2CC is a talkback station with a fairly balanced political position. It takes programming from Sydney and Melbourne which is mostly just right of centre and it has two local announcers/broadcasters for the breakfast (Mark Parton) and afternoon (Mike Welsh) drive programs who balance each other out.
Mark Parton does breakfast on 2CC
Welshy does the drive show on 2CC
These images were taken from the 2CC website (see below)
On the day I won the meat, the “best of” topic was public art. Canberra has a significant recent history in terms of the public debate on public art. There are a good many residents who think the ACT Government has wasted vast amounts of tax payers money on what many regard as monstrosities and hideous insights into warped imaginations.
I’ve always thought a city, especially a national capital should be replete with public art. I really like the public art in Canberra and my favourite is the Owl Statue on the T-junction of Belconnen Way and Benjamin Way.
Bron and I went to Elite Meats in Kippax Fair in Holt and looked over the butcher’s shop. The butcher who looked after us was very friendly and very helpful. I’m pretty sure I’ll go back there to buy more meat. Over time I’m bound to post images from this selection of meat
The last weekend in Sydney was amazing My Easter | #ManFlu | #bestblogs13 We ate so well. This week albeit a short one I was back to the run of the mill. On Monday evening I considered a Meatless Monday but reconsidered and cooked a chicken schnitzel.
Meatless Monday
A nice green salad
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Chicken Schnitzel
I love chicken thigh schnitzel
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Of course after dinner I needed to try a couple of Zumbarons®
Zumbarons®
I have no idea of the flavours. They were delicious.
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Breakfast Smoothie
Back to the routine. Iced coffee banana smoothie with spinach.
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Morning office coffee and Zumbarons®
It’s so nice to enjoy a morning coffee with macarons
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On Tuesday evening I was going to make chicken schnitzel and salad again. For some reason I wanted to try something different. I thought about chicken and potato gems but after a weekend of really rich food I wanted salad but I also didn’t want salad. I think I’ve been watching too many cooking competitions on television, I thought about a salad in a different form. I love my blender so why not liquefy my salad. It contained the usual elements, viz., salad leaves, spring onions, red onion, tomato, coriander, plus some lemon juice and zest and olive oil. I added some chilli flakes and coarsely ground black pepper. I then liquefied it in my blender.
Experimental food
Honestly it looks like I vomited my salad. It tasted good though.
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Zumbarons®
My last Zumbarons®
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My morning office coffee felt empty just like the box without Zumbarons®
Adriano Zumbo Zumbarons® Box
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There were still Easter eggs at work. I was told I needed to help out and eat chocolate.
Chocolate
Who am I to object
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Wednesday night Bron came over to help put together my Ikea bookcase from the weekend.
Laying out the fasteners
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We took a break for dinner
Lamb Cutlets
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Bron made homemade non-church ice cream. There was violet crumble and Queensland nut ice cream.
Ice Cream
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The finished product
Bookshelf
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Thursday morning office coffee
Bertie Beetle
Bertie Beetle is having its fiftieth anniversary this year. Check out the wikipedia entry.
Thursday was a pretty long day, we’re ramping up at work to monitor the situation with Influenzavirus A H7N9 so when I left work I felt like takeaway
Fish and chips
Nothing better than freshly cooked battered fish, potato scallops and chips. I love potato scallops. I have friends from Victoria who call them potato cakes which cracks me up. A good potato scallop is hand cut, not too thick and not to thin. The best I’ve ever had came from a cafe in Brookside Shopping Centre in Brisbane.
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After the fish and chips I ate the rest of Bron’s ice cream straight from the plastic container
Ice Cream
This was Queensland nut caramel. It was delicious.
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Breakfast on Friday was a Mavi Breakfast Wrap
Breakfast wrap
These are so good. Sadly I ate this without Bron. I had an early start and needed to work through.
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Coffee
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On Friday evening after work I went to the local club with Bron to have dinner
Reef and beef
This is a scotch fillet and prawn cutlets with chips.
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So how is my ManFlu? It’s okay. I’m still coughing and spluttering. I should be fine by the end of this weekend.
