Engineer Andy's Journal: on shopping

Apologies for lack of high adventure in the last day or so. Trying to keep two offices fully happy, when they both think that they own your time all the time is not easy or relaxing. I'm weighing up under what conditions I would offer myself for secondment again, and what condition my projects at the home office would need to be in for it to happen smoothly. Home office requests are totally reasonable, but disrupt an otherwise busy schedule almost completely.

I decided that a lack of food in the fridge was a good reason to go shopping for ingredients. Cooking and living alone has different dynamics to cooking for others, or even cooking with others around. There is less pressure to perform, and less pressure to make something of beauty.

To that end i decided to get moderately adventurous and popped in to an asian supermarket on the way home. I wasn't sure what i would be making, but wanted it fast and reasonably healthy.

I found a line of Indian pre-prepared meals (from india even!). In a sealed foil pack so you didn't have to rehydrate or anything like that - just put it in the microwave, heat and add to rice. At $3 a go, it was comparable to the tinned stuff i've seen which are variations on a theme of meat with some sort of tomato paste with or without beans.

I thought i'd give it a go, chose about four of them, paired it with some indian naan bread.

It was surprisingly good. vegetarian, but still very good and not too hot. Will make it a stand-by for when i need a decent meal in a rush when i get back to Brisbane.

will save me on hassles later in the week. Most handy when you have to work late to serve two masters.

PS Am still washing my clothes in the bathroom sink, and have got it down to a fine art. Figure there are better things to spend money on, and if it takes a couple of days to dry, so what?

PPS will make sure that if i get seconded again that i get a place which has laundry service included in the rate. It is pretty pathetic for a businessman who is meant to be travelling on the company expense account to have to use handwashing rather than be extorted by the vending machines at the hotel.