WEDDINGS, COUNTRY TOWNS AND A NEAR MISS WITH PRAWNS

You know you’re in the country when curried egg and prawns drowning in mayo are the sandwich selections at the one bakery in town.

Most people are clued in enough to go for the egg, neatly observing that country towns are – by definition - nowhere near the coast.

Not so the best man of the wedding I attended this weekend past, whose unwise selection early on Saturday morn nearly saw the understudy called in for his role in the proceedings.

Other giveaways you’re not in the big smoke anymore are the inordinate number of Holden’s hooning down the main street, always in either sparkly turquoise or bright bottle green.

The number of roadkill featured on our national emblem is also a fairly sure bet.

Everything shuts at 12.30 on Saturday, which means that the brother who forgets his belt, shoes and hat has to stick his belly out, wear his scuffed chucks and lots of suncream and avoid our mother who will loudly pronounce the shame he brings to the family name.

(Not half as bad as the wedding where he turned up at the post-wedding brunch still in his suit, a rip in the knee, because he had spent the night in a local orchard picking…ah…cherries shall we say).

Yes, missing shoes got nowhere near the response from mum as that did.

Further evidence you’re in the land of the windmills and pig troughs is the DJ playing Cold Chisel and Men At Work like they’re recent discoveries. 

Any band later than the early 80’s hasn’t yet reached Australia’s interior.

Jack Daniels and Coke in a can is also fair indicator, as is champagne served in red wine glasses – actually quite helpful for people like me, those of us encumbered with a large nose.

The stars shining on the paddocks at night, winking to you as you observe the quiet sheep. Fields of canola, a rich, honest yellow disappearing into the valley below.

The air, plenty for everyone, wafting undiluted through your allergy stricken nose.

And the people.

Quiet, calm and considerate. Plenty of time to take care of you in their pragmatic, matter-of-fact-ness. Proud, independent, strong, determined.

The litmus test for being in the country?

Ask a local for help and if they reply ‘she’ll be right mate, no worries,’ you know that’s exactly where you are. 

NEW YORK WEDDINGS, ANNIVERSARIES AND DANNY ZUKO AND SANDRA DEE

This time three years ago I was squashed into my tiny New York apartment with my roommate, oldest friend, 3 brothers, two parents, aunt, uncle, several cousins, a brother’s girlfriend, a couple of family friends and any cockroaches that had taken up residence in our Washington Heights abode.

My dad had done a lunch run and returned with an assortment of dips, cheeses and fruits which I was too excited to eat because I was getting married later that evening to a fella I had met at the restaurant where I hostessed at on the east side.

Gregory was the head chef of this dining estabishment, a very popular, expensive joint frequented by celebrities, New York dignitaries and a few shady characters affiliated with those people whose name rhymes with bafia.

When he asked me out I was shocked.

What was this ultra cool, tattooed, whiskey drinking, smoking super-chef doing asking out the naïve, poor, non-tattooed, non-smoking hostess? 

Surely he had it wrong.

We were like Danny Zuko and Sandra Dee.

Ah well, I thought, I’ll go out on one awkward, uncomfortable date, he’ll realise we have nothing in common and we’ll continue on at work just as were, since we’d never spoken before anyway.

We met for a 3pm lunch (it was Sunday in New York after all) at a trendy joint on the lower east side and I later discovered Gregory had been so nervous he’d locked his keys and phone in his apartment.

We got to know each other over lunch at the bar, chatted over coffees on the grass in Union Square, made out behind the self help section on level four in the Strand Bookstore and held hands all the way to Christopher street where I was watching a friend perform later that night.

A quick check of my phone saw 12 missed calls from my roommate who I discovered had sprained her ankle at work, and the American health care system being what it is, needed to go to hospital to verify the injury in order to claim workers comp and medical bills.

Six thousand dollars and six hours later, I silently declared this tough exterior, teddy bear interior chef a winner as he accompanied us to the hospital, carried in my friend and held my hand while we waited to see if she was ok.

We dated in secret for 6 months, meeting after work around the corner, then wiling away the night hours at restaurants and bars this tinned tuna, ketchup soup eating actress had never dared to even enter.

I left town for 4 months on a gig, and after enduring such a lengthy separation, was happy to follow my beau to the west coast with a job offer that was a good few rungs up the cheffing ladder.

We planned our wedding from there, returning to New York to get married in a converted foundry, the first and only venue we had looked at in the city.

Gregory’s mates did the food, my mates provided the music, my brothers were my out-of-time under-rehearsed bridesmen, and we danced till 5am at a nearby bar with our dearest friends and family.

Since then, we’ve lived in LA, Gregory has cooked for Bill Gates, Brad and Angelina, and our fellow non-familied Santa Monicans. I’ve written two manuscripts, (both which have come oh-so-close to publication) done a couple of shows and missed many more, we’ve camped in Norway, done a 3-month road trip across the US, got my green card, visited Oz, moved to Oz, visited the US, shifted house a couple of times, changed jobs several times and grown our very own human.

That chef I met four years ago is now a non-smoking, adventure seeking, takeaway over-ordering, sock-dropping-where-I-leave-‘em husband and father, and his two girls think he makes their world.

Dunno what we’ll manage in the next 3 years, but I’m very excited to find out…