Stuff & Nonsense

Poached eggs…. Everyone has the secret method that is infallible. Except me!! So why isn’t it easy?  Wrap the egg in glad wrap is one suggestion, pretty fiddly in my opinion, add vinegar to the water..great how much vinegar? White or Brown vinegar? Should the water be boiling?  or simmering? Do the eggs taste of vinegar?  Do I have to gently stir the water? And so it goes on. I want perfectly poached eggs!

I bought two bright green silicon egg poachers, but they tip easily so you need a special spoon to lift them out of the pot..silicone is floppy so they are likely to slip or flip at the crucial moment! Maybe I am just blonde!! My parents had an aluminium egg poacher, my mother dropped a spec. of butter into each saucer shaped dish and then the eggs ..they always came out in identical shapes with little air bubbles …they were good and so easy to cook. Back then the aluminium cookers were hard to clean.  They do sell egg poachers that are non stick these days but they are for 5 or 6 eggs. Many of us only want to cook 2 eggs and storage space is often at a premium.

How about adding your favourite method into the comment box below – please??

                           Safety Apps for Android or Apple phones

There are a few  Apps available  that might be useful with teenagers or for anyone who jogs or walks alone..  All you have to do is shake your phone vigoroursly and it sets of a high pitched panic alarm on your phone.Check them out here.

The blue words take you to the link.

PanicGuard

By PanicGuard

Watch Over Me is another good app. that allows you to put in the time you are leaving somewhere and returning and then if you don’t turn it off it notifies someone you have nominated to look for you! There will be many more of these as technology advances but seriously they are already very useful. If your 12 year old goes to the dairy  set up the app … far too many children go missing and the alarm is not raised quickly enough.

Freezing Lemons

Many professionals in restaurants and eateries are using or consuming the entire lemon and nothing is wasted. How can you use the whole lemon without waste?

Simple, just place the washed lemon in the freezer section of your refrigerator. Once the lemon is frozen, get your grater, and shred the whole lemon (no need to peel it) and sprinkle it on top of your foods. Add to your vegetable salad, ice cream, soup, cereals, noodles, spaghetti sauce, rice, sushi, fish dishes; whisky, the list is endless. All of your food will unexpectedly have a wonderful taste, something that you may have never tasted before.  So place your washed lemon in your freezer, and then grate it on your meal every day. It is a key to make your foods tastier and you get to live healthier and longer! So, give those lemons a good wash, freeze them and grate them.It does work.

CHRISTCHURCH

This photo from my Flickr page has had by far the most views, taken 10th Nov 2011 30,000 plus  people have viewed it. Below is the story I wrote that day.

“I love this –  ARMANI & BEN SHERMAN in a Container. Workmen mingling with happy shoppers.
My first time back to Christchurch  since the quakes… I lived here for over 10 years so it was emotional for sure!
Today was my first visit to Christchurch since the quakes.., the sun shone, the water glistened, ducks swam on the Avon and people walked their dogs at Sumner Beach …..
Ballantynes has reopened and the containers painted up as stores are awesome..great colour, flower planting, wheel barrows, construction men and people everywhere in the city… Wonderful to see.

Looking beyond the cliff faces are ragged or rugged  reminders of what happened to this once tranquil city. Small luxury homes perched precariously atop  cliffs with their verandahs already down at the bottom!! Stark reminders.
Not one church  seemed to be unscathed – And there were so many beautiful stone churches!  Container walls cheek by jowl line roads, some decorated to soften the reality of what happened here….  Pop up shops and cafes keeping the spirits alive.
God bless Christchurch.”

              A true story from NZ

Everyone loves a love story!!

I came across a delightful love story this week and want to share with you because it makes me smile and it might make you smile too. This lovely lady who has been widowed for 15 years or so recently moved into a retirement village aged 73 years young. About the same time a dapper chappy in his eighties also moved into the village and funnily enough they had both lived within 30 minutes of each other in another part of the country until they met late last year.  The wedding is next week and he has never been married before!! So ladies and gentleman out there,  there is no age barrier as far as Cupid is concerned – keep your eyes focused and your hearts open.

Celebrating life

13 women had a lot more in common than the fact that they recently turned 70 or would do soon. If you say seventy slowly it does sound old, but we all choose to say 70 quickly and skip the thought from our minds. We are, I think, fortunate that the 55 years since we first met at boarding school  seems like yesterday.
Columba College is a private Presbyterian girls school in Maori Hill, a fashionable suburb of Dunedin. The grey stone Bishops Court building sat formidably on the rise overlooking the city and overlooked the girls strict education. It housed the principals office and a number of dormitories such as Melrose, Selwyn, Ross, Solway and Girton. Austere and very strict we all settled in to boarding school life. In those days we were allowed ‘out’ twice a term to see our families but soon we opted to share holidays with each other staying on farms for our term holidays. We actually spent more days over an average of 3.6 years with each other than we spent with our parents, we brought each up really. We laughed and cried together, shared our success and our disappointments, admired the boys from a distance, shared our innermost thoughts and then we departed. Many didn’t see each other again for years, some were  recently reunited 50 years later and yet it seemed like we all really still knew each other. 55 years later we could share our lives – the good the bad and the ugly!!