Keep Away From The Internet When Cranky (Or Not)

Normally I subscribe to the 'Keep Away From The Internet When Cranky' rule. Okay, there have been some notable exceptions (during which I have got involved in ridiculous arguments with anonymous morons on Twitter), but for the most part I stick to my guns. Nothing good can come of posting when you're shitty. Your defenses are down, your emotions are heightened, and it is very, very easy to say things you will later regret.

Well, today I am hideously cranky, and I am throwing caution to the wind. I am on my third day of tonsillitis/ear infection, and am OVER IT with a capital everything. I am taking anti-biotics for my disease, pro-biotics for the anti-biotics, and Roses Chocolates for the depression that descended late last night after two days in bed.

On top of it all, I am pre-menstrual, which would be wonderful if I planned to have any more children and needed my stupid ovaries, but I don't, so perhaps they could just dry the hell up already? (And yes, for all those menopausal women out there, I'm aware menopause is no walk in the park either, but I'm cranky, so just ignore me and trust that when my time comes I'm sure I'll be complaining about that, too.)

So what else? Well, my inbox keeps filling up at the most ridiculous rate. No sooner do I delete all the junk and see to all the vital correspondence than I have another 30 emails waiting for me. About 10% are important, another 20% are important if you want to read about minute changes to the school canteen menu and what the kindergarten kids did at Assembly today (and seeing as my kids are in years one, seven and nine quite frankly I don't, not even slightly), and the other 70% are rubbish. I get emails about penis enlargements (and I don't have a penis - the still functioning ovaries would be a testament to that), vampire facials (because who the hell wouldn't want to take blood out of themselves just to inject it back in again), offers of large amounts of money in exchange for my bank account details (which I'm sure are, like, totally valid, but who has the time to write back?), and requests to link with people on LinkedIn for no reason whatsoever because LinkedIn has never done anything for me but generate emails (having said that, all requests will be accepted, because if I'm going to be on LinkedIn, I'd rather have heaps and heaps of connections than none).

Also I have bills to pay, laundry to do, a book to write, fleas to kill (yes, the cat has fleas and has spread them all over the house and the kids keep complaining [which seems completely unreasonable, I mean, when I was their age I walked to school barefeet in the snow....]), dinner to prepare, paperwork to fill out.... and I should probably also shower at some stage, too.

So that's it. I'm cranky. And if you're cranky too, now is your time to share it. I am declaring this Day of the Crankypants, and all cranky submissions will be accepted.

And if you're not cranky, well, you can comment too, but don't expect sympathy. And YES. I know you won't need sympathy if you're not actually cranky. You don't have to point it out! Bloody hell. Everyone's giving me a hard time today....

When Food Is Love

My paternal grandmother, Ada, was not a great cook. I don't have many memories of her meals, but I have been assured by family members that they were not exactly haute cuisine. But I still remember her for her food. Or rather, for her biscuits. Which weren't all her biscuits.

Ada always had Spicy Fruit Rolls in the pantry. Always. And my sister and I ate them because, well, they were there. I would never have bought Spicy Fruit Rolls for myself. I would have bought something chocolate. Preferably triple coated chocolate with a chocolate cream filling and chocolate chips. Double chocolate chips. But Spicy Fruit Rolls were there and so we ate them. And we loved them, just like we loved her.

Little Pillows of Love

Ada also made a log. It's not the most appealing name for a dessert item, and, to be honest, it never really appealed to me much. It was a dense, biscuity concoction with coconut and sultanas and always scratched the back of my throat. But people loved that log. It was famous. Ada's Log. It even made it into a recipe book once, under the title 'Slice by Ada Slog'. That's how famous it was.

Imagine how famous it wold have been if it was chocolate.

My other grandmother, Mim, ate rye toast with cottage cheese for breakfast every single morning. With a cup of tea, not coffee. I prefer wholemeal bread, but when I was with her, I wanted rye. And now, when I think of her, I crave rye toast with cottage cheese.

My sister loved steak. I don't cook steak much at home, but every time I eat steak at a restaurant I think of her. I think of her, and I enjoy the steak even more because I am enjoying it for both of us.

