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Lamb curry with mango chutney

As my time quickly winds down in Australia, I realize I should be enjoying this time. I should be taking extra trips to the ocean, maybe visiting some more wineries or hugging a couple extra koalas. Instead, I am working hard to finish my dissertation, sell my apartment, move home and find a real job. And you know, if I have time, solve world hunger, the war in Iraq, and decide who the Democratic presidential candidate should be. Shouldn’t be too tough.

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Yeah, I'm still alive and eating well, might I say.

Guys, I am almost there. I am almost done with the dissertation that ate Adelaide (my working title, what do you think?) Cue Chariots of Fire Music.

Da Da Dada Daaaaaaaaa Daaaaaaaaaaa

I just want you to know that I recognize our relationship as food blogger and food blog reader has been compromised over the past few months. Sometimes, it has been downright ignored and damn it, that ain't right. You deserve better than that. You deserve, at the very least, to be bribed with homemade brownies and cupcakes personally delivered by me and perhaps a kick line of koalas trained to do a pop and lock routine to Salt n Pepa's famous song, Shoop, at least until you forget this whole mess occurred. Lucky for me, I'm a poor college student who can't afford to do that, so you'll have to settle for a sign that I am alive.

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Just another "I should have been writing my paper, but instead I baked" mistakes: dark chocolate cupcake with wattle seed icing.

Anyone got a spare two thousand words? The old dissertation is looking a bit skinny at the moment, and after six straight months working on one paper, I have to be honest--I have nothing left to say. I'm spent. Over it. Done. And yet it is still here, demanding words from me that I don't have like a nagging housewife. I am married to my freaking dissertation...and I think it is time to start seeing other papers.

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The reason why South Aussies are so happy, the frog cake.

Hey there, remember me? Brown girl, cute, a bit too interested in food? Yup, I’m still alive, but just barely. In 13 days, my 15,000 word dissertation on food blogs is due. In 17 days, I move back to Chicago from Adelaide, South Australia. I also happen to have less focus than a meer cat on meth. But hey, at least I still have an appetite.

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You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want…

Oh sure, it's all fun and games now...

I am a surf goddess. At least, that is what I want you to think when you see this picture. I think I pull off the look quite well. But as I have learned many times in Australia, luck can be a fickle mistress, sometimes bestowing you with treasures beyond your wildest dreams, and at other times, getting your hopes up only to let you down at the last minute. In my two experiences surfing, my luck has mainly fallen in the latter category.

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We're excited for curry!

Curry goodness.

Can't...move. Curry...slowing...muscles...down...

Warning: Mass consumption of especially delicious curry may cause excessive bloating, slowed reflexes and an uncontrollable desire to cuddle with slightly obese kittens.

~LTG

And damn right, it's better than yours.

I am an Indian without a mango chutney recipe. And like a Mexican who can’t make tamales, an Aussie who hates to drink, or George Bush in the White House, it just feels wrong.

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Nope. I am pretty sure it is about candy too.

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