New Knitty...

The new Knitty is up and I am utterly fascinated at the construction and design of Spoke and Four Corners in Tokoyo.

Although I think something like Zora might be better suited for me to actually wear. But it's the accessories or small projects which will most likely be going onto a set of my needles in the near future.
Because I really really really like hats, neck warmers and penguins the very lovely Shroom, Duet, Burning Embers and Mr Popper are my top picks from this issue.

While the socks were lovely, I just don;t like knitting them, I find them quite tedious and boring. This amuses Miss Stash because I love knitting arm/wrist/hand warmers, but as I point out to her these things are exciting to knit!

Truer words have never been spoken...

I have become a fast and firm fan of Maven and her blog A Fabulously Good Life. And what can I say but the latest post is very true, I have so been behind that person on the phone at the checkout.

And given that everyone knows everyone in my home town and just about the whole state, not always a wise move!

Welcome to the Darkside!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Alright maybe not quite what it's all about, but sometimes I wonder, do those of who you don't dwell on the Darkside wonder what it's all about? Do you harbour secret thoughts that maybe the grass is greener, er, blacker, over here?

I read so many blogs and trawl various forums, as well as talking to people in that thing called real life and I must say I know fellow Darkside residents are out there I even occasionally see them in the streets of my own town.
While I know they exist I don't actually know them.

I've met a lot of people in my life at various times, in many various places, for many various reasons and even those I may have met once and never again they've all left an imprint on my life. The ones I consider myself most priveledged to have met, even if it was only the once, are those who are themselves, they dwell on their side much as I dwell on mine. And like me are probably interested in those who do dwell on the many other sides!
But their quite happy to dwell on their side, they are there being who they are, there's no posturing or pretense with them.

And while I look forward to the day when I meet one of my fellow residents and we can nod sagely at one another, because we know you understand so we don't have to tell each other. I am also very pleased to know (yes actually know, I've met you in real life!) a bunch of very cool people who continue to inspire me everyday, you make life well worth not just living but enjoying.

On that note my closing remarks today are, if you do decide to come visit on the Darkside and check it out for yourself, remember to B.Y.O torch! Oh and if you could, maybe also a spare bulb????

Nom nom nom nom....

Thanks to Martha and her Thanksgiving Hotline recipe booklet I am stoked to have found a recipe for Chocolate Pecan Pie. I love Pecan Pie and I love chocolate, this has to be win win here.
I'm also quite taken with the Sweet Potato Bourbon Mash with Praline Topping. Sounds delish.

Now I know following up on my last blog post, that I said I had another 2 magazines that I couldn't immediately put my hands on. Well, it turned out to be 5! Add to that another 2 I acquired on Friday and well that would be another 7 on top of the 13 I already had.
I still need Donna Hay, but then I am officially done.

Also inspirign me forward for Christmas and beyond in the cooking department is the very funny Maven over at A Fabulousy Good Life! and her accompanying blog on cooking The Kitchen Witch, I forget how I stumbled upon her blog someone linked to it somewhere. Mostly I am psyched about her Double Layer Pumpkin Cheescake.

Alright between an unexpected visitor and a demanding feline I am going to have to cut my blogging short for the moment.

You'd better watch out!

It's officially December so I feel it is time to talk about my one of my other obsessions, which one I hear you cry? You have so many!

Which is all too very true so I thought I would take a picture to give you some idea of which one it is.

To be honest this is not all the bounty from this year, I know I have at least another 2 magazines I can not immediately put my hands on for this photo opportunity.
And I think I'd need to organize some sort of paparazzi style grainy distance shot to fit all the previous years collections in to show you how much this madness means to me.

My long time readers, provided they haven't passed away from old age, will know my lack of passion for the festive season. Bah humbug I say!

But in these glossy pages are a small bit of heaven, I am deep down secretly a bit of a Mrs Bucket. Alas real world poses those difficult things called "people".
"People" tend to fiddle with your stylish but not quite as slick as the magazine photo centerpieces, touch things, ask annoying questions like "What is it?" or my other favourite "What's in it?" or their late so your baked veg is cold and your salad warm.

As I flick through the glossy pages looking at the photos so many photos of the food and beautiful table settings, a common theme appears.
A lack of "people" in the photos, and do you know what I think it is?

Out there in magazine buying land are secretly more of you, more of you who are also looking at those peopleless photos all glassy eyed imagining getting your good china out of hibernation from the last ice age. Eyeing off floral centerpieces thinking yes, yes I could do that easy enough....
Come on! Admit it you know you love it.

In closing I will share with you my ultimate 10 steps to prepping for Christmas.
Step 1. Secure time alone with the decorations.
Step 2. Once alone with the decorations, adorn yourself with them, multiple strands of tinsel in varying thickness and colour slung non-chantly around your neck is an absolute must.
Step 3. Pop a CD of one-hit-wonder pop stars doing jaunty covers of carols into the CD player.
Step 4. Retrieve your plastic tree with lights still on from the corner where you popped it after last time. (Hint: Leaving your plastic Christmas tree up with lights still attached will save time next Christmas!)
Step 5. Be thrilled with self as you don't need to untangle lights like other poor fools.
Step 6. Pity the other fools.
Step 7. Artfully and carefully place decorations on tree, evenly spaced around unless one side will face a wall. In which case load everything on the front.
Step 8. Put lights on and cheer!
Step 9. Put a ridiculous Christmas hat on while you are still adorned with tinsel and make a cocktail.
Step 10. Sit down put your feet up, sip your cocktail and flick through your Christmas porn while debating if 18 side dishes is enough for your fantasy lunch or if you should squeeze in just one more....

Here's to a happy something for you all from the Darkside.

I wanted to blog about something, but with one thing and another over the last few days nothing has eventuated.
And now, the heat has left me kind of flat, I can't think. It's far too hot to think.

Something that caught my eye in a recent catalog from a kitchen store was a Christmas apron which bore the phrase, "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...and when all the white is gone I will drink all the red."

Which has completely tickled my fancy, and prompted me to think. I've done a lot of thinking about a lot of things lately. I noticed being a bit mad about these things, that in our Australian magazines these past few Christmases we've been going a bit white mad, everything is very white. Although Chrstmas last year and this year seem to still be very white, but with the added in cranberries and pistachios. So white, red and green.
And every year we get cards with pictures of snow scenes and we sing carols about snow. And for some baffling reason despite our climate some of us still cling to the Hot Traditional Lunch, roast beast and baked vegetable. Followed by a hot pudding.

I look longingly at magazine spreads that picture tables spread with seafood (oysters! prawns!) and salads, the "non-traditional" lunch as they like to refer to them. However I am yet to see what I would define as my ultimate Christmas lunch, green Thai chicken curry with coconut rice washed down with lashings of ginger beer (or perhaps Nigella's Mistletoe? Ginger beer with lime cordial and lime juice???) and to follow? I'm torn between a really good choc mousse made with dark chocolate or a really good ice cream, possibly home made?

Of course for this scene to be fully set, I'd need Matt Hardy fanning me with one of those of really big fans or possibly giving me a foot massage I'm undecided as to the final details yet.

Things I Love

Yep as the title suggests today's post is just going to be about the things I love and maybe what I haven't been doing?

