first family picnic - from handheld [edited by keyboard]

I had a really great time with our picnic. Queen's Birthday weekend, so MK has Monday holiday. We took this opportunity to snatch a picnic lunch at the local park/reserve.

Dad, baby and I made our preparations and we set off, armed and shouldered with food, tea, umbrella and camera. It was a loverly sunny day - atypical winter weather. It was truly more akin to late spring. Young Sir didn't really need any blankets at all.

It was a quiet walk with hardly any traffic around. Birds sang, fooled into thinking it was mating and fighting season. The dew from the grass steamed into the air.

We found a decent picnic spot, and lunched. I'm very pleased with the lunch: I enjoy planning things to eat, even if I'm not very good at this.

A few photos were taken; we showed the various species of birds (sparrow, pigeon, pukeko, ducks, gull) to baby.

Baby showed signs of fussiness.

We wandered home, with the burden of food lightened.

sent from handheld

test.

I'm using the Opera browser developed for Nintendo DS. There are some drawbacks, including that of website design/layout (including Blogger). The best site I've seen so far is the BBC news site [I don't know how to add a link using this browser].

As a generic update: I'm a first-time parent, and I've learned quite a bit.

1. never wake a sleeping baby.
2. a baby won't sleep easily if - it is hungry; it is wet; it has wind; it is too much stimulated.
3. it is best to practice Elimination Communication [allow kid a chance to poo and pee in toilet], as it is cheaper on nappy money and laundry time.
4. allow 4x more time to complete doing stuff.
5. knitted wool garments really rock - they stretch more than cotton, so last longer in terms of fitting the kid.
6. Infacol.

Recipe: Bah Kut Teh (meat bone tea)

After effects: Oh joy! oh rapture! Savoury, robust, satiating. And so simple to make!

Wikipedia has some background about this traditional soup.

There are many variations.

• www.indobase.com
• www.101cookingrecipes.com
• rasamalaysia.com
• www.malaysianfood.net

And Yeoh's Bah Kut Teh is a business dedicated to this dish. I'm salivating...

The core ingredients are: meaty ribs (pork for preference) separated, black peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon bark, garlic, water, dark soy sauce. Stew it all for approximately 1.5-2 hours, until it is fragrant and you just want to lift the lid and ladle it into your bowl.

The variations to the dish involve the proportion of ingredients, and the additional flavourings to the ingredients. Just like soup really - add whatever leftover dried flavourings you may have in the home: dried shitake mushrooms, ginsing root, shallots, red dates, goji berries, preserved mandarin peel, white peppercorns, sugar, salt. Whatever flavours you want to slurp down and which will match the essential dark savouriness.

Verse: Pacific jewel

There once was a beaut Pacific jewel,
With assets to make corporates drool;
We would often be told
"Your assets must be sold!"
And then there was nothing left - we're fools.

Verse: Ergonomics 101

Limerick:
There once was a weird human science
Which decried scales of subjective reliance;
Yet test and re-test
Showed proof for the best,
For now skepticism is in abeyance.

Review: Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale

Brief summary: It's interesting to see all the different versions of LRRH stories. Fairy tales are not for little kiddies.

Middling summary: It is a very good collection of the variations on the LRRH theme ranging from old wives tales, Louis IV's court, the Brothers Grimm, Roald Dahl, to "The Company of Wolves" movie (1984) (notable actors: Angela Lansbury, David Warner) (incidentally this video is available in The University of Auckland Library: Audio Visual Library) and "Freeway" movie (1996) (starring Reese Witherspoon, Bokeem Woodbine, Kiefer Sutherland and Brooke Shields) . The images included in the book is also quite fascinating. There's quite a lot of write up about sex.

Upshot: I found this collection of LRRH stories a very interesting read. All the analysis about the sexuality of the tale throughout the ages was tedious to me. However, humanity is all about sex so I guess it is the only natural conclusion.


Book:
Orenstein, C. (2002). Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked. NY: Basic Books.

Diary: Pep-Talk

I've been working hard in the past few weeks - overtime with early starts and late finishes. I'm feeling rather fragile. So it was very nice to hear from a colleague "Hey, thanks for the good work".

Which was a lot more encouraging than another colleague's comment "We've all got to do a little bit more to help *name of colleague on bereavement leave*. I've been working overtime in the past year I've started".