Four Ingredients, Two Crones, and No Idea

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you'd be aware that I am something of a foodie. As such, I often take the opportunity to kick back zone in front of a few cooking shows.

May Jah BLESS Foxtel's Food Channel...

I tend to be pretty choosy when it comes to which TV chefs I watch, though. Obviously, Gordon Ramsay is at the top of the tree. Not only for the fact that he's obviously a brilliant chef, but it's always fun to watch him harangue some clueless douchebag until they crack. Jamie Oliver is up there as well, and I don't mind sitting through some of the British version of Ready Steady Cook, because even though Ainsley Harriott acts like a complete f-ing PECKERHEAD at the best of times, seeing chefs coming up with decent recipes out of supposedly random ingredients makes for some interesting ideas.

The other TV chef I watch a bit is some bony seppo-Italian chick with pert hooters, a scarily toothy grin and a long, unpronounceable name that I don't care to remember.

(It's something along the lined of "Granita De Garlicmuncher", or words to that effect. I don't know. I don't care. She can cook, and she looks like she'd be happy to go a few rounds with the purple-headed contender. So she's just TOPS in MY book.)

She has this annoying habit of enunciating every Italian word with an over-the-top Gino accent (even though she normally speaks in your garden variety yank twang), but she comes up with some pretty good pasta recipes.

And I LOVE pasta. Damn tootin'.

On the other side of the spectrum is probably Australia's best-known TV chef, Iain Hewitson. "Hewie", as he likes to call himself, is a roly-poly Kiwi windbag who somehow managed to find his way onto TV a decade or so ago, and for some unknown f-ing reason, has managed to keep himself there despite the rather significant handicap of being a complete prat.

Not only are his recipes usually utter shit, but the guy rambles on about nothing in particular for the greater part of his show, and spends most of his time apologising to his cameramen for putting his fat arse between them and what they are supposed to be filming. The rest of the time is dedicated to shameless product placements, to the point that every time he mentions an ingredient they flash up a tight shot of their sponsors' goodies.

Worse still, pretty much every time he cooks something even REMOTELY interesting, he prefaces the segment by stating which REAL chef's show (or book) he pinched the recipe from.

Essentially, you can watch Hewie stutter his dumpy arse around for half an hour, or you can just watch the REAL chef's programme and see how the guy with actual talent cooks his food. Either or.

But Hewie and his kind are gastronomical GODS compared the latest food show to hit the Australian airwaves.

Now, I don't buy cookbooks. With the sheer volume of information on the internet, you'd have to be an utter pillock to waste your money buying what you could easily find online for free. But recently, two idiot housewives got together and published a book entitled Four Ingredients. The premise of the book is that it only contained recipes that could be made with- you guessed it- four ingredients.

Now, I'm no snob when it comes to food, and I have a healthy respect for the idea that simple food can be tasty. So when I heard that some network had ponied up the cash to give these two women the opportunity to extend their concept to television, I figured I'd give it a chance.

How I made it through the episode without huffing a f-ing brick through my TV is nothing short of a MIRACLE.

Firstly, the two hosts themselves are painful to watch. They have the strong, "Kath and Kim" type of female ocker accents, which is not only excrutiating to watch, but also makes them sound about as cultured as a fart in a funeral procession and as sophisticated as baseball bat to the head.

Which, incidentally, would DEFINITELY be an appropriate fate for either one of them.

All this would be easily forgivable if their "recipes" were innovative and tasty. Being that they are limited to just four ingredients per dish, I was expecting something completely out of the box.

It would appear that I was expecting too much. WAY too much.

Here's a quick sample of one of their recipes:

Pesto Pasta:

Step One: Buy a packet of dry pasta. Boil accoring to packet directions and pour into a bowl.

Step Two: Buy one jar of pesto. Pour the pesto into the pasta, and mix.

Step Three: Serve.

Are you f-ing kidding me? "Pour a jar of pesto into a bowl of pasta" is now a recipe worthy of being featured on a f-ing TV show?

Here's a tip for you: If you need to watch a f-ing TV show to be able to figure out how to unscrew a jar of sauce and mix it in with pasta, then you need to throw away ALL of your pots, pans and kitchen utensils and make sure that you have a drawer full of take away menus. Then get a hefty claw hammer and use it to batter your genitals, lest you reproduce and add MORE f-ing idiots to our gene pool.

F-it. Turn your kitchen into a f-ing guest room while you're at it. It's not like it's going to be any friggin' use to you.

You know what the SADDEST part of all this is? These f-ing wenches are making some kickarse bank off the back of this shit. Rat f-ers...

