Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior - Juvenal

ah, juvenal. knew i'd be able to get some latin literature onto BHG eventually!!!

but i do have new jewellery.

today when i was in the gallery the manager was asked where she got her beads. one of the students at the school had made them. now, i 'm a sucker for beads and when the student walked into the gallery with a big plastic bag full of them i was forced to purchase! i go these and a slightly more sedate string too.

when i got home these were in the mail box. i've ordered a lot of stuff on line recently, and this is all that's turned up. i'm hoping that a large number of t-shirts will present themselves shortly.


so i will wear one of these for opening night tomorrow i feel. maybe the one on the end with the flower. once this show is open tomorrow i only have one really big one left for the year and i get my life back.

anyone who tells you that working in events is glamorous is lying to you!

just when things are going bad, along comes heaven

end of the long weekend

well it's 9.15 on monday evening, and this will be my last what did you eat today? post for easter. mine should be more along the lines of what didn't i eat. i'm almost looking forward to getting back to work so i don't need to eat three full meals a day anymore.

almost

i skipped breakfast today. breakfast is normally my favourite meal of the day, and one i really enjoy going out for, but i figured i didn't need it this time. particularly as i didn't get up until after 10am and i was going out for lunch

my first job when i arrived at my mother's was to chop the chillies for the piri piri sauce - oh, and to drink a glass of champagne - sorry, sparking white


this was mixed with lemon juice, garlic powder and olive oil and quite frankly would knock the socks off of even the most hardened spice eater. truly.

this is the chicken before it was cooked. it's marinated in a coriander base, and this is what the piri piri looked like once it was done

... ... ... and this is what the chicken looked like after it had been on the barbeque for about 30 minutes. it was truly delicious. it was smokey and flavoursome, but the meat was soft and tender. we ate it with indian bread and a couple of salads and a dab of the aforementioned killer sauce. isn't she cute? she looks like she's about to do some little dance. the chicken dance most likely. tee hee.


and this is a random shot of some deranged looking macrame owl that my mother has hanging by the outdoor table. my grandmother made it a million year ago, and this seems to be it's final resting place. no doubt it keeps the evil spirits away!!


to finish lunch off we had a small slice (and it was small) of flour-less chocolate cake, that had been made to the recipe of a french friend of my mothers. oh yes, and the second bottle of sparkling wine. hic!


and you might think that this was enough food for tot day. really truly it was. but if course i had dinner plans! so i caught a bus into the city (there was no way i had the energy to ride my bike) and went to my friend mirror mirror's new flat. she's just launched herself into the world of chinese language newspapers and is working from home and it's driving her nuts!

we did the short walk to china town to a new place, well not that new but i hadn't been there yet! we started off with szechuan bean jelly and cucumber in peanut sauce. doesn't sound very appetising i know but you spread your wings when you have a lot of chinese friends and this is something i actually quite like a lot. managed to talk her out of the ox tripe and tongue salad.

then we had a thing that she orders all the time but i don't know the name of it. it's a beef and rice noodle and bean sprout sort of thing in a spicy soup that you eat with rice. i an normally famed amongst the chinese for really being able to pack away the food (that's why you're so fat they all tell me in that delicate way that the chinese are so famous for), but tonight it was commented that i hardly ate anything. because i didn't. it was delicious tho. oh, yes and there were also chestnut and sesame seed pastries. i will have to try them again one day when i have more fortitude!!!

so there we have it. easter is over and i am fully cooked and eaten out. and only about 2 mini eggs (although we did have some white rabbit lollies at the lights yesterday).

i'm up at 6 tomorrow and off to the gallery for this year's art show, so i'm now off to sleepy bobos. there are two cats already on the bed that are calling my name.......

bright light for easter

i know i need to tell you all about what i've been cooking and eating, but firstly i need to talk about the northern lights. not aurora borealis - the adelaide northern lights.

our festival of arts has just wound up - south australia is known as the festival state! one of the free events that was on this year was held along north terrace, one of the earliest streets in adelaide where some of the oldest buildings stand: parliament, government house, the state library, art gallery, adelaide university etc.

this year some wunderkind has taken photos of the buildings and used them to form colourful projections that change every ten minutes or so. below are some of my very blurry happy snaps, but there are much better ones to be found on flickr, just like this site.

south australian state library

mortlock library (newspaper reading room) with print design

mortlock library - en rose

anyway, last time we spoke i had just had lunch with killer cake. as there had also been a bottle of bubbles with lunch, so i lay on the couch and proceeded to fall straight asleep

i love long weekends.

