I like living and being satisfied professionally and personally. I like to cook food, photograph it and then eat it. Anything you read in these pages is my opinion and does not reflect that of my employer. If you have concerns about what I share please contact me through the contact page.
So the other night I was wondering what to make for dinner. I was pretty uninspired. I went to the supermarket after work and looked for some meat. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money and I wanted something simple. I noticed some mince on special. It was beef mince, regular grind, not labelled lean It was going for $3.
I mixed the mince with a beaten egg, some cubed Harvati cheese, a little olive oil, some coarsely ground pepper and dried herbs. I flattened the mince out onto some baking paper onto a fry pan. I covered with some finely cut parsley and then covered with aluminium foil before placing into an oven set at 150 °C for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes I removed the foil added some tomato, curry powder and vegetables to the top and then put it back into the oven for 15 minutes and turned the heat up to 200 °C.
This is how it looked
I pulled it out of the oven and rested it for 5 minutes before transferring it to a plate and then eating.
So basically it’s a big ground beef burger without bread.
What would you call it? Does this already have a name that I don’t know about?
It’s been a nice few days Brisbane. I’ve been with my kids, I’ve spent time with my parents, and I’ve thawed a little while Canberra freezes. I know there’ll be more subzero mornings in Canberra and apart from the weather, time in Brisbane reinforces why I like to live in small quiet towns like Darwin and Canberra. I especially like small towns that have all the amenities of larger cities.
This weekend proves again just how much I dislike traffic and complicated road systems. Brisbane has grown and developed so much that it looks like an engineered city rather than an evolved city. If it wasn’t for my iPhone and the TomTom app connecting seamlessly through the rental car’s audio system I would be a nervous wreck. As it was there were times when despite “Jane” giving me instruction and direction I was confused. I’m sure if I lived here again I’d get used to it but the city’s roads are more like a concrete jungle and it is unattractive. I grew up in Brisbane knowing that in the context of area rather than population it was the largest city in the southern hemisphere. The Brisbane City Council is bigger than some national economies. Getting from one side to the other can take the better part of a day’s drive.
If it wasn’t for the daily pain and discomfort of living in cold and dry Canberra (Ichthyosis vulgaris sucks) I’d love it rather than simply like it. Canberra is small and friendly, relatively easy to navigate and there isn’t any appreciable traffic, at least at the times I drive. Bring on global warming I say (facetiously), if the seas can come closer so there is a beach front (Pacific Ocean not Lake Burley Griffin) for Canberra so much the better. Then it would approach the glory that is Darwin
Canberra is a great place to live in full of friendly hard working people. It’s a great place. It would be perfect if it was situated where monsoons exist.
The day started with a sleep in. It was a lovely day in Brisbane. It was about 17 °C when I got out of bed. I heard in Canberra that this morning was a frost laden –6 °C. I’m so glad I was in Brisbane and not in Canberra.
For breakfast we started with some of Mum’s pikelets with some maple syrup.
This is Mum’s recipe
1 cup self raising flour
1 egg
¾ cup milk
1 heaped table spoon of sugar
Vanilla
1 tablespoon of melted butter
Mix and then let stand for an hour if you can be arsed
Cook and flip when bubbles form and burst
Mum’s pikelets are delicious.
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We then had to go to Westfield Chermside so Miss16 could buy some things with gift vouchers she got for her birthday. Miss12 persuaded me to buy some beef jerky. I’ve never had it before. I’m not sure I’d eat a lot of it.
After taking Miss12 to school so she could help out with a junior gymnastics display I took Miss18 to Paniyiri for work experience and Miss16 and I decide to stick around and enjoy some Greek food.
As it turned out Miss18 was at the entrance and accepted our tickets to enter.
Musgrave Park isn’t that big but in the area just in front of the Brisbane Greek Club there is a stage and that’s where most people sat to enjoy the entertainment and eat the food. Behind the entertainment area were the food stalls. There were so many. Most were selling much the same sort of Greek food. Some were selling regional variations. There was a good combination of savoury and sweet.
