food – dangermouse.net

Anniversary dinner and Arcs

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, so my wife and I had a special dinner out at one of our favourite (albeit expensive) places, The Bathers’ Pavilion at Balmoral Beach. Firstly, the view from the dinning room is wonderful.

We were there before sunset and so got to watch the beach and water as night fell. We started with some potato scallops, battered, sprinkled with wakame and topped with a vinegar mayo.

My appetiser was kingfish with rhubarb and pink peppercorns.

My wife had a vegetarian appetiser of wood ear mushrooms with witlof, blackberries, and black garlic. I tried a small bite and this was truly delicious.

My main was duck cooked two ways, a sliced breast fillet and duck sausages.

My wife had roasted cauliflower and kale, with…. I’m not sure what the orange bits or the sauce are.

For dessert we shared this chocolate, passionfruit, and caramel construction.

It was an indulgent and delicious dinner. We drove home and picked up Scully from our neighbours who had minded her while we were out.

Today I did a 5k run in the morning, followed by housecleaning: vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom and shower, emptying (water) and refilling (crystals) the damp absorbers.

Then after lunch we went out to a fabric showroom to choose new fabric for the upholstery on our dining chairs. These chairs are 25 years old and the seats are getting worn and the foam padding is squashed and flat, so we decided to get them reupholstered. I got a quote from a company during the week, and they said we should go to this showroom to choose a fabric, and let them know what it is so they can order it wholesale for us.

The showroom was in Glebe, so after picking a fabric we walked over to Glebe Point Road to get coffee (for my wife) and snacks from a cafe. Then we headed back home.

This afternoon we tried a 2-player game of Arcs. It’s only the second time I’ve payed, after the 4-player one we did at games night a few weeks ago, and I was teaching my wife to play. So it was fairly instructional and strategy-free. (My wife won, but it was only a learning game!)

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New content today:

Trying new pies

This morning I had some Magic cards to send off to eBay buyers. Two packages, plus one person with a local pickup option. The buyer turned out to live in the block of flat immediately next door to one of my friends. This is in Newtown, home of The Pie Tin, one of my favourite pie shops, but one which I don’t get to visit often because it’s tricky to get to. But I can use my friend’s car parking spot if he’s home! So that’s what I arranged to do.

I parked there, met the eBay buyer and gave him the cards, and then took Scully over to The Pie Tin and had an early lunch. I decided to try some new things. They had a pan-fried chicken pie with vegetables, and a tuna mornay pie. I got one of each and went with Scully to a nearby park to sit and eat. They were both really good.

Once back home I went up to the post office to send the other two packages of cards. Then my wife contacted me and asked about dinner, and I realised I should have bought eggs! So I walked up to the shops again and got some eggs, to make quiche for dinner tonight, before my ethics classes.

In the afternoon I had a visit from a guy from a place that does blinds and other window accessories. Our window blinds are aging and in need of replacement, so we booked someone to come measure up the windows and give us a quote for new blinds. I was honestly expecting him to measure them with a tape measure, but he used a laser gadget. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but there you go.

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Chinese Lebanese pizza

My back is much better today. So much so that when my wife got home I went out for a run. I took it a bit easy and only did 2.5 km, instead of my usual 5k. But it went well and I’m very happy that this episode of back pain has healed up quickly.

For lunch today I took Scully for a bit of a drive a couple of suburbs away to try a new place. I actually wanted to go visit the bottle shop to restock on some liquor, and chose a place to eat nearby. It was a Lebanese bakery, which made Lebanese style pizzas and pides and stuff. It was called Cedar Dough Lebanese Bakery, and the sign outside had the cedar tree of Lebanon on it, overlaid with Arabic text. Very authentically Lebanese. And when I went in to order something, the woman behind the counter was Chinese. Not exactly what I expected, but she was friendly and took my order for a folded pizza stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, and olives. I ate it sitting at the table outside with Scully, and it was pretty good.

In the morning before that I wrote up my next ethics lesson plan, on the topic of Hobbies. Tonight I had the first class. it went pretty well, except for one question, which I think I might have to excise from the class.

I asked: Are there any hobbies that could be harmful or raise ethical issues?
I expected: things like hunting, or trail bike riding.
I got: stealing things, committing crimes, bullying people.
In hindsight I’m glad no kid said serial killing…

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Getting a pie card

Today was mostly spent working on comics and then doing more of my Halloween special ethics classes on Witch Hunts this evening.

