Ugh, Easter

Easter back in Blighty is one of those times when you know the shops aren't going to open on the Sunday. It's like Christmas Day. You know it's coming.

In Sydney, for reasons known only to Australians, and even then it's probably only about 3 of them, *all* the shops close for Good Friday.

So there I am, expecting everything to be open, at least half-heartedly for 6 or 7 hours of the day - but no. It was like the place had been infected with some hideous virus and everyone had fled the city. Maybe everyone *had* fled the city, that would explain why I could cross the road without being run over, or why there was tumbleweed blowing down the road.

Really it was a shock. And it wasn't a great omen for the rest of my Easter to be fair.

On Saturday we drove up to Palm Beach. Not as is usual to check out the set of Home and Away (I was very restrained all things considered) but to have a break from the city and to have a nice lunch. So we sat down at a place called the Beach Shack - or Shed - or something like that - and got the menu. It was one of those menus where they have to write 'jus' instead of 'gravy' because it sounds more posh and they can therefore charge you double. So I decided on the goujons of spatchcock - chicken nuggets. And then the waitress informed me they were out of spatchcock - plainly because we'd rocked up at 3pm and all the kiddies would have already eaten them on the basis that they were clearly chicken nuggets.

So I look over the menu, and being madam fussy eater, I wasn't going to eat the lamb, the fish, the duck or the steak which cost like $50. So I ordered from the starters Steak Tartare.

And then when it arrived in front of me I think I must have had a look of pure shock because the waitress had presented to me an enormous chuck of bread, served with a huge mound of minced beef mixed with various spices and chopped garlic and onion and so on. And. oh yeah, the crucial part of that tale was that the mince was uncooked. I had effectively been served with glorified cat food. Mmmmm, well apparently, it turns out that I am an ignorant imbecile because this is completely what was expected (well, by at least one person on my table, who declined to inform me of what I was ordering when I first chose it.....)

So anyway, being made of stern stuff (ish), I decide to give it a go. I have a taste of the death on my plate and to be fair, it wasn't as hideous as I had expected, but even so, being a pile of meat big enough to feed a pack of starving huskies, I wasn't ever going to eat the whole lot. Combine that with the fact that my enormous lump of bread was toasted into oblivion and had the consistency of a lump of rock, all in all it wasn't the gormet lunch I had anticipated.

It all must have been quite entertaining, because, unpromted the waitress came over and told me that the dish had been taken off the bill - I guess it had something to do with my utter horror, but whatever.

I didn't feel at all well on Monday or Tuesday following that escapade, but it might have been something completely unrelated - but you know, even the cavemen knew to cook the meat before serving it up. There's something altogether weird about eating uncooked food. I'm not sure I'd go for sushi either - but given that I don't like seafood I guess that's just one of those things we'll never know......