Canberra’s weather it coming good. We’re getting days >30 °C and tonight we had a thunderstorm and a good amount of rain.
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To celebrate I had salmon and potato gems 
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Coincidentally it’s Eddie Rabbitt’s birthday. You all remember one of his hits…I love a rainy night!
It’s finally starting to feel like Summer. Yesterday and today we had maximum temperatures >30 °C. It’s just a pity it was so dry. The weather would be perfect if we had more humidity and some rain.
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs I spent today Spring cleaning for a rental inspection this week. I used my new Magic Bullet to prepare the eggs with a little cream. I served it on quinoa and flaxseed toast. I really needed a good mug of coffee after another poor sleep.
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This evening I enjoyed an almost tropical meal of salmon with mango coleslaw. The coleslaw has red cabbage, red onions, carrot, coriander, mint and parsley.
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This afternoon I received a visit from a friendly magpie.
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This morning while walking I captured an image of the trees down Benjamin Way. Using Diptic I posted to Instagram a comparison of the Winter and Spring images. Canberra truly has the best expression of seasons in Australia with true demarcation between each of the four seasons. While it is beautiful I miss the simplicity of the wet season, dry season and build up in Subequatorial Australia.
I’m quite enjoying featuring my Instagram images in my blog. It’s such a versatile way of sharing images. If you have an iPhone or Android device I highly recommend it. Coupled with the Evernote Food it’s a great way of keeping track of my food likes and dislikes.
Before we get to the food images I just wanted to write about Schoolies week. Schoolies began when I was at high school. I attended Brisbane Grammar School between 1978 and 1982. I remember as a junior, the senior boys in fifth and sixth form talking about spending a week down the Gold Coast (Wikipedia article) for a long “never ending” drinking and sex session. I remember when it first started it was basically for the GPS group of schools, i.e., the Great Public Schools in Brisbane. It also included the corresponding girls schools like Brisbane Girls Grammar School.
So yes I was one of “those” private school boys. That said, I wasn’t a drinker and didn’t really mix with others except for sport. I represented the school in swimming and still water life saving. Academically I won the Biology prize in fifth and sixth form. Hence my desire that if I couldn’t study medicine I would have studied zöology (although I knew I’d never be any good because I couldn’t grow a bushy beard. You see at the time all the famous zöologists were bearded men of great stature.) Somehow I managed to be popular enough amongst my peers and teachers to be elected a school prefect. Okay enough showing off. When I was in sixth form my friends were all talking about going to schoolies week, getting drunk, having lots of sex and just carousing. I had other plans. I finished school on the Friday, attended the valedictory dinner and then the following Monday started work at Queensland Medical Laboratory as a technical aid. I cleaned benches, faeces sieves and kept stocks of stuff up for the technicians and scientists. I also worked in the media kitchen making media for bacteriology. I heard about the “good time” my mates were having but I was having a better time making money and learning the skills needed to become a pathologist.
Now in 2012 my eldest daughter, viz., Miss17 has attended schoolies week. I woke up yesterday morning to the news that tragically a 17 year old girl from Brisbane had fallen to her death from a high rise balcony. My heart sank. I checked my telephones for missed calls and messages. Blank. Phew. Relief. Then a feeling of overwhelming despair for the parents of the girl who died.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-23/support-for-schoolies-after-balcony-death/4389854?section=qld
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-23/school-in-shock-after-high-rise-tragedy/4389296
I’ve been conscious of not being an annoying father, so I waited until Tuesday morning to send my first text message just to see that Miss17 was okay. After that we had a short Kik chat each morning. It’s certainly reassured me to maintain just some contact without imposing myself on Miss17.
Some friends have asked why I would be supportive of my daughter attending schoolies. I know Miss17. She’s a mature young woman. I know she’ll look after herself and she’ll look after her friends. I have faith in Miss17′s ability to do the best thing in any situation. Schoolies has now become a huge event as a rite of passage with school leavers spending a week in major tourist spots like the Gold Coast, Bali, Byron Bay and Airlie Beach. It’s also created a by-product, viz., toolies. Toolies are older men who prey on vulnerable girls for sex.
