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Archive for the ‘Food & Friends’ Category

Ritual Spirit, White Rabbit Gallery, Chippendale

Posted in Cool Things, Food & Friends, Frugal Living on October 22, 2017| 10 Comments »

I’m always a bit conflicted when I post photos that I’ve taken at the White Rabbit Gallery.

On the one hand, I really want to encourage everyone in Sydney who has an interest in contemporary Chinese art to visit, and I don’t want my photos to gazump the magic of seeing an incredible piece for the first time. Additionally, many of the artworks are large and immersive, and it’s hard to do them justice in two dimensions. On the other hand, I know many of you don’t live in Sydney and will never get to see these amazing and unique pieces in person.

My compromise is to offer you a taster – a small snippet of what’s on offer over the three gallery floors. And it was hard to pare the photos down for this post, because Ritual Spirit is one of the most beautiful White Rabbit exhibitions ever.

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Farfur the Martyr (2008) by Peng Hung-Chih, a stainless steel creation juxtaposing different religious views on the meaning of martyrdom, stands in the entrance foyer…

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Defence (2014) by Xia Hang is a large stainless steel clockwork construction. Like all things steampunk, I found it hypnotically beautiful and instantly appealing…

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Mr Sea (2014) by Geng Xue combines video with exquisitely expressive porcelain puppets…

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Play 201301 (2013) by Xu Zhen is a tied and suspended cathedral created from leather and BDSM accessories. It fills an entire room…

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100 Years of Repose (2011) by Yu Hong poignantly depicts what the artist refers to as China’s “sleeping sickness”. The pressures of modern Chinese life are so great that people fall asleep anywhere they can – on trains, benches or even under parked trucks…

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Finally, a clip of the ethereally beautiful Scripting (2011) by Luxury Logico of Taiwan. Thirteen suspended fluorescent tubes move in time with John Cage’s haunting music. The artwork is massively enhanced by the clever curatorial decision to place it in a darkened room over a reflective black vinyl floor…

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Every piece comes with its own story, and I’ve included links in the post above so that you can read a bit more about the individual artists.

The White Rabbit Gallery is one of Sydney’s great treasures and I’d urge you to visit if you ever get the opportunity to do so. Focusing on works of contemporary Chinese art made in the 21st century, the gallery continues to share these with the public completely for free. Their exhibitions are always brilliantly curated, thought-provoking and often very poignant.

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White Rabbit Gallery
30 Balfour Street
Chippendale NSW 2008

RITUAL SPIRIT is open 10am to 5pm, Wed-Sun.
The exhibition runs until 28 January 2018

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The Painted Sea

Posted in Food & Friends on October 18, 2017| 12 Comments »

This is exactly how the sea looked when Big Boy and I walked past it this morning…like a carefully constructed oil painting from one of the great masters of old.

It was too beautiful not to share with you. ♥

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Origami Stars

Posted in Food & Friends, Frugal Living on October 14, 2017| 9 Comments »

When I was young, I used to make these little paper stars until my hands hurt.

They were folded from strips of paper, which came in assorted colours that cost about 50c a packet. When I found them again recently in Japantown, San Francisco, I couldn’t resist buying some to teach my young friend Tully how to fold them.

The technique is quite simple and well explained in this excellent YouTube video…

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The strips are 1cm wide by 25cm long – you could cut them by hand, but they’re so cheap to buy that it hardly seems worth it. If you’re in the US, this bulk set from Amazon is good value, otherwise they’re easy to order from Ebay…

Warning: it can quickly become an addictive pastime!

It’s easy to recycle treasured papers as well – these wrappers from the Dandelion Chocolate bars (mentioned in the previous post) were far too pretty to waste, so we steamed off the labels and guillotined them into strips. We still have three bars to eat, but when they’re finished, I should have enough stars to fill a small glass bottle. It will be a perfect holiday souvenir!

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Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada Mountains

Posted in Cool Things, Food & Friends on September 30, 2017| 21 Comments »

Pete and I have been in San Francisco for most of September.

We’ve had the best time, staying with our beloved friends Danielle, Patrick, their wonderful children, and Obi Dog Kenobi.

A week before we left Sydney, Dan phoned us at home.

She knew we were keen to visit Yosemite National Park and had been scouting out accommodation for us. We had the option of checking into a motel outside and driving in, or renting a “tent cabin” in Half Dome Valley. Staying right in the middle of the national park was very appealing, but the downside was that we’d have to share the public amenities – there were no bathrooms in the tents.

“Oh well, so long as the toilets are clean and there aren’t any bed bugs, I guess I can manage”, I told her reluctantly.

My friend snorted with laughter.

“Bed bugs! You should be worried about the BEARS, not bed bugs!”

Err…right. Ten minutes and several expletives later, I rang her back.

“Dan, I’m 52. If I need to get up and pee in the middle of the night, a bear will EAT me. I can do public toilets OR bears, but not both together. We need another option…”

Bless her, after she stopped laughing, our darling friend managed to get us a proper cabin with a bathroom, but it meant making the four hour drive from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges the day after we arrived. Thankfully, Yosemite was so mindblowingly awesome that we didn’t even notice the jetlag.

As we entered the park, we passed El Capitan, a giant 900m tall granite monolith. The striking sheer cliff faces of Yosemite, carved by glacial action over a million years ago, were completely different to anything Pete and I had seen before…

Our cabin was in Half Dome Valley, with trees and mountains all around…

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The following morning, we woke early to watch the sun rise over the mountains. The moon shone brightly in the sky, which was hazy from wildfires in other parts of the park…

The smoky haze wasn’t too bad in the morning, but it muted the blue of the sky and resulted in some hauntingly beautiful photos…

As the sun rose, Half Dome cast a shadow on the smoke particles, resulting in a clear line of light in the sky…

The meadows in the valley are a wealth of diverse plant life, bordered by ancient tree forests. Boardwalks are in place to protect them from tourist traffic. As we walked through, we could see small wallows of flattened grass where deer had bedded down for the night…

We explored the Merced River…

…and hiked the short distance to Lower Yosemite Falls…

Ansel Adams, the American photographer and environmentalist whose advocacy and black and white photos of Yosemite helped to expand the National Park service, has a gallery in Yosemite Village…

As we drove out of the park, we stopped at Tunnel View for one parting glimpse…

Sometimes, life gives us opportunities to do things that we never dreamed possible. Visiting Yosemite National Park was definitely one of those moments! ♥

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Upcycling Party Leftovers

Posted in Food & Friends on September 9, 2017| 15 Comments »

Thank you all for your lovely comments on Small Man’s birthday post, and for sharing the happy occasion with us! ♥

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The conundrum with party food is this: I can’t bear the thought that there might not be enough, but prepping on that principle always results in a mountain of leftovers, and I can’t bear to waste any of them. So visitors are always pressed to take home boxes of food, while we attempt to creatively upcycle whatever remains.

With all the pastry offcuts from the sausage rolls…

…we made a dozen curry puffs. Filled with chicken and potato, they were good both hot and cold…

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I used the leftover antipasti in a quadruple batch of our filled foccacia. Double-smoked ham, Italian Prosciutto, Parmesan, Fromage D’Affinois, membrillo and sun-dried tomatoes all went into the mix…

Two giant slabs of focaccia came out of the oven…

Half a slab went to Will and Bethany, who’d brought an antipasto platter, and the rest was cut into large squares and frozen. The boys have been eating them for lunch with leftover hummus…

This worked particularly well and I’d urge you to give it a go the next time you have leftover antipasti. Almost anything can go in, even the tiny scrappy bits!

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