Tag Archives: Wagyū

Star Trek Into Darkness | #StarTrek #IntoDarkness | No spoilers

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Background image from the official Star Trek website
http://www.startrekmovie.com/images/bg.jpg

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.

Kirk and Dr Marcus
http://www.startrekmovie.com/images/gallery/gallery_12.jpg

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 :-)

Spock and Kirk
http://www.startrekmovie.com/images/gallery/gallery_16.jpg

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.

#breakfast Bron made poached egg on muffin #yummy

Sorry it’s a bit blurry. I was feeling very hungry.

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For lunch Bron and I went to Ricardo’s Cafe at Jamison.

Ricardo’S Cafe on Urbanspoon

I needed something refreshing and dairy

#lunch Caramel thick shake #yummy

Caramel thick shake

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Bron and I shared the Wagyu steak and truffle sliders

#lunch Wagyu truffle sliders #superyummy

These were delicious. I’d recommend them to anyone who likes a ham burger. The chips (French fries) were also very good.

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Bron and I shared a vanilla slice after the sliders

#lunch #yummy vanilla slice with Bron

One of the layers was salted caramel between the pastry and custard

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I cannot say too often just how good Ricardo’s cafe is.

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At the movie (Dendy Canberra) Bron and I had a vanilla bean ice cream choc top http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choc-Top

At the movies with Bron. #StarTrek #ChocTop #yummy #excited _\/// Live Long and Prosper

The ice cream was very rich and creamy. I think Dendy get these specially made. It’s not clear if they’re made by The Choc Top Ice-Cream Company http://www.thechoctopicecreamcompany.com.au/

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After the movie Bron made me a Haigh’s spicy hot chocolate

Hot chocolate

Marshmallows maketh the hot chocolate :-)

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This morning Bron made us scrambled eggs and bacon on sourdough toast

#breakfast Bron made scrambled #eggs and #bacon #yummy

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.

For information about almost everything Star Trek it’s worth visiting the Memory Alpha site at http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Portal:Main

Star Trek Into Darkness http://www.startrekmovie.com/
Memory Alpha http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Into_Darkness
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Into_Darkness
IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/

Dendy Cinema http://www.dendy.com.au/Page/Home
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/ddJiU


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My week in Instagram

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It’s been a busy week at work. I’ve changed offices again. I started my clinical attachment at The Canberra Hospital and I’ve eaten out a bit.

After the last post when I revealed I’d reached 80.2 kg I thought I should revisit the single fillet of salmon again as an evening staple ;-)

#dinner Salmon and vegetables with a honey soy flavour #yummy

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…

#dinner salmon and vegetables #yummy

Another small piece of salmon

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I’ve been walking every day too

Good morning Mr Owl

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.

Good morning. Office #tea Earl Grey while refreshing my knowledge of AS ISO 15189—2009

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.

I'm "home"! 😃😃😃 I moved back into my old office. First things first. Flags up 😃 #Queenslander #Territorian

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

My walk http://runkeeper.com/user/garydlum/activity/178410745

So this is where I’ll be. Building 10.

My new Friday work place

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.

Looks so much like Royal Darwin Hospital because it's the same design

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.

The walk back had a little detour to capture that image
My walk back http://runkeeper.com/user/garydlum/activity/178532953

On the walk back I passed by an excellent venue for a steak

A pretty good steak can be enjoyed here

If you visit Canberra and want a nice bistro steak, the Hellenic Club is a good place for a meal.

This is the building I spend most of my week in

Scarborough House

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On Friday night I visited Bron’s place and we enjoyed another great meal and an episode of Game of Thrones.

#dinner Bron made a Wagyu steak and salad #yummy

Wagyu steak and salad

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#dessert lemon curd ice cream and white chocolate over fruit #yummy

Fruit covered in white chocolate served with lemon curd ice cream

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Steak with savoy cabbage, asparagus and broccoli

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So tonight it’s more steak. Along with some savoy cabbage, asparagus and broccoli. The red stuff is cranberry jelly. I was going to make a pepper sauce with cream but I’ve been thinking about the amount of fat I eat and had second thoughts.

Click on the image for a higher resolution version.

Steak and vegetables with some cranberry jelly (Nikon D90)

I am hopeless with presentation. That said, I liked the way the steak was cooked.

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Beef, curry mince, asparagus, savoy cabbage and brocolli

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I’m on a roll. More steak tonight and a little left over curry mince from lunch with a heap of cabbage and some extra greens.

Click on the image for a higher resolution view

Beef with greens (Nikon D90 and Diptic)

Big day and a big result and shout out to @phonakins (#QUEENSLANDER #StateofOrigin)

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Today was huge with back to back meetings all day. I did an hour session on record management systems and came back to the office to be greeted with cake. Readers who follow me on instagram will know I regularly post photographs of cakes and biscuits that work mates make and bring in to work. It makes for a wonderful work environment.

During the training session I answered some questions and received chocolates :-)

Cake and chocolate (iPhone)

Tonight is the first of three State of Origin games. As I was driving away from work I thought about dinner. It needed to be a footy dinner. Hamburger I thought and hamburger is what I made. For readers who don’t know me, I’m a convinced and convicted Queenslander, that is, I am passionate about Queensland the greatest state in Australia; and Rugby League the greatest game of all; and State of Origin, the greatest sporting contest known.

