Oh for Freekah’s sake!

I’ve done Hating with Honesty One and Two and it’s been a long time between moans. Time for another one; although this time ‘hate’ is too strong a descriptor; more like ‘annoying’ or ‘could do with a swift slap’ kind of moans around here today.

Pompous Provisions. Why do chefs have to include that one whacky ingredient, even in dishes that appear to be fairly easy and accessible? In The Age Sunday Life magazine, Karen Martini decided that we must have Freekah in our salad with easy-to-obtain onion, parsley, almonds, fetta, lemon, oil and pepper. Freekah?

She then writes, ‘If you can’t find it, pearl barley is a perfect substitute.’ Then why not just put the bloody pearl barley in there to begin with?

And Ms Martini is not alone. All of them like to add that one bizarre bit of food we’ve never heard of – let alone where to find – just to remind us that they are godlike, talented and able to make a meal of marinated goat lips, glass shards and angel tears whereas we have to be wealthy enough to find them from an overpriced providore or give up altogether. My response is always the second one.

Dung-like Dog Breath – this is now serious enough for us to consider a visit the vet, but I’m embarrassed to be using up their time – and my money – on Milly’s breath. It is excruciatingly, off-puttingly, shit-stinkingly awful. The poor beast merely has to yawn from her beanbag on the other side of the room and we humans reel back in horror, going ‘Peeee-yoooo!” She has a regular supply of fresh bones and I’ve even had Love Chunks hold her unwilling jaws apart to let me get in there with a toothbrush and some Colgate. Then the poor dog is set free in the garden, foaming ridiculously at the mouth and trying to run away from her own tongue. Not only do dogs miss out on opposable thumbs, but the inability to rinse and spit also has its disadvantages.

Porridge. I want to like it, I really do because it's full of good GI and is cheap and really healthy and all that but I’m afraid that it’s about as appetising as working my way through a bowl of chunky library paste. My grandfather ate porridge for breakfast for every single day of his life whereas I make it every six months, hate every gluggy, dishwater-flavoured mouthful and resolve never to do it again. Which I don’t, for at least another six months. Same goes for any kind of breakfast cereal, especially Weetbix for the hellish cardboard pulp taste and the noble-but-nauseating untoasted muesli which tends to exhaust and bore me whilst I’m miserably trying to chew my way through it all.

Beyonce – the telly is full of advertisements that, at the very least, break up the diet and meal supplements shoved in between the drawn-out-longer-than-a-full-pack-of-chewing-gum program that is the 'Biggest Loser', and are bleating excitedly that Beyonce is coming to town. Trouble is, the only ‘music’ (and yes, the term is used very loosely) we hear during the ad is a kind of annoying wail that surely she emitted during her last eyebrow wax, and not on a single?

Her latest song, ‘Single ladies put a ring on it’ is a crime against talent, taste, intelligence, common sense and all that is holy in pop land and only makes me mutter where I'd like to shove a ring on it..... She should be forced into a cell with Fergie, post-2000 Madonna and Mika for a slap fight to the death wearing nothing but CD covers and those hurty black plastic ear buds.

Extinct green pillowcases – are we the only adult couple in Melbourne who use pale green pillowcases? I can get bright orange, dark purple, sea/forest/olive/puke/lime green, hot pink, ruby red, bone, stone, maroon and black but no pale green. And, similar to the nonsensical cooking ingredient, I refuse to wander into a snooty linen store and fork out $35 for a small fabric rectangle regardless of thread count, brand name, origin of the organic cotton or the first name of the dedicated young virgin who sewed it.

Careless coffee – when a cup of flat white coffee costs four bucks, the least you can expect is that it’s filled to the top, and not an inch shy when Love Chunks got served his yesterday. In spite of Sapphire’s extreme embarrassment, LC called the waiter over, very quietly and politely explained that the ‘tide was out’ on his coffee and could it be topped up?

The waiter then did the thing that we all loathe: he pretended that there wasn’t a problem and if there was one, it was surely with us, the complainers.

“But,” he said, scratching his gelled-up head, “This is what we always serve.”

It was then I piped up with, “Oh no you don’t – look over there.”

On the table next to us were four cups of cappuccino almost spilling over. “Near enough is not good enough.”

Sapphire died a little more, put her head down and busied herself with the colouring-in sheet they gave her (despite only having two blunt grey and orange pencils to do it with) and he very promptly brought back a full cup. We watched the barista boofhead sulkily slop a bit more steamed milk in – luckily for us he was by the window and couldn’t slyly spit into it.

Social snob-offs. Look, I’m no oil painting but I’m not an axe-wielding maniac either. I’m sure if you’ve seen me every single morning and afternoon at the same time each term with a friendly orange dog, you might start remembering me. Especially when I look directly into your eyes, smile and say ‘hello’ as I pass by.

But no, this particular mother with whispy hair scrunches her humourless lips up into the perfect cat’s bum, looks straight through me and marches on with her son. Is she legally blind and using her child as a seeing-eye dog or do I really look ugly, intimidating and crazier than blowfly on bin day? Would it kill to acknowledge me, seeing as we have to brush up against each other as we pass?

There. I feel better now.