I know I said I was taking a break from blogging ‘n’ all (and I still am!), but this is such a nice feature, and no one else seems to have put it up, and I’m in such a happy mood, so… Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Bet you didn’t know the Sunshine Coast has wineries - to visit same I went on a road trip today! Anti-Labor neck of the woods up there though - the “Don’t Risk Rudd” billboards are still up on the Bruce Highway (I hope the owners of the advertising space have an efficient billing system which is sending the Nats an accounts receivable notice as we speak…) and the local rag had a pic of Anna Bligh on the front cover which couldn’t have been more unflattering and tons of Tory propaganda inside… you can see why it was the sole bit of the state that swung against Labor in last year’s Queensland election… but still - nice part of the world. Rainforest, beaches, Big Pineapple and all that.
Happy Christmas if I don’t see you round the traps beforehand! Love youse all!
Angel on Christmas tree by *phenomenologist on deviantART
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
Fourth Sunday of Advent by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Best way to start the day by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Magic and the Millennium by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Advent candles II by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Was mostly concerned with paid employment for this weekend, sadly.
There was a chaotic interlude purchasing xmas seafood at the Vic market this morning though. There’s a Polish deli that makes some pretty amazing bread, so that will be a staple for post-xmas lunch sandwiches.
Yes, unfortunately it’s Hicksville for a large part of the Sunshine Coast folks. The irony is that income and wages are so low - but the “I’ve got a business really - don’t push that socialism in my face” mindset is pretty big up there.
Apart from Noosa, which is a whole other world (though not necessarily a better one! … rainforest and nude beach excepted, oh and you can get a decent eggs benedict overlooking the beach).
A quiet weekend.A wet, cloudy Saturday - checked e-mails, corresponded with socialist friends in Zurich, one of whom had recently gone to 4th. Socialist International. blogged and read biography of Wilberforce. Watched the Bill Saturday night - Tv temporarily almost back to normal.
Sunday -checked TV early in morning - now purple and green.Went up to corner shop and bought some smokes, it Xmas, so why not? Stilled thev voice of my doctor in my ear.Checked e-mails - nil- blogged a bit. Read more of Wiberforce biography. Blogged.Finished Wiberforce biography. Did some reading and note taking on American Revolution. Watched Wind in the Willows in purple and green. Blogged. Started reading a history of Modern Ireland, after dipping into book about the Iroquoi. [cf. Holiday Reading Thread.] Blogged.
Reading Klein’s shock doctrine. The libertards lied - free markets are not actually better.
Reading Clemens’ ‘Black river’/ Finally some good Aust lit. And no-one to read it…
Mark:
Ah, wineries.
The Army had a tradition of compulsory sport on Wednesdays “You will play sport and enjoy it; that’s an order!”. Still, a few centuries ago, whilst at Woodside in South Australia, there was an outbreak of wisdom. Instead of playing boring thugby on that particular Wednesday, we were sent off on a “cultural” bus trip around the wineries. Excellent decision. Memorable day. Surprisingly, everyone was very well behaved though not necessarily stone-cold sober. The wineries made a fortune; we returned to camp refreshed and reinvigorated. Great.
Anyway, have a Merry Christmas.
Sunday.
Did the last of the gift buying, dealt with a family spat, gave the Volvo its final wash, enjoyed a couple of Bishop’s Fingers with a friend, had fish and chips down the beach, fed the sourdough starter and deboned half a dozen quail for the Christmas terrine.
Best wishes all and hope you have a lovely one.
That Sunshine Coast wines sound interesting. Thought it might be a bit hot up there but I suppose it would depend on the variety of grape they are growing.
The Little Morgue Winery caught my eye. The ultimate marketing dream.
http://www.dtftwid.qld.gov.au/wine/Wineries+and+Regions/Sunshine+Coast+Hinterland/Little+Morgue
Dead Flat White, Marble Slab Red, Gone Yesterday Rose…enormous possibilties!
As a slave to tradition I bought a little drop of the Bailys for yule celebrations.
Never seen the original so discounted and canna resist a bargain. Silly buggers have spoiled the brand name by diversions into mint, caramel etc
Thanks Mark, great piccies and road story.
We actually didn’t get to try any of the wines! Long story, but the traffic was terrible, and we had some family visiting to do, and we didn’t take off from Maroochydore til about 2.30pm and to our great consternation the Little Morgue had closed 5 mins before we got there! My friends had been there before and it’s pretty spiffy, I’m told. The other one we popped into at Forest Glen was also closed, so rather than drive up to Montville in the rain on an off chance, we came back to Brissie and had a wine in a bar! The expedition needs better planning next time!
joe2, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, there’s lots of rainfall (and rainforest), and in the mountainous bits, it’s always a lot cooler than Brissie (and the Coasts are typically a couple of degrees cooler anyway)…
Anthony, deboning a quail must be an extaordinary challenge. Do you have tiny little knives that could sought out a rat or a sparrow for grub? Just jealous, really, as I love terrine.