This has been a fantastic Easter weekend. For my non-Australian friends; in Australia we get the Good Friday and the following Monday as public holidays. It’s one of the best public holiday long weekends we have.
It all started on Thursday afternoon and coincided with my manifestation of #ManFlu I shared a classic YouTube video on #ManFlu in my Mamak in Haymarket post from a few days ago. Every time I get a head cold I end up with rigors and sinusitis and I feel like death warmed up.
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On Thursday evening Bron cooked dinner.
Bron’s stir fry
This was delicious
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Bron cooked hot cross buns on Thursday evening
Hot cross buns
I so wanted one that I pestered Bron to break one off and share one on Thursday evening
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On Friday morning we had hot cross buns
Hot cross buns
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On the drive to Sydney for the weekend we stopped at Goulburn for a toilet stop and a break
MaltEaster
These won’t roll down the aisle of a picture theatre lol
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On arriving in Sydney we had to work out how to find and park near our hotel. We chose to stay at the Oaks Goldsbrough Apartments (on 243 Pyrmont Street Darling Harbour NSW 2009). Originally built in 1883, The Oaks Goldsbrough was Sydney’s original Goldsbrough-Mort Wool store. Maintaining many historical features, such as the ironbark columns and tallow-wood flooring, The Oaks Goldsbrough Apartment Hotel combines the facilities and service of a modern hotel with the privacy and spaciousness of a fully self-contained apartment. At first I thought it was an old gaol but then tweeps were telling me about the building’s history.
Oaks Goldsbrough Apartments
I really enjoyed my stay here. It was a relatively quiet well appointed apartment. The kitchen is spacious and well equipped except there was no oven. The microwave oven was a little dated and old. The bathroom/laundry was pretty good too. A little more storage and bench space would have been handy. The lounge area was fine with a big screen television, cable television connection and a DVD player that also accepted USB drives. The bedroom was fine except there wasn’t a set of drawers just very tall wardrobes.
On Saturday morning we enjoyed the last of the hot cross buns
Hot cross buns
Bron’s butter with some bun
Bron claims this is a misrepresentation lol
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The plan for the day was to go shopping in Rhodes and visit Ikea.
Morning iced coffee
I was feeling pretty poorly and thought a hot coffee would make me nauseated. The iced coffee alternative was not too bad.
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I went in wanting to buy a cabinet for my kitchen equipment
Ikea purchases
I bought a heap of other things too
I also brought back a catalogue for a work mate
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Of course no visit to Ikea is complete without a meal of Swedish meatballs, Lingonberries, mashed potato and gravy.
Lunch
I chose a medium plate. Quite a number of tweeps and Facebook friends asked questions about horse meat. Ikea in Australia has declared their meat balls to be horse meat free.
I tried some Swedish festive drink. My #ManFlu was so bad I couldn’t tell it was sweet.
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Enjoying a meat ball
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In the evening as my #ManFlu was peaking at its worst we went to dinner at Rockpool on George. I blogged about this a couple of nights ago. It was an amazing dinner. It was so good. Rather than repeat the food images I’d encourage you to read the post. I’ll simply insert here an image of the afternoon.
Sydney Opera House
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On Sunday morning I woke up feeling pretty ordinary. We had planned to attend the Sydney Royal Easter Show 2013. The tickets also included public transport. We got off to an okay start and caught a train from Town Hall station and alighted at Homebush. We should have alighted at Olympic Park. This created a slight delay and a delay in accessing caffeine which was our most pressing need. We eventually got to the show grounds and found coffee and food.
Bacon and egg roll with a coffee
As far as shows are concerned and for my USA friends these are like County fairs I imagine, my all time favourite is The Ekka http://www.ekka.com.au/ in Brisbane every August. The next best is the Royal Darwin Show. http://www.darwinshow.com.au/ The Sydney one is also pretty good and given its proximity to Camberra (3 hours drive) it’s a good option for me at the moment.
Wood chopping as a sport started in Australia. My favourite events are the underhand, tree felling and the relay. What we noticed on Sunday was the unusual number of competitors who failed to finish. We hope there wasn’t something wrong with them. Given Australian axe men are also known for the drinking, I just hope they were hung over rather than ill or not up to the competition.