Things I Love! (a la David Letterman and his various Top 10's)
Coffee Chillas
Uninvited by Alanis Morissette
Corsets
Hoods
Hooded Corset? (See Damsel in this Dress)
I Can't Dance by Phil Collins
Thai green curry
Castle (No it doesn't bring anything new to the crime genre but it's funny.)
Purple lipstick
Lolcats (Always a good laugh to be had there.)
QI with Stephen Fry

Alright so it was 11, but how can you not include Stephen Fry? And now for what I have been doing or not, there has been no real cooking, baking or knitting. Mostly I've been psyching myself up for school it's reached that critical point. Blerh! Is all I can say about it.
However I did make a batch of Nigella's Cranberry and Apple Chutney, very very nice. I can not recommend it highly enough.

After next week I hope to return to normal programming!

Grand Designs Revisited

Was intrigued by tonight's episode of Grand Designs on ABC, I guess it made me think due to all the press coverage at the moment about the lack of public housing or just affordable housing generally.

Tonight's episode was about the Hedgehog Co-op, basically a bunch of people looking for secure rentals. And through an agreement with a housing association land was purchased and they built their own very basic houses to live in. They don't own the houses but rent them from the housing association. But at the end of the day they get a secure reasonable rental and somewhat of a slightly improved lifestyle.

But this wasn't an isolated projects there had been other similar projects to create housing for people in this vein. Which is what intrigues me, not everybody would have the capability or the inclination to to build a house to live in, especially at the end of the day if all you get is the right to rent it and not own it outright.

Maybe instead of people jumping up and down and pointing at the government saying you should build more houses their are people without homes who want one. We are to an extent a very lucky country, there is government benefits, their are welfare organizations, in a time of trouble there should be no reason why anybody who wants help can't get it.
It's perhaps time to look outside the box and consider projects like this, there are people who would be willing and able to surely construct a basic home like the ones on tonight's episode of GD, in a way it would still be government funded but the labour could come from those going to live in them.

Reading back there is a word I want to describe what this all sounds like to me, but I can't think of it, I think what I want is certian political schools of thought? Europe keeps popping into my head but I think that has more to do with a vague thought I have on a story I saw of factories in some European countries being turned over to worker ownership and something to do with productivity ratios.

It will no doubt come to me.

Delivered as promised!

Here are the Best Ever Cafe Scones...
This was the Gingerbread Apricot Pudding from Slow Cooker by Sally Wise, which she stipulated be done only in a 4.5L slow cooker. Well I had the choice of a 3.5L or a 5.5L, so I went with the 3.5L after the specified cooking time the batter was still uncooked in the very center of the pudding. I wil try it again as the bits that were cooked where delicious but I will either add cooking time to it in the 3.5L or test it in the 5.5L.

This was the Fruity Bread and Butter Custard which was a raging success! It was absolutely delicious but my mother refused to eat it because it was a "baked custard" but it wasn't, to eat it it was like a really luscious soft spongy fruit pudding. Divine!


Here's some dished up....It may look quite brown on top because right near the end of cooking time you sprinkle a mix of brown sugar and cinnamon on top of it.

I made a list of everything we have tried from Sally Wise's Slow Cooker book and the thoughts on the various things we've made.

Tilly's Indian Sweet Curry Beef - It was sweet, and no one liked it at all.

Goulash with Herb Dumplings - So far this has been the most popular dish we've tried, not surprising it's absolutely delish with a bit of a bite!

Hedgehogs - Lovely, even if most of the rice worked it's way out into the sauce and some of the balls fell apart. Still good to eat.

Meatballs with Spicy Barbecue Sauce - YUM! YUM!

Satay Chicken - Lovely, I do like a good satay sauce and this was wonderful.

Citrus Chicken - Everybody including my mother ate this but Miss Stash said after she hadn't liked it. It was lemon and orange, we are talking of trying it again bit with a lemon-lime combo instead.

Bedevilled Chicken - Once again something everyone ate but Miss Stash apparently dosen't like this either.

Black Forest Self-Saucing Pudding - The first pudding we attempted in the slow cooker, I think of Dylan Moran talking about a cake from a French bakery and how you want to get a room and be alone with your cake because it's that good. That was this pudding! I bought pitted cherries but one of them turned out to have a stone in it, next time I might give them all a prod with a fork just to check them.

Savoury Beef - I didn't like this, it didn't actually taste of anything. I'd certainly add more of something to it. But everyone else seemed to like it.

And of course the above photoed Apricot Gingerbread Pudding and Fruity Bread and Butter Custard!
We also have the Year in a Bottle by Sally Wise, not yet made anything from it, but I am very excited to try a number of things. My preserving these days seems to be limited to a large batch of apricot jam once a year.
When I was much younger and my grandparents were also much younger they had a huge garden and I can reall my fave times being when we went to visit on holidays when everything was ready to be picked and helping to make jams and bottle the fruit.
Although there was also freezing of vegetables, but the best job you could get here was if you were put in charge of sucking the air out of the bags with the vacumn pump, it did seem a bit like magic.

Somewhere over a rainbow..

...there are pictures! I promise, I need to go and get the camera and download them.

I have photos of the Fruity Bread and Butter Custard I made in the slow cooker last night, and photos of the Apricot Gingerbread Pudding I made in it today.

There is also some of the Best-Ever Cafe Scones I baked this afternoon and some less than successful biscuits I tried for the first time, didn't realise quite how much they would spread on baking! Oh well live and learn.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Slow Cooker to Somewhere

I have a picture of the Meatballs in Barbecue Sauce I took of the leftovers on toast, and will try to post it later.

Slow Cooker by Sally Wise has been pawed through numerous times, drooled over, discussed and pawed through some more.

So far we've made Satay Chicken, delish! Meatballs in Barbecue Sauce (will post the picture later), also yummy. And the last thing made out of the book was Hedgehogs last night, we're eating the leftovers for tea so I will get a photo of those as well. Most of the rice seemed to make it's way into the sauce, but it was still yummy.
And I must say so far everything has been very mild, which means it officially passes the test of being safe to serve to my mother and grandparents, who can only eat very plain things.

On the complete flip side we had Curry in a Hurry for lunch today, we changed the green veg up a bit this time and added spinach and broad beans in with the peas and green beans. The spinach is ayes for next time, the only one who liked the broad beans was my Dad. Which means there out.

Hopefully photos....

Miss Stash and I while out shopping the other week spied the book Slow Cooker by Sally Wise (the woman who wrote A Year In A Bottle and also appears on local radio doing a cooking segment), we'd seen it in the paper so pounced upon it in the shop with glee.

We made the Satay Chicken of which alas I have no photos, should have taken some before it all got eaten. But today were trying the Meatballs in Barbecue Sauce, they smell fantastic so I can't wait for them to be done to try them.
Although so far the sauce is rather limited, I don't know how it'll go in the cooker, as there seemed to be enough to just coat the meatballs.

I will try to get photos of the meatballs when there ready tonight!

First off today pictures from one of my current WIP the Punky Peacock Mini-Handwarmers

This is what Miss Stash cooked for our Dad's day lunch today, it came from Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking and is Dry-Fried Szechaun Beef only we made it with chicken and was equally delicious.

This was my contribution to lunch, at the complete opposite side of the cooking spectrum, Apple Crumble.

Yesterday the Adult Education Spring guide came out in the paper. I am always excited to see what they offer as there are always at least a 100 things I'd like to try in it.
This time round I was taken with permaculture, sustainable design, yoga, salsa, hooping(OMG!!!) and just about all the cooking and food related ones (including one on making Camembert and sour cream!).

Alas while in the time stakes I'd so be a millionaire, in the actual liquidity I am bit of a pauper. At over $100 the yoga has been crossed off my list. While I appreciate I'm paying for the benefit of someone's time and expertise I just wish that everything wasn't so expensive! And for those inquiring minds, that $100+ price tag is the concession price!

