lovely love

Ladies and gents, that envelope contains the first love letter I ever wrote to my Josh- back on February 14th (that's right) 2005. wow :) I think I explained this before - how we weren't quite dating and he didn't know my feelings were reciprocal until I gave him this letter. It was one of my most anxious moments sitting beside him as he read through it.

Now, as you know, I am quite a creative person and always have to be doing something. Before the blog (and you) got all my creative attention... there was Josh. I suppose you could say he was my muse. I wrote stories, comics, poems, letters, drawings and little love notes by the bucket-load. Actually, more like... by the BOX load- as he stored them in some gift boxes and shoe boxes. I realised not long ago that he didn't seem to have those sacred documents anymore. He explained they were still in the wardrobe of his old bedroom at his Mum's house. You could imagine my shock. I had to retrieve them before they became house-hold reading material. I had this horrible mental image of his mum and sister perusing the collection over breakfast going "Ooh, here's a good one!". I didn't want them to know exactly which parts of Josh I liked best, expressed via the art of poetry. I didn't REALLY write a penis poem or anything like that, but there are some fairly incriminating documents. Here are some pics of the more creative and less sickening displays of my affection..


 I made this booklet for Josh when he got Chicken Pox in 2005. We had only been dating for a few months and I wasn't allowed to visit him as his house was a disease-ridden quarantine zone. I'm pretty sure his brother and sister both had the pox too. Josh was 18 at this point so it hit him pretty hard. He was zonked out on Phenergan for about 2 weeks and I didn't hear from him. Of course I was freaked out and thought he was dying. Always melodramatic. When I got finally in touch with him he could remember reading the messages but then fell asleep for 3 days or something and forgot about them. What a relief. My boyfriend was now a junkie :) Here's a picture i stuck in there of us 'just as friends' at a dress up party in early 2005.

I love his embarrassed smile- it slowly rises from one corner like a fish-hook pulling at his lip :) I used to call it "The Hook" naturally. Below is a pirate book I made for some anniversary. Maybe like 74th day anniversary or something ridiculous like that.

When Josh tried to grow his first full beard I noticed the red hairs in it that I'd never noticed before- so came the name "Captain Red Beard". OMG check this out...

That's me nearly 6 years ago in full Pirate garb :) Anyway part of the reason I went through all the letters and drawings was because our 6 year anniversary is coming up this month and I was feeling nostalgic. As you can imagine, we toned down the amount of letters and gifts to one another and now do Birthdays, Yearly Anniversaries and Christmas only. It was getting insanely time consuming and it almost became this intense game of One-Upmanship that saw us colouring in pictures at 3am by lamp-light. I remember one Birthday Josh made me close my eyes while he put the finishing touches on a card he was making me. DRAW FOR ME JOSH, DRAWWWWW *whip-crack*

It is nice to look back on all that stuff, and it's also interesting to read what I had to say back then. I feel like I have been through a lot in the last 6 years have been doing lots of soul searching lately as I feel like I have changed beyond belief. Reading the letters, it is just clear to me now that I am still the same Jade... I just have a more busy and complicated life so I kinda live for myself and don't make a million presents all the time. I get too caught up in the trivial dramas of day-to-day life and forget birthdays until a week prior - not enough time to make comics. I would like to do more nice things for others this year - hopefully i can share this with y'all :)

Dish 20) Japanese Curry!!

Howdy Pardners! So I didn't cook much last week because I was super social and busy and ate at restaurants about 4 nights of the week... so i started slacking off a little. Remember how I said that on Thursday at work, I had an exciting food day?? Well it was because the work experience girl Shiho cooked some Japanese food for us for lunch!! Here she is: 

She made Kare (curry) Katsudon! The name means Curry, cutlet and rice. It is one of those easy modern home style Japanese dishes.

My first experience with Japanese curry was in 2003 on my Year 11 school camp. We arrived in Osaka and made our way to our host school in the searing heat on little to no sleep. We arrived during 'Culture festival' (Bunkasai), so the school resembled more of a circus than a school. Culture festival is basically an annual event where students at most schools display their talents. Because most Japanese schools encourage students to join multiple sports and culture clubs, this festival offers them an opportunity to show off their skills to peers, family members, and in my experience - Australian exchange students. Classrooms are re-decorated to resemble shops, gameshows, kitchens, dance halls etc. I remember a verrrrry messy game show involving water and flour.. the place was crazy! But fun! One of the classrooms was transformed into a Curry hut, and I had my first Japanese curry with steamed rice amidst the culture madness. Good times.

