One from my extensive list of life mantras is to never eat seafood if I am more than two hours inland from the coast.

Seafood that has had to travel hours to get to me rouses gut-wrenching connotations of Swedish fermented herring.

If this is your thing, you are kind of gross. Rotting flesh that smells like roadkill is not my idea of a delicacy.

Growing up on a cattle property that was just over two hours from the closest beach meant that fresh seafood was tantalisingly close, but tragically just too far away.

Whenever I used to eat cake, a bleak cloud of almost instantaneous remorse overshadowed any associated culinary bliss.

But this particular recurring case of ‘the guilts’ was never what it seemed.

My mum always used to make these insanely cool children’s birthday cakes that were as much novelty as they were taste nirvana. 

If I could have just one wish, it would be the introduction of a four-day working week.

Being granted one extra day of weekend is one of life’s most gratifying little pleasures.

It means that Saturday languidly melts into Sunday, and Sunday into Monday.

It means that the pinot and pizza binge you had on Friday night is such a distant memory that in actual fact, it probably didn’t even happen.

Today one of my lady loves and I adventured into the countryside for a utopic spring picnic surrounded by big trees and trickling streams.

There were baby animals hopping excitedly around us, fascinated by their new surroundings. We got really lost on a windy dirt road, but we didn’t even care.

We ate coconut damper and salted caramel, apple and haloumi salad while sipping fresh pineapple and beetroot juice. 

The hangry struggle is real, ok.

Don’t even pretend like it has never happened to you. You’re out at a restaurant, a little later than usual as is, and are completely ravenous. You tenaciously order your favourite linguine without a second look at the menu. And then the waiting begins.

You know that feeling you get when an hour later your meal is nowhere to be seen? Like you could actually grab a fork and stab it into your partner’s eye if they ask you one more time whether you want some of their leftover trail mix. Yeah, that is hangry.

I am somewhat of a cuisine discriminator and I blame it nearly entirely on my uncle.

He is tall, wears excellent shirts and takes lovely photographs. He is funny and caring. Sounds like a good guy right?

Wrong! He is a downright arrogant food monarchist! I found this out after once sharing with him my utter infatuation with Greek food  - after a holiday in Corfu saw me sailing around the islands eating olives and fresh caught sardines. 

I really, really love winter.

It is a time when you can sip delicious hot drinks, and down lamb shanks and apple crumble like it’s nobody’s business.

Soon you are a festive three or four kilos heavier. But not to worry, long cosy trench coasts and firming black tights have a magical way of hiding all manner of sins. 

I know it happens all the time, but it really stinks.

You are happily committed and then something, somewhere changes. You develop feelings, a magnetic attraction. You know you shouldn’t, but you can’t fight it.

It may have just started with their smell, a few sheepish glances and yearning eyes. You have come this close before, yet have always been able to tell yourself it isn’t worth it. But before you know it you are having some pretty deceitful thoughts. 

Perhaps it is nostalgic memories of my childhood, or post teenage metabolism denial ("It's totally fine, I am now just going to sleep off this entire pizza."). Whatever it is, ice cream makes me happy.

I hate to liken myself to a creature that spends 80 per cent of its day licking its own feet, but that look of pleasure a cat gets when being pat behind the ear - that is me eating ice cream.

I have an ice cream routine that sees me coming back time and  time again for that sweet, sweet, cool rush of gooey goodness. Every day in fact. 

So is ice cream addictive? Absolutely. 

I promise you this recipe I dreamt up on the weekend is 100 per cent worthy of such an obnoxiously long title.

I have been politely declining beetroot’s renaissance for some time now.

To me the ‘humble beetroot’ is somewhat of a deceiving mistress. Hiding behind that vibrant magenta façade is in fact a rock hard, earthy-tasting carrot/potato lovechild. 

Originally used for clothes dyes, winter road salt and animal fodder, you can hardly blame a gal for taking a wide berth.