I don't know what foods my kids will remember me for. Maybe 'Ultimate Milk', which is a special chocolate milk I make them as a treat before bed. Or 'Perfect Toast', which is toast with just the right amount of Nutella. Or schnitzel, which doesn't have chocolate but tastes excellent anyway. Or spaghetti bolognaise, which is my favourite comfort food and one of theirs, too.

There is so much of life we take for granted. The tastes. The smells. The sounds. The sights. Sometimes, it takes a loss for us to be reminded of what we had. Or the sight of a packet of Spicy Fruit Rolls on the supermarket shelf. Or a cup of tea with cottage cheese toast, first thing in the morning.

What foods bring back special memories for you? 

Nutella? I Call BULLSHIT

A couple of years ago, when I was releasing When My Husband Does The Dishes, I contacted the Australian distributors of Nutella. Given that there were dozens of references to Nutella in my book, dozens of references to Nutella in my blog, and hundreds of references to Nutella in my tweets (and that I was so famous for my Nutella addiction I was being sent Nutella recipes, images and information almost daily), I thought that perhaps they would like to sponsor my launch.

My request went through to marketing, who seemed interested in the idea. I was in discussions with them right up until the last minute. And then, a couple of weeks before the launch, they changed their mind. Apparently the way that I portrayed Nutella in my musings - as a big jar of chocolatey fantabulousness that one digs into with a spoon with animal abandon - was not in line with their policy of promoting Nutella as a 'healthy breakfast option'.

Yup.

Well guess what Nutella?

NOBODY BELIEVES THAT.

Last night I saw the latest ad for Nutella on TV. It is full of delightful images of morning, and healthy, glowing people, and sunshine, and attractive, sporty men. And I watched it and I threw my Nutella-encrusted spoon at the TV  because yet again the Nutella folks are lying to me.

THIS IS NOT HOW WE EAT NUTELLA, people! In fact, this is not WHO eats Nutella! The ad is full of men (post surfing, in their business suits, pulling a coffee) and a smattering of happy kids, eating Nutella on wholesome bread and toast. The only women in the ad are either serving breakfast to their children, or giggling alongside their Nutella-scoffing boyfriends. (Two of the chicks manage to score a single bite of their boyfriends' Nutella toast, but it is quickly snatched away. Clearly one bite is all they're allowed. Perhaps the boyfriends are worried they'll gain weight?)

I am so tired of the Nutella propaganda that bears no relation to the truth. For once, I would love Nutella to release an ad that is real. Pre-menstrual women weeping and shoveling Nutella into their faces with a spoon. Post-menstrual women eating Nutella for dessert. Gleeful pre-schoolers painting with Nutella all over the kitchen. Teenage girls gorging on Nutella crepes in a cafe. Mums eating their kids' leftover crusts with a three  inch topping of Nutella. Nutella fudgsicles. Nutella brownies. Nutella microwave mud cake. Nutella on ice cream. Nutella as the treat food it really is.

If Nutella is a healthy hazelnut spread, then I am a cave woman who hunts for food. Except that I'm not. Okay, so I may have the tiniest remnants of cave woman DNA in me, but I am a 21st century Jew who buys instant noodles and cans of peaches. Similarly, though Nutella may technically have a few hazelnuts in it, it is essentially a chocolate spread that we eat when we're depressed or need to celebrate or are feeling fat or one of the billion other reasons we women eat chocolate. We don't eat it because it's healthy, because it's not. And and we certainly don't feel virtuous when we feed it to our kids, because it's chocolate (although we do feed it to them anyway, because they love it and it shuts them up and we are crap parents).

So Nutella, please come clean and start telling the truth in your advertising.

And when I launch my next book, I would really love to hear from you.

What I Really Did At The Health Retreat

On the weekend, I was invited to the Golden Door Elysia Health Retreat as a guest speaker. I went with my friend and fellow author Kylie Ladd, who is already about as healthy as they get, but for her rather alarming problem with chocolate, hot chips, more chocolate, some more hot chips, another slab of chocolate, and wine.

