Pizza Night

Made pizza from scratch, on one of the hotter days we've had this year. I think it was 33 degrees during the day.
The dough refused to rise (I was using Stephanie Alexander proportions; not Donna Hay ones, which I am used to), The oven was either too cold or smoking and threatening to set off the smoke alarm. They were very tasty pizzas though. Next tme, I think I'll wait for winter to satisfy the homemade pizza craving.

NY Road Trip Part 2

After leaving the Honeysuckle Camping ground in Namadgi National Park, we drove down the dirt road to Adaminaby. The road was twisty and hilly, with the added fun of dirt and thus less traction. It was fun to do once - but really the signboards and scenery along the way didn't really encourage a re-visit. The only thing possibly worthwhile - the Orroral Valley.

Stopped in at Buckenderra holiday park on the shores of Lake Eucembene for New Years Eve. Last year, the lake level was so low that you could see the foundations and remanents of Old Adaminaby town. Today - the level was 20%. Certainly very refreshing, and enough to have a swim in.

Finally: the main attraction. Drove up to Charlotte Pass and set off for the Blue Lake Walk, with plans for the return via Hedley Tarn. The weather was good, with a predicted afternooon thunderstorm and shower. Hiked up to the saddle of Mount Twyman. Whilst resting from the 250m climb over 2km distance, we got lured by the prospect of Mount Carruthers so nearby.

2km deviation later, and the view over the valley and Northcott canyon to the north was beautiful and worth it. Stopped at Blue Lake on the way back - lots of patches of snow still remaining. Tried to spot where the ice climbs would be in winter. All the alpine wildflowers were out flowering and looking fabulous.

The final part of the walk - from the northern shore of Hedley tarn was a bit hardgoing. There were some cairns marking the trail, but not many, and they were a bit irregular. A bit of bushbashing through the heath! Reaching the showgrass section and downhill to the paved walkway was a relief, as was eating lunch with my feet dangling in the Snowy river afterwards.

NY Road Trip Part 1

Left Sydney for Canberra, stopped at Bungonia Gorge for a night. Looks like the NPWS had closed half the campsites in their wisdom. The two main lookouts looked over the canyon - and the wonderful scar opposite that is the quarry. So easily can our government be bought.

Walked from the main lookout over to Adams lookout. At least from here you couldn't see the quarry, and could just appreciate Slot Canyon. Very hot. The showers were very nice though.

Continued on to the main attraction: Boroomba Rocks. Since the weather had been very hot, we awoke at the crack of pre-dawn, and frogmarched from the carpark at 7am up the slope to South Buttress. Integral Crack was calling!

We enjoyed the shade up till about 1130. Definitely the way to go in future. And not only that: I managed to second integral crack clean, and crank off a finger lock. Yowie!!

Completed the day with a cooling dip in the Murrumbidgee river near Point Hut crossing. Is this how the natives cool down?

Various Nibbles

Broke a window trying to get a fly with a thong. It's worked in the past, I don't see why the window had to shatter on purpose.

Blind baked a pre-made pie crust, and burnt the edges.

Trying to make pumpkin pie for a pushing daisies movie marathon.

the oaks, backwards

Almost did the oaks fire trail twice in one week. Record for me. :-)

Took Monday off, did it the traditional direction 'downhill' from woodford to glenbrook. Lots of fun, although I bailed on the really hard bit of single track right near the end. I have to admit though, a weekday is *the* day to do it, because you are not at risk of super collision or 8-bike pile up if you decide to take your own sweet time about it.

Went back on Sunday. Surprisingly, the road down to the causeway at Glenbrook was closed, and had been since Friday. There was half a tree and a boulder right in the middle of the causeway. It doesn't take long for the rivers to fill up from rain!

So the backwards bit means I rode a bit of it 'uphill', from glenbrook to woodford. I was really surprised how much of a difference it made. You don't notice the slope much from the Oaks picnic area, but I think I climbed 50m in elevation over 2km. And then, once I reached the '10km from glenbrook' mark, I chucked a u-turn, and did my favourite bit really fast. Wheeeeeee!

