waited for it to cool, blended it up, added cream and put it in the fridge.
No stress in the entertaining space today.
Also, while I was making my dinner on Saturday I made the pizza dough, it is sitting in the fridge ready to go, I only need to leave it out for an hour before rolling it and putting the toppings on.
It’s toppings are cooked, did that yesterday while making lunch also, I only cooked the meats, garlic chicken for one and cabana for the other. I didn’t need to cook either but having cooked meat, that looks cooked, is beautiful on a pizza, it is much more appealing than soggy stuff which has been thrown on without thought.
Today, the only thing I have to do, unless I decide to make garlic bread is roll the pizza dough, spread the toppings and put them in the oven.
Almost all of the dishes are already washed, there is nothing to do. There will be six people here for lunch, including myself and I will not spend more than 30 minutes in the kitchen which includes the final prep, cooking, and serving. All of the food will be amazing, it will be perfect simple, the best type of perfect and it will look like it came from a professional restaurant.
Entertaining can be super easy, without any stress at all, cooking can be one of the most beautiful things a human being can do. You know how to do this and you have the strongest of foundation tools for the best life at your fingertips. Start simple, start by knowing the terms associated with cooking, practice easy easy tasks, master them and work your way up.
Going from burnt toast to a croquembouche in three days is probably not a realistic goal, target or expectation, you really are just setting yourself up for failure. Instead, go from burnt toast to not burnt toast, start there.
KISS, keep it simple stupid.
Learning to cook
My mother was a beautiful woman, physically her face was beautiful. I don’t know if she was hot, this isn’t that, any idiot who looks at a photo of my mother when she was younger can see she was beautiful. She remained beautiful throughout her life, her cancers, her neverending suffering and bad luck.
I’ve said it multiple times already and I’ll say it many more, it was what came from heart that kept her beautiful, my mother’s heart was the heart of all mother’s. Her heart, the story, represents all mother’s hearts, it is best placed elsewhere. My sister once looked like her, she no longer does.
Monika was a beautiful cook, simple cook, beautiful cook. Unlike the two brothers and sisters I did not learn a single thing about cooking in the family home. The first 15 years I had an agreement with the house that I would spend as little time there as possible, the next three and a bit I had other interests that were a long way from the kitchen.
The first thing I ever learned to cook was pancakes, it was before I learnt to cook. I went to the the supermarket in Surrey Hills and got a little bit lost, called Mum and she told me what to buy. When I got home I called her again and she dictated the recipe. They were nothing like hers but they were pancakes that tasted and looked like pancakes, more or less.
A few months went by before the next supermarket call. I had come to the realisation that living in the middle of Sydney, going out eating and partying every night was not the most viable financial existence. It wasn’t doing a lot of good for my mental health either.
Garlic chicken, this was next. Mum had only started making it a couple of years previous, started as garlic prawns, evolved to chicken. Supermarket, phone call, Mum walks me through the shopping list.
I get home call her again, she dictates the recipe. I ask about a couple of terms, like sear, what does that mean Mum? ‘Frederick, to sear means you make the pan really hot, put some oil on it and then cook the outsides of the meat really quickly until they go nice and brown. Not black, that’s too far, brown. It’s better to be less brown than more brown at the start.’ I’ll give it a go, thanks Mum. ‘You’re welcome, love you.’
This went on for months and months, at least once a week. My cooking lessons were validated one day, cooking garlic chicken and some friends were over, three ladies, attractive ladies. One of them is standing over my shoulder watching, commenting on how perfect everything is. It was too, the first time I had ever done it so well and I had a crowd, a crowd I liked, a crowd that liked a man who could cook. My motivation was pretty easy from here on in.
It was easy for a more important reason, I could make a bunch of stuff now. I could feed myself in all different ways. I was feeling great and the food that was coming from my kitchen was more than edible.
I expanded on my own, started reading and making recipes from books. The internet wasn’t as readily available as it is now, so every time I would call my mother, we’d have a chat, she’d help me out. We had a chat though, every time, cooking was our tool together, it allowed us to chat more freely than we ever had.
By the time I left Sydney and moved back in with my mother during the final year of her life I was pretty good at this thing, I really enjoyed it.
The worst meal I ever made is also the best. It broke Danyel’s heart, finally after however many times I had told him how sick our mother was he only finally listened after this awful awful stir fry.
Mum was really sick, this would end up being the last month of her life, she couldn’t cook and I offered to. There wasn’t much in the fridge and the sauces and stuff were a little bit latin to me still, Mum didn’t need to be bothered with questions about these things.
Chopped, diced and sliced chicken, onion, garlic, carrot, a couple of other vegetables. All things that go in a stir fry. Grabbed the sauces I knew and liked, a general practice that had never failed me before and hasn’t since, and mixed a few together, dipped the finger in and jabbed it into my mouth. Tasty, it’ll do.
Cooked everything as I would usually, just as Mum had taught me, even had the rice going away in the background. With the exception of the rice, which I am pretty sure was perfect, the absorption method, the meal was awful, disgusting awful. I could not swallow one mouthful. It wasn’t off, nothing wrong with it from a health perspective, simply whatever I did was not meant to be done with food. Food didn’t even know food could do that to food, horrid, horrendous, vomit worthy.
I told Mum it was terrible and I was going to make something else. She was starving, she needed to eat, said she would try it. I said to myself fuck it, I’ll give her a decent bowl. I knew it didn’t matter anyway she was barely able to eat three or four mouthfuls of food at a time as it was.
Mum was about half way through the bowl when my brother walked in. He looked at me looking at her, ‘what’s wrong?’ I do not know how she is eating that, it is fucking disgusting. ‘It can’t be that bad, mate.’
Moni, affectionately called, polished off the bowl and asked for seconds. Mum, you cannot seriously be enjoying that. ‘Frederick, it is beautiful, it is everything I need.’ Tears started to form in my eyes now as I leant back on the stove and continued to watch her.
