Author: Joan

Lettuce capture and storage

Recently at work, we put in a bid to do a life cycle assessment of a head of lettuce. This is a serious issue. Lettuce wastage rates are very high. We’ve all experienced having to throw out lettuce because we couldn’t use it all up in time, or because the fridge had frozen it. Now, multiply that wastage to retail and agricultural scale, adding in the risks of fluctuating consumer demand, cold snaps, and malfunctions in storage, transport and retail refrigeration.

During our research, we discovered that there is a ‘voice of the salad industry’ — the British Leafy Salad Association. Who would have thought? You would not be surprised, probably, that while working on this bid I would spontaneously start giggling at my desk.

As I constantly extolled to my team mates, all the wastage problems could be solved by installing ‘lettuce capture and storage’ systems alongside farms and major grocery stores.

Excess lettuce would be stored in the less perishable ‘rabbit’ form. Later, rabbit would be harvested and the useful lettuce nutrients would be returned to the global food cycle.

Civilised?

There’s something strange going on in British supermarkets.

In Melbourne grocery stores (and as far as I know, those of the rest of Australia), you reach the checkout, pay for your shopping, then walk to the exit via a kind of corral or corridor.

It’s not that way in the UK. When you check out your items, to get to the exit you often have to walk back through the shop. I’ve gotten lost before, wandering through the aisles in search of the exit.

It would be very easy to pick up something and slip it into your shopping bags on the way out. I’m guessing others have worked this out too; the rate of ‘inventory loss’ must be very high. (This might even explain why shopping is so expensive here — the Brits are paying the consequences of poor retail floor layout.)

Last Friday, I went to Chinatown to replenish my Chinese sauces. Then I went to Tesco for a snack. At the Tesco checkout, the lady scanned my bagel.

‘Do you need to see my other bag?’ I asked helpfully.

‘Sorry?’ she said, confused.

‘Do you need to look in my other shopping bag? In case I stole something?’ I reminded her.

‘No…’ She looked at me curiously. ‘Where are you from? America?’

‘Australia,’ I said.

‘Oh. Yeah… I heard they do that there sometimes. You know, check bags.’

Hmm. Maybe the British are just too polite to steal.

Off line

Hi everyone,

I’ve been on a blogging and email break because I’m minimising computer time for a while.

I have been chocolate free for almost four weeks. My workmate, Jessen, came back from Switzerland with a giant cylinder of my favourite chocolate — Lindt balls. My team mates gorged on chocolate, while I huddled at my desk. I almost caved in at one point. This was the biggest test I could ever face — two solid days of people eating my favourite chocolate within one metre of me.

I did take a single ball and lock it in my drawer. When I get to one month, I will eat it.

In other news, out of curiosity, I looked for the earliest calendar entry in my Palm Tungsten C. I went back to 2005, then 2004. Much to my surprise, 2004 was full of meetings and events. I had to go back to 8 October 2003 to get my first calendar entry. WOW! I’ve had my PDA for five years! I am amazed that the thing has held up for as long as it has — and that I’ve stuck with it.

How do you make yoghurt

‘Damian,’ I said, ‘Is this your milk in the fridge?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘It’ll be overdue tomorrow… If you don’t want it, I can make yoghurt out of it.’

Richard, who was also in the kitchen, perked up in interest. He asked, ‘How do you make yoghurt?’

I began to explain. ‘Well, you put yoghurt in it…’ Before I could finish, Richard and Damian were laughing hysterically.

‘What?’ I hadn’t even said anything funny.

‘You put yoghurt into it!’ they chortled. ‘How do you make yoghurt? You put yoghurt into it!’

‘Well, you have to, because…’ But they were laughing too loudly for me to justify my apparently inane statement.

‘It grows!’ I cried, trying to shout over them. ‘It’s alive! You need to grow the yoghurt!’

I don’t think they heard me.

Life explained

This looks interesting — VideoJug. The tagline is ‘Life explained. On film.’

The short films are on topics as diverse as ‘How to tie a tie – full Windsor knot‘, ‘International Waltz: Basic steps for a follower‘, ‘How to kiss someone passionately‘, and ‘How to open and clean scallops‘.

This is what I need — ‘Fashion Advice For Your Body Shape: Pear‘. Surprisingly, by trial and error, I’ve worked out the same rules that they’ve mentioned in this video.

Payslip excitement

Every month, Jane brings around our payslips. I usually ignore it for half an hour. When I take a break from work, I carefully tear away left side of the slip, then the right side, then the top. Once it is open, I immediately look at the net payment.

It’s always a bit exciting to open the payslip. I don’t know what I expect, though, because the number is always the same.

