I think that I will continue to blog. maybe not with the passion of the first few weeks. I have so many exciting things to blog about.
Yes at mavis's yet again. My menu choice was the ham salad..... super granny dish. It was a hot sticky night and yet another birthday. It was good, but not nearly as good as the company of friends.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Monday, September 1, 2008
Don't shop at the SUPERMARKETS!
Watching 4Corners tonight I was reminded of why I started this blog in the first place. I have long disliked supermarkets, but like most of us shop there, because of the hours and convenience. I've kept fairly true to my New Year's resolution not to buy so called fresh food from the fresh food people, but failed fairly badly at not going there more than once a month or less. Have I sought out small grocers and independents. Well yes....... Do I shop there regularly .... well no. I love Green Garage in Byron despite the hopeless traffic in Byron Pay. In Brisbane Sirrani's in the valley is wonderful. The Ferry Road precinct in Southport is good, but pricey, but they are all too far away to be practical on a daily basis.
I believe that we have to shop with our ideals. This country has already lost its manufacturing industry. Every day I drive through some of the richest horticultural in the land. Most months I see yet another real estate sign out.
New vow to stop using the supermarkets, shop fresh, buy local. It is easy here ... no excuse. Wish that the Hill ST Grocer was within 10 kms of me.
I believe that we have to shop with our ideals. This country has already lost its manufacturing industry. Every day I drive through some of the richest horticultural in the land. Most months I see yet another real estate sign out.
New vow to stop using the supermarkets, shop fresh, buy local. It is easy here ... no excuse. Wish that the Hill ST Grocer was within 10 kms of me.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
A Landmark at SunnyBank Plaza
A Tuesday leaving Brisvegas... Not so much Greek deli as taken over by the Poles. Our little jaunt to the Greek deli.... not so good. Mind you we had a great time posh digs... good music and Chinese... really awful Greek on the Monday. I will never eat Greek with Jimmy ever. I loved the simple food at Ouzueri. Wanker food at Kafe meze...not so much.
Anyway...leaving Brizzie after a great Spanish thing at Miros... loving the good time we had ...did really care. Gloria GPS told us where to go. Well I had done done some research! Jimmy worried that we would be the only people there and the food the food would be stale. The joint was rocking at 11:30 and still at 2:00pm when we finally left. This is the yum cha joint to die for.... there is a counter where you can butt in for duck or greens or even custard tarts if you are in a hurry. Mind you it is all well above average for yum cha north of Sydney.
Anyway...leaving Brizzie after a great Spanish thing at Miros... loving the good time we had ...did really care. Gloria GPS told us where to go. Well I had done done some research! Jimmy worried that we would be the only people there and the food the food would be stale. The joint was rocking at 11:30 and still at 2:00pm when we finally left. This is the yum cha joint to die for.... there is a counter where you can butt in for duck or greens or even custard tarts if you are in a hurry. Mind you it is all well above average for yum cha north of Sydney.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
I'm all stewed up
I'm a big fan of the stew, particularly in winter, but have never owned one of those lovely french cast iron pots. So in this winter of discontent, I decided that one of them must be mine. Several forays into the posh cooking shops .... sorry love we have sold out. My nasty cheap pot went in the council clean-up ... you know when your rubbish is rubbish if no-one picks it up before the council truck comes.
I had to drop someone at the hated shopping mall close to K-mart and thought that I might look in there and there it was!!! Cheap copy of my holy grail reduced from $79 to $24. With some trepidation the purchase was made. A small mountain of chicken thigh chops from dubious chicken shop plus a small mountain of organic garlic yielded a small ocean of Chicken with forty cloves of garlic - well it was closer to one hundred. It was good, but I was over it by the fourth meal. The pot though was a delight... even though it takes two people to lift it.
I went back to the dreaded mall and happily bought another four pots.... thus saving myself at least $220. Nowhere to store them in my house, they took up residence in the boot of my car.
Plan was I could happily stew away the winter and bestow my friends with a pot of fine food and they would not have to return the dishes. Call me a little OCD. A second foray with chicken with 40 cloves of garlic ended up with me with maybe food poisoning... the pot takes hours to cool down...and yes I have that sorted now.... chicken went to landfill. (would have made great compost maybe). The next urge was rendang. Yet another massive pot, but this went to a very good home and no food poisoning.
As it was the long weekend, I made a little trip along the flash new bypass to the ferry road markets and what should I see, but the most beautiful veal shanks since living in Norwood in close proximity to Italian butchers. Monday was spent in the happy company of slow cooking Osso Bucco. Gave the pot and some of its contents to a friend... whose kids were not at all impressed by my quite gentle gremolata. She has been very polite and says that it is OK and I must say that I found sucking the marrow out of the small bones creepy but enormously energising.