‘Come on mante, it cannot be that bad.’ Taste it Danyel.
Within an instant tears started to form in his eyes too, ‘Mum, you cannot seriously be eating that.’
It was terribly hard to watch. Terribly hard.
The worst thing I ever made was also the best. I tried my hardest, put as much love into it as I possibly could. I put so much love into it that it turned out perfectly. It was bland, texturely blah, and had weird subtle tastes, nothing about it appealed. It was exactly what appealed to my mother, everything she needed, nutrition without flavour. Plain, simple, dull.
She was an extremely sick body, my brother and I were not. It was not about us, she had much different needs, needs that were perfectly met.
I miss this woman, oh how I miss her. Cancer is a shit thing, my heart is with all affected by this awful disease.
Steak and veg
Warning, the following graphic contains porn, food porn!
There are some things that are just super-duper easy to cook well. Steak and veg anyone, Anna even for you.
Anna is my sister’s partner, she is a beautiful woman who can not cook to save her life. But she can, it is simply a confidence and attention issue, nothing to worry about. The beautiful thing about such a simple dish is that I get to do some education on cooking, the basics, using a basic dish.
Firstly, this is a balanced plate, it more or less meets the Australian guidelines for what a dinner plate should look like in order to get everything the body needs to thrive. Change that, absolutely thrive, abolutely thrive without adding a single supplement or magic pill.
Ultimately friends, cunts, the photo above is one half of the most magic of all pills, the second half being exercise. Adding these two to your life will fix just about every single physical health problem you have. The ones it can’t fix, it will still make them, and you, feel better.
Half of the plate is just vegetables and nothing else, it looks like a lot, underneath the pile is some cos lettuce cut up, it makes the dish look bulkier than it is. All of the vegetables are fresh, close to it.
The potatoes are not included in the vegetables that you can eat and eat and eat. Continuously munch out on potatoes, or other starchy vegetables and you will find it difficult to lose weight. You can tell the difference too, potatoes really have to be cooked to be eaten, all the ones on my plate, plus a few more, like broccoli and cauliflower, can all be eaten raw and enjoyed. Starch based vegetables not so much.
Potatoes and other starchy foods are carbohydrates, look this up, it’ll help you to understand. It’s sugar but not sugar at the same time. One third of the plate is carbohydrates, potatoes, meeting those guidelines again.
The potatoes on the plate are perfect, for two potatoes, I first boil them until they are just soft, not too soft but it doesn’t matter if they are. Also does not matter if they are not soft enough to eat by the time the boilding finishes.
Next, drain the water, put the potatoes back in the pot and on the stove at a high heat, keep shaking the pan as it heats up. This is to remove the water content, only need to do it for thirty seconds, do not need to be dry. It also makes the outsides of the potatoes a bit course and this is where the beautiful colour and crunch comes from.
Now I put about a tablespoon of olive oil, any oil is fine, it’s fuck all, a teaspoon of salt and a few shakes of pepper. Today I finely chopped parsley and added it too, there was some in the fridge, why not. To finish her off there are two ways, I put these in the air fryer for 15 minutes and 180 degrees celsius, alternatively pre-heat your oven to the same temperature and roast them for 20 minutes, checking and shaking them up after 12. I also do a halfish way shake using the air fryer, but not necessary, not in either case really.
Hot tip, put the pan you are using to bake the potatoes in the oven as it heats up, it helps with the overall evenness and browness.
Hey presto, perfect potatoes. Cut the potatoes anyway you want, make chips, roasted style, random cool shapes, whatever. Change the stuff you put on them around. With this you can make countless different chips, potatoes, loaded potatoes and other potatoes based awesome combos. It’s one recipe that arms you with many many recipes.
Back to the salad. No rocket science, shit I like. A variety of colours. This is all you need to know about vegetables, nothing more, colours, as many as you can. Each colour of a vegetable represents the contents of it, the vitamins and minerals it contains. Lots of different colours means you are getting a huge variety of this great stuff in your body all the time. Cooked versus raw, yeah try to do both, but really the best thing is to start eating the vegetables whichever way you can.
The skins buds, eats the skins, the skins have the highest concentrations of all of the great stuff that is in the fruit.
Fruit is a little different, it contains sugar, fructose. A few bits of fruit a day is great, but with all sugars if you eat too much of it the body struggles to process it, the pancreas can start to struggle to produce the insulin required. Insulin is needed to break down the sugar. This struggle is what leads to type 2 diabetes, I’ll talk about this in another heading, I reckon you know which one.
There are a few non-vegetables in the salad, raw cashews, these are great fat, great unsaturated fat. When they are roasted the composition changes to a higher content of saturated fat. We are going to talk about this too with the fatties but still I recommend a little reading. Unsaturated fat is better for us, that is all we need to know now. All though this is a great fat, nuts in general are pretty much just fat. I can eat a lot of these I need the energy but if you ate as much as I do you would definitely not lose weight.
The flavouring all comes from the stuff I put in, no sauce bar a drizzle of olive oil, again another great unsaturated fat. Olive oil, the gold standard in cooking oils, great source of unsaturated fat, but also high in saturated fat so not too much. The other flavour things are some olives, sundried tomatoes and the feta cheese of course. Then a few shakes of salt and pepper and I’m ready to eat.
Almost forgot the meat.
This is maybe 150 grams of meat on the plate, it is more than enough. More than enough for me, for you, for everyone. We Australians are disgustingly wasteful with our meat consumption.
Yes, we need it, fuck off anyone saying we don’t. If I do not eat meat my vegetable, nut and everything else consumption goes up ridiculous amounts, I cannot put enough food in my body. With meat, 150 grams or so every two days, sometimes more often, I eat what you see on my plate. It is a massive difference.