On Sunday we opted for the lazy lamb leg marinade roast, for the big day, with five thousand inserted slivers of garlic as this Christmas looks like one when the full bore oven gets the nod. Greek style with lemon juice, organo and cinnamon.
I am wearing jeans and shoes for the first time in weeks so we are adapting to the unseasonal weather. Mmmm food.
I’m a Nambour resident and it was fun driving around the place with a kevin’07 bumper sticker.
Fisher is overcrowded by accountants, developers, hoteliers and lawyers and I believe that’s where the majority of anti-labor sentiment comes from. I’m at a lost as to why Fairfax is so bent on keeping the LNP in favour. Perhaps someone can explain that to me.
The local wineries are run by very friendly people and will be happy to chat about all things wine. There’s also a few boutique breweries around too.
Nah, they’re actually pretty straightforward as long as someone shows you the right way to do it, joe2. Unfortunately I’d forgotten.
I use a little Victorinox ‘birds beak’ paring knife that cost about $6 - extends from the finger nicely for fiddly work should you find yourself feeding off god’s smaller creations in tough times.
Beautiful work with the lamb - you’ll be lucky if they leave you some for sandwiches. Kala Christougena!
(just finished packing the terrine. Should be a corker - free-range organic Berkshire pork and bacon with port-soaked walnuts, quail and french beans)
And no I didn’t know the Gold Coast had wineries, I’m guessing they’re not doing Pinot.
It would be interesting to know! I suspect there might be something to nut out in census occupation and income figures - my impression is similar to Kim’s - there are a lot of houses with signs in the front door advertising various sorts of services or products around Maroochydore and Nambour - people eking out a living through very small businesses. Are there any major employers in the area?
Here are some more pics I took today on my last Christmas shopping expedition! Presents all bought, now completely exhausted. Anyone else feel like that?
Angels over Brisbane X by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Santa’s mail box by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Angels over Brisbane IX by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Day before Christmas by *phenomenologist on deviantART
City is just over the hill by *phenomenologist on deviantART
“free-range organic Berkshire pork”
Also, a Queensland product Anthony and sounds delicious. There are some folks in Victoria, Neerim South or there abouts who grow glorious pork and preserve old breeds.
http://www.rbta.org/meatmarketing.htm
Hospital, council and TAFE are the ones that spring to mind. A fair amount of light industrial and as you say micro-businesses. Plus a sprinkling of tourism related/export industry such as the Ginger Factory.
Well, it’s still just barely Sunday for me here in San Francisco, and I’ve spent it pretty well. Cable car to China Town for dim sum, visit to the cable car museum, then a LONG afternoon shopping for a 12-head 2-day Xmas feast in wierd-arse Aussie/US hybrid style. I expect the highlight will be a baby octopus & Bay scallop, lime & blood orange,
cilantrocoriander &scallionspring onion ceviche that I’m making with my brother in law, but it’s all looking pretty superb.My lass and I are so glad to have discovered a connection with the bro-in-law other than my slightly neurotic but lovely sister, and from behind the kitchen benches we maintain an island of delicious sanity, while the chaos of 3 generations of over-parenting whirls about us. Also, we drink heavily - his NY parents arriving tomorrow may well tip the balance into all-out lunacy.
I had a marathon delivery round: some old photos I’d spruced up on the computer to my dad; a bunch of Christmas dinner supplies to my sister’s, where we’re going; and a load of supplies and presents to my housebound best mate in the Adelaide Hills, where I then spent an enchanting two hours with people I’ve been friends with for *cough*thirtyfiveyears*coughcoughcough*
[Hacks up furball.]
Anthony, I had a good look at the cafe’s copy of Spice while I was waiting for me mates the other day. And now there’s nothing for it — I’m going to have to subscribe. What a truly excellent magazine.
You need to visit anthony and taste his excellent cooking, too, Dr Cat! His credentials as a food editor are well supported.
My failure to provide a link to “free-range organic Berkshire pork� of the QLD variety that Anthony mentioned. They treat those little piggies with such gentle care and love till us humans eat them up for Christmas. Yum.
http://www.pastureperfect.com.au/blog/?p=23
Thanks for the link joe2, it’d be great to see these pig farms everywhere. I get mine from Spencer’s Brook farm, who usually have a stall up at City Farm in Perth. The pigs are treated lovingly and the reward for supporting their endeavours is fabulous bacon.
