Spending the next weekend in Melbourne just gallivanting and our to-do list is basically populated with eating places; anything-mochi, Pinoy-fusion (very expensive though), mutant croissants preferably haemorrhaging pistachio cream, what else? Also meeting up with a college friend to try some oysters. We’ve made a vow to eat simply in the next four days.

I should stop baking on impulse. Baking should be thoughtful and intentional, calming and serene. The social media accounts that I look at from time to time are all shot at 120fps with a colour grading that implies endlessly languid summer days spent creating moist, airy confections in large, artisanal kitchens bathed in sunlight. The marble countertop gleams and the KitchenAid mixer whirs silently. Well, our kitchen is shit, so when I bake, I always tend to try to get it done as quickly as I can. I had a brownie pre-mix in the pantry and thought that finally doing a cheesecake brownie would be easier with half the recipe coming out of a box. And it was, but the results were mixed; the flavour could be better. The cheesecake was kind of bland like it needed a bit more sugar (I used half of what the recipe called for), or some topping.

It was so windy on Sunday that when I left the backdoor open, the wind just slammed it shut and while this has happened heaps of times with no incident, this time, the bottom panel shattered. I was immediately gripped with a specific kind of anxiety, unique to living in New Zealand; the inability to do home repairs myself, and the cost of hiring someone to do it. But then I remembered- we have home insurance, hooray! When we had it sorted through insurance within four hours on a Sunday, I thought that it was better than Christmas morning.

Baby-back St. Louis pork ribs for dinner because why not? I just put on a good rub on mine because I hate the sugary, one-note bbq sludge that restaurants put on their ribs.