Besides, I don’t give a rat’s arse about your opinion, that we don’t need meat, we weren’t designed for that. What rubbish, absolute rubbish, when the oldest living continuous civilisation, yes civilisation, were omnivores. We have been eating meat for at least 65 thousand years, evidence starting to point towards 60 thousand more. Cave paintings from the Australian Aboriginal people show this beyond doubt, these are oldest history, as far back as you can ever know. They ate meat, so, again, fuck off ignorant cunt who thinks you know something about the time before time when the writing is literally on the wall for this argument, dickhead.
The other half of the meat, I put it there one to show you what medium looks like and I’ll use it tomorrow for something, easier just to cook the whole thing at once. This is pretty much bang on medium, just how I like it. Medium means it is not too bloody but not completely brown. I can go a few shades either way with this one and be very satisfied.
Now the cooking, god so easy. Make sure first the steak is at room temperature before cooking, you will get the best result. This one was thawed from frozen before I cooked it. Then sprinkle both sides with a little salt, pepper and oil. Massage it in, really get into it too, give a good massage, feel that meat, get to know it!
Bring your pan to a medium hot temperature. Have a glass of cold water next to you, dip your finger in and the sprinkle the water on the pan as it heats up. You want to listen for the sizzle, you can even practice this without cooking anything. As the pan heats up the sizzle will get louder and louder, it will give off more and more steam.
For this you want to hear an obvious stizzle, for a stream of steam to be coming off but not too vigorous. Chuck your steak on and immediately turn the pan down a little bit, still medium heat, but a little less aggressive than the start. The higher heat at the start helps sear, rend, the fat but it will burn the steak before it is ready.
Now just wait. Watch for blood to start coming to the top of the steak. If you turn it as soon as the blood appears you are working in rare territory, if there is heaps of blood getting towards well-down. Experiment with it and you’ll get it right. I wait for obvious blood on top but the steak not swimming in it. Now I turn it, don’t change the heat this time.
Now wait again, same process. This side will be quicker. Now take it off, leave it on the chopping board for five minutes and you’re good to go. Resting this is called, the five minutes, I don’t remember why it is needed but I know my steak tastes great when I do it so I do it.
How easy was that buddies?
The beautiful beautiful aspect to this steak is there is no sauce, just a little salt, pepper and oil. When you learn to cook meat well you don’t need the sauces and gravies anymore.
Fibre, greatness
I just cannot believe it when I see this fat newsreader who does not have a neck. Well, he does, it is just covered in chins. This is a role model to our children, do you not understand this Australia? God, I really really really want to say other stuff here, imagine it for yourself, I imagine you get the jist by now.
Nutri-bullet, I’m not interested in advertising but everyone knows this name, it’s the cup above, I highly recommend getting this thing or its competitors. Get one of these, make your own smoothies and then return to Boost. You’ll ask yourself, like I do, how I am still thirsty for three weeks after drinking this?
The answer is the sugar content, the sugar without fibre content, these things are saturated in sugar. It is how the greedy are leading you with their deception.
Yes, the sugar in boost comes from the fruit, it is fructose. However, it is concentrated, a whole lot of the fibre is taken out and only the part that keeps you hooked remains, or mainly.
Fibre, this is in real fruit, other stuff too, look it up, it helps you to feel satiated, full, it is a big thing that registers in your belly telling your brain you do not need more food. Without this, we can drink and eat sugar from fruit without giving it a second thought. It is also absolutely necessary in gut health and being able to pass healthy shits.
A test, drink the above smoothie for ten days, just this and water. Change the fruits around as much as you want, use vegetables and nuts too, like Boost, plant based materials, but nothing else with the exception of the different milks. Drink as many as you want, no need to be uncomfortable when participating in science. As much as I don’t want to recommend it, do the same at Boost. With your own experiment and experience what are your results? How are your shits passing?
The above smoothie was awesome, really beautiful and it shows some real good tools for you to know.
Yoghurt is one of the ingredients, a couple of tablespoons worth, probiotics. This is where they come from, you don’t need other rubbish, just add some yoghurt to your smoothie and you have it covered. Any flavoured yoghurt is fine too, fruit based, not sugar, syrup or flavouring based. If you need to look for the ones that are high in probiotics, but they all are just about, it’s yoghurt for fuck sake.
The banana at the bottom is frozen, it was brown when I put it in the freezer, brown and soft, it was very unappealing to eat. It is absolutely as perfect as can be for a smoothie. This stage of a banana is just pure great fibre filled sweetness, freeze her up and you basically have bananna ice cubes.
Up top is frozen raspberries from the store. I usually buy my purple fruits frozen. Sadly, I do this because they are so much cheaper, I don’t understand this. Great news everybody, the snap frozen fruits and vegetables on the shelves are equally as good as the fresh variety. No need for guilt here, buy what you can afford, food in bellies comes before environmental ethics. You’re doing the right thing, the best thing you can do for your family, doing your best to do your best.
Purple/blue coloured fruits are full to the brim with antioxidants, more so than other colours. You can check this term out for yourself, it is not necessary for our purposes.
The quality of the snap frozen stuff is in the technology. Freezes super-duper quickly keeping all the great stuff in. When you eat them as they are they aren’t as good as fresh stuff but nutritionally they are exactly as fantastic.
Then just some stuff, strawberries that were in the fridge. I was looking for almond or some other milk but there was none, I’m tripping, they are easier on my belly than cow’s milk during these times. All milks are great, all of them, PROVIDED they include calcium. Milk is the major source of calcium for the body, calcium is absolutely desperately required in healthy bones and teeth, especially developing those bones to become healthy.
Now that you know the basics of reading a food label you can start to expand it. Calcium will be a heading on one too, it’ll tell you what you need to know.
Calcium needs time, do some research but I’ll talk about it with the exercise crew, it is great and really interesting to talk about in relationship to human movement.
