Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

This is all my favourite flavours packed into one pie. It’s rich and warming and perfect for a hearty dinner.   Serves 4-6     Ingredients  2 tablespoons cooking oil   1 large onion, diced   1 large carrot, diced   500g rump steak, chopped roughly   2 heaped tablespoons plain flour   1/3 cup red wine   1-1 ½ cups stock or water   2 bay leaves   ½ teaspoon each sea salt + coarsely ground black pepper   200g Portobello or brown mushrooms, chopped roughly   2 sheets flaky puff pastry (or one each of short and puff)   1 egg, lightly beaten for egg wash     Method  Gently fry onions and carrots in oil in a medium saucepan for 5-7 minutes. Remove from saucepan. Add a splash more oil.   Liberally toss the steak in flour, then brown in 2-3 batches.   Add all the veges and meat back into saucepan, pour over the wine and simmer for 2-3 minutes.   Pour in stock and add in bay leaves and seasoning, then cover and cook for 40 minutes or until the meat is very tender.   Add mushrooms and cook for a further 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Cool filling.   Heat the oven to 180C fan bake and place a tray in to preheat.   Roll out the pastry and line a 23 cm pie dish with it, nudging it into the corners. Spoon in filling, heaping it higher in the middle.   Brush edges with egg wash, then then cover with a pastry lid, pressing/pinching it together with the bottom pastry layer to seal.   Make a few slashes in the top (to allow the steam to escape when cooking), then brush beaten egg all over and bake for 45-50 minutes on a preheated tray.   Allow to cool for 10 minutes then serve in hearty wedges.     Nici’s note:   Follow these golden rules for pie-making: preheat a tray to cook your pie on to ensure cooked pastry, always cool the filling before assembling, cuts or holes in the pastry lid allow steam to escape and ensure a crisp pastry shell.    LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Devil Wears Prada 2  Miranda Priestly navigates her career amid the decline of traditional magazine publishing and reunites with Andy Sachs to face off against a former assistant turned rival.    The Weed Eaters  Jules is on a New Year's Eve trip with her new boyfriend and his two stoner friends in the wops of North Canterbury when they stumble across a long-abandoned stash in an old shed. After a quick session and an accidental murder, the marijuana turns them into enthusiastic cannibals. To cover the evidence of their murder, they decide to keep toking so they can devour the body. What will happen when the meat runs out? Who will be the next victim? LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Foo Fighters have dropped their twelfth album.  ‘Your Favorite Toy’ is a return to their punk-rock roots. It’s high energy and fast and is the band’s shortest album – beating ‘Medicine at Midnight’ by nine seconds.  Chris Schulz joined Jack Tame to share his thoughts on the album.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Model Murder by Amanda Hampson   Never underestimate a tea lady.  Sydney, 1968. When a popular local man is murdered, police are quick to pin the blame on his glamorous model fiancée, who has since disappeared. But Hazel suspects a criminal cover-up and rallies the tea ladies to investigate; a quest that brings danger right to her door.  Meanwhile, Merl’s long-buried family secret threatens to unravel her carefully constructed life. When she stumbles on evidence that her detective son-in-law is corrupt, she’s forced to swallow her pride and reunite with the other tea ladies, enlisting their help to expose him.  Betty becomes immersed in a local theatre group where there is more drama offstage than on it, further complicated by her infatuation with the enigmatic leading man. Irene aspires to a new career as a debt collector but her first case has more frustrations and obstacles than she bargained for, even with the help of a new weapon.     The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke   Six authors.  One private island.  Seventy-two hours to write the ending that will change their lives.  Arthur Fletch, one of the world’s bestselling novelists, is a reclusive genius known for his iconic protagonists and fiendish twists. When six struggling authors are invited to spend a weekend on his private Scottish island, they arrive to discover a shocking secret: Arthur Fletch is dead . . . and his last book is unfinished.  Desperate to publish the novel, Fletch’s agent and editor have summoned these writers in the hope that one of them will imagine a worthy ending for this final book. To sweeten the deal, they are offering an irresistible prize: in addition to ghost-writing the last chapter––for a mind-boggling sum––they will also help the lucky writer successfully re-launch their own career, guaranteeing future bestsellers. The catch: the writers have just seventy-two hours to finish Fletch’s magnum opus.  It’s the perfect plot. All it needs is a killer ending.    LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Building sustainable habits can not only help save the planet, it can help save you time.  Sustainability doesn’t have to mean more effort, so Kate Hall joined Jack Tame to run through some of the habits that can make your life easier, including:  Batch cooking - cook once, eat multiple times   A capsule wardrobe - fewer clothes, easier choices   Bulk buying staples - fewer trips to the supermarket (e.g. misfit produce boxes and bulk bin stores) Unsubscribe from marketing emails - less temptation to buy and less time spent wading through emails  Own less stuff - less to tidy, clean, organise (this is especially relevant with kids stuff! Rotate their toys instead of buying new ones)  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of months ago our tunnel house got smacked by the wind.   Young tomatoes were rescued from their spot and some of them survived in medium-sized pots.   It was a matter of getting rid of that ancient, 8-meter-long tunnel house and replacing it with a new one – half the length but double the strength.   The whole renovation took a few school holidays’ weeks, but it looked pretty darn good.   I decided to plant the few tomatoes that were still struggling in the pots and have a go in the new tunnel house. Plant them in fresh soil with Wet and Forget SeaWeed Tea as a potash-rich fertiliser.   By the time they started getting into good growth again, the plants created tomato flowers with the idea of becoming tomato fruit in the future.   With the tunnel house door open during the day and the odd Bumblebee inspecting the new flowers (getting nectar and pollen) the new tomatoes were getting their treatment known as “pollination”.  Pollination with bumblebees is generally different from the technique of other pollinating insects. Bumbles literally vibrate the flowers in a clever and consistent matter; this allows the pollen to become dislodged and fertilise the flowers.   When autumn arrived the numbers of bumblebees reduced dramatically, I needed to find an alternative assistant “pollinator”. On top of all that, the door of the tunnel house had to be closed from time to time due to rubbish weather.   Did a bit of research and found that the flowers did not care a lot about sequences and electric frequencies.   All you need is an electric Pollinator Wand that would vibrate and loosen the pollen within a few seconds – just move up-and-down the row.  Toothbrush? Shaver? Take your pick!  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big tech is continuing to shrink   Facebook and Microsoft have both announced they're cutting back the headcount.   Facebook will lay off 10% of its 80,000 strong workforce in May, according to a report in Bloomberg. It will also cancel 6,000 open roles. They say it's to "offset the other investments they're making" into AI and their failed efforts in the Metaverse.    Microsoft is offering retirement buyouts to 7% of its staff. If your age plus your tenure at Microsoft adds to 70 or more, you qualify. It's thought this will help avoid mass layoffs instead (or at least minimize them).      Google wants Chrome to be your AI-workmate   As part of their Google Cloud event in Vegas, they announced that Gemini would be able to view your open tabs, then fill forms, book travel, and schedule meetings. It means any web-based software would be able to work with the AI, not just those with special connectors or APIs. At this stage, a human (aka you) will still need to check and confirm the AIs work before an action takes place. They'll also be offering the ability for Enterprise customers to snoop on the open tabs to detect any unsanctioned AI tools.      Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO of Apple   His successor is a hardware expert. If Steve Jobs was the visionary, Tim Cook was the operator, and John Ternus is the builder. He comes from the hardware engineering side of the business and is credited as a key contributor to the launch of the iPad and AirPods, and various generations of MacBooks and iPhones including the new iPhone Air.    LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.