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Happiness is…

Posted in My Photos on August 11, 2016| 36 Comments »

Happiness is…

…eating tender ginger beef on a cold, rainy night…

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Happiness is…

…rocking my black heart sunnies with my red Clint Eastwood Ecuadorean hooded cape. Because it’s winter in Sydney, and the red hearts felt like overkill…

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Happiness is…

…escaping into the city for a couple of hours on my own. Even when it’s grey and overcast, Sydney is always beautiful, and it’s always home…

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Happiness is…

…catching the cute baristas at Gumption in the Strand Arcade cracking themselves up over their inability to pronounce the name “Hugh”…

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Happiness is…

…baking Small Man’s favourite buttermilk scones for International Scone Week, hosted by the lovely Tandy at Lavender and Lime. Pop over and join in the fun!

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Happiness is…

…finding an hour to temper some 70% Amedei dark chocolate into after dinner bites…

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Happiness is…

…achieving the plasticky sheen and holey crumb so coveted by Italian bakers everywhere…

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Happiness is…

…running into Steve the Bush Jeweller at the Rocks Markets and finding that his new pendant matches my other pieces exactly. Made from an old silver plated fork and spoon, it came on a sterling chain and cost just $28…

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Happiness is…

…learning from Auntie Sim how to steam a fish head in the microwave.

Pop a split and de-gilled head (just one side, about 350g) into a dish and cover with sauce and ginger, then cling film the top. Microwave on high for three minutes, medium for three minutes, then low for three minutes. Scatter over chopped scallions and serve.

I ate this on my own for lunch…

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Happiness is…

…discovering a new brand of shoes for my Hobbit feet. These are Wolkys and unfortunately they’re not available here (I bought then in San Francisco). To date, they’re the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever worn…

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Happiness is…

…knitted churidar pants from Fabindia – super long, über comfortable leggings that bunch at the ankles, hence the name “churidar” which means “bangle-like”. Best of all, they’re just US$22 a pair from Fabindia online, delivered anywhere in the world for free if you spend over $100…

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Happiness is…

…a new dryer.

We really did try to fix our old one, but after 16 years, it was no longer possible to get parts. We were pretty happy though when the repairman told us where to buy a Miele demonstrator model for $700 off the recommended retail price!

The model we bought uses heat pump technology, which my engineer husband believes will save us $300 a year in electricity…

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Happy days! Hope all is well in your world too!

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I left my heart…in San Francisco

Posted in Food & Friends, My Photos on August 8, 2016| 44 Comments »

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My friend Patrick said…”Celia, you’d make a good American”.

I’m not so sure about that, but I do know that I could happily live in San Francisco.

Last month, our family of four spent twenty-six days in California, staying with our beloved friends Dan(ielle) and Patrick. It was a trip we’d planned with some trepidation – Dan and I are extremely close, but even the best of relationships can be tested by sharing close quarters for such an extended period of time.

It’s a huge testament to our friendship (and Dan and Patrick’s great patience and generosity) that we didn’t have a single tense moment during the entire stay. And after nearly a month of living with them, we found it difficult to come home. It took me five days to get over the jet lag, but a lot longer to recover from the soul lag. You see, I left my heart in San Francisco.

I bought myself a new pair of Zenni prescription sunglasses just for San Francisco!

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This was our first proper holiday in a decade, and the longest we’ve ever been away. And I fell in love with all of it – Oakland City (where we were based), San Francisco, Berkeley and the East Bay. Most of all, I adored the people.

As a generalisation, San Francisco is a city of friendly, liberal-minded extroverts. Everyone we met was cheerful, and most were happy (keen!) to engage in conversation. Whether it was at the supermarket checkout, in a museum, or while waiting for a delayed flight, the folks we met were almost universally good natured. They have a lightness of spirit that reminded me of Sydneysiders, but their gregariousness and willingness to chat to strangers took it to another level for me. I was completely smitten.

