Miso happy it's soup season

Me so happy - geddit? I've rediscovered an old friend: Miso soup.

I first tasted miso soup in Kings Cross in about 1990 when a then boyfriend and I used to go to a hole in the wall Japanese cafe late at night and each tuck into a bowl of miso soup and a bowl of Oyakodon. Oyakodon is a love story in itself and not readily available in many Japanese restaurants; they tend to serve Katsudon, which is fried chicken in the same soup base, but Oyakodon rules for me.

But I digress.

Our local Woolies has recently shifted things around, got rid of some of my favourite products (Orange Power upholstery cleaner, Nairns Oatcakes are two that spring to mind) and added a wider range in other departments. To my happiness, I found instant miso soup there last week. Oh glory.

I hadn't had miso soup for a couple of years, and that first cup was a real delight. I've been having miso soup for lunch every day since.

In fact I've been enjoying my miso so much that I ramped up the quest for real miso paste rather than soup sachets and found it (with no preservatives or MSG, hurrah!) and soup seaweed at the Chinese supermarket in Top Ryde City shopping centre earlier this week, so now I make it with tons of seaweed, and throw in some tofu or tempeh, and also baby spinach leaves for a really filling lunch that literally takes only five minutes to make. (You can also use miso paste in general marinades and salad dressings.)

I did a bit of research on the health benefits of miso soup, and found some interesting results on my trolling around the interweb:

• Miso soup and miso paste is very high in sodium - most packaged soups are. Luckily I don't have a blood pressure problem.
• Miso paste is made from fermented soy, as is tempeh (but not tofu). It's actually very healthy for you (unlike, apparently, unfermented soy products). If you think you're doing your body a favour by hoeing into tofu, soy milk and other soy products or products containing processed soy, you're not. You need to hunt out fermented soy such as soy sauce, miso, tempeh and natto. I've used up the last of my tofu today and will be stocking up on Tempeh instead.
• Miso soup is good for weight loss (but I'm still waiting to see the results of that, my weight hasn't shifted at all this week).
• Miso paste can also help reduce hot flushes and other signs of menopause - apparently 2 to 3 servings a day are what it takes. See this excerpt below from http://www.menopauserx.com/health_center/com_SoyProtein.htm. It's one of several sites that say very similar things

"Recently in the news, a fermented soy bean paste called miso was linked to a substantial decrease in the risk of breast cancer among Japanese women. This epidemiological study was conducted by researchers at Japan’s National Cancer Center . The researchers monitored the eating habits of 21,852 women ages 40-59 for a period of 10 years starting in 1990, by carefully assessing their diets and lifestyle habits. The research found that women who had three or more bowls of miso soup daily reduced their risk of breast cancer by 40% compared to those who only ate one bowl. Those who had two bowls of miso soup reduced their risk by 26%. The conclusion was that the more miso soup and isoflavones taken daily, the less risk of breast cancer. However, researchers were only able to identify this trend with miso soup consumption and not other soy foods or supplements. Soy foods contain isoflavones, but could not be linked, by themselves, with breast cancer risk reduction.

Miso soup consumption has been the subject of many studies, and has been associated with a reduced risk of certain cancers, heart disease, stroke, and radiation poisoning. While no single dietary factor can be responsible for one’s health, it’s hard to refute that miso soup has been a large contributing factor to Japanese health. The main difference between miso soup and other soy foods consumed by the Japanese is the fermentation process. This fermentation transforms the isoflavones in soy into their active aglycone form which can be used by the body for a host of health concerns, including menopause. In addition, this fermentation process also turns soy into a powerful antioxidant.

Several studies have shown that women who consume large amounts of soy-based phytoestrogens have fewer menopausal complaints. Asian diets typically contain 40 to 80 milligrams of soy isoflavones per day, compared to 3 milligrams per day for American diets. A scientific study of 104 postmenopausal women examined the consumption of 60 grams of isolated soy protein with 60 grams of the common milk protein (casein) per day for 12 weeks. Women receiving the soy experienced a 45% reduction in hot flashes, which was significantly different from the milk protein group. This difference was noted by the fourth week of treatment. Nagata performed a study evaluating soy and hot flashes among Japanese women. They found soy to have a protective effect against hot flashes. 101 women who developed moderate to severe hot flashes over 6 years were studied and found to have less hot flashes with higher soy intake."

