the perils & joys of a well-stocked larder

On my supermarket sweep on Friday -- I was actually excited before it -- I got everything on my list for $29.90. Check out my very impressive shopping cart:

Extension cord
Two pints Ben & Jerry's
Valley Chef Sausages
Kitchen towels
Toilet paper
Canned mushrooms
Half a chicken
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions
Frozen dim sum
Ant baits
Two large cans of Baygon
Breakfast ham 300g
Cheese
Two good sized hunks of steak
Spring roll skin
Tinned tuna
Frozen prawns buy-one-get-one-free
Fish fingers
Fake crab meat
Magic sponge

Long live shopping vouchers redeemed from credit card points! Lugging home all those shopping bags was a pain in the arms though.

My fridge is ready in the event of a nuclear fallout, but the downside is that I keep thinking about what to eat next. Like now, I'm considering padding downstairs to get two scoops of ice cream. And what I can cook with frozen prawns. I'm thinking garlic prawns with pasta. Mmm...

And I'm still so incredibly impressed by the final item I grabbed on impulse, the magic sponge -- proper term is melamine foam -- which my colleagues had raved about.

The innocent looking piece of white foam can really work wonders. I tried it, half doubtingly, on a tea-stained mug. The yellowish marks came off when I wet the sponge and rubbed it like an eraser. I next tried it on my hot water flask, formerly grey, now back to pristine white.

I was on a roll. My sink, my tabletop, even my laptop. All so clean now. So effortless! And so fuss free! Just add water.

Okay, before I sound completely like a bad infomercial extolling the virtues of a piece of foam, I better end this auntie report. Back to looking for dirty surfaces to buff!