food – Page 3 – dangermouse.net

Carbonara Sunday

Well, I end my week of food-related headings with an interesting story.

I had two ethics classes tonight from 6-8pm, which is inconvenient for dinner. I’d had a late lunch so wasn’t hungry before hand and my wife wanted to eat before 8pm, so she made herself something while I did my classes. After finishing at 8pm, I made myself some spaghetti “carbonara”, with just the egg and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, no meat. I don’t make this much and found a recipe online to follow. It suggested warming the plates before serving to maintain the warmth in the pasta while eating. And it said you can warm plates by putting them in the microwave….

Now I’m pretty sure that won’t work. But my wife had just made a cup of tea, and I had pulled out a shallow bowl to eat from, so I thought I’d warm my bowl by pouring in some boiling water.

I boiled up the spaghetti, mixed it with some molten butter, a beaten egg, the grated cheese, and a lot of black pepper in a frying pan, and made a passable carbonara-esque sauce. Then I dumped the whole lot from the frying pan into my bowl… Which was still full of hot water.

After a moment of panic I managed to salvage most of it by quickly holding back the pasta with a fork and tipping out as much runny hot water as I could into the sink. But half the sauce went with it. Oh well. It still tasted pretty good.

Around lunch I did a 5k run. It was still very cold then. We’re getting another polar blast which should make the next few days very chilly again.

I also worked on writing scripts for a new batch of Irregular Webcomic! I’m approaching concluding strips for a couple of the themes and have figured out the endings for them. Just need to write them up into scripts.

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Faux Hun Friday; pastie and pizza Saturday

Friday was gaming night at a friend’s place. My lunch was just a falafel wrap that I made with supermarket ingredients. But for dinner I picked up something on the way to my friend’s place. This involves a bit of a story.

When we used to work together at Canon Research, there was a Thai restaurant just around the corner from the office, where we often used to get lunch. It was called Go Hun. And it had some of the best Thai food you could find in Sydney.

When we stopped working there, Go Hun of course remained, but I didn’t have occasion to go out that way very much, except to visit this particular friend who lived nearby for board games night. So sometimes I’d drop in on the way and grab some take-away for my dinner, which was good. But then about a year ago Go Hun closed down! But a new Thai place opened in the same premises. It’s actually named “Charmed Thai“, but we all refer to it as “Faux Hun”.

Anyway, I hadn’t tried anything from Faux Hun yet, so I stopped in on the way and picked up an order of chicken pad kee mao. It was really good!

At the games night there were just four of us. Two of our other regulars both happen to be in Europe at the moment: one on a six-week grand tour with wife and teenaged kid, and the other who popped over to Italy for a week to meet up with his partner who was taking a slightly longer trip there.

We started with Ingenious, which I won. And then played a quick hand of Uno Flip!, which I also won! My friend had found this at a discount store for just $3 and decided to buy it because it was so cheap. It normally retails in regular shops for about $10. Only when he got it home and opened the box, it became clear that it was a Chinese counterfeit version! The box said it contained printed instructions, but it didn’t, and the quality of the cards was awful. They were thin and flimsy, with a weird finish that looked like it’d start peeling off any second, and were already starting to curl. We played a game merely so that he could say he got his money’s worth out of the $3 he’d spent, before he throws it away.

We moved on to the big game for the evening: Architects of the West Kingdom. This is a worker placement game where you choose to place a piece each turn to collect money, collect various building resources, hire workers, build buildings, or round up rival workers in an attempt to (a) restrict them from gaining bonuses and (b) sell them into incarceration for profit. You can also use actions to free your own workers from other players or the prison. The goal is to amass points by building buildings, constructing parts of the cathedral, earning a virtuous reputation, or simply collecting valuables including silver, gold, and marble. The obvious routes to victory involve building a lot of buildings and working on the cathedral. But I got some workers who synergised into a way to collect lots and lots of marble cheaply, and reward me with bonus virtue for marble at the end of the game. So rather than build buildings, I decided to see if I could just collect enough marble to win.

I came last. I think the strategy could have worked if I’d just built another building or two, or found another worker who synergised with the engine and gave me more benefit from the marble that I’d amassed. I didn’t lose by a lot, so I believe the strategy could be viable.

Anyway. We ended the night with a quick game of For Sale. Which I also came dead last in. But I’d won two of the four games for the night, and the other two wins had been split between other players, so I declared myself the grand winner!