When we arrived, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was speaking to the crowd. He was followed by the Queensland Premier Campbell Neumann.
For lunch I chose some meat
Greek lamb yiros. It was pretty good. There wasn’t too much fat but just enough.
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Miss16 chose a chicken souvlaki wrap which she enjoyed. Sorry no image.
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The main stage
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The dancing was popular
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We ate Loukoumathes (Greek honey puffs) while watching the dancing. I’d never had them before. Apparently a few hundred thousand of these sweet little treats will be made over the weekend. They were sweet and they were nice to eat while watching Greek dancing.
It’s been a big day. My three daughters all had things on and I’m happy I could get them all there on time without any major problems. Okay, there are some Brisbane drivers who did not appreciate a couple of rapid lane changes when I couldn’t quite understand the new road system in Brisbane. I’ve now lived in Darwin and Canberra since the beginning of 1996 and have gone soft when it comes to driving. Brisbane has changed so much and the motorways and overpasses are something more like the roads I’ve seen in Los Angeles. I’m surprised I made it everywhere and back today. Because I only visit every couple of months, my ability to navigate traffic is a struggle. Ask anyone who knows me and I am very directionally challenged.
Today Miss18 was a volunteer at Paniyiri which is a Greek festival in Brisbane. Volunteering is part of her events management course. Miss12 had gymnastics training and Miss16 had the South East Queensland Regional Senior Women’s Artistic Gymnastics competition. I was able to watch the L9 (MIss16) and L8 competition this afternoon. Miss16 did okay. She came second on the uneven bars and third on the floor. I captured a nice video of her floor routine on my iPad but then accidentally deleted it. Fortunately I had already posted a low resolution version to YouTube. I wish I could recover the original video without resorting to paying for an app to recover the file. I know what you’re thinking, Gary was one of those dorks holding up an iPad while video recording an event. Yes I was! The camera is a good one and the quality is very satisfactory.
I tried to enhance the quality by using the YouTube enhancement tools but it’s pretty shaky and grainy.
The competition was held at Moreton Bay College
I needed lunch. A bacon, egg and hash brown burger. I hope I don’t get sick. I noticed the eggs and hash brown were pre cooked and then heated again on the hot plate. I nearly said something but figured, it’s a typical school sporting event and hopefully everything was cooked properly the first time through.
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Moreton Bay College is a pretty well endowed girls school.
I’ve never seen illuminated podia before.
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Tonight we went out to dinner to celebrate birthdays and Mother’s Day. My birthday was on 1 May, Miss16 and Miss18 had their birthday on 8 May and my Dad has his birthday on 23 May. Miss18 also got a part-time job to her her get through her events management course and business degree. We decided on Hog’s Breath Cafe because it’s family friendly and a decent meal for hungry mouths.
I had an avocado prime rib steak
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Miss12 and Miss18 asked for a crispy chicken burger each
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Miss16 asked for the TexMex chicken steak combination meal. It was huge.
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The meals took quite a while to get to us because the restaurant was so busy. They’ve opened up more recently and enhanced the parking area.
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I asked if anyone wanted dessert. Miss18 shook her head. Miss12 smiled and said yes and Miss16 said no and then Mum asked about banana bread and butterscotch sauce…Miss16 relented.
This shot doesn’t do the plate justice. It was an extra large plate almost covered in a deep layer of butterscotch sauce. Mum and Miss16 really enjoyed it.
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The plate is so long the ice cream is blurry. This is the Strawberry pavlova Miss12 and I wanted.
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It’s been a good day. Tomorrow Miss18 heads back to volunteer at Paniyiri and Miss12 has to help with a gymnastics competition for juniors. That means Miss16 and I get to enjoy Greek food at Paniyiri by ourselves.
Last night I flew to Brisbane to have an extended weekend with my daughters and parents.
Thursday was a pretty big food day and I just didn’t think about my weight.
A work mate shared his Mum’s Macedonian sweet treats
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For lunch about eight of us in the branch had chips and gravy. One of us even had a pie, chips and gravy (not me).