Oh, all this stuff, yeah I’m qualified. Went a good way through a physiotherapy degree before doing a bitsa degree, a bit of this, a bit of that, but everything human body related. The diet stuff comes from general interest and two years managing and developing a program to educate people on everything I am here. Together with dietitians, cardiac and diabetes nurses at Healthy Living NT wh did some beautiful things in this space over the two years. People like Alana, Chrissie, Karen, Shani, I want to mention you all, fantastic people, fantastic program, fantastic organisation.
I just ask them to be what they teach.
30 seconds now on the Bullet and the second photo is the result. All the greatness while including the greatness, fibre.
Qualified
I want to address this stupid word. The above, the education does not make me qualified, certainly not competent. What makes me qualified is lived, and continued living experience, every single thing I am telling you to do I do, every thing. I read labels still, all the time, move my body, clearly cook this type of food.
Drugs, I’m thinking you’re starting to understand I am not opposed to participating in those either!
My education, my interest, my hobby, gives me a beautiful way to talk about this from all points of view.
I have a few mates I do drugs with, hardcore sessions, the only reason to go here. It is a really tough but awesome time. These guys describe themselves as red-neck-hippies, I agree, they certainly are. I talk to them about this stuff, they understand.
I have walked in some highly educated spaces, smae thing, they understand.
Refugees, aboriginals, you, me, everyone. I am talking to everybody, my language makes this clear, you just have to see through some of the language. The language I put there intentionally. I don’t want to swear or call you names necessarily, but I do, my statement, which is on the site, I Am, explains this to you.
The important part is I am talking to everyone, my education helps me to make this possible. There is clearly a practical application to life here but it isn’t boring like most people think. In fact, it would be a pretty hard ask to be on the debate team that had to argue my life has been a boring one. I’d like to watch!
So my qualification is that I am sharing my life with you, this is all my life, a big part of it, I can talk about all this material until the cows come home. I worked on an 800+ head dairy farm once, they can come in pretty late. Most importantly I want to, I choose to, I really really want to get through to you.
Meat sauce
Learn to perfect meat sauce and the same recipe, exactly the same recipe with very subtle changes can become many things, many things for under $20. $20 that can feed the whole family, a family of six.
Meat sauce, it isn’t just meat, and if your kids don’t eat vegetables when they can see them I have a fix for that too. This one can be used for lots of stuff, spaghetti, tacos, toasted sangas, anything that mince goes great in.
In the sauce are the following ingredients, you can change them around as much as you want but the whole point is to include at least this many vegetables. I would generally add some beans, zucchini and broccoli too but they, what I have in the fridge, are being used for another purpose. Ingredients in order of cooking.
- Olive oil, or whatever you have
- 5/6 medium to large sized button mushrooms – diced small
- 1 rasher middle bacon – chopped small
- 2 garlic cloves or equivalent crushed garlic – diced fine and crushed
- 1 onion, any colour, medium to large size – diced small or sliced thin
- 2 medium carrots – depends, at least one diced small
- 250 grams mince, any mince, at room temperature (preferably)
- 2 tomatoes, chopped or a can of chopped/diced tomato
- 1/2 small capsicum, chopped small
- Small can 4-bean mix
- Parsley or other fresh herbs – finely chopped
- Chutney, kasundi, sauces
- Pepper
The above will make enough sauce for a family of four, maybe six, I do these ratios, plus a few more vegetables and get at least four meals, remembering I can eat.
A few things, no salt or anything in addition to the sauce is required. We don’t need much sauce for this, the vegetables do the work, bacon adds salt and base flavour with the oil, then the meat being cooked as it should be does most of the rest.
I’m not going to tell you how to cut shit up, dice, slice, chop, and all the rest. Look this one up, you will get better detail. The key to know is the bigger an ingredient the more you will taste in in your food, chop a carrot up big and you are going to get a good munch of carrot in your mouth, same as all other vegetables. This is great for spaghetti sauce, brocolli and one of the carrots I cut big, it gives a great crunch and bite to the dish.
For tacos, and for the base flavours you want to cut the bits and pieces small, the smaller the better, the smallness blends all the flavours together beautifully, given enough cooking time, and nothing dominates. Unless, of course, you saturate your dish in garlic, this will definitely be tasted. This emulsification, combining, is where real flavour comes from, let’s have a chat about it.
- Heat frypan to a medium sizzle and add a tablespoon of oil
- If your kids do not like vegetables put the bacon in now, cook it until it is nice and brown on both sides, but not crunchy and remove from the pan. Crunchy is too far but the dish will taste great still so no stress. Try to leave as much oil in the pan as possible, leave it all!
- If your kids are okay with vegetables add the mushrooms instead and cook until they start to become a little brown, stirring every now and again.
The mushrooms becoming a little brown is important, it shows you that most of the water has been cooked out and they are starting to become what mushrooms should be. Mushrooms, food and psychedelic, are about 80% water. Most people do not cook mushrooms enough, their texture is not appealing, the fungi does not reach its full potential. They need to be cooked a lot longer to get that beautiful firm bite that some restaurants get, and many fail at.
- Imagine this says 4, don’t know how to change it just yet. Add the bacon. Do not add the bacon if you pre-cooked it. Cook until the bacon starts to brown on both sides. Stirring every now and again.
- Add the garlic, stir, leave for 30 seconds
- Add the onion, stir to break it all up and leave for one minute
- Add the carrot, small cut up one/s only, stir.
- Turrn the heat down to medium, bang in the middle of your heat options and cook all together for at least 15 minutes, the longer the better, stirring every two to three minutes. If the sauce starts to stick to the pan too much turn the heat down, a little bit of sticking is okay, actually we want it in the ideal meat sauce world.
- Non-vegetable families after 20 minutes take this off the heat, add the tomatoes, capsicum and can of beans, chuck it in a blender and blend it all up as fine as you can get it, add a few tablespoons of water if you need to make it unrecognisable.