Sometimes I think I would like that number to change. For it to go up is obviously the ideal situation but, you know, I don’t think I would mind if it went up and down so that it averages out to what I get paid now. Little fluctuations like that would justify the flutter of excitement I get when I open that payslip.

Blown over

I went outside for lunch and was almost blown over by the wind. I really had to struggle through the air to get to the pedestrian crossing. I think, in fact, I leaned forward at an angle that would normally result in me falling on my face, but the wind held me up.

As only a nerd would, as I battled against the forces of nature, I thought how this could be represented as a free body diagram.


This doesn’t seem right to me. I feel like Fwind was actually horizontal and that a component of my weight force was horizontal in the other direction. Can that be right? For this diagram, I’ve drawn that the horizontal wind force is opposed by the ground reaction force (GRF). I am almost sure this is wrong because the GRF should actually be opposing the force of the foot on the ground.

I did lots of web searching to find a free body diagram of something toppling over and I couldn’t find it. Is it something to do with torque around the centre of gravity?

Sigh. I really should know how to do this. I’m an engineer.

Any help would be appreciated!

Free range chicken

I am a tender hearted person, really. I blink back tears when reading sad stories, watching advertisements designed to tug at the heartstrings, and go to great lengths to avoid maybe possibly slightly hurting someone’s feelings.

On the phone, my mum was telling me about this show she had been watching. ‘Jamie’s Fowl Dinners‘ had arrived in Australia.

I don’t like watching or hearing about animals suffering on their journeys to become food. You might say that I am wilfully ignorant. But there was no way I could ignore it this time because it was my mum telling me.

She said, ‘Did you know that chickens only grow for 42 days before they’re killed to be eaten? They grow up in cages and there’s not enough room for them to stand up. Because they don’t stand, they never grown bones properly. Their bones can’t even carry their own weight!’

‘EEEE, stop it, waaah!’ Tears were practically flowing down my face as I imagined the poor chickens, too fat and weak to stand up in the crowd.

‘Isn’t that interesting?’ mum marvelled. ‘I never knew!’

‘I wish they could grow chickens without brains,’ I lamented. ‘Just chicken bits that aren’t connected to feelings.’ Perhaps for some people, a chicken-sized brain is small enough to not worry about the chicken’s feelings.

Chicken is my favourite meat but I could no longer plead ignorance. From now on, I will only buy free range chicken. I already buy free range eggs.

Last week, I was proud of myself because to make sauteed chicken breasts with olive and caper sauce, I went straight to the fridge cabinet with the free range chickens. I didn’t even glance at the standard chickens.

I am lucky that I like leg pieces (thigh and drumstick) more than chicken breast. Chicken breast is very, very expensive. The free range variety is around £10 for two pieces. I used to buy chicken around once a month. To manage the extra cost, I will probably continue buying at the same frequency but smaller amounts.

Loitering with cheese

With Damjan back in Melbourne, I have been left to entertain myself on the weekends. There is a little Saturday farmers market near my house, which I had not yet visited during my first nine months of living here. I finally got around to it and was really pleased with all the yummy food stalls.

One of the stalls was selling goat’s cheese. They had around 10 different samples to try. I am a sucker for food samples. I first tried the black pepper goat’s cheese. Then, the chilli goat’s cheese. Then a piece of cheese that looked like chocolate, which turned out to be chocolate, planted there to occupy children while their parents tried the more sophisticated cheese samples.

‘Hmm,’ I murmured. ‘Yum!’ I nodded approvingly.

And then, without realising it, I had gone beyond the ‘acceptable time period one can loiter in front of a food stall without buying something’. So sheepishly (haha), I bought a round of garlic and herb goat’s cheese. I also ended up buying a giant slice of almond orange cake and a round of sourdough.

Although the cheese round wasn’t large, I did not think I could consume it within the two days, as recommended by the stall holder. Luckily, my favourite cook book of 101 one-pot dishes came to the rescue with ‘Chicken with Goat’s Cheese’.

I went to Sainsbury’s to buy chicken, tarragon and vine-ripened tomatoes. I was lucky. Vine-ripened tomatoes were half price.

I was less fortunate with the chicken. A few days before, I had resolved to buy free range chicken only. All my ethical friends did this, and I wanted to be ethical too! Alas, the ‘normal’ battery caged chicken meat was on sale and it was a sixth of the price of the free range meat. I could not bring myself to pay that much extra. It was a lot of money. I felt pained. So I bought the remains of the sad chickens.

(I have since gotten back on the free range chicken bandwagon but that is another story.)

Now that I’ve done ‘Chicken with Goat’s Cheese’, I am now 15% through the 101 recipes.