Charlie’s Carbonara and…We’ve Been Robbed

Yes, we’ve been robbed.

It’s probably our own fault though because we didn’t leave the item securely locked up.  We left it out on the nature strip so I suppose when you choose to live life recklessly you can’t expect plain sailing.

Charlie’s Carbonara


You see, it was bin night.  And the night before I had taken the bin out on to the nature strip so it could be emptied and when I went to collect it the next morning it was gone.  My fault for not chaining it to the front fence.  My fault for not being more vigilant and staying up all night on bin-watch.  My fault for not realising these are clearly a highly desirable item of great value on the black market.  Who knew filthy, dirty, bins full of maturing seafood waste sweating in a Sydney summer were so prized.  If only I had known I would have graffitied my name on all the bin’s sides.

And the Council wants me to pay $75.00 for a replacement.

I’m not sure I can be bothered.

Perhaps instead I should wait until all the neighbours have gone to bed and then under the cover of darkness just fill their non-stolen bins with my rubbish.  But then again, if I’m caught, I would probably be uninvited from the annual Christmas drinks.

I suppose we’ll just have to soak it up, hand $75.00 to the Council and have a replacement bin delivered.

And buy a chain and fix one end of it to the bin and the other to the front fence.

Have you had to chain your bin to your front fence?

Here’s a recipe that requires just a few ingredients and therefore very little waste for a non-existent bin.

Charlie’s Carbonara

Serves:  4

Degree of Difficulty:  2/5

Charlie’s Carbonara

Cost:  This is a very inexpensive mid-week meal.

  • 300gms pancetta cut into batons
  • 2 cloves of garlic peeled and finely chopped
  • large handful of chopped continental parsley
  • 400gms spaghetti
  • 4 room temperature egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup cream
  • large handful grated romano cheese
  • pepper to taste

Heat a medium sized saucepan over medium heat and cook pancetta until crisp.  Add garlic being careful not to let it burn.  Remove from heat and mix in parsley.

In a small bowl combine egg yolks, cream, Romano cheese and pepper.  Whisk to combine.

Bring a large saucepan of water to boil.  Add 1 tspn of salt to water.  When boiling add spaghetti and cook until al dente.  Drain and immediately return to saucepan.  Add pancetta mixture and egg yolk mixture and stir to combine.  The egg yolks will cook with the heat of the pasta.

Divide between 4 pasta bowls and serve with a green salad and bread.

 

Comments

  1. The person that stole it must be very poor and needed it more than you.

  2. Oh for goodness sake. Who steals a wheelie bin? Did it have your number painted on it? Maybe one of the neighbours grabbed it by mistake, sometimes the garbos don’t always put it back where they got it from? We have friends in Glebe, and they never have the same number on their bins two weeks in a row – people just grab any bin they see and use it.

  3. nope.. definitely stolen Celia.

  4. One (wo)man’s trash is another man’s treasure, it seems.

  5. Our bins go walkabout now and again, but they always make their way back, full of strange bottles of things we don’t drink, like VB.

  6. Why do we always blame ourselves when someone does bad things to us? They are the ones who are bad, they stole, whatever their reason may be. And this is an eye-opener … I thought having a rubbish bin stolen only happens here where I live or some lesser developed country. In a way, it’s pretty funny 😀 And the folks here do chain their bins to the fence or some kinda metal pole cemented into the ground!
    On a brighter note, the carbonara looks and sounds great! I have some leftover yolks from all the Chinese New Year baking. This would be a great quickie meal for this crazy, exhausting week.
    Thanks for coming by to visit me 😀 Love your blog btw.

  7. That is ridiculous that you lost your bin! The carbonara looks amazing too, will try to make it with my lousy cooking skills.

  8. They’re charging you $75 for a new bin? I had my bin stolen once, but I don’t think we were charged for a new one. Then again, I was a young graduate earning my first full-time-proper-job wage, so I probably wasn’t paying too much attention to where my money was going, as long as it didn’t impinge upon social club drinks.

    Love a good carbonara!