I'm inclined to take this with a little grain or two of salt as Japanese people could and probably do have different genetic balances to westerners; they may be less prone to certain cancers or menopausal symptoms per se.

Whatever the case, I love miso soup. I'm happy to discover that it's also apparently good for me. I'll also be interested to see if the hot flushes take a back seat as time goes on.

Why I kicked the hairdresser habit

I have a love/hate relationship with hairdressers.

This is partly because of my hair. I don't have good hair. It's thin and fine and since I've headed down the rocky road towards menopause it's become thinner and finer, like baby's hair. I suspect that should I make old bones I'll be one of those poor old ducks with too much pink scalp showing through my hair.

For me going to the hairdresser's isn't a pampering experience. I heartily dislike the obvious being stated: "Ooh, you've got very fine hair, haven't you?" while a stranger washes same for me. I'm not keen on other people washing my hair. I feel embarrassed and ugly, even moreso with male hairdressers so I only go to women.

I also don't need to be told by hairdressers in loud voices so that everyone can hear that I have two lumps on my head. I know them very well. They are sebaceous cysts. They are harmless and the only discomfort they cause is mental in a salon situation.

Then there's the cut. This is an uncomfortable process for me as I am requested to take my glasses off and, being blind as a bat, can't quite see what's being done to me.  I guess young hairdressers are trained to layer hair whenever possible, and with hair as fine as mine too much layering can be disastrous. I hate putting my glasses back on and finding my hair so heavily layered that you can see through the ends of it when the light is behind me. If I'd have wanted to look like a scrawny freak I would have told the hairdresser so.

The last time I visited a hairdresser was about four or five months ago. I took a photo with me of a short inverted bob, the style my hair was already cut in anyway, but took the photo along as insurance so she'd know what I meant. I was visiting a different hairdresser as my old one had got too expensive. I always take photos with me and typically wear one of two styles: a Meg Ryan-type bedhead with not too much layering, or a 1920s angled bob. Trial and error has shown I can wear either of these styles and my hair can look reasonably full.

So... the back was fine, the sides were looking good and she had followed my 'no layering the sides!' instructions, then for some daft reason instead of leaving the bits at the front sharp and pointed, so the bob came down in a straight line from the back to just under my chin, looking rather 1920s, she rounded the bits at the front - instantly turning me from interesting and creative into middle-aged and conservative. I may be middle-aged but I don't feel it and I'm certainly not conservative.

Rather than complain, as the only solution would be to cut it shorter and there's at point at which a bob on me is too short, I simply thanked her, coughed up $50 and spent the next six weeks with my hair tucked behind my ears so I didn't have to see the rounded bits at the front.

Today's cut and colour job.
Probably not quite as good as a pro job but at least it's the style I want

Since then I've been cutting my own hair; I got it back into the sharp bob shape at the front pretty quickly. Doing the back can be a trial as I have to work by feel more than by sight, and it's not a case of simply chopping it off level with the hairline, I have to cut the back so the bob comes out as a bit of a wedge shape under the occipital bone with the back layered short under that. I've cut it twice since my last visit to a hairdresser including today, and nobody has given me a look that says my hair looks home cut. Phew!

The other reason I have quit hairdressers for the time being is cost. For a couple of years there I'd gone blonde, with foils. It looked good and hid the grey regrowth reasonably well but the cost was horrendous, even at a local salon rather than a big brand name chain like Toni & Guy. Think $150 a go with cut and blow dry as well. Eek!

These days I colour my own hair at home. I haven't attempted to do streaks, even though you can buy two-tone hair kits for home. Unless you have someone to help you - and I don't and I'm too embarrassed to ask anyone else to help 'cos I'm shy and self-conscious - they can look disastrous.