I checked my e-mail and discovered I’d won a prize. On 16 May @phonakins at littlelioness.net posted on her blog a competition to win a Red Rock Deli Corn Chips hamper. The request for the competition was to let Fiona know in the comments your ideal corn chip and dip combination (fantasy or reality) and why they go so well. I answered, “I want a sweet corn chip coated in icing sugar that can be used to scoop up thickened chocolate sauce or melted chocolate and then eaten whole, that is a chocolate corn chip slam ;-) Perhaps then http://wayfaringchocolate.com/ can review.“Thank you very much Fiona. Much appreciated :-)

So I better show images of my hamburger.

Cheese and barbecue sauce with Wagyu beef burger (iPhone)

With it’s top on (iPhone)

And to all my friends and family who support New South Wales and the Blues, I’m sorry if you find me offensive on nights like tonight.

For readers not familiar with State of Origin rugby league history. Queenslanders (Maroons pronounced marones) are known as the cane toads (Buffo marinus) and NSW (Blues) are cockroaches. These are affectionate terms of endearment. As they say, State of Origin is mate against mate, state against state. For those interested, it was Kangaroo great Barry (garbo) Muir who coached the Queensland side from 1974 to 1978 (two years prior to the adoption of Origin selection criteria) and during this time Muir coined the term “cockroaches”, the descriptor of the New South Wales rugby league team still used by the Queenslanders.

In the end, Queensland defeated NSW 18 to 10. There was a very poor decision that resulted in a Queensland try in the last ten minutes that soured the victory. But as they say, a win is a win. I will attend work tomorrow a happy Queenslander.

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I have decided to grow my winter coat with a hamburger and ice cream

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Sure it’s Autumn, but this is Canberra. It’s absurdly cold. We haven’t had a Summer.

After a long week, I didn’t want to prepare anything complicated. I decided on a hamburger and ice cream.

Wagyu beef hamburger pattie. I love butter and barbecue sauce.

Doesn't look nice and neat on the plate.

Ice cream and whipped cream. YUM.

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Wonderful Wagyu rib eye (scotch) fillet

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I had intended this meal for tomorrow night but I will be away for most of tomorrow and won’t be back until late. It seems so indulgent, decadent to have a Wagyu steak two nights in a row.

I had some left over vegetables in the refrigerator I didn’t want to waste. I made it look a little nicer by crumbing some bread and cheese and putting it in the oven to heat through and brown on the top.

Last night I followed a recipe, tonight I tried a variation. I heated the oven to 100 °C and put the vegetables in. After 30 minutes I heated up the stove to high and got my my saucepan and oil hazing. I had already dried the meat surfaces with paper towel and seasoned with salt and pepper. I seared one side for sixty seconds (that is, I counted to 60 slowly) and then turned and put straight into the oven. I left it there for 30 minutes and pulled it out. I put the meat on a warmed plate and covered with aluminium foil to rest for 10 minutes. I turned the grill to high and browned the top of the vegetables. The rest is history.

Rather than a long page of images, here is a slideshow to enjoy.

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Two nights in a row. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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My first Wagyu beef cooking experience

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Yesterday we went to Costco and bought some Wagyu beef.

Wagyu steak from Costco

This morning we started with homemade Eggs Benedict to prove a point about the niceness of runny yolks and a smooth Hollandaise sauce. While yesterday’s breakfast was nice, this was better.

Bron's Homemade Eggs Benedict. Runny yolks are good.

A lot of thought and some research went into preparing for this evening’s meal. Wagyu beef is an expensive investment. The returns in terms of delicious flavours need to be maximised through careful cooking. The last thing we wanted was for the meat to be mishandled in any way.

After reading many websites and articles, we agreed on this method http://www.evernote.com/shard/s183/sh/6d02cff7-25f4-4a37-84ad-453bfa366032/72e8c7be756eac09e6fe4edc9b06a67c This is a method advocated by the Internet Chef.

Without an induction stove top we worked out our plan of attack. The meat was chilled and then the board dressed Jamie Oliver style to apply the seasoning. One side was cooked for 90 seconds and the fillet was turned and placed on a low heat hob with the lid on for 45 minutes. After cooking it was rested for 10 minutes. During this time Bron prepared a Jamie Oliver horseradish mash and we also had asparagus and peas.

Just look at how beautiful this piece of meat looks. It's good enough to cut thinly and eat raw.

The rib eye fillet looks gorgeous. Unctuous, gorgeous, beautiful, YUM…

Seasoned after seasoning the board as per Jamie Oliver

Don’t worry, this is not too much salt.

Bron's plate

I dissected the lean fillet from the fatty deckle. Bron prefers the lean fillet and I love the fatty deckle. The lean fillet was delicious and went well with the horseradish mash and peas.

My plate

I love the fatty deckle and all its succulent juiciness. The sauce was simply a white wine reduction with a little Dijon mustard and cream in the beef’s pan juices.

The tastiest meat and fat I've ever had

The deckle meat is on the left. It was separated from the lean fillet by a nice piece of fat. The fat tasted amazing. It was not a ‘fatty’ texture at all. It melted in my mouth and was full of flavour.

Steamed pudding with chocolate cherry sauce

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe.

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