In the summer the main park in town has free activity's like yoga and Tai Chi funded (at least partially if not all) through the local council. But thanks to the local weekly paper that comes around I discovered that there is some talk of trying to set up these sorts of activity's in the small park that's about 3min walk from my house. I'm not going to hold my breath, but I certainly would be quite excited if they managed to get it off the ground.

Although with how the weather has been it's hard to imagine going to the park for anything! But it has been perfect for Curry in a Hurry, which reminds me while picking up the green curry paste I finally found yellow curry paste! I've always wanted to try Nigella's Yellow Thai Seafood and Pumpkin Curry although she also talks about going vegetarian with it as well leaveing out the seafood and adding chickpeas among other things which also sounds yummy.

What's all the hoopla about?

Look what was delivered by a man in a van earlier today!
What could it be now??? A bird? A plane? A speeding bullet? Superman?
Ahh shiny! My precious!
Mine is the "Disco Tiger" and Miss Stash is the "Ruby", which I looked at and nearly ordered because it looked suitably goth but was torn between gothdom and tigerism, a hard place to be. Miss Stash stepped in and changed her original choice as she thought she'd much like one with red better.
Here's a photo we tried to take to show, as Miss Stash told me when we ordered how the Tiger would go so much better with my hair! Not perhaps the best shot, but you get the idea.
After all that, I am glad I got the Tiger, I did have doubts I mightn't like it as much when it got here and I saw Miss Stash's red Ruby one. But now they are here the Ruby is no where near as gothy as I expected and I must admit red is an excellent colour on Miss Stash, it just makes me look like Death warmed up.

Now for the important points!
1. It is so much fun, even if I am terrible at it.
2. My dad of course upon seeing the hoops had to have a turn himself.
3. Miss Stash's bold claims to being short and not needing to worry about hitting the ceiling/lights were soon dashed.
4. An idea of how much room is in one of these babies, Miss Stash and I can both fit inside one with space left over, granted not much, but it's there!
5. Following on from point 4, our minds then boggled at just how big the Tandem hoops must be!
6. I only hope by the time summer officially happens I'm adept enough to pop down to the park and practice - in public! Eeep!

More thoughts of the day brought to you from the Darkside....

There is some seriously tasty things at school, and I am not talking about simply what the cafteria offers up to eat. (However there fruit slads where delish however the last one put me off as the pineapple was sour and rock hard.) A pity there all so young, I'm not ready to join the Cougar tribe yet. Theres plenty of other misbehaviour I can get up to inbetween now and then.

I am sooooo excited about hooping it's not funny, I can't have a conversation that dosen't eventually come round (tee hee!) to it with anyone at the moment. I haunt You Tube and hooping forums looking to get my fix. One of my faves has to be this one - Klara Lova .
And thnaks to a year of Sheila Kelley and her S Factor my hips move pretty good now so bring on the hoop!

There's a "Doctors & Nurses" night coming up in the school bar, yep, people get to come dressed up as Doctors and Nurses and I do believe there are prizes and best of all $5 cocktails! I may have to pop along if I'm free that night and see the hijinks and imbibe a free drinks.

We hae recently acquiered new TV channels locally and while I can get channel GO!, and very pleased about it I am, I love Seinfield! And a bit of Dog the Bounty Hunter (is his son good looking or what?). I am disappointed the dedicated sports channel One is High Definition only and my poor sad Standerd Definnition tv won't play it. Which is a tad disappointing not that I like sport, and I don't think I'll miss not be able to see Extreme Paintball or 101 motor sports, but I was keen to see UFC Wired. You can't be a fan of wrestling and not know about UFC, sheer nosiness prompts me to want to see what it's all about. Note to self - search You Tube.

I signed up for a "mature age student" acedmic workshop (with free lunch!), while I was mostly keen on the free lunch the prospect of having a workshop on essay writing seemed really helpful. Unfortunatly the majority of people who RSVP'd for this also had a clash with classes. So they've moved the day and time and now it clashes when I have a class. Farewell free lunch, I'm sure given the chance we could have gotten to know each other well.

Just thought I'd write a few points, far too much on my mind to write something cohesive today.

1. School rocks! If Law didn't mean trekking to the opposite end of the state I'd seriously consider majoring in it.
2. Yoga is good. It does offer up some quietness in my head for a little while. Nice to focus on nothing for a short while.
3. Seriously dejunked my home, I'm amazed how much stuff was just rubbish essentially. Next is the wardrobe, although it's been slightly sad in some ways. OMG I remember buying and wearing that about 10 years and 4 sizes ago...yeesh!
4. Princess Farhana one of my fave ladies has a blog! Very exciting. I first struck her in burlesque performances but she's also quite an accomplished belly dancer while I knew she specilised in Egyption she seems to have branched out in other forms most notebly the style that's got me intrgued Tribal Fusion.
5. Miss Stash bought me a Hello Kitty Halloween toy from one of those vending machine like gumball machines. While not overly enthused about Hello Kitty I do love the Halloween aspect of it, I so need the other 4 designs!!!! Tee hee!
6. The Moody Blues yarn I'm knitting up looks not blue at all but is extremly funky and once I finish my mini-hand warmers I am going to knit some lacey wristwarmers with what is left.
7. I found Stephen Fry a bit quick last Sunday night, but loved Tony Robinson's Crime and Punishment on Tuesday. Having just done a crash course start in what is law and where it comes from it was doubly interesting because I could relate it to something I already know.
8. I love YouTube, where would I be without it? It offers up many joys that make me squel with delight Steven Tyler and hooping are just two of them.

Alright enough thoughts for today. Now I need to finally decipher how I get my Twitter widget on my page....

Thought 9....
Just finished sitting through Dance Your A$$ Off, there was pole dancing on the ad for it. Pole dancing is next week apparently or the "stripper pole" as they call it. While I can't see it being featured on Dancing With The Stars here, there was a Latin American show called Dancing For a Dream where one week they had pole dance. There were some clips up on YouTube, and talk about hot, hot, hot! While I'm not quite expecting that on next week's Dance Your A$$ Off, I would like to see it crossing-over into more of the main-stream.

Always on my mind

I haven't blogged in awhile I know. I keep meaning to write one, I sit down and stare at the blinking cursor while I try to find something to write about.

The trouble is there are so many things I'd like to write about, literally gazillions, there is always so many things that peak my interest and I want to talk about. Things I like, things I hate, things I lurrrve and things that make me go PHWOARRRRR!!!

But I stop and think will any of it make good reading? Is it all just meaningless dribble? The Internet is a wonderful thing it allows anybody to write about anything.
I also like being a square peg myself the fact it opens up an entire world of available square holes, this rocks and makes me feel better no end.

I never seem to make it to the cinemas to see anything despite my best intentions, but I am hoping to get to Bruno or the new Harry Potter before they close. Also in movie news I am both eagerly awaiting and dreading the World of Warcraft movie. It could be so good or so awful....
Another movie I'd like to see is the Hooping Life when it's finally released. Hooping looks like such fun, besides I've thrown myself at enough other things one more shouldn't hurt.



See uber fun or what?

What the???

Mobiles, crop-tops, perfumes: Would YOU buy these items for your children?

We all knew the world was mad didn't we???

Knitter warm thyself!

Here they are finally done, I finished them on Tuesday, I wore them out for the first time today, not quite warm enough for today's weather unfortunately I don't think. May need to work on something thicker.
(Side note: Still the only project on Rav is mine, I am Googling now, someone else somewhere has to have made these???)

I was out yesterday, and had taken my needles and the yarn to start the matching leg warmers to go with my new arm warmers but discovered I had forgotten my pattern. Always something, but the elderly lady I was visiting lent me some needles and offered me a selection of yarn choices from her stash so I'd have something to do.