As for Miss11 and Miss15 they’ve been in Geelong this week for the National Club Championships. Their team, Delta Brisbane was again named best club and Miss11′s WAGL5 came first while Miss15′s WAGL10 came second. Miss15 didn’t compete with the team because of an ankle injury so she competed as an individual on the uneven bars and beam. She seems pretty happy. She’ll be back to school on Monday and completing examinations.
Before we get to the food images, I wanted to share a YouTube clip that has taken off here in Australia as a safety message.
Dumb ways to die
To see the images more clearly and to read the comments from Instagram users please click on the image.
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On Monday I had a nice quiche from the Urban Bean Espresso Bar. This is a Camembert, onion and sun dried tomato quiche. I had it with a mug of Earl Grey tea.
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That evening I roasted a chicken thigh on top of a piece of Multigrain Vienna loaf and served it on top of some freshly made coleslaw. I also added a dollop of Buderim ginger lemon and lime marmalade.
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For breakfasts I’ve gone back to a smoothie for ease, convenience and as an attempt to control my weight.
Iced coffee banana smoothie with an egg white.
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That piece of public art near my office that I wrote about last week is taking shape.
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On Tuesday one of our work mates had her last day before her wedding this weekend. The relevant section put on a curry lunch. Here are the slow cookers doing their thing.
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The curry was really good. On my plate are three types, lamb, beef and chicken. There is also some yoghurt, bread and rice.
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That evening I only needed a small dinner. I “poached” some salmon by placing it skin side down in a hot fry pan and adding a lid. I turned the heat down and then waited five minutes to turn the heat off. In the pan I also had a piece of sourdough bread that had some blue cheese on it. I grew a little addicted to the cheese and bread this week. I need to stop this now.
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The piece of public art had more work done on it Wednesday morning.
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When I got to the post office there was a parcel waiting for me.
It’s nice they had Christmas wrapping on the parcel.
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After last week’s Friday Fries (that actually sounds better than Friday Chips) with the Cascade Lime Quench, I wanted another Lime Quench. This time with a house made sausage roll from the Urban Bean Espresso Bar.
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When I got home I unpacked my parcel. It is a Magic Bullet®. I had one of these when I lived in Darwin. I’ve been feeling a little down lately so I thought I’d buy a kitchen appliance to make me feel happier, especially with Summer coming. The Magic Bullet® is great for crushed ice drinks and for smoothies. While I’ve been making by breakfast banana smoothies with my trusty Bamix® wand and a jug, the Magic Bullet® is quicker and easier. It is also fantastic for making small quantities of things like whipped cream.
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Dinner Wednesday night. Roast chicken thighs on sourdough with blue cheese served with asparagus and broccolini.
This tasted really good. I roasted at a low heat for an hour. The bread became really crispy and cheesy. It was delicious with the chicken skin and the tender moist thigh meat. I prepared the chicken with salt, pepper, chilli flakes and Tabasco sauce.
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On Thursday morning I pulled all the bits and pieces out of the dishwater and tried my new Magic Bullet®. Breakfast caramel coffee banana smoothie made with my new Magic Bullet®
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When I got to work and went to get my mail, I saw men on the piece of public art. I still don’t know what it is. There’s lots of speculation in the office.
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This is what I tweeted through Instagram for lunch. “Cheesy bacon pie. For store bought this was a really good pie. Chunky tender beef and visible bacon. #winner”
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Extreme naughtiness. Chicken thighs roasted on blue cheesy sourdough with potato gems and washed down with Agrum and minted ice #MagicBullet
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On Friday morning I tweeted No work on new #publicart today. #igerscanberra
I did see men the afternoon before pouring a lot of concrete into the tubing.
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You may be aware the Tasmanian devil is currently endangered because of the Devil facial tumour disease. This is a pretty sad image of a poor little devil who is suffering from the disease
If you’re not familiar with the Tasmanian devil you may know it better from the Looney Tunes cartoons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Devil_%28Looney_Tunes%29
Anyway, the connection with me is my love of Ginger beer, especially Bundaberg Ginger beer.
For lunch, the Urban Bean Espresso Bar does not stock Bundaberg brewed drinks but it does stock Cascade beverages.
So I had a Cascade Ginger beer and a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich.