My second memorable Japanese curry memory is when I went to Japan in 2008 and kept eating it at cheap 24/7 places like Sukiya. Oh I remember a cool place called Yoshinoya too, mmmm. Cheap and filling. I hear that there is a Yoshinoya in Sydney now... for those who are interested!! Anyway, I recently found out what makes the Japanese curry flavour so distinct. The answer, my friends, is Curry blocks. This is what they look like in packet form:

I bought this after trying Shiho's curry and decided to try my hand at the dish I love ever so much (^_^) It was about $3 or $4 or something from any random Asian grocer, and it makes about 5 serves. You can get bigger packets, mild or spicy and there are multiple brands! Directions were in English with this brand, and it was super easy to follow and make! Here is mine:

Here's what I did...

1) Cook diced chicken in a glug of olive oil until almost cooked, then add chopped onion, potato and carrot and stir for a few minutes,

2) Cover with water and bring to the boil.

3) Turn the heat down and simmer until everything is soft. The packet recommends 10 minutes but i did almost 30 minutes!

4) Turn the heat off, and crumble in the curry block. Stir through until dissolved and return to simmer for 5 minutes until the sauce is thick and fragrant.

5) Serve over rice and bury your face in the bowl until all eaten.

Josh and Maki were around when I made this dish and they absolutely loved it! I think they both were impressed by how simple yet tasty it was.

So now you've met my new friend Shiho ^_^ we have been emailing eachother and practicing our languages! She is studying English here until February so hopefully she can learn some stuff from me - and hopefully not the WRONG stuff. She already asked me what "yo yo yo" means, as she saw it on subarashiiblog's last post. Uh-oh now i'm teaching her gangster slang haha! Anyway, next week we are going out for dinner to eat some Japanese food, hoorayyyy! I told her how I like to call Takoyaki "TakoYUMMY" because I love them so much... and she thinks it is the funniest thing she has ever heard!! She also gave me lots of compliments and my head grew so big that I almost couldn't get on the train after work. But she is right... I AM cute, and funny and smart and my Japanese IS perfect, and i do know EVERYTHING about Japanese food... her words, people. Her words. Hahaha! (^_^)'

Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival

*sniiiiiffff* ah, can you smell that? That my friends is the unmistakable aroma of roses and horse shit, or if you are from around here: Spring Racing Carnival. Some of you may hear these three words and literally jizz your panties with the thought of crowds and booze and betting and high heels and the hot summer sun. I, however, detest the words. It is not only my slight dislike for the hot outdoors, my inability to wear heels for more than a few hours, my lack of money, my lack of betting know-how, nor my distaste for large crowds of australians drinking in one place. It is more the memories that haunt me. The memories of that fateful Spring where I stupidly agreed to work as an Ice-Cream vendor at the Melbourne Cup.


I suppose teenage stupidity and money lust were to blame... or maybe I had sniffed one too many gluesticks. Whatever the case, the fact still remains that it was one of the most horrible experiences of my working life. This repressed memory has been locked up tight folks, and now that I start to think about it, a few details are coming back. I must have been in high school still, as I recall a few people from my year level being roped in also. We didn't know what to expect, we were promised the world during that morning newsletter announcement...

On the first day I turned up at the deserted grounds wearing my black leather shoes, black pants and t-shirt. Thankfully the catering company were kind enough to provide me with an oversized black polo-shirt and a fashionable cap. Once looking the part, the sexy part that is, I was partnered up with the class clown and briefed on the day's proceedings. Basically we were to take an Ice-Cream cart (one on wheels with an umbrella) and pick any spot we like to stand for the whooooooole day and sell ice creams. Oh and the best part: we got to wear bum-bags!! awesome :
So out we went with the promise of a packed lunch and a lunch break down the track. Now, this was an unnaturally hot Spring, unlike this current one, I remember it being nearly 40 degrees! This is not one of my 'exaggerations' either, it was actually super hot in the sun in all those black clothes and i got a burnt nose despite my fashionable cap. The part we found out on the day was that we didn't actually earn the amount we were told, we could earn UP TO that amount as we were working on commission! So we actually made a lot of money that day - the class clown was a great entertainer and the more drunk everyone got, and the more shoes that ended up in hands, the more ice-creams we seemed to sell.
The second day, however, was not so great. I was partnered with the biggest douchebag imaginable, and someone stole our chuppa chup display as a form of protest against our overpriced wares, and threw them into the surging crowd of outstretched hands like the fire-truck santa that used to drive around my suburb on Christmas morning. On a side note, that was amazing! We would hear the siren and bolt outside to scramble for lollies on the grass, and would see children emerge from houses who we didn't know existed.