but it left me in a bit of a rush to get to M's for dinner. her house has a bit of a hill that i have to ride up so there may have been some procrastination as well. M has a new slow cooker (house warming present from moi and others) which she's been playing around with. last night it was roast pork, with spuds and pumpkin in the oven. when i got there she asked if i thought the juices would make good stock.
'what about gravy' i said.
'could you be bothered'? was the reply

could i be bothered???? why would you do a roast if there's no gravy!!

so i did the gravy and it was scrumdidleyumptious. there were also chocolate eggs in front of a movie.

this morning i cooked up some less than fresh mushrooms with some garlic, parmesan and ricotta (in place of cream) to go on some of the left over baguette from yesterday

i sat outside, ate it with a cup of tea and read my book for hours. it was totally blissful.

then i did boring stuff like putting an second coat of paint on the toilet, and do some laps at the local pool.

then i road into meet JC at dumpling king. ooooooo... dumpling king. pork dumplings, prawn and chicken dumplings, and chinese broccoli with garlic sauce.

so very, very good. with their fantastic chili sauce


then we went off to see the lights.

but the time i'd ridden home (mingled with the MSG) i was dying of thirst. instead of being sensible and having a glass of water, i went with the cooper family's finest.

now i'm thinking a little schmakeral. maybe a soupcon of icecream before i retire???

saturday lunch

normally i wouldn't make lunch a post all of it's own, but the end of it was really good.

Lady Miss Fi came for lunch, and it was just lamb fillets marinated in lemon and garlic and rosemary, bbq'd and sliced thinly over salad with a yoghurt dressing.

but i though i'd make a cake for desert. one to get rid of some of the stuff i had hanging around from other baking escapades.

Raspberry and pistachio yoghurt cake
ingredients
2 cups self raising flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
100g melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup natural yoghurt
1 cup frozen raspberries

for the crumble
1/4 brown sugar
60g butter, chilled
1/2 self raising flour

pistachio ripple
50g crushed pistachio
1 tblspn brown sugar
1/4 tspn cinnamon powder

method

• preheat oven to 170 degrees, and butter and line a springform tin (20cm)
• make the crumble by rubbing all the ingredients together with the tips of your fingers. place in the fridge
• sift cake flour into a bowl and add in sugar
• add yoghurt and eggs to saucepan you've melted the butter in (just melt it, it doesn't have to be a bubbling inferno), and whisk to combine.
• pour the eggy, yoghurty butter mix into the flour
• put approximately half the batter into the cake tin, sprinkle liberally with the nut mix and the cover with the rest of the batter.
  
• press the raspberries into the top of the cake batter, so they sit flush with the top of the cake
  
• spread the crumble mix on top
• bake 55-60 minutes.
• dust with icing sugar, serve warm.

this is a variation on a recipe anyway, but the batter was a little thick, so i put about 1 1/2 tablespoons of ricotta in it as well.

very, very nice. rich, moist, berry and nutty. i put a spoonful of yoghurt on the side to serve. will certainly be making this one again!

saturday morning food shopping

just back from the central markets, and these are the spoils of the hunt. i was pleased to note that lots of the stalls were shut, which meant people were off having a public holiday! however i had to scratch around a bit for what i got. here is:
1 large baguette from dough. dough have good bread but they always look at you as if they're sizing up whether you're 'good' enough to buy it from them.
4 royal gala apples
1 hand of bananas
1 red pepper
1 bag of mixed salad leaves. i always buy too many of these and they rot before they get eaten
2 small bags of red chillies, these are for my mum
3 pieces of lamb fillet. one is for lunch today (it's marinating in garlic rosemary and lemon as we speak) and the other two are in the freezer.

i also got a pot of mint and two lemons, but i forgot to put these in the picture.

when i got home i cut two pieces off the bread. one i had just with butter and vegemite. the other one i stuffed with a fried rasher of bacon, salad leaves, red pepper slices and mayonnaise (hellmans, of course)

naturally this small act as turned my kitchen into a battle site, so i'm off now to bake one of my weird, experimental cakes, and to tidy up before lady fi arrives.

good friday dinner

OK, bear with me, this might go on a bit....

after breakfast i 'tided myself over' with a small bowl of organic icecream

and a few sour worms
at dinner time i went to my dads, where we started off with a few olives

before we moved on to a delicious leg of lamb, with a spice crust


which was served with couscous and yoghurt
and a salad.... and a couple of glasses of wine of course. and as a distraction, here is a photo of their new kitten poppy. she's a cutie!