I give you what I have dubbed Bubblegum Lolita...

The yarn is something she bought from a discount store while holidaying in Queensland, I'd take a confident guess that it's acrylic by the feel. But anything else about it is a mystery.

I am making a textured scarf with it, a very simple 6 pattern repeat and I absolutely love it. It is so not what I'd normally buy myself, but the colours were so funky I couldn't resist them at all.

I'll try and take a picture of the current view outside, a real pea souper if ever there was one. And having watched the a documentary about the alleged Vampire Princess from Bohemia who may have inspired Bram Stoker, well what can I say? Now I'm all inspired!
Edit - Here it is! Imagine if you will a mad woman hanging out a window to take this, a wild haired woman in slinky arm warmers having vague photo journalist aspirations...

(Another)Edit - Not sure about the swirly smoke, maybe someones fire? I don't think I really got what I was hoping for.

Doh!

I've mislaid my diary which had my piece of paper with all my details of the arm warmer I was working on written in it.
Because I last worked on it, about three weeks ago, I don't even remember where exactly I was up to.

I am most annoyed because I am up to the middle pattern section and it was flying along at great speed and I actually thought I would be getting it done and starting my leg warmers by now. It's just driving me mad.

But aside from that I have been keeping some very unsociable hours watching P!nk and Bill Bailey. Made my stomach sore after attempting to do belly rolls, eventually got it, rolled up from the bottom to the top, then top to bottom and back up again, then down. And then I couldn't get it to do anything, must have been a bit of a fluke.
What prompted this was I got a new DVD, arrived from America in a week which surprised me, I wasn't expecting it for at least two the usual time for anything to get here. I've been quite excited about it as it's with Ariellah who I have read loads of good reviews about both the DVD and of her live workshops people have attended. The DVD also has quite an extensive yoga section for both warm up and cool down, and since yoga is about the only sort of physical activity I am actually quite reasonable at I feel I am getting some use out of my DVD if I decide I don't like belly dance after all.

Until now I have been obsessed with Sharon Kihara (if Angela from Bones and Abby from NCIS had a love child it'd so be Sharon). Attempting to blunder along to her DVD, 10 out 0f 10 times my upper abs will work, 9 out of 10 my lower ones won't and I don't have nice floaty graceful arms either. Personally I think I look like some mad person trying to fly, only in slow motion.

I keep debating about baking, I seriously think a chocolate cake is in order. One with chocolate frosting, yum! Or even just Nigella's Totally Chocolate Choc Chip Cookies again. So good!!!
Although something I haven't eaten in forever and I am madly craving Welsh Rarebit!

Much to my excitement I did actually find frozen raw prawns that Nigella always talks about and I am always despondant I can never find in my supermarket. I brought them home and popped them into the freezer, I've always wanted to try the yellow Thai pumpkin and seafood curry she had in Nigella Bites. Although while I have always seen red and green Thai curry pastes, I have yet to strike yellow? But I saw someone on one of the cooking shows making something the other day with yellow paste so there may be hope yet, but it is possible to sub out red or green according to Nigella so I may have to make a green version. There's always green curry paste knocking about as it's in the Curry in a Hurry which is an absolute gem of a curry.

Something else I am loving at the moment is the new TV series Castle, it is exactly what I have been looking for! It's not just another crime show, which Miss Stash suggested it might be. We watch it every week now, I like that it's actually funny and it's not too serious about the writer they need to have solve their crimes for them. Miss Stash finds it has grown on her and she really likes it now. But tonight we find out if we like the new Miss Marple. The last one truly got my goat, Miss Marple is just the harmless fluffy little old lady sitting knitting, remarking how someone reminds her of the butcher's boy or the so and so's nanny. The last Miss Marple wasn't like that at all, she was a bit too forward and they did have a tendency to fiddle with the stories a bit. Some of them they took the artistic license a bit too far I felt.

I'll be watching tonight with bated breath and a vodka cruiser in hand!

Tweet tweet!

No I have not acquired a little birdy, but signed onto the Twitter madness. You can find me there as DarksideKnitter and mostly hear about how much I loathe Economics and my fears for my impending doom as the exam rolls around. It's the day after tomorrow. Eeeep!

Twitter has also allowed me a bit more of a glimpse into the life of Matt Hardy. Long time readers will be familiar with my lust fueled obsession of Mr Hardy. For new readers unfamiliar he's kind of the non-thinking woman's Mr Darcy.
Since I also have a lustful obsession with food I have been following with great enthusiasm what he's been eating, yep he tweets about it, I know where he went and what he ordered. Which I find most intriguing, but mostly because I love hearing about what people are cooking and eating or ordering and eating as the case may be.

But getting back to what I most want to talk about, is this too much information? Is telling us all this merely pouring petrol on an already lit fire? Someone with far more game than I have actually rang the restaurant Matt Hardy tweeted about while he was there and asked to speak to him. While I like having this kind of all knowing all seeing look into his life, well I like this about everybody's life, I am quite nosy I love knowing how other people live.

Well if anybody gets any phone calls that are heavy breathing followed by "So what are you eating tonight?" you'll know who it is. It is I suppose slightly classier than "What kind of underwear are you wearing?".

School's Out!

Well not exactly summer, maybe winter, and technically there is still exams, but I am taking a couple of days to decompress, which are very very badly needed.
I'm just a teeny tiny bit stressed and crabby, but the final assignment went in today so I can breathe a sigh of relief for the time being.

The second arm warmer is knitting up quicker than the first, I think because I have the pattern still etched in my brain. After this those leg warmers are going to fly by! Yeah! Then I can plot what to make next and buy some suitable yarn for it, double yeah!

Having seen the new issue of Family Circle I am in love with a chunky yarn rug, just the sort of thing I need now the weather is getting cooler and I have more evenings free to watch late TV! Or simply re-watch Bill Bailey DVD's. Miss Stash can't get over how often I can quite happily sit through these even though I've seen them a thousand times.
Well what can I say? It makes me laugh everytime, it's never not funny. Which is I think is a really wonderful thing.
And I am also really inspired by the Owl Song, especially as just before seeing it I spied an Owl-omtery someone had made. Very cool! I love owls they are such beautiful birds.

I anticipate to get most of the second armwarmer done tonight, just make myself at home in a comfy chair and get stuck in.

I find myself with just 2 weeks of classes left at school which includes 3 tests and 1 massive project!
Then the joy of study week, the blasted Economics exam would fall on the very first day of the exam period, fortunately not till the afternoon, if it had been 8am I don't think I would have coped at all.

I caught some of Insiders on ABC, and how scary is this, I actually knew what they where on about when they had a chart on screen talking about deficit and GDP. I can't believe I know that! Or that I can actually relate it to something in Real Life. Weird.

Writing a blog post is just another attempt to put off studying for Economics, I really don't like Economics. I'll be glad when it's all over, however I would have liked the exam to be on the very last day giving me a bit more time to revise.

On the other hand Bus Info Systems is shaping up to be my star subject, Distinction on my first assignment and then a High Distinction on my first test! I've got one test and the big project to go (and no exam another reason I love it!) so I'd like to give it more time to keep my good streak going.
I've unofficially decided (as my mind never seems to stay made up)to stay for an extra year and squeeze in a second degree, probably no surprises here, computing. Alas I fear (or should I say know) for a degree in computing at some point there is programming. Yuck.