This post is not sponsored in any way, I just wanted to let you know what I got up to on the weekend. But I will say that the Golden Door is beautiful, the food is fabulous (even without sugar, salt or oil), and the setting in the Hunter Valley is magnificent (even if the irony of a dry resort in the heart of wine country wasn't totally lost on me). If you can afford it, go, and tell them I said hi. Maybe then I'll get invited back.

So.... What did I do on my break?

I DIDN'T go to the seminar on Setting Wellness Goals. I thought it was an extremely worthwhile subject, but frankly, being away from the kids and The Architect and the laundry, and having my bed turned down and my food cooked for me, had already made me feel Well.

I DID think a great deal about coffee and alcohol and chocolate and hot chips and salt.

I DID drink green tea till my bladder burst in the hopes that I could convince my body that it was drinking coffee.

I DIDN'T convince my body that it was drinking coffee. Not even a tiny bit.

I DIDN'T do Tai Chi at Dawn

I DID have a massage. It was 50 minutes of heaven. I may have dribbled on the table.

I DID wish I could have slipped the masseur a billion dollars to keep massaging me for ever.

I DID go for a walk with Kylie down the very long, steep driveway and to neighbouring resort.

I DIDN'T make it back up the drive. Kylie had to find a hole in the fence that bypassed the very long, steep driveway so that I could sneak through again on the flat.

I DID give a talk to the assembled guests in the lecture theatre on the Saturday night.

I DID begin my talk by telling the audience that I was going to discuss The Benefits Of Bran. They looked only slightly dismayed, and not at all surprised.

I DID break the rules of the Golden Door resort. I took a second carob slice for morning tea on Sunday, when I'd clearly been allocated only one. I feel really bad but I honestly couldn't help it. It was VERY NEARLY CHOCOLATE!

I DIDN'T miss home very much.

I DID wish I could stay another week.

I DID just lie. I really wanted to stay another year.

I DID check my room for belongings before we left.

I DID suddenly remember that I had left my beanie behind when we were already outside. Kylie offered to go back and check. I hadn't left my beanie behind, but I had left a pile of dirty undies in my rom.

I DID feel bad that Kylie had to touch my dirty undies.

I DON'T feel that bad. I'm way too zen after my break to feel much of anything at all.

Have you ever gone to a health retreat? Would you? Could you?

An Australian Girl In London - Part 3

Yesterday in a London taxi the driver said to me:
"Here you go, Miss."
I giggleed, because a) it was so ridiculously British, and b) I am about 15 years past being a 'Miss'. So then I had to give the taxi driver a big tip, because people don't giggle at each other here. That is considered to be very rude.

Yesterday in London I wore inch thick tights under shorts. All the women do it. I guess they get sick of not being able to wear shorts because it is so cold, so they just bung a pair of tights under them and pretend they're on the beach in Bondi. I felt fantastic. Tights under shorts gives you all the benefits of shorts (flattering to the thighs, the perfect note of casual insouciance) but with none of the disadvantages (i.e. you can't see the varicose veins).

Yesterday in London I bought a brownie from an bakery.
"Be careful," warned the Italian cashier. "It has about a billion calories."
"Thank you," I said. And I began to eat. It was delicious. And what he didn't know is that calories don't count when you're traveling, because no-one there is no one there to see your your thighs get bigger. And besides, even if there was it wouldn't mmatter, because you're wearing inch thick tights under shorts.

Yesterday in a London I walked past a small, solar powered waving Queen for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time, I thought about buying it. I do not need a solar powered waving Queen. I will never use a solar powered waving Queen. My husband The Architect will no doubt threaten divorce if I bring a solar powered waving Queen into our big white house. Hell, I'm a REPUBLICAN!!! I don't even believe in the solar powered Queen! But it was so cute and so delightfully waving that I just know I'm going to cave at some stage andd bring it home.

Tally ho, my good men and ladies. Tally ho!

Take One Alex And Call Me In The Morning

In recent times I have got myself a little stressed. I know that most of you think I am super cool and laid back (and the sound you can hear is the guffawing and eye-rolling of all my closest friends at the idea that I am a) super cool, or b) laid back [and yes, I know that 'eye-rolling' doesn't make a sound, it was just a figure of speech]) but I am quite a stressy little person (and yes, I know that 'little' is debatable, but let's not get picky here, okay?).

