Pita Chips

A long week makes for a short blog entry so here is a recipe for a dish I re-invented recently (these things exist commercially and I just improvised for a similar result).

Ingredients

Pita Bread, Cooking Oil, Butter or Margarine, Minced Garlic, Herbs and Spices

Preparation

The number of pitas one uses will depend on how many you want to serve. So far I have used two or three to serve a handful of friends. This is also as many as will fit in a pan. Take the pita bread and cut it into finger-sized portions. It's okay for it to be twin-layered and indeed for them to all be different shapes and sizes. Some may even curl in on themselves - it will just result in a mix of pita chips that vary in crunchiness.

Put the pita pieces into a bowl and then sprinkle herbs and spices liberally into the pile. I have been using a jar of Spicy Italian mix which combines the usual Italian herbs with some spices like chilli. I ometimes also throw in some finely chopped chives just to add a pretence of freshness to the snack. Now move over to the stove.

Moisten a frying pan with cooking oil then whack in a generous lump of butter or margarine. Mush the yellow stuff together with a kindly dollop of minced garlic. Now apply heat and watch the concoction melt. Once it starts bubbling throw in the pita. Stir regularly so that the pita gets well infused with the garlic-goop. The herbs and spices may well have settled to the bottom of the bowl so just tip them in over the pita as you go.

Keep stirring. It will seem as if the chips will never become crisp (some of them never entirely do) but keep at it and go with your own feel. Check the odd chip now-and-then for crispness. Eventually the right moment will arrive to remove the heat and tip the chips back into a bowl for serving. They are rather nice once done - just trust me on that.

Passing Time (Reprise)

At the time of writing the original entry of this name I was seeking to provide explanation for how a person with lots of spare time can fill it. Now in this entry I am hoping to describe how I intend to fit too much into a working week. My desire to do the latter is in a sense the product of the former - I have a particular set of expectations that I am hoping to still fulfill while working in an office five days a week.

In seeking to have a full and well-rounded week I have formed in my mind a model of standard week. Naturally this is a bit ambitious, as life never conforms entirely to even the best of plans. Circumstances, family and friends all complicate things. The long-distance relationship I am conducting does likewise. Things happen. As a result I am yet to have even one week that confirms my model despite having been in the new job for over a month now. But onto my imaginary standard week.

Sunday - This is a day of sleeping in. It is both a luxury and frequently also a necessity if I have had too much fun the preceding night. Then it is also a day of visiting Clayton shops for both swimming at the new pool (housed along with a new library in a rather impressive rust-toned community facility). This has become a way for me to see my Dad and for him to revive his old passion for swimming. I will do my biggest grocery shopping at this time. Then in the evening I can see the new Doctor Who. I will also have a lovely long phone conversation with Petra (we do so at other times but this is a guaranteed time for it).

Monday - The evening following work is a time for resting at home and possibly watching satirical cartoons on SBS with housemates. I am deliberately including slack nights into my routine and this is one such time.

Tuesday - In the evening following work I travel directly to Campus for dinner and rehearsal with MonUCS. I will have to decide on a concert-by-concert basis just how much I can commit to staying all evening (including post-rehearsal pub or coffee) on a weeknight. Just starting on a new program now so I will see what I think of the music and my energy levels.

Wednesday - The evening following work is a time for resting at home and possibly attending to things like blogging or writing letters-to-the-editor or making new playlists.

Thursday - In the evening following work I can spend some time at home then go onto a small gathering of Korner friends who bring craft projects and gossip at one of two local housees.

Friday - In the evening following work I have the inclination (like many others) to go get some fun despite my overall tiredness. And thankfully one group or another of friends are likely to provide just that in the form of visiting a restaurant or cinema or whatever. And even if I am free I can even do my own thing - such things as fast food and movies can be fun alone. And my work location puts me even closer to the colour and movement of City.

Saturday - This is a day of sleeping in. It then can be one of a long walk along the local Scotchman's Creek or of visiting Mum and taking a similar walk along her local Yarraman Creek. And then it is very likely that I will have a party of some kind to attend in the evening.

In putting all this together I have made an effort to get the balance right. There are both solitary and collaborative forms of recreation. There is rest. There is both creativity and exercise. And there is something to look forward to in every day. There are plenty of other things that fit into the routine but are too mundane to warrant naming (like all those chores that both work and life necessitate).

There are also things absent that were present in that older entry - things like attending meetings of the ADs or NFA or SESFC. It would be very difficult to fit these things in now even if I wanted to. For now my holding of voluntary positions or making a face-to-face contribution to civic life is a thing of the past. For some time I have been pulling back and it seems now the space has been filled as I had half-hoped and half-planned.

So this entry describes how work has affected my non-working life. Some aspects of the new job has been affecting my perceptions of competence and confidence. With any luck I will both get on top of it and keep that work-life balance thing happening.

Crocodile Wot?

I remember when rock was young...

So Elton John sings in Crocodile Rock, originally released in 1972. I have listened to this song many times but the most recent time my iPod randomly threw it at me I just happend to notice and ponder that line. Just how old was Rock & Roll then anyway? The song specifically refers to Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley from 1954, one of the songs that popularized the injecting or urban blues into popular music. So, in other words, the youth of a musical genre was passed by the time it was eighteen? Is that right? Do genres age quicker than humans? And if they age quicker then do they have a shorter life expectancy too? That last one - whether Rock & Roll still lives - is a topic for another time. For now I will just muse on the aging of the thing even in its teens.

By the time Elton was singing it seems that a lot had changed in music from the mid-50s. The characteristics that define (say) 1954 and distinguish it from 1972 seem significant. The music, movies, fashions, designs, political and cultural developments all seem to present to us two very different eras. However, if I look back to 1990, also a distance of eighteen years, then do I get the same sense of difference? For me in many ways 1990 and 2008 feel much more akin to one another than do 1954 and 1972. Life in a lot of ways seems similar. Of course my own circumstances have changed from then till now but still there are many things uniting these two times in my life.

But then that is the key to this whole discussion. I can compare my personal experiences of 1990 and 2008 because I have lived those times - been a young adult in those times - which is something I cannot do for comparing 1954 with 1972. For those past times that I never experienced I rely on history and so I draw on and compare those things that popular history thrives on, big things like pop culture icons and major events. However, in comparing times I have experienced I am much more likely to draw on the things that define personal life from day-to-day. And it is because of this that I am likely to see greater difference in the older times and greater sameness in the newer times. History focuses on differences and on defining moments. Life however focuses on the things that stay the same like sleep and food and friends and family. With all that in mind I may overlook big changes like (say) the replacing of the Cold War bipolar world with a multipolar world and its half-arsed War on Terror or the proliferation of all sorts of electronic music.

Does the pace of change alter speed from decade to decade? How would one ever assess that anyway? I wonder if others feel the same or differently.