So here's the thing.... only 2 more pots. One went in its box as a birthday present.... (vegetarian and the carnivorous sands has problems with vege stews) I went to my fav butcher on Thursday and he had hogget chops for a miserly amount of money. (about a 1/4 of the price of the veal bones)
So I need a recipe for slow cooked hogget chops with a Turkish feel. I love older sheep meat and want to treat it well. Any help would be appreciated.
I had to drop someone at the hated shopping mall close to K-mart and thought that I might look in there and there it was!!! Cheap copy of my holy grail reduced from $79 to $24. With some trepidation the purchase was made. A small mountain of chicken thigh chops from dubious chicken shop plus a small mountain of organic garlic yielded a small ocean of Chicken with forty cloves of garlic - well it was closer to one hundred. It was good, but I was over it by the fourth meal. The pot though was a delight... even though it takes two people to lift it.
I went back to the dreaded mall and happily bought another four pots.... thus saving myself at least $220. Nowhere to store them in my house, they took up residence in the boot of my car.
Plan was I could happily stew away the winter and bestow my friends with a pot of fine food and they would not have to return the dishes. Call me a little OCD. A second foray with chicken with 40 cloves of garlic ended up with me with maybe food poisoning... the pot takes hours to cool down...and yes I have that sorted now.... chicken went to landfill. (would have made great compost maybe). The next urge was rendang. Yet another massive pot, but this went to a very good home and no food poisoning.
As it was the long weekend, I made a little trip along the flash new bypass to the ferry road markets and what should I see, but the most beautiful veal shanks since living in Norwood in close proximity to Italian butchers. Monday was spent in the happy company of slow cooking Osso Bucco. Gave the pot and some of its contents to a friend... whose kids were not at all impressed by my quite gentle gremolata. She has been very polite and says that it is OK and I must say that I found sucking the marrow out of the small bones creepy but enormously energising.
So here's the thing.... only 2 more pots. One went in its box as a birthday present.... (vegetarian and the carnivorous sands has problems with vege stews) I went to my fav butcher on Thursday and he had hogget chops for a miserly amount of money. (about a 1/4 of the price of the veal bones)
So I need a recipe for slow cooked hogget chops with a Turkish feel. I love older sheep meat and want to treat it well. Any help would be appreciated.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
hating my Barbeque
I have in my small backyard a barbeque. It was quite expensive. I bought lots of accessories for it and it looked quite elegant in my lovely courtyard. I hate it. I'm scared to light it (that's if I can....) Have no idea whether the gas will last for the length of the cooking. I hate the cleaning. After two hours of trying to make it clean enough to cook on and using chemicals that I don't want in my food, it is still not clean.
It is a gas Barbeque, so there will be no charcoal to add to the flavour. I am marinating lamb and chicken...but there is no way I'll put it on the disgustible bbq. So what do I need to do?
It is a gas Barbeque, so there will be no charcoal to add to the flavour. I am marinating lamb and chicken...but there is no way I'll put it on the disgustible bbq. So what do I need to do?
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
A Very Special Day
Still peeling off the red, black and yellow face paint from today's celebrations. Today was so much better than I had hoped for! Kev's speech brought tears to my eyes, hope to my heart and a tingle to my spine. Mungo's mild-mannered god botherer was no where to be seen. Despite majoring in Australian history, I knew nothing about the stolen generation until I was priviledged enough to walk with some female elders at Old Toomelah - they showed me where the mothers hid their children from the gubbas.
Here are a couple of recipes from that time in my life.
Johnny Cakes
flour
water
and a light hand (not mine unfortunately)
Mix and knead only enough to mix. Throw on a rack above a slow open fire. Rescue, knock off cinders and serve with golden syrup (cockies' joy) and butter if your are lucky enough to have them. It is yummy if you don't burn your mouth with haste caused by greed.
Witchetty grub spring rolls
First find the grubs...can't help here
marinate with a few thai flavourings
Wrap in spring roll wrappers and fry on medium heat.
They are pretty rich. I struggled on about the fifth one, but i'm greedy, so it serves me right.
Here are a couple of recipes from that time in my life.
Johnny Cakes
flour
water
and a light hand (not mine unfortunately)
Mix and knead only enough to mix. Throw on a rack above a slow open fire. Rescue, knock off cinders and serve with golden syrup (cockies' joy) and butter if your are lucky enough to have them. It is yummy if you don't burn your mouth with haste caused by greed.
Witchetty grub spring rolls
First find the grubs...can't help here
marinate with a few thai flavourings
Wrap in spring roll wrappers and fry on medium heat.