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A tray of vanilla slices for a big boss briefing this afternoon. We called it “Operation Vanilla Slice”. One of my work mates used the recipe I posted previously at http://garydavidlum.com/2012/10/21/vanilla-slice-from-work/
These were pretty good and it really helped the briefing.
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Last night I cooked a pork cutlet. I put a piece of sourdough in a square pyrex container and soaked it in XXXX Gold beer. I laid the cutlet over the top and cooked in a slow oven for an hour. I served it with potato gems. The pork was surprisingly tender and not dry.
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So today I had my plans disrupted because of the loss of my landline on Thursday. I’ve blogged about that here. The technician (Grant Munro) was very helpful and found a loose wire at the exchange. Once fixed I was back on-line but it was still too late to do the things I wanted to do this morning.
This afternoon I went to a wedding of a work mate. She’s the one who we had lunch for on Tuesday. She looked great and it was a beautiful ceremony at Lanyon Homestead. I got lost because that’s how I roll. I am really very poor with directions and I should have spent much more time looking at a map. What I didn’t realise was that Tharwa Drive forks and remains Tharwa Drive. Friends at work joke that the North side is Mordor yet all I could mumble as I was driving lost was “this must be Mordor”. When I arrived my friends laughed.
I know I could have captured images of the bride and the wedding party but my friend Nat was there with her camera and I figured I could get a nice photograph from her later. Nat is also a photographer. Check out her site at http://www.kecozaphotography.com.au/
I was more interested in the car Nat and Ursula arrived in. It’s a Corvette which Ursula’s husband recently imported from the US.
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When I got home this afternoon I had to complete a Twitter challenge from Thursday. In March this year I posted an image to satisfy the same challenge from TheBernieBrand and PeskyPippi
You can see the link here http://garydavidlum.com/2012/03/04/yep-peskypippi-and-theberniebrand-i-got-whipped-cream/
This is a result of Pip’s page of the Whipped Cream Club http://peskypippi.com/2012/02/11/got-whipped-cream-i-dare-ya/
The details of the twitter thread from Thursday is here https://twitter.com/garydlum/status/272220390628143104
So here is me sucking on a can of whipped cream
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Tonight I had a pork cutlet. I served it with coleslaw that I made this afternoon. It tasted pretty good.
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So that’s it for another week. A long post I know. I could have split it up and next week I might do that.
Mentioned places and products
Bundaberg is where my mother and her parents spent many years owning and working on sugar cane farms. There’s even a street named after them, viz., Que Hee Street. Google map http://goo.gl/maps/32wOb
Buderim Ginger
I love ginger. Even if I wasn’t Chinese I think I’d love ginger. I also love ginger beer. I remember as a kid Mum taught me how to make our own ginger beer. I remember bottles exploding and making an alcoholic batch or two. They were good times.
http://www.buderimginger.com/home/
http://www.buderimginger.com/home/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_60&product_id=16
Bundaberg ginger beer is my favourite. It uses sugar from cane farms in Bundaberg.
http://www.bundaberg.com/info/product_range/ginger_beer/
XXXX Gold is the beer my grand parents drank and it’s the only beer I’ve ever tried. It is also a sponsor of the greatest rugby league (representative) team in the universe.
http://www.xxxx.com.au/
Magic Bullet®
http://www.buythebullet.com/
I bought my Magic Bullet® from Deals direct
http://www.dealsdirect.com.au/original-magic-bullet/
Bamix
Of all the kitchen wands, I like the Bamix the best.
http://www.bamix.com.au/
Agrum
This is a drink produced by Schweppes.
http://www.schweppesaustralia.com.au/Our-Brands/Schweppes/Agrum-Collection.aspx
Tasmanian devil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_devil
Devil facial tumour disease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease
Lanyon Homestead
Google map http://goo.gl/maps/YVpNA
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia but I did learn how to carve a turkey from a Thanksgiving site.
5 Turkey Carving Tips – From Armand, The Butcher
From Saturday at 1045 AEDT
Okay an update. At 0830 AEDT a Telstra technician, Grant, called my mobile telephone and said he’d check the exchange. At 1030 AEDT Grant called and said he’d found a loose wire and everything should be fixed. Guess what, it is! I have my line, ADSL and wifi. Grant called at 1040 AEDT just to make sure everything was working. This is Good. Thank you Telstra.
