food addiction #127

This week's food addiction is Baklawa. Brought to you by a recent trip to Bankstown. My fave is the lebanese version - layers of filo pastry and pistachios drenched with rosewater honey. Crunchy and dense and sweet. Divine! We paid $8 for half a kilo whcih has about 14 pieces. So far i've eaten 10 pieces...since yesterday. I wish I had my camera at the shop - the nice man had all these 'beudiful'(that was the written sign) continental cakes and biscuits. So yeah, my chances of doing a single chin up are diminishing at the same rate as my baklawa intake increases...hee!

coffee in the pub

coffee in the pub, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

What a long weekend! Well actually it was a long weekend for me as I had today off. Let's start from the beginning...

Friday night - support crew for the paddling girls who did the oxfam Trailwalker! My girls were awesome, imagine walking 24 hours in day and night - now that's CRAAZY. Much more crazy than paddling 7 hours in Hawaiian waters! Anyhow we missed the first checkpoint and met up with the team at the second checkpoint and set up our little car boot next to the highly organised set up of the Army boys. They had chairs, tables, laptops with DVD movies, camping stoves with gas tanks with HOT soup. We had people sitting in the boot covered in sleeping bags with warmish soup...but it was a fun friday night - i think I was glad to be supporting and not walking!

Saturday - 2m rolling swells between the Heads. Ideal for surfing in a canoe! Hawaii here we come...3 weeeks to go. Saturday night spent with Jpeg's cousin's westie friends. Even though I'm going out with a westie, saturday night made me realise how far off I am from being a westie. I'm practically a snob by comparison! Oh wait. i was always a snob. :P

Sunday - Fun in the pool. Changes practice at Ryde Aquatic centre - felt like a wuss compared to the 13 year old girls in the next pool playing competition water polo pushing each other underwater. vicious!

Later we went down to Woolwich Pier Pub for coffee...which was very nice - except that cute bar tender didn't know how to make a skim mocha...but in fairness, it's pretty cool to be able to order coffee in a pub. And that's beginning of Mel's purple birthday scarf next to the coffee.

Today - yes, it was glamour photo day. I was abit apprehensive at first, but it was great fun and the pics turned out nice. No pics until next month.

P.S. Did not see Tony Chan's ugly mug once while he was here. Hello Tony!

Goodbye...Hi Nan!

This is a quick tribute to the only place in Kogarah that used to sell Hainan Chicken. It closed down last month. No notice, no sign, no last Hainan farewell! I only wished that I had taken a photo beforehand to show you the dish and the ‘restaurant’ which consisted of a few tables and chairs inside a Chinese meat butcher shop. It wasn’t your typical Chinese butcher shop with roast ducks and char sui hanging in the window… it was your not so typical ‘fluorescent lights and raw meat’ kind of butcher. Not a place to invite vegetarian work colleagues out for lunch. Anyhow the Hainan chicken itself was quite flavoursome as was the rice and it was quite reasonable at $6.80. I’ve had better and worse. But beggars in Kogarah can’t be choosers like in the Market City food court. It didn’t have the usual Malaysian Singaporean addition of bits of pineapple and cucumber on the side though, but it did have generous serving of bok choy on the side and broth. I think the owners were fresh from Hainan (maybe even relatives of YDG and Shar..hehe)– if they had gotten rid of the butcher side of the operation and just stuck to the Hainan chicken and noodles I think they might have had a better go at it. So now we have to drive to Hurstville for Hainan – but somehow we always get sidetracked and end up going to Miss Saigon for Pho and then the bakery for Custard Pineapple (Polo) buns which are almost as big as my face and definately bigger than my mouth!

strong chilli

Dinner, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

Another busy weekend of training...and eating!! These pics were taken on sunday night when we ate at a Vietnamese Thai Restaurant in Marrickville - we were packed in like tinned sardines! The food wasn't bad - large portions that were quite tasty. Yes that's fluro red sweet and sour chicken and wayne sucking on some balls...

