Today I’m forty.  I don’t feel any different.  I look about ten years older than I did on my thirtieth birthday, but that’s about it.  Yet everyone wants to know how I’m going to celebrate.  How I plan on marking this mid-life milestone.  Last year, I had a clear vision of my fortieth celebration.  I’d be dressed like Phyllis Diller and surrounded by family  We would gather at the Niagara Falls Casino and stuff Canadian currency into Alex from the Thunder Down Under’s speedo.  But, like most complicated fantasies, the planning got away from me.

And despite being a recluse whose only contact with the outside world is trolling elderly Trump supporters on FaceBook, I have lovely friends taking me out for dinner.  It’s more than I expected, and frankly more than I deserve.

I’ll take it.

Crab Benedict Bake

• 2 cups cubed back-breaking bread
• 200g fresh white crab meat
• 7 eggs
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup double cream
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 3/4 tsp onion powder
• 1 1/4 tsp salt

1. Combine the bread and the crab at the bottom of a greased 9X13 inch pan.
2. Whisk together the eggs, coconut milk, cream, paprika, onion powder, and salt.  Pour mixture over the bread and crab, cover, and place in the fridge overnight.
3. Take the casserole out of the fridge a half an hour or so before you want to cook it.
4. Heat the oven to 375F/190C.
5. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes.
6. Drizzle with cheat’s hollandaise, below.
7. Remember, you’re fabulous and in your sexual prime.

Cheats Hollandaise

• 1/2 cup mayo
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp salt
• dash of hot sauce

Whisk all the ingredients together.

When I arrived in the UK  I was twenty-six years old, in a new country, and without a single friend in my new home…but only for an hour.  On the table in the flat I would share with NINE other people was a letter addressed to me.  The gist of it was, “Welcome. I think we will be great friends.”  It was signed by a girl named Naomi.  She became my first, and my best friend in London.

Naomi and I have had a series of adventures.  We have lived together, traveled together, and she has been there for me through many ups and downs.  Naomi helped me overcome a destructive, yet delicious phase where all I ate was Tescos custard, and my teeth wiggled loosely in my gums.  And she kept my spirits up the time a super keen woman from Harrogate forced us to make throw pillows into the early morning hours.  It is safe to say that Naomi has been protecting me from myself, and avid seamstresses for the past thirteen years.

And now she’s moving back to Australia.

I’d like to be able to say that I have had as large an impact on her as she had on me, but there is no way to match this lady.  I’m a creature of drama and crisis, while she is kind and patient.  She has been easy to love and befriend, and has always been there when I needed her.  I will be helplessly lost.

The only bright side today is this batch of waffles.  Hopefully, very soon, I’ll hear about a fatal shark attack.  Until then, I have waffles.

Waffles

• 3 large, room temperature eggs
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 2 TBS maple syrup
• 3 TBS melted and cooled coconut oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup raw cashew nuts
• 3 TBS coconut flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat a waffle iron.
2. Place all the ingredients in the order listed into a high speed blender.
3. Blend on low for 30 seconds, then blend on high for 30 seconds.
4. This makes 9-10 waffles, so fill the waffle iron accordingly.
5. Close the lid and cook for 5 minutes.
6. Enjoy!

*Add extras like blueberries or chopped and cooked bacon.  Have it your way, baby!

*Take your pants off and make it happen.

Let me preface this by saying that I do like the UK.  English people are very polite, and they can be funny when they’re drunk.  And I love that when I go to the dentist, I get treated like I’m Cameron Diaz.  There is a darker side though.  They are sooo bad at customer service.  I could bore you with many tales where I received less than optimal customer care, but that is its own spectacular brand of douche.  Just take my word for it.

What I’m dealing with at the moment is the reaclimating process.  In Australia, the teenage boy bagging my groceries asked, “how are you today, miss?”  Baristas calmly accepted my decaf coffee orders without scoffing.  A sales person told me I was making the correct choice when I bought a kangaroo scrotum bottle opener.  There was eye contact.  Smiles.  I almost mounted a hotel concierge when he upgraded my room.  All around me light.  Things done properly.  Condiments on the side.  Gluten free menus.  Men successfully pulling off ponytails and seven inch beards whilst selling boomerangs.  I felt a part of it all.  I longed to be a part of it all.

Now, I’m back.  I won’t be going out for dinner very much, or leaving the house.  So, here’s a very nice Laksa recipe.

Chicken and Prawn Laksa

*I’ve made it before and I’ll make it again.  I just don’t have the picture ready.

• 2 shallots thinly sliced
• 1 red chilli finely sliced
• 5 cm piece of ginger finely sliced
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• 2 lemongrass stalks finely chopped
• 2 chicken breasts finely sliced
• 400 g raw prawns, chopped
• 600 ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 TBS fish sauce
• 1 TBS brown sugar
• a few handfuls washed spinach
• 250 ml coconut milk
• 2 limes, squeezed
• bean sprouts, butternut squash noodles, zucchini noodles, cooked rice noodles, or cooked rice

1. Gently fry the shallots, ginger, and red chilli in the coconut oil.
2. Add the lemongrass, chicken, and stock.  Simmer and stir in the fish sauce and brown sugar.  Cook for 6 or 7 minutes.
3. Add coconut milk, spinach, lime juice, prawns, and whatever noodle you choose to use and cook for 3 minutes.

I don’t consider myself a ridiculous person.  I have the same basic needs and wants as anyone else: family, friends, health, safety, shiny hair, and the occasional falconry course.  But, it’s getting weird for me to have people over for dinner.

“What do you like to eat?,” I’ll ask before I dish out an official invite.  See, I can make pretty much anything, and I aim to please.  The problem is when they say,  “Just make what you normally would.  I’m sure we’ll love it.”

Gosh.  What do I do?  Honestly, for the past few years I’ve treated myself as a science experiment.  I look like an average person, but I’ve seen and eaten things that would make you shudder.  I went through a phase where I put SAUERKRAUT in my smoothies.  So, I get that what may taste great to me, may taste like the cubed cheese at an old folks’ home to you.

But I’m always trying.  When I can, I ask a person with normally functioning taste and smell to sample my recipes.  For instance, my brother said the crab cakes from last week’s recipe were delicious.  And he wasn’t just being nice, as he’s not.

So, this week I’m being realistic.  This is the smoothie I’m drinking while there are nice blackberries around.  If you want it to dance on your tastebuds, up the apple content and remove the avocado.  Have it your way, baby!

Blackberry Smoothie

• 1 cup coconut water
• 7-8 blackberries
• 1/4 apple
• large handful of spinach
• 1/2 avocado
• 1/2 juiced lime
• pinch of pink himalayan sea salt

1. Put all ingredients into a high speed blender and make into a nice smooth drink.
2. Throw a handful of macadamia nuts and an inch and a half of chorizo into a Princess Diana memorial mug, and you’ve now experienced breakfast at my house.