Mainly Food and Beverages

After another day of dog sitting for friends, my kittens tell me I have taken too many photos of dogs recently. They are not particularly happy with this development, and so I have tried to make amends.

My cats

I needed a break from work so I walked down through a park to a local cafe. I know people can't do this at the moment in the UK, but the decor of the cafe (and the sentiment) made me think of my sister who loves Audrey Hepburn (and is often the reason I smile). I had a Kerli's bowl, which featured brown rice, edamame, purple cabbage, carrots, seaweed, avocado, sesame dressing, sesame seeds, nigella seeds (whatever they may be) and mushrooms, with extra smoked salmon. It was delicious (and felt healthy; even though it possibly wasn't).

Date night involved a walk through Aranda Bushland to Bolt Bar, where we had cocktails and enjoyed the special offer of two pizzas and a bottle of wine. 

Aranda Bushland

Smoked olive martini

Apple kraken cocktail

Smoked everything pizza

Chilli squid pizza

While attending an event at Kambri ANU, I came across this outdoor exhibition, Here I Am: Art by Great Women. I really like outdoor exhibitions, bringing art into public spaces, and it's interesting to see people interacting with the works with a fresh focus in a less forced environment. There's a separate post on the art itself on my other blog.

It has been a strange year in many ways, but also with respect to climate. After years of drought, we've had a lot of rain in Canberra, and trees and shrubs have grown and thrived. The wisteria at our front door is flowering for a second time this year. It only flowers for about two weeks, so this is a great bonus!

Bentspoke Brewery have set up a 'pontoon bar' on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin. After successfully completing an errand in town at the weekend, we checked it out, and found it to be good. Beers and burgers with friends in the sunshine: what a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

 

And we finished off the week with a walk around Lake Burley Griffin - so here is the obligatory shot of the National Carillon reflected in the water.

Cat Walk

I am dog sitting for some friends. They are away in Sydney and their dogs need to be let out every hour or so to avoid any unfortunate accidents. They're pretty cute office colleagues.

But don't tell my girls I said that.

As well as the actual paid work, I am also working on the upcoming play I am directing. This week I met with a designer and we discussed some of the themes I would like to incorporate including weaving and storytelling; rope and sticks. Here are a couple of my inspirations

Later in the week I got together with the rest of the production team to discuss progress. I'm not saying that because we're all female, we have a better class of food at our production meetings, but...

As usual, I spent most of the rest of my leisure time eating, drinking, walking, and reading.

Chicken Noodle salad at Good Brother Cafe

I encountered this amazing mural at Dickson Shops. It is called In Our Hands by Faith Kerehona and Bohie Palecek. I felt it refers to the recent bush fires, the injured wildlife, and our responsibility towards them and our community. When I got home I managed to find out more about it on-line, where Faith Kerehona wrote,

"We created an artwork funded by cityrenewalcbr about regeneration, hope and bushfire commemoration. Arthropodium flowers bloom from her back, a species which has begun to bloom again after the fires in VIC and NSW. The girl, curled in a vulnerable fetal position, cradles a joey and echidna. She floats in water, the fire encased in her clothing. This mural invites the viewer to consider our collective, shared futures, and what our next steps in addressing climate change should be."

Half of the walking group completed our lap of Lake Burley Griffin and for once I even took photos of the walk itself, rather than just the restorative coffee and breakfast afterwards. 

The lake

Not the lake

The Luminosity at the lake

I've had a lot on my mind, and when that happens, I can't sleep. And when that happens, I need some comfort reading - and when that happens, I turn to Terry Pratchett. 

Beers, Books and Breakfast

We begin this week with a new month, which means an update on the bedside books pile. From last month I have read two (Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days and The Outcasts of Time) and added two (The Alice Network and The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared). So I've still got the same number of books to read as before. 

Bedside books, February

A walk to the shops revealed the new mural in progress on the side of the IGA in Cook. It's looking good so far!

