Wednesday 26 March 2008

Sweet potato mayhem

My mum (brilliant guru of alternative medicine, that she is) has degreed that I shalt not eat potato. For a couple of weeks at least. Hence I experimented with sweet potatoes in attempt to find somethings to replace the gaping hole in my life caused by a lack of potato =P

I didn't used to be a big fan of sweet potato but I've since realised it's all in how you cook it. So here are two different sweet potato recipes for people who don't really like sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Chips (chips like potato chips not hot chips)
I learnt to make these when I worked at a seafood restaurant many many years ago. We used to use them as a garnish and they were delish. Today I figured I'd attempt them at home.

Peel a sweet potato. Get rid of all the skin and then keep peeling. This is probably the easiest way to make thin chips ready for frying - the peeler makes them just the right thickness.

Heat some oil in a small saucepan - a couple of cm deep is enough. You can use any kind oil suitable for frying. Jamie Oliver's tip - put a small chuck of potato in when you turn the heat on and when the potato is golden and floating then the oil's at good temperature for frying.

Line a plate with lots of paper towels for when they come out.

Fry them in batches until the edges of the chips are just starting to brown. Take them out quickly and drain them well. Really well. Sprinkle with salt and try not to eat them all at once.

It takes a bit of trial and error to get the frying right - oil too hot and they go from orange to brown in an instant and end up burnt. Too cool and they don't seem to change at all. The perfect chip is going brown around the edges but still mostly orange (in centre).

I'd post a photo but we've eaten them all already. My brother, who is vehemently opposed to sweet potato, ate all the ones that were left after I'd stuffed my face on them (making myself feel slightly ill in the process). Granted he didn't know what they were at the time, but he certainly liked them.


The yummiest Sweet Potato Mash ever.
I experimented with this last night and it was so good I decided to make it again tonight. Mum's comment was "It's a bit like toffee", and then she took some more. I'll call that a positive response.

Roast some sweet potato
prepare (peel, cut into chunks, toss in oil rosemary S+P)
put in oven ~200, until soft and maybe the corners are going a little brown
turn out on to some paper towel to get rid of any excess oil

Mash with lots of herb butter (or butter and finely chopped fresh parsley)
herb butter: chop finely fresh parsley and mush it in to some butter. Put back in fridge until needed (I made some several days ago because the parsley plants in mum's garden have gone mad and turned into huge bush-like things. Clearly they need to be used. Equally obviously, having made herb butter you then have to find uses for it...)

Eat

Roasting the sweet potato rather than boiling/steaming it, makes the natural sugars in it caramelise and go all yum which is probably what makes this so good... and toffee-like :-)

Saturday 22 March 2008

a trip to the beach and the stegosaurus turtle

Yesterday I went to the beach with two of my friends. It was fun despite not being a huge fan of swimming. My favourite part of the day was building sandcastles. Or rather we built a sand turtle - a stegosaurus turtle. Um... yeah. ??? somehow it just happened.

As we are building the turtle...
Me: hey, look it's got spines
...clearly therefore it must be some kind of weird morph between a stegosaurus and a turtle...and really...those spines could use a bit of work... :D

(photos to follow)

Thursday 20 March 2008

The truth will set you free

This blog is about being me. My attempt to embody the principle of visibility outlined in Conversations with God book 2 by Neale Donald Walsch. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Scary sometimes, but important.

Untitled

Is this what it's like to be depressed?

Giving up things you love. Becoming more and more isolated. Endless plains of nothing. No desire, no motivation, no goals. Feeling worthless. Oceans of tears. Exhaustion. Loneliness. The dream of a better existence fading... fading away.

Moments of beauty, joy, gratitude punctuating a bleak existence. Friends, laughter, books, tv. Escape, forgetting, movement again. Thinking you've turned a corner. Falling in the next hole and realising you were wrong. More tears. Withdrawing even further from the world again.

I don't know. Sometimes, most of the time even (maybe), I feel normal. And yet all of the above is still true. For a given value of true as Terry Pratchett would say.

I'm reminded of that song by Matchbox 20: "I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. I know right now you can't tell. But just wait a while and then you'll see, a different side of me"

I'm scared to post this. It's so public, potentially at least - I have no idea how many people actually read this blog. And always my instinctual reaction when I'm feeling down has been to withdraw from people, to hide myself. So it's scary to put this up here.

Tuesday 18 March 2008

Fremantle Street Arts Festival

Coming this Easter long weekend to Perth is the... *cue drumroll*

Fremantle Street Arts Festival

This unique event draws thousands of people to Fremantle to experience the supreme skill and outrageous behaviour of the world's best Buskers.

Take yourself down to Freo on Sat, Sun or Mon and prepare to be amazed. The performers and the things they do are incredible. In the words of the performer descriptions in the program, "WARNING: This show may cause acrobatic amazement. Popeyed take no responsibility for your jaw hitting the floor"

My personal recommendation for "absolute must see" is Pedro Tochas - The Sculpture Clown.
By far the most memorable act from the 2007 street arts festival. I almost missed seeing him, but I'm so glad I didn't. Unique, different, capitivating... and hilarious. We laughed pretty much all the way through his act. I cannot explain how brilliant he was - just go see him perform! I promise you won't regret it.

Oh and please remember this is what the performers do for a living. So please show your support if you like their work.

Sunday 16 March 2008

Bit and pieces from the past few days.

