http://www.essjay.com.au/?p=126

Review of Birdman Eating

http://www.essjay.com.au/?p=57

 

One of the things I really like about being fully employed again, is that I can be a bit less strict at the Farmers' Markets.

 

This morning really felt Autumnal, a chilly bite to the air, which made me anticipate harvest weather and fabulous, overlfowing Farmers' Markets.
 

( More? )

We drank this with a 1998 D'Arenberg The High Trellis Cabernet Sauvingnon which was bought when I first started collecting wine with a view to drinking it later.  It was pretty scrummy.

Serves 2

4 Lamb Fillets or Backstraps
1 large (or two small) lemons
Coucous
Tablespoon Pine Nuts
Dried Mint, fresh mint
Cinnamon
Sweet or Smoket Parika.
Plain Yogurt, Fromage Fraise etc to serve


Mix 1 tablespoon of dried mint with cinnamon to taste (about 1tsp if you're not sure) and paprika the same, salt and pepper.
Dry lamb with kitchen towel and coat lightly with mix and rub into flesh. Leave for 30min to 2 hours

Meanwhile, zest lemon, and cut in half. Remove skin and pith and slice out lemon segments.
Place in small bowl with zest and sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

In a small dry frypan dry roast pine nuts until lightly toasted.

Prepare side salad or green vegies to serve with.

At serving time:-
Follow packet instructions to make coucous (I use 1/2 cup dry for two people, but we're not huge coucous fans)
In frying pan, or grill plate, with a little oil, grill lamb quickly approx 4mins total, turning once, over moderate heat. Put in warm place, tented with Aluminium foil to keep warm.

Stir a small knob of butter, or oilive oil through coucous, with pine nuts, lemon and rind and small amount of fresh chopped mint. Use a small bowl or timbale mould and mould on to plates. Add salad and lay lamb across.

Finish with a drizzle of yogurt, chopped mint and a squeeze or wedge of lemon. (we used Holy Goat Fromage Frais)

 I must admit that I have been gorging on the Tweets of Stephen Fry as he films in Indonesia for his new series.   It's somewhat fascinating to read half of a conversation, and to sometimes be intrigued enough to follow through on his followers to get the whole story.  Mostly, his anecdotes, pictures and geekdom are enough for me.

Friday 6th March: Alison Neil married childhood sweetheart and long term boyfriend Ross Calear in Canberra. Ali is JB's 2nd daughter.

We stayed at the Diamant Hotel in New Acton which was a really lovely place. A bit edgy, arty, reasonably priced, and not some bland totem of 5 star hotelness. The building used to be the Public Service Hostel, where new Public Servants who had moved to Canberra lobbed for the first few nights until they found somewhere to live. It sill looks like a hostel, and has a small element of rat runs around the wings, but that really is part of it's charm. Three stories, and spread out, half flights of stairs and surprise corners. The shared bathrooms are gone :-) and they have populated the hotel with interesting bits of art, including wallpaper on the ceiling of many rooms.



We ate at Flint's Restaurant in the hotel on Thursday night. The food was a mix of interestingly presented entree's and pretty standard mains. The restaurants hang off the edge of a lovely courtyard which was perfect for coffee and crosswords the next morning.


Then we got ready for the wedding, I had my hair "done" at a salon also in the hotel complex, on the far side o the courtyard, then I got to watch JB get ready - very dapper! He went off to the burb's to escort his daughter to the wedding. I mucked about for a bit, then headed down to the bar for a drink (or three) and to grab my cab - booked 24 hours beforehand, to get me to the wedding 30mins early.

In the lobby I ran into a friend form work who was in Canberra for a wedding, staying at the Diamant as well. Her wedding started at 4:00pm, mine at 4:30pm. Their taxi hadn't turned up. Our taxi hadn't turned up. One of JB's nieces was waiting too - their cab didn't turn up. At about 20 past 4 the hotel staff managed to get a limi to come to the hotel. My friend graciously offered us the cab as we still had a chance of getting to our ceremony on time, and they had missed theirs.

What the heck is it with taxi's in Canberra? Of course, we get to the reception and it seems that everyone knows that Canberra taxis' don't turn up when they are booked. Great - someone want to tell the stupid tourist then! sheesh! So the limo drive made $60 for driving us over a bridge over the lake. grrr. But at least we go there on time.

Canberra - you should be ashamed of yourselves!


The wedding was touching - and a real "moment" for these two. The reception was at The Lobby and it was a pretty good night as well. The food was fine, not even "for function standard" - it was pretty good. The music was a mix of traditional 3 piece and then a party mix CD.

People danced and laughed and sang.  No one fought.  It was a pretty good night.

 
I was standing at the tram stop this morning when a flat-bed truck went past with two identical, very burnt out Toyota 4WD utes on it.    Took a few seconds to realise that these were probably from the fires.   BIt sobering.

 
Some small things that have highlighted the scope of this tragedy for me

Snr Const Wayne Wilson, Victoria Police Media Spokesman - just reporting on the ABC, sounded so exhausted.  I hear him often on Red Symonds show and know he has a spark, heard him last night and he sounded concerned.  Tonight - he sounded totally exhausted.

Christine Nixon:  Calmly speaking to volunteer and career firefighters,  inspiring and empathetic at the same time.