 

We splashed out on a special eight-course-dinner with Mr & Mrs Lovely Bonkers at Chairman & Yip. The ambient lighting made it a touch difficult to take photos, but the food was delicious and the company delightful. The first course was a sushi trio of cold-smoked kingfish, mango and pepperberry; Yellowfin tuna nigiri, ginger and garlic; and Kaisen maki (seafood sushi roll) 

Sushi Trio

The second dish was a dashi gazpacho and butter-poached WA rock lobster with mint oil and crispy burdock.  I had not heard of dashi before, but it turns out it is a clear Japanese broth akin to miso - it certainly made for a very refreshing soup and set that melting lobster off perfectly.

The next dish was probably my favourite of the night: a malt-glazed pork belly (char-siu) with rose-infused brown sugar and Jerusalem artichoke. Mrs Lovely Bonkers doesn't usually enjoy the combination of sweet and savoury foods, but she made an exception here and agreed that this was taste and texture perfection.

The chef brought our twice-cooked crispy duck pancake with spices-infused hoisin sauce to the table where he carved up the duck and then allowed us to assemble it into thin (slightly floury, if I were to make the slightest complaint) pancakes with spring onions and pickled ginger. 

There followed a steamed seafood medley with fermented chilli, glass noodle and shiso. One of the great things about dining out with Him Outdoors is that there are certain types of seafood he doesn't like as they are 'too fishy'. While he will happily eat the lobster, prawns,scallops and calamari, it does mean I get extra helpings of the mussels and the cockles (or pipis as they are known here).

I was obviously distracted by the second bottle of bubbles as I didn't take any pictures of the next course. This was a dish of wok-tossed pork fillet with sweet chilli jam and five spice green pea, and Shantung lamb belly, accompanied by a tofu and mushroom side dish.

Finally dessert was a coconut ice-cream with shredded toasted coconut and sticky black rice. 

The following evening our friend, Original Gravity, was back from his holidays, and he came round to our house with his Christmas present to himself, which we were more than happy to share with him. 

It does exactly what it says on the label

Obviously, my kittens are still gorgeous. They're not sure how to curl up delicately yet and spend rather a lot of their time exhibiting their fluffy bellies, which clearly need smooching. 

Not to be outdone in the gourmet stakes (or should that be steaks?), Him Outdoors served up this concoction of bangers and mash with mushy peas and gravy for Friday night dinner.

And here's a reminder of how the professionals do it, as we went out to breakfast on a very wet Saturday morning at Ona Coffee House. I had the special, which was a crispy fried chicken benedict with wilted spinach, shredded pickled cabbage with Korean spices and snow peas, and Him Outdoors had the courgette, corn and haloumi fritters with chilli scrambled eggs, smoked corn puree, cherry tomato salsa, dill creme fraiche and cress. 

The food is great here, but the standing take-away queue is too close to the diners (especially when the weather makes them huddle together under cover), meaning that one feels encroached upon while trying to eat at a table. And I think a surcharge for a weekend is ridiculous - as is a further one for using a card when the cafe doesn't accept cash - and so we won't be returning while this punitive fee is in place. 

Korean chicken benedict

Fritters

Honestly, we do things other than eat and drink, such as read, and shop for books. I was very pleased with these finds in Canty' s Bookshop (a secondhand bookshop), as they are both on the Family Book Club list.

And now back to the eating and drinking. It was Waitangi Day on Saturday so we celebrated by watching a New Zealand film (What We Do in the Shadows), drinking New Zealand beer (Garage Project, Deep Creek and Liberty Brewing) and eating New Zealand chocolate (Whittaker's Coconut Slab)

I finished the week with a walk around Lake Burley Griffin followed by a coffee with the Walking Crew.

 

Purple Lady at the end of the walk

Before Christmas our friends, The Lovely Bonkers, Dr Kay and Patience Itself, gave us a wonderful outdoor table that they had made themselves. We didn't have the means to collect it from their place at the time, but now Original Gravity arrived with his trailer and so we were able to reposition it to our garden and christen it with a beer. The design of the table top is in homage to the silver fern of New Zealand. It looks wonderful in situ, and the beer tastes great!

I finished it all off by reading in the hammock, under the watchful eye of Melantho who climbed her first tree.