I took Scully on a walk for lunch, to the pie shop at the station, where I haven’t been for a while. They had two new special pies today: pepper steak with cheese, and butter chicken. So I had to try those, and they were both very good. The woman there asked if I had a pie card, and I said no… they must be new! So I grabbed one and she clipped two of the little pie icons, and then she winked and said, “And I’ll do two more for last time.” And she gave it to me with 4 of the 10 icons clipped. Only six more and I get a free pie!

In the afternoon I decided to take Scully on another walk to get a bit more exercise. But when we got outside the air was full of smoke. Authorities have been doing controlled burns of bushland around the city today to reduce fuel before the summer fire season, and the prevailing wind blew it in my direction. It was quite thick and awful, so we cut short our walk and took a shortcut home. And when I got home I closed up all the windows to prevent the smoke getting in.

For dinner before my classes I made a Moroccan chick pea thing with tomato, spices, and some haloumi cheese. And for a bit of vegetable I threw in some broccoli, though I don’t think that’s very Moroccan. Unfortunately I tasted it and thought it needed aa bit of saltiness, so threw in a stock cube, and it ended up too salty. I should have only used half maybe. But I added some lemon juice and made rice to go with it, and it was okay.

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A low key day off

I had grand plans for my day off today. I was going to find some place to go with Scully and spend some time out. But the weather was a bit grim, with light showers giving way to strong winds and quite chilly temperatures.

I searched the net for some place that has good meat pies that I hadn’t tried before, but almost all of the ones filling those requirements were south of the Harbour and in inner city suburbs where parking is difficult. I didn’t fancy dealing with all that. I found a bakery called Berkelo in Manly, but again that is a bad place for parking. But then I saw they had a shop in Mosman, closer to home and easier to park.

So I just went there. They only had two types of pie: chicken or pumpkin. I chose the chicken pie, and a sausage roll. I reviewed the sausage roll (with photos) over on my sausage roll blog. The pie was okay, but nothing to write home about. But then I looked inside again for a sweet treat and they had… almond lamingtons. Like a lamington, but coated in almond crumbs, and filled with an almond cream. I took that away and ate on a nearby park bench. It was delicious.

After returning home, I spent some time making sourdough bread and pizza dough for dinner. And a comic. And… I really don’t know where the time went.

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A so-so bakery

Today daylight saving started here. I was hoping to sleep in to catch up on sleep as during the week I’d had several interrupted sleeps. But Scully decided to defy her usual habit of sleeping until we get up and wanted to get up before 7am (which felt like 6am because of losing the hour to the DST change). So I had to get up and after a while take her outside for a walk. So I was pretty tired today.

I did my 5k run though, nice and early, which was actually a good thing as it was warm and heating up quickly to a maximum around 30°C.

We went out for some afternoon tea, driving to a bakery a couple of suburbs away. I’d been there once before to try their pies, and thought they were pretty average. But now we were trying sweets: I had a slice of almond orange cake, and my wife had a date scone. After we’d finished them, I asked her how it was, and she replied that the scone wasn’t very good. My almond orange cake was also pretty mediocre. Not bad, but just not good either. So… I guess we consign this bakery to the ranks of uninspiring and avoid going there again.

Also while we were there another couple arrived and sat at the cafe table next to us, eating char-grilled chicken and Vietnamese rice paper rolls that they’d bought from some other shops nearby. They didn’t buy anything from this cafe at all. And then the guy went inside and grabbed some serviettes! Now I don’t know about other countries necessarily, but here if you sit at a cafe table you’re expected to be buying something from that cafe, not just eating whatever other food you’ve brought from somewhere else. The cafe staff didn’t shoo them away though, which really surprised me.

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Sushi and pizza day

First thing this morning was picking up the groceries from the supermarket. We had to get a new bottle of olive oil, and that one item added about 30% extra to our normal weekly grocery bill. It’s expensive stuff!

After some classes, I took Scully up the street to get some sushi, both for my own lunch and also some for my wife to eat after work before she headed back to work for a special exhibition in the evening. Her work runs art classes and they were having an exhibition of pieces done by the students, with sales to raise money and stuff. They’re also doing it on Saturday morning, so she has to go in and do some stuff there for that too.

While she was doing that, I went to a friend’s place for board games night. I didn’t have too long, because I needed to leave by 9pm to pick up my wife from her work. But we got in a game of Flamecraft, which is all about dragons doing cutesy things to collect resources and spend them in various ways to create enchantments and score points.

