Dream Jobs

I'm once again back in the ranks of the unemployed (damn short term contract) and I thought that while I'm waiting for one of my applications to be fruitful, I'd spend some of my (ample) time on pondering what my dream job would be.

When I was a kid, I suppose I went through the usual phases of ballerina, explorer and fireman (or person), but the job I remember really really wanting was to be a puppet designer and maker at Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and occasional personal assistant to Kermit the Frog.

I used to make my own puppets out of paper mache, felt, left over bits of material and wool, but somehow they were always lacking a certain something. I can now recognise that it was Jim that was lacking, and no matter how many times I practiced saying "Hi Ho", I was never going to get the voice quite right.

Since then, I have grown up (in some ways), studied and had jobs that weren't really what I expected to be doing when I was small. I worked in retail and managed a shop for years where the closest I got to Kermit was selling stuffed toys in a range of native frogs. After a break from that where I travelled, I find myself in the wonderful world of administration.

Hmmmm.

I still dream of picking up Mr The Frog's morning coffee on my way into the office; and if I get to the US I would definitely like to sit on the bench in The University of Maryland, but realistically, it might not happen for a while.

In the meantime, I would love to hear about other people's dream jobs and if they are anything like what they ended up doing. Let me know what you dreamed of being- any thing from accountant to zoologist.

Ribs!

Now my only interest in ribs stems from Bill's current obsession with them. Personally I can't stand pork, not for any religious or cultural reasons, I simply find the flavour revolting. Bill on the other hand loves it, in particular pork ribs.

I think this recent interest stems from a few different places. When we were travelling Bill was offered a metre of ribs by a man on the street in Vienna. Just to clarify, the man was handing out advertisements for a pig based restaurant- he didn't just have them hidden in his trench coat. Unfortunately for him, his big selling point was that there was enough for Bill to share with his lovely lady. I think ribs was pretty much all the place had to offer and he looked a bit crushed when I mentioned I didn't eat pork. I think Bill still has the restaurants card somewhere. I caught him looking at it longingly once or twice.

Also while travelling, we found heaps of Argentinean restaurants in Amsterdam (obviously) that all seemed to serve copious amounts of ribs (never by the metre though), so Bill's appetite was temporarily satiated there. Unfortunately for him, in the months we've been at home, he hasn't been able to indulge in much pork based food as I do most of the cooking. I have tried to be the supportive girlfriend by trying to cook the odd cut of pig, but as I'm generally not that interested in the outcome, I don't think it ever ends up quite right. Also, in the instances where I have tried to buy ribs, the nearest I can find is something called pork rashers. These basically look like overly thick cuts of bacon. They don't have the actual rib bone in them, but they do have the required inch thick slab of blubber topped with leathery skin.

If anyone has an easy recipe for BBQ ribs out there- please send it in so I can get Bill to cook it and get the whole rib thing out of his system. He's even started looking up ribs on wikipedia and I'm starting to get concerned. Is it normal for a man to have such an obsession over one type of food?

Help!

Just to follow up- Bill has found that a) the pub down the road has an occasional special of ribs in sticky BBQ sauce, and b) the butcher close to us sells American style ribs that he can cook at home. The whole flat now smells like scorched pork.
I hope this phase ends soon.