My birthday picnic at the beach yesterday went well. Good food, good company, perfect weather, interesting sculptures (and random ones too). Thank you to everyone who came, it was great having you there. Recipe for the Roasted Vege Salad I made:

1. Roast some veges
(potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, beetroot, cut into bitesize pieces, toss with extra virgin olive oil, crushed garlic, S+P, rosemary and thyme, then roast in oven ~200C until done)
2. Let them cool
3. In a bowl put baby spinach leaves, the roasted veges, and dress with a honey mustard salad dressing
(extra virgin olive oil, fresh lemon juice, S+P, honey, wholegrain mustard)
4. Can serve immediately, but it's better if it's left for a little while before serving.

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Sculpture by the Sea Cottesloe 2008

My favourite sculpture was "fossil" by Julia Adzuki and Mark Szulgit. From a distance it looked a bit like a clear glass pillar with some cloudy bits inside it. When you got up close you could see that some of the cloudy bits were spiky little spheres, and others were long and thread-like. The whole thing was actually in 6 vertical layers yet the objects inside continued from one layer to the next almost seamlessly. It was fascinating and I'd love to know how they create it.

Despite looking around at length on the internet, I haven't been able to find a photo of it except on someone's flicker account here. But it was also at last year's Bondi exhibition so I probably have some photos on Mum's computer which I'll put up when I go down to her place over Easter.
There wasn't anything this year that captured my heart as much as last year's Nautilus but here are some of the other pieces I liked:


Top: Evolution -David Carstairs (photo Gordana Kezic)
Bottom: Time frame - Derek Roach (photo Mark Coddington)

ps. if you fancy yourself a budding sculptor, they're currently calling for submissions for the Bondi exhibition in October.

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In other news: On Thursday night my brother came round and cooked me dinner! How cool is that? Well, I thought it was pretty cool - I can't remember if anyone's ever come over and cooked dinner for me in my own flat before. Certainly not in recent memory at least.

Ok so I had fed him the past 2 times he'd come over, between him finishing soccer training and going to work at nightfill - so it wasn't completely out of the blue. But it was still cool.

Tuesday 11 March 2008

14 000 miles across the ocean

My mum emigrated to Australia from England when she was 19. Rather than do the usual thing and hop on one of those great big P&O liners, she and her dad sailed themselves here. Yes, really. All the way from England, just the two of them. On a 26 foot yacht.

She's telling the story of their journey here:
http://14000milesacrosstheocean.blogspot.com/

Check it out, it's fascinating. And if you enjoy reading it, please leave comments to encourage her to keep writing.


...oh and the title and subtitle were my idea - is it sad to admit I'm very proud of coming up with them? Well I think they're catchy at least :-P

Sunday 9 March 2008

Apparently I am getting older again soon...

Certain friends have reminded me that my birthday is less than 2 weeks away... How is it that my birthday always manages to sneak up on me like this?

Said friends were also rather vocal about "doing something" for it. I wasn't hugely enthused at the time because, well to be honest I wasn't really enthused about anything at the time. And anyway I'm not really into going out/drinking/dancing thing anymore (ballroom/salsa excepted of course). There's always going out to dinner but... meh.

What I'd like to do (weather permitting) is have a picnic at the beach next weekend. Kind of short-ish notice for people but the weekend after my birthday is Easter so that's out. I was going to go down to Cott next weekend anyway for the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. It'd be nice to have company. And I like picnics.

So... the main stuff:

Sat 15th March
12 noon - whenever
Cottesloe Beach - somewhere on the grassed bit
Bring a plate of food to share, and a picnic rug/chairs to sit on.
BYO drinks.
Everyone I know welcome so if I've forgotten to invite someone, feel free to invite them on my behalf - chances are I didn't have a way to contact them. Partners ok.

Please rsvp (email/sms/facebook) by Thursday as I need to book the beach :P
(j/k - sorry, private in joke - actually I'd like an idea of how many paper plates/cups etc to pick up)

A few further details:
Presents not required.
I don't eat dairy products (sole exception: butter), avocado or anything really spicy - so if you want me to be able to appreciate your wonderful cooking skills (or "buying ready made stuff from the supermarket" skills), you might want to keep that in mind.
If raining - I don't know, I don't have a back-up plan. My place is too small to host any kind of party. Defer to Sunday perhaps?

I'm not going to put my contact details up here, I think anyone who might come should know at least one way to get through to me. My internet access is a bit limited at the moment, so email/facebook probably won't get a very quick reply but I will make sure to check them every couple of days.

Facebook event here

Saturday 8 March 2008

Sculpture by the Sea

Swannen - Niall David Begley, SXS Cottesloe 2007. Photo by Karen Castle


Sculpture by the Sea Cottesloe 2008 is on now until the 18th March. This is a free outdoor art exhibition where sculptors from all over the world exhibit their work on Cottesloe beach.

I highly recommend it. I went with a friend last year and we really enjoyed it. Sometimes we were like, "What on earth is that meant to be?" but that was half the fun really - trying to work out what the sculptor was thinking. And there were so many brilliant pieces.

My favourite piece was Nautilus by Adje Lucien Ruiz (New Caledonia). This piece was based on the famous fictional submarine in Jules Verne's Twenty thousand leagues under the sea. The detail inside and out was incredible. Looking in through the windows you could see things like a bookshelf with classic books and a chemistry set, a table with a bottle of wine and two glasses, a replica of a piano organ, and of course the old fashioned cockpit with it's big dials and mysterious levers. The picture doesn't really do it justice.


Nautilus - Adje Lucien Ruiz, SXS Cottesloe 07. Photo by Karen Castle.

Lift, plonk - Chi Phan, SXS Bondi 07. Photo by Josephine Conrey

Images courtesy of http://www.sculpturebythesea.com/


I'm planning to go next weekend and I'm really looking forward to it.


Edit: Some of my pictures of inside the Nautilus