those 2 words are like porn to me.
We found out what the story is with the severe lack of lamb in this country. Basically they bring it in from South Africa and all the whities in town snap it up before it even hits the shelf. The Spar near us has the best butcher in town (a South African guy) and basically all the expats are in like slim with him and lo and behold they get him on a thursday, just as the truck from SA opens its big fat doors revealing the mother load of magical, edible gold that is the flesh of lamb.....
mmmmmmmmm.
So today I'm gonna slug it out with all the ol' ladies and wrestle a few lamb shanks out from their bloody meat hooks and get us some shanky shanky good lovin.
I've been desperate to braise them in red wine, slowly, under a low heat for hours....
again I say mmmmmmmmmmmm.
It's just that the other day I came across these old photos from when we left Australia, our best mates had a going away dinner for us at Iain Hewittson's (famous Aussie tv chef) restaurant in St. Kilda and BOY HOWDY did we get some unbelievable lamb shanks outta that guy, that night. They were so amazing, photos were taken.
Well, I saw those photos and now for about 3 weeks I've had this god-forsaken hankering for lambikin. AND IT WON'T GO AWAY!!! I can taste it....
Monday night we went over to Petra's for dinner and she and I made an unbelievable pesto pasta with a mushroom topping and a goat's cheese salad and sat out on her veranda talking about how we should make a private-invitation-only restaurant out of her house. The two of us would make one set menu a week, select the wine, blah dee blah dee blah (the Mr. would be the waiter) and set up about 6 tables out on her rather scenic veranda and charge 75 bucks a head or thereabouts, for 3 courses. People could wander in and out of the house and eat at their leisure and would be on an emailing invite list that would circulate with this week's menu and they could RSVP on a first come first serve basis. Oh dreams.
(note: if my friends would possibly think that idea sounds familiar, it's because it is. Martin's ex gf did the exact same thing in Amsterdam and it ended up becoming a huge success and now she runs a restaurant under the exact same premise in the coolest part of downtown A-dam!)
That same night we tried to catch a donkey with a broken leg that was hopping around the bush on the track to her house... the poor thing... his front leg was soooooo swollen he was just either holding it up or dragging it along. I mean this thing was broken IN HALF. He was just so young though and so scared that even between the 3 of us we couldn't herd him up into her plot or get him in the back of the truck. I just can't stop thinking about him. Jackals could've gotten him or leopard or who knows what. He just was too fast and wiley for us. Nonetheless, I'll eventually get my donkey somehow, somewhere.
Sunday was the big xmas lunch at the yacht club.
I won't get into the details of it but myself and S. nearly had to throw down with one of my neighbours who kept jumping the food queue. It was nearly madness. The Mr. and G. raced the "Turkey Regatta" on G's catamaran that morning and came in 8th overall. Apparently the prize for 8th overall is a 6pack of beer - way better than the prize that Chris got for 2nd which was like, a bag of oranges and pack of Christmas crackers or something equally ridiculous. What blew the most though was that all prize winners got a KISS from this lady:
AGH! GROSS! yeah that's my husband kissing another woman. Drama in da hoosegow!!
Sunday we also finally got around to decorating for xmas. just some lights around the windows in the dining room/tv room, and a tree. Mary nearly lost it when she saw the tree- she was like "OMG! What a nice, huuuuuge tree!!" I was thinking: "dude, this is the smallest, fakest, crappiest tree I've ever put up in my life! You have nooooooooo idea!"
The hike with the Alpine Hiking Society of BW on saturday was great, despite the ungodly waking hour. The Mr. is currently posting some photos on The Other Blog but I thought I'd throw a few up here anyway -
there's one of good old Petra and her shiny white shorts.
... just what I'd wear on a hike through the muck!!
Here's one of the lovely corpses at the "Vulture Restaurant"... where they haul all the visible carcasses off to for the vultchies. Poor hartebeest....
The dam was soooooo full and rivers were flowing all over the park.
