Blender to UDK: How I do it - Static Meshes

I have finally got a handle on making base-featured models. That is, a model with accurate collision and LOD data. When exporting from blender to UDK, you have a few options for format. I have been using the ASE exporter made by MCampagnini, one of the UDK community members, and up till today it had been going ok. My main issue with it was that the error messages were vague and unpredictable. In a fit of frustration today I decided to switch to the FBX exporter, which ships with blender 2.62. After a few hiccups here and there I found out how it works, and I gotta say I like it. However, it does have some very nearly fatal quirks for the uninitiated. Before I forget what they are, I thought I had better write them down.

Benchmarking Models

For a while I have been wondering how to find out just how resource-hungry any model is. Obviously the more details in a model the harder it will run the PC, but exactly how much, and what is the hungriest, is somewhat of a grey area for me. I was hoping that perhaps someone had made a program into which you could load a model and it would tell you how much cpu it takes to load, how much ram it requires, etc. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that this exists. This is understandable considering the different needs of engines, the different PC environments and I assume a whole range of other crap. But I still want to have something to benchmark my models against, dammit!

Australian food culture, or lack thereof

Australia is a young country

A part of that is that we never really had much time to set in a deep rooted culture like the more ancient civilisations have. As a people, we emigrated from European miscellany and tried our best to live in Australia as we had in Europe. This involved things like killing the native animals, people and trees, importing our own food stocks and generally doing our best to destroy the natural harmonious paradise that we had set our enterprising foot on. This approach not only irreparably destroyed much of our newfound utopia, but ensured that all the adventure of moving to a new country, a hitherto unknown landmass, was decidedly negated. So how has this affected our food, the most recognisable tangent of any culture? Do we actually have a food culture, and if so, where did it come from?