At any show I love looking at animals, produce and cake decorating. Rather than spend the day capturing images we simply enjoyed walking around looking at things. Some things though did need to be captured.
This year’s biggest pumpkin (618 kilograms)
This years smallest pumpkin
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Dog showing
Is that the best suit you’ve ever seen or what?
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For lunch we had chair sui bao
Barbecue pork buns
We ate these while in the main arena watching moto-X
We started feeling weary after the Flyball and decided to leave. The train journey into the city was uneventful.
For dinner we decided to walk around Darling Harbour and look for a place to eat. I had a hankering for some meat. We came across Braza Churrascaria and walked in. We were seated at a table and the protocol explained. This is not the sort of place that you can photograph everything. The wait staff walk around with trays of meat and serve it onto your plate. It’s basically all the meat you can eat.
Later in the evening was went to the IMAX theatre and watched Top Gun in 3D. A great movie in terms of scenes of fighter jets and an aircraft carrier. The Darling Harbour LG IMAX theatre bills itself as the biggest and the best in the world. I have no idea if this is true.
Last night after a little anticipation we dined at Rockpool on George. This is Neil Perry’s restaurant. Neil is a famous celebrity chef in Australia and is also responsible for the Qantas http://qantas.com cuisine, especially the business and first class menus.
To get into the mood of Sydney we walked around a little.
Sydney opera house
The sun was in the right place at the right time for this. We arrived a little early we were so keen on the evening’s dining experience.
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Rockpool on George
Bron captured this image of me outside the restaurant
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Bread
The whipped butter went so nicely with this bread which had the crustiest of crusts.
This was one of the finest dining experiences we’ve had together or apart. The restaurant’s ambience is perfect. Bron noted the lack of art work which didn’t seem out of place for the elegant simplicity of the surrounds. The wait staff were very helpful and informative without being intrusive on our evening. They were great at anticipating our needs, e.g., for topping up water and clearing away crockery. Bron was really impressed with the sliver tablecloth brush
The evening is definitely worth the money we paid given the location, the excellent service to customer ratio, the ability to watch the chefs in action and most importantly the quality and complexity of the food. In the menu frontispiece Neil Perry ensures he attributes correctly the source of all his produce. I think this is a mark of quality.
One of the things that really struck us was the intelligent way in which the service was arranged. For example, the seating times for each table seemed to be calculated to ensure each group of guests were not sitting on adjacent tables. This gave us a sense of a space and tranquility. We could have a conversation without the need to be guarded or to whisper.
My one regret was that I was at the peak of my #ManFlu which means I don’t think I really enjoyed the subtlety of all that was on offer. It simply means we need to come here again.
Last year Bron visited this place while in Sydney. She came back raving about it and how good the food is. We’re here in Sydney for a few things this weekend. So we thought we’d try out Mamak in Haymarket. It’s the sort of place that’s so popular they don’t take reservations and you need to queue to get in. I don’t mind queueing for something good. We had a dilemma on timing. We’d gone for a walk around Darling Harbour and checked out an Adriano Zumbo Pâtissier at The Star. We ventured into Chinatown to look around and given the opening time of Mamak was 1730 AEDT we just hung around. At about 1715 AEDT we walked around to Mamak and a queue had already started to form. We crossed the road and joined it.
The queue at 1715 AEDT
The group waiting was a good mixture of people from a range of backgrounds.
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The menu cover
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The kitchen
These guys and girls were going flat out the whole time and having people on the street staring in.
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Chicken satay
Grilled over flaming charcoal for that authentic Malaysian flavour. Served with a sweet and spicy peanut sauce.
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Roti planta
A rich buttery roti served with two curry dips and spicy sambal sauce.
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Lamb curry
Kari kambing. Spicy lamb curry slow-cooked until tender. This was the best lamb curry I’ve eaten in a long time. The meat was fall apart tender and so rich in flavour that it penetrated the glugginess of my #ManFlu and gave me a good warm feeling all over (no it wasn’t the fever of the #ManFlu). Check the YouTube video below embedded in the post.
