Beautiful Winter Trees

I love the look of deciduous trees in winter.

Trees don't look like this in winter in Oz so it seems very European to me.

I just can't stop taking photos of the beautiful scenery :)

Vegemite v Marmite

The symbol of all things Australia v its mother empire.

They sent their convicts to a far off land, thinking that it was the ultimate punishment. Fast forward 220 years and it's a holiday destination and the dream home of people all around the world, with its perfect weather, gorgeous landscape, relaxed lifestyle and attractive people (even if I say so myself).

Maybe I'm reading into it too much but that's how I see this battle between the Mighty Mites.

When we first arrived in London, Daniel bought some Marmite and put it in the cupboard. "Vegemite is really expensive here, and I think Marmite is similar," he reasoned. Wrong! I threw a big tantrum at this monstrocity of a yeast spread and eventually it was thrown in the bin.

But I've had a year to cool down so I think it's time to compare this imitation gunk with the original and the best.

HISTORY

Unfortunately after a little research I've learnt that Marmite (the British stuff, not the NZ spread with the same name) was invented before Vegemite. This is not a good start! So it turns out that Vegemite was developed by an Australian scientist in 1923 when the supply of Marmite was cut off during WWI. Vegemite is made from brewer's yeast, and of course beer is another vital icon for Aussie culture.

Marmite has been around since 1902, and the paste also came from breweries. (It's not a beef extract as lots of Aussies think. Maybe they're thinking of Bovril.) I'm absolutely shattered. If we didn't create the vitamin B spread, what do we have? Some nice beaches? Pish posh.

There is also the fact that Vegemite isn't technically Australian-owned anymore. Kraft is owned by American companies now. But let's just ignore that.

The test remains. How different do they look and taste? And which is more nutritious?

APPEARANCE

In Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson calls Marmite "an edible yeast extract with the visual properties of an industrial lubricant". Neither Vegemite nor Marmite look particularly appetising (unless you've been conditioned to love it since childhood). Vegemite is dark brown, and very thick like tar. Marmite is a lighter colour, more like caramel, a little more runny and much more sticky and stringy.

TASTE

We held a taste-off at lunch today. Two English girls and I tried first of all a portion of Vegemite toast, then a portion of Marmite. They have both grown up eating Marmite but on trying the Vegemite first could not notice difference. When we ate the Marmite we all noticed a significant difference - it had an extra flavour but we couldn't say what it was. For me it was quite a lot sweeter and also possibly saltier.

I always thought vegemite was just salty, but there is in fact a word for its distinctive taste -"umami", a Japanese word meaning savory or yummy. Umami can apply to soy sauce, seaweed broth, and many products containing MSG. Some say this is a human's fifth taste - apart from sweet, sour, salty and bitter.

Both spreads have the same savoury undertaste and aftertaste. You could compare it to that of tasty cheese. (Some people say marmite tastes more like caramel, which is what also makes the colour different. However I'm not sure if they are talking about the British or NZ version.)

NUTRITION

Vegemite has less energy, protein and salt. It contains some B vitamins (Thiamine - B1, Riboflavin - B2, and Niacin - B3) V has more B1 and B2 but M has much more B3. Vegemite lacks Vitamin B-12 which means it's not the best choice for vegetarians. V has around the same amount of folate as M has folic acid. Both are forms of vitamin B9. Strictly speaking I believe Marmite is more nutritious, however it's probably also wise to watch your intake of both due to the high salt content.

USES

Vegemite and Marmite are consumed by Aussies and Poms respectively as a spread for toast (the more hardcore you are the thicker you spread it).

The vitamin B content also apparently makes them good hangover cures. Some say eat a spoonful with water before going to bed, others say have it on bread (so you get the vitamins and the complex carbs). I do like to eat vegemite toast in the morning after a night out drinking.

Brits also use a spoonful of marmite in soups for flavour, bolognaise or shepherd's pie (I don't think anyone uses vegemite for that purpose).

SHELF LIFE

Apparently Marmite goes off pretty quickly, whereas Vegemite kept in a cupboard for years tastes the same as the day you buy it. Having grown up with it I don't find this usual at all.

According to the BBC: "A jar of Vegemite will outlive any human being on the planet, due to its high salt content. This is illustrated particularly when Australian people go through kitchen cupboards that haven't been cleaned for five years... often the only things worth keeping are several jars of Vegemite at various stages of age." - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A195202

Vegemite jars and tubes do have an expiry date, but does anyone take any notice of it?

THE VERDICT

I have read that Native Vegemitians can switch to Marmite quite easily but it's difficult to go the other way. After trying Marmite I think I could eat it regularly, but first I'd have to get over the feeling of it being so very, very wrong. Just doing this investigation has made me feel very un-Australian. I think it's time to throw some prawns on the barbie and have a VB or two.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Maybe Bovril, Promite, NZ Marmite, Aussie Mite, Mightymite...