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I got to the Qantas club with about 30 minutes to spare
I was given the mango sorbet to try. It was pretty good.
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On board QF960. The 737-800 has been updated.
I watched a movie during the flight
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I may not have had a pie with my chips and gravy but I did have one for dinner on the flight
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Dessert cake
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When I got to my parents’ place they were eating dinner and Mum gave me a small plate
Shepherd’s pie
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Miss16 started making some cupcakes at about 9 pm because a friend of hers is having a birthday on Saturday so she wanted to make something to share with her on Friday.
Some friends on Facebook, twitter and IG suggested I may have applied a Daddy tax. I didn’t do anything to discourage that notion but truth is Miss16 didn’t make enough to fill the baking tray.
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They look good don’t they? Vanilla cupcakes with passionfruit icing.
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We had an early start for the school run this morning
Peanut paste on toast with coffee
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One of the annoying things about Canberra (and in fairness Darwin) is the ban on plastic bags.
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Today I was taking my parents in town by bus so I had to buy a go card
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I promised Mum for Mother’s day I’d take her to the refurbished City Hall. Mum used to work as a volunteer at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and spent a lot of time at City Hall.
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I remember winning school prizes at school speech nights and being down there
Mum tells me she used to sing down there for her school choir
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City Hall now contains the Museum of Brisbane. It’s a really nice little museum. I’d happily go again and again. One of the features for now is the exhibit on World Expo 1988 Brisbane.
Do you remember what you were doing in 1988? I was in medical school and we’d catch a train from Bowen Hills to the Mater Hospital and walk through Expo.
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I think it’s fantastic that Doug Anthony the deputy PM and leader of the National Party usurped Malcolm Fraser the PM of the day and supported Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the bid.
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The Light Fantastic
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After spending about an hour in the museum we walked over to the Treasury building to meet up with Miss18 and have lunch. Miss18 announced she’d got a job to help her get through her TAFE/QUT courses so we celebrated.
The Treasury building
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In the Treasury Casino building is Luke Nguyen’s restaurant Fat Noodle
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We waited near some stand up tables and read through the menu and I noticed the cloth napkins
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We could see into the kitchen too
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After being seated at a large table near a window we received a pot of Chinese tea
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Dad asked for the Fat Pho Noodles
His only concern was the large fillet of beef in the bowl which he would have preferred sliced.
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Miss18 had pork and prawn wonton
Not as good as Mum’s wonton of course
If you want to read about Mum’s wonton click here and here
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Mum and I both asked for the Singapore noodles
This was spectacular
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The after lunch Belgian chocolate mint was delicious
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Apparently this German sausage hut also serves big pork hocks on request
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All in all it’s been a good day.
Now to rate Luke’s restaurant. The meal was fantastic and I would recommend anyone visiting Brisbane to try it out.
The dunny was interesting. The pedestal was solid and sound. The urinal was an older stainless steel model with a sturdy grate. It was big enough for two well proportioned men to stand next to each other without inducing hesitancy. I like a good firm grate to stand on so there is less of a chance of urine spray on the floor. The hand basin was motion detector activated but a little shallow. The hand drying unit was a pseudo air blade. It was pretty pathetic. If you’re going to use an air dryer and try to imitate a Dyson Air Blade, just buy the Dyson. My dunny score is 3.5 out of 5.
The napkin score is pass. Cloth napkins always pass.
It’s Wednesday night and Bron and I had a big dinner date. Morks. We were so excited.
This was our third dinner at Morks. We’d been there twice before and when Benn greeted us at the door it felt like we were coming home for a meal.
When we chose the dishes we wanted Benn remarked he was surprised we didn’t ask for the John Dorey again because we’d asked for it the first two times.
We both felt reasonably hungry so we chose two entrée dishes and two main dishes. We chose the soft shelled crab and the crab balls with pickled ginger to be followed with the Duck Maryland and the lamb cutlets.
While we were waiting for our entrée to arrive who should appear but Tony Robinson of Black Adder fame.
Click on the image to see the comments from local Canberra IGers.