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Fried chicken
Ayam goreng. Malaysian-style fried chicken. Marinated with herbs and spices and full of flavour. Eat your heart out Colonel Sanders. This was so much better than KFC and really finger licking good.
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At first we wondered if we needed rice and thought about getting a plain roti. We had kept about four pieces of lamb and the curry set aside and asked for another plain roti. This was perfect and I was so keen on it I forgot to capture an image. Rather than flat it came out scrunched like a sponge. It was pretty good and the last of that lamb curry went down a treat.
We would like to have tried the sweet roti but after five dishes we were too full. We’ll have to come back. Watching the kitchen team was amazing as they made the roti on a hot plates.
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If you like Yummy Lummy I’d appreciate your voting for me in the Australian Writers’ Centre best blogs competition for 2013. You’ll have to scroll through about 5 pages before you get to Yummy Lummy. Thanks for voting.
Yesterday was Australia Day. It’s a day that most Australians celebrate to remember the landing of the first fleet in what would become Sydney in 1788. When I say most Australians there are many Indigenous Australians who refer to 26 January as Invasion Day. Australia Day is a national day and a public holiday is always gazetted. Given this year 26 January falls on a Saturday all the celebrations occurred yesterday yet we get Monday as a public holiday. I love Australia. We get so many public holidays and everyone receives four weeks of recreation leave a year as a basic employment entitlement. That said, statistics show that Australians work longer hours per week than most member countries of the OECD so while we get plenty of holidays, we also know how to work hard.
English: Dick Smith (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On Australia Day, I always think about how fortunate I am to have been born in Australia and to be Australian. For many Australians the celebration revolves around food and alcohol. As a non-drinker (which is pretty uncommon in Australia), I focus on food. In recent years the lamb industry has invested significantly in advertising that real Australians eat lamb on Australia Day. While I don’t believe it’s unpatriotic not to eat lamb on Australia Day, I do like lamb so that’s what I had.
There was also a very cheeky YouTube and television video played this Australia Day by Dick Smith who is an entrepreneur, business man and advocate for buying Australian made.
I’m grateful that my flight out of Toronto and beyond went relatively well. The journey up to Toronto was a little out there. Toronto is the largest city in Ontario (and Canada) and is the provincial capital. The Toronto Pearson (YYZ) airport is a lot larger than the Ottawa airport (YOW). I spent an hour or so in the Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge and enjoyed a couple of glasses of diet coke. My flight from Toronto to Los Angeles was really good. I sat next to a friendly passenger and the entertainment system in the Air Canada aircraft is very good. They have a USB port for recharging and connecting your smartphone and all the programs are on-demand. During my five hour flight I watched quite a few situation comedies that are not yet screened in Australia. I really enjoyed a compilation from the latest Winnipeg comedy festival.
I got into Los Angeles with a reasonable amount of time to spare (two hours) and managed to get into the United Lounge in terminal seven. It looked like United Airlines was continuing to have problems with its flights from that day. There were large lines of unhappy passengers asking to be put onto other flights, some of them were being sent to other airlines while others were being told to spend a night in LA.
When I got on board flight UA839 I thought we were going to have a trouble free flight except we didn’t move for more than an hour. At first we were waiting for domestic connections, then we were waiting for passengers from the last evening’s cancelled flight to turn up and collect their duty free, and then there was an on-board computer failure and the engineers were called. None of this really mattered given the prevailing tail winds and after an hour or so of delays we ended up being in Sydney about 15 minutes late. For me the flight was great. I was really tired and after watching Star Trek XI (2009) and eating dinner I fell asleep and didn’t wake until about 0300 AEST. The last 90 minutes of the flight was a little bumpy but not really bad.
Creamy garlic salad (iPhone)
Prawns and lime (iPhone)
Garlic bread (iPhone)
Tenderloin and gnocchi (iPhone)
Cheese (iPhone)
Sundae (iPhone)
Sundae (iPhone)
Fruit and yoghurt (iPhone)
Egg and sausage (iPhone)
Egg and sausage (iPhone)
I’m glad I’m back in Canberra. I’m tired and will sleep well tonight I hope.
