Gnocci in the Afternoon

The problem with bumming for a long period of time is that you run out of people to bum with. Sunday nights are particularly bad...cos everyone is going to bed early or at least staying in getting ready for work and school on Monday.

Which means that Mondays I usually have nothing to do. Guitar (which I will blog about soon) at 3 and then Jazzercise at 6. I live the life of a tai tai, minus the income and the husband. :D

My afternoons are pretty empty usually...so when anyone is up for something unusual in the afternoon I'm all for it. My friend Shu Ruei asked me randomly if I could come over and help her finish all the tomatoes in her house...how many of you get texts like that? This is why my friends are awesome.

She warned me that she was going to attempt making gnocci (dumpling in case your Italian is a little shaky). We were making potato gnocci.


It's a pretty involved process. I came over at 12.30 and there was a lot of work to do. Boiling and mashing the potatoes. Adding flour to the mash to make a dough. Shaping the dough. It's probably not the best meal to make when you're stressed. But neither me or Ruei have much to stress us out in our lives I think.

Having taken a pottery class Shu Ruei is better than I am at shaping gnocci. Hers came out all neat and purty.

She beats the stereotype of the messy artist. Look at her gnocci all lined up to be boiled in the pot.

We were famished when we sat down to eat. So it tasted pretty good. It helped I suppose that the tomato and pork sauce she made was fab. Mmmm...my mouth waters thinking about the smoky taste of bacon that lingered just beneath the rich tomato sauce.

I also made a Greek salad. Look at all the colours! I forgot to ask Ruei if she was lactose intolerant...and she is. Luckily though the feta I brought was goat's cheese and that's okay for her to eat. But still she doesn't like to eat too much cheese just in case.

It was a great lunch and she even played guitar and sang for me. I actually jumped a little in my chair when she started singing. I never expected her to sound like that...as one of her friends so aptly put it, "You speak like a girl, but you sing like a woman."

I need to practise guitar a lot more to come even close to how good she is.

Since I got back I've been hanging out with one of my older friends a lot. And he lives pretty unconventionally for someone in his 30's...I once told him he was a man living like a teenager. But all props to him.

I dun wanna be a grown up...it's overrated. He said he can't date someone with a normal job cos she'd be too tired to hang out late at night and she's only free on the wekeends when he's working.

I'm not sure what my work schedule will be like in the future but if it all goes to plan I won't need to wake up to beat rush hour traffic or wear a business suit. I actually don't mind the business suit part too much. Have you watched Samantha Who? I like all her work clothes. But a 9-5 job? Jhgdfigofsfadern. Translation, kill me please.

I want a man who's up for a trip in the middle of the week. Who can stay up all night talking with me and then have pancakes and spend the day in bed.