July 31, 2006

just peachy...or just predictable

With only 1 month until the Europe trip, Mel and I have started hitting the shops looking for 'essential items' that will create the ultimate holiday wardrobe in the space of a backpack. (No Kathmandu quick-dry travel shirts/shorts/undies for us thanks!) On the weekend I bought 1 coral pink jumper, 1 coral pink singlet and one melon pink jacket. I'm not going to lie - My wardrobe is about 60% pink (plus shoes and bags and jewellery) and the rest is brown and black and even some white.

My dilemma is - am I becoming predictable? Or do I just know what suits me?
I walk into a shop, look at the clothes in my 'colour range' (pinks/brown/black ocassionally greens) and kind of disregard everything else. I don't feel every adventurous - even when i'm wearing a hot coral pink shirt that's bright enough warm up a grey winter day. That whole primary blue/ red /white theme that's happening in fashion at the moment is just passing me by, but really what's the point of buying something that I'm not going ot love or wear?

I used to be afraid of colour - all those years of Chinese Dancing in garish costumes with sequins and red lipstick put me off for abit. So I stuck to black. I just sort of added pink to the range, but I always go back to black, and hey who doesn't want to look slimmer (TB Boy excluded of course)?

July 23, 2006

slow mo weekend

chocolatetruffles

This weekend I could have been down at the snow - but instead I opted to try and save some money for the upcoming holiday, and i'm glad I did - Mel and I finally took Wiki-Wiki out on the water for our first paddle and it was sweet! Brunch with the ladies, shopping with the mean girls and a huge feast with Mel's entire extended family made the whole weekend feel abit like a holiday. I even tried my hand at ricotta gnocchi and chocolate truffles from the latest Donna Hay Magazine that Rita gave me for my birthday - and they weren't as difficult to make as I thought they would be.

Today I spent a whole day repotting all my succulents which was totally indulgent and relaxing (except for the part where I got annoyed trying to pull Jamie Durie's smug smiling face stickers off his 'Patio' pots!!).

July 20, 2006

Mum's ginger milk curd dessert




This is mum's successful attempt at making one of her fave desserts from Hong Kong - 'geurng jong lai' which literally means "ginger collides with milk" (traditionally i think they throw ladles of milk into the ginger mixture in a wooden bucket). It's hot sweetened milk set with ginger juice (some kind of reaction) with a texture that is similar but lighter than dessert tofu. Her first two attempts didn't set - we think the milk temperature was too hot - they ended up tasting like a hot milkshakes...only gingery!

BTW - Big July Birthday shout outs to my girl Syl, forever young Shar, Miss Joey, The irrepressible Magoona, Lee & SMarty, Jelli and Lady Malia!

July 17, 2006

Weekend Update: Pig Out Central

No paddling = feasting and fun! Red Ginger and I wanted to take out ‘wiki wiki’ for our first paddle, but the weather was not on our side! However it was perfect weather for knitting and baking (yes the pink mixer is getting a good work out folks!!) and feasting…3 rounds of it!

Round 1: Bastille Day/Birthday Degustation
A few of us celebrated a belated bday and Bastille Day at Restaurant Balzac, Randwick. The restaurant recommends leaving about 3 hours for the degustation menu. We started at 8pm and left at 12am. I love meals that continue on til the next day! And the fine dining experience is always a revelation for someone who is accustomed to the ‘Superbowl’ style of "service"...I guess that’s the difference between a $90 meal vs. a $9 one!

Unfortunately I have no pics because I forgot my camera as I was rushing out the door! (and I was late because I was at the gym desperately trying to burn up more calories before dinner hehe!) I could go on to dissect every one of the nine courses we had, but it’s pointless without pictures – but I will tell you that the most interesting dish was a terrine of confit goose and roast liver with roasted hazelnuts, served with a salad of snails, goose proscuitto and a sliver of gizzard. Fancy and abit grotesque sounding! But not nearly as scary as it sounded. The terrine reminded me of the first course of meats (like pigs ears) at Chinese Wedding Banquets minus the pink tablecloths, decorative carnations, carved carrots, indifferent waiters and flying chopsticks. It was gamey and tasty. There were whole hazelnuts hidden inside the terrine, which we all approached apprehensively - we were expecting it to be an eyeball or a goose joint!

Overall it was a great night - an excellent foodie experience and a lot of fun- I seriously couldn't eat breakfast the next morning which hardly EVER happens, though i probably consumed enough calories to last me the entire week without food! It's definately a 'sometimes' food as Cookie monster would say.

