This is probably a very silly post, but I’m in a silly mood. I had KFC for lunch yesterday (maybe that’s why), and was struck by how insidious the menu is at the Carlingford branch – if you actually want to have their chicken and not a burger, you can either choose from the ~$3 snack options, or else you have to order a ~$10 combo box that could easily feed 2-3 people. I couldn’t see any other “in between” options (nor most of the other options listed on their Web site menu). I would’ve been happy with a piece of chicken and some chips, but ended up getting the “All-stars” box containing:

• A piece of original recipe chicken
• 2 hot-and-spicy wicked wings
• A crispy strip
• Popcorn chicken
• Chips
• Potato and gravy
• A bread roll
• A can of soft drink

Now I’ve probably got you salivating, and you’re going to go out and get KFC aren’t you? Well if you are, or you tend to eat junk food anyway, try to keep the following three things in mind to minimise the damage to your health:

• Avoid drinking the cold drink that comes with the meal. There’s a rumour that drinking cold beverages will make the fat content of the meal congeal in your stomach, making it harder to digest. It could be Asian propaganda, since we like to have hot (Chinese) tea with our meals so I can’t guarantee that there is any scientific basis to the claim, but it does seem at least a little bit plausible. Plus, having less sugary fizzy drink never hurt anybody.
• Don’t eat everything – a few months ago I ordered a $5 meal at Macdonalds which included a cheeseburger, fries, soft serve and a drink. The Asian in me who was raised not to waste anything felt compelled to finish every last morsel, but after 2 spoonfuls of the slop that was being passed off as iced confectionery, and a couple of sips of the drink to wash down the limp, dry burger, I chucked the rest away (except the fries, of course… who can resist those salty fatty stalks of fried deliciousness?)
• Don’t super-size me, ‘coz although I could get the large coke and fries for only $1 extra, not carrying around  the extra weight of the coin is denying me precious exercise. Hehe… just kidding. Seriously though, just because it’s better value doesn’t mean that it’s better.

Isn’t it funny how fast food punishes fiscally responsible behaviour – as in getting better value-for-money – is more detrimental to your health? But man, if they ever open up a Cafe de Coral (大家樂) here in Australia, I’d be a lost cause.

For no reason at all, here’s a cool picture I found:

I couldn’t find the source of the image to give credit, but if it’s yours please let me know.

I had a knifing accident the other day – I was attempting to cut an onion using my Global chef’s knife when it slid sideways down the curved surface and took a neat slice out of my finger instead. Without wanting to sound like an infomercial, these knives are renown for their awesome sharpness and one naturally tends to blame the knife for the accident. But if you watch Jamie Oliver or any of the prolific number of cooking shows around, you be familiar with the refrain that it’s blunt knives that hurt people. In my case, if the knife had been sharper it would’ve sliced through the onion, instead of slipping and cutting me.

Today’s THRIFTerrific home hint: keep your knives sharp.

A quick anecdote: my mum came to visit with us a few weeks ago and cooked for us. She was really impressed with our knives – she commented on how they helped reduce time and effort, but at the same time came away little scared about how dangerous they could potentially be as well.

When she got home she decided to replace her cheap, blunt, ancient jobs. For whatever reason a very young sales boy at the department store decided that it’d be a good idea to take one of the knives out of the box and test the blade with his finger, resulting in a bad gash and loads of blood. After a fair amount of fuss, locating band-aids and whatever, he asked my horrified mother whether she was still interested in buying. The outcome of that expedition should come as no surprise, but it’s incidents like these that put people off having the proper equipment.

Be keen about knife maintenance:

I won’t go into the specifics of knife maintenance; this is just a very rough overview that’s intended to give you an idea on how to approach the task. In theory there’s nothing wrong with those electric sharpening gadgets, which are fine for your average supermarket job, but if you’re investing in an expensive set of knives then you should also be prepared to make the effort to maintain them. As with anything it’s possible to go overboard (especially these days where “advice” from extremophiles can be found all over the Web and on Youtube) – for the average person a 2-step method should be sufficient:

1. a “coarse” stage such as a grinding stone, to get the general shape of the edge and to remove the larger imperfections such as chips and dents
2. a  “fine” stage such as those ceramic sharpening sticks, to refine and hone the edge by removing the microscopic “jaggies”

You’ll find no shortage of tutorials on the Web although I found this guy to be generally good value – just don’t let the borderline-psycho-killer potential implied by the collection in the background put you off:

That’s all for this post. Stay sharp, folks!

I’m no eco-warrior but I do give the occasional nod towards being mindful of the environment. Having had my brother visit from interstate recently, I had to do five loads of washing this past weekend. Even though it was mostly sheets, that’s getting into baby territory as far as number of washes go.

I live in an apartment where it’s forbidden to hang washing out on the balcony, but everybody ignores it. If you’ve ever been to Asia or Europe, you’ll have seen good reasons why they came up with the rule in the first place – looking at other peoples’ laundry can be a real eyesore. I try to be as discreet as possible, hanging delicates on the inner lines and towels and sheets on the outside ones so that it doesn’t look so messy.

But when the only alternative is to use an electric dryer, then the debate over aesthetics vs. practicality starts to get a bit hairy. Consider this: the most energy efficient dryer on the market (as rated by Energy Star) uses 128kWh of electricity if used once per week. In Australia, our electricity sources are largely coal-based, which means that each kWh generated results in just under 1kg of CO₂. That’s for a machine with a 6-star rating. The one in my laundry? 2 stars (546kWh per year).

Aside from the planet, there’s also my home environment to consider. Drying drastically increases the humidity inside the apartment, exacerbating the problems that I already have with the air quality.

NSW and WA are the only states where there are rules specifically around hanging laundry on balconies, but in NSW at least, that’s possibly about to change. The Department of Fair Trading is about to introduce a change to the law that if passed, will mean environmentally conscious folks everywhere will be able to hang their laundry out on the balcony with a clear conscience.

In case you’re wondering how I dried five loads without using a dryer. Well firstly the fine weather helped immensely – what I put out in the morning was dry by late afternoon, and secondly, I have a Mrs Pegg’s Handy Line which is big enough to hold a couple of loads. I can’t understand how other people use those dinky little rack things. Granted, it did cost me nearly $200 though.

What do you do with your laundry? Do you think this new law will turn Sydney apartments into a visual slum, or is your inner environmentalist jumping for joy?