My life at the moment is a major explosion of recipes and knitting patterns, possibly as I subconsciously seek to occupy myself with things other than school work. We had Curry in a Hurry the other day, every time I eat it I can't wait to eat it again. So nice, I'd also like to do the Irish Cream Tiramisu again.
Since I am kind of in the mood for something sweet, Instant Chocolate Mousse or the Holiday Hot Cake with Eggnog Cream would also be nice. I love steamed puddings haven't had one in years, and I just so happen to have a bottle of Advocaat lurking about in my cupboard. A lot of obscure liqueurs lurk in my cupboards.
There's just something very retro about them all, and cocktails in general and I love that! It's like cookbook's from the 60's and 70's, it's like looking at another world!
Most excellent!

Onwards and upwards! Or maybe that should be downwards?

***EDIT***Had to add the latest photo!



***End Edit!***

After handing in an assignment yesterday lunchtime I was able to go home and get stuck in to my knitting, I had Happy Days in the DVD player and I just knitted merrily away.

This is where I got up to last night by the end of Midsummer Murders...just two pattern repeats to go and then the final rib and casting off! So working down to the hand is perhaps the description I want? Or working up to it?
Mine is the one and only project for the Slinky Arm warmers pattern on the Rav. Which I am disappointed about as I would have loved to have seen other people's of this design. I may have to Google and see what turns up.
As Miss Stash said to me it is kind of an obscure book, roller derby themed knit book is not going to be as wide spread as say a SNB one. (Of which I am still waiting to hear more about the next one!)

Heres a couple of lovely shots of me actually modeling the arm warmer, the first allows you to admire the fab colour changes and the second will hopefully give you a close up of the "clover" pattern!

And does it ever feel good on! Really lovely, I can not stop raving about this yarn! I'm actually wondering (not in this colour though) how it would do for Intolerable Cruelty?

A hasty photo!

I was so enthused I had to take a photo and post it as soon as possible, I am so in love with this pattern. Although I think my hasty slightly average photo skills perhaps do not really do it justice and Ravelry does it less always cutting off the right of my photo's!
You think I would have learned to not put things in the center of the picture and more to the left.
This is Moda Vera Picchio in "Bark", as you can see it goes from green to light grey to what looked like blue last night but this morning in natural light looks like a darker grey? But having completly changed my mind again this is so the colourway I am seeking out again for Ondine.

A photo or two, and just maybe a blog post!

I have finally taken some photos of my knitting that has had most of my devoted attention, the fact that it's finished or almost finished should be the giveaway!

Anyway to start a mug I bought this afternoon in the supermarket I saw it and couldn't resist, it's called according to it's bar code sticker Merlin Cat.


These are my first pair of socks! Long time readers will be familiar with my many single socks and for once I knitted a pair! These where basic tube socks so no heel, and knitted up in no time in a thickish yarn.


This is my current project on the needles, the Easy Access Legwarmers from Knockdown Knits, almost finished the second one. Now all I need is to shop for suitable buttons!

This is the headband from Knockdown Knits in Moda Vera Picchio in the colourway "Fusion" at the time I got it I could only find one ball in this colour way. Katt told me today at the knitting coven that they have more in again in this colour so I'll have to pop in next week and try and get some more to make Ondine with.

And as for the Moda Vera Picchio in "Bark" I bought originally to make Ondine with after I could find no more in Fusion I have decided to use it instead to make a pair of Slinky Arm Socks and a pair of Slinky Leg Socks from Knockdown Knits. (4 projects so far from the book!)

Still to come I need to invest in some more Moda Vera Picchio in "Fusion" so I can finally knit Ondine and some black 4ply to make the Gothic Temptress socks! But not until after the Slinky Socks are done!
It's my new stash policy, only buy yarn for projects I am intending to start right away! Second step is finishing some of my many WIP's, third step is actually finding what's in my stash and trying to find uses for it.
I have managed so far to knit up straight away the last round of yarn I bought for specific projects and am using up some yarn I unearthed from my stash to make gloves for Miss Stash so I feel I have got off to a good start with my new approach.

This has been hard as I was in my local yarn store to buy a set of double points and was quite tempted by some 20ply they had in. I could think of at least 2 projects I wanted to do in this. Although the Patons Kalidascope was seriously tempting as an alternative for Ondine as well.
Alas my queue on Ravelry just gets longer, mostly with arm warmers. I love arm warmers! And a lot are in about 10ply so I'm shopping round for a 10ply yarn with good colour choices to keep me occupied as well.

Could it be?

I have finally got the result for my Economics assignment, 3 out of 5! Yeah!
And it appears much to our delight Miss Stash and I on our group project for Bus Info Sys, we may have a distinction! I told Miss Stash my best work was done under pressure yet she doubted me.

Fortunately most of my bag contents has dried out, my pattern magazine is slightly wibbly from where it got wet and then dried out but that's really neither here nor there. I'm planning to take the hat out to the knitting coven tomorrow, we're having Mexican! OMG yumtastic!
And while the hat is in that fiddly decrease stage, and I do need to think about where the decreases should be, but aside from that it's safe to knit while talking.

Things are going well at the moment, add to it my excitement on discovering an illusion knit pattern is now available as a free Ravelry download! It used to be in a book I am sure of it, but I'm non too fussed what happened with the book because I know have the pattern!
It's a pair of arm warmers with an illusion of an x-ray. Very uber cool! Or at least I think so. I love Illusion knitting, my only piece to date is the Alien Illusion scarf from the first SNB book but I am very keen to knit up the one from Son of SNB as well, something else I think is uber cool, the video here on the US Pole Federation just sums it up even more. One day I aspire to be half as bendy and strong as that!

Miss Stash whipped up Jamie Oliver's Pot-Roast Meatloaf from his last book Ministry of Food. And it was absolutely delicious! Very yummy! I helped supervise the sauce while it was simmering and spooned it around the meatloaf before replacing it in the oven. Just the minor jobs.

I'd like to report about what I have cooked recently which hasn't really been anything remotely interesting, although stay tuned for I am so my mother informs me having a crock-pot day. Miss Stash will bring her little 3.5L one over to our mothers, I'll bring my 6.5L (my 5.5L is already at my mothers) and we will set them up and have a big cooking day.
No idea what we are making yet for our grand cook-up but I am hoping to make at least one batch of chili.

Because I was out yesterday I found myself having to dash home in the rain, I now have my bag and it's entire contents laid out in an effort to dry it, fortunately overnight it has got rather dryer but it included my Sorbet hat I was working on.

Apparently I am the last person in the world to know that there is a new Anticraft up. I need to go away and think what else I could fashion the patterns into for everyday wear.
Never mind hte merkin what I'd really like is a Murloc!

Click click clickety click!

Well still very much on the needles are a number of things but my time is being divided between a beret made with Moda Vera Sorbet for me, a pair of Beer Gloves from Son of SNB in Cleckheaton Tweed for Miss Stash and a garter stitch wrap out of ye olde Caressa 7ply for my mother.

People keep asking about my Vintage Hues scarf I was knitting, it's almost done, but I just need to go back and undo the last pattern repeat and do it again. Those are the four most "active" projects at the moment.

I'm on the search for a suitably priced sub for SWTC Karoke, and I am wondering if the new Kaleidoscope from Cleckheaton will do the trick? It seems to be a similar ply, and colour number 6 on the website seems to be just the colour I'm after for my project! Quick search online reveals a general price of about $5.50 to $5.95 a ball, much better then the Karoke which I found on one Aussie site for $18 a ball!

Which brings me to my next thought, and a question to all my fellow knitters out there, do you as a knitter like getting knitted gifts???