Today I cleaned the house up, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom and shower, and emptying all the damp absorbers and refilling them with absorbing crystals. Our weather is still far too damp and humid and I dread getting mould growing in things. For lunch I took Scully for a walk and popped in at the pie place, which had a special beef and vegetable pasty

And for dinner tonight my wife and I went out to Organica, which we tried for the first time a few weeks ago. This time we tried the pizzas there, and they were very good. Thin crust blistered by a wood fire, with buffalo mozzarella and toppings.

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Savoury danish Thursday

Continuing our food theme this week, I went to Moon Phase for a pastry lunch, trying their savoury danishes for the first time. I selected a mushroom and asparagus one, and one with onion, truffle, and cheese.

They warmed them up for me and I sat outside at the small table with Scully as I ate. They were both really good! Also a lot more filling than I expected, probably because of all the butter in the pastry.

For dinner I made a quick meal of vegetarian “chicken” sausages with microwave “baked” potatoes, and what was left of the broccolini. I only had an hour in between groups of ethics classes, so I had to make something that didn’t take too long to cook.

Speaking of ethics, this evening I asked in one class, “What are some annoying noises?” One student immediately said, “Someone playing the recorder.” I also had two kids today in different classes who said they find the sound of rain annoying. Everyone else said rain is a sound they find relaxing, which was more what I expected. I haven’t heard of anyone thinking the sound of rain is annoying before.

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Fancy lunch Wednesday

This morning I had a food disaster. I poured out my bowl of muesli, added fresh blueberries and chopped apple and orange chunks. I was about to spoon yoghurt on top when I bumped the bowl and it fell off the kitchen bench, landing on the floor, face down. The entire lot was scattered all over the floor. I had to clean it up and then make a whole new bowl of breakfast.

For lunch I walked with Scully down to my wife’s work. She was having a half day and was free from midday. We walked from there to Rafi, a restaurant in North Sydney. We sat at an outdoor table with comfortable sofa seating and ordered a very nice lunch.

Hummus with crispy chick peas and green chilli (which we had with the home made sourdough pita bread, not pictured):

Crispy eggplant with spices, honey, and herbs:

Jerusalem artichokes with hazelnuts and Grana Padano:

King prawns with chilli miso butter (non-vegetarian, for me):

And after this fantastic meal I wanted to try one of the desserts. Roasted apples with burnt honey and Pedro Ximénez sauce (and crumble and vanilla crême anglaise):

The whole meal was amazingly good, and very filling. It’s now after 8pm and I still haven’t eaten anything else yet. Although I will make something quick and light for dinner in a minute. I just finished my three ethics classes for the evening, on the new Noise topic.

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Pub meal, schnitzel and banoffee

This morning my wife went out early for an appointment, and then I took Scully up to meet her at the dog grooming place to drop Scully off there. She got a wash and tidy, but not a cut, as her hair wasn’t really too long. But when we picked her up she was super fluffy from the blow dry and looked really big compared to normal. But the hair will flatten out agian and she should be fine until the next groom. It’s midwinter anyway, so she can use the extra insulation!

On the way home from the groomer we stopped at Moon Phase for croissants. I actually had a black sesame bun, another new item. I keep trying new things and haven’t had the same thing there twice yet. The sesame bun was really nice.

Back home I changed to go for a 5k run. I thought I was still taking it fairly easy, since I’m a little out of practice, but I clocked a time nearly a minute faster than last weekend, at 27:15, which is on the lower end of my usual times, so that was good.

In the afternoon I worked on some comics stuff.

And then for dinner we all walked up early to Naremburn and the Flat Rock Brew Cafe. We grabbed a table outside. Everyone else except other dog owners were sitting inside out of the cold! I got a chicken schnitzel and they had a chocolate milk stout on the beer specials, so I tried that with it. After the meal I pondered idly if they had any desserts, because I hadn’t seen any on the menu. My wife asked a staff member who was walking past, and he said they had a banoffee pie. Well… that’s one of my favourite desserts, and I wasn’t too full already from the meal, so I ordered a piece. It turned out to be obviously hand made, with a really thick biscuit base, slathered with sticky toffee and banana slices. It came with a scoop of ice cream on the side. The base was so thick that it was difficult to cut it with the spoon! It was really delicious and I’m very glad I decided to get it.