Amazing. Anyway, back to the story. I remember on that second day, I heard more complaints about overpriced $3.90 Magnums than ever before. These days they probably cost that much anyway. I also remember some paraletic guy raging to me that Souvalakis were being sold for $12! TWELVE DOLLARS!! I'm pretty sure I've ordered a lamb shish with tabouli and cheese and cooked onion or whatever brings the price up to that amount these days. Scary. I think on that hot awful day I earned only $30. I don't even remember if there was a third day - if there was I didn't go back.

These days when my friends start getting excited about the races, I get sweaty and self conscious and start feeling like I am being swarmed by people and see chuppa chups raining down from the sky, burying me. And then some drunk lady with no shoes grabs me and tells me how the line for the toilet was so long that she pissed herself. Maybe one day I will grow up and actually think that buying a new outfit (complete with hat), overpriced food and drink, losing my bets, getting burnt, sore feet, and being surrounded by drunk bogans and scrags (yes, i said it: scrags), and then having to get a train home is the epitome of a 'nice day out'. Maybe. But I doubt it. Maybe if i got a VIP invite and was in a special tent with free everything rubbing shoulders with Melbourne's best F- grade celebs I would have a better experience. Maybe.

dish 13) poor man's eggplant parmigiana

I bet, like me, you are wondering what the name "eggplant" is all about...? Well the good old Internet helped me out on this one, as it's one of those things you always very mildly wonder about, but never research. WELL it turns out that the Eggplant is native to India and slowly spread across the world. By the time it reached places like Australia, NZ, Canada, and USA the common varieties were white and looked like goose eggs... hence the English name Eggplant. Most of the rest of the world calls them Aubergines.

Eggplants/Aubergines are slowly making their way into my diet. The trick is to cook them in certain ways otherwise they are repulsive. Don't do what my housemate Maki did and pick a raw bit off the chopping board and pop it in your mouth... you will not like it. It is bitter and spongey. BUT cook them properly and you will fall in love! One such dish which is now added to my favourites list is Eggplant Parmigiana! Did you know that eggplant parmigiana was the original dish and chicken/veal parmigiana developed in other countries where Italian Immigrants were living? Amazing.

My earliest knowledge of Eggplant Parmigiana was in my first year of Uni in 2005 when my Italian friend Mark enlightened the socks off me. Every day his dad would make him 2 Ciabatta rolls with delicious fillings like roasted vegetables and fetta cheese, and sometimes... Eggplant Parmigiana. I was only working part time then, and money was a bit of an issue. That, coupled with my inherent ability to forget to make lunch almost every day, left me drooling over his Ciabatta rolls more often than not. It drove me crazy. Well, sometimes he let me have a bite of the Italian goodness (that sounds bad) or lent me some money to get a Foccacia or something. He was a mad friend :) But seriously I envied his big Italian family, I thought my family needed more culture... especially in the way of food. But living in this big multicultural place called Australia, I think it's fair to say we can adopt any food culture as our own. So I am taking this dish under my wing, and I'm dedicating this one to Mark :)

Actually in true Uni spirit, I have no money this week, I didn't factor my impromptu IKEA trip into my budget so I'm eating very cheaply until pay day :) I somehow crawled out of my Grand Final #2 hangover cave on Sunday night and made a nice Vego Bolognaise, but then added lamb mince to some for me and Josh to cure us. With the leftover vego pasta sauce I thought it would be perfect in this dish which I have been meaning to make for years. I call it a poor man's eggplant parmigiana because i used leftover sauce, and used half quantities of tasty cheese/parmesan as i was running out and didn't REALLY follow a recipe. Here's what I did:

I finally made use of the Grill which Josh bought me for my Birthday back in June. Poor Josh thought I was never going to use it!

Cut up the eggplants into 1/2 inch thick slices and put them on the grill. If they aren't grilling add a little olive oil.

They go all gooey and creamy on the inside with a nice charred flavour on the outside!

