I'm hiding out in the bedroom right now. Hiding from the rabbits.
They have discovered that there is an apple core in the rubbish bin in the bedroom, and they want it. Really really want it.
I captured the fat white one half wedged in the bin itself, shooed her out of the room, and closed the door.
Then I went and put everything back in the bin and turned it right side up. Imagine my surprise when, out of the depths, sprang a slimmer rabbit, looking a bit pissed to have been disturbed. I am scared of Binky when she is annoyed...
Anyway, I captured her, shooed her out of the room to be with her brethren (brethra?? is there a singular?), and closed the door.
I can hear them out there now destroying something, but I lack the energy (and perhaps the emotional fortitude) to go and investigate. I am zen with the destruction.
...Or at least, I will remain so until I go out there and find out what the bastards have done.
They have discovered that there is an apple core in the rubbish bin in the bedroom, and they want it. Really really want it.
I captured the fat white one half wedged in the bin itself, shooed her out of the room, and closed the door.
Then I went and put everything back in the bin and turned it right side up. Imagine my surprise when, out of the depths, sprang a slimmer rabbit, looking a bit pissed to have been disturbed. I am scared of Binky when she is annoyed...
Anyway, I captured her, shooed her out of the room to be with her brethren (brethra?? is there a singular?), and closed the door.
I can hear them out there now destroying something, but I lack the energy (and perhaps the emotional fortitude) to go and investigate. I am zen with the destruction.
...Or at least, I will remain so until I go out there and find out what the bastards have done.
The bunnies chewed through the laptop cable. Again.
And also the DVD player cables again (not really related to this post though).
I will resume blogging when I have gaffa-taped the cable, purchased a new cable (not a 30 dollar fake one from ebay this time: it didn't work out so well last time), or have gotten over my guilt complex about blogging during business hours.*
I have a good story to tell you about a koala. And also, we need to talk about food. Specifically Malaysian food, and Emperor's Cream Puff from Chinatown.
See you soon!
*Dear My Boss, if you are reading this, and have noticed that it is during business hours right now, rest assured that I am sitting on the back step using my phone and I will resume working in approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
And also the DVD player cables again (not really related to this post though).
I will resume blogging when I have gaffa-taped the cable, purchased a new cable (not a 30 dollar fake one from ebay this time: it didn't work out so well last time), or have gotten over my guilt complex about blogging during business hours.*
I have a good story to tell you about a koala. And also, we need to talk about food. Specifically Malaysian food, and Emperor's Cream Puff from Chinatown.
See you soon!
*Dear My Boss, if you are reading this, and have noticed that it is during business hours right now, rest assured that I am sitting on the back step using my phone and I will resume working in approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
I'd like to tell you something.
Actually, I'd like to tell you two things. They are neither life changing, nor are they strictly..erm... vitally important, but I would like you to pay attention nonetheless.
She was kinda cute and all, but her hands looked pretty sticky, so I didn't get too close. She'll probably need root canal in a few years and end up with Type II diabetes, but look how much she's enjoying the lollipop right now!
Actually, I'd like to tell you two things. They are neither life changing, nor are they strictly..erm... vitally important, but I would like you to pay attention nonetheless.
- There is a lolly shop in Berrima. It is called "The Lolly Swagman" and it has a statue out the front of a swagman that scared the shit out of me. Inside is a cornucopia of lollies. None of this "candy" bullshit; I'm talking musk sticks of all colours, fresh marshmallows, boiled lollies, Dutch licorice, German nougat, jaw breakers, red skins, milk bottles, those terrible wedges of gum with the fake tattoo inside. Basically (except for the Dutch and German exotics), the things we used to get in party bags when our parents still loved us and threw us extravagant birthday parties. My mouth waters.