So I've dyed my hair dark red, and with the use of a dye brush and plastic bowl get as good a coverage as a hairdresser would for under $20. Given my recent tax bills and current lousy salary it's an obvious cost-saving measure. :-)

We're planning an overseas holiday in July, so I'll probably have to visit a hairdresser before we go and get a professional cut just in case I stuff up the DIY job :-), but I'll be paying close attention and taking photos with me that show the style from every angle.

Anyway, here are some tips for hairdressers who may stumble upon this blog post:

• Don't comment loudly on anything you think the client may be embarrassed about: fine hair, grey hair, lumps, scars. Whisper in the client's ear if you have to let them know about something they undoubtedly already know about
• Don't talk about the client as if she isn't there. (Ah, the time I was having foils done by two young women fresh out of their apprenticeship. One to the other: "She wants this style in the photo but the woman in the photo has three times more hair than her." I have ears, thanks. Talk to me not over me.)
• If you insist on layering your client's hair, take the texture into account and don't layer the hell out of fine hair. Layering might give it more body but scrawny ends look revolting. There's a point of no return. Don't go near it.
• Listen when they client says what style they want. Take a good look at the photos they may supply. If you think it won't suit them, say so, and work out a compromise together before you start cutting. 
• Inverted and A-line bobs don't have rounded fronts. Seriously.

Like a log - in a sawmill

One of the best things about my husband's new job is that it involves travel. He's usually interstate for a couple of days or nights most weeks. Now, it's not that I don't love him, but it means I get a good night's sleep when he's away.

Because he snores.

I'm writing this in the shattered state of having had four hours' sleep last night. I don't function well on four hours' sleep. In an ideal world I'll enjoy seven or eight.

When I was young and silly I desperately craved a relationship, sharing a bed with someone, waking up with them, cuddling up to them. Those who are desperate usually end up with something less than perfect or nothing at all, as I found out. I went out with several men who cared far less for me than I did for them, and they exploited that. Read that bit about young and silly again; I didn't get out of those relationships as early as I should. In fact I clung, and clinginess is even more awful than desperation. I just didn't want to feel a failure, a girl who couldn't get and hold a man.

What all this lead to is that before I met G, my husband, I had been single for several years, and content to be so. I'd had it with men. I'd had it with sex - in fact the sour relationships told me one important thing about me: my libido is so low that I can identify for most of the time as asexual. Interestingly the older I get the more I find women attractive and the less I find men. I suspect I'm a bisexual asexual (yes there is such a thing).

I didn't really want a relationship. Relationships meant sex, and having somebody invading my body on a regular basis was something I could happily live without;  with men, any display of simple affection - a desire to be held, a caress - is seen by them as an invitation to sex and I was sick of that. When G started sniffing around, ringing every night, emailing, and making it clear he wanted to see me as more than a friend, I was frank with him about my sexuality, or lack of it. He reckoned he could cope with that, and bless him, he has. We get around it. He's a lovely person and makes me laugh, and it's a revelation to be in a relationship where I'm so loved and adored.

Now I have learned another thing about myself: I really don't enjoy sharing my sleeping space longterm with another human. I quite like having the cats on the bed - I have always had cats and they have always slept on my bed. They don't heat up the sleeping environment as much as another human body does.

Being someone who is coming up to a milestone birthday this year, I am a woman of 'a certain age', that age which encompasses hot flushes and broken sleep. The fewer interruptions to my slumbers the better, I need every zzzzz I can get. Because I don't wish to fill my body with chemicals sleeping pills aren't an option for me although I've tried several herbal and natural remedies.

But gee, it tries my patience sometimes.

G goes to sleep more quickly than I. Sometimes he'll do the 'pre snore': this involves breathing in through the nose and blowing out through the mouth, something akin to a whale expelling air. It's seriously annoying if we're facing each other so that means I roll over and get as close to the edge of the bed as I can to get away. I hate copping stale breath driven into my face.

If that gets to snoring level before I can doze off I prod him and get him to roll over, so at least the noise is pointing in the opposite direction.