Well, a couple of days ago I decided it all had to change. Which is not quite true. My husband The Architect decided it all had to change. He sat me down, gently stroked my angsty brow, and said:

"Sweet honey pie of mine, if you feel you can't relax a little more I will have to send you to a resort alone for a few days. It pains me so deeply to see you so uptight."

And if you believed that, clearly you haven't read my book. Or this blog. Or have had much contact with the male of this species.

What he really did was sit me down, look at me firmly, and say:

"Can you pull yourself together please? You're a total nightmare at the moment."

(And that, friends, you can believe.)

So I decided I had to destress at once, not just because The Architect told me too, but because I really was feeling horribly tense. Over the past few days I have engaged in many attempts to relax my body and mind. Some have been successful, some less so, but I will share them all with you today.

• Did online Sudoku puzzles. This worked wonderfully initially, as it refocussed my brain and gave me a rush of elation whenever I figured out where to put one of those little numbers. And then it backfired horribly when I got stuck about an eighth of the way through, and had to call my twelve year old son to help me finish it. And then, to rub salt into the wound, he got bored before it was completed, and wandered off with a breezy "You can take it from here, Mum". Which of course I couldn't. Bloody stupid Sudoku. Makes me bloody crazy.
• Watched Alex Dimitriadis running around in his swimsuit in 'The Slap'. This made me feel fantastic.
• Ate Nutella sandwiches for dinner, followed by spoonfuls of Nutella straight from the jar. This was fun and relaxing for the first twenty minutes, but rather less enjoyable when I lay moaning and bloated about ten minutes after I finished the jar.
• Took my kids to the beach. This was really gorgeous. We played on the sand, they buried my feet, I read my book, they buried my legs, I lay in the sun, they threw sand in my hair, I got really thirsty, they drank all my water, it was really beautiful, I got hot and sandy and had to get out of there that minute.
• Drank a great deal of alcohol. This has proven to be very effective.
• Read some books, watched some TV. Particularly 'The Slap'. That was great.
• Had a bath. Baths really do ease the body and soul. I just have remember to be more careful whilst acqua-texting. Still, I think the phone is drying out nicely.
• Nah, that's it. Though did I mention Alex Dimitriades?

Mummy's Special Diet Biscuits & Other Acts Of Devious Brilliance

I must say, Twitter teaches you the most amazing things. At least, it teaches me the most amazing things. I really can't speak for you. For all I know you're not even on Twitter, which means it's not teaching you anything at all.

What's more, it doesn't always teach me especially amazing things - it often teaches me things that are fairy mundane or just mildly amusing. But that's beside the point too.

What is my point actually is - and I really do have one - is that the other day, I had a very interesting Twitter discussion with some of my online buddies. It was about food, as many of my discussions with my online buddies tend to be. (To be honest, many of my discussions with my real life buddies tend to be about food too. I guess I'm just really interested in food [which is fascinating, as I'm not interested in cooking at all]).

I had Tweeted about my surprise that I had not lost weight, despite a week on the Central Coast with my mum and kids eating very little other than hot chips and apple pie (and, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner). I thought that chips were one of those foods that have negative calories - the more you eat of them, the less you weigh. Apparently I was wrong. Apparently it's celery (or kiwi fruit, or potato scallops - there was some minor controversy).

My Special Vitamins (half a dose)

This led to a mind blowing disclosure about the peculiar misconceptions other people believe, or perpetrate, about food. One Tweep, @ptmaree, told me about her friend who grew up being told that Kingstons were his mum's special diet biscuits, which made me stand up on my seat and applaud this genius woman whom I'd never met (or even knew the name of, apart from 'ptmaree's mate's mum').

Another, @propinqua, revealed that she tells her kids that Vita Weets are called Tim Tams, which demostrates a level of devious brilliance I had only previously suspected she had.

And then @duckformation - poor, tragic @duckformation - told us how her mother had always described fried eggs as 'special cheese'. She confessed that she had always had a difficult relationship with cheese since. Quite frankly, if I was her I would have had a difficult relationship with eggs, too. And my mother.

