BBQ stories - read the price at a restaurant...carefully

Time for another story that I often tell at BBQs - mostly when the conversation turns to restaurants and expensive meals.

When we were living in Krygyzstan in 1999 Chris and I gave ourselves a budget of about $30 a week for food - which was entirely sensible considering the markets were really cheap, and you could have a meal out at a cafe for about $2 for a drink and noodle soup.

So some American friends we had made invited me out to lunch at the new sushi place in town.  I got really excited to come, as we had been living there for about five months, and I had no had sushi for a while.  So I took 40 som with me (about $4 at the time), ready to have lunch with my friends (Chris couldn't come for some reason....maybe this story would have turned out better with his eye for detail..).  Funnily enough three were no locals at this restaurant, but we put this down to Krygyz possibly not knowing about how yummy susih was yet.

When we looked at the menu it had a whole range of delicious options, set out like this:
Little bit of Sushi                  30
More sushi                           50
Platter of sushi                     100

No monetary symbols next to the prices.  I assumed the prices were in som.  We ordered a platter of sushi between three of us, and gobbled it up.

In going to pay the bill it was discovered the prices were in American dollars.  I had just spent our whole month's food budget on one third of a platter of (not very good) sushi.  And I only had $2 cash on me.

Fortunately my American friends were walking around with wads of cash (?!) and were able to pay, and I had to shrink back home, find our emergency American dollar cash, and pay them back.  Embarrassing.

But I learnt my lesson.

Always take Chris and his budgety nose for detail out for lunch.

bake and share

Why has this not happened before in my life?!

This is between myself and four of my friends.  We all have children.  We all need to feed the children school lunches everyday (these so-called "children" are so needy with their eating).  We all like to feed the children food that is not processed very much/more on the home baked style.  We all need a bit of incentive to cook.

Hence...

Bake and Share.

Every fortnight I bake a double batch of whatever I am going to cook for school lunches, then divide it into five.  Everyone else does the same.  It means you get five different varieties of lunchbox edibles baked by awesome people.

Your freezer is filled with this:

The rules (after four swaps) seem to be:

- you get about 20-24 little pieces of something
- it needs to be freezable
- it needs to be fairly kid friendly - the children it is going to range in ages from 2 - 17
- there is a mixture of sweet and savoury - but it is a surprise as to what turns up
- there is total honesty whether the baking has been eaten or not...

Fortunately none of the kids have allergies (although there are a couple of picky eaters and a no nuts policy for school).  I feel like I am the weak link a bit with baking, but it has made me explore slice recipes a lot - as these are easy to cook in bulk and easy to divide into 100 pieces.

I love it.  I must admit I have been taking some Bake and Share to work for my lunch, and maybe pulling out a few biccies when guests pop over.  The girls love having different foods for their lunchboxes, and love knowing that their friends' mums have cooked for them.  It is giving a real sense of community with our families.

And I can't help thinking.....

Dinner and Share
Housework and Share
Garden and Share....

almost two laps of butterfly

I have taken up swimming squad again.  After a short break of 30 years, I decided to hit the local school pool and do squad with the grade 6 kids at 6.30 in the morning.  This morning was even raining as I trained.  I felt completely HARD CORE.

It has not taken that long for my body to get used to swimming again.  I also swim much further with the subtle peer pressure of the kids and the coach.  So I am averaging about two kilometres each training session - MUCH further than I would swim on my own.

I set myself the goal of swimming two laps of butterfly (in the 25m school pool).  I look kind of like a drowning person flailing about - but this morning I nearly made it.  With flippers on.

Not like this

More like this

But I am nearly there.  I am so competitive and determined like that.  If there is a ten year old to beat in a lap of butterfly, I say BRING IT.

There are four more weeks of squad for the season. I hope I can reach my goal.  Then I will have to find a winter sport...