April 20, 2010

Last week, I was with Jet and his dad mustering their cattle at Ballater. Anyhow, the lady of the house, whose name I cannot remember, though her husband’s name was Alastair, told us a ‘funny’ story about a friend’s new hired couple. The girl apparently was dumb as a post. One day, when everyone was down at the stockyards, she was sent back to the house to fetch a water bottle. The girl took the owner’s four wheel drive back to the house, and when she returned, she had an empty water bottle and a flat tire. Everyone laughed at the story, including me, but my laugh was fake: while I would probably know to bring water back in the water bottle, I can see myself driving on a flat tire and wondering why it was steering funny. Plus, what would I do if I did notice it had a broken tire? I know driving on one spoils the rim, but what would my option be? If I just walked back, would they laugh at me?

…There are a lot of things in the outback that I don’t know about.

Today, my problem is meat. I have steak out, but I only know how to cook it on the barbecue, and I already did that for breakfast today. Was going to maybe make a casserole, but I am very unclear as to how one make such a thing, and the cookbooks seem to just assume I know these basics, as all the recipes they offer me, even in the bush cooking one Jet‘s mom gave me, call for loads of ingredients I don’t have.

And now, a picture of my laundry room...