The Gastronomic Meal Of The French Enshrined As A UNESCO World Cultural Treasure

The French & Food Porn Lover in me couldn't resist sharing this information with the rest of the world (yes, My (singular form) reader: YOU are the rest of the world). The Gastronomic Meal of The French was enshrined today as a UNESCO World Cultural Treasure. What better way to illustrate this than with a picture of Champagne & Harissa and another picture of Chicken with Truffles taken at Tetsuya's, the best restaurant in Australasia?

I'll let you figure out which picture is which.

Note: Tetsuya's was ranked 17th restaurant in the world in 2009 and 9th in 2008.

A Tube Of Harissa Goes Down Under

If a tube of Harissa (a North African spicy hot sauce) were to go down under on vacation, here are some of the pictures they would bring back home!

Qantas Of Solace

Yesterday, I thought about this geeky thing that happened to me 6 months ago.

It was a rather cold morning in Sydney, Australia last August. I happened to be riding on a hop-on hop-off, double decker open top city-tour bus when when my iPhone received a push email that was sent in the middle of the night just seconds ago in France. That email came from a patient of mine who was facing a personal crisis. It was long but I was able to read it entirely on my iPhone while riding on the open upper deck of this city tour bus.

I couldn't help but experience a rather awkward and disturbing feeling. The contrast between this email sent by someone desperate on the other side of the planet, in the middle of a summer night, and me receiving it, during a happy moment as far as I could be from home, in the morning in winter. This was rather unsettling and reminded me of the new technology-enhanced world we are all living in.

I was hopefully able to answer this email within minutes with a few comforting words that brought solace to this patient who still has no clue where I was at the moment I answered!

This can only lead to one question:

1) What kind of crazy world are we living in?

2) What kind of crazy/geeky shrink am I in this world?