Bugger It!

I promised myself that today would be dedicated to writing my new story. Recently (make that the last 2 months), I've been dragging my feet, blaming the festivities, heat, entertaining and what have you.

Anyway, I swore there would be no blogging either, since some of you are probably quite sick of my rants and recipes. However, we're being besieged by blowflies and mosquitoes, so I am compelled to share this misery with someone who is not my husband.

Since lunch, I have killed 6 flies via asphyxiation. One more and I'll be sewing myself a belt as a badge of honour, declaring "7 In One Arvo". There are few things as joyous to my ears than the desperate sound of a fly's wings beating against the window sill as it struggles to take its last breath. For some reason unbeknownst to the human inhabitants, flies in our home, after being dealt a deadly dose of Baygon, have a tendency to stagger and crash headlong into the kitchen window pane, then hurtle into the sill below, which is now a veritable Fly Graveyard.

What is it about flies? What do they want from us? Why do they fly straight into you when clearly, they can see you through those compound eyes? And why do they settle on your sandwich then rub their filthy legs together with glee?

In my opinion, flies exist exclusively for 2 reasons:

1) to irritate the hell out of human beings

2) to proliferate shit

(not to be mistaken with Perez Hilton or Sarah Palin)

Then again, according to my sister's commendable powers of induction, flies are food to frogs, which in turn, fall prey to snakes. And these slithery invertebrates occasionally find themselves in hot, Chinese herbal soup or turned into Louis Vuitton handbags. So I concede that perhaps, on the margin, God didn't completely screw up when he made these annoying, buzzing pests.

Which brings me to mosquitoes. My blood type is O+ and I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the lure I seem to have for mosquitoes. And they only attack stealthily in the night, when I am sound asleep, defenseless and unable to quash them with my bare hands. Since Saturday night, I've acquired 8 mosquito bites and Nathan, who shares the same room, same bed, has ZERO. I suspect it has something to do with all the hair the buggers would have to battle with just for a taste of "Nathan blood". Too hard. If I were a mosquito, I'd go for me. Who can blame them?

As it turns out, mosquitoes are at the penultimate bottom of the designer handbag food chain. And right at the very bottom of the food chain is us.

Ironic isn't it, to think that in the end, I could be part of my new Chloe handbag.

I racked my brains to find a link between flies, mozzies and a recipe, but really, would such a link wet one's appetite?

Crab, Chilli and Rocket Pasta

Serves 4

250gm spaghetti or linguini

200gm crab meat

1 long, dried red chilli, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

large handful rocket

juice if half a lemon

olive oil

salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Bring a large pot of water to boil, add a liberal amount of salt then toss pasta into boiling water. To a hot pan, add a good glug of extra virgin olive oil, then saute garlic and chilli until fragrant. Add crab and rocket then turn off heat. Drain pasta, toss in sauce with another lashing of olive oil, lemon juice and a generous amount of salt and cracked black pepper.