- Push all the vegetables around the side of the pan so the middle is as clear as possible and turn it up to high heat, as high as you can go, we want to hear that sizzle.
- After 30 seconds add your mince and using a wooden spoon break it all up, break it up so it covers the entire space in the pan you have just made. Now, listen, it will sizzle and steam and have a good old time. All you want to do is stir it every minute to start with, once it starts to go brown increasing stirring to every 30 seconds.
- When the meat is brown all over, maybe has a little black on some parts mix it back in with the vegetables, this is where you add your blended sauce vege-unfriendly families and return the bacon to the pan.
- Cook for another minute or so on high, and turn the pan back down to the medium of all mediums, the middle medium. Add the tomato, big carrot and can of beans. Zucchini here too if you are using zucchini
Cans of tomatoes, beans, vegetables, fish and all the rest, the next label reading addition. Sodium, this is another word for salt. Try to choose the product which contains the least sodium per 100grams. You want to look at the per 100 grams column when comparing food, not per serving. Per serving changes from product to product and company to company. You also know a bit about sodium without reading the label, if a product has no added salt written on it in big writing you can pretty much guarantee this is the one you want.
- Add three tablespoons worth of whatever sauce you use, three tablespoons combined, not of each. Go to work with the wooden spoon and the pan, you want to try and get all that good stuff off the bottom, it is pure flavour, add a little water if need to, this is called deglazing. I generally go just under three tablespoons of a spicy tomato chutney/kasundi and a teaspoon of worcestershire sauce.
- Add water, preferably hot/boiling water to the pan, only enough to start seeing it come through the meat sauce, not covered all the way over.
- Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to a medium-low so that it is simmering (bubbling) gently and leave to cook until it becomes a beautiful rich colour and most, but not all, of the moisture is absorbed. The longer this takes the better the flavour will enhance, you only need to stir every 10 minutes or so.
- If you are having beans and brocolli, add them 5 minutes before the dish is finished, spinach is great to add here too. Their colour will absolutely pop, they’ll add a nice fresh crunch to the dish, and, well, I love them so I add them.
- Sprinkle over parsley
- Add salt and pepper, more sauce to taste
Hot tip, you can always add more salt, sauce and pepper but you can’t take it out. It is much easier to add flavour once a dish is cooked than to try and make it less rich.
If I was having this with spaghetti, the noodles/pasta are the carbohydrates for the dish, there is a small amount of meat and a truckload of vegetables. The plate will meet the guidelines again, packed full of great shit. Tacos, soft-shell, the soft shells are pretty much bread, carbohydrates again. I have no idea what the hard shells are made of.
Beautiful beautiful simple spaghetti all for, including the pasta under $20.00. Eat this a couple of times a week, get that walk into you daily and you will start to see great results.
Mince and meat, lean cuts are the best option from a health perspective, this means that they have less fat. The label will tell you so but they are more expensive, in a dish like this where there is bugger all meat don’t worry about. Generally you can tell if a meat is lean or not by the amount of white stuff, fat, adipose tissue (this is much different to white meat, such as chicken and fish, please do not confuse the two).
Good wood
There are a bunch of different opinions regarding which chopping board is better from a hygiene perspective. To use wood, plastic, silicone or something else for meat, everyone has something to say. However, it’s one of those times where you just have to think a little bit to know the best option for all options.
Hygiene in the kitchen. Absolutely important. Grumbly bellies from grotty food preperation conditions is not ideal. This is especially important if you start to grow your own mushrooms, extract your own DMT and generally, if you want to get a root. A basic clean with the dishes, a wipe down of surfaces is all that is required.
I don’t do anything at night, I leave it all for the morning, but I get it done. Of course, any food goes in the fridge overnight, creating weird smells and attracting vermon is also not ideal.
Wood. This is the best option for all options. It simply comes through the process of cleaning the board, what happens to the layers of it with extended use. Scrubbing wood with a scouring pad, the really course or metal cleaning pads, takes layers off as it is cleaned.
Ever seen a professional chefs favourite block? It will have a really big indentation in the middle of the board, sort of like a concave shape, it curves inwards. The reason behind this is the cleaning process. Understanding this, as you scrub the layers away you also scrape away old food, bacteria, dirt, grime and all the rest. It is the perfect board.
Cleaning a wooden chopping board takes a little care though. Soaking in water is not great, eventually it will expand if the water and the wood spend too much together. When it expands it loses its nice flat surfaces. To clean it, a little bit of detergent, give it a good scrub with the wet scouring pad and then rinse with cleaning running water and leave on one if its sides to try. Every now and then give it a light coat of oil, whatever you use to cook with, it will help protect the wood and keep it looking beautiful.
Having good wood, just about nothing better.
Monika
There is another write-up spining around in my head, the exercise and diabetes conversation, but my mother just popped in and I want to talk about her.
I reckon I may have made it very clear that I am a Mummy’s boy, absolutely, no shame about it. I love this woman, lying in death or not, I love this woman. My love for my mother does not need expansion or adjectives, emphasis, nothing. I love her.
Cancer we’ll talk about a lot here, my mother is both my beautiful story of cooking and the greatest grief I have felt. Her death was a small part of the grief, watching cancer do what it did, well, I am not sure the word grief does what we went through together justice.
I was by Monika’s side for the final eight or nine months of her life. It was the most beautiful nine months I have spent with another person. Already I have mentioned our relationship was really great, made even more great through our cooking phone calls, but then there were these final nine months.
Thank you Army, just thank you.
I needed to get out of the Army anyway, I needed to be alone, process 24 really difficult years. I did this at Mum’s without being alone for a moment, just not being together with people in the standard way.