Luckily, when we were in there I was out of cash and I couldn't justify the purchase of $20 worth of sweets on my credit card. This little kid below though, her grandma could justify the purchase of a big fat juicy lollipop, and said kid was pretty damn happy. - I was playing on the tubes just now, and I stumbled on a fantastic website called PuglyPixel. PuglyPixel is Katrina Tan and she sells mad cute stuff in her Etsy store, like little tiny envelopes and novelty heart-shaped doilies (ie. the kind of things I impulsively buy when I'm trawling the internet late at night). But, she also has a great section of web graphics/blogging freebies and cool tutorials. You may start seeing some of these freebies around from time to time... just sayin'... *wink*
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| I think I scared her, but she didn't cry or anything...so maybe it was all good... |
She was kinda cute and all, but her hands looked pretty sticky, so I didn't get too close. She'll probably need root canal in a few years and end up with Type II diabetes, but look how much she's enjoying the lollipop right now!
The weather here has been lovely this week, and I've been walking a lot. Walk walk walk. I think I'm ready to talk about the pork knuckle now. I wouldn't call myself a knuckle expert, but I have to be honest and admit that I've eaten a decent amount of knuckle in my time.
First a warning in case any of you are jewish or islamic...there's a lot of talk of pork in what follows. There, I said it.
The first time I ate pork knuckle was about 18 months ago, so I have to honest and admit that I've probably eaten more than my share of knuckle in a very short period of time. It's very tasty, you see.
The knuckle is slow cooked, much like a lamb shank. Sometimes it is boiled before being baked. As a result, a well cooked knuckle is juicy and tender, with meat that falls off the bone with merely a poke of a fork, and requires little-to-no effort to masticate.
The beauty of a good knuckle is not so much the knuckle alone. It's the things that join it on the plate. I love side dishes. Nom nom.
Firstly, there's the big ham steak. Though I'm not normally a fan of ham, especially big fat slabs of it, the way it is cooked on a Barvarian platter makes it taste like a big delicious piece of bacon. Mmmn, bacon.
There are usually two kinds of sausage. One is white. The other is red. That is all I know about them, and knowing a bit about the art of sausage making, that's all I need/want to know about them.
At one end of the plate is the sauerkraut. Everyone knows it's not German unless it involves a big pile of fermented cabbage... I'm not a huge fan of sauerkraut. I mean, I'm happy to take some for the team, and do my part, but luckily for me, at the other end of the plate is a big pile of blaukraut. Oh. My.
Blaukraut is braised red cabbage. It's sweet and caramel-tasting, but savoury at the same time. I'm fairly sure that cooking it involves lard and red wine. Those are both pluses in my book.
The foundation of the knuckle though, the sponge for the juices, the anchor of the sausages, is a big pile of mashed potato. Smooth, creamy mashed potato.
Each pile of food is a combination of textures and flavours, which when finished off with a dab of mustard, place me firmly in food heaven. I really like Barvarian food. It shows on my waistline.
At some point in the meal, my friends started to complain about the lack of vegetable matter, but I assured them, "it's only one night. Once you've seen what a week of German food will do to your digestive system, you'll never worry about this one night, ever again." I'm not sure they were convinced. And anyway, I told them, there are vegetables: potato is a vegetable, as is cabbage, and look, there are little green things for garnish." I think I heard Lauren crying, "Salad!" in her sleep that night...
It didn't stop us though. We made it through. Even the rosti I'd ordered on the side disappeared. The bread covered in melted gouda too.
Let's not talk about dessert.
First a warning in case any of you are jewish or islamic...there's a lot of talk of pork in what follows. There, I said it.
The first time I ate pork knuckle was about 18 months ago, so I have to honest and admit that I've probably eaten more than my share of knuckle in a very short period of time. It's very tasty, you see.
The knuckle is slow cooked, much like a lamb shank. Sometimes it is boiled before being baked. As a result, a well cooked knuckle is juicy and tender, with meat that falls off the bone with merely a poke of a fork, and requires little-to-no effort to masticate.
The beauty of a good knuckle is not so much the knuckle alone. It's the things that join it on the plate. I love side dishes. Nom nom.
