On Quiche and Cream

I’ve been checking the phases of the moon, the alignment of the planets, the leaves at the bottom of my tea cup and have stopped short of sifting through the entrails of a sacrificial chook to determine why the world is out of wack.

Brutus ,the intermittently laying hen, has been down in the mouth for a week refusing to move off the nest and reluctant to get to her feet. I think she heard me checking out the sharpness of the tomahawk and has come to her senses –she’s now upright, trying to look chipper– reprise number two, and more to the point of this post, no innards to decode.

But  let’s get back to a world gone crazy. I’ve seen no falcons being killed by owls, or horses turning wild and eating each other as they did when Macbeth fell of the perch, but there has been plenty of the heavens rumbling their belly full, spitting out great tennis ball sized hail stones and spouting rain – to paraphrase Lear.  And, I’ve read the Canberra Sunday Times.

Some weeks back the ACT government passed a law about community groups having to appoint a qualified food safety officer if they were holding barbecues or food stalls more than five times a year. Of course, well meaning volunteer groups who cook a good sausage to support local causes have been up in arms – as they should be, and Bunnings is wondering who is going to man the Saturday morning shop front  breakfast. 

I thought this was government gone meddlingly mad – but they weren’t finished. I went off to the coastal clime of Coffs Harbour for a few days and returned to find that there are now even more fingers in the pie, so to speak. A local school fete has been banned from serving a number of foodstuffs – most particularly the popular quiche- because as a health spokesperson put it:

 ‘dishes that might contain food poisoning bacteria  were considered potentially hazardous and included casseroles, rice dishes, quiches, spring rolls and any food containing meat, dairy or moist cereal products or ingredients’…… Oh, and ‘cream and custard’.

One of my roles in a past life was to manage issues that arose in local schools and the media. I cannot recall a single time in the eight years of my tenure where someone complained of being/or was actually, poisoned by enjoying the delights of a dairy drenched dainty.

Last year I had to confess I held some similar views to Mark Latham, and that was painful for me. Now I have to make an even bigger admission to sharing the Bostonian views about government getting their noses out of things that don’t concern them.

I’m happy to buy a nice spring roll, a cream oozing jam sponge, a custard tart, a takeaway dish of curry, or even a dollop of rice with a couple of bacon bits sprinkled through without thinking it may be my last meal.

And if that wasn't enough maddness there was the article on “Reclaiming the Vagina”.  Surely there are enough things for a girl to worry about than whether her bits are attractive and whether she should have surgery to get them neatly nipped and tucked. 

 I’m reminded of the scene in Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café where Evelyn, in a bid to ‘find’ herself so she is more attractive to her boofhead husband, joins a women’s support group. She had wanted to belong, but when the woman said that next week they should all bring a mirror so they could look at their vaginas, Evelyn never went back.

I’m with Evelyn. 

Give me a world full of sane responses.

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Art Work of the Week.

The activity has been very lean over the past few weeks so have had to dig in the archives: a fleshy pink Coffs Harbour Lilly might do the trick!

Acrylic on canvas 78x56cm