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From Thursday night
I need to rant. I got home from work and went through my usual routine of turning on my modem/router so the home wifi would start to work. I turned on the iMac only to discover that there was no signal. The modem showed a problem with the telephone LEDs. The telephone line was dead. I called Telstra (the main provider in Australia) and after a couple of failed attempts of calling the fault line I spoke with a man who was trying to be helpful but his accent was very thick and I think my strine was also too much for him too.
After 30 minutes of line testing and me pulling out devices and cables from sockets in the walls he determined there was a problem he couldn’t work out. He’d send a technician as soon as possible. I had high hopes someone would come tonight, after all I’m a loyal customer. The earliest someone can come and see me is Saturday. No specific time could be provided although it’s likely to be the morning.
I vented on Twitter and Facebook which always helps. I was interested in the number of people who no longer rely on a landline and seem to be happy with wireless broadband.
I’ll let you know how things go…
Thanks to everyone who made contact about last week’s CPAP post asking for updates as I go. Well this week was much the same as the first week. Interrupted nights and a feeling of being more tired than normal. It made the days at work long and tedious. The abrasion lesion on my occiput is healing in that I think a callous is forming.
On Tuesday night I flew to Brisbane for a Wednesday meeting. I thought about taking the machine but in the end didn’t. I was just too busy and the extra weight in a bag wasn’t something I needed to focus on with so much on my mind.
I thought for this post I’d tell a story by Instagram (Check out my profile at http://instagram.com/garydlum). I know they’re mostly food images but then what else would you expect.
If you click on the images you’ll also be able to see the Instagram comments.
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On Monday at lunch I had a quiche. It was a ham, cheese and shallot quiche. I like quiche and no matter what anyone says, men do eat quiche. The quiches I buy for lunch come from the Urban Bean Espresso Bar in Scarborough House and the cost $4.90 each. I enjoyed my quiche with a mug of Canadian ice wine tea.
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On Monday evening I had some left over beef mince with the seed mustard and XXXX Gold beer. I wrote about this last week at http://garydavidlum.com/2012/11/11/cpap-shogun-japanese-restaurant-a-burger-with-a-difference/
I was feeling pretty tired and lazy. I just made an open sandwich and used the yoghurt and Worcestershire sauce to add a little flavour to the gravy.
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On Tuesday I was packed for a night away and wanted something light. I chose a sausage roll and a Cascade Lemon, lime and bitters. The sausage roll costs $4.50 from the Urban Bean Espresso Bar.
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On Tuesday evening after a full on day at work I drove to the Canberra Airport and relaxed a little in the Qantas Business Lounge.
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On the flight I enjoyed a salad of ocean trout on an Asian coleslaw.
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The meal also came with a chocolate and caramel brownie. Some Instagram friends unkindly likened it to a log of faeces.
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On Tuesday evening I checked into the Oaks Aurora Tower. It’s a residential apartment block which also has some hotel style apartment rooms that the Oaks group uses. This was my second stay. My first stay was earlier in the year for a work meeting. I found the room then a little grimy and things like the remote controls were sticky. It was cheap for the taxpayer so I thought I’d try again. This time I had a different room. The carpet felt dirty and the kitchen area was a little grimy. The remote controls were also sticky. I don’t think I’ll stay there again. At $130 a night it is a cheap hotel when compared to other places in the city, especially for an apartment style room with a kitchen. On Wednesday morning I woke up to this view of Brisbane.
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The meeting went well. It was a full day and I spoke for a good part of the meeting. My flight back to Canberra departed at about 1900 AEST and wouldn’t land until 2200 AEDT. For dinner on the flight I had a pork chop and vegetables.
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The Wednesday marked the 40th birthday for a work mate. We have a great culture in the branch with many of my work mates being terrific cooks. They often bring in cakes, macarons, biscuits and other sweet treats. To celebrate another work mate made a baked raspberry cheesecake. The best thing about my work mates is they remember me and kept me a slice. Of course they also had cream
There were some comments from Instagram followers asking how I’m not huge. Truth is I try not to eat too much. I try to exercise every day and when I feel myself thickening, I pull back on the intake. Over the last week or so I’ve dropped a couple of kilograms through reduced intake, stress and poor sleep.
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On Thursday evening I was exhausted. I wanted something simple and tasty to eat. I was craving something salty. I had some chicken thighs with skin on them and needed to cook them over a few nights. I floured the thigh with plain flour, mustard, spike and curry powder. I served them with potato gems (I think in the US you call them Tater Tots.
The chicken looked like it was fried, it was oven cooked.
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For some years Canberra taxpayers have been investing in public art. I like public art and I reckon every city should have some nice art works for everyone to enjoy. Every morning at 0730 I take a walk from my office to get my personal mail from the post office. It looks like there will be a new installation soon. It’s a pity the surrounding buildings aren’t looking too flash at the moment.
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On Fridays some work mates in the branch enjoy chips from the Urban Bean Espresso Bar. A small container costs $4.00. They are pretty good chips (or for my north American friends, fries). I ate Friday lunch with a friend who is about to get married. She’s been watching her diet to ensure she can fit into her dress. This week however, she decided to get in her words “sucky in” pants which sound like elasticised support underwear. She felt at liberty to eat chips which I thought was cool.
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Friday night came and I wasn’t hungry. I just had no appetite. It wasn’t really the chips, I was just exhausted and mentally wasted. I cooked a chicken thigh alone and ate that.
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I decided yesterday I would clean out my home office of two year’s worth of papers that I’d been meaning to get to and file. It took a good part of the whole day to go through it all.
My lunch was a nice piece of multigrain Vienna loaf that I toasted and topped with tinned red salmon and a vine tomato.
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Last night I made some coleslaw and had a chicken thigh.
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On the subject of Canberra public art, this morning on my work I captured the image of my favourite piece, viz., the Owl Statue. From the front it’s clearly an owl, from behind however, many Canberra residents have likened the phallic shape as a piece of Canberra’s pubic art.
On my walk this morning I also came across this piece of graffiti which I can relate to.
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After my walk I felt like eating some eggs and drinking a strong cup of coffee.
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I spent a few hours at work this morning and again didn’t feel that hungry. Lunch was pretty boring. The rest of the tinned red salmon on toast.
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This evening I had a piece of Atlantic salmon (from Tasmania) along with some more fresh coleslaw. I cooked the salmon by placing in a fry pan and adding a lid. I cooked it on a moderately high heat for five minutes. The skin was crisp and the flesh was perfectly cooked. The coleslaw was fresh and tangy and nothing beats adding a bit of Kensington Pride mango. This was a nice cooked dinner with a tropical touch. I also added chilli flakes and a little Tabasco Sauce to the salmon to add some bite.
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This week Miss11 and Miss15 are in Geelong for the National Club Championships. Miss15 has a bad ankle and will only be doing uneven bars and beam.
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Urban Bean Espresso Bar http://www.beanhunter.com/cafes/review/Urban-Bean-Espresso-Bar
Foursquare https://foursquare.com/v/urban-bean-espresso-bar/4da224be7aee5481e133d0fe
Scarborough House https://foursquare.com/v/scarborough-house/4bbea14182a2ef3b45c12bd2
Google Map http://goo.gl/maps/qGN6Q
Canberra Airport https://foursquare.com/v/canberra-airport-cbr/4b1896c3f964a52068d423e3
Google Map http://goo.gl/maps/MqQ4t
Qantas Business Lounge https://foursquare.com/v/qantas-business-lounge/4b889f09f964a520fd0432e3
Aurora Tower https://foursquare.com/v/aurora-tower/4b1ba1fdf964a52054fc23e3
Google Map http://goo.gl/maps/9ydtD
Oaks Hotels and Resorts http://www.oakshotelsresorts.com/
Tater Tots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tater_Tots
Woden Wind Tunnel https://foursquare.com/v/woden-wind-tunnel/4de2bb3ac65b7a3e21223baa
Owl Statue https://foursquare.com/v/owl-statue/4dd44c5352b18e28aa120356
I’ve been at a low ebb this week for a wide range of reasons. After a week that ended in the wanton wonton weekend I had a lot of catching up to do at work as well as the extra work associated with a week of meetings. In addition I started using a CPAP machine at night. For my adult life and according to Mum my childhood too, I’ve been a loud snorer. Given I’m now getting older and getting to that age when I should start putting in place all those things I learnt in medical school, I’m taking my health more seriously. I now have a general practitioner (GP) and I now think more seriously about exercise. With a history of snoring, my GP referred me to a respiratory physician with an interest in sleep medicine. I spent a night in a sleep laboratory and came out discovering I do not have sleep apnœa (which is good), but that I have frequent hypopnœas. Roughly thirty or more times a night I stop breathing for up to 10 seconds.