Working towards the Urban Polaris

Have a dream to do the final urban polaris this year in canberra. 7 hours on a bike - ouch, even more ouch if I haven't been on a bike since August.

So I went on a ride on Sunday, bush track in the Wollemi National Park. It was very pretty, highly enjoyable. I totally rode it wrong, riding too hard on the brake doing the downhill, too far forward in the saddle, and skidding my way down. Fun though - didn't come off once. Nearly ran over a snake too. It was bright green, with a white/cream underbelly and yellow markings on its back. That's enough to make me think it was a diamond python (non-poisonous, yay!). However, it was coiled and ready to strike - and that's not typical behaviour. Possibly it could have been the several rocks and branches that Luke threw at it to try and convince it to move that did it. Hmm.

Sculpture by the Sea

On its 10 year anniversary, I finally made it to Sculpture by the Sea. It was hot. It was also the last weekend, so it was crowded. Fun.

The rusted metal sculptures at Tamarama looked like they had been there for years, they really blended in. The rolled up balls of "united nations policy on climate change" were funny, and oh so true. The sea lady perched on the rockshelf worked so well, there were many young lasses who sat next to her and adopted the same pose.

I wonder which of the sculptures was that of my neighbour?

I'd left my wallet at home, and a gelato at pompeii was the one neccessity, so I couldn't afford a catalog. Hazelnut & blood orange - well worth it!

It was good fun at Marks Park, with the families out and about and exploring the art. Quite a few made it through the bars imprisoning the tree on the headland.

I made it into the water too, twice at Tamarama. The water was very cold, and rough towards the end of the day. I may be a little sunburnt.

Ironic Ad

Heard an ad on the radio whilst on the commute. It was one of those "help I'm drowning in debt" type ads, and the company promises to help you out. "If we can't help you, no one can!". The rep's name was "Jacque".

Danks St Festival 2007

Went to the Dank St Festival today, probably my first 'real' good food month attended. I mean I went to the markets - but it's a thing i do quite a bit. Hot day, in street with two PAs blaring away just way too loud, make my head hurt. Gah, I'm turning into a little granny.

Apart from that, lots of fun! Bought a round loaf of olive bread from Sonoma - just missed out on the soy linseed. :-(. [Tasted the bread after dinner - Yummo!]Although I wasn't hungry when heading there, I was pretty soon after landing and smelling all the yummy smells. Sampled:
- Creole sausage & rocket on a roll with smokey bbq sauce from Eumundi Smokehouse. Good & chewy texture. well matched. I like the sauce!
- Garlic Prawns from the Spanish Place, up at the Moore Park end. The prawns were a bit salty, and the texture tough. Uh - were they frozen? But the accompanying picante and verde sauces were lovely.
- Tasting Plate (arancini rice ball; pumpkin pinenut and yoghurt tartlet) and duck pancake. Liked the pancake. Was it wholemeal? I'm sure there was more stuff with the tasting plate, but I can't remember. The sharpness of the yoghurt contrasted nicely with the richness of the pine nuts. I love pine-nuts, so moreish.
-Serendipity gelato flavours of fig, honey & pistachio; and kaffir lime and coconut. I've been a fan of the vanilla bean for aaages, when they were stocked in little takaway containers for $10 a block. I had heard rave reviews of the fig ice cream: it was lovely, but a little two sweet. You got the crunchiness of the fig seeds, nutty/creamy pistachio nuts and then sweet honey. The kaffir lime & coconut was so white, it looked bleached. Non-dairy? I guess if you use coconut cream/milk. Then you get this little tantalising hit of 'ooh, slightly limey',and cruncy bits of shredded coconut. Make that toasted, and it would totally win me over.

I couldn't quite do the whole two scoops, I think next time I try for a 1.5 scoop deal. I was very full and satisfied after that final effort!

Sad that I'm going to be missing out on the food & wine fair next weekend.