When I moved in we were always in each other’s presence but vary rarely in other’s space. I never got under Mum’s skin, frustrated her, annoyed her, nor did she in return. We talked when we talked, maintained silence mostly, helped each other with jobs that needed a couple of people, cook and clean when the other wasn’t able.
For me I coldn’t help sometimes mainly through football injuries, hamstrings generally, one game a gash opened so wide by a stray knee my skull was visible. For Mum, she felt and looked like shit. Hair was going, teeth were falling out, her skin had gone a white paleness that I had to fight through in order to get to sleep at night. Heartbreaking is not the word when you watch someone you love go through cancer as a disease, and cancer as a treatment, chemotherapy.
Honestly folks, chemotherapy, I am not sure I consider it a miracle of science while it absolutely is. It is not raditiation therapy but it is, might as well be. A nuclear power plant being blasted into your body, the side effects are hideous. Full recovery post chemotherapy I’m not sure is possible.
Breast cancer started prior to the time I enlisted in the Army. One batch of treatment, okay let’s watch it, another batch, okay we’re good for now.
Benjamin enlists in the army a couple of years later. Mum has been in remission for a few months, gets a routine check-up, so sorry, Monika. Again, treatment, remission, happy family.
Not long after, another routine checkup, by the end I am sure the only thing going through Moni’s mind is what the fuck?
Mum never swore with the exception of one time, I did not witness it, I wish I did. Fred started calling out of the blue, Mum would chat all the while making sure he knew that no door was ever going to open back up for him. Fred and Marian, the second family mother, were clearly going through something, she had kicked him out. Fucking well done Marian! Well bloody done!! Fred started to tell Mum that Marian was a hooker and was selling her money to men, Mum ripped into him, called him a Fucking something-arather, and hung up the phone.
I do not remember what the word following fucking was but I can absolutely imagine Mum saying it. The look on her face she would have had, the same one she gave old Tommy Neylon up the hill when he tried to make a move on her, fuck it was funny, just a no way buddy, uh uh, not in this this lifetime.
Tommy not a bad bloke, Mum was understandably completely done with men.
So, she said it twice actually, the second time to me during our year together. She also told me that Fred physically hit her once, just once, she made it very clear that he ever think to do something similar again he will have no family to come back to.
My only complaint about this woman, she did not stand up to him for us like this.
I am sitting by her side when she reveals the contents of an envelope, it is November/December, thereabouts. Results in a letter from the latest round of treatment.
Look, this is true, I have never ever received a letter with medical results in my life, I have not heard of it in other cases and I do not know why my Mum did. I suspect, just suspect, that she asked for them this way so she didn’t have to be alone when she read them.
Oh mate, the smile, exhausted smile, but beautiful BEAUTIFUL smile none-the-less, remission. We got this Moni!
Everything possibly, finally, would get better for Mum. Her life was bloody tough. Besides raising four children alone basically, the husband of the first two, a beautiful man from what I understand, was killed working on train lines. Somebody tripped the electrical circuits while his hands were in a very vulnerable position, electrocuted him. Danyel was four maybe, Rachel two.
At the time Mum opened the letter all four of her kids were on their feet. Yeah, I was living with my Mum doing nothing but playing a computer game, World of Warcraft, and Aussie Rules but I did this becuase I knew I needed time to myself before I either went to University or Germany. Mum dying made the decision easy, get the fuck out, Germany for the next six months.
Danyel and Rachel had completed studies, Danyel both an apprenticeship in Fitting and Turning and a degree in Structural Engineering. Rachel a degree in Marine Biology. Both had good jobs.
Haha funny. Opa got stuck into Danyel one day, was working as a Fitter and Turner and he was not enjoying himself. Decided to give it away and go to uni. Opa, animated, I wasn’t there, but very animated for Opa. Banging onto Danyel about the great job he had, it was secure, everything he needed, why jeopardise it with something as stupid as books.
Oh, Opa, if you were still alive today buddy. Danyel while being a dick of a bloke, is happy, gives his kids everything they need, great food, and finances are not a problem. Danyel and his materialistic toy collection shows this in absolute evidence, you’d be alright with his lot in life these days matey.
Benjamin was on his way to Afghanistan, he was now a fully qualified diesel mechanic. Not the ideal place to be going of course but Mum’s evidence showed her one son came back just as he left, so will the other. Not exactly as he left, a few minor personality changes/shifts, and enough money in the bank account to make the only reason to work with his mate, Briggs, pure boredom at home. Game and all.
No responsibility, no cancer, the opportunity to build a life, to be her own person, finally.
Three days after the letter, maybe a a day or two after the disgusting stir fry Mum’s left arm puffed up something ridiculous, much more than usual.
Cancer, chemo, radiation treatment, is extremely hard on the body, put whatever your strongest word to emphasise something in place of where I say extremely. Lymphatic tissue builds up all over the place, this is kind of similar to water and oil mixed together, made of heaps of white blood cells, waste, and stuff that needs to be removed. The lymphatic system is basically a sewer system, kind of. White blood cells, disease fighting cells.
You’ll see most of the fluid buildup in feet and hands when lymphatic system issues starts to present. Gradually creeping closer to the body the worse it gets. These people are not obese, it looks similar, but very different tissue.
Mum’s left arm, not even over night, it scared us both. We had lunch together, 12.30 or so, three hours later I look up from whatever I am doing, to an almighty frightened look on Moni’s face. I followed her eye gaze to her arm, the whole thing, in hours, was almost unrecognisable as an arm. Litres and litres of fluid had just built up.
Had I have completed the massage course by now I would have been able to help her, offered lymphatic drainage massage, I did not know what a lymph node was yet.
Up until now, 24 year-old me now, my mother’s arm is the third most disgusting thing I have seen. Number two the bloke who cut his kneecap off with a chainsaw when I was about nine, number one the suiciding men in Iraq. Seeing my own skull in the mirror of the emergency room after the football incident did not compare.