Happily, my mother inflicted no such cruelties on me, though we did regularly eat a 'meal' consisting of tinned tuna covered by mashed potato known by the improbably sophisticated moniker of 'Fish Pie'. I still can't be in a room with potato and tuna at the same time.

I have never, ever attempted to trick my kids, though. Of course, I tell them that my packets of dark chocolate bullets are my 'special vitamin pills' and my bottles of red wine are 'Mummy's health drinks', but that's not a lie at all. It's the absolute, honest truth.

And now I'm going to have some schnitzel. My husband assures me that it's the key to good health, and I want to do the best by my family.

Life Without Husband

On Sunday, my husband left for a two week business trip to China. This bothered me tremendously, as he had to leave the house at 5am, and the alarm woke me on a lazy Sunday morning at 4.30*.

Since then, I have been living life as a single mother of three, and contemplating the pros and cons thereof. And though it has only been just over 24 hours, I believe I have a pretty good handle on things.

No Husband: The Pros

1. I do not have to cook dinner for my husband, and so I am (hypothetically) free to feed the kids sausages, and myself vast quantities of chocolate covered rasberry licorice followed by, ahem, cheese.
2. There will be a lot less laundry.
3. There will be a lot less arguments.
4. I can sleep soundly without being woken by my husband's regular 2am nose-blowing session.
5. There will be no piles of horrid tissues next to my husband's side of the bed in the morning as there will be no 2am nose-blowing sessions.
6. I can get into bed with a pore cleansing strip on my nose without my husband recoiling in horror and yelling 'My eyes! My eyes!'
7. I can lounge on my bed in my undies without any expectation of sex.
8. I can lounge on my bed in my undies and a pore cleansing strip without my husband saying 'Oh for gods sake, make up your mind.'
9. I do not have to wait for the shower so I won't be late getting the kids to school.
10. I can watch whatever I want on TV without my husband grabbing the remote and switching channels every single commercial break.
11. I can leave mess everywhere without my husband coming home and asking what I 'did all day'.

Tomorrow night's dinner

No Husband: The Cons

1. I do not have to cook dinner for my husband and so I can (er... 'hypothetically') feed myself vast quantities of chocolate covered rasberry licorice followed by cheese. This is probably not an ideal way to eat in the long run.
2. I have to take all three kids to school.
3. I have to take Boo to swimming lessons in the wee-wee infested waters.
4. I have to take the rubbish out. Or would have, if I'd remembered to do so last night. Woops.
5. I get nervous without a big, strong man in bed with me in case of emergency. Except that my husband isn't big or strong, and he'd probably sleep through it anyway, so that doesn't really count.
6. I don't have to wait for the shower so when I get the kids to school late I can't blame it on their father.
7. There is no-one on whom to warm my feet before sleep.
8. There will be a lot less laughing.
9. I kind of miss him.

*of course I did go back to sleep, but I really do prefer not to be disturbed

An Australian Girl In America: Day 3

So Sunday morning we woke up at 12.22pm, which wasn't actually morning, when you come to think of it. We had been up partying with our LA friends till about 1.15am, and then decided not to bother being awake again for a long, long time.

When I finally regained consciousness I went to the mini-bar looking for coffee. There was none. There were, however, sleeping pills on sale for US$6, which was hardly what I needed, but a charming metaphor for the paradox that is the USA.

I wandered down to the diner beneath the hotel, and ordered an espresso. While I was waiting, I chatted to the waitress, a cute brunette in a pink diner uniform - you know, one of those nurse's style dresses buttoned up at the front with an apron around her waist (seriously, they actually wear those).

"Were you born here in LA?" I asked.

"No, I'm from Colorado," she answered.

"Why did you come here?" I asked.

"I came here to be an actress," she said. And my heart cracked a little for her broken dreams.

Fueled by coffee, I collected my husband and we proceeded to lunch with our friends to a lovely Italian bistro. My focacccia was very similar to an Australian focaccia, except that instead of being the size of, say, a small plate, it was the size of my daughter. Not my 3 year old daughter, either. My 10 year old daughter. Wearing platform heels and a hat.

