CHOCOLATE CRACKLES!!!!

Yay for chocolate crackles!!

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Every kid tries to get the biggest one even though they will (guaranteed!) make you feel sick before even getting half way through.

This is one of the mysteries of a kid's universe!

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Little Pig Number Three's birthday is on Sunday (the same day as Fathers' Day and the cat's birthday!) and so I have just made up a batch of CHOCOLATE CRACKLES for him to hand out at school after the bell goes at 3 o'clock. Today is also the last day of winter (which is miserable, because spring is next and, ultimately, summer - and summer sucks).

Now, since it is my job to be an attentive mother and hang around the classroom every afternoon waiting for my child to come out (and to be at hand in case I need to embarass him) I have noticed a few things. The first thing is that the older your child gets the fewer mothers hover outside at bell-time. That's not really surprising except for the fact that these absent mothers are wasting the power of embarassing their child, which is power indeed, and outstrips bribery in getting them to do your bidding.

The other thing I have noticed is that hardly anyone makes home-made stuff anymore when it is their kid's birthday! Parties are usually at McDonalds or similar, and cakes are often out of packets, and things handed out at school are almost without exception out of a bag from the confectionary aisle in the supermarket.

I kind of get the feeling that children are a hindrance to modern lifestyles.

I think the kids sometimes get this feeling, too.

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What great memories do you have of your childhood? (I bet they include a lot of food-related recollections.)

But who is going to fondly remember a Whitewings easy bake cake? Or that packet of mini mars bars?

Good food equals good memories for all of us.

All hail chocolate crackles!

Even if we can't get through a whole one and chuck up afterwards.

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Recipe for Chocolate Crackles (apparently these are traditionally Australian, which I didn't know - I thought everyone had them!)

4 cups rice bubbles

250g (1 block) Copha (vegetable shortening)

1 cup pure icing sugar, sifted

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 cup desiccated coconut

• melt copha
  
• mix dry ingredients in a bowl
• stir in melted copha
• spoon into paper patty pans

• chill
  
  

Pretty well everything annoys me. Except me.

What I want to briefly bring before you today, for a bit a mutual annoying in a sharing and caring kind of way, is the issue of talent.

This topic happened to spark my annoy-o-meter yesterday when I read this simple statement by our phone-chucking friend Naomi Campbell (who has noble aspirations to set up a modelling agency in Kenya): "There is lots of talent there".

CUE VOLCANIC ERUPTION !

Now, this is not anything to do with black, white, brown, off white, pink, olive, jaundiced or stuff like that. It is not even to do with the ever-changing standards of beauty. NO! This has got to do with the fact that anyone anywhere can be regarded as TALENTED just because they embody certain genetic characteristics.

THAT'S NOT BLOODY TALENT!

I hate hearing models referred to as "the talent".

I'm sure Naomi Campbell is talented. As a businesswoman.

I am sure Naomi Campbell is talented: at scrubbing loos on community service (and we all know she's gifted with an amount of accuracy when it comes to launching projectiles at employees). But "beauty" is not a talent. It's a ... it's a .... THING! It's this generation's check list for a certain height, a certain shape, a certain colouring. It's more than accidental, of course, because it is a hereditary issue: you could certainly breed for beauty (as is the principal with some animal husbandry). But it ain't talent. No sirree. Not unless you are a scientist working out all the tricky dominant and recessive genes and what traits will be exhibited before you breed a model at your model-breeding farm.

Just so you know, here are some examples of talent: This is talent -

So is this

And this

and definitely this

Talent is all about ability: usually some kind of freaky innate ability to do something that is above average. ABILITY is the key word here.

There. I've had my say and I'm going now because of a stinking headache.

I think too much. It's a curse.

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I've decided the best way to HAVE MY REVENGE on the Cashed-Up-Bogan mum at school is to

a.) be taller . This has already been accomplished.

b.) look better in jeans than her.

Now, this is not the same C.U.B. mum who I have mentioned before with the black and magenta hair and rather ample bosom. No! This woman is small, weedy, has mousey brown hair and laughable ambitions to be an air hostess. (I hear they're strict about being higher than the drinks trolley these days.)

Yes, you do detect an air of hostility there, dear readers. Oh yes.

But shall I lower myself to her bogan levels? (These are pretty darn low). No! I will just have a more shapely bum which, as anyone in the female sphere knows, is the best form of pay- back since having a full set of teeth.

You are probably wondering what Low-Low-Horribly-Low Afore-mentioned Woman has done to deserve my ire? Here is a re-created snippet of conversation between Little Pig Number Three (who is in grade 3 and is 8 years old) and moi-self.

"Mum, today Chaise (his friend's name, girly-sounding though it be for a boy) said our family are hippies and he doesn't talk to poor people. "

"And why does Chaise think we are hippies, Sweetums?"

"Because his mum said so. I'm going to pound him and smash him up! There's gonna be blood and gore and brains on the pavement!"

"No, don't do that poppet. Just don't invite him to your birthday party."

(Little Pig Number Two )" And snigger at him whenever he gets in trouble in class and spread rumours about him."

After this I plummeted into a pit of self despair over the unkindness of people and went on a binge of green-tea drinking. Now, I don't really care (overly) being labelled a hippy (though in my opinion the only real hippies are those who were doing all the flower power stuff in the 60s and 70s, so I am historically too young to be a hippy). Anyway, look how nicely they all grew up on Family Ties! And consider how shiny hippies' teeth are! Sir Richard Branson is one happy hippy.

The thing that upsets me the most is the "I don't talk to poor people" bit. This is rich coming from outer suburb wannabes who ( I have found since moving here from the leafy, green, affluent suburbs of my private and exclusive girls only high school days) are chockers full of the most invertly snobbish people you could ever come across .. not counting certain Asian places that will remain unnamed. And apart from the abject irony of this, IT'S JUST NOT NICE.

OK, so my car is 19 years old: it still gets me from A to B - and because it is second hand I have left a smaller carbon footprint behind.

And yes: my clothes are somewhat casual and may be interpreted as 'GROOVY', but at least I'm comfortable and not a slave to what is being sold this season in Target, Kmart or Supre (oooh classy).

And lastly, I know my giant handmade straw hat that eclipses the sun is subject to many smirks and comments; but I have the last laugh with the preservation of my youthful good looks as opposed to resembling Jerky Girl.

So, I'm on high Atkins at the moment to strip away any excess flesh there may be from my gorgeous buttocks and then, next time Little Pig Number Three's class has an assembly item to which C.U.B. mum bothers to turn up, I will don my Levi flairs and sashay past her oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah with a super model pout on my face and wiggle in my pony walk.

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ANd then, from the oval to the car park, I'll pelt her with Tibetan goji berries.