They are pretty rich. I struggled on about the fifth one, but i'm greedy, so it serves me right.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
This is the penultimate tassie post for now. I still have to succinctly
round up the other four or five days into one pithy post. As that means going through my notes and photos to try and make 2000 words into 200. It is currently in the to do folder.
I missed the plane by about one minute and 20 seconds. I have blamed it on Gloria GPS, but the truth was as usual I was being a little casual. Jetstar Paul explained extremely nicely that, no.. it was not going to happen that day, but he would do his best to book me onto the first available flight with connections to Coolangatta. I was still pretty Ok if it wasn’t going to cost me an absolute fortune even if it meant a night in Melbourne. No joy! I would have to spend another day in Hobart….. Yipee!! Same flight better seats 24 hours later. Hotel was happy to have me back (cheaper than the previous night) Hire car had already been taken, so they upgraded me for the same price. Gloria #2 installed I had a brand new day in my new favourite town. ( the joy of a mobile phone and a credit card that realises I’m worth more to them alive than dead – I have had many journeys that are not as simple.
Decided that I would seize the day! After dumping my luggage I consulted the reception staff. They were positively excellent. After suggesting Cadbury’s, the brewery, some wildlife park (didn’t do it for me at all) and all of things I had already done; a trip on a boat called “Wild Thing”. I don’t think so, I thought, but then remembered, that I had promised myself a few days previously, I had let shyness get in the way of something that I may have enjoyed. Game on! There was an unscheduled trip to Betsey Island at 5pm. I still had about 4 hours up my sleeve.
Well I could have gone to the museum and the gallery (still on my list of to do), but I had a grunty Commodore at my disposal so a drive was in order. Hobart is like Adelaide in many ways. You can get out of town easily and quickly into some lovely places. No hard decision, I would go back to the lovely Huon Valley. So many roads not taken… too easy. I was quite happy to go back to Divinge…rang, but they seemed to be closed. Great I thought…I’ll eat at Pecora…. Closed! Rang Fleurty’s…they were open, but had a function on. Stopped at Farm Gate. They had been open, but had just closed. It’s just past 2pm. I haven’t eaten and I’m hungry… not good. Still didn’t care… I would drive to Seafood Domayne and have fish and chips. Don’t think that it would be possible eat badly down that way. Stalls selling wonderful cherries and raspberries are quite frequent. But as soon as I saw the sign to Peppermint Bay, I knew that that was my destination. (please feel free to hum along) I had been there briefly as part of a boat cruise and thought that the location and restaurant space was definitely worth revisiting. They were still serving lunch and sat me by the window. I ordered three oysters and duck with beetroot. A glass of seriously good pinot noir was gratis as I had a loyalty card from a mag that I buy regularly. I had completely forgotten about the loyalty card, because I didn’t think that Peppermint Bay was the sort of restaurant that I would choose to go to.
They served great bread, butter and water without charging for it. This is getting so rare. Cost it in rather than seriously p--- me off. $5 for ordinary bread and having to buy imported water or drink nasty warm tap water full of chlorine puts me in a bad mood.
The oysters were fantastic. Don’t know where they came from… the folk at Barilla Bay said that there were no good oysters in Tasmania at this time in Southern Tasmania. They looked, tasted and felt fabulous to me. (I’m a chewer/ sucker), so I really was beastly careless. The duck was excellent, but the beetroot was absolutely sensational. Not a combination that you would think of first, but makes resounding good sense if you think about the flavours and the classic of duck and turnip. I also finally got the duck pinot thing… taken a while, but I love being able to change my mindset.
Made it back to Hobart via what I thought was Bok’s bacon shop. Bought some bacon, but hope it wasn’t the much lauded Mr Bok’s. It was good, but not as good as Jim Grant’s in my humble opinion.
There was the Wild Thing….red, hot and bobbing (the obvious word was so hard to resist) in the harbour. A front seat seemed to be mine. Our guide advised that it was pretty wild and rough out on the harbour and even rougher our around the island. It was. It was pretty chilly despite our glamorous hats and wind jackets. It was fun… not my normal thing at all. The young couple next to me kept asking me with genuine concern if I was OK. I was and laughing like a loon. As I stumbled off the boat, I was still giggling with panda eyes.
Quite frankly I still prefer sailing in a stiff breeze, but would do it again if I missed a plane. I’ve missed buses, trains and men, but never planes. I had a great day!
The next day I arrived on time. Jetstar Paul was suitably impressed.
I arrived back at Coolangatta Airport and it was still hot……….