There was no vomit, not a moment of thinking about how disgusting the scene was, it was pure heartbreak for both of us. Three days earlier great news, now this, it was not a positive presentation.
Her arm absolutely repulsed me, my body wanted to withdraw, the next words out of my mouth without a tear, without treating my mother like a damn victim were, ‘will it help if I massage your arm, Mum.’ I did not want to touch that fucking thing, I didn’t want to be in the same room as it, neither she did, moreso than me. She needed support and support only, I gave it to her without having a clue I was giving it.
I didn’t let me get in the way of my love for this woman, yeah buddies, I love my Mum. You can too, it’s okay.
She said no thankyou, massaged it herself and we got on with our business.
The next day she called the specialist, he advised her to come in. There were some other results he wanted to talk about that they took as a precaution. Blood samples, x-rays. Mum asked me to come to Melbourne with her, she had never asked anyone to accompany her before, we were both scared.
The doctor did not try to hide, him and Mum were friends by now, he was hurting knowing what he was about to say. He did it so beautifully, it was heartbreaking, the moment he said the last word I broke down.
‘Moni, the further tests have shown that your cancer has metastasised (changed and moved from one tissue in the body to another) into your shoulder region, it is an extremely aggressive cancer. The results have shown growth beyond a point that it may be possible to operate, we can do a further test to ensure but we have to do it today and get you into surgery immediately if it is possible.’
‘Monika, before this thing gets to your lungs you will need to have your entire right side of your body, starting at the shoulder, everything we can remove, removed.’
I could not take it anymore, I do not know how Mum didn’t break down as I did. It was terribly hard.
Mum just said, no, don’t bother, I feel it, it is in my lungs. The doctor replied that it was not a surprise, to make the last of her life as comfortable as possible, bring loved ones in, say goodbyes. A couple of weeks maybe.
Two weeks later I call my little brother in Afghanistan, maybe Iraq, whatever, tell him that Mum is in an induced come, to come home if he can.
Mum’s final moments, after spending every moment with her I was not there for them, it still hurts.
I did not want Benjamin to be alone. My Uncle who drove a very fast car and had proven beyond doubt that he was experienced in this area offered to pick Benji up from the airport but I said no, I will do it, he has been alone for long enough through this.
We were only thirty minutes away from Mum’s bed, we were together, when the phone call came through to say she was dead. 30 minutes from spending the last moment’s of the most important person in my world with her, 30 minutes from my little brother being able to say goodbye.
I got to say goodbye, he did not, nothing breaks my heart more than this.
The rest of the family, all of us except Alfred who did not make it over from Germany in time, were by her side. They recall the moment she passed away the bedside light came on.
Mum, Monika, Moni, what a way for her to say goodbye, after all she was a beautiful light to so many.
The stuff we add
I really hope you know to read a food label by now. Were you to do a little more research than the five minutes I recommended you would also know what to look for in the salt, or sodium category, other bits and pieces.
But Fred, I have a problem. When I make my food from your recipe it tastes good but it also tastes a bit bland buddy. Hot tip for ya matey, add a few teaspoons of salt and Bob’s your Uncle, perfect. Try it.
I hear you good buddy and thank you for your feedback but herein lies the issue with your diet, food doesn’t taste like food unless you add salt, sugar and other flavour enhancers.
Sugar and salt in particular do not add flavour to a dish, they enhance the flavours that are already there. Our body needs these things in small amounts, they have a function, but exceeding what the body requires is unhealthy.
Cool, write-up done, they’re unhealthy, we can move on.
No, buds, we don’t do this together. I do not care if you do not understand the science but we are going to understand the application of that science to our lives, it is our goal here. We understand the basic science and concepts together and beautiful things will happen in our space.
We’ll talk to salt, we have talked a lot about sugar and will continue to, I recommend you further research sugar in the mean time. I mentioned above sugar is a flavour enhancer rather than flavour. The theory, of course changes, when the sugar contains flavour, for instance honey, golden sugar, maple syrup, syrup flavouring such as caramel. Every word, and more, is another word for sugar.
Fruit, fresh fruit, is also full of sugar, it is natural sugar called fructose. Fruit also contains fibre, we talked about this already.
All sugar, no matter natural/organic/blessed by Buddha himself, all sugar will start to act exactly the same in our body when we start to exceed the recommended limits, fructose in fresh fruit no exception, hence fruit in our recommended daily dietary intake is less important than vegetables.
Please, do a little research before we open sugar up more. Of course we’ll talk to the very basics but still, a little work for yourself before I have to do it for you is a great step in looking after and empowering your own self.
Milk and dairy also contains sugar, in this instance the name of the sugar is lactose. This works a bit differently, we’ll come back to it at another time.
Salt, sodium, himalayan pink salt, sea salt, rock salt, fleur de sel, black lava salt, salt harvested from the testies of God itself, all just words for salt. Himalayan pink salt is absolutely no different than common iodised fine white salt on most tables in the 1970s, and now still. Do not listen to the rubbish around this, morons trying to confuse shit because their life is just as unhealthy as yours. These people just use fancy names for their rubbish and start thinking and telling you they are better than you due to the exclusivity. These people are Danyel’s, morons.
Excessive salt in our system has catastrophic effects when it is maintained chronically, for long periods of time. The excess can, does, and will lead to primarily high blood pressure, commonly known in cardiac (heart) circles as hypertension.
Hypertension increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease.
Stroke, let us mention this quickly. My Grandmother, Dad’s Mum, regularly would have little strokes. Half of Nikki’s body would go numb, basically become paralysed, the other side of her body fine. Grandma had to try and walk this out to recover, we would have to watch one side of her body trying to do what a body does, half of her face full of confusion and fear, the other side of the body doing nothing. The other side of her face just drooping, yeah buds, terribly hard to witness. Bugger all me and my immediate family in Australia, the bigger part of the family in New Zealand had to witness it regularly.