Thank you Pav, it’s still a source of surprise to find people saying they’ve read the mag and the compliment is a lovely kick-off to christmas. Very welcome for dinner and thanks for the mad props Mark.
Enjoy SF and the ceviche FDB!
Everyone likes food but if you’re really truly hungry a glass of water and piece of bread taste as ambrosial and are as deeply replenishing as any other feast that can be devised.
And besides, when people crap on ad nauseum about deboned quails and the pretentious yawn-inducing like it means their sex life is dead as as roadkill.
Discuss.
Hey, Wolfe still excited by last nights full moon, I guess.
Turn on the computer speakers , press PREVIEW, on the link below and we will all howl together for a Merry Christmas to you.
http://www.123ppt.com/sound-effects/music/312.htm
what excites me Joe2 is a penis in full working order. If disembowelled quails are your thing, then so be it, but don’t ever ask me for a date.
Whoa, from the looks of the clock there, seems it’s pretty late on Christmas Eve down yunder. Y’all oughta be headed over to midnight Mass.
What have I been doing? Oh boy. Threw a Christmas party for about 60 people. Ran around like a headless (free-range) chicken. Was the grateful recipient of an unexpected and somewhat hilarious kindness from my neighbors. Switched flights (took a while on the phone, but was a lot cheaper than I thought!). Put off sleeping until some other month. Learned something about hardware stores that really annoyed me. Ate very good Chinese food at rather unexpected hours. Figured out a sort of complicated way to do a favor for an old friend, and also another different one for a total stranger. Was told some pretty bad news from somebody I love, & don’t quite know what to do about it yet, or if I can even do anything. Flirted a bit, with a gal I’ve developed a crush on. Finished most of the work on a big project I’m kind of proud of, which has taken me most of this past year to complete. (Tori Amos: “Still… a pretty good year.”)
And so right now I’m doing what all good over-worked agoraphobics do: hiding like an exhausted jerk in my den with the lights turned down, nursing a glass of Tempranillo, listening obsessively to “Birth of the Cool,” “Copper Blue,” and “Bad Sneakers,” and wondering why the fuck I ever go outside my front door in the first place, although at the end of the day, we all know very well the answer to that one already; and plus, god dammit, I know I’ll have to go back out there again tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on. But there’s a reason for that. At least, there better be.
Joyeaux Noel, y’all!
Anthony, the wineries Mark referred to are in the Sunshine Coast, not the Gold Coast. I wasn’t aware of them but there is volcanic soil and a bit of elevation around Montville/Maleny at least. Nevertheless I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they buy grapes grown elsewhere. This is the case for the winery at Mt Tambourine.
I mow a few lawns around the place and this time of the year it’s a 7-day week. This year I only worked 40/42 days running up to Christmas. I think last year it was 70/72. People are truly grateful and the Australian tradition of rewarding people like me with bottles of wine and other gifts is well and truly alive. And there is some pleasure in making the joint look better than they aver could themselves.
“And besides, when people crap on ad nauseum about deboned quails and the pretentious yawn-inducing like it means their sex life is dead as as roadkill.”
Clearly you’ve never tried deboning road kill while almost nude at midnight on ecstasy with a bottle of extra virgin olive oil in one hand and someone else’s mobile on the other. It was sex, but not as we know it Jim.
When people pass comment on the sex life of others it usually says more about their own.
This doesn’t count.
Our ceviche fucked up - the octopus never got tender - so I had to drain off the citrus, separate out the cephalapods from the bivalves, then simmer them in saffron and pinot gris. Finish with a little cream, serve on pumkin ravioli, and you’ve got a hell of a rescue job if I say so myself. The perfect accompaniment for the announcement of my engagement my lovely lady friend.
Who then got quite a rogering - is this the exception to prove your rule, Wolfey my sex-starved amigo?
“Who then got quite a rogering”
Oh yeah? Once you’ve gone cephalapod, there’s no going back, sucker!
We had two Xmas lunches this year owing to #1 son having to beaver on Xmas day. One was on Saturday and went off with the usual cursing by yours truly for going OTT. The daughter of the house was highly satisfied as it met her criterion of a “proper” lunch, not like last year’s steam boat. As usual, no-one had room for the pav and most were pleasantly pissed, except moi who collapsed in a heap at the end of the day, vowing never again. At least the dishwasher was back from hospital.
