Money Karma and a Goddess

I tend to have an obsessive interest in my bank account and wallet balance. Every little splurge or careless expense used to leave my mental purse strings in twisty knots for days. I’m constantly plagued by the fear that I’d mistakenly drive away from the toll booths leaving RM50 in the hot little hands of the toll collector instead of RM1. Damn blue notes.

Early this week I discovered that I’d lost my parking card for parking at work. A replacement card cost me RM50. Cis! How I glared at that RM50 note as the parking lady pried it out of my claws.

After several hours of pouty sulking, I decided that I would resist the bout of protect-the-rest-of-the-eggs mother hen instinct that was threatening to seal my wallet shut with iron staples. Instead I would roll the dice in a game of money karma! Double or nothing and up yours, cosmic money flow!

I went shopping.

I now have a lovely walnut brown ladder shelf that’s leaning artistically and pleasantly contrasting against my jungle green wall. RM250, from Macy’s. But best of all, sitting with pride of place on one of the shelves, is this:-

[Warning: techno-gobbledeegook] - Here, it would most lovely to include an image of the book, but apparently, there’s a bug in the whatzits of Blogger that refuses to recognise whatchamacallits. Basically, I can’t put images and text together unless I edit using Firefox.

the absolutely fabulous How To Be A Domestic Goddess: Baking And The Art Of Comfort Cooking by Nigella Lawson.

Hmm…perhaps I should caveat that SO-gay-man statement by declaring my obvious bias.

Nigella Lawson is HOT.

Maybe it’s that proper, school mistressy "What Katy Did" British accent, contrastingly delivered in a relaxed and breezy manner. Or the long wavy black hair that miraculously never gets in the way when she’s cooking on her TV show. Or the dry British wit and sense of irony punctuated with a heart-stopping smile. Oh, and let’s not forget the passion with which she handles and eats the food she prepares – if you watch the cookery trailers on Astro’s Channel 11, there’s a snippet where she practically fondles some spare ribs and says something like "I like it in big chunks, but my mouth can’t accommodate all of it".

Yeah. All that. Perfect combination of voice, hair, smile and wit. And subliminal sexuality Nngharrrrrowll.

Clearly, a book purchased primarily on an obsession with the culinary goddess rather than any desire to be a domestic deity of any sort. It’s a good book though, seriously. Good quality paper, mouth-watering pictures and a very cheerful prose. I like how the gold lettering of the recipe headings lends a discretely lux feel to the pages. The prose reads almost exactly like how Nigella talks to you on the show. Very casual, sometimes bossy but always making such absolute sense that you’re left wondering why cooking/baking ever seemed like such a scary challenge.

You feel like as if she’s writing to you, instead of merely dictating a recipe. As she herself says in the preface to another of her books, Nigella Bites;

"I’m not interested in barking instructions: this isn’t meant to be a monologue. As I’ve said before, I want to be there in the kitchen with you; my words are merely my side of the conversation I imagine we might have".

Ooo. What a thought. That would be one hot kitchen…

Ahem. Anyway…my only gripe about the book is that it’s only got one photograph of her. Cis! A blurry one, at that! Well, at least it’s on the back cover and not buried somewhere inside the book.

There’s a recipe called Molten Chocolate Babycakes. These little puffs of sin look disgustingly decadent in the picture. Must try.

And so, my reverse-psychology response to having been forced to part with RM50 for that damn parking card, resulted in me spending RM250 (at Macy's) + RM72 (at Popular, after 20% discount, yahoo!) for a very nice piece of furniture, Nigella peeping at me from one of its shelves and the small luxury of having a fantasy conversation with her in the kitchen whenever I please.

Money well spent, I say.