At that point I usually look desperately at the clock and think, oh shite, only six and a half hours until the alarm goes off. I then rip up some Kleenex and shove them in my ears and try to imagine myself floating on a pontoon on a lagoon, with warm sun caressing me and tiny waves gently rocking me. A few drops of Rescue Remedy Sleep and I can usually manage to drift off.

But lo! come two in the morning I'm often awoken by a snore in full force. More prodding. I bounce up and down on the bed, which sometimes works and brings G to a semi-awake state.

In the early hours of the morning I can become quite annoyed by the noise and it's not uncommon for me to be stuck there, wide awake and cross, going through other issues that are troubling me to a soundtrack of pre-snore and slowly increasing snoring. (Cue more prodding and bouncing.) Rescue Remedy or not, I can sometimes take two hours to get back to sleep depending on the soundtrack. Like this morning. I think I dropped off around four am.

In summer I solve the problem by heading to the second bedroom where we have a sofa bed. I don't bother setting the bed up, just curl up on the sofa because I'm short enough to do that. But now it's getting chilly and buggered if I know where we put the second duvet, so the sofa bed isn't an option.

When the alarm woke me at 6.30 today I felt bitter and disoriented. G, on the other hand, was cheerful.

"I slept like a log," he declared.

"Yeah," I croaked sourly. "Like a log in a sawmill."

He apologised and suggested I prodded him next time he snored. I said he'd had six prods between two and four am. We got to talking about snoring remedies one can buy at the chemist. He's always been unwilling to try them but is realising that it's time he did something.

"I'm just thinking about some old-fashioned snoring remedies you can buy in the shops," I said, more awake.

"What?"

"Cast iron frying pan, mallet and meat cleaver."

At least he laughed. He didn't realise I had a vision in my head of an exhausted Victorian or Edwardian woman walloping her husband one with the frypan in the wee hours.

G isn't off on a trip until next week - I'll clearly have to hunt out that second duvet. Or lock up the frypan.

Write said Fred. Or whatever my muse is called

Yesterday I took the morning off and wrote a short story.

I felt a bit guilty, but then told myself: you want to be a writer, don't you? If writing is work, don't feel bad about doing it in work time. That's what work time is for.

I have trouble writing in the evenings; morning is my most creative time. Some of my most creative fiction has been written at the workplace on the boss' time (but then I'm such a fast worker nobody ever noticed).

What a relief to actually write a story again. I've been bereft of plots for ages. It's as if my imagination has dwindled, and my sense of fun has hibernated.

Perhaps it's because I've taken two whole weekends off in a row, and given myself mental space. I've done different things: I've gone to the local show, I've been out and about on a Sunday drive around Kurrajong and Ebenezer and the countryside around Sydney's north west. I haven't spent at least half the weekend chained to the desk. Next weekend I'm going to the races at Hawkesbury. I'm starting to feel a bit more like a normal human being.

Anyway my muse - who I believe is female and may be called Fred as she's a bit quirky at times - paid me a visit and I went into a writing fugue. I came up for air sometime around 1pm feeling a bit peckish and very satisfied with an entire draft of my story written.

Re-reading it today and making some relatively minor edits, it's as good as I thought it was yesterday when I'd completed it.

Happy happy happy.

Clothesline Envy

I've always taken a sunny clothesline for granted. Growing up our Hills Hoist was massive and basked smugly in northern sunlight; even on a sunny winter's day your clothes would dry in one day, particularly if there was a wind. Windy days were spectacular with sheets and shirts and skirts and jeans and undies whirling out and around as if they were on a sideshow ride for textiles. The hoist itself would squeak (in joy I like to think) as it spun.

I lived in our family home until six years ago, and oh boy, do I ever miss the Hills Hoist. And the sunshine.

Our clothesline now is about 1/3 the size, and extends from the side of the house. It's not a lovely rotary Hills Hoist but a static line, and worst of all it's on the eastern side of the house so only gets sun in the morning. Another month and it will get a scant hour's sunshine, weak and feeble, and the only things that will be dry at the end of the day will be fine cotton handkerchiefs. Even the sheets don't dry unless it's windy.

