Ramsay the never

I don't know why, but I love cooking. The prep work, the cooking and the eating. I don't always make great cook and I never cook anything complicated. Simple and tasty. When I am cooking, I would say that I am sort of in a trance, just moving and doing and enjoying the food change in front of my eyes. I'm not exactly sure when I first got into cooking, it can't have been more than 2 years ago, I have an inkling that it was when I first made Spaghetti Bolognese.

Anyways, I had my 2nd go (in about 2 years) at cooking Chicken Pasta in a creamy white wine sauce. The first time I made an absolute muck of it and therefore hadn't tried again. This time it would out quite well except when I simmered the sauce at too high a temperature and the fat separated!

I like sharing recipes so here it is.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
300g Boneless chicken
5-6 Cloves of Garlic
2 Tsp Olive Oil
250ml of Cream
180ml of White wine (any will do)
8g of Plain Flour
1 tsp of Salt
2 tsp of oregano (dried, if you use fresh then as much as you like!)

Prep work:
1) Cut chicken into small pieces
2) dice the garlic
3) whip the cream until it is thick

Cook work:
1) throw in whatever pasta you like to eat with it into a pot (add some olive oil and pinch of salt to water) until al dente
2) heat the oil, throw in garlic, just when it starts to brown throw in the chicken. Cook until the chicken has a nice brown colour (you don't have to move it too much)
3) put the cream/wine/salt/flour/oregano into the pan and simmer at a low heat.
4) once the sauce has be reduced to about 2/5 of the original content, then you are done (or until your desired thickness but thick and gooey is best).
5) drain pasta, add with chicken and your done!

Optional:
6) At the end of part 2, throw in some sliced mushrooms or diced courgettes!

Enjoy

Speaking of ch-ch-change

To get more readers to my blog I have to go out and find other like minded people. People who not necessarily share my views but are willing to put themselves out there. It is very easy to be bold on the internet, people type whatever rubbish they feel like. The one's I am after are ones that also put in intelligent thought behind the words.

Sometimes I'm a bit of a hypocrite. I write for myself mostly but I do want others to read and comment on it as well.

There is a website that I visit like 7 times a day. Fantasybookspot.com and recently they have been trying to urge some members into moving their blogs to FBS's blog. I am thinking about this quite a bit. Would it be a hindrance to the people who read my blog now or have me in their blogroll?

Yet the more I think about it, I keep telling myself why am I so sentimental about this website?

Get what we've always got

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Dont want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I cant trace time
- David Bowie

Change is simple yet so very hard. To make our diet better we can simply give up drinking fizzy drinks (simple yeah?). But most of us like drinking fizzy drinks and it is EVERYWHERE! The fact that a bottle of water costs more than twice the size in fizzy drink is ridiculous.

The thing that makes change hard is that it changes what is comfortable for us. We have done things so habitually that we don't think anything of it. Those people who are fat didn't wake up fat but gained 1 pound a week or two. Those that have had a much better income than 5 years ago, most likely had worked hard for 5 years and getting small constant pay rises rather than a quick job change.

However, there are many things that we do benefit from changing our routines. We get new insights from working at the different place. We stop eating dairy and found out just how much of it is in packaged food goods. We walk to work and save $3 a day, $15 a week or a whooping $720 a year.

Change is normally good, we can learn a lot from it. Don't try and ignore it or be afraid of it. If you want your life to be better than you have to change or stick to what you have always gotten.



This guy will bring huge changes. Not just because he could be the new president but because (and I don't like focusing on this, but too many Americans can't stop focusing on it) he might be the first ever black president.

Hopefully any changes that happen to the good old US of A is for the better.

Buying Anonymity

So I sat down on a long brown couch which looked very inviting and sunk deeply into it. I felt around with my hand, pushing the cushion here and there then poking at the couch cushion next to me. Feeling dissatisfied I got up and looked for another seat. I was looking for the green one-seater couch I had sat in before, and it wasn't long before I saw them. It wasn't in the most appetizing of spots but I was willing to tolerate it because of the comfortableness that the green couch offered. I opened up 'Last argument of Kings' (to the chapter I was at) and began to read, immersed in the world of Joe Abercrombie. Not before long my latte in a cup arrives to interrupt the dealings of Logan and his ponderings. I added two sugars, stirred, took a sip, and just stared out the window looking at nothing in particular. I looked back towards my book and thought "this is the life, if only I could have more moments like this."

Now it wasn't so much as being able to sit in a cafe, drink coffee and read my current book that made me all sentimental. What it doesn't tell you was that it was my day off work. I didn't have to think about anything else. There was nothing to worry about at home, there was no obligations at that particular point and time except for me to read my book and do whatever I felt like doing at that time. Sometimes it's about watching a movie with my girl, sometimes it's going out and having lunch with a good mate.

Perhaps that is why I would like to be rich (don't confuse this with being famous), it would create more days/chances I would have less obligations and therefore have more days where I feel sentimental.
I also want to have children, but that would create more obligations, conflicting with my need for sentimental days! Or is it that by having children I would create more sentimental days, but instead of having a read and a coffee, it would be my child running towards me when I come home from work and yelling "DADDY!"

Diagnosing Adulthood

The Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (as known as the DSM) is a book that helps diagnose mental illness' such as autism, schizophrenia etc...

The DSM helps mostly doctors to diagnose patients, but sometimes their diagnoses can be the different between the sane and the mentally disabled.

On Wikipedia is says:
The DSM-IV-TR states that, because it is produced for mental health specialists, its use by people without clinical training can lead to inappropriate application of its contents. Appropriate use of the diagnostic criteria is said to require extensive clinical training, and its contents “cannot simply be applied in a cookbook fashion” *** DSM-IV-TR = 4th edition text revised version.

This helps to prevent common people like you and me looking through the book, ticking off the requirements and think we or someone we know have some mental illness. However, I am thinking of a different thing for this blog. I have always wanted to know when do people become adults. I have a small criteria list and although it is not extensive, I think it is quite a good reflection.

You must meet this first requirement because under the law you will still be a child.
* Am over the age of 18

You must meet at least 1 of these critera
* Have bought a house before
* Lived away from home
* Have children

You must meet at least 1 of these criteria
* Have had a long term relationship
* Have a driver's license with no restrictions
* Have had sex before
* Have stopped maturing physically

Three or more of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a one-month period
* Can be objective even when involving oneself
* Independent, the ability to self rely.
* Moral understandings between right and wrong
* Ability to make decisions that you don't like
* Ability to say sorry, not necessarily because you mean it, but because it is the right thing to do
* Have an altruistic nature

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I will soon move out of the house soon, which will promote me from child to adult according to my guide. Hopefully I don't suck at it too much.