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Just after Benn delivered the entrée dishes he came out with an extra dish. Fried pork wonton with a mint lime sauce. This was an amazing dish. The wonton were delicate and tasty and the sauce added a zing that lingered for some time. It was nice to mix up the mouthfuls of soft shelled crab, crab ball and wonton. The crab balls were tasty with a really nice texture and they were nicely complemented with the pickled ginger.
Given a choice I’d eat this every time I visit Morks.
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Soft shelled crab
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Crab balls and pickled ginger
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After three entrée dishes we were feeling very satisfied. It was good that the restaurant was so busy and there was a good amount of time between entrée and mains. It gave us time to digest a little and enjoy a good chat.
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The lamb cutlets were really tasty and nice. They weren’t too fatty but had enough to ensure a good flavour sensation. The lamb was served with some sticky rice which was lovely.
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The Duck Maryland was the hero of the night. The skin was crispy and the flesh was fall off the bone tender. The duck was served on a pan fried disc of rice that had been molded with egg and various herbs and spices. Along with the rice was a delicately sweet side of lychees and tomatoes. This was a perfectly balanced dish the red curry sauce when eaten with the rice was heavenly.
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I ummed and ahed about whether to have dessert and then Benn brought out complimentary lychee sorbets. One each. This was just what we needed and ended the meal perfectly.
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Thank you again Mork and Benn and everyone in the team for another great meal. We’ll be back again to continue our journey through the menu.
When I was in Atlanta I had my first (and second) Reuben sandwich. I’ve been wanting to make one ever since. Before I get there though I wanted to practice cooking corned beef. I’ve done it before but it was a long time ago.
The task for today was to simply cook some corned beef that I could have for dinner and also make as a filling for toasted sandwiches at work.
The whole process took a few hours from start to finish.
This is the piece of meat I used
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I soaked it in some tap water with some star anise, cloves, bay leaves, brown sugar and vinegar
In my youth I would cut the fat layer off and put it between two well buttered pieces of white bread and add some mustard and then inhale. Nothing tastes as good as silverside fat from corned beef between buttered bread.
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I wanted to add some caramelised onions
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I finished the cooking by putting the onions, corned beef and a cup of the cooking fluid from the pressure cooker into a casserole and cooked in a low oven. Half-way through I took it out to add a little curry powder and a potato for my dinner.
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For comparison. I wasn’t going to open the can, but the shot is for comparison (sort of).
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This is a large bowl that I will use for toasted sandwiches at work this week.
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This is so much cheaper and easier but way too salty and oily
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Tonight’s dinner. My take on corned beef and vegetables. No white sauce here
This wasn’t too bad. The meat fibres pulled apart easily. It wasn’t too salty or oily like canned corned beef. It was sweet with the onions.
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The next step when I feel confident is to try a Reuben sandwich. That’s a dish I want to make well so I can share it with Bron.
Last night Bron took me to see Star Trek into Darkness. I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time.
Now if you don’t like science fiction I invite you to read on because at some stage I do get onto food
Okay, it’s time for confessions, well, not really confessions because if you’ve read my “about” page you’ll know that I do like all things Star Trek. I remember in the 1970s coming home from swimming club on a Friday night and after a shower I’d sit with Dad and watch Star Trek The Original Series (TOS). I loved it. I didn’t really understand the nuance of Kirk as a womaniser and risk taking leader, but I really liked Spock, Bones and Scotty. When Star Trek The Next Generation (TNG) began I was an immediate fan. I’ve also enjoyed Star Trek Deep Space Nine (DS9) and Star Trek Voyager. My favourite series though has been Star Trek Enterprise (ENT) which was a prequel to the ST TOS era. I suppose it comes as no surprise I have a soft spot for Star Trek medical officers as well as science officers.
In 2009 when Star Trek http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/ was launched and we became aware of what Star Trek Canon describes as the Alternate Reality* a whole new vista of possibilities opened for Star Trek fans. Star Trek 2009 directed by JJ Abrams was a great movie. I really hoped Star Trek into Darkness http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/ could be as good and not a disappointment.
