Eye of Newt etc.

How many ingredients go into your average cauldron? Well, into your supper? I went to see the local doctor yesterday, and the subject of diet came up (not literally, merely in conversation). He's nice bloke with a fondness for Arthur C Clarke (I must give him SLOW TRAIN TO ARCTURUS to read) and he gave me the line about their only being one healthy diet - the pyramid with I forget now 5-7 fruits and veggies at the bottom and a small volume of protein at the top... a diet which he obviously considered atypical. I've always wondered about quantities in these diets, as I did in the bit of research that showed that average meals had decline from 11 items used to prepare to just 7. Hmm. We don't eat a LOT of anything... but I did a count of last night's supper for eg. Fishcakes, tomato relish, salad, noodles. or to break it down: fishcakes - Fish (wrasse -have to use it somehow), salt, Tasmanian pepper, 1 egg, breadcrumbs (and as I made the bread - yeast*, milk powder*, canola oil*, oats*, flour*, salt*, sugar*) green pepper, onion, garlic, parsley, thyme, chili pepper. All of the vegetable/herb ingredients are fresh.
tomato relish: tomato, onion, chili, vinegar*.
Salad: lettuce, spring onion, snow peas, tomato (THE tomato), beetroot leaves, cucumber, fennel leaves and pumpkin seeds* dressing.
Noodles - out of a packet.
Items with a star * didn't come from the island, and we paid for. We're working on it. Definitely do salt soon.
So we used 30 items...
OK - we can eat steak and potato for a few days:-)

In field of reputation enhancement B has been hard at work. She decided to walk into town yesterday afternoon to the library. And en route home spotted a bottle that some litter-lout had tossed out of the window. Being Barbs and being offended by it, she picked it up. And in the fashion of Island life, in 50 yards to our gate 5 cars passed and she waved at them. It was only when the last - policeman Pat in his Police Ute - stared rather hard at her and nearly drove off the road, does it occur to B that... it's a BEER bottle that she's picked up. And in Australia you're not supposed to drink in public, aside from the fact that people might assume you're walking back from the pub in no state to drive. And she doesn't even drink beer. It was one of those times when she wished, desperately, that the policeman HAD stopped. Breathalysed her even. Ah well. All things considered they'll just have to get used our eccentricities, and if that includes believing we wave beer bottles after our afternoon trip to the pub... so be it.