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I'm puzzled about something. Maybe you can help me- particularly those of you of the seppo persuasion.

Now, I know that in the US, any thought of implementing universal healthcare is derided as the first step on the road to the hell that is socialism. I don't agree, but whatever. It's not like I'm planning to move over there, so I couldn't give a flying f--k how you guys choose to run your society.

Here's what I don't get, though: If throwing some poor sap a few bones to get himself a little surgery or some hospital treatment is evil commie welfare shit that betrays the free-market capitalism that a successful nation is built on, how the hell is President G-Dub not being marched out of town at the end of a f-ing pitchfork after his idea of throwing hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars of public money into failed banks? Surely that's just as evil, just as commie, and just the same welfare shit, but with a slightly higher net worth bunch of recipients?

Am I the ONLY one that finds this comparison a little baffling?

Somebody educate me. I'm genuinely curious here.

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Quick question- Is it WRONG to laugh at your five-week-old baby when she is wailing uncontrollably?

OK. Assuming your answer to the above question is "yes", allow me to ask you ANOTHER question.

Is it wrong to laugh at your five-week-old baby, when during one of her uncontrollable crying fits, she reaches up, grabs a handful of her OWN hair, yanks on it with every ounce of strength in her little body, realises after a few seconds that she is causing herself quite a bit of pain and screams like she's been connected to a car battery?

Of COURSE not. Frankly, it's lucky she was born a girl. Otherwise I have no doubt she'd soon be graduating to tugging on her scrotum. And lord KNOWS that'd make MY legs cross.

As I write this, it is just before 3am on Monday, and I have only just managed to get her down to sleep. She started acting up at about 4.30pm yesterday afternoon. I shit you not- ten-and-a-half f-ing hours of hollering.

I need a f-ing joint. And a vasectomy.

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My wait is over. A few days ago, my spiffy new laptop arrived here from Dell.

After waiting a couple of days past the expected delivery date, I decided to fire off an email and give them a bit of a bollocking. When they hadn't replied after a day, I scoured their website and, after a long and exhausting search, I managed to find a contact phone number for them.

The shit was about to hit the fan, folks. I was NOT f-ing happy.

Anyway, after going through the usual automated phone system, I mashed the telephone keypad a couple of times and got through to an actual, real life human being.

(While we're on the subject, I have a handy hint when it comes to dealing with those automated answering systems that every f-ing corporation on the planet utilises. When you are given the options, NEVER pick the option that most closely represents your needs. Trust me on this.

Instead, pick the most obscure, unusual option they offer. They will have someone who is tasked with answering the calls for this rarely-used option, and you'll end up getting through to an actual person far sooner.

The kicker is that most of these companies have policies that only allow the operators to transfer you to ANOTHER actual person, rather than transferring you to the hold queue. This way, you'll end up speaking to the appropriate person, but without the soul-destroying wait that you'd be forced to endure if you played their game.

F-them. I refuse to play their little wait-and-hold game. I have better things to do with my time.)

Anyway, I explained my issue to her, and she put me through to their delivery people. After explaining the situation AGAIN, they put me on hold and made a couple of calls to find out where my package was.

It turned out that the local courier contractor claimed that they had already attempted to deliver the package, but we weren't home at the time. They also claimed that said contractor left a card in my letterbox informing me of their delivery attempt, and that they were awaiting my call in order to arrange a time that would be suitable for me. The package had been sitting in the depot up here for the previous three days.

F-ers.

Obviously, I didn't receive any card. I have no doubt that they are full of shit, but I didn't have the inclination to argue the point. I just wanted my computer. So I told them not to bother sending it out, but rather to have the thing ready for me to pick up. Problem solved.

Aside from the delivery shenanigans, I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with the thing. Being that it was their base model, I was expecting it to be a little agricultural, but the thing looks pretty good.

My first concern was that I would have to wipe the pre-installed Windoze Vista installation off the thing and install my preferred OS, Ubuntu Linux, instead.

I checked around beforehand, and I'd heard that Ubuntu worked well with the Dell hardware. Still, I was expecting a few configuration hassles.

As it turned out, Everything worked straight out of the box. Webcam, card reader, wireless- everything operated just fine.

I really can't fault the thing so far. The keyboard is far and away the best laptop keyboard that I've ever used, and the various ports are well located and out of the way. It runs REALLY quick (particularly with Ubuntu), and it looks pretty snazzy, too.

After I've used the thing for a while, I'll throw up a full review. But so far, so good.

You know, it's not often I can find NOTHING to bitch about. Feels kinda... ODD.

Later.