Last night Bron bought tickets at the Dendy Canberra http://www.dendy.com.au/Page/Home and we got great seats in the middle. It was an interesting crowd sitting around us. As much as I love Star Trek I’ve never been inclined to dress up in Starfleet uniform or as a non-human Star Trek character. That didn’t stop some of other movie goers. I had a man next to me in an engineering tunic complete with com badge. About as far as I will go is holding up my right hand, palm anterior with third and fourth digits separated and occasionally saying “live long and prosper” Apparently this _\\// is the emoticon for live long and prosper.
Back to the movie; I was not disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised. I did have some doubts at the beginning and now that I’ve seen it I wish I had taken the time to revisit some of the TOS movies plus some relevant episodes from ENT. The plot was great and the story unfolded nicely. I’m glad it wasn’t any longer than just over two hours. Too much longer would have been tedious. I really liked how a variety of concepts from various parts of Star Trek lore have been weaved in. I’d happily rate it between 9 and 9.5 out of 10. At the start I was worried that JJ Abrams had botched the job but he pulled it together at the end. The odd cameo was also appreciated. What I really enjoyed was seeing the return of an actor who played a part in ENT.
If you like Star Trek I don’t have to recommend this, you’ll go again and again like I will.
If you aren’t into Star Trek or science fiction but like a good movie, I recommend this movie as worthwhile. It would help if you watch Star Trek 2009 to get some of the background to the Alternate Reality.
If you don’t like Star Trek and if you don’t like science fiction, if you’re a hater, then I recommend watching something else. The win win will be you will free up a seat for fans to go again and again
So how did I prepare for Star Trek into Darkness? It all centred around Bron naturally. Saturday started with an excellent Bron breakfast of poached egg on a muffin with another muffin smeared with marmalade.
Sorry it’s a bit blurry. I was feeling very hungry.
After the movie Bron made me a Haigh’s spicy hot chocolate
Marshmallows maketh the hot chocolate
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This morning Bron made us scrambled eggs and bacon on sourdough toast
Bron bought the streaky bacon at Elite Meats in Holt. It was very tasty bacon. While there appeared to be a good layer of fat, it didn’t taste fatty at all. Thank you Bron.
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*Alternate Reality—If there really is only the prime and alternate realities the word alternate as an adjective is acceptable. If there are however, infinite alternative realities, then I object to the adjective alternate in Star Trek Canon. How this interacts with the concept of parallel universes in Star Trek Canon is unclear in my puny mind.
I did the salmon the way I normally do with a fry pan and lid and a 5 minute timer. I cooked the vegetables with a little soy and honey.
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and again the next night…
Another small piece of salmon
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I’ve been walking every day too
Mr Owl looks good at 0445 AEST with a black background of the night sky
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In preparation for my clinical day a week I started reading some relevant documents.
Tea rather than coffee too
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For reasons I won’t go in to, I was able to return to my old office area. The first thing I did was put up my flags. I felt immediately at home.
My two favourite places in the world. Queensland and the Northern Territory of Australia
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On Friday I started my first day at The Canberra Hospital as an Honorary Visiting Medical Officer in Pathology. I decided I could walk to work from my DoHA car spot
There is a lot of construction underway so it’s not possible to see the building from outside
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It was a pretty good day. I really enjoyed getting oriented back into a clinical pathology set up. It was nice to speak with clinicians about patients and visit the mortuary and see the museum named after my friend and colleague, viz., Professor Peter Herdson. It was fantastic to get back into the lingo and to start thinking about the wonderful interface being a clinical microbiologist is between the patient in the ward and the vast technological brain power that rests in medical laboratory scientists and other practitioners. I love the technology of pathology. As I grew up in medicine, Professor John Kerr’s most profound comment was that pathology is medicine. If you understand pathology you will understand medicine. Truer words there are not. He also held a firm view that rigorous examination was the best way to produce a well rounded undifferentiated medical graduate who would be ready to learn more about how to heal the sick and teach others to become good practitioners of the art and science of medicine. I love that in pathology we extend our practice into the tactile of holding plates and loops, we can sense the aroma of our friends on the plates, we can see the bright colours of the wonderful chemical reactions in solid and liquid phases. We can stand before instruments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that reduce the time from specimen reception to result delivery to hours instead of days. But best of all I love that we can take the complex and abstract and share a story with a referring and treating practitioner and help him or her heal their patient. Working in government bureaucracy for the last five years has taught me so many things, but I cannot love it like I love being in a laboratory surrounded by wonderful people and patient specimens, machines and most of all microscopes. Four days a week at DoHA and one day at TCH is a good balance.