We don't have a tumble dryer. Firstly we have no room for one in our tiny laundry, secondly I have my green side and don't want to waste power. In winter we have our gas heater on in the evenings anyway so we dry any damp washing on a rack in front of the heater, rotating the items and taking them off the rack once they've baked - er, dried.

It's not as if we can install a Hills Hoist here either. We live in a townhouse with a small courtyard. Even the smallest Hills Hoist wouldn't rotate but simply whack against the walls.

From my office window I can see my neighbour's garden, and they are the proud owners of a big Hills Hoist in full sunshine. Today it's laden with bedlinen, towels and absolutely ginormous undies. My neighbours are elderly, and he wears y-fronts that would fit a horse and she wears those massive nylon granny knickers that come half way down your thighs and apparently reach up almost to your bra. They fill with air like a spinnaker when it's windy. (My mum is also a fan of The Massive Knicker. I hope I don't succumb in my old age.)

Look at that washing, getting all toasty and warm in the sun; mine on the other hand is already firmly in the shade at 10.45am. There's not a breath of wind at the moment and the towels are as damp as they were two hours ago when I hung them out.

Autumn, winter and spring are my favourite seasons. The sting has gone from the sun and the light is wonderfully soft. They are also my seasons for clothesline envy.

I don't envy people their clothes or expensive handbags, or their red sports cars. But I do envy them sunny clotheslines.

My Monte Carlo Dress - Adventures in beading

By the pricking of my thumbs, something blingy this way comes.

I've done a bit more work on my Folkwear Monte Carlo dress, adding a little more beading to the shoulder area, making the matching tunic with tassels (and hand beading a bit of sparkle into said tassels) and finally making a very darkly glittering bandeau using both the dress and tunic materials.

There hasn't been much on telly this week so I've been sitting after dinner with bowls of beads and cursing the lousy energy saver lightbulbs we have throughout the house.

The tunic was really easy to make; I used my overlocker (not traditional I know but it gave a nice edge to the garment) around the edges and sewed two of the three pieces together, stabilising it with a bit of jersey mesh I had left over from another top I'd made ages ago. Then I beaded the tassels and sewed them firmly on. They are heavy compared to the filigree texture of the fabric, a metallic lace. The tunic is supposed to cross over in front but when I tried that I looked like battleship full steam ahead. Curse these big boobs! It looks pretty good unfastened though.

My hand beaded tassels

Classic 20s pose!

Now for a look at the bit of extra beading I did around the shoulders - and this pic shows off the bandeau pretty well too!  The extra shoulder beading is discreet - more beads scattered in between the three original rows, sort of like a little spray of beads, a light shower rather than a thunderstorm.

Shoulder beading and bandeau

That bandeau took about four hours to bead. It's not beaded all the way around; there's a section right in the middle, then scattered beads out to where I have three rows of beads hanging freely at the sides. This 'Facebook' shot probably shows it better:

Vampish Facebook profile pic - one day I will give Jimmy Durante his nose back

Speaking of Facebook, those of you who read this and know me on Facebook too may wonder why I don't publicise this blog on Facebook. This blog is more of a personal thought dump; me being me and occasionally saying things about myself I wouldn't say to most people I know. There is a certain cathartic pleasure in being a blogger and having a name not my own. Aside from which I've grumbled about a couple of people on here who are actually friends of mine and Facebook friends too. Don't want them to read this blog! Only a few people I know on FB know that I'm Carinthia too.

Anyway, I think I have finished my dress, the tunic and the bandeau. I have really enjoyed the beading process and was getting quite quick by the end of the bandeau, so will look for more items I can bling up within the bounds of good taste. Or make another 20s dress :-)

My Monte Carlo dress

OK, I'm a nostalgia buff. I've often lamented here about the busyness of life these days and sighed over less frenetic times. I do have to pull myself up at some point and thank modern living for pain free dentistry etc and remember that the good old days are usually viewed through rose-coloured glasses and period tv shows which can't port into your living room the smell of living in an era sans deodorant.