I ask because I was thinking most of my knitting is 95% for me, there is a odd assortment of things left over in the 5% mainly for charity with the odd requested item for my mother (currently a wrap because I keep hearing about how much she needs one sitting up in the evnings) or in an odd twist of fate something for Miss Stash who actually does knit quite a lot for herself as well.

And I think personally giving another knitter something knitted is like giving a crossword fan a book of crosswords that have already been done. I will admit sometimes I have seen things other knitters have knitted and I have just had to have it!

I finished the square! Yesterday afternoon, and am now in a sea of indecision. I would like to make a new pair of socks, then there are the yoga socks I'd like to try and of course I should take my Peacock scarf back to the last garter stitch row and re-do the pattern bit...

Today is Mock Lasagne day in the crock-pot, the recipe comes from the Crockpot-Lovers group on the Ravelry. And I'm hoping if it doesn't get all cold and rainy again this afternoon it may do so tomorrow as I am keen to make the Gingerbread Latte from the Year of Crockpotting.

Ticket's for Pink's Australian tour went on sale last Friday and apparently they only sold 10 over the counter before they ran out due to all the online and phone sales! People had been queuing since 5:30 in the morning to try and buy tickets. You'd be disappointed after all that time. Unfortunately the nearest Pink is getting to me is Melbourne so I wasn't rushing to get a ticket, a trip interstate moves it from a luxury to a dream!
I have had to content myself with Pink - Live at Wembley on DVD, it's the I'm Not Dead tour. That will be the DWC and my new Friday night viewing I think for the next couple of weeks, sometimes we have Cher on her Farewell tour. Which is also pretty exciting, but I may need to get some Madonna to balance it all out.
But tonight is Dirty Dancing night!

What's that smell???

I tried a new experiment in the slow cooker today, my mother had grand plans as I have just recently bought Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food and have been unable to talk about it till now since I was giving Miss Stash a copy for her birthday.

The plan was we'd make the Chicken and Leek Stroganoff from MoF, well it only feeds two so first we were going to multiply it to go round 6 (my grandparents are up visiting hence the mad desire of my mother's to cook something from the new book, or more to the point to get me to cook something from the new book). This plan gets changed into chicken and leek stroganoff in the slow cooker. Only we don't have a recpie for a chicken stroganoff in the slow cooker, so we adapt a beef one.
It tasted alright. Can't say it looked very appealing. But there is a success story here, I made at long last the Totally Chocolate Choc-Chip Cookies from Nigella Express. I've just finished eating one as I type this. OMG! So, so very good! I will be making another batch to pop in the freezer, perfect in a time of crisis, also some chilli. Chilli is always good.

Some things didn't make the baking rotation today like Date Gingerbread and Raspberry Scones. But there still on the ever growing list of things to make.

But the big question is, is it really okay to get high off doing yoga? I understand endorphins get released while doing exercise, but after a session of yoga I feel like I'm floating on air!
Speaking of fun workout's, how do you fancy busting a move with Mr Burlesque?

Note to self practise wearing high heels! Dammit if Mr Burlesque can, surely I can!

It strikes again!

Now I am having technical issues, technology is defying me now! Blah! I brought my knitting to school and have promptly not done any. I have been chatting, investigating services and browsing through the local bookshop, which excitingly also sells normal books.

They even had some cookbooks I have had my eye on for some time. This could be dangerous! Actually I might have to go back and see if they stock any knitting, probably not but worth an excuse to rebrowse.

Miss Stash and I have been discussing the prospect of chilli in the slow cooker, this is a win-win situation. Everybody loves Chilli!!!
The Cheeseburger Soup is a must! I am adding the ingredients to my shopping list for when I next go. If I'm real keen I may take a picture of it to proudly display here on my blog!

OMG! So many good things, so little time!

I know I was talking about using my slow cooker more often, and after working my way through the Year of Crockpotting blog I have more ideas than I know what to do with.
Things on the top of the list are the Cheeseburger Soup and Chai Lattes, things I either like the sound of or like but can't afford to buy all the time. There also things I think I will find myself attempting to eat my way through alone, I fear Cheeseburger Soup would be seen as an affront on gastronomy by those I usually cook for.

There is a whole pile of others I printed out ready to compile shopping lists and plan when to make them, more than I'll mention here at this time.

My square seems to be stuck at 10 1/2 inches??? How does this happen I measured it, 10 1/2 inches, knit some more measure again, 10 1/2 inches????
I have a sneaking suspicion the world is conspiring against me of late, could my knitting be further proof???

Burn For Me!

Blah! No surprises who got themselves sunburnt, teach me to leave the house without my hat. Thinking of it after as I started to feel a bit warm and off on my merry way, was a fraction too late.

I finally am coming to a close to the organisational red tape for my new adventure, wandering from office to office, and needing to confirm who I am, what I'm doing, setting accounts up and getting my timetable sorted has been tedious but not exactly difficult I must admit.
The hard part's obviously still to come, but of my 4 subjects this semester, only three of them require me to sit a final exam!

Joining so many other knitters, I am also knitting a square, well one under way at the moment. It is quite meditative so I may find myself glad of knitting more as I get going into the treacherous land of economics. Blah!

The search is on for slow cooker recipes, I have some tried and true ones I am going to use. But there are a few new ones I'd like to test. While it doesn't seem quite fully like slow cooker weather I'll admit, I know I associate it with more cold weather cooking, but I quite often have time of a morning but not of an afternoon or early evening to whip stuff up for my dinner. Watch this space for my experiments!

Guess Who?

Guess who is starting at University next week???

9/2/2009 Edit - After much confusion and clarfication, it's not next week, next week will require only one day. One day which I am waiting to be notified about. So it will be the week after next!

I'm it!

Mrs DrWho tagged me, so here we go, six quirky but boring things about me! I can only name 6?

Rules
Link to the person who tagged you.
Mention the rules.
Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.
Tag six other bloggers by linking to them.
Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that let’s them know they’ve been tagged.

1. Most of my clothing I own is black. I like to think of it as my urban camouflage and wouldn't dream of life without it.

2. I have an unyielding passion for themed food, my house is crammed with cookie cutters, chocolate moulds, fancy cake pans and kitschy ice cube trays (Bailey's bottle shaped ice anyone?)

3. When I grew up I desperately wanted to be an Egyptologist. I blame Agatha Christie entirely for this passion! Alas I fear a wonderful academic career will never be mine and besides I've seen what the helpers on Time Team endure. I'm trying to picture me a) doing that labour and b) doing it happily in a desert under the hot, hot, hot sun. Oh the heat!

4. Two of my fave things to do as a child was dress-up's and "playing ladies", the first involved a box of assorted off cast clothing (my fave piece being a sort of purple embroidered blouse) and the second was my Nana letting me get the fine china out and make afternoon tea to eat off it. These are two things that have carried over into my grown up life that I still love to do.

5. There is no denying it, I am a bag lady. I am always on the look-out for the more slightly unusual looking bags.

6. Matt Hardy lives on my computer desk! Next to a mini beanie pirate, vampire and white tiger.

I'll tag Lady Deathwatch, Spinning Goth, Metal and Knit and Msfortuknit and anyone else who's interested!

12 Days of Christmas Darkside Style

My dream Christmas theme is sandwiched somewhere between Nightmare Before Christmas and a Las Vegas casino. Well actually that's my year round dream decor. Glitz, glamour and above all gaudy with a touch of the sinister thrown in.

I completed my Christmas shopping for the immediate family today, everybody else on my gift list will be sorted out sometime before Christmas Eve or after Boxing Day. The family's presents all came from stores that gift wrapped, yeah one less job for me to do.

