A word about Miranda Kerr, if I may.

I turned on the TV this morning to be greeted with this picture:

Picture: Simon Lekias for Harper’s Bazaar

And while I was ogling in awe, I was vaguely aware of the usual media chatter going on. "Months after giving birth" and all that jazz. I tend to block these things out.

However, Smarmy McSmarmerson newsreader smarmed when the camera cut to her, saying "so, what's the verdict?"

The verdict, McSmarmerson? There is none. This isn't a competition. I don't feel threatened by beautiful people, smarmy, do you? Why is the media telling me I need to have an opinion on this? Why are you insinuating I should find this controversial?

As far as I'm concerned, Miranda going back to work after having a baby includes showing her body. She is a model, that is what they pay her for. Just like when I went back to work, I wrote. And got paid for writing. Obviously she had to put more effort into how her body looks than the rest of us post-baby, because we're too busy getting our heads around nursing, or teaching or retail or marketing or finance or whatever the hell it is we're too busy thinking about when we go back to work.

We have the luxury of taking our time. I wake up every day with the solemn intention of doing yoga and going for a nice long walk. Usually I end up eating another Tim Tam and thinking thank god no-one's keeping score here. It's not bikini weather just yet.


I'm sick of the media pitting us together, the regular mums Vs the superstars. It's their job to look pretty.

Don't tell me I ought to be annoyed at the beautiful people, or that I should feel inferior to them. I don't.

And while I don't know Miranda Kerr personally, I'm reasonably comfortable in my assumption that she isn't doing this to piss off new mums around the world. I don't for a second think she puts herself in the media to flaunt how amazing she is so we will feel pathetic and useless in comparison.

Same goes for anyone else that ever has a baby and looks great in the public eye. I don't care. Stop telling me I need to.

Why I Hate Vegetarians.

And before you go all "how dare you generalise! We're not all like that!", be assured I know we're not all like that. I am one. But I'm also well aware that vegetarianism and vegetarian food gets a pretty bad rap, and sometimes with very good reason.

Let me back up a ways.

I have recently been re-reading the columns of my very favourite food writer (and one of my favourite writers full stop), A. A. Gill. This man could make Gordon Ramsay cry with his acid tongue and withering reviews. Never have I read such stunning descriptions of either how delicious or how disgusting something is. The man is a maestro of the metaphor, the samurai of the simile. I hate how well he writes, because it makes me never want to pick up a pen again, for I know I'll never be as good.

I read with great trepidation his column on vegetarianism. Sometimes I can get a little defensive when someone belittles us (but bacon is so delicious!), but I rarely say anything in our favour. Live and let live, I say. I know how annoying vegetarians can be, and I know how gross tofu sounds. And is. So I was nodding along as I read, amazed at how perfectly he captured the feeling of most carnivores to us poor lentil-lovers.

"Vegetarian cooking is, it need hardly be repeated, unremittingly vile." Um, yes - it can be. Ever picked up a pre-2000 veggie cookbook? They're full of baby-poo-coloured sludge and boiled armpit hair. true story. Thankfully, we've come a long way.

"'Ah...' I can hear the frail, ululating voice of a wan and flaccid woman, lying exhausted on a sticky chaise longue. 'You just haven't had any good vegetarian food. You should try my mixed-pulse cheesy bake.'" It's true! They do try to convert you with their "special" dish. Which, to a meat-eater is missing a massive slab of flesh to make it palatable. Even I blanch at the chickpea curry offered at work as the veg alternative to the other meaty lunches. Who in their right mind wants to eat a chickpea curry? Lentil pasta bake? Not I, said the fly.

When visiting a vegetarian restaurant on Christmas ("it would be mercilessly free from conspicuous fun and gratuitous enjoyment"), Mr Gill described the smell as the "round, mushy, slightly acidic odour of sanctimonious worthiness". There are some vegetarians that do think they're one up on the general populace because they forgo eating a tortured animal's fear-ridden flesh. The rest of us nibble at a bit of cheese guiltily and know we're no better than anyone else. "Vegetarians aren't big on presentation, everything looks as if they've got a bulimic hippo as a food taster." - *ahem* chickpea curry *ahem*.

