Boy, oh boy mister Qi do I have a bone to pick with you. Okay, I actually don’t know if you are a mister or not (are more tea companies run by men or women?) but for the sake of this post you will be. You see mister Qi I really like your green tea. (I swear that rhyming was unintentional). I happened upon it last week and have been a fan from the first sip. Spiced with blueberry, red-grape and pomegranate (also containing hawthorn fruit, whatever that is, and dandelion root), it’s pretty divine. What more could a girl want in the way of antioxidants? Fair-trade and organic? Thumbs up to you. Though by now all brands should be adopting those philosophies, but let’s not get too sidetracked. Up to this point I’m very happy with your product, but then you go and make a big blunder. With stupid, excessive, wasteful packaging. Why, oh why mister Qi does each individual tea bag need to be wrapped in paper? Sure I’ve heard all the arguments about easier transport, preventing flavours mixing, preserving them for longer, blah, blah blah. But when a girl really wants a cup of tea, and fast, it’s just a hassle to have to open the packet. Okay, that’s not exactly my main problem with the packaging, but a valid point none-the-less. Continue reading
Okay folks, I gotta admit something. The two units we have been studying at cooking school these last six weeks have been ‘meat and furred game’ and ‘chocolate and chocolate confectionary’. Both have been enjoyable and informative courses, however my favourite by a long shot was in fact meat. I can hear the gasps already. ‘Not chocolate?!’ Well let me tell you something, when you are working with a couple of kilos of chocolate and it’s caking your hands like clay and is messy and just.won’t.temper it’s not all Willy Wonka bliss. Did you know that it’s possible to get sick of the smell of chocolate? Well it is. In saying all of that I learnt many fascinating techniques, including making a box – yes a box, entirely out of chocolate. You can’t help but feel as though you’ve climbed Everest after that. Regardless of that, I found the meat course far more fascinating. Yes, I know I’m happily vegetarian and all that but I figure if you are going to eat meat you should at least cook it well. Respecting the animal in a way. I mean if we were prey I would hope that someone would do me the justice of at least cooking me nicely. Weird, but true. 
Put your hand up if you have sat down to a wonderful meal/dessert and thoroughly enjoyed eating it but come away clutching a prominent food baby. *Raises hand guiltily* It’s not fun. Why is it that we regularly punish ourselves by eating too much good food? And by good food I’m not referring to unhealthy food – though that is one of the worst culprits for over-indulgence – it could be your morning granola or the stir-fry you had for dinner last night. You’re probably wondering why this crazy lady is making such a big deal about eating more food than one should have, especially if it doesn’t happen all the time. Well I’m all for splurging from time to time, don’t get me wrong, however when it goes rampant and results in a horrible bloated sensation and needing to loosen your trousers (or put on your fat pants) it’s not so amusing. Am I starting to make more sense? Sure it can be fun to moan about it for a few minutes but then the realisation sinks in. “I just ate a delicious meal and now feel downright queasy. Why oh whyyyyyyy did I eat it all?.” If you hadn’t already cottoned on, I’m well practiced in self-inflicted food pain. But things are going to change. I have now made a pledge to alter my ways. Why? Because not only is it a bad (and uncomfortable) habit, it’s actually pretty wasteful. Why bother eating a scrumptious meal, only to wish you hadn’t done so straight afterwards? I’m not referring to the guilt associated with overeating (though that does play a part), nor am I really even talking about putting on weight. For now it’s the wasted pleasure that I want to discuss. 
Remember the great banana famine of 2011? The year that a single banana cost more than a chocolate bar? It was tough times for banana lovers. The devastation wreaked by Cyclone Yasi in northern Queensland virtually wiped out the state’s entire banana crop and consequently prices were driven through the roof (Queensland produces ninety percent of Australia’s bananas). You may wonder why I am taking a trip down memory lane. Well, because it is so very easy to forget how things were when times were tough. A week or two ago I bought ten bananas for $2. That’s far cry from paying $2 for one measly banana just a few years back. When produce is readily available and in abundance one can fall into the trap of failing to value it to the degree it deserves. The old adage “you never miss a good thing until it’s gone” is certainly true. I’m not just rambling on about bananas for the sake of it – the waste part is coming up very soon.
I was at the local fruit and veg supermarket a few weeks ago and happened to walk past a trolley laden with items ‘reduced to clear’. At a first glance they appeared to be a miserable, motley lot, packaged haphazardly with prices scrawled carelessly over the plastic wrap. Clearly the store believed that such produce wouldn’t sell and it therefore couldn’t be bothered to accentuate the appearance of the items. Unperturbed, I paused at the stand to study its contents further. What was so wrong with these items that proved cause for ‘quick-sale’? Not much to tell the truth. A packet of raspberries with a few that had been squished, figs that were ever so slightly discoloured, battered potatoes and a bag of tomatoes that I could not for the life of me work out why they were classed as ‘seconds’. There were many more items, however I would bore you to death if I listed them all here. I was tempted to fill up my basket with numerous bits and bobs, however settled for two packets of strawberries, replacing those on sale that I had collected earlier on. The ‘seconds’ were ridiculously cheap so I figured that I wouldn’t be losing out on much even if half the packet proved to be beyond saving. 
Taste Without Waste 