I've had a full on cooking binge, with a drinkies night on Friday night. May I say I can recommend highly the Poinsettia from Nigella Christmas (also in the Nigella Christmas Feast in the latest Australian Women's Weekly). Also from Nigella Christmas, the Chilli Cheese Crostini is wonderful with the Mexicana flavoured Dorito's, it's a little bland without anything highly flavoured to dollop it on. And the Peanut Butter Cups are wonderful, but then I am mad about Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and this is as close to home made version as you can get.
I also made the Wasabi Crab Cakes, or Not-Wasabi Crab Cakes, I substituted English mustard for the wasabi as Nigella suggested (no one likes wasabi according to my mother), and lemon juice for the rice wine vinegar. Then instead of frying them, my mother thought we should bake them, they kind of came out dry, and not at all crispy and I really didn't like the flavour the mustard gave them.

I made the Cocktail Sausages from Express, they were an absolute winner, think chipolata's in a honey-soy marinade. One I am not pleased with is the Party Popcorn from Express, the popcorn popped alright and then I tried to make up the buttery spice mix to pour over. I ended up with what reminded me in appearance and smell of curry paste.
Tried remaking it, just mixing the dried spice mix up and shoggiling like mad, but most of it sat at the bottom. Oh well shelved till a future date when I have patience to fiddle with it some.
Also from Express and what I do like is Curry in a Hurry, what I didn't like was the chicken cacciatore.

My new addition to my Christmas decoration line up is a jaunty looking tiger wearing a Santa hat. I like tigers and I like hats. It's win-win. I haven't got my tree out, put none of my cards up, aside from the tiger I am still in two minds as to whether I shall have Christmas at my house or not this year. Tinsel on anything, decorations hung on the tree are all fair game as far as the Daft White Cat is concerned, so too any fresh flowers or potted plants I try to keep.

The only thing safe is the tree itself and the string of lights I have on it. Maybe the DWC likes a minimalist Christmas theme?

Tomorrow we are having another knitting coven meeting, I am in two minds about going, I could go, or I could stay home and start constructing a reasonably sized bunker for the DWC and I to lurk in.
The now infamous scarf, will once again get an outing if I go out. Will it be done by New Year, possibly, if I can make the time to sit long enough to work on it. Fortunately I think my search is over, turned my entire home upside down in search of my "good" black skirt which I adore, asked my mother twice if I'd left it at her house at all, no no no, so searching again through all my clothes, when you own as much black as I do finding a particular piece is like seeking a needle in a haystack. My mother found it at her house.
Then there was the now complete searches for Christmas decorations and for my copy of Forever Summer.

Anyway my final thought on Christmas Twisted Sister Part 1 and Part 2.

The scarf is almost finished, thanks to Lady Deathwatch I have an idea on a shrug to start, it looks simple enough for even me to complete in a timely fashion, i.e. for when the warm weather well and truly starts here in my part of the world.

As most people are aware it's December, yes it's that time of year again. Good will to all mankind and all that other baloney. Bah! Is all I have to say to that. Bah!

However despite saying that, I have been putting the carols on, flicking through my ever growing pile of Christmas magazines and books, it grows every year.
As much as I despise this time of year, as much as I loathe it with every fibre of my being, I can not resist the opportunity for cooking too much food.
Food is just one of my major obsessions, of which I have many, long time readers will be familiar with my others.
New to this year's menus, I tried Christmas Chocolate Biscuits, Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies both from the new Nigella Christmas. And at long last I made the Maple Pepper Pecans from Nigella Express. One minor substitution I swapped out the cayenne for paprika in the pecans to road test them at that level, and I'm really not sure how other people feel about really hot things.
But they've passed my Mother's test, she was sampling them in the kitchen while no one was looking.

There's still a whole plethora of things from Nigella Christmas I'm keen to try and a number of them have made it onto lists, the Cranberry Studded Mincemeat (after the Vanilla Rhubarb mincemeat from Feast was vetoed by my mother, not enough people in the family can eat rhubarb, the fact I like it is beside the point) and Christmas Wreaths look like goers.
But the tried and tested Apricot and Almond White Christmas is back again this year, I love both apricots and almonds, and well I like some White Christmas, it's kind of like fruit cake, it can be hard to find a good one.

A reliable source (my Mother, so always right) informs me Nigella's Express was on the ABC last night! I missed it but with any luck my father has recorded it, we think last night was the first episode. I'm hoping so, I have been eagerly anticipating this series, I have seen little snippets courtesy of You Tube.

Shrugging off my problems

I need some advice, I want to knit up a cardigan for when the warmer weather gets here if at all or better yet a shrug (smaller thing to knit). All my jumpers are a tad warm to be a light cover up.

I'm going to poke through Ravelry, and look through my wrappy/shawly pattern books as I know they have shrugs as well in them. But anything anyone's knitted, not to complex, the quicker the better, and can recommend I am all ears (and eyes).

The Day After The Night Before

"The Shoveler is hammered!"
- The Shoveler, Mystery Men


I was out to a wedding yesterday, an old friend I've known for 28 years. But I guess over the later years I haven't seen as much of am as I used to, which meant I hadn't got a chance to meet his fiance and now wife till the wedding yesterday.

It was a really lovely ceremony, even I a jaded cynic, can not deny that. The dress was gorgeous, the girl in it turned out to be lovely as well! One of the page boys was over excited and rushed off to the front of the church soon as the bridal party arrived with his ring cushion and had to be retrieved and taken back to wait.

Now the important part of any wedding, the reception, a chance to have a drink or three. It was held at the Cataract Bistro, the very modern looking building adjacent to the TRC Hotel. Food was lovely, I had a slow roasted tomato, boccacini and basil tart with onion jam to start, the other popular choice seemed to be the Chicken Salad which Miss Stash had.
I don't care what she says though, my tart was so the best starter on that menu!

Main I had the rolled chicken breast stuffed with Persian feta and sun dried tomato on a Parmesan risotto cake I think it was meant to be. The chicken had been wrapped in bacon, but I disassembled mine cause I really don't like that much bacon looking at me. Blerch!
Other mains included fish (trevalla or trevally? trevalla I think?) which was one of my mother's favourites, and steak which the men at our table all seemed to order....

Dessert was a berry merangue or steamed pudding, the merangue seemed to be the popular choice all round, waitresses were dashing round the room with armfuls of plates with the merangues on them. It was delicious, my one complaint my crispy outside fell off, and when I tried to spoon it up completly disintergrated, so mostly I ate a giant marshmallowy mound topped with berry cream. Yum!

Drank quite a bit of wine during the evening, I was sozzled by the end of the night I will admit, but I had a fantastic time, and better still didn't publicly shame anyone. I was in a warm wine induced fuzz, so I didn't I have the motivation to do or say anything outrageous.
I wasn't allowed to buy a funny weddding card. Oh well, I guess that will still be a surprise, when they open the cards and the one from me isn't a funny one.

Of course there were the obligatory speeches, and they where all a reasonable length and funny. They get my stamp of approval.
The bridal waltz, they'd rehearsed leading up to the wedding, but not in the wedding clothes. So there we are a roomful of people watching the bridal waltz, collective agreement they look lovely and are lovely. Then rip! Yes the groom had stood on the dress, a collective ohhhhhhh!
I spoke to him after the waltz, I and I think everyone else he spoke to after the waltz, heard about the dress incident, he was kind of wound up and telling everybody about it.
Priceless!

Also had the chance to talk to a couple of people I haven't seen in forever, we all went to primary school with the groom. One of them's now married with four kids, the eldest was 8 and the youngest is 8 months. And the two inbetween, 5 and 3, I think. And it occurs to me now, while I asked how old they all where I didn't ask her if they where girls or boys, I know the first one was a girl.