The next lunch was on Xmas day and was what I constantly threaten-table heavily-laden with prawns, freshly cooked crayfish and other crustaceans (none of which I eat, as it happens) and succulent baked glazed ham and stuffed chicken roll etc, washed down with a very decent bubbly and the odd kir (me). Sod the rest of the buggers. Retired half-pissed, but happy, with a bottle of Chainsaw yet to be quaffed.
Since then, it’s been back in the salt mines and will be until the end of May when the season finishes. Hooray! No more stinking crayfish until 1 October 2008!
FDB: “The perfect accompaniment for the announcement of my engagement my lovely lady friend. Who then got quite a rogering….”
*All sentient female beings turn green with envy of said lady at mere thought of such a rare treat*
FDB, the time-honored method of tenderising octopus, dating back aeons, is to hit it with a rock. Hit it. Get it?
Actually, Wolfe, you hit a rock with it, not the other way round.
My experience has been that people who are interested in the finer points of food are also interested in the finer points of sex. It’s something to do with a generous approach to the giving and getting of sensual pleasure in general.
Hit’s the operative word here, PC.
Sex and food are also cerebral pleasures which is why we enjoy learning about the provenance of food, where it came from, by what means, and the intricacies, magic and science of its artful manipulation and display.
The same goes for sex.
Of course, “rogering” a woman conveys nothing of this cerebral or sensual sensibility or the generous reciprocity, which I agree, is the hallmark of the most pleasurable cooking, eating and fucking.
Whereas “fucking” simply oozes class and sensuality. There’s not much you could teach me about cooking or the subtler aspects of lovemaking, but perhaps if you could keep one identity for a month or more I could avoid responding to your snarkier remarks and do us both a favour. I’ve learned it’s much more trouble than it’s worth, as your sense of humour seems limited to the outright nasty.
I’m a lover, not a fighter.
Oi! This is meant to be a nice thread.
I’d have placed ‘em both rather anatomically lower, but who am I to judge? Oh, let’s have a bit more gratuitous food fetishism.
FDB, if you’re going to boast - quite gratuitously - on a blog about giving your girlfriend a good rogering, only weeks after telling all and sundry (though perhaps not the girlfriend) that you’d like to fuck (or hit) other attractive women in the public eye whose photos were posted on LP, then you’ve gotta expect a lil flax from the feminazis.
You’re a hoot, man. Keep it up!
of course, I meant “flak”.
And just call me WW (Warrior Woman) if the mask changing irritates. They’re just like clothes to me.
Oh good I thought I was just being paranoid. It’s getting mighty difficult to keep track.
“Warrior Woman”
Lame.
Hey, Devil Drink I took your recent advice and bought a bottle of riesling for around ten bucks. Back swiftly to the CHARDY and a little merlot. (Maybe I just can’t get over being a chardy swilling lefty). Even the cheapies are really good value. A bit of a lash out on something from yarra valley for tonight but no champers to pop. The bubbly gets up my nose.
And yes, thinking up lots of New Years Nibbles. All cold because the heat is extreme in Vic. The coppers are scared and want helmets. I reckon they should stay home and celebrate with their families. Much less chance of riots that way.
Love and food and wine and stuff…just like P.C. said.
well, it IS New Year’s Eve. Masks and fancy dress costumes abound and subtlety is not called for.
BTW, speaking of personas and masks, gotta mention that Elizabeth Farrelly’s “Blubberland” bears almost zero resemblance to the various invariably hostile attempts to review it, including Gummo’s very misleading effort a while back on LP.
In fact, it’s a veritable treasure trove of distilled ideas and propositions about matters aesthetic, primarily, not surprisingly, in relation to architecture, the glorious one’s academic specialty.
Another book, another little gem I’ve just finished, really an extended essay, is Terry Eagleton’s “The Meaning of Life”. Deftly and oh so economically deals with the issue from every possible angle. Highly recommended.
My tolerance threshold for stoushing on these threads is very low. Just sayin…
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the rieslings, joe2, but spending $10 on it might have been the problem. Rieslings and pinots are pretty hard to do cheaply, unlike those punchy semillons and chardonnays that democratically span all price ranges. Bay of Fires in Tassie does a riesling drinker’s riesling.
Enjoy New Years, kids, and keep your friends safe, especially if you’re on the pills. You know the usual cliché about big nights out: if you can’t be good, be gregarious. And I’ll finish off with an exhortation, from the same source as above (Devil quotes Scripture, etc.):
“Bay of Fires in Tassie does a riesling drinker’s riesling.”
This ol’ cheapskate will give it a swing if Dan has it.
Nice quote DD.
Mark - sorry, my niggardly petulance has been quite unbecoming.
Joe2 - I’m with you on Riesling for the most part, but if you can find a really dry one give it another crack.
No probs, FDB.