PS After feeling such a brave adventure traveller, I was seriously trounced by the photo sent by my lovely 93 year old aunty in an ultralight aircraft taking off for her first flight.
round up the other four or five days into one pithy post. As that means going through my notes and photos to try and make 2000 words into 200. It is currently in the to do folder.
I missed the plane by about one minute and 20 seconds. I have blamed it on Gloria GPS, but the truth was as usual I was being a little casual. Jetstar Paul explained extremely nicely that, no.. it was not going to happen that day, but he would do his best to book me onto the first available flight with connections to Coolangatta. I was still pretty Ok if it wasn’t going to cost me an absolute fortune even if it meant a night in Melbourne. No joy! I would have to spend another day in Hobart….. Yipee!! Same flight better seats 24 hours later. Hotel was happy to have me back (cheaper than the previous night) Hire car had already been taken, so they upgraded me for the same price. Gloria #2 installed I had a brand new day in my new favourite town. ( the joy of a mobile phone and a credit card that realises I’m worth more to them alive than dead – I have had many journeys that are not as simple.
Decided that I would seize the day! After dumping my luggage I consulted the reception staff. They were positively excellent. After suggesting Cadbury’s, the brewery, some wildlife park (didn’t do it for me at all) and all of things I had already done; a trip on a boat called “Wild Thing”. I don’t think so, I thought, but then remembered, that I had promised myself a few days previously, I had let shyness get in the way of something that I may have enjoyed. Game on! There was an unscheduled trip to Betsey Island at 5pm. I still had about 4 hours up my sleeve.
Well I could have gone to the museum and the gallery (still on my list of to do), but I had a grunty Commodore at my disposal so a drive was in order. Hobart is like Adelaide in many ways. You can get out of town easily and quickly into some lovely places. No hard decision, I would go back to the lovely Huon Valley. So many roads not taken… too easy. I was quite happy to go back to Divinge…rang, but they seemed to be closed. Great I thought…I’ll eat at Pecora…. Closed! Rang Fleurty’s…they were open, but had a function on. Stopped at Farm Gate. They had been open, but had just closed. It’s just past 2pm. I haven’t eaten and I’m hungry… not good. Still didn’t care… I would drive to Seafood Domayne and have fish and chips. Don’t think that it would be possible eat badly down that way. Stalls selling wonderful cherries and raspberries are quite frequent. But as soon as I saw the sign to Peppermint Bay, I knew that that was my destination. (please feel free to hum along) I had been there briefly as part of a boat cruise and thought that the location and restaurant space was definitely worth revisiting. They were still serving lunch and sat me by the window. I ordered three oysters and duck with beetroot. A glass of seriously good pinot noir was gratis as I had a loyalty card from a mag that I buy regularly. I had completely forgotten about the loyalty card, because I didn’t think that Peppermint Bay was the sort of restaurant that I would choose to go to.
They served great bread, butter and water without charging for it. This is getting so rare. Cost it in rather than seriously p--- me off. $5 for ordinary bread and having to buy imported water or drink nasty warm tap water full of chlorine puts me in a bad mood.
The oysters were fantastic. Don’t know where they came from… the folk at Barilla Bay said that there were no good oysters in Tasmania at this time in Southern Tasmania. They looked, tasted and felt fabulous to me. (I’m a chewer/ sucker), so I really was beastly careless. The duck was excellent, but the beetroot was absolutely sensational. Not a combination that you would think of first, but makes resounding good sense if you think about the flavours and the classic of duck and turnip. I also finally got the duck pinot thing… taken a while, but I love being able to change my mindset.
Made it back to Hobart via what I thought was Bok’s bacon shop. Bought some bacon, but hope it wasn’t the much lauded Mr Bok’s. It was good, but not as good as Jim Grant’s in my humble opinion.
There was the Wild Thing….red, hot and bobbing (the obvious word was so hard to resist) in the harbour. A front seat seemed to be mine. Our guide advised that it was pretty wild and rough out on the harbour and even rougher our around the island. It was. It was pretty chilly despite our glamorous hats and wind jackets. It was fun… not my normal thing at all. The young couple next to me kept asking me with genuine concern if I was OK. I was and laughing like a loon. As I stumbled off the boat, I was still giggling with panda eyes.
Quite frankly I still prefer sailing in a stiff breeze, but would do it again if I missed a plane. I’ve missed buses, trains and men, but never planes. I had a great day!
The next day I arrived on time. Jetstar Paul was suitably impressed.
I arrived back at Coolangatta Airport and it was still hot……….
PS After feeling such a brave adventure traveller, I was seriously trounced by the photo sent by my lovely 93 year old aunty in an ultralight aircraft taking off for her first flight.
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