Heart attack and stroke have a sameness we need to discuss. Stroke and heart attack are both caused by a lack of oxygen, one to the heart, the other brain. In an attack there is no oxygen getting to a specific part of the heart. I cannot tell you the specific, it is never the same place for two people. The very moment an area of the heart muscle stops receiving oxygen it dies, instantaneously just about, it can never be brought back to life. Stroke, same for you buddies and your brain, you may have oxygen fully restricted in small patches, your brain and heart are slowly dying pals.
We cannot stop all stroke or heart attack, it is part of the machine that we are. We can however do things, educate ourselves, so we do not speed up the process.
Another symptom of excessive salt in the diet is fluid retention, this means pooling of fluid rather than the body removing it as waste, generally urinating. Question, where do you think the fluid pooling will present first? If you have come from the biomechanic space you can make a pretty good guess.
The extremities first, hands and feet. We have problems now, we do not know if the pooling is beacuse of excess salt, lymphatic system issues, obesity, diabetes, others. Treating me now is becoming a very difficult task, just the initial diagnosis.
Excess sodium, salt, many more things. What I have introduced you to is the important basics of our conversation, you have the foundation understanding, see if you can build on it.
To reduce salt and sugar in your diet without your food and coffee tasting like boring nothingness wean yourself off it.
Week one reduce the salt or sugar you add to your food by half a teaspoon, quart of a teaspoon, 2% of a teaspoon, whatever. Maintain for two weeks.
Week three reduce again, week five, week seven, week nine, week 11, 13, 15. Do you see the pattern? Excellent.
Smart people reading this simple explanation please do not allow your ability to understand the information before I have even written it dictate what is happening in your head. Lots of people are not given the opportunity to learn the information I am sharing, they are but we make people feel so shit because they do not understand things like we do, we create nervousness in each other because of it, we become too afraid to ask questions so we understand, we get left behind.
School, I could have continued acing all the way through, no problem. The only thing I had to do was ask my teachers to explain the words they used more simply. I was too afriad to, I watched as my mates and peers would hook into one another for not knowing simple shit, like Willie and fanis. He wrote the word in the search engine, I knew it was spos’d to be fannies, did not know how to spell it either. The other guys laughed so hard at him, he laughed too. I did not, I could see the embarrassment behind my beautiful mates laugh, I felt it in myself for myself. We joke about it big time now, Willy too, but then it was a different story.
Please buddies understand what I am trying to achieve here, understanding of one another.
You use so much salt because your mouth has become used to it, needs more and more to satiate itself, the mouth loves salt, it feels great. The greatness does not continue past our tongue.
Salt intake is a matter of consumption, the relationship to it, slowly change the relationship and your food, diet and overall health will improve considerably while barely noticing a change at all in the foods you already eat.
Often, you do not need to change a single thing about your diet except for reducing these two substances, sodium and sugar.
Feeling Corny
Corn and dim sims, two things the siblings have never become used to watching me eat. I don’t like stuff getting stuck in my teeth, I cut the corn off the cob. My favourite part of the dim sim is the pastry, I eat it by itself after eating the contents by themselves.
Corn, like so many fruits and vegetables in Australia I am not sure is corn. It is a closer version of corn than our watermelons are to watermelons, or pineapples to pineapples, sweet potato to sweet potato, they are all shit. Australian fruit and vegetable is completely bland and boring compared to, well, pretty much all 27 or 28 countries I have visited. The US excepted, I got the fuck out of there before I could eat anything other than a burger.
Yes, organic natural whatever place, your fruit and vegetables are awful too.
Ever had pineapple or watermelon in the Pacific Islands, Asia, South America? A sweet potato in New Zealand? First, you’ll wonder what you are eating, then realise it is something you know and wonder what you have been eating all these years.
You may not use pesticides, chemical, fertilisers or whatever else but your plant, seed, whatever is clearly engineereed within an inch of what it was once to be whatever you want to call it now. Yes, from absolute experience, organic highrope stander, your fresh food is fucking terrible too.
Markets, local markets, can find great stuff here, like real corn, sometimes.
I am not going to teach you how to cook corn but corn is a great food to learn to cook over an open flame. Take the husk/skin (known as the pericarp on corn) completely off and watch it every step of the way, wrap it in tin foil or, when you have it sorted out, cook it as it comes, pericarp and all.
Getting an even black char on corn, like the professionals, is an extremely easy thing to learn to do. Only takes a little patience, giving it a red hot crack. You can then apply this learning to other cooking episodes.
Even our shit corn we can make good just by the way it is cooked, a flame and food, is there anything better? If you get the opportunity ask my beautiful niece Ainslie.
I didn’t choose Ainslie for Ainslie, remembering the children in my life have made-up names, it was obvious. Ainslie, this beautiful voice, Ainslie, my niece version, beautiful voice. She has the most beautiful calm tone in her voice, even when she is upset it is still there. Her voice I could listen to all day, it is beautiful, it comes from her Dad. Ainslie in general is phenomenally beautiful.
We learn the same too, I taught her to cook corn to perfection on the barbecue. She loves knowing the basics, how a food gets from the starting point to how it ends up on the plate. Being told to do things a certain way just because is absolutely no good for Ainslie, she wants to learn, she is great to teach. Ainslie likes to know the details without them being complicated, very familiar.
Ainslie’s sister Emily is a little different. We’ll talk about her more too, just an introduction here. I call her after a ridiculously beautiful female I know, Emilie. Emily’s beauty is a little different to Ainslie. Emily is Emily and nobody else, never ever. She is her own person and absolutely nothing can be done to try and make her anyone else. Yep, she frustrates people, more than frustrates them, but they don’t stay frustrated for long. Emily, an absolute needle in haystack. Cannot wait to talk about her more.
Corn, give it a whirl, then give it a whirl in some place where it actually tastes like corn.