Whilst we visited all the attractions, we didn’t have an overly touristy holiday. Dan and I shopped at Safeway and Target and Walmart; we visited Mexican grocers and Ecuadorean handicraft stores; we ate at local eateries. We attended a neighbourhood 4th of July parade, and froze in nosebleed seats at a night ballgame. The fog rolling in over the Golden Gate Bridge became a familiar sight.

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We cooked dinners at home, taught Dan to bake sourdough and temper chocolate, and sat in her backyard watching for hummingbirds. And yes, I did send packets of dried Priscilla to San Fran, where it was rehydrated into Dan’s starter Johnny Cash (you were right, Emilie, King Arthur flour is the bomb. Thanks!).

Dan's first sourdough loaf, made with her Johnny Cash starter.

Dan’s first sourdough loaf, made with her Johnny Cash starter.

Tempering chocolate with Dan and Patrick’s beautiful children – I hid the golden ticket moulds until the last minute!

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As a food lover, I found San Francisco full of surprises.

The French fries were disappointing (someone needs to introduce chicken salt to America), but there was a vast array of unbelievably good cheeses on offer everywhere, even in little corner grocery stores. Supermarket meat was almost scarily cheap. Oakland Chinatown offered live bullfrogs and tortoises for sale. And then there was the unparalleled wonderfulness of Berkeley Bowl. I have never seen produce as fresh or diverse or glorious for sale! I seriously considered moving to Berkeley, just to shop there.

I actually squealed out loud when I came across the mushroom display at Berkeley Bowl West.

I actually squealed out loud when I came across the mushroom display at Berkeley Bowl.

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It really was the holiday of a lifetime!

Dan and Patrick, Tully, Mitch and Benny, we love you guys (and we miss you desperately). Words are inadequate to express how grateful we are – thank you for making our visit so much better than we imagined it could be!

I’ll be posting more photos soon – I have over a thousand to sort through!

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Art Gallery of NSW

Posted in My Photos on July 6, 2016| 17 Comments »

The Art Gallery of NSW is a fascinating place.

It seems to meander on endlessly, floor after floor, each filled with a different genre of art.

We took Mum there recently to view the Tang Exhibition, a collection of artifacts from the Chinese Tang Empire (618 – 907AD). Ignoring my suggestion that we start with lunch at the cafe, Mum took us to the very fancy Chiswick restaurant inside the gallery. The food was very good and after lunch, they brought us this elegant Queen Anne bone china plate with four pieces of excellent dark chocolate (made in-house no less – I was impressed!)…

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The Tang Exhibition is spread out over two floors and includes some audio-visual and virtual reality components. It would definitely appeal to a fan of antiquities…

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This statue made me laugh – I loved her round moon face. She would have fit right in with our family…

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The lower floor had mostly Buddhist artifacts, including this large statue of the Medicine Buddha from the late 700s or 800s…

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We left Mum admiring the ancient treasures and went off to explore the rest of the gallery.

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I know I bang on about this a lot, but it never fails to amaze me that we Sydneysiders can view so much magnificent art for free! Like Brett Whiteley’s extraordinary, wall-filling, The Balcony (1975)…

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…and Claude Monet’s Port-Goulphar, Belle Île (1887)…

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One of the lower floors houses the John Kaldor Family Collection, comprising over 200 international contemporary art pieces recently gifted to the gallery. You can view photos of them all here. Two artworks by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone caught my eye…

Clockwork for Oracles (2011) is a site specific installation of 52 “windows”…

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…and If There Were Anywhere But Dessert. Wednesday (2000)…this one scared me silly. I was concerned that it might be performance art and that the clown was going to leap up at me when I walked in. It turned out to be a very convincing fibreglass model…

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Finally, my favourite landscape in the whole gallery (and apparently everyone else’s too) – Spring Frost (1919) by NZ-born Australian Ellioth Gruner. It’s an unbelievably beautiful work, painted largely in situ at Emu Plains. At a time before computers and high quality photos, the artist sat outdoors with his legs wrapped in hessian bags to prevent frostbite while painting this masterpiece…

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It was as if sunlight was shining out of the painting…I stared at it until Pete finally dragged me away…

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If you haven’t explored the Art Gallery of NSW before, it’s definitely worth a visit!