Jpeg rolled his ankle at basketball and now he's an invalid. He's happy he doesn't have to work all week. ha!

rage against the machine

I got all fired up at work today when i spoke to an applicant. Aside from the fact that he was a buffoon, i think the freshly painted red walls in the customer service area contributed to my rage. Everyone in the service area heard me and afterwards were telling me in "more power to ya!". Woo!

I was so overcome with adrenalin that i had to go to woolies and pick up a packet of salt and vinegar chips haha.. i just had a craving from them over the past week and there's no stopping a craving like that. While I was in the queue there was a display of the new 'pria' bars that Powerbar are trying to sell to women who are health conscious but still need a sugar fix in the arvo. I see that Pria chick on a 2 metre high billboard of the pria chick everytime I go to Globo Gym (it's next to the back extension machine). The thing is - I actually only noticed the pria bars because they were sitting in a twix bars box! haha Someone at woolies is reallly thinking... get our attention with Twix bars but force us to re-evalutate their self image by putting low fat health food bars inside them which cost twice as much as chocolate! Imagine the possibilities....pregnancy tests inside condom boxes, rice crackers inside chip bags...Needless to say, I raged against the subversive marketing and walked out of there with two packets of chips and a block of chocolate. heee!

winners

WOOHOO! We won our grand final basketball game tonight 24-16. It was a tight game and we only came through in the last 5 minutes of the game! This is the second season in a row that we won division two, but with different players and different dynamics - we have two awesome big girls who can grab boards and dominate in the key - something I am still working on. I'm not a very good 'faker'. Jpeg is always telling me that i should up-fake and go in for a foul but i always get scared...which he thinks is retarded since i'm usually the biggest one on the court.

Thanks to all our supporters yelling and cheering and heckling for us! It brings a great atmosphere and pressure to perform haha. Our championship prize was....a red drawstring nylon bag. Almost a complete outfit with our championship caps from last year...at least i can put my smelly shoes in them! And were going up to Div 1 next season -oooh ahhhh! I think it will be a challenge coz some of the teams are bigger and faster and well just better than us!

Shout outs to my team the Magic 8 ballers, and our support crew and coach Howie and Big Sarah who put her body on the line and twisted her ankle during the game.

Afterwards, in keep with tradition we had a pig out at Superbowl. And to mix it up abit we ordered salt and pepper squid..and salt and pepper white bait. yummmm...my mum informed me that you can actually order half and half in one dish (must try next time!) Anyhow - shar was hoarding her food on a separate plate from her bowl, because she was trying to keep up with Mars, who was trying ot keep up with me as I shovelled all the noodles, congee, rice and white bait into my mouth. look - i was just really really hungry! haha

weekend training

Weekend antics
Originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

What did I do on the weekend?
"Training of course lah"

From top left: Friday PM - party training with the crew at Kuletos! Sunday AM - Mel and I after our paddle to South Head from Balmoral Beach (oh how the rich live!)
Sunday PM - Arvo paddle session out at Five Dock, that's the view from Voodoo's window where the canoes are stored under the carport.
Sunday PM - a cute vespa at Balmoral which also hosted the Mudgee Food and Wine Festival. We also hiked it up to Haberfield for the Italian festival too (gelato and gingerbread..yum!)

So yeah. you can manage to train and have some kind of life...even it is on the way and in between training.

clowning around...

Today I got paid to learn how to juggle! Woo! Well sort of... we did learn other stuff on how to deal with difficult situations, but i was more impressed by the juggling. A few of us who attended are considering instigating 'juggling breaks' during our work day to refresh both sides of our brains (which is apparently what juggling does). I seem to be spending more time bending over to pick up the balls than actual juggling... but it's on my list of skills to perfect (including 'a chin up'). Here's a link to a cool site with instructions on how to juggle! Maybe oneday i will fulfil my childhood ambition to be a 'girl clown'. *ta-dah!*

Things that make me laff...

