Do I look like "The Hood" from "Thunderbirds are GO"? Drawing by Gary Lum
Posted on by Gary

Am I good or am I well?

Am I good? Am I well?

The other day, someone asked me if I was good. My immediate thought was being taught by Mum about how to answer the question, “How are you?”

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Mum would explain the correct answer is, “I am well”, and not, “I am good”. She wasn’t able to adequately explain, at least to me, why good was not an acceptable answer. I was told there is a correct way to answer and many incorrect ways to answer. I always answer, “I’m well, thanks.”

While my parents weren’t religious, I was sent to Sunday school where I learnt, “There is none good but One.” The One being God. Don’t worry, I’m not about to embark on a religious dissertation.

That said, to this day, when I hear someone say they are good I internally question, “Are you really good? What are you good at?”

So, am I good? Nope, I’m well.

Gentleman’s relish

Over on Yummy Lummy, I tried something new. I’ve been doing a slow cooker run of late. I’ve done lamb and pork recently, so last night I did beef two ways with something new.

One of the YouTube channels I watch is “Sorted“. Sorted is based in the United Kingdom (UK) and has a group of hosts a couple of whom are chefs. Last week, an episode had a chef versus chef sandwich challenge and one of the chefs made a sandwich to which he added Gentleman’s relish.

I’d never heard of this condiment before so I went to Google and looked up a few recipes. Gentleman’s relish is basically anchovies, butter, breadcrumbs, and spices mixed together and put on meat or eaten as a condiment in a sandwich.

I know anchovies are not universally liked, but I love them. I especially like them on pizza. I like the hairy saltiness of anchovies on a pizza. I think it’s why I really like Worcestershire sauce. It’s full of anchovies and vinegar.

As you can imagine Gentleman’s relish has a salty, anchovy, buttery flavour and consistency. Rather than breadcrumbs, I used crushed Queensland nuts and I also added some Sichuan seasoning, because, I’m a wise oriental gentleman (WOG). In my mind, this made my Gentleman’s relish an Australian, English, and Chinese combination condiment.

Wise oriental gentleman

Do I look like "The Hood" from "Thunderbirds are GO"? Drawing by Gary Lum
Do I look like “The Hood” from “Thunderbirds are GO”?

I drew this cartoon of me yesterday. I saw something on Facebook about drawing your own likeness. This is what I came up with. Did I capture my chins correctly?

I was pretty happy with the outcome. It had a nice flavour and nice consistency. If you like the idea of Gentleman’s relish, head over to Yummy Lummy and you can find my variation on the recipe. Otherwise, enter Gentleman’s relish into a search engine like Google or Bing or even Duck Duck Go.

A night in Melbourne

I spent Thursday night in Melbourne as a panellist for a program conceived and produced by ABC journalist and broadcaster, Ali Moore, funded by Asialink and the University of Melbourne, and hosted by the Wheeler Centre. The series name is “This is not a drill” and the panel I was part of was “A hypothetical pandemic“.

I enjoyed being part of a panel with esteemed expert colleagues. I’m grateful to Ali Moore and Asialink for the travel, accommodation (Doubletree Melbourne), and dinner (Bamboo House).

Not being from Melbourne and Victoria, I wasn’t aware of the Wheeler Centre or Asialink. It’s all pretty impressive.

The only weird thing was having make up on my face. Given my bald head, an awful lot of powder was used.

Avengers: Infinity War (no spoilers)

I watched “Avengers: Infinity War” on Friday night. Wow, what an ending. I was both happy and sad.

This is a long movie at 2 hours and 29 minutes. It’s full of action though. I reckon it would have been awesome in the cinema, but I prefer live streaming it because I can have captions on and read the dialogue. My tinnitus really makes it difficult to hear words clearly in a loud cinema, so I prefer to live stream with captions so I can absorb as much information as possible.

I’m really looking forward to the next movie to see what happens when Thanos returns.

What I ate this week

I ate a lot of turkey mince this week. Otherwise, I’ve been enjoying the ease, taste, and colourfulness of raw vegetables for dinner.

I have quite a lot of gentleman’s relish leftover, so I reckon I’ll be having that many nights this week with whatever protein I cook.

