The lie at the heart of the gambling "debate"

via smh.com.au

Cathy Wilcox hits the nail on the head. Any societal good that clubs bring by spending some of the money they make from problem gambling is more than outweighed by the societal damage of problem gambling.

It's much like the very disingenuous astroturf campaign against plain packaging of tobacco products. They claimed it wouldn't work, and spend millions on a campaign to tell people this, which was a good indication they thought it might work. Ditto the gambling industry.

All set for the new addition

Time for a bit of an update I suppose. Our second child, a girl, is officially due towards the end of Nov

 

ember. Holly's been in and out of hospital the last few weeks with high blood pressure, much like last time.

In Australia the obstetricians all seem to consider pregnancy + high blood pressure to mean pre-eclampsia, which is very serious.  Everywhere else in the world, you need high BP and protein in the urine to meet that classification and they recognise a syndrome of just high BP in pregnancy (pregnancy induced hypertension), with quite different first line treatments. They also do a whole lot less caesarians outside Australia. Go figure.

Regardless, we're ikely to get to meet our little girl in the next week or two. Holly's quite ready for it. The house is all ready. Louis is primed to meet his little sister.  For now we just wait and see.

When it all kicks off, I'll be mostly updating Twitter if you want constant updates. You don't need to actually join Twitter to read that.

Shakshuka

I first ate shakshuka the morning after an outdoor rave near Sydney, cooked by a bunch of Israeli psy-trance types. It was the perfect refuel after a night dancing under the stars. Tomato, onion, egg and a touch of spice.

This morning I got up late and was too busy for breakfast. When it finally came time for breakfast I was ravenous. Since I'd just picked up our co-op's latest fruit and veg box I was looking around at what needed using up and three super ripe roma tomatoes from the last shop caught my eye. Shakshuka! Perfect.

It's a surprisingly quick cooked breakfast. I fried up some little batons of pancetta (not very authentic for this North African dish), a tiny red onion and some garlic, then dropped in the roughly chopped tomatoes and a tablespoon or two of water. Simmered it down, stirred in some harissa paste, then cracked two eggs in and covered. Then topped with chopped parsley and served with toast. I forgot to add any cumin but it was still excellent.

Delicious! Wish I'd taken a photo. This photo is just one found online but very much what mine looked like. Made it again on Sunday with grape tomatoes from this week's shop and remembered to take a photo this time. Remembered the cumin too.

My favourite recipe comes from Yotam Ottoleghi:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/16/yotam-ottolenghi-shakshuka-recipe

Sunset

Sunset from Melbourne to Sydney flight. Looking forward to being home after a quick day trip to Melb.

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