And we saw these guys up close and personal. I thought I'd put up this photo because if nothing else, somebody over on the other side of the Southern Hemisphere might get a kick out of seeing these guys actually standing up and WALKING AROUND....
(S&M you remember Duma and Letotse? They walked right up to the fence as we came trudging by.)
The Silly Disease is sweeping Gabz at present due to most of the companies around town breaking up on friday (tomorrow). The guys in the office next door don't do any work anymore, no one's in their offices, everyone's ignoring phone calls, it's hilarious. What's NOT hilarious is that Mary is going back to Zim for xmas so Reggie and Billy have to go into kennels and the only bodies that will be guarding my house while we're away is going to be Reilly and Sech. WORTHLESS!!! We'll just set the alarm and hope S and S-H will keep an eye on the place and those hopeless 2 lonely pups. We're lucky that at least they'll be around - evvvvvvveryone we know is headed off somewhere for the long 2 weeks.
I worked from home yesterday. It was incredible how much work I got done. No phone calls, no meetings, nobody walking in and interrupting, no internet... it was mammoth. I finished what would normally take me 1 week in the office, in about 6 hours of good solid WORK. I have been struggling lately.... really, really struggling. Maybe it's the Silly Season, maybe it's the fact that I am sick. to. death. of this stupid powerline project that I've been working on for what seems like decades... but I have really really really been duking it out with myself to try and get this done.
Well now, I've found the answer: work from home at least once a week. My new resolution. It's amazing. I put CNN on a dull murmour in the background, fire up the laptop at the dining room table (the least distracting, most empty room in the house) and hit the bricks. It was phenomenal: every time I had the urge to get up and distract myself, I just made sure that whatever I got up to do, involved some sort of other "work" such as washing dishes.
Boy that sure got me back down to the dining room table in a jiffy. Hell, man, it worked. I'm now at a winning plateau on this report I'm writing. So, new routine in the makings. Working at home at timely intervals during the week.
We found out what the story is with the severe lack of lamb in this country. Basically they bring it in from South Africa and all the whities in town snap it up before it even hits the shelf. The Spar near us has the best butcher in town (a South African guy) and basically all the expats are in like slim with him and lo and behold they get him on a thursday, just as the truck from SA opens its big fat doors revealing the mother load of magical, edible gold that is the flesh of lamb.....
mmmmmmmmm.
So today I'm gonna slug it out with all the ol' ladies and wrestle a few lamb shanks out from their bloody meat hooks and get us some shanky shanky good lovin.
I've been desperate to braise them in red wine, slowly, under a low heat for hours....
again I say mmmmmmmmmmmm.
It's just that the other day I came across these old photos from when we left Australia, our best mates had a going away dinner for us at Iain Hewittson's (famous Aussie tv chef) restaurant in St. Kilda and BOY HOWDY did we get some unbelievable lamb shanks outta that guy, that night. They were so amazing, photos were taken.
Well, I saw those photos and now for about 3 weeks I've had this god-forsaken hankering for lambikin. AND IT WON'T GO AWAY!!! I can taste it....
Monday night we went over to Petra's for dinner and she and I made an unbelievable pesto pasta with a mushroom topping and a goat's cheese salad and sat out on her veranda talking about how we should make a private-invitation-only restaurant out of her house. The two of us would make one set menu a week, select the wine, blah dee blah dee blah (the Mr. would be the waiter) and set up about 6 tables out on her rather scenic veranda and charge 75 bucks a head or thereabouts, for 3 courses. People could wander in and out of the house and eat at their leisure and would be on an emailing invite list that would circulate with this week's menu and they could RSVP on a first come first serve basis. Oh dreams.
(note: if my friends would possibly think that idea sounds familiar, it's because it is. Martin's ex gf did the exact same thing in Amsterdam and it ended up becoming a huge success and now she runs a restaurant under the exact same premise in the coolest part of downtown A-dam!)