"My Moroccan potato casserole was a textbook dish. You might like to make it at home to insult the neighbours."

"I noticed that vegetarians are all marked by their extremities. They have double helpings of freeform set-aside hair, which they arrange in exuberant abstract patterns, and their shoes are cunningly cobbled so that, if need be, an extra pair of feet may be inserted. They also all sniff fruitily." I have seen people like this. And yes they were eating a toasted mung bean burger with sprouts.

But for all our foodie faults, vegetarians are pretty cool. We eat what we want and if you don't like it you can bite us. Or perhaps you can try some of my veggie Mexican lasagna, you'll love it. *sniff*.

Supermarket Shenanigans

I used to love grocery shopping. I loved wandering the aisles, mulling over the products and musing about food. I would take my time, thinking up new ways to use produce and being inspired with new recipes.

Not any more.

Now I'm the ninja assassin of supermarket shopping. I have a detailed, itemised list. It is divided into sections and those sections are in the order of the aisles of my local supermarket. I am in, I'm slamming stuff into the trolley, and I am out. I go when it's quiet, I skip the aisles I don't need and above all, I stay calm.

I need to stay calm due to situations like these: The Aisle Block.




Look at me here waiting patiently while old ladies make a 14-point checklist of pros and cons between the homebrand glace fruit mix and the non.

 Now in no way am I blaming this dear, sweet old man, who was actually trying to get past himself, but was thwarted on all sides by the woman in front who left her trolley on one side of the aisle while conducting a deep search-and-retrieve mission on the other. His darling little socks and neatly brushed hair were killing me, and when I saw his trolley contained carefully-placed canned soup and shredded wheatmeal biscuits, I just about cried. In fact, I'm still on the verge! I'd blame pregnancy hormones, but let's face it, I'm a complete sook anyway.

No, my beef rests squarely with the inconsiderate shopper. They make what has already become an unpleasant chore into an exercise in extreme self-control and turn-the-other-cheekness. Why are you taking up the whole aisle? Why do you insist on almost ramming your trolley into the backs of my heels? Are you that ignorant of other people that we don't register on your radar from the second you walk through those automatic doors?

Praise be to thee who is always generally aware of his surroundings, and the fact that other people may also need to get to the Tim Tams. You see they may get lost in the moment of whether to get double-coat or caramel, or should they abandon the whole mission in favour of the Mint Slices, but something makes them look up and quickly swing their trolleys out of the way. You are safe from my wrath.

Then there's the two-abreasters. One has the trolley, the other I've no idea what you're doing there. Moral support, perhaps. Well, did you know you can provide such support from either behind or in front of your trolley-mate? That it isn't vitally necessary to walk directly next to said trolley-mate when other people are trying to get past? In fact, you'd be even closer to the shelved goods of which you're trying to purchase. And I wouldn't have to consistently make room for you, when you barely give me the time of day. This may or may not relate to the murderous rage I feel when walking down a footpath into an oncoming couple and I always am the one to get out of the way, lurching into the gutter, getting smacked in the face with tree branches, all because walking single-file momentarily to allow everyone a piece of cement to walk on is just too much to ask. I know it's fun to watch the pregnant woman attempt to engage her non-existent stomach muscles to wrestle her heavy trolley aside to avoid smacking you in the shins, but you're burden-free! Get out of my way for once!

I also believe if you're moving from an aisle into a main throroughfare, at least look before you barge out, unwieldy-metal-trolley-first into oncoming traffic. Sure my reflexes are such that I'll probably get out of your way, but where's the consideration? You ain't the only one in this supermarket, dollface.

So what do you think? - should a supermarket be every man for himself? Or should simple awareness of others and a bit of consideration be mandatory?