I got back to Canberra last night after a few days in Sydney watching Miss15 compete in the Australian Gymnastics Championships. She was pretty happy, she got a bronze medal for the uneven bars and did quite well overall. The drive was tiring because it was raining pretty heavily and the roads at night when they’re wet have the occasional bad driver. It’s a roughly three hour drive and I was going to stop at Goulburn for something to eat but in the end just drove through.
I’d spoken with Bron and we agreed on a breakfast at Pizzazz. We’d been there many times before and enjoyed the breakfast menu. They make fantastic waffles. When we arrived we noticed the doors were closed and the windows were papered up. After circling the block once we drove to Manuka and walked around until we came across Urban Pantry. We looked in the window and noticed the bread. On inquiry the Sonoma organic sourdough bread is delivered from artisan bakers from Sydney. The menu was pretty standard for a fancy Canberra café. We both chose the Eggs Benedict with bacon on sourdough bread. Out of interest, Bron asked what is the minimum requirement to call something Eggs Benedict when it’s not just poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, with ham on a muffin. If anyone has an opinion let me know (I know I could run a WordPress poll but I couldn’t be bothered at the moment). Does anyone know what’s happening with Pizzazz?
The coffee was good. It was rich and aromatic. The meal itself was mostly good. My bacon was crispy with burnt pieces. The burnt pieces left a slightly acrid taste in my mouth. The bread was delicious and the organic free range eggs and hollandaise were really very nice. At about $20 a plate, it was more expensive than many other places but it tasted very good. We sat outside but it was plastic sheeted in and the heaters did a good job. The tables were a good size and the chairs comfortable.
Eggs Benedict from Urban Pantry (iPhone)
Today I spent a good portion of it preparing for a rental inspection. While I was doing that I prepared some meals for lunches at work this week. I prepared some belly pork in a new saucepan I bought from Ikea on Friday and then prepared some vegetables. I loaded up a casserole and cooked the dish in a low oven for three hours.
Pork curry (iPhone)
This afternoon I watched Iron Lady with Bron and ate some of her homemade Cinnabon classic.
Cinnabon (iPhone)
Tonight Bron made a Thai red beef curry. It was really good.
I’m currently in Sydney. Miss15 is here competing for Queensland in Level 9 in the Australian Gymnastics Championships. I’m at Sydney Olympic Park in the Sports Centre.
The drive this morning from Canberra was cold, foggy and busy. The fog was so thick I missed the exit to Goulburn so I could empty my bladder. In the end I had to wait for the Sutton Forest exit. The traffic in Sydney was horrible.
I’m staying at the Pullman Hotel at the Sydney Olympic Park. I managed to get a free night which I’m happy about.
Miss15 is still carrying injuries to her back, knee and ankles. Today she required physiotherapy after falling while warming up on the uneven bars. All in all the Queensland team and Miss15 did well. They are the 2012 Level 9 Australian Champions. If you follow my twitter timeline you’ll see my comments through the day.
I always like the walk-on so here is a video.
There was also a bit of fun when the Victorian mascot performed a floor routine.
Tonight after a great chat with Miss15 I went to Ribs and Rumps. I’ve eaten here before and tonight I thought I would have some ribs and a Key lime pie.
Today was long and drawn out. There was a lot on. No one thing put me off, it was just a combination of things that had me feeling underwhelmed and mentally lethargic. I’m taking Thursday and Friday off to watch Miss15 compete at the Australian Gymnastics Championships in Sydney. She is in the Queensland team for women’s gymnastics level 9. We also have senate estimates on Thursday and I don’t want my bosses under prepared. I don’t want to be called back so I really need to make sure all the briefing is right.
I had great hopes to cook something simple and tasty but I didn’t get out of the office until much later than I expected.
Can you guess all the elements? I have no prizes but it would be interesting to see if you can guess.
What is in this? (Panasonic DMC-TZ10)
From an angle. What is in this? (Panasonic DMC-TZ10)
