T-Swizzle

I learned at an early age that when you pair certain words together, they become kind of magical.  They’re more powerful as a pair than as individuals—kind of like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and peanut butter and jelly.  Some things are just better together.  If you won’t take my word for it, take Jack Johnson’s.  Not all word combinations, however, yielded the same results, and it took some trial and error to figure out what type of magic each word pair would and could produce.

Take “open sesame”, for example.  This proved to be really useful around lunchtime, when it would release any dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets that were spending some undeserved jail time in my cousin’s clasped hands.  The right amount of “pretty pleases” would score me half-baked chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven at the expense of slightly burnt fingers, and extra time.  Yes, extra time.  You see, with the proper placement and usage of pretty please, time, or rather, the shortage of it, was no longer an issue.  That extra hour I spent playing laser tag at Andy’s birthday party, the extra episode of Simpson’s I got to watch before cracking open my math textbook, that extra ten minutes of sleep I got to treasure—all thanks to the strategic use of pretty please.

Unfortunately, as I’ve grown older, many word pairs have either lost their magic, or were not blessed with any to begin with.  Fire-truck you, for example—no magic there.  Every now and then, however, a new word pair will come up, with the potential to be better together, the potential to be the next Brangelina—the potential to be magical.  When that happens, it’s my duty as a responsible blogger, to let you know.  And so, I have two words for you, Taylor Swift.

No, thankfully, those are not the magic words.  Taylor Swift is just where the story begins.  You see, I woke up yesterday morning with Taylor Swift on the brain.  In fact, her songs were swimming in my head and through my bloodstream all day, and the day before that.  It was so extreme that if I got a cut, I probably would have bled some mighty classy lyrics about a former T-Swizzle ex.  So, naturally, I woke up, made my way to my laptop, scrolled through iTunes, double-clicked “Everything Has Changed (ft. Ed Sheeran)”, and turned down the volume.  Why did I turn down the volume?  Easy.  Taylor Swift is my guilty pleasure.  And there goes all the judgment.

You see, those are the magic words: guilty pleasure.  What I’ve come to realize is that once you label something as a guilty pleasure, as your guilty pleasure, all the judgment and hate that was once oh so mercilessly and relentlessly aimed your way just seems to dissipate into thin air—it just disappears!  It’s kind of like the world cutting you some slack.  We know you hate yourself enough for liking Taylor Swift, so we won’t shame you any more than you’re already shaming yourself.  But after some thought, I realized what’s more shameful than having a guilty pleasure, is not sharing your guilty pleasure, because your guilty pleasure could just simply be or become someone else’s simple pleasure.  Are you still with me there?  Hello?

Being ashamed of a guilty pleasure is only natural, and naturally, being ashamed means you’re less likely to share your guilty pleasure with the world.  Or if you do, the world would consist of your Samanthas, Charlottes, and Mirandas.  But if it were up to me, I’d leave Miranda out.  To be honest, I’ve never been too keen on her. 

So there I was the other day, telling my Samantha that I was listening to Taylor Swift, justifying the act by labeling it as a guilty pleasure, when she responded with “Why?  I love Taylor Swift!” Mind blowing.  Nevertheless, I proceeded to play “All Too Well”, turning the volume up all the way.  Why?  Because I realized something.   Feeling guilty about a guilty pleasure prevents you from sharing it with the people around you that aren’t Samantha, Charlotte, and occasionally, Miranda.  But if you find that guilty pleasure, pleasurable, who’s to say that someone else won’t?  So take off the “guilty”, turn up the volume, share your pleasures, and blast the T-Swizzle.

While we’re on the topic of guilty pleasures, here’s another one.  You probably guessed it before I even started the post…IT’S ANOTHER MARKET!

This is the Eveleigh Market, held every Saturday, from 8am to 1pm at Carriage Works in Darlington. 

Specifically, 243 Wilson St, Darlington NSW 2008.

I honestly cannot believe it's taken me this long to share the beauty that is this market with you all because it's actually one of my favorite markets in Sydney and the one I frequent the most often.

You can find it all here, from ewes milk yogurt, to cupcakes, to panforte, produce, eggs, goat, brownies, and freshly made pasta!  

They even have a stand featuring the celebrity Australian Chef, Kylie Kwong!  If you try one thing, you must try the spicy pork bun from her stall!  It's nothing short of amazing!

Many of the stall holders actually sample quite generously so you'll definitely know what you're getting when you decide to buy that jar of blackberry, raspberry, and mountain berry jam, along with that beautiful jar of guava balsamic vinegar.  Be sure to check out the Macadamia stand while you're there too!  I'm obsessed, and that might actually be an understatement.

They were holding cooking demonstrations that day, and handing out plates of oatmeal pancakes topped generously with berries and yogurt, to promote Love to Cook, an Australian cookbook. 

We shared an intimate moment together before I stuffed the beautiful thing into my belly.  

It was a guilty pleasure, but you see, maybe if I'd realized sooner, I could and would have shared this pleasure, and we all could have had beautiful pancakes together!

Thank goodness that there is and will always be a next time!

Cheers,

Kimmy