The big boofy bloke who cried on Kevin Rudd's shoulder.



And some stupid things - the idiotic reporter from Channel 9 who asked the woman who said she had lost friends and neighbours if she knew how they had been killed. I would have thrown a punch.  She maintained her dignity as best she could, told him she didn't want to speak about that and walked away crying, with him following behind apologising and telling her it was ok,  IDIOT!  

I keep expecting the ABC to revert to "normal programming" but this emergency is still with us.  

 



From The Age

 
The Country Fire Authority monitors a giant fire raging in the Bunyip State Forest. Photo: AFP Amazing photo

I've just gone out the back for a bit of cool and the car has been sprinkled with ash and dust.   Not a huge amount, but I'm a bit surprised by it getting this far.

And now I hear sirens.

I guess most of the metro fire brigades are out fighting fires alongside the mostly volunteer CFA ranks.   What would we so without the CFA?  

I have just been for a walk to the corner store to get an ice cream.  It's eerily quiet out there.   For a Saturday night, on a main road, there is no traffic.  Just nothing.

The local ABC radio station that serves Melbourne has gone into "emergency mode" since about 12pm today.  That means that they continually broadcast details about the fires, give warning about fire attacks, continually remind people to initiate their fire plan now, talk to the incident controllers, people in the affected areas, victims of the fires,  local support workers.  

All normal programming ceases until the emergency situation is over.  774 Broadcasts can be heard all over the state, I've listened to it all the way to Adelaide (900km away to the west) and to Canberra (650 in the north/east).  This is a fairly recent change, maybe 5 years old?  It uased to be very difficult to get news about fires unless you were listening to your local (regional) station.

I think it brings home to people the danger of fires, more so than a wrap up of speccy photos on the news. 

The fact that there have been no deaths yet in these fires show me that Victorians are more fire ready than they have been in the past, even if some of them do continue to fight them in thongs!  

 
The strangest thing about the weather satellite map that normally it shows area of rainfall.  Apparently the mass over Gippsland is actually smoke.

Cruel.

www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR023.loop.shtml#skip 

They are amazing helicopters.  Thank god we've got them here at the moment.

 

www.theage.com.au/national/prepare-for-the-worst-authorities-warn-of-ember-attacks-20090207-80ao.html

 
There is a coolish breeze here finally -it's taken forever to kick in.  I opened the back door and the smell of smoke just streamed in (I live 6 km from the CBD).  I've let one beastie out for a bit of a romp, but we've been in all day - staying cool, reading books and conserving power.

In the old money it got up to 115 F in the city today, and over 118 in some of the outer suburbs.

The Security Guys at work have got their hands full, one of the transmission lines from Latrobe Power station has been cut.  They are load shedding, but in the Bayside suburbs thankfully where it's about 8 degrees cooler than in the north, and probably 10 - 15 degrees cooler than in the west.  

They were really well prepared for today, and it could have been much, much worse if they hadn't managed to convince a whole lot of people to stay home, events to be cancelled and instll a strong sense of "this is going to be crap!" on people in marginal areas.   It was after all only one day of over 40 degrees, not the three days in a row we had two weeks ago. Heck even I was stupid enough to think a day trip to Lancefield would be fun.  Good thing I didn't go, as I was planning to go to Redesdale, which has been cut off.

Homes have bee lost in Narre Warren North, which is a dinki-di suburb of Melbourne (but quite a way out).  Listening to the ABC has been quite surreal as the list of warnings rolls on and on.

Hope Dean's and shnetti 's folks are OK.

 
We don't hear much about trams - trains are the biggest problem apparently...anyways...

( Trams... )

Failing to visit Queensland (and my parents) over Xmas, we planned a weekend sortie from the 9th to the 11th.  Hmm.. one week later and it would have been shoulder season.  As it was, in peak season, it was very difficult to find accommodation - everyone wanted us to book for 5 or 7 days *shudder*.  I finally found a place on the beach at Main Beach (there isn't really anywhere to stay in Beenleigh, where  Mum and Dad are except motels, and we don't spend more than half a day with them on average, so being near the beach is the reward for visiting, and main beach is the nearest surf beach to Beenleigh.  It is also quieter, and had a nice bunch of restaurants.

( The place we were staying at.... )My Mum hasn't been very well of late, and Dad is determined to look after her.  He is going mad staring at the four walls he says, so we took them out for a drive down to Northern NSW.  Mum was born in Tweed Heads and Dad's family is from around there, Murwillimbah, Buringbar.  We went to Kingscliff for fish and chips. It's just over the border from the Gold Coast, but is so much less developed, it's quite quaint in the most part.

( Kingscliff for Fish and Chips )

I walked out the front door this morning, planning a walk to the local supermarket, and a tram trip back.  

I was faced with a long queue of cars and a huge plume of water, right in the middle of the tram tracks - so no trams.



Apparently it's been flowing since 3am.   Hmmm...the major watermain for all of northern Melbourne runs under that tram line....better go fill a bucket or two.


...back.  So the good citizens of Northcote are doing as you would expect, they are all rushing to fill up their wheelie bins and buckets and all to cart the precious moisture back to their parched gardens.  

Useful as we are expecting a week of over 35 degree days next week.