After lunch, we browsed through the markets on Melrose (yes, the one from TV) and looked in some super funky shops that were far too super funky for a mother-of-three with stretch marks and saggy boobs. My husband tried on some retro 50's style shirts, which made him look like a tragic, try-hard, shrunken version of Charlie Sheen - unsurprising, given that the shirt labels read 'Charlie Sheen style'. I had to forcibly wrestle them out of his hands, much like he had to wrestle the seventeen pairs of silver sandals from mine. Except that my silver sandals looked GOOD.

That night we went with our friends Jack and Rhonda* to a majorly hip LA restaurant. I was very excited to see a super famous black dude in a fedora sitting with his back to the wall, and was crushed to realise that he wasn't famous at all; he was just a black dude in a fedora. I guess I assumed that to be bold enough to wear a fedora, you have to have something.

I ordered a chocolate dessert, which contained layers of different, geometrically shaped chocolatey things, including what looked like a large chocolate licorice bullet on a very fine straw.

"Do I eat it?" I asked Rhonda.

"Yes, you bite it!" she said. Well thanks a lot RHONDA, because I bit the bullet, which turned out to be some sort of plastic receptacle. The bullet shot a fine spray of molten chocolate through the straw and all over my pants and the table. Turns out you were meant to suck it. Bloody LA fancy pants restaurant.

We returned to our hotel and collapsed into bed. Tomorrow was another day, and we were leaving for NY, and god knows what molten adventures awaited us there.

*Not their real names, and Rhonda is most displeased with the pseudonym I chose for her. So if you prefer to think of her as 'Lolita' or 'Mirabella' or 'Aloicia' please do.

Frustration

Earlier today I was talking to my friend Lana on the phone. I was using my iPhone which is of excellent quality; she was using hers, which is sadly, very inferior. I use the word 'inferior' in reference to the inability of her phone to actually convey the sound of her voice to me, which, in my understanding, is kind of its purpose. Lana tells me this has something to do with the 'poor phone reception' in her residential area, but this 'poor reception' seems bizarrely to follow her phone around wherever she is, so I'm not sure I believe her.

But anyway, that's really not the point.

I love talking to Lana and I don't do it nearly enough (due to annoying interferences such as children, husbands, housework and jobs). So I get extremely frustrated when I am unable to hear her properly in the few precious moments we have. Sometimes I try to bluff my way through and pretend to hear her, hoping I can piece together our conversation later in my head, but when all I can glean is 'And th____ bl____ in the gi____ down my fl_____ w____ plo_____..... well, it's kind of difficult.

But anyway, that's really not the point either.

The point is, speaking to Lana this afternoon got me frustrated. And it also got me thinking about my other greatest frustrations (apart from not being able to consummate my imaginary relationship with Simon Baker, of course). So here goes:

- Not being able to squeeze a pimple. I know that's a bit disgusting, but it absolutely drives me mad. One of my kids had their first ever pimple recently (and happily, their only one) and they would not let me even touch it. Perhaps they might have let me touch it had my husband not poisoned them against me, warning them to 'never, under any condition, let Mummy touch your pimple, no matter how much she begs and pleads'. This, of course, is because HE has never let me squeeze HIS pimples either, which is COMPLETELY unfair and nearly KILLS me. My kids had better stay completely acne free for the rest of their natural lives, or I'm going to spend their entire teenage years in paroxysms of despair.

- Not being able to access my email or Twitter account. This happens regularly, when my computer exercises its right to be temperamental, taunting and teasing me with glimpses of the precious communications that await me, but refusing to let me access them for ridiculous reasons such as 'Network Connection Failed' or 'Certificate You Are Viewing Does Not Match'. And naturally, even when I was not particularly desperate to check my emails, being denied the opportunity to do so will send me into spasms of frustration.

- Noticing a stray eyebrow growing in a place eyebrows shouldn't grow (for example, on the bridge of my nose, or out of my chin) when I am out and about and don't have a pair of tweezers on me. This leads to frantic and fruitless attempts to pluck out the hair with my stubby little, nail-bitten fingers, forsaking whatever other chore or activity I am meant to be doing, until finally I must run desperately into the nearest chemist to buy tweezers and pluck out the offending hair in the car. Then, of course, I will absent-mindedly bring the tweezers home with me, and leave them in the bathroom with my other 276 pairs of tweezers (275 of which were bought in similar emergencies) and go through the exact same ordeal a week or two later when a hair appears on my forehead in the middle of the supermarket. Maddening.