  9. That’s insanely ridiculous! I guess just try to think of how pathetic the thief must be to covet your bin?

  10. That’s awful!! You may find your bin at one of your not so nice neighbors home some day!! We are given specific bins to use and I’ve heard of this happening to others – looks like as soon as one is stolen, it begins to trickle through the neighbor, taking one from another!! After that sad happening, I would be smiling over this plate of comfort. I love carbonara – a nice splurge, and yours looks absolutely fabulous!!

  11. I live out in the country now (so not in town) and we have a large, attractive rolling dumpster in our driveway. Ok…just kidding about the attractive part. No one could possibly steal it without creating the noise of a thunderstorm as they wheel it down the drive and onto the dirt road. Then all I’l have to do it follow the tracks and find the culprit. We have to keep our recycling in the garage because of wild animals. Such fun!

  12. What a shame! That $75.00 fee makes an unlocked bin a very desirable item. Although ours are supplied by the city, most have our addresses printed on them, as well. Few go missing. Short of locking yours down, what els can you do? Your hands are pretty much tied, unfortunately. Love your carbonara! It’s a great pasta dish, isn’t it?

  13. I can sympathize as I too have had my garbage bin stolen from the back alley podium where it is put out the night before. Not once, but twice.

    The first time, I went up and down the alleys looking for it thinking it had rolled away due to strong winds but without success. My dad brought a replacement bin from their place and a couple of years later, that one too went missing. My neighbour “found” me one that looked identical to the one that had been taken the first time. My suspicion is he found it in one of his walks around the neighbourhood and recognized it as mine. I tried using magic marker and writing my house number up and down the bin on 3 sides but with time, the writing faded away.

    Luckily we can use garbage bags as well as bins but the stray cats get into those if they can get access to them so you have to find an enclosed place to store your garbage until the night before garbage pickup as you never know WHEN they’ll come on garbage day and if you take it out too late on a day they’ve decided to come early, you’re out of luck til the following week.

    Garbage day … good times. 🙂

    • hotlyspiced says:

      Oh, you’re someone who can clearly sympathise. It’s very annoying isn’t it. I just left a comment on your post re cream puffs but had to leave it anonymously as I couldn’t work out how to do it any other way.

  14. We have had recycling bins stolen a few years back and know who did it and these people still use our bins to this day. Luckily we did not have to pay a fee, but if it happens again probably will have to. My other half has black markered our bins outside, inside and just about everywhere and anywhere – ha!

  15. $75.00 for a bin? Why so bl00dy expensive??!!
    The Carbonara looks really delightful!

  16. Well at least the thieves were considerate enough to take the garbage as well. Around here they take pride in knocking the bins over so all the mess is over your lawn, then wheel the bin into the middle of the road for an early morning wake-up crash. I now get up early on bin day and put it out then. It’s such a petty, unnecessary annoyance!
    I hope your comfort-food cabonara helps a little, it certainly looks delicious!

  17. I can’t imagine stealing a garbage bin. However we do have a label on ours but only so that we don’t get them mixed up with the neighbours. I can’t believe how much it costs to replace!! It can’t have gone far, perhaps it’ll turn up next bin day in front of a neighbours house. : ) GG

  18. That’s insane – who the hell steals a garbage bin? The smell and appearance of the contents alone should be enough to put off even the most determined of thieves. Maybe it was taken by an artist for their next installation in a gallery 🙂

    I love a good carbonara – I’m glad to see that you add cream – it seems people are generally split on whether cream should, or should not, be added. Personally I love it with.

    • hotlyspiced says:

      That is very funny Charles. I’ll head down to the Art Gallery to see if I can find it.

      Yes, I add cream. I find it helps the egg yolks to not curdle when you add them to the pasta. But, I’m sure my recipe would offend some of the true Italians out there!

  19. I love carbonara! Never actually used a recipe though I just make it up as I go.

    My parent’s neighbour is a very strange man. M&D got a new bin as their old one was damaged. They painted their house number on it and the next bin day it had been replaced with an old bin. The guy next door had swapped them and completely ignored the fact that the new one didn’t have his house number on it.

    They didn’t bother arguing with him cause he’s not very nice (also put doggy do-do on their drive way).