After that it was a walk home to walk off some of the food. And we sat down to watch the final episode of Disenchantment, which we have finally got to after a drawn-out process of working our way through the episodes after not realising for a few years that seasons 4 and 5 had been released!

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Cold AND rain

Saturday was not only bitterly cold but also very wet, with almost constant heavy rain all day. We took Scully for a walk after lunch when the rain stopped briefly, but by the time we got home we were wet enough to have to change our clothes, despite having ventured out with raincoats and umbrellas. We had to give Scully a towelling off and blow dry.

Yesterday was online games night, so I didn’t write up an entry for Friday. I did ethics classes, adding a new class at 10am, which had two students in it. For dinner we went out to a newish restaurant near us, on the ground floor of one of the new apartment towers that went up over the past few years, a place called Organica. We sat outside because Scully was with us, and it was pretty cold. I was rugged up in my warmest winter coat.

I had the crispy skinned porchetta, with maple beetroot mash, pearl couscous, and a raisin salsa. Not usually the sort of thing I go for, but it was marked as a specialty on the menu, and I thought why not? It was really delicious!

My wife had some gnocchi in a tomato sauce, which was richly spiced when I tried a bit. We were pretty happy with the meals and the venue, and plan to go back in the future. They are also a patisserie, and we got a chocolate cannoli to take home for my dessert. And that was delicious too.

There was one drawback to this dinner. Around 1am I woke up, feeling nauseated. I started feeling hot and sweaty, and waves of nausea rolled over my head. I felt close to throwing up, and had to get up and get dressed and go sit on the lounge with a bucket just in case. I’m pretty sure it was because of the fattiness of the meal, plus all the cream in the cannoli. I had my gall bladder removed many years ago, and I get spells of nausea like this a few hours after eating fatty meals as my body tries to digest it without the help of enough bile. But this one was the worst I’ve felt for a long time. I managed to avoid vomiting, but it took about half an hour for my stomach to settle enough for me to go back to bed. By this morning I felt fine.

Except for the cold weather. Yesterday was the solstice, and the end of the first three weeks of winter (by the Australian system). New reported that the first 21 days have been the coldest start to winter Sydney has experienced since 1989. And then today we had almost 60 mm of rain. Pretty miserable stuff.

I spent some time today working on new Darths & Droids comics. Also discussing story planning with my co-writers for Episode IX, which will be ramping up as we approach the end of Episode VIII.

For dinner I made a lentil dhal with rice and broccoli. I added some coconut powder to the dhal this time for a bit of a change of flavours, and it was really nice.

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Virtual New York meeting: day 2

Well, I skipped day 2 of the ISO meeting, as explained yesterday, and got a good sleep instead. That meant I was reasonably fresh and recharged for the day.

For lunch I took Scully for a walk over to Maggio’s Italian bakery at Cammeray. I could see there was only one slice of salami pizza left in the window, which is my usual choice. And when I looked at the sweets for the daily specials I saw one remaining apple pie (individual serve size). I’ve never seen apple pies there before, and the little sign said “Award Winning Apple Pie”. Okay, I knew what I wanted.

But the woman being served immediately before me ordered the last salami pizza slice. Another staff member served me and I said, “Oh, I see the last salami slice has gone.” She said to me there was more out the back and dashed off into the kitchen area. But now I was worried that someone else would get served while I was waiting and order the last apple pie too! The woman came back after a minute and said sorry, there was no salami pizza ready. So I selected the capricciosa instead with mushrooms, ham, and olives – and quickly said I’d have the last apple pie too before it went. Phew! She packed that for me while the pizza heated up.

OMG, I can see why it won an award. Pastry was rich and crumbly, just solid enough to hold together. Filled with delicious stewed apple chunks with cinnamon, a hint of coconut, and custard! I think it’s the best apple pie I’ve ever had. Really worth the hike.

In the afternoon I did some comics stuff. My wife had a watercolour painting class this evening, so we ate dinner early. Pasta with spinach and tomato sauce, around 6pm. After she left for the class, I slid into bed to try to get some sleep for an hour or so before tonight’s all-night ISO meeting. I didn’t succeed very well, but at least I closed my eyes for a bit.

And tonight I have to last through the full New York day of meetings, from 11pm to 7am in my time zone. Let’s see how I go!

Finally, two photos I took yesterday down by the harbour. You can see the wind by how stiff the flags on the Bridge are, and the choppiness of the water.