Spring Clean

Steamcleaned the carpets today, and went through 7 refills of 8.5 litre tank. Hmm - not exactly environmentally friendly, but the carpets smell much better. Also used a lot of elbow grease in cleaning out the bathtub of soap scum - used the vinegar & bicarb trick. The worst bit is kneeling on the tiles!

USA Round up

I spent lots of time in State Parks and National Parks. If the weather is fine, don't even think about trying to get a camp spot along the coast. The smells are so much more 'moreish' - like the super Sugar Pine smell, or the smell of the redwoods or the grandeur of the Giant Sequoias. Loved Yosemite National Park ($20 for 7 day entry is so cheap compared to the $8 day entry in the state parks). Saw lots and lots of bears.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is in *everything*. Chocolate bars in the USA are so much more bad for you than they are in Australia; You read the ingredients, and there is not only Coconut Oil and Palm Oil (the worst two oils in existence), but then they've gone and *hydrogenated* it, which makes is superbad!!

Funny too - I think there are two production lines. i bought some 'endangered species' chocolate. The one that I got from the Yosemite general store had "beet sugar". The one that I saw in Australia had "normal" sugar in it. Eh?

Yay for the existence of the BART in SF; What doesn't make sense is making the consumer work out to the cent, how much to put in the machine. You should be able to press which station you want to go to, and then the machine tells you how much to put in. Not: consult table, then put in money.

Supertired Skibunny

Made a last minute dash to the snow this year: it was a trip that I had all but given up despite the "best snow in 20 years" tag. Suddenly on the Tuesday I found out that a friend of a friend was going: and then there was hope! Booked last minute accomodation on the Thursday, drove down to weather reports of gale force winds at altitudes above 1200m. Sounds like the makings of an epic, doesn't it?

Anyway, first day at Thredbo was miserable. Instead of wind (and shut lifts), it was constant rain. The actual skiing part was ok-ay: it was slushy and hard work. What sucked was the staying still on the chairlift and getting soaked and cold. Oh-so-cold. We made an executive schnapp decision to head into the warm after two runs, and we had to wring the gloves out because the water had soaked right through to the inner liner.

Chose to do a lazy dinner, and instead of driving into Jindy; walk up the hill from the tent to visit the thai place. Instead of (as I was expecting), a rather ordinary suburban thai restaurant, this place was fantastic! Ordered the nahm dtok [grilled beef salad] (spelling from thai food) off the Specials menu, and it was oh-so tasty. I had to restrain myself from licking the plate, the sauce were that good. It was very popular as well: I saw at least four other tables ordering the same dish. I really wanted to come back again the next night, and just hang out there in front of the fire. Dang having to go to work the next day!

Supreeya's Thai Restaurant - well worth it.

Water in..

So. The toilets are now on yellowish tanked rain water. And you're supposed to tell if you're dehydrated by checking the colour of your urine. How am I supposed to tell ? Counting the number of glasses per day is so old school.

Macadamia Nuts

The thumbprints on my fingers feel raw.

I visited a Macadamia farm over the weekend, and having enjoyed the pumpkin and macadamia nut scones fresh from the oven with a bit of cream and jam, proceeded to scour the ground underneath the trees in the grove for some fruit. Apparently they're not ripe until they drop off the tree, and you need 12 weeks to dry them in the shell before you can crack the nut from within.

But to dry the shell, I had to remove it from the casing. First attempt was with a knife to top & tail it, and then peel the green skin off. Have you tried skinning a golfball? Yeah, it was just as successful as that.

A nut cracker (or lobster shell cracker...?) came to the rescue, but the trick was to crack the edge of the skin, and not the central bit that instinctively you go for ~ after all, these are the hardest nutshells in the world.

Plan B's Wagyu Beef Burger

Get one hunk of expensive wagyu beef. Mince it. Turn it into a burger. Yum.

Plan B is the side project for Julian North of Becasse & (Sous Chef) Banc fame.

Lack of time, so a short post

Gak! Now being a car-commuter instead of a public transport commuter, I am finding that I'm having much less spare time than I used to, and the backlog of things to read is getting longer.
So little time!