BMW Dog Ad, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

That BMW Ad that's playing on the TV makes me chuckle everytime. I love weimaraners they are like lanky teenagers with limbs everywhere. hee!

hamo flashback...

Here's a link to a picture taken by photographer Harvie when we doing a 1000m sprint in Hamo last month. Mel is on the right doing a perfect turning draw stroke and i'm right behind her...hehe

This pic was taken last saturday night at Cherie's birthday dinner. She's the one who is refusing to eat her birthday cake unless I do the aeroplane spoon thing. Clearly I look like the fool in this picture. Anyhow she's one of the most cheeky and mischevious dancing girls i know (as in dancing girls from ye old dancing days with CYL), and she gets away with murder because she always looks and acts innocent. hehe! Anyhow she's currently and is looking for a french speaking, salsa dancing, non-stalker type boy so if you fit all of the criteria (or at least are willing to learn french/salsa) and you're interested - leave a comment and i'll see what i can do for you...(maybe i should rename this website to 'P-I-M-P') haha.

Anyhow we went to Doma Bohemian Beer Cafe in Potts Point (that's next door to Kings Cross ) for Cherie's birthday dinner. The food was fab and a bargain. Jpeg and I shared a bohemian platter which had so much meat on it, including half a roast duck, I thought i'd died and gone to carnivore heaven for the price of $39. Jpeg loved the roast duck (and he doesn't even eat duck). And the beer was good too. I highly recommend it - but you have to book! The chocolate dessert is interesting looking - it's phallic (sorry no pics of that).

i wanna be a supermodel

So for my bday my mum got me a photo session with starshots http://www.starshots.com.au/. Um. thanks! There's some interesting photos in their gallery.

So now i've got to fill out this form about what kind of look i want -
Do i want fashion/sexy/romantic/glamour? um maybe
Do I want headshot/fullbody/three-quarters? dunno
If i want to do a nude shot then i should make sure i've waxed/shaved/plucked and self tanned before i go. hmmm.. so many choices :P
I guess it would be fun if there were a few of friends together (err no, i'm not going to be doing any nude shots just to clarify)...but i'm going by myself. It's not for another month - and no, i'm probably not going to post them on the blog, or get the WALL sized one to put up in my living room (coz that would be GREAT.not) but i'll probably tell you all about my 'pampering experience' as the eager woman told me on the phone "you'll just LURVE it!". ha. I'll probably get the wallet sized one for my mum so she can send it to my honkie relos. They are sick for that kind of stuff! I think I will show the starshots people some pictures of famous honkie stars and tell them "yes i want to look like that" and point to Zhang Zi Yi in 'house of flying daggers' and Maggie Cheung in 'In the mood for love'. yeah. i might have to photoshop it and add Takeshi Kanshiro in the picture.

Check my ring!

Check my ring!, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

This is my special jade ring from Jpeg. It's chunky and funky and I love it. At first I thought it was abit 'ah por' (granny like) but clearly the boy did his research - i have several similarly chunky rings but none in jade. And his little honkie girlfriends at maccas took him shopping for it, but he picked it out by himself (so he claims!)As you can see, no diamonds - so no questions! :P

Wild Thing!

Wild Thing wearing scarf, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

Wild thing models Jelli's black rib scarf. It's about 1.8m long, but i don't know if it will be long enough for Jelli coz he's a tall boy, but hopefully it will be warm enough for the chilly Christchurch weather.

Black Scarf Detail

black scarf detail, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

Here's some detail on the black rib knit scarf. If you're interested it's 16 stitches, k2 p2 and then reverse on the second row. Until you get to the desired length. I used size 10 needles and some chunky wool from big w. I don't know all the knitting code yet, it's only my 5th scarf, but so far it's the most portable, time efficient and most gratifying craft I can manage in between work, training, eating and sleeping...