Father's Day Sunday dinner. Pulled pork and avocado in a Coles cheesy Vegemite scroll with some sweet corn. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Father’s Day Sunday dinner. Pulled pork and avocado in a Coles cheesy Vegemite scroll with some sweet corn.
Monday lunch. Hot and spicy curry turkey mince. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Monday lunch. Hot and spicy curry turkey mince.
Monday dinner. Baked salmon with Avocado 🥑, Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Coriander, Fennel, Green beans, Jalapeño pepper, Lemon juice 🍋, Olive oil, Poppy seeds, Red onion, Salmon, and Sesame seeds. I baked the salmon for 15 minutes at 200 °C/400 °F. Photograph by Gary Lum
Monday dinner. Baked salmon with Avocado 🥑, Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Coriander, Fennel, Green beans, Jalapeño pepper, Lemon juice 🍋, Olive oil, Poppy seeds, Red onion, Salmon, and Sesame seeds. I baked the salmon for 15 minutes at 200 °C/400 °F.
Tuesday lunch. Hot and spicy curry turkey mince. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Tuesday lunch. Hot and spicy curry turkey mince.
Tuesday dinner. Chicken 🐓 with Avocado 🥑, Black pepper, Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Coriander, Fennel, Green beans, Iodised salt, Lime, Lime juice, Olive oil, Parsley, Red onion, Spring onion, and Tomatoes 🍅. I cooked the chook for 35 minutes at 250 °C/480 °F. Photography by Gary Lum.
Tuesday dinner. Chicken 🐓 with Avocado 🥑, Black pepper, Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Coriander, Fennel, Green beans, Iodised salt, Lime, Lime juice, Olive oil, Parsley, Red onion, Spring onion, and Tomatoes 🍅. I cooked the chook for 35 minutes at 250 °C/480 °F.
Wednesday lunch. Hot and spicy curry turkey mince. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Wednesday lunch. Hot and spicy curry turkey mince.
Wednesday dinner. Overnight brined chicken 🐓 with Avocado 🥑, Black pepper, Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Coriander, Fennel, Green beans, Iodised salt, Lime, Lime juice, Olive oil, Parsley, Red onion, Spring onion, and Tomatoes 🍅. I cooked the chook for 40 minutes at 250 °C/480 °F. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Wednesday dinner. Overnight brined chicken 🐓 with Avocado 🥑, Black pepper, Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Coriander, Fennel, Green beans, Iodised salt, Lime, Lime juice, Olive oil, Parsley, Red onion, Spring onion, and Tomatoes 🍅. I cooked the chook for 40 minutes at 250 °C/480 °F.
Thursday breakfast. Almond and custard croissant. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Thursday breakfast. Almond and custard croissant.
Friday lunch. Pulled pork nachos. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Friday lunch. Pulled pork nachos.
Friday dinner. I baked a small tin of corned beef 🐄 for 15 minutes at 250 °C/480 °F. I added finely diced Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Green beans, and Red onion. Served with Black pepper, Iodised salt, Lemon 🍋 juice, Olive oil, Pumpkin 🎃 seeds, Sunflower 🌻seeds, Tomatoes 🍅, and Vinegar. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Friday dinner. I baked a small tin of corned beef 🐄 for 15 minutes at 250 °C/480 °F. I added finely diced Capsicum, Carrot 🥕, Celery, Green beans, and Red onion. Served with Black pepper, Iodised salt, Lemon 🍋 juice, Olive oil, Pumpkin 🎃 seeds, Sunflower 🌻seeds, Tomatoes 🍅, and Vinegar.
Saturday morning coffee and cake. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Saturday morning coffee and cake.
Saturday dinner. Slow cooker beef short rib and beef cheek with Queensland nut gentleman's relish, raw vegetables and sweet corn. Photograph by Gary Lum.
Saturday dinner. Slow cooker beef short rib and beef cheek with Queensland nut gentleman’s relish, raw vegetables and sweet corn.

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Final thoughts

How were you taught to answer the questions “How are you?” when you were a child?
In your opinion, is “good”, an acceptable answer?
Have you ever eaten Gentleman’s relish? Did you enjoy it?
Do you like anchovies?

8 Replies to “Am I good or am I well?”

  2. I’ve always said ‘I’m good’, never used ‘I’m well’. I do like using ‘I’m alright’ quite a bit, and also ‘Not bad: just to make it more ambiguous. It’s a personal question alright, but one that almost always initiates a conversation, and one that might show interest in the other person.

  3. I always say ‘well thank you’. So it’s interesting you raise this as many people say ‘good’. It’s like when you ring someone your question should be ‘may I speak to x’ not ‘can I speak to x’. Because if you can speak then you can speak to someone but ‘may’ will determine whether or not you are able to if the person is there. Hope that makes sense!

    1. Thanks, Sue. I expect we’ve both been brought up in a similar environment. I remember distinctly in primary school being taught the difference between can and may. My teachers would always play the game when someone asked can they do this or that. The teacher would say yes and then with a stern voice point out they had not in fact given permission to take the action desired by the student.
      Telephone etiquette doesn’t seem to be well taught anymore either. It’s a shame because even though we all send a lot of text messages, the telephone still rings.

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