Koalas on Ramsay St

There's an ad for Neighbours on London double-decker buses. It's a picture of the cul-de-sac at Ransay St, Harold playing his trumbone, and either a koala in a tree or a bunch of kangaroos bounching around.

It's so wonderfully kitch - I love it.

I wonder if anyone who sees it actually thinks there is that sort of wildlife in the suburbs of Australia.

What knitting means to me

Some people don't know this, but I'm well in the knitting scene. I
always have a couple of projects on the needles and am thinking about
what I'd like to make when I can afford some lovely soft yarn.

In fact, last time I went clubbing, before getting into the night, I
spent a good thirty minutes thinking about my socks-in-the-making
while boogying on the dance floor.

I didn't learn to knit from a mother, grandmother or aunt as many
women did. I never even thought of it until I saw other young women
doing it in cafes and other public places. They were always artsy,
individuals who didn't care what others thought. Still,
I didn't think to try it out until I had finished uni and was feeling
a bit bored.

Learning from digrams on the internet was very frustrating. My basic skills were brushed up on with the help of a woman I worked with and I started to enjoy it once I
got past the frustration stage.

I worked on my first scarf for about a month - halfway through you can see when i finally clicked for me and my rows
became straight and even. I was a bit scared to move on from
scarves and little scraps and for a while moved onto jewellery making.

Then on arriving in London I met Elvira, another relatively new
self-taught knitter who attempted - and perfected - quite complicated
designs. With her inspiration and advice I knitted my first garment -
a small cabled cardi that took a fair few months.

That's still the most complex thing I've made but since then I've made lots of new projects, joined Ravelry, the knitter's facebook, and attended several knitting club getogethers and the London Stitch'n'Bitch convention.

I love the idea of making something totally unique, even just the idea of making something. If I knit when stressed my stitches are tighter, if I'm calm they are looser. That creation represents a point of time in my life, and no matter my mood at the time, every stitch was made with love and intention. I've met some lovely, creative, inspiring people through this craft and really enjoyed the process.

Elvira discovered this pattern for the jelly baby hat and has made a few for the boom of babies recently born. Here is my first one - for the baby of my cousin Julie, due next month.

Backpackers are strange people

Our office is next door to a youth hostel. In fact, our office is above it.

Sometimes it's strange for me being between these two worlds - on the one hand, I am a foreigner in this city, I have stayed at hostels and I am well familiar with the beer and baked beans lifestyle. On the other hand I'm a professional representing a company where it's mainly British people, and I fit in quite well with the team.

But every morning when I arrive at work I disown my traveller status as I look out the window. What surprises have the hostelers have left for us today? Our courtyard has become an artwork.

So far we have:
A beach towel
Pair of men's underwear
Pair of socks
Inflatable cow
Several large bunches of human hair
Drink cartons
Roll of toilet paper
Plastic bag from the science museum
Polystyrene cup
Several chocolate bar wrappers

What other inflatable animals will arrive tomorrow? We can only guess.

My no-canned-or-microwave-meals challenge: the result

Here's how it went...

Day 1 (Thursday): All excited to start the challenge I arrived at my front door, groceries in hand, and felt for my keys in my bag. Uh oh. No keys. Called my boyfriend; it would take him an hour to get home. I visited the bottle shop next door, met my neighbour for the first time and he kindly kept my mince meat in the fridge while I waited in the pub. Hey, I was tired and hungry so I got some soup at the pub. This wasn’t a great start. I had to talk myself into cooking my spaghetti bol with red capsicum (peppers) at 10pm.

Day 2: Spag bol for lunch; dinner at a fancy Japanese restaurant for a friend’s birthday.

Day 3 (saturday): French toast for breakfast (at 1pm); ham and cheese sandwich for dinner.

Day 4 (sunday): Ham and cheese toasted sandwich for brunch. The last of the spag bol for dinner.

Day 5 (monday): Sandwich for lunch. Time for a new meal. Made chicken in mushroom sauce (made from cream of mushroom) with onions, mushrooms and zucchini (courgette) and rice.

Boyfriend bought me some microwave meals, uh oh, could I resist?

Day 6 (tuesday): Chicken and rice for lunch. Vegemite toast for dinner before drinks with friends. Probably more vegemite toast afterwards.

Day 7 (wednesday): Chicken and rice for lunch. Vegemite toast for dinner before drinks with friends. Some more chicken and rice for dinner (there is still some in my freezer).

So I made it! It didn't end up being the healthiest diet ever but that's to be expected when I'm not willing to spend any money on food!

I was actually quite surprised by how affordable basic cooking was. I always tend to cook enormous quantities and that way it lasts a fair few meals and also I freeze some for later. The most expensive thing was the mince meat and chicken. Everything else was dirt cheap - the pasta, rice and a few veges.

So what now? Well first of all I'm going to eat the microwave meals that are stockpiling up at home. Then I will start cooking at least once a week - this way I should have home cooked meals for around half of my meals.

