Monday, May 27, 2013

...and to recap

...the last few months of my life down under for you, I will outline my activities into the following categories: Cuisine, Family and Culture.

Cuisine 
There's been a lot of experimentation in the kitchen in the past months, most notably, my mastery of the humble Aussie Meat Pie. 



Up until now, I have always sucked horrendously at pie making, resorting to crumbles or cobblers to compensate. However, with the help of frozen sheets of puff pastry, I am able to turn over some pretty decent pies. 


The secret in the filling is a healthy dollup of Vegemite! Served with fresh greens or Hot chips. (It depends who's at table) 


In terms of desserts, I usually have a keen kitchen helper working alongside me, a very savvy 10 year old who likes to lick the beaters, melt the chocolate and measure the brown sugar (among other sous chef activities). Together, we made..... 

Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse
(Nutella and Cream, really!)


And for Easter, Bunny Cake Pops (Ella's brainchild) 

 
True, brown bunnies are uncommon at Easter, but the white chocolate didn't melt properly...so yeah.  Aesthetically, it was a risk. In terms of a sugar hit....a sure bet. 

Family

I had the pleasure of meeting Scott's parents, Fran and Ray, in the Easter holidays. They came from Perth for a week's visit. In addition to many chats over tea or coffees, and  adventures around the neighbourhood, a  zoo visit was a highlight. 





 




Culture

While I have become quite familiar now with many Aussie sayings and turns of phrase, Scott comes up with some pretty obscure ones in a regular basis. He's a true blue top bloke. Fair dinkum! And his band rocks too. These are some pics from the gigs he's had over the past three months. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the iPhone 4S's ability to work in low light in these pictures, especially in the presence of a lot of theatrical smoke. I guess I like these pics for the color bursts and bleeds, mostly.











This last one was cool...mostly because it was a late gig, and they had their own dressing room upstairs at the venue.