[m i a o w] the cat

Last night after work (stoked up on a couple of G&T’s with Pegs DeLeur and having realised that my pay had come through - you’ll be happy about that Mr Honeybone as I can shout you lunch today) I went to the supermarket on the way back to Casa del B-star [cool dwelling terminology borrowed from missjenjen) and was stunned.
I had forgotten a few things;

1) what it is like to shop surrounded by a plethora of ‘cool’ people

2) what it is like to shop in a supermarket that has Variety

I swear, I walked into the Coles in Balaclava and there were film extras waiting in the register queues. Groovy looking girls with their rumpled inner-city boyfriends, girls with their girlfriends, boys with their boyfriends, old Jewish men and snappy looking kids. Where have I been living!!? Hervey Bay. Where soy sauce is a strange, foreign, hippy kind of condiment and there is no olive dip. Where people boggle at you when, having finally located some tofu hiding at the back of the cheese section, you actually go ahead and buy it.

Last time I was in Melbourne Ellise introduced me to the wonder that is olive dip. Since then I have searched in every supermarket in Hervey Bay and have been forced to exit empty handed. So I’m wandering along the ~~cool~~ refridgerated section of Coles last night, dodging and weaving among all these strangely interesting sort of people (I’m sure they’re only interesting because I haven’t been here for a while) and I am almost smacked in the eyeball by olive dip. Lite Olive Dip. Creamed Olive Dip. Olive Dip. Couldn’t believe it. Then there was the chunky basil and pinenut dip, alongside their olive and sundried tomato equivalent. I was in heaven. I didn’t buy any, but that’s not the point. It was there. If I had wanted to spend $4.00 on olive dip - I could have. Instead I took a punt and bought a $5.00 tub of mushroom, leek and pinenut risotto. I was quite prepared for it to be vile, but the possibility of finding readymade risotto that might fulfil me was too exciting to pass up. It rocked my world. Guess what I’m going to be having for dinner for the next two weeks?

The kickass readymade risotto of my dreams

BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
« Not Too Cool
» The Friday Five 030

BROWSE / IN Food
« Lunchtime
» Chicken Parma

COMMENTS / 5 COMMENTS

Tapinades. Olives. Goooood. So good!! You will have to stock up before you return northward!

Missjenjen typed this on Jan 22 04 at 11:19 am

It’s true. I am going to have budget carefully and find some kind of ‘fridge-bag’ to take them back north. (I mean, I say ‘north’ and in relation to Melbourne it is north, but in relation to Queensland it’s actually south-east! And I *still* can’t hack the heat.)

beTh typed this on Jan 22 04 at 11:28 am

*sigh*

Tom typed this on Jan 22 04 at 7:35 pm

Totally with you on the heat thing. I lived in Asia for a long time as a young tacker and you would think after that, I would be able to cop it. Cope, even. Nuh-uh. Can’t stand the heat. I choose not to be in the kitchen.

I’ll stop now.

Missjenjen typed this on Jan 23 04 at 10:17 am

Welll, our part of the world (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) had a -20° wind chill the other day, actual temp of 0°. Today we are accumulating 6″ of snow on top of last week’s pile. No sweat!

But I digress. I want to know about olive dip. I love dips. We have a fav here that contains spinach and artichokes. Mooch-o wunnerful. Someday I hope to have enuf money to buy some.