Layer it like a lasagna in this order: sauce, cheese, eggplant, sauce, cheese, eggplant etc. and finish with sauce, cheese and breadcrumbs. Put it in the oven until it browns on the top and the sauce is bubbling :D

oh yum :D

home movies

Readers, I have to tell you something huge. I saw myself get born last night... and when i say 'get born' I am not talking about the debut album of australian rock outfit "Jet". I actually watched myself messily exit my mother's vagina. I was not, as you may wonder, involved in a psychadelic hallucination but rather I dug out some family home movies and borrowed a VCR in order to view them. Let me explain why I did this.

Yesterday morning, I sat down on the train and started listening to a previously unheard This American Life podcast entitled "Home Movies". To put it simply: I was moved. There was a lady speaking about how she has maybe 10 seconds of film from when she was a baby, and thinks the lady in the footage is her natural mother. As she is adopted, she has no way of knowing except to compare posture and physical characteristics of her own to the mystery woman on film. It is so sad that she has nothing to look back on. My mum has a brother and a sister who were both adopted from seperate families. My auntie has reunited with her birth mother but my uncle has not had such luck. I think my nana has some footage of my mum and her siblings as kids but nobody has ever seen them due to... family issues i suppose you could call it. I am so excited to watch this footage one day, and I'm sure my mum, aunty and uncle are too - even more so. I really hope it is a possibility one day.

~ This American Life host Ira Glass (awesome) ~

On the podcast, another person spoke about how strange it is to see people as they were years ago, before divorce or any other major life changes affected them, perhaps back in the days when they could be described as 'happy'. It got me thinking about what things I could learn about myself and my family, or even what things had escaped my memory. I remembered that my dad has about 12 VHS tapes (spanning 1-2 hours each) of our family, and I couldn't believe how much gold that would contain. Even though as kids we watched these tapes quite regularly, it was not that interesting or shocking as we were so close to the age from the footage, and we usually just fast-forwarded to 'funny things' that we said or did. I now have little recollection of the contents of the tape, so I was quite excited.

I set it all up yesterday and inserted tape #1. The start of the tape was my mum in hospital in 1986 holding my older brother Brendan. My mum is roughly my age in this tape, and she hasn't changed much since, except for ditching the perm. I saw relatives who appeared younger than I had ever known them, even relatives who are now deceased. Shortly into the footage my dad's brother Steven (now deceased) and his wife and young baby come to visit the hospital room. They began talking about how they felt when their son was born. My Nana interjected to say that Steven was 'blinded with joy' when his son was born. Uncle Steven said "Yeah, and I was working on getting blinded in another sense." Nobody laughed. Maybe at this point it was already apparent that he was an alcoholic, which is sadly how I always knew him. He was an alcoholic (to the doctors protests) until the day he died. It was a strange sensation watching these old conversations, it was as though I was a time travelling fly on the wall. I was never meant to hear those words at that time, but through the magic of film I can. It was strange listening to my mum talk at my age, she sounded so naiive like she had so much to learn still, and so many life experiences ahead. She was always the one to teach me, and here she still hadn't learnt yet. The rest of the tape was conversations with other family friends and relatives which I watched for a while, but then curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to watch myself... my tapes.

I found tape 3 entitled "Baby #2" so I figured that's where I must come into the picture. I rewound the tape (it took forever - where was the scene selection function?) and pushed play. I instantly remembered finding this tape when I was a kid looking for footage of myself. The start of my tape is, well.. my birth. I freaked out of course and pushed stop/fast forward, then I realised that I could watch my first SECOND of life in the outside world. I pushed play and watched in semi-horror at the last 20 seconds of mum's labour and then my entrance into the world. I felt pretty ill watching it, but somehwere I felt lucky that I could actually see it - even if this is the only time. It is such a trip to watch yourself be born, I cannot fully explain. When i was a kid and found the tape I got scared and turned off the TV and went outside to play and repress repress repress the image of my mum's vag. I have no recollection of being born, or most of my first 4 or so years for that matter - so everything is new to me. I fast-forwarded all the hospital stuff cos my dad left the camera rolling while they cut the umbilical cord and pulled out the placenta etc etc. I couldn't stomach that stuff - it was way worse.

