Long time between drinks

Well, not in actuality. Now, I am back and indeed fatter.
We have been eating out a lot of late, because, well we have more cash than we used to.
Also, Big Al seems to have created some marvellous contacts within the Sydney food scene, which has given us an entree into a whole new world of fine dining. My new favourite place, apart of course, from Perama, which is just down the road (please update your wine list kids) is Bodega.
Yes, I know it is godlessly trendy, but I love i! I love the fact that they have Spanish wines by the glass and they wear cool jeans and you can sit at the bar! Oh, its all so...very! I love it.
We were also recently asked to Le Khan, which was a masterful blend of French, Indian & the much maligned molecular gastronomy. The saffron air, however, was sublime.
And their wine list is frankly, bloody marvellous.
So, off to fill my belly...

Two New Cocktail Recipes

Recently, big Al and I decided to get engaged. Don't get excited and flood my blog with congratulations as we are not really the sentimental types. Besides we have been together now for some years and it seemed like it might be an amusing enterprise. Anyway, I have spent more time than usual thinking about things I might like to offer my guests as I believe it is often customary to serve some sort of cocktail bev. on arrival at a cocktail style, wedding extravaganza such as we plan to hold. I considered the classic Bellini, but it is so hard to get fresh, white peach puree in Sydney in October and besides the Bellini is so, well... pastel.

So here are two brightly coloured recipes of my own concoction (mostly) that I think would be if not appropriate, then mildly amusing.

1. The Better Red Than Dead
Campari
Blood orange juice
Quantities of very cold, bone dry Australian or New Zealand sparkling wine

Add 15 or so mls Campari and about the same amount of blood orange juice to a champagne flute and top up with sparkling wine.

2. The Bloody Bison
This is a Bloody Mary made using Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka. Don't add too much worstershire and tabasco or you run the risk of ending up with some sort of alcoholic gazpacho - unless of course that is what you are after. I like to garnish with a length of Lebanese cucumber for that just cut from the garden feeling, alternatively you could use lawn clippings.

Enjoy!

A godless plug

I'm not in the habit of giving godless plugs, but in this case I will make an exception. Some very good friends of ours run a marvelous organic herbs and spices business listed in my links over there ---> called Gourment Organic Herbs. Check out their website. Their stuff is really good. Also all of the photos were taken by Big Al and styled by yours truly at the Bayswater Brasserie. Nice recipes and an excellent product (and I'm not just saying that because they're mates!)

Shanghai'd

My final excuse (shame I only made it to 9)

We are off to China! To keep up with our adventures join us at
Shanghai'd

10 excuses cont.

7. I've got the band back together man! This has been quite fun and (mostly) productive. We have one good song and heaven knows we should, I've known most of these guys since high school so we've had 10 odd years to practice it. We get together rarely, as our rhythm guitarist and song writer lives in Canberra, consequently the sharing of musical ideas has led to excuse #8.
8. I've become addicted to the making of mixed CDs of my own compilation. Yeah, I know iTunes etc has been around for ages but I've only just discovered it. And what a world of wonders it is. It started as research; a way of sharing our musical ideas, so and so would include a CD of songs they really liked with the CD of our rehearsal et voila a unique excuse for time wasting was born. Everyone was inspired to create their own and subject others to all their favourite songs.

Cocktail of the Minute...

Gastrobitch thinks I'm mad but I do like my martini's with twist of lime pickle. Try it, it's sensational...

10 (poor) excuses as to why I have not updated my blog in 6 weeks or more

1. I was a bit scared off by Pim (but I'm over that now)
2. I broke the computer at home. This happened a while ago and was the result of an incident involving a Siamese cat, a glass of red wine and a keyboard. The outcome was not good for any of the aforementioned. Try as we might we could not fix the keyboard, so that was that. Big Al has since invested in a schmitzy new iMac, so I can't use that excuse anymore. I posted a few things at work then excuse #3 happened.
3. I've been really busy at work. I know that is the lamest excuse in the universe, but it is true. Except for the last two weeks where I've done bugger all and been really bored.
4. I've been in a really bad mood.
5. We've had two Taiwanese exchange students staying with us. Referred to prior to their arrival as "the Taiwanese invasion" Peter and Ariel (she christened herself that after the little mermaid cartoon character so you can imagine the inherent cuteness of these two) turned out to be super fun. Big Al and I spend the whole of their 6 week stay with us feeding them Australian cheeses and teaching them about wine. We all had a ball!
6. I'm kind of over cooking. This one came at me a bit out of the blue, but part of the deal with hosting the students involved feeding them dinner and breakfast. Breakfast wasn't really an issue but providing meals for four every night for 6 weeks is tiring. I did something bizarre that was very unme (ignoring the broken glass and prawns incident of course) I burned the crap out of my good saucepan. I might just point out here that it wasn't just a little bit burned, it pretty much caught on fire. It was very dramatic and set off all the newly installed smoke alarms. All that was left of my orange and spice syrup was the charred remains of several star anise and a cinnamon stick set solid in a centimetre of what I imagine lava looks like when it cools. An orange and spice lava at any rate. Serve me right for falling asleep while it was on the stove. Anyway, because it was my favourite pot (it was a nice Robinox one and all, that I may have flogged from a former employer) I couldn't bring myself to chuck it, so it sat in this sorry state next to the sink with water in it for about a week and a half. This was a vain attempt to dissolve the black set-like-concrete stuff at the bottom. Eventually, Big Al could stand it no longer and attacked the thing with a screwdriver. The pot is now back in use but I'm sad to say it will never be the same. More cracking and legit. excuses coming soon to IWF...

I'm Baack

I've been somewhat depressed by the blogging scene of late. That and it's winter here and no one has much energy for anything. I did jump on to Chez Pim last week just long enough to become generally irritated by the whole thing. What's the deal? Has food blogging just become an excuse to show your superiority and generally belittle all the ordinary stuff we mere mortals may enjoy?

What is going on? There is a fine line between educating your palate and enjoying the finer things (all of which I heartily endorse in principle) and just whinging for the sake of it about how you can't get a decent coffee in Paris.

Get a life!

I know I'm about a week behind the times on this but that's because I've been brewing and stewing like a cup of robusta.

You may call it sour grapes, but let me just say if I had the good fortune to be slutting about in Paris, instead of sitting at my desk on a miserable winter's day in Sydney, consoling myself that at least I'm in the Parisienne end of Redfern, I could think of plenty of stuff to do to take my mind off the coffee.