FOOD FRIDAY - A PARTY AND POP CORN

“No party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.” - Desiderius Erasmus

Today was my last day at work before the Christmas/New Year holidays. I shall be having a little break and try to relax, as this year has been long and hard. Back to work on the 4th of January. The day was quite pleasant as for morning tea we had our Kris Kringle. We all drew lots to choose the person we had to get a gift for and the rules stated that (a) we did not spend more than $10 on the gift; (b) we remained anonymous and; (c) the gift started with the same letter that name of the person started with. I drew the name of a very nice part-time lecturer whose name started with “T”. The choice was simple: A personal tea set (a tea mug, a tea infuser and a bag of tea) – very good deal for $9.99!

Then I had to rush through quite a great deal of work, had a couple of meetings, answered ten million emails, discussed a few issues with staff, went through some urgent matters with my PA and all in time for a Christmas party at the Alfred Hospital. I am involved in a research project there at the cardiothoracic surgery unit and they had a function in one of the newly opened restaurants in Prahran (The Terrace Bistro and Bar). This was a good ending to the year as the group was small and the atmosphere very relaxed. We had a few drinks, some very nice tapas and a very leisurely conversation. A surprise was meeting one of my students from a few years back who came back form private practice to do a research PhD at the Hospital. She was very happy to see me and was still very complimentary of my lectures in pathology when she was a student. This was rather touching and brought some fond memories for me…

I’ll try and do as little to do with work as possible during the break and hopefully I’ll be able to spend some time at home, do things that please me, maybe we’ll go on a road trip after Christmas…

Now seeing it’s Food Friday, I’ll talk a little about food. Those of you that read my blog, know that at weekends we like to sit and watch a movie sometime during the weekend. If it s around lunchtime, we usually lunch on a big bowl of home-made popcorn. We dislike the instant microwave variety and pop our own in a popcorn maker and season it in a special way. The secret of the taste is the mixture of herbs and spices we use to flavour it. Here is the secret: Take a large clean plastic bag and put in it salt, pepper, curry powder, a variety of dried herbs, mustard powder, ground dried ginger, paprika, etc (whatever herb or spice you fancy). Then put into the bag your popped corn. Twist the bag closed and shake the pop corn well. Add about half a cup of olive oil into the bag and after twisting closed again, shake the bag well so that the pop corn is well-coated with the herbs, spices and oil. Put into a bowl and if desired reheat in a microwave for a minute. Enjoy!

Have a good weekend!