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A Glorious Long Weekend

Posted in My Photos on June 21, 2016| 20 Comments »

A few pics from our most enjoyable Queen’s Birthday long weekend…

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On Friday, Pete and I popped in to Carriageworks to spend half an hour in the Grand Bazaar of Arak, Iran. Hossein Valamanesh’s Char Soo is a four-sided video presentation which places the viewer at the centre of the market.

The projections screen on all four walls of the small space, providing a 360º view of the bazaar. You can watch a bicycle being ridden towards you, pass you on the side and then travel away down the tunnel behind you. The people on the screen are life-sized, and whilst the experience isn’t completely immersive, it’s captivating to watch nonetheless.

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Here is just a tiny snippet from one of the projections – an entire day in the market is clipped to run over 27 minutes, from early morning set up to shutting down at night…

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I woke up at 5.30am on Saturday morning and decided it was too early and too cold to get up. I probably should have peeked in on my sourdough before making that decision, as this is what I found an hour later…

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Perfectly salvageable though, and by 10am, I had six loaves baked for the weekend…

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On Sunday, I had an entire day to myself in the city.

I popped in to Gumption in the Strand Arcade and ordered my new favourite – a double decaf with ¾ milk and one sugar (it’s the closest thing I’ve found to two piccolos).

I was so happy that I couldn’t stop humming – it made the barista laugh when he brought out my coffee. Although he might have been laughing at my  mad orange kantha coat – everybody else in the arcade was elegantly attired in black…

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I then wandered down George Street towards the Rocks Markets.

Despite the sunshine, it was a cool 12C day and the seas were choppy – I was grateful for my warm coat. We Sydneysiders are incredibly blessed to be able to stand right on the water’s edge and drink in these amazing views whenever we want…

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For lunch, I found an outside table at Ribs and Burgers and had the mini slider duo with really, really good chips…

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On Monday, our friends Will and Bethany popped in with Tom and Not-A-Baby-Anymore Grace.

We put together an impromptu lunch of beef keema, hummous, and Persian fetta, stuffed inside my new sourdough focaccias. It was a huge hit, and we probably didn’t need the chocolate pudding I served afterwards. Ah well, it’s winter and it’s cold, right?

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Long weekends don’t come around very often, and I’m always grateful for this one in June. It’s a welcome pause in an otherwise busy time of year!

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Snippets: Vivid, Darling Harbour

Posted in Food & Friends, My Photos on June 7, 2016| 14 Comments »

Last Friday night, Pete and I caught the light rail in to Darling Harbour to visit Vivid Sydney. Our city’s annual light show has encountered some pretty wild weather this year and some displays have been damaged by strong winds. Thankfully, last Friday was merely drizzly, as opposed to the massive storms we had over the weekend.

Pete and I grabbed a table on the boardwalk, ordered a simple dinner, and settled in to watch the show. The Laser-Dragon Water-Theatre was glorious – video projected water screens, 20 metre high fountains, flame jets and powerful lasers – all combined to create a stunning light show in the middle of the bay. It was amazing to watch the image dissolve into water droplets at the end…

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I have an appalling weakness for fireworks. I know they’re environmentally terrible and a huge waste of money, but I adore them. And I like being right under them, where the explosions are loud enough to reverberate in  my chest…

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Darling Harbour has fireworks most Saturday nights during the year, and several times a week during Vivid Sydney (their website has more information).

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There are just a few light sculptures at Darling Harbour – not nearly as many as there are at Circular Quay, but we were more than happy to avoid the big crowds. This angler fish was a cheery sight…

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…as was this colour-changing nautilus…

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We’re hoping to catch a few of the Vivid Sydney displays – they’re quite widespread this year. I’ll post more photos if we do!

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