Firstly, there's the big ham steak. Though I'm not normally a fan of ham, especially big fat slabs of it, the way it is cooked on a Barvarian platter makes it taste like a big delicious piece of bacon. Mmmn, bacon.
There are usually two kinds of sausage. One is white. The other is red. That is all I know about them, and knowing a bit about the art of sausage making, that's all I need/want to know about them.
At one end of the plate is the sauerkraut. Everyone knows it's not German unless it involves a big pile of fermented cabbage... I'm not a huge fan of sauerkraut. I mean, I'm happy to take some for the team, and do my part, but luckily for me, at the other end of the plate is a big pile of blaukraut. Oh. My.
Blaukraut is braised red cabbage. It's sweet and caramel-tasting, but savoury at the same time. I'm fairly sure that cooking it involves lard and red wine. Those are both pluses in my book.
The foundation of the knuckle though, the sponge for the juices, the anchor of the sausages, is a big pile of mashed potato. Smooth, creamy mashed potato.
Each pile of food is a combination of textures and flavours, which when finished off with a dab of mustard, place me firmly in food heaven. I really like Barvarian food. It shows on my waistline.
At some point in the meal, my friends started to complain about the lack of vegetable matter, but I assured them, "it's only one night. Once you've seen what a week of German food will do to your digestive system, you'll never worry about this one night, ever again." I'm not sure they were convinced. And anyway, I told them, there are vegetables: potato is a vegetable, as is cabbage, and look, there are little green things for garnish." I think I heard Lauren crying, "Salad!" in her sleep that night...
It didn't stop us though. We made it through. Even the rosti I'd ordered on the side disappeared. The bread covered in melted gouda too.
Let's not talk about dessert.
Tall and proud, the stalks of my poppy,
Growing green and strong and ready to bloom,
The first flowers I'd nourished from a seed to a bud
And then...
Demolished, by creatures small and hoppy.
Don't even get me started on the effing pansies.
Growing green and strong and ready to bloom,
The first flowers I'd nourished from a seed to a bud
And then...
Demolished, by creatures small and hoppy.
Don't even get me started on the effing pansies.
THE END.
You like what I did there with the title? Yeah, I thought so.
On Saturday Amy and I drove to the Southern Highlands to eat pork knuckle and drink wine with our lovely friend Lauren, who is bound by employment to that strange and foreign land.
After a ..well.. a snafu which involved us heading toward Sutherland on the Princes Highway, instead of Southern Highlands on the M5, and then another...well..another snafu when we didn't realise that Mittagong had finished and Bowral had started, we made it to a cafe in the main street, Lauren came and retrieved us, I spent too much money in a kitchenware store, and all was well.
For dinner, we ate an entire meal composed of pork, and bits thereof. It was quite astonishing. My stomach is still unsure of what to make of it, 24 hours later. It feels a bit like our holiday in Berlin all over again. The pork knuckle, which was tender and succulent, and absolutely enormous, warrants a post of its own, so I hope I have piqued your interest.
Today, in search of something for breakfast which did not contain pork, we drove down the road to Berrima. I had never heard of Berrima, but I would like to move there now. As long as I could buy one of the very lovely old houses, and employ a nice gardener to look after it all.
We ended up at The Magpie Cafe, next to the "longest continuously licensed pub in Australia." It was very picturesque: cherry blossoms and vintage cars all over the place. It was also beside a store selling "Australia's biggest and finest range of knitwear." Bold claims indeed on both counts.
I got bored waiting for the waiter to take our order, and became distracted by the biggest, fattest, roly poly tabby cat I have ever seen. His name was Oscar and I played with him for a long time. The waiter had come and gone by the time I made it back to our table.
In spite of my resolve to avoid pork, I'm fairly sure my ricotta hotcakes and their accompanying banana were not entirely what my body needed. Valiantly, I made it through though. At least I did avoid pork entirely, unlike Amy who had french toast with maple syrup and bacon. No judgment here.
