Yes, yes I’m a hypocrite. I went back on my word of three weeks ago. The Wednesday waste post was m.i.a this week. Sometimes life – and in this instance, moving cross country continent – gets in the way. This time last week I was happily cruising along. Supremely confident that I’d be able to breeze through the following seven days, gathering the last few bits and bobs together in preparation for jetting off to the University of Melbourne. Hah. Despite numerous lists, a weekly calendar and other such organisational tools this week has been anything but that. Working out the cheapest way to transport belongings (in a country the size of Australia, postage becomes expensive very quickly), changing addresses, fighting with stupid bureaucratic government websites (thank you for ‘losing’ my account, I really appreciate it), and other such matters whilst trying to cram in as much cooking as possible before I leave has resulted in one very brain dead person. A walking zombie. Needless to say any inch of inspiration for yesterday’s waste post was long gone.

Have I made enough excuses yet? Let’s just admit I’ve been rather scattered and leave it at that. Despite the frantic nature of the last few days I’ve been profoundly looking forward to starting this new segment of my life (I’ll try to reign in the corny deep and meaningful ‘life’ statements, truly). The time feels ripe to begin University 2.0 and after reading over the assessment requirements for my subjects, I’m positive that the experience will be very different to that at Oxford. There’s no 2000 word essays a week, that’s for sure! Meeting new people, hitting the books again, exploring Melbourne and it’s many culinary delights….can we fast forward a few days?

There is one thing, however, that is freaking me out big time. My residential college is fully catered for. That means there is no requirement for me to cook. I repeat, no need to cook. Heaven forbid. I’m not even packing a recipe book. It’ll only cause more agony. Overdramatic? Perhaps. There are ovens/stove tops if the urge becomes too strong, so it’s not complete deprivation.

What does this mean for Taste Without Waste? Never fear, my friends. All summer I’ve been squirrelling away recipes and photographs for when this time finally arrived. I’ll strive to post one recipe a week, though most will be a post tacked onto a recipe from the stockpile. We’ll try to keep things relevant. In addition to this I aim to become more consistent with the waste posts/ramblings/mundane foodie observations – ideally one a week. Melbourne is named the foodie capital of the land of Oz, so it’s doubtful we’ll be lacking inspiration.

As for tomorrow’s recipe, it’s a work in progress. It’ll be short and sweet, but it’ll be there. I swear on my soon to be neglected recipe books. As for now, back to the packing I must go – it’s going to be a sit-on-the-suitcase-to-zip-it-up situation. Hopefully there’ll be time for a touch more cooking before I go cold turkey from tomorrow. Oh lordy.