Well, that was fun. We didn’t get much trip preparation done, but thanks to the Snook my birthday weekend was one to remember. It started Saturday morning with a trip to Bills in Surry Hills for breakfast. We met up with Fiona (and her Mystery Visitor) for scrambled eggs and coffee in the sunshine. Afterwards I headed to Glebe for my first appointment with my new stylist, Desiree at Partners Hair Workshop. She was fantastic! I’m used to salon visits taking forever, but Desiree had me out the door in under ninety minutes. (And that’s including foils, cut, and blow dry!) Back at home, the Snook was preparing for my birthday barbecue… right before the heavens burst. So the festivities were all indoor. But no matter; we had Wii! Many, many games of tennis, fishing, cow racing, and boxing ensued. We also had a veritable cadre of bloggers amongst the guests, including Amy, Kenya, Bex, Helen, Andrew, and Major. We had salads, chicken, fish, SO. MUCH. CHEESE., chips, bread and truffle butter, and really just everything lovely. The Snook made a rich low-carb chocolate cake and Andrew countered with some decidedly high-carb (but sooo worth it!) fancy cupcakes. As you might imagine, the Snook and I spent most of Sunday just in recovery mode. We had lunch in Chinatown with his mother and sister, but otherwise I spent the day working on my cardy. The other puffy sleeve is now finished! I’ve moved on to the embroidery, as you can see here. I’ve got til Saturday to put it all together and finish it off. I think I’m actually gonna make it!
Tag: food
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Weekend Update
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Did somebody say… PUFFY SLEEVE?
It appears that my meticulous calculations have worked! The first puffy sleeve is finished and it’s just about as perfect as I could’ve hoped for. I need to give both pieces a good ironing before I sew it in, but I’m 95% sure this pattern is a keeper. You can see how it looks on my arm here. Now I just need to knit another one and finish the thing off! Easy peasy.
And that? That’s the amazing dinner the Snook cooked me tonight. (Vegetarians LOOK AWAY NOW.) It was a low-carb carnivore’s feast. Starting from the bottom, there’s a bed of mashed cauliflower surrounding a Scotch fillet steak wrapped in bacon, with fried duck’s liver on top. And what’s that funny white golf-ball-thingy? Oh, it’s truffle butter. (Seriously, I could eat a bowl of that stuff.) The sauce is a reduction of sherry and homemade veal stock, and there’s a side of green beans amandine. We washed it down with a few glasses of an excellent Australian red.
You know, so far my 30’s really don’t suck!
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Overeating
This Ask MetaFilter question about the way we define our relationship with food really struck home for me. Parts of the question (and the ensuing comments) could have been written by my subconscious. I know for a fact that when I was most successful with Weight Watchers, I was thinking about food *constantly*. It was something I focused on nearly every minute of the day. I also know that the reason I’ve put back on a little bit weight in the past few months (and the reason I’ve stopped going to WW) is because I got tired of maintaining that focus. I got tired of tracking every bit of food. I got tired of taking special dishes to potluck dinners so I could avoid everyone else’s fatty (and delicious) contributions. I got tired of denying myself things. Of course, none of this is how it’s supposed to work. WW was supposed to help me deal with these underpinning emotional issues so that I wouldn’t have to obsess about food. But instead it became just another test, a system that I could game by being clever. So while I’d say WW was successful in getting off the weight, it didn’t help me deal with why I had gained it in the first place. (And yes, I realize completely that going back to Atkins is just grasping for another set of rules I can manipulate.) I dunno. That anonymous poster got me thinking. Maybe I need to try an entirely different approach…
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Edible Chess
Edible Chess. That is neat!
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National Pig Day
How did I miss that today was National Pig Day? The Snook and I shall have to celebrate tomorrow. And maybe Saturday and Sunday. It shall be a Pig Weekend!
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Me and Bill!
We’re at the launch of Bill Granger’s new cookbook. He’s so nice, and the food is wonderful! More when we get home…
Later: What a lovely evening! We were at the Hickson Road Bistro at the Sydney Theatre for this gleebooks event. Bill gave a great talk about his non-standard culinary career, and we enjoyed three courses from the cookbook. The highlight for me was the entree: a pea, mint, and feta salad. Divine! He also had a question-and-answer session, and most of the (old) people were asking boring things about the slow food movement and why we should all buy organic, blah blah blah. I turned to the Snook: “I’m about to embarrass you.” I put my hand up. “This is a bit frivolous, but it’s a hypothetical we like to discuss at nice restaurants. If SBS ever wanted to do an Australian version of Iron Chef, would you be on it and who would you want to face?” HE LOVED MY QUESTION. Apparently he’s a big fan of the show, and he started talking about how the most recent episode was on “whale tongue.” He said he’d probably be too intimidated to go on, because he doesn’t see himself as being as “cheffy” as some of the other professionals. He’d want to go up against “someone he could beat.” Later he came around to autograph our cookbook and have a chat. The Snook asked him about the “artisanal beer movement” while I requested this photo. I think it’s about time for our long-awaited pilgrimage to bills in Surry Hills…
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Eyeballs
Yeah, that’s a lot of eyeballs. Forty-two, to be exact. (I didn’t even plan that.) What’s even worse is, I actually threw out more than a third of the peanut butter mixture I made. I really should measure when I start these projects…
Oh, and if you catch us during daylight hours, you may see this year’s special Halloween Rasterbation on CouchCam. It’s the Wolfman!
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Big Mac Pumpkin
Big Mac Pumpkin. That’s awesome!
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Deep Fried Coke
In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s now getting on Autumn. And Autumn in the Midwestern US means the county fair. And the county fair means a bewildering array of deep-fried foods, many of them on sticks. This one isn’t on a stick, but man, I’d give it a try: Deep Fried Coca-Cola. Only in America…
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CAKE!
I walked up to Giordano after work last night to buy some new pants, and as I left there I found myself walking past “85C”, the coffee-and-cake shop that opened last month. (Grab Your Fork has a review.) I figured “What the hell?” and went in. I asked the guy for two pieces of their signature cake. “Uh… you mean the most popular?” Sure, as long as it’s good. I left with “strawberry cardina” and “Black Forest chocolate cake” wrapped up in an adorable little box. After dinner, the Snook and I embarked on a taste test. I think the strawberry is the definite winner. Very fluffy and light, and pretty much as close as I’ve gotten to a strawberry shortcake over here. The Black Forest cake was disappointing though. If you got a bite that included a cherry, it was divine. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of cherries, so the majority of it was just chocolate with whipped cream. And that bit wasn’t great. It had that Michel’s Patisserie quality of making you feel like you’re eating nothing but sugar and fat whipped with air. There wasn’t a lot of flavor to the non-cherry bit, is what I’m sayin’. (Of course, the Snook got to this one before me, so it’s entirely plausible that he surreptitiously ate more than his share of cherries.) Anyway, two pics:
