Here's a sighting on a walk around Drummoyne.
This week and last week I tried my hand at a few new foods. The first dish was very sweet... Baklava!
It was a pretty big hit and didn't last long. I'm already thinking of ways to improve my recipe a bit for next time.
Next on my list was Tom's favourite food. If we ever decide to go out for dinner I know that this is the first thing he will suggest, every single time. It's pho-beef noodle soup. It is amazingly simple and even inspired Tom to try his hand at making beef broth from scratch in the future. Just so he can have pho on demand. To give you an idea of just how much Tom loves it, this is a serving dish, it could probably fit 3 or 4 of my sized servings and Tom ate it all!
The same night that I made the pho I was also inspired to try stuffed mushroom. I have a bit of a history with this dish. Prior to my new obsession with mushrooms, when I was in junior high school. I tried a number of times to make them and forced my parents to eat them. Never actually testing them myself. Well I can tell you these ones were very good and I could feed them to my parents and perhaps make up for the past not so yummy experiences.
Last night I attempted spring rolls, which while they tasted quite good, were frustrating to roll. I'll have to try again and maybe let the wrap dry slightly. They were supposed to be fried too, but that failed miserably, again probably because the wraps were too water logged.
Tonight I'm continuing the food adventures with a swiss roll. I've got a cream recipe and a cake recipe, both previously un-tried. It should be interesting. Hopefully tasty as well.
This weekend Tom and I visited the Powerhouse Museum. They had an exhibit on about the 80's. It was pretty funny, we tried a quiz and I quickly realized that almost all the questions were about Oz, so I was pretty hopeless. Luckily an older woman behind me helped out a bit. Until she got embarrassed that she knew all the answers. We didn't take too many pictures, because the exhibit was a little dark, so just imagine the 80's again for those of you that lived through it, now add some kangaroos. What did frighten me was seeing how much of the fashion world has been repeated. Parachute pants now re-named harem pants (not sure if I like what that implies), the t-shirt dresses, and of course all those leggings. It's pretty incredible, but I really hope that shoulder pads don't return in full force. Thanks to Tom I do have some pictures of some Aussie art that was on exhibit. I'm told that these characters are past Prime Ministers, I'm not sure exactly who's who but it got it's point across.
The otherside. The Hawaiian shirt is a nice touch.
In other news, yesterday I went to a very fancy lunch time speech at the parliament house that was a fundraiser for the Jesse Street Women's Library here. I was helping Tom's mom film it both for her show and to archive it for the library. The speaker they had was Anne Sherry, who was really amazing. She is now the CEO of Carnival Cruises, but she started out as a feminist activist, then went into politics. My favourite story was how she tried to get paid maternity leave passed and it wouldn't budge because the government kept saying that it was unfair to male voters. So she left and became the CEO of Westpac Bank, where she suggested paid maternity leave again. The only thing she had to prove was that it would be cost effective and when she did they became the first of the large companies in Australia to offer it, the rest were soon to follow. I found it amazing to hear the differences in how decisions are made between the corporate and political world. It was great to see a woman who holds such a powerful job and can still poke fun at herself. It was very inspiring, plus we got a free lunch and dessert. I found out after that the lunch had been lamb... so I ate lamb and liked it. oops. Simone you'll have to forgive me and Chuck don't get any ideas..... :P
On our way to the Parliament buildings, Jan showed me another library that's right in Sydney Harbour.
What's so neat about this building is that inside is a very unusual feature. The original model for the plans of Sydney. It is very very neat and detailed. Apparently it needed a storage place and someone brilliant came up with putting it on display.
The library itself is also beautiful, with hardwood floors and some very futuristic computers modules for finding books. All in bright red.
Finally as we left the speech, I had to take a picture of this. I don't think it's quite finished yet. The Parliament is in the background.
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