As I walked back to my car I was reminded that The Canberra Hospital and the Royal Darwin Hospital were designed in Canada and it was Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who sought to build hospitals in the two territories. The design may well have been good for Canberra but it was a disaster for Darwin. This is a multi-storey, air conditioned building with a furnace up the middle. Indigenous Australians in the Top End communities do not like heights, they don’t like the cold and why require a furnace in a building in subequatorial Australia. What the hell was Prime Minister Whitlam thinking? The best hospital design in the Northern Territory of Australia is the Katherine Hospital. One level, multiple wings with open flow through ventilation and lots of courtyards for patients to gather in along with their intravenous infusion stand and drugs. In Darwin, as much as I love the RDH (not the building itself, I love the people, I love the community, I love the family that is a hospital), it is unseemly to have all the Indigenous Australian patients feel like they have to mill outside on hot concrete with their intravenous infusion stands all because of a mistake from the 1970s.
On Thursday evening Bron took me to dinner for my birthday (which was last week). We went to Eat86 in Braddon. This is relatively new and a new venture for the people who run Ellacure in Bruce.
Having enjoyed previous meals at Ellacure and hearing great reviews from work mates plus reading a blog post on Her Canberra by Trish, I was really looking forward to a nice meal and night out with Bron. Bron had heard good things so we were pretty confident of a great night out.
On walking in you can feel the vibe of the place. The staff are friendly and helpful. We had a table reserved near the bar and fairly central in the restaurant. The menu is written in chalk on the wall and as items run out they are rubbed out. We were advised to try a couple of cheaper meals and one large meal as a guide for the evening. We went for the ceviche, pulled pork terrine and ghetto beef.
These were all delightful. The ceviche was amazing. It was refreshing and full of heat but the chilli didn’t linger and was certainly sharp but not unpleasant. It was a perfect entrée to the evening. I love terrines and the pulled pork was pretty special. I’d happily eat more of it. Finally, the ghetto beef was perfectly cooked. The beef was tender and tasty and chewy in a really good way.
All these images are from my Instagram feed. Click on the image and read the comments.
The ceviche was a perfect start to the meal
The pulled pork terrine broke apart and could be scooped up on the bread
The ghetto beef is a must have
The serving sizes are modest and so by the end of these dishes dessert was not an option but a viable proposition. I chose a caramel popcorn sundae and peanut brittle. The restaurant was pretty dark so my iPhone photography wasn’t too flash. That said, the Instagram comments were pretty good. Click on the image to see the number of likes and comments.
Dessert. Nothing more needs to be said.
Okay onto other things.
It was noisy. My tinnitus was bad that night. I had to concentrate on looking at Bron’s lips the whole night. Not a bad thing Dunny score was 4.5+ out of 5. The music is piped into the dunny. The pedestal was of high quality. The towels were paper. The + comes because of the Aēsop hand products provided. This was a very good touch. If there was a Dyson air blade in there it would have received 5+/5 Nakpin score was fail. Bron believes I’m too harsh in having only a pass/fail for napkins. To me cloth is pass and paper is fail. Fair enough, these were thick paper napkins and better than most. What do you reckon?
Would I eat at eightysix again. Most certainly I would. I’d like to try a seat at the bar looking into the kitchen. If not for anything else, the lighting would be better for my iPhone camera. I feel embarrassed my images do not do the food justice. This is a great place to eat and I look forward to returning again and again.
It was going for $3.
