Free In Bed with Jocasta by Richard Glover Page B

‘you seem to be almost completely back to normal.’
    DIARY NOTE: strategies no longer working. Jocasta has hormones back under control. Last soup came from kitchen days ago! Toast soldiers all gone! What can be done?
    The Last Gasp
    Notice Jocasta referring to my illness as ‘the flu’. Frankly, it’s an insult. I’d be better off seeing Simon. Or even my mother. What I’ve got is some sort of unusual virus. Probably a medical first. Doesn’t she realise men never get anything as commonplace as ‘the flu’? That’s for women. For instance: Jocasta.
    Actually, just as I’m getting better, Jocasta is coming down with something pretty similar. Only not as bad. For instance, she’s not moaning or whingeing much, and is sitting quite pluckily in bed. Remarkable, isn’t it, how the strain of a virus can weaken so sharply in the space of a few days.
    Part of the problem, I think, is the lack of an objective pain rating that could separate the malingerers (i.e. women) from those Struggling On Despite Enormous Odds (i.e. men).
    I’d like a pain thermometer: pop it under the arm, and be able to announce that I’m suffering an ‘8’. After all, women have this. As in the phrase: ‘It was worse than childbirth.’ Notice how they choose the one scale of measurement in which we can’t compete — leaving themselves luxuriating on the illness highground.
    ‘Actually, I’m pretty sick myself,’ says Jocasta, a day later, lying prone across the hallway, and groaning. ‘It’s pretty close to childbirth; I’d say eight-tenths of a childbirth. I may need a little looking after myself.’
    She looks up with beseeching Bambi Eyes, and suddenly there seems nothing for it but to pull myself together, pop her in bed, and make soup.
    Luckily, that’s when my mother rings.
    ‘Can you talk to Jocasta, Mum. I think she’s been eating restaurant food again and going outside without her gloves.’

Killers in the Kitchen
    T here’s now good evidence that someone is trying to poison me. For instance, every night after dinner I experience blurred vision and swelling. And all I’ve done is drink a bottle of red wine and eat twenty-three sausages.
    Perhaps this is why Jocasta has instituted a weekday program of strictly-limited alcohol and low-fat food; a program which has done nothing except focus my mind firmly on the kitchen cupboard.
    As I stand there, quietly whimpering, I consider the strange rules of food and drink. Isn’t it time someone catalogued their eternal laws?
Food, if eaten straight from the cupboard, with the cupboard door still open, and no attempt to sit down, doesn’t count in any calorie-control program.
Beer tastes worse with every additional glass, while red wine tastes better.
Broken biscuits, found in the bottom of the Tupperware, contain no calories.
Encouraging others to eat heartily is not only good manners. Over time, you’ll start to look thin in comparison.
There is no point to the Brussels sprout.
There is never any room in the fridge, but nothing worth eating in there either.
If oysters weren’t so expensive, people would realise they look like snot.
Every food cupboard has one obscure cooking ingredient in massive oversupply. You ran out of it once, and now buy a fresh packet on every supermarket visit. In our house, it’s slivered almonds. We now have six small packs, enough to last, on current use, the next fifteen years.
UHT stands for Ultra Horrible Taste.
The favourite recipe of the serious cook always demands ‘¼ glass of good-quality white wine’, thus forcing the opening of a bottle well before the arrival of the guests.
A watched bottle of white wine, slung in the freezer, never cools.
Eating healthy vegetables provides negative calories, allowing you to eat extra junk.
With every kilometre you drive further from Sydney’s trendiest suburbs, the definition shifts of ‘rare’, ‘medium rare’ and ‘well done’. Ask for ‘rare’ in Balmain, and they’ll wipe its arse