pizzas

I made delicious pizzas last night. (i'm modest like that...)

For the record (and maybe for Adele?) here are some of my regular topping combinations (in order of putting them on the pizza). I should come up with names for them.

-tomato paste
-mozzarella cheese (sprinkle some on the before the toppings)
-mushrooms (lots of them)
-chopped olives (lots of them)
-chopped sun-dried tomatoes (not too many)
-mozzarella cheese

-tomato paste
-mozzarella cheese (sprinkle some on the before the toppings)
-mushrooms (lots of them)
-Camembert
-cranberry sauce
-Smoked chicken (or not, to leave it vege)
-mozzarella cheese

-tomato paste
-mozzarella cheese (sprinkle some on the before the toppings)
-dessicated coconut (sprinkle over cheese)
-sliced banana
-chopped mango
-Smoked chicken (or not, to leave it vege)
-apricot/mango sauce or spicy mango chutney
-mozzarella cheese
-natural cashew nuts (sprinkle over just before it's finished cooking)
-natural yogurt (pour over just as it comes out of the oven)

For the bases there are many options... sometimes I use wholemeal pita bread. Sometimes I use turkish bread, or flat-bread. Sometimes I make my own (water, yeast, flour and sugar... real easy).

Cook at 200degrees celcius fan-bake for 10-12 minutes.

$10,000 to IT Professionals

IT Rock Star is giving the opportunity for an IT guru in NZ to win a trip to an overseas conference valued at $10,000.

Cool. But why?

putting it in perspective

When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side
Of the road, turn out the lights, get out and look up at the sky
And I do this to remind me that I'm really, really tiny
In the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me

But it's only really scary cause it makes me feel serene
In a way I never thought I'd be because I've never been
So grounded, and so humbled, and so one with everything
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything

Rock and roll is fun but if you ever hear someone
Say you are huge, look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun
Look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky
Say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye

Great lyrics, courtesy of Kimya Dawson...

i miss the coffee in wellington

one thing i love about our country's capitol is that you only have to walk a few hundred metres or less and you are in the presence of great coffee.

auckland doesn't offer such abundance of high quality coffee or cafes.

and so i have an idea to create a cafe in auckland that sells wellington-esque coffee. it could offer a selection of all the different coffee-beans that one would find in wellington and the customer would have the choice of which beans to use in their espresso.

brilliant!

we'll call it 'capitol' or something.

NADD

Gargh! I've just self-diagnosed myself with NADD - Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder.

Whilst reading this article I followed the instructions to count how many other things I had going on whilst reading it. Do you dare to know?

1. My email account was open.
2. I was uploading photos to my Facebook account.
3. I had 10 tabs open with different articles relating to Cuba, the Zimbabwe elections, telecommunications updates and non-profit grants
4. I had iTunes open and playing the Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind soundtrack
5. I was working on a couple word documents
6. I had another computer next to me with 8 tabs open...
7. I had a conversation going on MSN with a friend in Australia
8. I was checking and comparing flight prices to Wellington

Yeah.... g.e.e.k

So I'm feeling fabulous!!!!

Not really though. I finished my detox yesterday, and it went something like this:

9am: I awake to the smell of pancakes. Automatically, my mind conjures up images involving hot pancakes, maple syrup, blueberries, yogurt, my mouth, saliva, chewing, swallowing etc. Until the realisation hits me that I'm ON A DETOX. (aka NO SWEET SWEET DELICIOUS MMMMM FOOD). Furious, I storm downstairs demanding an explanation for such a cruel act. I notice that Paul (my father) has innocently set me a place at the table.

I explain (again) that I'm on a detox. He pleads ignorance. I forgive him. End result: I'm sitting at the table slowly munching on my oats+water, while Ingrid and Paul sit next to me, happily gorging on fluffy white pancakes.

6pm: Matthew and I are returning from a walk on the beach with Leia. He suggests we stop for food. I suggest Pizza (again, it's an reflex thought). We stop at this place called 'Dante's - We make, you bake'. The idea is quite self explanatory... for $15, they spend 2 minutes putting the pizza together and suffocating it in plastic glad-wrap - then you take it home and bake it for 10 minutes. Cool. But I'm not allowed cheese or gluten. So I pay (Matt pays) $2 extra for a gluten free base and they remove the cheese (surely they could have canceled each other out? I mean, why the 2 bucks?)

Anyway, so we get home and pop our pizzas in the oven. Mine - gluten free, artichokes, olives, onion and tomato. Matt's - smoked chicken, cranberry, mozzarella, camembert, sourdough base. Which pizza do you think looked the most delectable and smelt the most delicious as they were removed from the oven? It definitely wasn't the dried up, sans-cheese, crumbly gluten-free-base pizza (aka MINE.)

But today is a new day. Today is MONDAY. Today is NO MORE DETOX day.

Although, strangely, I haven't been overly excited to jump on the bread wagon. Or the milk wagon either for that matter. I had a coffee this morning. Which was nice. But I haven't had one since. I have this new awareness of my body I think. I look at food and I think 'what's going to happen to you when you get inside me? will I use you? Or will you blob around and make it difficult for me to go toilet?' Yes... so there's some insight into what goes on in my head!

I wonder how long this new feeling will last...