- Seeing a delicious chocolate cake that has been sliced unevenly. Some deep primitive need emerges in me to even up the slice by trimming it with a knife and eating the shavings. If I am prevented from doing so (say by my mother, who believes such 'picking' at the cake is evidence of bad manners) I become immensely frustrated and distressd. Inevitably, of course, I will yield to my cravings, and slice the cake, but my slices are never symmetrical enough, and I am forced to keep eating and eating and eating and EATING until nearly all the cake is gone and I am in agonies of fullness. Clearly, cupcakes are the only possibly solution.

So what are yours? Obviously I have a million others, but I don't have time to write them all down. I have to try to call Lana again. Of course, she probably won't answer her phone at this hour.

Frustrates the hell out of me.

Choc Wars - The Official Post

Over the past few weeks, the Choc Wars has been fought bravely.

In the Wrong Team, Sarah and Cate have argued that 'white chocolate' is not an oxymoron.

In the Right Team, Kylie and I have laughed derisively.

In the middle, Heath from ColesOnline (thisisnotasponsoredpost) has moderated, and will soon come to his own, no doubt well considered and mature, conclusion.

There have been many words spoken, and many words written.

But, as we all know, actions speak louder than words, and I believe, my friends, that now is the time for action.

So I present to you this footage, taken from my home just this week. The footage is genuine, but faces and voices have been disguised slightly to protect my family.
Once you have watched it, you will know, without a shadow of a doubt, that white confectionary is not worthy of the fine name of ‘chocolate’.






Now don't forget to go to the ColesOnline ChocWars site, read the other arguments, and then vote for TEAM REAL CHOC!!!

It's War

Those of you who follow Twitter may know that a war has broken out between me and two other bloggers. It saddens me to say it, but it is true. Insults have been exchanged, online friendships stretched, and hundreds of words written in the desperate pursuit of truth. It has been an intense week, and it is not yet over. Because The Chocolate Wars have just begun.

To summarise: a Person Who Shall Remain Nameless (mainly because I've forgotten who they were) mentioned white chocolate on Twitter one night. Now, obviously you can understand my indignation. Obviously 'white chocolate' is a misnomer. Obviously there is no such thing as 'white chocolate'. White chocolate is not real chocolate. White chocolate is confectionary. But - brace yourself for this - stunningly, not everyone can see this. There are still some utterly deluded individuals out there who believe that a Milky Bar is the same substance as a slab of rich, glass-and-a-half dairy goodness. It beggars belief, I know.

So the battle lines have been drawn. On Team RealChoc are Kylie and me, with a veritable army of intelligent, gastronomically insightful supporters behind us. On Team WhiteChoc (whose name alone inspires rage in my breast) are Cate and Sarah. And in the middle is Heath from ColesOnline (thisisnotasponsoredpost), who sent us each 'research packs' containing WAY too much of the dismal white stuff, and who will, on August 6th, judge the great chocolate debate. Each team will submit two blog entries, and from those entries, one winning team will be decided.

Now, obviously Team RealChoc will be the winner. But believe me, I will take no pleasure in our victory. It deeply saddens me that women like Cate and Sarah (and their measly handful of supporters) can believe in such propaganda as the existence of 'white chocolate'. Furthermore, it saddens me that they can waste precious calories on such a substance. I mean, they can eat what they like, but when there are taste sensations like Caramello Koalas and Cadbury Dairy Milk and Lindt Milk Balls available... well... why would you turn to confectionary?

Still, let me confirm that this is not about taste. Just because I don't enjoy the flavour of something that tastes like solidified sugary milk doesn't mean that they can't. No, what it's really about is the truth. Doesn't matter what the chicken tastes like, girls. You can plop it in the water and make it swim but it's never going to be a duck. Likewise, you can shape your confectionary into a bar and bung on a label but you're never going to turn it into chocolate.

Now, I have to go rinse my mouth out with a Freddo Frog after a horrible experience with something pale.

And remember: this isn't my official Team RealChoc post. It's just a taste of things to come.