I had a consult today with my GP.

The horror stories you normally hear about the health-care system in New Zealand isn’t about insurance (the NZ government pays for health-care services) or lawsuits, but about a lack of doctors and long waiting lists. So you try (and pray) your damn hardest not to get sick, and that if you did, knock on wood that it’s just the common cold.

I went for a different matter - I’m fine by the way - and I was surprised that there was an immediate opening. My current doctor is old, like senior citizen old, just like my previous GP who I think, got sick on the job and was now probably and definitely retired (I hope) and enjoying sunny Brighton (in England) where he’s originally from. But old doctors are the best. They have a relaxed and cheerful demeanour even when they’re desperately trying to find you a good systolic reading using a manual blood pressure monitor.

Jaqueline - my current GP - is a tall and statuesque lady who occasionally lapses into citing current studies that she’s read about, or diagramming on paper, the relationship between enzymes and bodily organs. She also patiently listens to my attempt at self-diagnoses and neither contradicts nor reproaches me (I wasn’t wrong anyway, just saying).

She saw me at 9:50 when our appointment was at 9:30 and we wrapped up at 10:45, but I didn’t complain; the whole session was worth the $50 it cost (in New Zealand, this is relatively very high).

For dinner, I thought, why not a salad? And no - it had nothing to do with my doctor’s appointment - I was still having flashbacks of that salad I had at Brewd Hawt, and the realisation that we have been doing our dressings wrong.

I didn't have iceberg lettuce - and it’s really the ideal type of lettuce for this - but use whatever you have because the point is, you need to eat those goddamned salad leaves before they go off. I had curly lettuce which I washed, dried and roughly chopped up. For the dressing, it was mayo, hot sauce, mustard and miso with some EVOO.

Drizzled that over the lettuce, did a generous sprinkling of that bagel seasoning and just because I was feeling extra, grated some parmigiana reggiano on top. YUM.

PS: my cholesterol levels were amazing the doctor said and the figure did make me gasp (a 2.2). To think that for the last 6 months, I’ve been eating butter as if it were cheese. See? There are some small miracles there…