On Tuesday I was fitted for a continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP) machine and I’ve been using it each night since. The brochures and other literature I’ve read says it can take up to a month or more to get used to CPAP therapy. I hope it takes less than that because I’m finding I’m more tired and irritable than ever before. In many of the on-line forums it looks like some people need repeated fittings and flow titration. Every morning this week I’ve got up feeling worse than when I wasn’t using CPAP.
My bedside CPAP set up
It may be that I’d be better learning to play the didgeridoo which has been shown to assist patients with sleep apnœa.
I will persist because I want to learn to sleep better. I average about five hours a night which isn’t enough. I’m usually in bed early and I wake multiple times a night and then rise at about 0400 to go for a walk. I hope one day to sleep through the night each night and wake at 0600 and exercise then. That will mean a later start at work which has it’s own problems for me but I’ll deal with that soon.
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Last night I went out with friends to the Shogun Japanese Restaurant and had my first Teppanyaki experience. The restaurant itself felt a little old and dated. That said the wait staff were friendly and helpful. I had been told that many Japanese restaurants are not inexpensive especially if the quality of the food and experience is high. We chose from a set Teppanyaki menu for around $39 per person. There was a mixed reaction amongst my friends. For me the cost was reasonable for the quality of the beef, chicken and fish as well as the entertainment provided by the chef. The set menu consists of an entrée, soup, three meats and a dessert. I thought it was worthwhile and if the opportunity arose again I’d return.
Entrée
Raw fish and chicken
Cooked fish
Omelet being prepared for fried rice.
Beef and sprouts waiting to be cooked.
Beef and chicken cooking.
Flaming beef
Ice cream, cream and fruit for dessert.
The Teppanyaki chef wrote this in salt upside down and back to front.
Map for Shogun Japanese Restaurant in Canberra http://goo.gl/maps/FYrU0
After Shogun we went to Koko Black which is an institution in Canberra. I had a hot chocolate affogato because it was a cool night last night.
Hot chocolate and vanilla bean ice cream
Hot chocolate affogato
Map for Koko Black in Canberra http://goo.gl/maps/dHDil
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During the week I came across a Jamie Oliver recipe which I stored in Evernote. I bought some beef mince and made burgers with some mustard and beer (XXXX Gold). I arranged the burger as an open sandwich on a slice of toasted multigrain Vienna loaf with some thickly sliced tomato and thinly sliced pickle. I used Jamie’s yoghurt and Worcestershire sauce idea as a sauce. In addition I made a slaw with cabbage, carrot and red onion.
On balance, I should have used a knife rather than a food processor for the slaw. The burger tasted okay but I think I should have purchased a coarser grade of beef mince. The yoghurt and Worcestershire sauce idea was pretty good on the burger. The seed mustard was a good addition. It’s a pity I can’t drink much alcohol otherwise the stubbie would have made a good accompaniment to the burger.
Yoghurt and Worcestershire sauce
Kensington Pride Mango
Addendum….the next night
Open burger sandwich
The last week and a bit has been huge. On Thursday and Friday 25 and 26 October I was at Mt Macedon at a Disaster Intelligence Master Class run by the Australian Emergency Management Institute (AEMI). This was an excellent two days meeting new colleagues and networking.
On Sunday 28 October I flew back to Melbourne for another three nights stay. For the last few months I’ve been involved in the preparation for a week of meetings with international colleagues covering a week of meetings in Melbourne and Canberra. On Thursday I hosted a full day meeting with international visitors. I am so grateful to a small cadre of work mates who behind the scenes got all the logistics sorted out in quick time.