  20. oh, I am so so sorry to hear about that! I hope everything’s alright now ):

    thanks for droping by my blog and leading me to yours! the carbonara looks and sounds really good! I would say, a true carbonara needs no cream, but I’m definitely not a stickler for authenticity, as long as it tastes good 😉

  21. WOW!!! At first I thought… who would steal a bin. then I wondered if you live on a hill.

    Maybe kids were joy riding!! Like this story
    http://www.peninsulanews.asn.au/newstest/2010/0427/default.aspx?item=Accident

    Just a thought…

  22. Is NOTHING sacred anymore? Who steals a garbage bin? Hey, maybe the Council is trying to make a little extra profit! Haha
    Oh, your Carbonara looks fabulous!

  23. Clearly a highly covetable item….who steals a rubbish bin???!!! It’s ridiculous to have to be the one to fork out the money for someone else’s criminal act. I’d say that the carbonara should make you feel better but I don’t know that I would get it over it that easily 🙂

  24. The person must have reallllly needed a wheelie bin. Maybe it will turn up again. Some people are odd…
    Carbonara looks delicious though 🙂

  25. i have to laugh sorry, who stills a bin!!!! love the recipe.

  26. People do steal the strangest things…Here in Mexico, though, I could never leave a bin out overnight on the street. It just wouldn’t be there the next day. We have to put our rubbish out in bags or in bins on M-W-F pick-up days and it seems to work fine. But a $75 loss…that’s steep! Nice carbonara recipe.

    • hotlyspiced says:

      Oh, it seems things are even worse in Mexico. I wouldn’t like to leave my rubbish out in just bags because dogs would get in to it.

  27. “I’m not sure I can be bothered.” Ha! Love it!

  28. Oh dear! Who knew bins were such a valuable commodity! 😮

  29. No one’s ever stolen our bins. However, they have been violated by the neighbors’ dogs, who take great pride at urine-tainting our bins with a swift leg lift.

    Given a choice, I prefer the bins get it, rather than my parked car.

    Btw, I think your carbonara just winked at me.

  30. lol, who would ever have thought bins needed to be so highly guarded! carbonara looks scrumptious 🙂

  31. Bin or no bin Carbonara will cheer you up. I have had a bin stolen and it is an inexplicable crime!

  32. People are funny. In addition to a couple of bike thefts, we’ve had some odd things taken. We once had our garden hose stolen from behind our house. We found it two doors down with the end cut off. Someone had been trying to siphon gas from a motorhome. We also had a large Christmas wreath taken from our trellis one year. (We now wire the wreaths to the trellises to thwart thieves.) Goodness, my neighborhood sounds pretty bad!

    • hotlyspiced says:

      Garden hoses stolen? But Christmas wreaths? Who would steal a Christmas wreath. That really is a low act. We shouldn’t have to nail down our Christmas decorations.

  33. What a shame, Charlie, but at least it was only the bin and not the car, or worse something from inside your home. We had our recycling blue bin ‘removed’ from our old house and had to pay for a replacement. I took white paint (enamel that can’t be washed off easily) and in huge letters across both sides wrote our address on it. It was never ‘removed’ again.
    That carbonara looks delicious. I still remember my first was in Switzerland in a gorgeous little Italian restaurant…mmmm, so good. What’s continental Parsley?

    • hotlyspiced says:

      I must buy some white paint for the replacement bin. Continental parsley is flat-leaf parsley. I prefer it to the other curly type.

  34. Sorry to hear about your loss. I think you should buy a new bin and then pull night watch duty old west style with a bottle of whiskey and a shotgun. See if they steal your bin again! 🙂

    btw that pasta look delightful 🙂

  35. It makes your mind boggle doesn’t it! We had a house number plate stolen once. I did think of going around the area looking for our number, but thought in the end they had done me a favour as I hated the thing anyway. It was a twee plastic thing 🙂
    Great recipe too!

  36. That’s unbelievable that someone would steal your rubbish bin! And the Council shouldn’t make you pay 🙁 I think they should replace it because I think they are partially responsible.

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