Author: 6000

Gannet

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This isn’t the first time we’ve featured a photo by Chris Wormwell on 6000 miles... That’s because this was the first time we featured a photo by Chris Wormwell on 6000 miles...

But this is beautiful:

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This is a fine example of a Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus), off the coast of the Isle of Man. Chris describes this as “pretty much just a bread and butter shot”, so I look forward to seeing some of his “fine dining” work at some point.

You may see close relatives of this fellow (the bird, not Chris) off the Cape coast too. But those, like just every other bird found around here, take the title ‘Cape’ – Cape Gannet (Morus capensis). And whereas there are loads of Northern Gannets to go around, our local species is classed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, so don’t go poaching them, ok?

There are some pretty cool facts about gannets. They are cleverly adapted (Evolution FTW!) to be able to dive from a great height to catch fish. Because they can hit the water at up to 100kph, special air-sacs within their skull protect them from the massive impact, like biological bubble wrap. Additionally, their nostrils are inside their mouths, preventing that awkward unintentional nasal lavage that can all too often ruin a good dive.
It must make things pretty nasty when they get a cold though. Eww.

Photo credit: Many thanks to Chris for his permission to use his photo.

Next Sunday’s Breakfast

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On a whim (and with whatever spare ingredients I could find at the time: bread, eggs, bacon), I made some Baked Eggs in Bacon Wraps for breakfast this morning. The culinary experience that followed was such that I feel safe in advising you to try the same next weekend.

I got my recipe from food.com. Seriously, when you’re looking for some information about food, who else would you choose to trust that the people who own the food.com domain? They must know their onions. Literally. The people at onions.com say so.

Here is that recipe, reproduced with my hints and tips for your delectation:

    1. Preheat oven 375 degrees. That’s 190 degrees Celsius, Gas Mark 5.
    2. In medium frying pan fry bacon to soft transparent stage. See through bacon FTW!
    3. Drain on paper towels.
    4. Line each slice around the side of each muffin cup. Ends may overlap.
    5. Break egg directly in the center of each muffin cup. 12 cup muffin pan. Do you know the muffin man?
    6. Lightly salt and pepper. Kids don’t like pepper. “Too burny!”
    7. Cook 15 to 20 minutes. 13 was enough for mine.
    8. Watch for whites and yolks to begin to set. Unexciting. 
    9. Take out with small spatula on a serving plate. The serving plate got in the way of my small spatula, so I took my small spatula off the serving plate and just used it as a solo small spatula.
    10. Serve with fork and knife. Or go wild and include a spoon.
    11. If you want the tops to be basted,after ten minutes of cooking, baste each egg once with 1/2 teaspoon of water. I don’t like bastard eggs.
    12. You can fry bacon the night before and drain and refrigerate for morning. Don’t do this. You will eat the bacon the night before. Rookie error. 

I have no idea why WordPress has decided to add letters instead of numbers. Here on the back end that list is in numbers. Click ‘Preview’ and suddenly it’s all CAPITAL LETTERS. I don’t like it when computers decided to do things like that. It’s like they think they know best. And they don’t.

yes we do.

Right. That does it. Try and stop me hitting ‘Publish’, you electronic git.

(Obviously, If you’re reading this, I won.)

Last Of The Summer Braaiin’?

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That is a legendary title for a post. And yes, I recognise that I announced the onset of winter a couple of weeks ago, but after that dreadful day, apparently summer sobered up, had a bit of a sit down,  realised it missed us all and popped back to prolong itself a bit.
That’s why last week we had this:

While today we were treated to an absolute cracker, with cloudless blue skies, not a breath of wind and temperatures of 30°C.

Perfection.

Mindful that these meteorological conditions have other places to be and can’t stick around forever, we used the time wisely to get in a nice early evening braai:

And while, to the untrained observer, it may appear that there is some sort of breeze blowing, this is Cape Town: our smoke is so used to being moved rapidly in a northwesterly direction that even in flat calm conditions it just comes out of the stack and heads that way automatically.
It is Pavlovian smoke, but you don’t even have to ring a bell to influence its behaviour. This is good because I don’t actually own a bell.

With dwindling supplies of braai wood, now comes a tricky seasonal decision. One must balance the amount of wood one owns, because while on the one hand, you don’t want stacks of wood getting wet and being useless during the winter month, on the other, there will be days when you just need to braai and you just need to have the requisite materials to hand.

It’s a fine line, generally best trodden, I find, by sticking two bags of rooikrans in your garage and having some briquettes on standby.

I shall arrange this tomorrow.

Your Man Reminder

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I know I posted a video yesterday too, but this – via my wife’s facebook page (and, bearing in mind that it’s 2½ years old already, probably several other places too) – tickled my fancy. (Not in that way, you understand, but my fancy did indeed find itself tickled).

There will be those who will cry out about the stereotyping of women as individuals psychologically susceptible to the sight of a male model’s body and there will be those who will be aghast at the objectification of male body (ja, right).

There will be those who wonder about the true nature of my fancy and what on earth I am doing posting this on 6000 miles…

Me? I reckon that the ends justify the means in this case. If the message gets across to just one more woman because of this or if one more life is saved, then it’s a winner and its detractors must sit down

Well done, RethinkBreastCancer.com.

Here’s a link to the app and a helpful QR code for Android users.

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And, because it’s for a good cause, an iTunes Store link as well.