So my week has been full on and my eating has been atrocious. The only day when it approached okay was Thursday when I had some control over the food at the breaks and lunch. We served fruit platters and sandwiches with “healthful” fillings. On the other days when other agencies were in charge we enjoyed cream filled biscuits, cream filled pastries, doughnuts, cakes and slices. The lunches were also very filling.
To top off a very full and mentally stressful week I had arranged to visit my kids in Brisbane this weekend. That has meant a lot of fun and really very little time for rest and sleep. The other benefit has been a rebalance of my twitter statistics. Last week saw very little social media activity so I’ve made up for it over the weekend, especially on Twitter and Instagram.
Anyway, so here I am in Brisbane this weekend. What I had not realised was that my two younger brothers would also be in town. They were sorting some things out for my parents. To give you some context. I’m the eldest of three sons. Brother 2 is two years younger than me and Brother 3 is six years younger than me. Brother 2 is a medical practitioner based in Cairns and Brother 3 is in Brisbane’s building and construction industry.
At lunch Brother 2 sent me an iMessage asking if I wanted wonton for dinner. Earlier in the day we had discussed having dinner at Eatons Hill Hotel where Miss17 was doing work experience. They didn’t have a table so we elected to go to our tried and true Kedron-Wavell RSL. My guess is that Brother 2 and Brother 3 had a chat between themselves and cooked up a scheme, a scheme that would suit me just fine.
Brother 3 has become a master of wonton making. He has friends who ask him to make wonton for them. Brother 3 essentially follows Mum’s recipe. Brother 2 however, prefers a variation on Mum’s recipe. Brother 2 like me enjoys adding texture to our food. We’re also fans of coriander (cilantro) while Mum isn’t. Brother 2 tends to add raw finely sliced ginger and bamboo shoots to augment the crunch of the water chestnuts.
In the end we stayed with Mum’s recipe given we were eating with Mum and Dad.
While we were out Miss 17 needed to my a birthday card. I saw one that caught my eye.
(Instagram)
We also enjoyed a high carbohydrate lunch from a local Japanese Bakery.
Japanese bacon wrap
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Custard platypus
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After lunch we were in need of Ice Cream so we went to Cold Rock Ice Creamery at Chermside.
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I asked Miss15 to capture an image of me buying ice cream.
When we arrived back at my parent’s place you could smell the food preparation from the corridor.
As we entered we were confronted with a tower of wonton wrapper.
I wondered if they had bought enough. Eight packets of fifty wrappers.
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Brother 2 had bought some pork mince but it was too lean so he got some pork belly and hand minced it in the traditional family way. With two meat cleavers. This is the BEST way to mince meat. It also builds muscles and annoys neighbours and tests the sturdiness of kitchen tables.
Meat cleavers used to mince the pork belly.
The final filling. Go to my Mum’s recipe for the details.
As the team were getting into making the wonton Miss11 and Miss15 wanted to have a go.
Then the experts showed them how.
We had tray upon tray and made about 400 wonton
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The masters at work
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Before I drove Miss17 to work experienced she and I were given a tasting bowl at about 1500 AEST.
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When I got back dinner was ready and this is my first serving. So much better than restaurant portions.
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I also needed a second serve at about 1900 AEST.
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Did I mention the pork bones? They were fall off the bone tasty.
There were some wonton left over and my brothers and daughters have a liking for cold freshly made and cooked wonton from the refrigerator. Whenever I do it I get visions of Nigella Lawson going back to her refrigerator late at night.
Needless to say we slept well and still feel full. Mum and Dad though thought I needed a big breakfast.
Mum had been planning this for a little while. She grinned as she brought food from the refrigerator and was pretty happy when she saw my smile. She’d been to the butcher and got some lamb’s fry. As many readers know I like my offal and nice lamb’s fry is hard to come by. Mum has seasoned some flour with salt and pepper and coated the liver and then kept it in the refrigerator overnight. This morning she gently pan fried it and served it with bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs and a grilled tomato. It was delicious.
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Needless to say my daughters are not great fans of offal. I pondered whether Dr Offal should post this on his blog, but figured it was better suited to this post.
A note about this post. I’ve used a new WordPress.com feature. WordPress.com users can now embed Instagram images into their blog posts. This seems to work well. If you want to comment on an image in Instagram click on the image and if it’s been inserted through instagram you’ll soon see