We went to a shop selling tea and organic jam. It was a bad idea. So was the lolly shop. But to really understand the excess of my weekend, you really do need to revisit later in the week to see the pork knuckle.
Oh sweet jesus, the pork knuckle.
On Saturday Amy and I drove to the Southern Highlands to eat pork knuckle and drink wine with our lovely friend Lauren, who is bound by employment to that strange and foreign land.
After a ..well.. a snafu which involved us heading toward Sutherland on the Princes Highway, instead of Southern Highlands on the M5, and then another...well..another snafu when we didn't realise that Mittagong had finished and Bowral had started, we made it to a cafe in the main street, Lauren came and retrieved us, I spent too much money in a kitchenware store, and all was well.
Before dinner and after wine, we spoke to Helen. She was drunk and surrounded by boys from Perth, in Canada. It didn't sound like a bad deal all told...
For dinner, we ate an entire meal composed of pork, and bits thereof. It was quite astonishing. My stomach is still unsure of what to make of it, 24 hours later. It feels a bit like our holiday in Berlin all over again. The pork knuckle, which was tender and succulent, and absolutely enormous, warrants a post of its own, so I hope I have piqued your interest.
Today, in search of something for breakfast which did not contain pork, we drove down the road to Berrima. I had never heard of Berrima, but I would like to move there now. As long as I could buy one of the very lovely old houses, and employ a nice gardener to look after it all.
We ended up at The Magpie Cafe, next to the "longest continuously licensed pub in Australia." It was very picturesque: cherry blossoms and vintage cars all over the place. It was also beside a store selling "Australia's biggest and finest range of knitwear." Bold claims indeed on both counts.
I got bored waiting for the waiter to take our order, and became distracted by the biggest, fattest, roly poly tabby cat I have ever seen. His name was Oscar and I played with him for a long time. The waiter had come and gone by the time I made it back to our table.
In spite of my resolve to avoid pork, I'm fairly sure my ricotta hotcakes and their accompanying banana were not entirely what my body needed. Valiantly, I made it through though. At least I did avoid pork entirely, unlike Amy who had french toast with maple syrup and bacon. No judgment here.
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| No judgment here either. |
We went to a shop selling tea and organic jam. It was a bad idea. So was the lolly shop. But to really understand the excess of my weekend, you really do need to revisit later in the week to see the pork knuckle.
Oh sweet jesus, the pork knuckle.
Something only marginally short of a miracle has occurred!
A flower bud! A flower bud grown from a seed!! Grown from a seed by me!!!
I shall await further developments with baited breath!
A flower bud! A flower bud grown from a seed!! Grown from a seed by me!!!
I shall await further developments with baited breath!
I like stuff. I like making stuff..
Lately, I've started making my own candles because my addiction to Ecoya metro candles was starting to get pricey. Turns out making a candle involves a lot of shit. Thermometers, wick things, clothes pegs etc. It was taking up half the kitchen, and my other half, though he does not cook, was starting to get antsy.
So I organised. I tidied it all up. The candle making supplies. The terrarium equipment. The various jewellery-making equipment. Pliers, wires, beads. Tidied.
But then I had to do something with the laundry, because friends were coming to stay. And I was rushed.
And now my desk is covered in laundry and there are jewellery-making supplies in the kitchen.
It's a slippery slope.
Lately, I've started making my own candles because my addiction to Ecoya metro candles was starting to get pricey. Turns out making a candle involves a lot of shit. Thermometers, wick things, clothes pegs etc. It was taking up half the kitchen, and my other half, though he does not cook, was starting to get antsy.
So I organised. I tidied it all up. The candle making supplies. The terrarium equipment. The various jewellery-making equipment. Pliers, wires, beads. Tidied.
But then I had to do something with the laundry, because friends were coming to stay. And I was rushed.
And now my desk is covered in laundry and there are jewellery-making supplies in the kitchen.
It's a slippery slope.
On Friday night I did something reprehensible involving a church yard, an egg flip, and the biggest, greenest, spongiest patch of moss you've ever seen.