We paused the game for pizza when it arrived. The place we got it from had a couple of very interesting pizza toppings: pulled pork and coleslaw, and one with Szechuan prawns. They were both delicious.

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Pancakes for dinner

I’ve been trying to feed my sourdough starter a bit more frequently to get it in a healthier condition, so I’ve been generating some starter discard. And so I’ve been looking for ways to use it. Tonight my wife went to a painting class, so I made diner for myself, and decided to use the discard as the basis of a pancake batter. I just added an egg, a splash of milk, and some baking powder, and it came to the right consistency. I had the pancakes with ricotta, fresh strawberries, and maple syrup.

They turned out really nice! It’s a little strange having a sweet dinner, but it can be fun every now and then.

Today was the fourth lecture of the image processing course, with the professor back after I filled i for last week’s lecture. he reminded me that it wasn’t actually my first official coursework lecture – I did lecture 4 (today’s topic) last year when he was away! I wrote about it back then. He read my blog and pointed out how I was now Wrong On The Internet, so I feel duty bound to correct it. 😀

I decided after the lecture to head home on the normal train rather than the new Metro, since the best walking route home fro the Metro stop is still messed up by work on the pedestrian crossing lights, necessitating a significant detour. I think the old train is quicker overall at the moment.

I also went ot the post office this morning to mail some more Magic cards to a buyer. And while there I hopped over to Moon Phase (the croissant place) and tried one of the char siu buns. I’ve wanted one for a while, but they’ve been sold out the last couple of times. But today I got one. And wow, it’s amazing. It’s a next level steamed pork bun (char siu bao). Instead of the steamed doughy bun, it’s light flaky croissant pastry with a super crispy top. It was so good.

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Sampling the menu at Moon Phase

This morning I worked on a new Darths & Droids comic. I was over a week ahead recently, but have now let the buffer slip back to nothing, so I needed to get one made today.

I had to decide today whether to eat the last falafels in a wrap with tahini, cheese, tomato, lettuce—my usual home lunch—or leave it for tomorrow and go out to get lunch somewhere. I had one day’s lunch supply at home and two days to go until the next grocery shop on Friday morning. I decided to let the Fates decide and used a die rolling bot to choose randomly. It rolled odd, which I’d decided was eat out today. So I took Scully up to Moon Phase to try sampling some more of their menu. I’ve been there maybe 5 times now, and haven’t had the same item more than once. Today I decided to try the “hot dog” pastry—a frankfurt encased in flaky croissant-like pastry, with mustard and some other condiments—and a “kimcheese” pastry.

They warmed them up for me as I waited at one of the small tables outside with Scully. I would have preferred to be indoors because it was bitterly cold and very windy. Both of the pastries were okay. Enjoyable enough, but I think I prefer the other savouries that I’ve had on previous visits.

In the afternoon I sorted out some piles of Magic: the Gathering cards, to try to bring some order to mixtures of sorted and unsorted piles and half-deconstructed decks. I’m consolidating them all into sorted collections so I can see just how many of each card I have before I sell them off in a systematic way.

Tonight I had the first three classes on the new “Empires” topic, from 5-8pm. So I made a quiche for dinner before hand during the afternoon and had one slice before 5, and the second slice after 8. And my wife could eat whenever she was ready, though she chose to eat pretty early. I think this Empires topic is not bad. I was a bit worried about it, if I’d have enough material and if the questions would be ones the kids could relate to well enough or not. But having them pretend to be the Emperor of Rome and presenting them with some governance problems and asking how they’d respond seems to be a good tactic!

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Satay pizza for dinner

Monday morning was busy with ethics classes. I had three new students across a couple of classes today. It takes up a couple of minutes doing an introduction to the class for new students, but I’ve done this so many times now that I can pretty much recite it without thinking.

At lunchtime I took Scully to the post office to mail off some more Magic cards. The weather wasn’t too cold and it looks like warming up to 20-21°C later in the week, which is much more bearable than temperatures in the teens.

This afternoon I photographed the second half of that batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips that I started last week. That gives me a total of six weeks of new strips, although the first week has already been published last week.

For dinner tonight I made pizza. We had some leftover fried puffy tofu from a str fry on Saturday, so i wanted to use that, and we had broccoli. So rather than make the pizza with tomato sauce, I made a spicy satay sauce with peanut butter and chilli and some other ingredients. It goes really well with broccoli and tofu, but I wasn’t entirely convinced about tofu on a pizza. But it turned out pretty good and was delicious.

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