I really love living life on the edge :)

Mission Impossible: stop being trashy

I'm heading back to Sydney for a few weeks in March for Christina's wedding, yay! Really looking forward to seeing everyone and being home for a little while.

What I'm not looking forward to is a significant chunk of my pay going towards plane tickets. Memories too much canned food come back to me *shudder*. I was talking about this with friends at work today and they suggested I try cooking cheap meals instead of eating microwave dinners or cans every night.

Now it's not like I don't know how to cook, it's just that I have reservations about doing it every night. First of all, it can't be that cheap to buy all those ingredients for meals every day. Then there's the fact that after a long day at work you have to slave over the hot stove to make your meal. I think a lot of Londoners eat ready-made meals because they are just too hungry when they get home. There's also the washing up factor.

But the thought of all those cans in the cupboard made me consider it. Naomi suggested making minced meat and having it with different things each night. Peter mentioned cauliflower cheese. Elvira discussed a peppers (capsicum) and vege stir fry dish, and described how to cook nice rice.

The only way I can go through with anything longer than a day is to make it an official challenge, so here I am.

(BTW, I am not a person who makes new years' resolutions. I believe that if you want to change something about yourself you can start any day of the year.)

So the mission is to go for 1 week without eating a canned meal or microwave ready meal. I finished off my last microwave meal sadly, a yummy rosemary chicken with roast potatoes, hoping that my cooking skills develop a bit over this week.

1 week isn't that long, I know, but I cook something other than eggs about once a month so this is BIG. After 1 week I'll see how I feel.

My prediction? I imagine it will cost about the same as living on canned food and that I'll be well over it in 7 days' time. Doing it cheap means not very exotic ingredients, and probably many overlaps of meals. As for the health/body side of it, I'd imagine I'll be eating bigger servings for dinner and lunch this week. I'm cynical so I don't think I'll feel any better than I do now.

If it's going well, maybe I'll become one of those people who cook food. You know those people? I know, they are strange, but maybe there is something that I'm missing about the experience.

Wish me luck! :)

Flippin' 'eck! What happened to the sun?

Winter in London has been quite an experience. I guess I never realised just how different it would be to my Aussie-centric definition of ‘winter’...which is, a time to wear a few extra layers, eat soup rather than salad and avoid being outside if you can help it. Well I realised pretty early on not to wear loads of singlets and underlayers because as soon as I got on the hot, airless underground I almost passed out (on the way to a concert, how wild). So Just a coat on top then. Avoiding being outside? Well then you’d never see the sun. But it really is the time for soups...and chops...and roasts ...and puddings ...and pasta bake... and lots and lots of red wine.

I did my Christmas shopping way too early to send back to Oz and then watched with a smug expression as millions struggled to buy all their rubbish in the people-logged city. Every department store on Oxford St had huge amazing Christmas light displays out the front. You can’t help doing the tourist thing and stopping to look up to see who has the brightest shop front, who looks classy and who just looks tacky. The fairy lights go up in the suburbs too. The magic is completed by the carol singers at tube stations. Am I the only person who felt teary on hearing “Noel” at Angel station? This truly is how Christmas is meant to be.

While all this festive magic and desperate consumerism grew something was going away. The source of life and happiness. It hit me one day when I headed out after lunch to buy some things for the office. It was about 3pm and it was twilight. I actually felt nauseous and quite depressed as I realised that this unnatural feeling was the way things are here. I ate my depressing chocolate bars, got on the depressing bus and sat on a depressing seat.

Christmas itself was better because at least there was some sense of hibernation as we stocked up on ham, pork pie, chops, veges and puddings. There wasn’t a much better way to spend a chilly Xmas day than snuggled up with some chunky yarn, knitting a warm scarf while watching several versions of ‘A Christmas Carol’. Oh and then there was the food :) Whoever said you need to get out of bed to eat a roast?

Walks in the park while it was still light were difficult when we slept in til 1pm, but well worth it. The sun struggles to shine weakly down and you soak up those rays like a pom on Bondi Beach (incidentally at that moment Bondi is covered with poms).

Several incredibly lazy days later it was time to welcome the new year. Party time. A wake up from the hibernation and a reminder that this is an amazing city to have fun in. Young people come from all over to go to the clubs, pubs, gigs and concerts here. I love talking to randoms in clubs here because you never know what accent or language you’re gonna hear. And so many hot people!

But then there’s Black January. The pretty lights are taken down and the carollers go back to their jobs as call centre operators. Fur trees are abandoned out on the street. You go back to work but payday is infinitely far away. And the morning talk shows like to rub it in– “today’s the day most people quit their jobs” (why not just kill all your colleagues); “today’s the day most people get divorced” (January makes me want to get married just to get divorced), “today’s the most depressing day of the year” (don’t come near me! I will stab you with my Oyster card..which has no money on it...)

But miracle of miracles... today there was still some light at 4:30pm.

Things are looking up.