Round Two: Trivia, Frittata and cinnamon buns





Saturday night, I went to a fundraiser trivia night for The Sloths’ dragonboat club world championship campaign to Toronto, Canada. More eating of frittata, cinnamon buns and more cheese. The trivia night was so well organized and an excellent night of fun. Our team ‘Fiji Me’ were leading out of 24 teams in the start of the final round, but we fell out of contention over the ‘famous faces’ trivia round. If only I had paid more attention when flicking through those trashy mags at the doctor's surgery! The final tie breaker for the winning teams was a dance off to ‘U can’t touch this ‘ by MC Hammer. The video tells a thousand moves. haha.

Round 3: Soft shell crabs and chocolate cake
More baking. A heavy but not too sweet chocolate cake for my baby brother’s 14th birthday! He has officially arrived into the teenage awkward dorkness stage of his life. Braces, Glasses, Pimples, Lanky Limbs, Girls calling him out on dates. What the?! Last year he was playing with lego! Oh they grow up so fast! :P Mum made all 'our' favourites for dinner – soft shell crab, oysters Kilpatrick and a delish rack of lamb!

Um yeah, so I’m going to be hitting the gym this week. Only 6 weeks til i have to wear a bikini! *sigh*

You know you're old when

...you're witnessing the 2nd cycle of a fashion trend. I thought it would never happen. I was SO wrong.

I walked into General Pants on the weekend and they had a big banner up proclaiming “All is forgiven: Come back 1986”. No WAY! I wanted to turn around and walk back out again, because:
  1. I remembered the year 1986 and that I used to wear stonewashed skinny jeans (back when I was skinny and didn't know what 'stoned' meant)
  2. The staff in the store looked like they were born in 1986 and treated me like I was someone not within their store's demographic (ie. someone willing to pay $300 for a pair of jeans that looked like something from St. Vinnies)
  3. The clothes were truly heinous

And when I continued through the shopping centre I felt like I was having an 80s flashback.

Like TOTALLY!

Every freaken shop was selling polka dots. Been there. Done that. I used to own 3 beloved polka dot items in the summer of '89. A black off the shoulder tube dress with white polka dot trim and a black shift dress with tiny white dots from supre, back when Supre used to be a clothing warehouse in Marrickville and not some crazy shop with disco music and actual change rooms. My all time fave piece of polkadots was a hand me down from mum - her white polka dot sun dress as seen in the picture below. (shit does that mean i'm actually witnessing the third cycle of a trend?!) I refuse to willingly purchase a polka dotted item.

July 12, 2006

Emaciated in St Tropez

Yesterday’s bizarre ‘summer’ day of 24 C smack in the middle of winter reminded me that there’s less than 2 months to go before Red Ginger and I hit Europe. I’ve been day dreaming about getting a tan whilst cruising the French Riviera whilst wearing ridiculously big sunglasses over my ridiculously small eyes, whilst attempting to sunbathe topless whilst drinking a cocktail. At work they joke about me being ‘Emaciated in St. Tropez’ because they think I won’t be able to afford to eat. Like that is EVER going to happen – be becoming emaciated would require my body to live on ‘Survivor’ style ratios for at least 2 months. And I would quite happily sell my belongings before I would starve – how many euros does it take to live off crepes, pasta, fromage and baguettes!

We will be traveling the whole of September through
Paris – French and Italian Riveria – Rome - Venice – Turkey – London –Tokyo.
If you want to join us along the way just email me. If you have any ‘must see and do’ suggestions – also send them our way!

For those of you living in the UK, we will be arriving in London at the end of our journey for a brief stint at the end of September for a few days (possibly the Wed 27th Sept), so pencil us in for a cocktail or two or three or more. I will be emailing you all closer to the date.

July 09, 2006

proud parents



Today Red Ginger and I brought home our new baby - an OC2 (two person canoe)! She's a few years old, and we are planning to customise her and re-name her 'Wiki Wiki' which means 'fast' in Hawaiian. Yay! Big Thanks to Big Dave for helping us transport her from The Shire!

July 04, 2006

more tim tam colleseum



A more complete set of pictures from construction to demolition and plenty of the party.

Lisa Curry Kenny

Last year, I managed to rack up a total of 3 Lisa sightings during the Hamilton Island Cup Race, but I didn't manage to deliver on my promise

This year I delivered the goods - lots of sightings and a photo!
..better late than never!



PS. Will post a proper review of hamo later. Right now i'm suffering from post-holiday-can't-believe-i'm-back-at-work-and-it's-not-25-degrees blues.