That being said the 1920s is my nostalgia decade of choice. Women wore short skirts and short hair and had more control over their life (and finances) than their mothers did at the same age. It was an exciting time of jazz, aeroplanes, fast cars (that couldn't brake or handle but oh my those Bugattis were elegant!), cocktails and gorgeous dresses.

Even though I don't have the skinny bod for 20s fashions, I love them.

Six months ago I bought a dress pattern I'd been sighing over for ages - the Monte Carlo Dress, by Folkwear. It's a 1990s pattern based on a 1925 Poiret gown. With a skirt cut on the bias, it's a luxurious construction requiring around 5 metres of fabric. Given that I have been sewing barely a year, I quailed at the thought of making a mistake and buggering up those five metres. It's not like I would be making it in plain cotton; oh no, not this little black duck for whom ignorance can be bliss when it comes to working with fabric. Nope, I was going to do it in something gorgeous, something worthy of a 1920s woman out for a night on the razz at the best speakeasy in town.

In those six months I've made quite a lot of clothes, mostly tops, and a skirt suit, mainly out of knitted fabric. Understanding the directions on the pattern has become easier (except for Burda. Jeez. The translation from German into English is strictly double Deutsch. I'm sure they leave directions out just to confuse the English speakers. Revenge for WWII or something). I read through the Monte Carlo directions last week and they made a lot more sense than they did when I bought the pattern.

So I decided it was time to make the Monte Carlo dress last weekend. My local Sewright shop had the ideal fabric, a burnout velvet in deep midnight blue. I had some paler blue fabric I could use as lining for the bodice, even though the pattern doesn't call for a full lining. I decided the moderately sheer velvet needed lining to cover my knickers and provide some stability for the slightly stretchy velvet itself. I lashed out on metallic lace to make the cape thing that goes with the dress, but haven't made that yet. That's next weekend. It looks very simple.

To my delight making the dress was a breeze compared to some of the things I've over-ambitiously tried to make in the last year. The swear factor was zero.

My Monte Carlo dress

I've mentioned my ignorance and over-ambition, and put both of them to good use by doing some hand-beading on the front of the bodice. This had to be done before the garment was stitched together. Now, I've never beaded anything in my life, so I blithely went out to Lincraft and bought some bugle beads and seed beads and embroidery needles and set to it. Thankfully my slightly wavy, ever so slightly crooked lines of beads are disguised by the fabric, which is a bit wavy itself. You don't notice the lines aren't completely straight. Phew! I have found one little error I'll have to fix though and I'm not saying what it is :-)

I decided to do something really simple in the way of beading as you can add impatience to the list of my foibles as well and I desperately wanted to get my dress done over the weekend. I hate having to interrupt something I'm doing and put it aside for another week.

hand beading

I sewed all day Saturday. I sewed all day Sunday. By Sunday night the bodice was ready for the skirt, and I'd hemmed half the skirt. This morning I worked until 11 then thought, sod it! I HAD to finish this dress!! So I did. I took my time lining the skirt up with the bodice and tacked it all in place before sewing it with the machine. I did quite a bit of hand finishing here and there too.

The end result is pretty stunning, even if I say so myself. I'm astonished that I made it. It fits like a dream and my seams aren't too untidy on the inside :-).

I'll have to make a proper beaded bandeau to match it - I've tied a bit of fabric around my head here - and of course the cape thingy.

Without the bandeau and with different jewellery it's timeless enough to wear to a posh night out without feeling I'm wearing a costume - with my husband's new job I may get the opportunity to wear it out a few times! But with the 20s trimmings I'm all set for a 20s themed event when I hear of one that sounds like fun.

I couldn't wait to try it on once it was complete (how nice to try it on without pins digging into me!) and then decided on makeup and a photo or two. I'd told a friend about it and she wanted to see a piccy. All tarted up with the appropriate accessories, I felt like a different person - that same feeling I had at the Paragon cafe in February.

So here I am, 20s woman in my 20s bedroom, complete with cat and the lamp that cat broke. Cocktails, anyone?