I spent most of Saturday in search of sphagnum moss and horticultural charcoal.
Before I found moss and charcoal, I found cake tins, a spatula, marbles, plastic animals and aluminium foil, so it's lucky we found the moss and charcoal when we did...Although I'm pretty sure I can find a use for those marbles.
Anyway, with my search fulfilled, I got down to business. But not before I whipped up this cheesy graphic:
I followed the terradctl tutorial. Didn't follow it very well, I don't think. Turns out, it's not as easy as they make it sound. Also, turns out that playing with moss, dirt, and charcoal in the kitchen is what is normally considered a bad idea. Live and learn.
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| Terra Zebralis ("Moss Zebra") is a rare and unique species that lives entirely on moss and air. |
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| The Deertelope suffers from an identity crisis. Left to mull over his strange appearance in solace, he is a creature of melancholy in the moss. |
Everyone's got hobbies, right?
You may have noticed things have been all quiet on the gardening front.
See, what happened was that my happy little seedlings- the lettuce, the spinach, the basil- they were getting too big for their seedling green house. Fights were breaking out. Things were getting rowdy. People were getting hurt.
I transferred them to a new green house. A green house made out of a plastic box with soil in it, two wire coat hangers, some miniature pegs, a sheet of plastic, and a bulldog clip.
Turns out it wasn't bunny-proof..
So I took a break from my garden. It wasn't really working out for me anyway. I'm just shit with plants. It's ok, I'm cool with that.
The only problem now, is that somehow (I'm not even sure how), I have become entranced by terrariums! Maybe it's easier to keep something alive when it's in a jar?? I've had fish before and they were mostly ok. When I was younger, a friend had a giant terrarium at the front door. It was glass with a cork stopper, and it was shaped like a pig..and the stopper was the pig's nose. It was hideous and it was fantastic! I want to join that club.
Except for the hideous part...
I'm going to start my adventure with the moss DIY kit from terradctl. I am in love. I need to acquire a small plastic cow, somehow. I'll probably also require a trip to IKEA to get a glass container...woot! This prospective hobby is getting better by the minute!! Athough, I'm not sure how my beloved feels about the jewellery-making enterprise which has taken over the coffee table. Or the candle supplies in the kitchen...
Beach terrarium with an air plant. It only lives on air: maybe even I could keep it growing!
Maybe I should start small...
I hope that everyone I know like terrariums as much as I do. Hello Christmas!
They can't be that hard to keep alive, right?
See, what happened was that my happy little seedlings- the lettuce, the spinach, the basil- they were getting too big for their seedling green house. Fights were breaking out. Things were getting rowdy. People were getting hurt.
I transferred them to a new green house. A green house made out of a plastic box with soil in it, two wire coat hangers, some miniature pegs, a sheet of plastic, and a bulldog clip.
Turns out it wasn't bunny-proof..
So I took a break from my garden. It wasn't really working out for me anyway. I'm just shit with plants. It's ok, I'm cool with that.
The only problem now, is that somehow (I'm not even sure how), I have become entranced by terrariums! Maybe it's easier to keep something alive when it's in a jar?? I've had fish before and they were mostly ok. When I was younger, a friend had a giant terrarium at the front door. It was glass with a cork stopper, and it was shaped like a pig..and the stopper was the pig's nose. It was hideous and it was fantastic! I want to join that club.
Except for the hideous part...
I'm going to start my adventure with the moss DIY kit from terradctl. I am in love. I need to acquire a small plastic cow, somehow. I'll probably also require a trip to IKEA to get a glass container...woot! This prospective hobby is getting better by the minute!! Athough, I'm not sure how my beloved feels about the jewellery-making enterprise which has taken over the coffee table. Or the candle supplies in the kitchen...
Beach terrarium with an air plant. It only lives on air: maybe even I could keep it growing!
Maybe I should start small...
I hope that everyone I know like terrariums as much as I do. Hello Christmas!
They can't be that hard to keep alive, right?