That same night we tried to catch a donkey with a broken leg that was hopping around the bush on the track to her house... the poor thing... his front leg was soooooo swollen he was just either holding it up or dragging it along. I mean this thing was broken IN HALF. He was just so young though and so scared that even between the 3 of us we couldn't herd him up into her plot or get him in the back of the truck. I just can't stop thinking about him. Jackals could've gotten him or leopard or who knows what. He just was too fast and wiley for us. Nonetheless, I'll eventually get my donkey somehow, somewhere.
Sunday was the big xmas lunch at the yacht club.
I won't get into the details of it but myself and S. nearly had to throw down with one of my neighbours who kept jumping the food queue. It was nearly madness. The Mr. and G. raced the "Turkey Regatta" on G's catamaran that morning and came in 8th overall. Apparently the prize for 8th overall is a 6pack of beer - way better than the prize that Chris got for 2nd which was like, a bag of oranges and pack of Christmas crackers or something equally ridiculous. What blew the most though was that all prize winners got a KISS from this lady:
AGH! GROSS! yeah that's my husband kissing another woman. Drama in da hoosegow!!
Sunday we also finally got around to decorating for xmas. just some lights around the windows in the dining room/tv room, and a tree. Mary nearly lost it when she saw the tree- she was like "OMG! What a nice, huuuuuge tree!!" I was thinking: "dude, this is the smallest, fakest, crappiest tree I've ever put up in my life! You have nooooooooo idea!"
The hike with the Alpine Hiking Society of BW on saturday was great, despite the ungodly waking hour. The Mr. is currently posting some photos on The Other Blog but I thought I'd throw a few up here anyway -
there's one of good old Petra and her shiny white shorts.
... just what I'd wear on a hike through the muck!!
Here's one of the lovely corpses at the "Vulture Restaurant"... where they haul all the visible carcasses off to for the vultchies. Poor hartebeest....
The dam was soooooo full and rivers were flowing all over the park.
And we saw these guys up close and personal. I thought I'd put up this photo because if nothing else, somebody over on the other side of the Southern Hemisphere might get a kick out of seeing these guys actually standing up and WALKING AROUND....
(S&M you remember Duma and Letotse? They walked right up to the fence as we came trudging by.)
The Silly Disease is sweeping Gabz at present due to most of the companies around town breaking up on friday (tomorrow). The guys in the office next door don't do any work anymore, no one's in their offices, everyone's ignoring phone calls, it's hilarious. What's NOT hilarious is that Mary is going back to Zim for xmas so Reggie and Billy have to go into kennels and the only bodies that will be guarding my house while we're away is going to be Reilly and Sech. WORTHLESS!!! We'll just set the alarm and hope S and S-H will keep an eye on the place and those hopeless 2 lonely pups. We're lucky that at least they'll be around - evvvvvvveryone we know is headed off somewhere for the long 2 weeks.
I worked from home yesterday. It was incredible how much work I got done. No phone calls, no meetings, nobody walking in and interrupting, no internet... it was mammoth. I finished what would normally take me 1 week in the office, in about 6 hours of good solid WORK. I have been struggling lately.... really, really struggling. Maybe it's the Silly Season, maybe it's the fact that I am sick. to. death. of this stupid powerline project that I've been working on for what seems like decades... but I have really really really been duking it out with myself to try and get this done.
Well now, I've found the answer: work from home at least once a week. My new resolution. It's amazing. I put CNN on a dull murmour in the background, fire up the laptop at the dining room table (the least distracting, most empty room in the house) and hit the bricks. It was phenomenal: every time I had the urge to get up and distract myself, I just made sure that whatever I got up to do, involved some sort of other "work" such as washing dishes.
Boy that sure got me back down to the dining room table in a jiffy. Hell, man, it worked. I'm now at a winning plateau on this report I'm writing. So, new routine in the makings. Working at home at timely intervals during the week.
0 Responses to “Lamb Shanks”
Post a Comment