Well I did say this was the day after in my title, well I woke up at 5:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, an hour of my muttering, changing sides of the bed and rearranging the covers, the Daft White Cat had had enough. He left the room.
But he was back 15 mins later, obviously thought up a way to annoy me, charged in, jumped up on the chair by the window and pulled the curtain back flooding the room with light.
I conceded defeat and the bed.

Wide awake and restless on a Sunday morning. Write a blog post, hmmm, hasn't taken long? Now what? Maybe make some breakfast, yes, I'm starving, I haven't eaten since last night.
There's always knitting, I have become a one-project woman, and it has worked, well sort of. I have only one project I'm focusing on, but now I kind of resent it, so progress is just as slow as if I was doing 20 projects. Blah!

I'm wildly excited, do you all know why??? Take a look here!

And I'm not looking here, cause this is just depressing when you check details.

more cat pictures

Preferably without pickle, onion and mustard! Oh and make mine a double one!!!

Triumph at last!!!

The slow cooker quest has ended and also in the same day so has the Polenta quest!

I am now the proud owner of a Breville Banquet Meal Maker (no where near the RRP on the website I might add). Fourth store lucky, the first store I went to (begins with K) wouldn't sell me the one they had as it was their "display" one. Big props to Harvey Norman who after going and looking offered to pack up their one on display for me if I was happy to have it as they had no others left. Damn skippy as Lula would say.
And how cool is this, tucked into my box with my slow cooker was a little box which transpires to be some sort of joint promotion between Breville and McCormick giving you five of the new Slow Cooker recipe base range - Mild Chicken Curry, Tomato & Onion Sausages, Garlic & Herb Lamb Shanks, Mediterranean Chicken and Beef & Red Wine Casserole.

And for my polenta, I finally found it. The Coles located at K-Mart had it in their health food section, the little part where you go to find all the special gluten-free type things and other -free foods. I couldn't believe my luck so nabbed two packets.
Miss Stash informs that while out with Sandra D the other day they popped into that big health food store under the Quadrant car park and they also stock polenta as well as fine polenta.

I finally rented the final installment of Resident Evil, however as much as I liked it and as good as it was, it has left me in suspense. Seriously I hope there is a fourth installment some day, because I personally felt there was a lot of unanswered questions at the end, who made it to Alaska? What was there? Did Alice create a "cure" for the T-Virus in the underground laboratory? If so did it work? Have the evil Umbrella been finally crushed once and for all???
This is all stuff I wish they had answered.

I also rented a quirky Canadian film called Walk All Over Me about a small town girl who runs of to the big city and looks up her ex-babysitter, who now works as a dominatrix. Then Girl meets Boy, Boy turns out to be chased by Bad Man and hired goons because Bad Man thinks Boy stole money from him. Madness ensues as everybody trys to bluff everyone else and find the money first.

What I actually bought for my collection was Who's That Girl? starring Madonna. I love this movie, and I really liked Madonna in it. She was also good in Desperately Seeking Susan. But I really didn't like her in Dick Tracy as Breathless. Although I think her best big screen work ever was when she made Evita.
And apart from her cameo role in one of the recent Bond films I have never seen any of her other work. I really can't offer a full judgment on her acting ability.

The Daft White Cat is currently perched atop my monitor glaring at me and occasionally waving a paw at me. Must be feeding time.

I decided it was time for an update of what I have been cooking lately from Nigella's books.

There was the pancakes from Nigella Bites, whipped them up in the blender in mere seconds. Too easy and very yummy to eat.
The Chili from Feast, next time I'm keeping it all for myself. The Best Chili I have ever eaten! Alas no sign of polenta so I had to forgo the cornbread topping. And I accidentally over limed my guacamole. But otherwise a success. One thing I wasn't happy with the Chili was the cardamom pods, it's all good till you bite into one. Blah!!!
Then there was the Croque Monsieur Bake from Express, I left the mustard out as there is only one mustard eater in my family, if you make this and leave out the mustard - it needs something put back in it's place. I'd like sweet chili sauce, and also to omit the ham because I don't like ham.
It was a simple thing to throw together and then fridge it overnight.

Now I am sure there is something else I have tried recently from them, I don't have them to hand and I can't conjure up an image of anything.
I made the Cheese Risotto from Express a while ago, I loved it, I seriously need to practice my risotto making skills, but I figure since the first attempt was edible it was a success.
High-Speed Hamburgers also from Express are good, as is the Go Get 'Em Smoothie. And not forgetting the Glitzy Chocolate Puddings.

I am now the proud owner of a second slow cooker (crock-pot)! I was on the hunt for a slightly larger one than I already own, it's not worth trying to work out the fraction of difference I'd need to make in recipes to get them to fit my current one.
Alas unable to find what I wanted I ended up coming home with a baby one, a little 1.5L (approx 1 1/2 quarts) one! It is very cute, and I figured the right size to just put whatever is going to be dinner in and leave it till I come home.
Really I see myself using it for stuff I've already made in advance, and just popping it in and leaving it on low so I come home to already heated dinner. Or just when I'm home it'd be enough for soup for me to keep it hot, so I can pop back and have another bowlful.
This is vital in my house, having to wait for stuff to heat or be delivered, means I usually end up eating whatever I can in my fridge.

The big test will come, when I attempt to cook porridge in it! I love porridge and having read about other people making it in slow cookers I am very, very intrigued.

I made a trip into see the BlackSpot, their own brand equivalent stuff is all marked down to special prices, so I went to poke about and look for anything I might want. The Inca equivalent, same quantities of wool, acrylic and alpaca felt nasty where the Inca was lovely to feel and I have a hat started in some Inca somewhere so I know for sure it knits up nice.
I wanted to knit an alpaca project up and I have some but I can't remember what ply it is and think I may have to rejig the pattern slightly because I think it may be a tad finer ply.

Reminds me of a conversation we had at the knitting coven yesterday!

more cat pictures

Which incidentally put a woman with big boobs on the cover of a magazine and you sell more copies, a proved fact in publishing!

It's that time of year, again!

The Unholy Trinity perhaps???

I have two weeks of long blissful freedom before I go back to school and I plan to make the most of it!
Just started 2 nights ago is Vickie Howell's Peacock Scarf in some Vintage Hues. It has turned out really well so far, and I am super pleased with it.

For the first time ever, I saw Stargate Atlantis last night, I was up and roaming about when it started, I have no idea who anyone is or what the hell was going on. But the Man with the Dreads was Tasty!!!

I've treated myself to a new Bratz doll, whenever I'm in a department or toy store I always check for Bratz, I still haven't got my hands on the Wicked Twiins. You know one day I will walk into that aisle and they'll just be there waiting.
Anyway I came out today with a Play Sportz X-treme, I got the X-treme Kick Boxing one. The only other choice was a pile of X-treme Skateboarders. Obviously not as popular.
After showing Miss Stash my new acquisition, she told me she'd seen a Skydiving one in a toy sale catalog. Now that would have been cool to see!

Something that is going on my to buy list, cause it's not yet released is this new book Knock Down Knits: 30 Projects from the Roller Derby Track.
I was trying to explain to Miss Stash about Roller Derby this afternoon, if only I'd known about the book then as well. My mother knew what Roller Derby was, I was so impressed.
Now if someone will just write a book that combines pole dancing and knitting I'll be set....

And just because I love it, here is a clip from the 1950's of womens Roller Derby. It's a classic and dare I say slightly cooler looking than some of the modern clips I've seen.