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King’s birthday classes

Today was the King’s Birthday public holiday. Which still feels weird after it having been the Queen’s Birthday for my entire life before Charles took over from Elizabeth. So my wife was home from work, while I had to do my usual 6 ethics classes, since they don’t respect Australian holidays (unless I want them to).

But today was the last classes for a full week, since I am taking a week’s break from them to give me room and time for the ISO Photography Standards meeting happening from Wednesday to Saturday – in my time zone – it’s Tuesday to Friday in New York where it’s physically being held. It starts lunchtime Tuesday in New York, which means for me getting up at 3am on Wednesday morning for the first session, which I’ll be attending via Webex videoconference.

After my first four classes in the morning, we went for a walk with Scully, around Waverton and the harbour shore. We went past Botanica Garden Cafe to see what was up with the closure and if there was any indication that it might just be temporary or if it looked permanent. The tables and chairs in the courtyard had been removed and there was no sign indicating anything in particular, so it looks like it might be permanent.

And then to make things even worse, we continued down the street and walked past another favourite place, the Waterview, only to find that it had closed too, and the shop had been gutted of all the furniture and counters! It was a cafe by day and an Italian restaurant in the evenings and had great food.

I’m not sure I can take any more closures of good food places nearby!

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Better fish and chips?

Today I worked on writing some more Irregular Webcomic! strips. I did half a batch last week, and this week it’s time to do the other half of the themes in the batch, for photographing tomorrow.

For lunch we went on a walk to Naremburn. Normally I get something from Cornucopia bakery, but today I felt like trying the fish and chips from one of the other shops. I’ve had them before and remembered they were good. Indeed it was. The chips are crispier than the nearer place I normally go to, and the fish is certainly no worse. Also it’s significantly cheaper, by a couple of dollars. If it wasn’t about twice the distance, I suspect I’d get fish & chips from this place more often than my usual place.

My wife got a green quinoa dish with falafel. It looked like a salad thing and I assumed it was cold, but she said it was piping hot.

This afternoon I photographed a bunch of Magic: the Gathering sealed product which I’ve been hanging onto for a while. I bought a bunch of booster boxes back when my friends and I were still doing regular draft tournaments, and we never got around to opening the boxes and sharing out the booster packs. I’m not sure we’ll ever get to using them, so I’m going to sell them on eBay. I’ll see if I have enough time to list them tomorrow.

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When one door opens another closes

Friday was online games night with my friends. We played Applejack, Just One, 7 Wonders. I actually won the game of Applejack and the first game of 7 Wonders! Much better than my usual record.

The only other event of note on Friday was going out for dinner to our usual favourite pizza place. We both tried new dishes! My wife got the ravioli, filled with spinach and ricotta, in a tomato sauce. I tried a pizza combination I hadn’t had before, with pepperoni, capsicum, mushrooms, olives, and anchovies.

The weather was a bit unsettled, but not raining when we walked up. Fortunately we took our umbrellas though, because it began raining just before we left to come home. I checked the rain radar on my phone and thought it would pass in a few minutes, so we sat and waited for a while. It seemed to be getting lighter, so we set out…

And during the 10 minute walk home the rain began pelting down. Even with umbrellas we were so wet by the time we got home that we had to do complete changes of clothes and hang up what we’d been wearing in the bathroom to dry.

Today my wife was keen to go to the new croissant place that I’d found on Thursday. She’d seen the chocolate hazelnut one that I saved for dessert and wanted to know where it was from. So this morning I took her there. It’s a place called Moon Phase, and it’s a Korean bakery making French pastries, and Korean variants. There are some savoury pastries with kimchee or bulgogi beef, for example.

It was busy there this morning. My wife got the plain butter croissant, while I tried an almond croissant. Really good. Scully got to meet a couple of other small dogs while we were sitting outside at one of the two tiny tables they had. (There was more seating inside.)

My wife looked it up and found that this place had only opened in March this year. But on the topic of food places, she also had bad news. She’d heard that Botanica Garden Cafe at Waverton had closed! You may recall that just over a week ago I started working my way through their all-day breakfast menu. And now they’ve shut down!!

It’s always awful when a good food place closes down. And we recently lost our favourite Turkish restaurant as well, just a few weeks ago.

This afternoon we gave Scully a bath, since she’d been getting wet a lot in the rainy weather and starting to be a little “wet dog” smell.

Oh, and I finally did stage 13 of the Lego Dungeons & Dragons set. It has an owlbear!

And myconids!

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