The next scene was me at a few days old. I was having a bath in the sink and my brother was sitting next to me dipping a turkey baster into the bubbles and getting crazily excited. My mum tried to take it from him after he poked me with it and then he tried to out-cry me. It was funny. Next I was in a basinette thing on the ground and my brother was patting me like a dog. You know how kids pat dogs with their palms open wide, fingers splayed and they kind of gently hit repeatedly...? that's what he was doing. my parents kept filming and laughing, and threw in the occasional "poor jade!". Then next they were encouraging him to "take the baby for a walk" around the kitchen, so he started pushing the basinette like a pram and when they screamed "READY SET GOOOO" in unison he would run and slam me into a wall or cupboard. Oh how they laughed. The only time he got into trouble was when he slammed me into the fridge. My parents were worried he would hurt the fridge.

Anyway, I have so much more to watch and learn about my past. All the things I know about my parents secret lives NOW... it makes me wonder if I can sense anything from the tapes. It is weird enough seeing my parents still together on the tapes (as they divorced maybe 4 years ago) not to mention actually happy. I know that sounds a bit depressing but it's true. Maybe they will be happy again soon. According to filmmaker Alan Berliner who spoke on the Home Movie podcast, usually the home movies stop around age 12 or so- whenever the kids are becoming teenagers and start being all surly and private. I'm not sure when our tapes stopped - I havent gotten that far, but I do remember covering my face alot in the later years because i was embarrassed to be filmed. Looking back now, I wish I hadn't done that. It must have upset my dad, who was trying to make a time capsule and can be heard on the tapes saying "One day you will want to look back on this..." to which I'm sure in the later years I would have rolled my eyes.

PS. I just donated $20 towards the continuation of 'This American Life' which I have been meaning to do ever since I listened to my first podcast. I feel good. :)

school daze

Howdy! Well I am excited about this post!

On Saturday, the day of the Wedding, Josh's Aunty let him and 12 other guys come and wait at her place for a taxi on the proviso that they must drink all her beer. Josh thought that was rather generous of her so he wants to give her some flowers tonight! While we are in the area (Williamstown) we are going to have some dinner there! It is a sunny 27 here in Melbourne - sounds like perfect weather for some fish 'n' chips on the beach! :D sooooooo exciting! I haven't done that since i was a youngster. Well.. maybe high school...

Speaking of high school.. Williamstown happens to be the suburb in which I attended high school. I have some awesome memories of those days, between 1999 and 2004! In fact, going to Willi always makes me think and feel like i'm back in school so I have been naturally thinking about it all day! I have I guess a love/hate relationship with school. The people were mostly great, the staff and atmosphere were good, my personal life was fun but there was so much bullshit. Like bitchy girls and self esteem issues and trying to be cool *shudder at the thought*

I have made somewhat of a montage of all my biggest obsessions in those high school days. You may need to click on it to enlarge it. But here, in random order, for your pleasure:

What can I say? Dr. Pepper, how I loved being able to buy you from anywhere. Lip Smackers - oh what a large collection I had of you! I even had a Dr. Pepper flavoured one! God damn i wish i still had that!! I can't recall how many hours of my life were actually spent playing the SIMS or watching the Scream series over and over again. 10 things i hate about you and Clueless are just two of the movies i could still recite off by heart.

Remember the Nokia 5110? Playing Snake for what seemed like hours?? I also remember taking sick days off school so i could stay at home and play Pokemon on Gameboy all day. How my brothers seethed with jealousy when they got home. I also went through a huge RAINBOW phase where just about everything i wore was either brightly coloured or rainbow striped. Not even joking. This includes those Rainbow Toe Socks you can see in the montage. I still have my Rainbow umbrella which is pretty kid-sized, but I just can't let it go. I remember one day a girl I worked with at McDonalds (4 year stint aww yeah) accused me of being a lesbian because i wore so much rainbow so I cut it right back to almost wearing none. I don't really know why, there's nothing wrong with being gay and i loved to wear colourful clothes so much. *shrug* Teenagers are lame. Glad all that's over!

I remember the days in Grade 6 and Year 7 when you were measured by your stationary collection rather than who you were as a person. I remember one excercise in Year 7, we had to write one nice thing about each person in the room on a little bit of paper, then they all got collected and handed out to the respective person. I got at least 5 "Nice shoes" and a few "you have cool pens". It's weird that I can't remember the ACTUAL compliments, just the materialistic ones. Jesus man, school was so materialistic. Everyone was always trying to wear the best Aussie Surf Brands... Quicksilver, Roxy, Billabong... hahaha i would never wear that now...

Anyway I am hoping to focus on the nice stuff and have a great dinner and will report back tomorrow. What were your fave things in high school?