Learning to be a Master Thermomix Chef

Dish too big!

For most of my life I've survived with minimal cooking skills. When my wife decided to buy a Thermomix TM6 I decided I needed to know how to use. No use having all this whizz-bang, internet-connected cooking stuff if you don't use it.

So, I started off looking at simple recipes. The first I created was a chili-con-carne. It went okay, but the quantity was a bit large for two. Not to worry, we're accustomed to making more than we need for one meal and freezing it for later meals when neither of us feels like cooking.

I needed help from my wife in relation to a couple of measurements and spices.

My second effort was a Shepherd's Pie and all went well until I had to put the pre-prepared mashed potato onto the mince and vegetable portion and found the dimensions of the casserole dish were too wide to cover with the potato mash available. Such is life.

Noted in my notebook: "Next time use a deeper casserole dish with less surface area on the top." Check.

It was an interesting exercise and the end result was a tasty shepherd's pie as good as I've tasted. There's enough tucked away for another meal too.

Since then I've cooked a buttered chicken meal and next is to learn how to cook a loaf of bread.

Naturally, while cooking of an evening, one has to have a liquid supplement. I chose a McGuigans Pinot Noir. McGuigans is one of my favourites. They cater for buyers in the top end with some expensive wines and people like me who buy cheaper wines.

Many of their less expensive wines have won multiple awards and are of top quality, so you can imagine how good their top of range wines are.

Although I live in the Barossa Valley, one of the largest wine-growing regions in Australia, I buy McGuigans produced in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. However, I'm not a traitor to the Barossa as McGuigans has interests in most, if not all of the South Australia wine growing regions including Clare, the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley.

If you haven't tried a McGuigans, I highly recommend it.

Stay well.

Dreaming

Most dreams I have tend to be erotic; an enticing woman who rescues me from an extended period of celibacy, but by the time I wake up, it's regrettably a dim, distant memory.

I don't think I dream often, or if I do, I don't recall dreaming.

Last night was different.

I dreamt that I had a conversation with a being, probably an extraterrestrial or perhaps some type of spirit being.

The entity told me that when we die, we reincarnate. This was a disappointment to me because, although I've had a wonderful life, the thought of having to do it all again is daunting. I long for the self-destruction - the black, unknowingness, ceasing to exist for eternity. Not having to do all those things that being alive requires.

The entity assured me that living beings continue to reincarnate until they and the planet reach a certain level of development and then bingo, all will revert to a spiritual existence out there somewhere in the deep, dark depths of someplace or other.

After we move on, the entity said, all life on this planet will have gone and the remnants of it will decay, rot and eventually return to dust. The oceans will evaporate and eventually disappear in many billions of years, the Earth will be like Mars and other planets in our Universe - devoid of life and apparently uninhabitable.

Eventually, our universe will implode into a black hole where all matter condenses to the size of a pinhead only to explode and create yet another of many universes on which life will evolve and the cycle commences again.

It's all too deep for me. I'm sure my favourite Persian philosopher Omar Khayyam had it right when he wrote the verse above.

Learn about Lucid Dreaming.

The Miracle of Late Life Popularity

I've never been so popular as I have since I turned 70.

As you can see by the image at left, just a few of the apparently attractive and needy young women who want relationships with me, I'm very popular.

It doesn't matter that I'm almost past my use-by date, or that I'm married, these young ladies are looking for a serious relationship with me. So they say.

I'm flattered.

However, at the back of my mind, I envisage a group of people sitting in a poorly lit room, littered with take-away food packages, beavering away snatching photos from the internet and pretending to be the lovely ladies you see here.

When I decided to respond to a couple of these "photos", it's a similar story:

1. They live alone
2. Are unemployed or between jobs
3. Have trouble writing a complete sentence using sound grammar
4. Are largely monosyllabic - "Ok"
5. Are looking for a serious relationship - age or marital status doesn't matter
6. Use the term "Babe" frequently (Maybe this is an Americanism, who knows)

After serving 12 years in police work and a lifetime of living, I can smell a scam a mile away.

Some of these photos say they are looking for a sugar daddy. At least that is honest and could have potential if they are actually the attractive young women they claim to be. 

One lady I chat with at least seems genuine, but in reality, you never know what is at the end of your text message. One way to decide, I guess, is when they tell you their mother has cancer and needs an operation, could you help with some finance.

Or perhaps, it might be a suggestion to fly from the US to Australia to meet you provided you buy a ticket or send them cash to buy one.

In life, everybody needs something. You can bet your bottom dollar these people need something too, whoever they really are.

Every year, millions of dollars are scammed off gullible, unsuspecting Australians, many from relationship scams. If you need a relationship, think about hiring a local escort, at least you'll get something for your money.

 

Sales Sites Need to State Currency Being Used

There I was, paused to press the BUY button on a sales site when I thought I had better check whether I was paying in US dollars or AU dollars.

Currency exchange rate

There's a vast difference at present as can be seen in the image.

So I checked and suddenly, the product that I thought would have been a good deal for me turned into a bad deal because of the exchange rate.

This reminded me of a few years back when I used to create internet sites and audit the sites of others to ensure compliance with the: Australian Guidelines for Electronic Commerce.

One of the requirements is spelled out as:

"All information referring to costs should indicate the applicable currency, including guidance on how to get information on exchange rates, or a link to a site where such information may be found."

If an ecommerce site is selling widgets in the USA, then one would expect the currency to be in US dollars; similarly, an Australian ecommerce site would be expected to display currency in AU dollars.

This was much simpler when the US used the two vertical lines through the S and Australia used a single line. Now, both US and AUS use the single vertical line it's confusing.

Where sites are actively advertising internationally, although these guidelines are only valid for Australian businesses, it is good business practice to make it as easy as possible for someone to buy your product or service. Doesn't that make sense?

It's very easy to install a link to a currency calculator and indicate the currency you are using where it's not readily identified.

There's nothing more annoying than going through a purchase routine only to find at the end of it that the price is in USD when you thought it was in AUD. Obviously, US customers purchasing from an AUD site wouldn't have the same problem since they'd be paying much less.

What do you think? Are you an Australian consumer who has paid much more than you thought because your purchase was in USD?