Loving: A proper winter, snuggling up in front of the heater. Sleeping in (but I've always loved that). Rise Omakase menu. The freshness of the sushi at Makato. Coffee. Need more.

Inspired by: Lamb & Tomato Soup from The Gardners Inn Blackheath; Sticky Toffee Pudding (Steph Alexander Version), hastily converted from metric weights to -erh- I think 170g sugar is a three quarters cup?

Me = Commuter Squared

Took delivery of a new car at the end of last month. All of 13km on the clock, just enough to have assembled it it, driven it onto the ship, and driven it off the ship.

Instead of being a public transport person - I am now an evil commuter. One of those single people, in a single car, travelling to work. At the moment I am doing the reverse commute, travelling from the inner suburbs of sydney to the western suburbs. And generally, I like driving. But I don't like driving during the peak hour rush when everyone is aggro and less forgiving.

My compensation for doing this daily commute has been to start up a bokashi box, a sort of indoor pre-compost fermentation system that originated in Japan. I have tried and failed with the worm farm (killing the poor babies twice, so-much-so that the last lot of worms upped and packed themselves to the compost bin next door). Lets see how this one goes.

Degustation at Post, GPO Martin Place

The parentals went to Tetsuya's yesterday with some friends to celebrate a significant birthday.

Jealous as.

By happenstance though, as I was clearing out my boxes from my perpetual-move; I found a menu that I had squirrelled away from two years ago. During good food month 2005, I had a choice between visiting Carribean experimental in Pyrmont; or French degustation. I, predictably, chose the French, although now I wish I had been a little daring.

Anyway, I can't remember much about the actual meal. I think I managed to resist taking photos of every dish. But here is the menu & my scribblings for posterity:

It's Time!

So finally - it was time for me to ride the dirtworks 50km race.

Months of non-preparation, and on-again-off-again riding had brought me to this moment.

The killer hill at the beginning - around 12km was just as bad as it was last year. I had to pause and roll around on the ground for a bit to stretch my lower back out. It was just *so* tiring from pushing the bike up the hill at a 65 degree angle. Urk. I started off the ride with sneakers on, to reduce the number of transitions by one, and also so I didn't have to hike up the hill in bike shoes. I'm really not sure how much time I saved!

For the 50km, they had graded the fast downhill track from rocky, sandy and technical to smooth with a combo of water bars & sand traps to slow you down. I was trying so hard to slow down on this downhill bit that I could smell burning rubber - probably my rim brakes. Top speed for me: 41.5km*, and I was a slowpoke!

The water station at the 28km mark (where the 100kmers split off from the 50kmers) was very good with watermelon, orange slices, 'gu' water. Very good, especially since so many people ran out of water last year. I probably stayed a little too long at this rest point.

Apparently a 100kmer broke their collarbone just past the water station. The hike-a-bike bit got removed, but there was a plank/bridge ride over a creek that a few people got wet in when they tried to change direction when already on the bridge.

Timing chips/legstraps got provided too. Ah - technology!

My time was worse than last year (1min), but my placing was one better.

*Courtesy of my handy GPS unit. If I'm speeding downhill, all hands on brakes, even though I'm the kind of person to scream "go-faster", do you *really* think I'd take my eyes off the trail to see the kind of speed I'm clocking up. Nuh-uh.

On the road again

I have been packing my stuff (again!) in preparation for a move. This isn't a moving-house type move (which in a way I am still in the midst of - beware the way of the procrastinator), but a move of office.

When I last moved office, about this time last year, I had three boxes of stuff, and was accused of moving too much stuff. So this time I am restricting myself to the same three boxes. Of course in a year I have accumulated lots more 'stuff' - thus it is time to cull.

Someone else in another organisation I have dealings with is also under this blight of time-to-move-office.

They hired movers. The movers picked up the boxes, but decided to have a long lunch along the way.
They had a few lunchtime beverages. They indulged in some illegal substances. They decided to scatter the contents boxes to the four winds, and feeling the pressure from the extra liquid consumed at lunchtime, relieved themselves on the paperwork.

So *that* is why we're moving our office stuff ourselves.