March into Merivale

Thumbs up to the event/advertising people behind march into Merivale. The advertising is eye catching, bold, tasteful and arty... "Exposing our chiefs cuisine"

Its a Sydney event, so will be passing it up unfortunately.. starts March 3
If youre interested in their pictures ;) go have a look

One the home page... i know it must be awkward being in a room full of nude chefs... is that why so many are busy looking at the guy slicing up the fish? are they thinking "wow he must be nervous no one cuts a fish like that..."

breville wizz mix professional stand mixer prezzie

Ive been using my new christmas present! :) and decided lol, i should probably blog about it.. seeing as its late feb already!

I had been eyeing off this beautiful kitchen appliance for quite a long time, waiting for it to be on special... or perhaps be released in green (Not going to happen)
If it wasn't green i was deciding between the silver/platinum look and the red... So many decisions..
It wasn't cheap so i did do my research into the best mix masters... and since my budget is only half? of that of a kitchenmaid...(which i'd have to hunt down to goodness knows where to buy) well.. i wasn't going to get one of those. Altho it would be a preference.. having all those attachments a mincer too?!! would save in the cupboard space but then how often would i make my own mince?!Altho style wise i dont like how the kitchenmaids look.. must say the attachments for the breville are funky!The pav in its mighty glory..... before it sinks after i take it out.. out of practice!


Goji berry cupcakes... late addition of vanilla.. how could i forget??!!Goji Berry cupcakes all mixed and ready to spoon out.

Choc chip cookies (recipe without PB) mix.. looking yummy!!!!!!
Out of practice again... giant thin, chewy, hand size choc chip cookies

My review: Its pretty cool.. many settings (think ive forgotten one?); folding, mixing, beating,creaming, whipping and the last one aerating (yet to get there)

I do find that when i'm creaming sugar and butter it sticks to the side, so when it comes to adding the egg it needs to be scrapped off the sides before turning on again. Only a tiny bit at the bottom usually is left un creamed or mixed, but so tiny u can mix it altogether and not notice.

Is awesome with the whisk attachment... can't leave cream on and walk away as its quick to whip! Pavs go stiff nice, easily and quick.

Its pretty quiet, compared to my mums old one (if she still has it.. must be as old as me!) and much quieter than previous hand held mix masters!

Easy to lift beaters out of bowl and no chance it will fall back down when your trying to scrape off the mixture.

Easy to take beaters off and on!!!! YAY!!!

Not much room when it comes to adding ingrediants into the bowl while working. So needs a bit of careful addition or just turn it off and lift attachment/head out of the bowl.

Love the big bowl and big attachments! I'll have to get around to making one of those 10egg whites pavlovas one day... lol!

am yet to use the dough hook... while i do appreciate and love using my hands to play with pasta dough (rare) and feel like a jamie oliver (visions of mixing in the egg yolks into a pile of flour on a bench.. yes why use a bowl?!! LOL!)

Tia's first day of school! :)

On Monday 2nd of feb we had a interview/assessment time with Tia's teacher. We had to bring all the books and things we bought via the book list thru officemax or something like that. I was unsure whether the books had to be covered... in my school years it wasn't until high school or year 6 when they HAD to be covered. (i think because young kids go thru the books so quickly perhaps? but then our books were free and supplied by the government/school)
Anyways we did a crazy dash and had these covered just in time to leave! 8 books and 8.8m of contact later.. lol Tia wanted lil bratz covering. But i thought it would be to distracting.. i could envision her in class just looking at the bratz pictures and tuning out everything else! So I found a optical illusion pink and red metallic contact instead and cute lil bratz name stickers.

Its a good 30min walk to her school. Its lovely when the weather is nice.... but in the heat there isn't much shade on the way :( She has a school hat, supplied by the school that stays at school. So i bring along a hat from home so she has some sun protection on the way home.When tia gets to school she puts her bag in a line and goes off to play in the sand pit or equipment in the fenced off prep area. When the bell goes she has to get in the line, take out her classroom water and a piece of fruit & put her bag on. Once the teacher says they may go in she walks in to the bag room and puts her bag in her cubby hole.Then she is meant to put her class water bottle & fruit on her name on a special desk and sit down on the floor. The past 2 days (friday and monday) ive noticed she skips putting her bag away (as she has her hands full already with the water and fruit) and puts her water and fruit away and then the teacher or aid will notice she is in the classroom (about to be fully dsitracted by kids, toys etc) with her bag on her back! LOL!

Enough of the heat already...

So yesterday places here in Australia were hotter than the sahara, then kenya and so on... Im just thankful that i still live by the coast! Where there is a great breeze off the water and if need be theres the beach. (if i brave the UV rays, no shade etc)

Hubby decided i would be spoiled and at 11am we all headed off to the shops!Goodbye 27deg heat in our house ;)
It was much hotter outside! Hurrying off with nappies and formula supplies we went off to go shopping. Hubby decided he would look at water pistols.. i was more interested in the slime gun ;) only draw back is the expensive slime refills x.x

But we came back with none. James decided he'd had enough shopping.. we'd gone to myer (several times) in which we all came out smelling; James- Kourkos or something like that. I like frangipani (found some interesting body mists) and Tia like lime and coconut. I also found a pot that said perfume balm, but there was no tester. :(

When i got back at 3pm with the kidlets, it was 33deg cel in the house. It rose to 36 deg cels and then started dropping when i noticed it was cooler outside.

Decided to have a very early night, not even staying up to finish watching iron chef. I woke up at 5 am to a storm.. a few minutes later (we had our window open) there was a huge crackle of lightning and flash what seemed just outside. The noise was huge! I was pretty freaked out and checked outside to see if there was a tree on fire or something.. but everything looked normal.
Today has been a really nice day (max of 22deg c) with rain and storm up to lunch time. It was not until 10 had a break with the news that we found out that overnight or yesterday many lives had been lost, with fires burning in our state. :( I hope the houses lost were insured, that the people affected will go on to bigger and better things as they start over.

If this was...cake??!!

then i would NOT have a weight problem! lol!

The above picture was taken on wednesday.. i believe it is cottee's orange and mango crush cordial (straight) and milk.. its curdled and was pretty chunky.

This is what Tia made while she was waiting (impatiently in the kitchen) to make some betty crocker cookies with me.. she did come to me asking for some eggs.. i can only imagine how much worse this could have been? lol

I found popplers!

Above is the theme song.. which is all ive managed to find on youtube..
Popplers are from a episode in the cartoon Futurama.

But here are the real life popplers (minus the whole live baby alien thing but i'll get to that..)
(what it is actually is oven ready salt n pepper squid made by pacific west?) We had oven chips, beer battered flake n salt n peppa squid for australia day dinner! Altho i just had chips ;)
Popplers are actually omicronians in their baby larvae form!
When eaten of course they didn't speak, move or have the whole face thing going on.. humans didnt know what exactly they were.. other than delicious and very addictive! You can imagine how peeved the omicronians were when they found out that humans were eating their young?! From memory they said they would eat every young human for every poppler.. but i think they had eaten more popplers than there was humans?

SO it was decided that the first person to eat a poppler would be eaten by the omicronian ruler... but she (leela) was not eaten as she had stopped eating as soon as she knew they were young aliens ( it spoke got eyes) and saved one.. it in return saved her from being eaten!

I remember the funny was that the omicronians had a nanny camera watching their babes on the nanny planet! LOL!!!!!!

Oh yeah.. as cute as the young are the uglier they get ;)

Lameway er Laneway festival

Reading up on the news i came across a article...

basically it said that due to mass numbers (all ticket holders paying out $100) they had to shut doors to keep ticket holding fans out of stage areas (like where u stand to watch a band on a stage).... interesting

Ive never heard of the laneway festival b4, its held in the cdb Melbourne (and in other cities) and boasts indie music as its main drawcards.. i guess also the fact that its held in the streets??? little lonsdale(sp?) was mentioned.. would make it that bit different and interesting??

Anyways from what i read stages where walk away (on different streets) there was ONE toilet block on offer... so i pity anyone walking in the same spots today!! IT MUST REEEEEK!!! (especially in the heat?!!) PEE-YEEW!!!! You had to line up to get in to any stage area.. and apparently people would line up to see a band and by the time they got in that band had already played and finished! OUCH!

But i guess the real thing thats up laneway goers is that the company behind the festival blames the crowd of people at the event for having to close the doors.. leaving some crazy people to climb and get in dangerous spots.. and yet the company isn't accepting that the locations weren't thought out.. that ticket/crowd numbers werent thought out (another big money grab no doubt) that managing the crowd wasnt thought out..

While i might be on some sort of live music hiatus.. not purely by choice.. and i feel old just thinking about how many years ago it was since i went to a BIG event (not something meant to be "little event" like lameway er laneway (no really thats how i typed it.. lol) Big Day out in sydney 2000... 9years ago!! I bought a bottle of coke for $6 and kept it for a year or so (empty).. who pays $6 for a 600ml coke?!! Big day out is always well planned, lots of toilets, planned acts on different stages.. true i did mostly miss out on foo fighters due to lining up to go (and once u get there u dont need to go anymore.. whats with that???!!!) i opted to go to the toilet block and avoid the rental portable loos...

(Its very sad that girl died at perth big day out this year.. and the fact that she took them for fear of being caught out by the sniffer dogs and yet because she was dropped off and didnt arrive by train meant she wouldnt have been searched anyways! Why take all 3 tho?! Could she not have taken one.. or just thrown them all away? ah well..)

anyways clearly these guys dont know how to do a event or accept responsibility in mismanagement and should refund those who had a right to be there but couldn't due to the size of the crowd??!! Until then i suppose the facebook site, LOL! (which was also included in the article) with all the comments left by those who went, saw and want a refund will be a ton of bad press/media for the festival.

Quickly in other festival type stuff.. i missed this years chinese new year.. but how cool did sydneys CNY look! It was the biggest CNY celebration (road parade) outside china! I also read that Melbournes china town is the longest settlement of chinese in the western world.. hmm..