Alan Waddell

Found this while looking for places to go around the block.

"ALAN WADDELL nominated Lethbridge Park, Glendenning and Oakhurst as Sydney's friendliest suburbs - at least, the friendliest of the 284 suburbs in which he walked every street and lane during the last six years of his long life. People in those suburbs most wanted to meet and greet him and invite him into their homes for a drink."


http://www.walksydneystreets.net/index.htm

Danbo!!!

Finally got Danbo from the post-office. Christmas present from Ed :D

Now he's my rice cracker slave. >;D

Here it is again...

Merry Christmas!!!
Very happy with Santa~~

Hope you are too.

I have a very special little guy waiting for me in the Crows nest post office D:
He won't be home 'til the 28th T_T

Chiffon cake in a stone pot

4 eggs - separated
1 cup sugar - 2 half cups
3 drops of vinegar
2 tbs of cooking oil
1 tsp of baking soda
approx. 1 cup of flour


Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees
In one bowl, combine egg whites, 1/2 cup of sugar and vinegar. Beat until stiff peaks form. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks with 1/2 cup of sugar, baking soda and oil until smooth.
Gently fold in flour one tablespoon at a time until mixture sticks to the spoon firmly.
Combine 1/3 of the egg white mixture with the flour mixture and fold gently until smooth.
Fold in the rest of the egg white mixture.
Bake for 20-30 mins


On a different note. I saw this waist trench coat + cons look that I've been wanting to try but everytime I'm back at my parents it's so hot. Yesterday I was there again, pondering for a quick second if I should bring it just incase but it was like 40degrees, so I didn't.
Today, it's like 17 and storming. :/

Merry Christmas

Please view full size.

Merry Christmas!
♥
Can't wait to open those presents under our pretty tree.

Yay!! Added a "like" box to my posts :D

Totoya run

Pork belly skewers

Grilled eggplant

quail egg and chicken skin skewers

Cod roe potato salad

We eat too much!

Totoya, Neutral bay is one of our favourite Japanese restaurants. (as long as they don't serve dolphin :P)
They're not like the typical Japanese restaurants where you can expect the same dishes on every menu.
Apart from those over-done boring side dishes they also have a wide range of home-style dishes like pickled vegies fried rice, grilled egg plant and stir fry liver.

My favourite are these delicious grilled skewers. Chicken skin, gibblets, liver, quail eggs, pork belly with miso sauce and crispy frankfurts just to name a few :D
mmmmmm

Leave our whales and dolphins alone :(

I knew about whale slaughtering by the Japanese but I had no idea they were slaughtering dolphins too.
Dolphins are one of the cutest and most intelligent creatures. They are so friendly and playful with people. It's really mind boggling to think that some people could, not only see them as seafood but be brutal enough to trap and spear them to death...


The sad thing is that in Japan, Dolphin meat isn't even considered a delicacy. No one wants to eat it, so they are sold off packaged as "whale meat". They're killing over 20,000 dolphins a year in Taiji to be replacement meat.

Jokes on them, apparently dolphin meat contains high levels of mercury and is deemed too toxic for human consumption.

Stills from The cove". A documentary following the anti-dolphin capture and slaughter campain started by Ric O'Barry.

Argilly ;o

Last week Grace tried to get us to go clubbing when I got to hers, but I was dressed like I was going to play soccer...
So we went to a Lebanese cafe down the street and tried an argilly! A watermelon flavoured one. We had no idea how it worked at first and had to get some help XD
At first it tasted like burnt paper but when the flavour came up through the pipe, it tasted quite nice :D Left a sweet watermelon taste on my lips too.
Apparently it can be quite strong... but I didn't even get through half of the burning log thing... so maybe next time!
Wish I had a better picture of the pipe, it's really quite pretty.

Can't find my camera charger :(

DIY lightbox

Slowly getting into light now. It's an inevitable part of the process. One thing that plagued me the most about taking photos indoors (other than horrible lighting) is that gawd awful yellow tinge to all my photos. It's not something that can be fixed with white balance either D:

Came across this a few weeks ago and had a go at it this weekend.

Total material costs: $0!
Having lovely lighting: Priceless

It's abit rustic looking...




Some photos taken with the box

unfortunately the lightbox does not solve my retarded focus problem...

Of course it's limited to photography within the box so maybe I will need to make a larger one soon...

Next step... a softbox! and the indoor world is my oyster.
Just need to get a flash.

stop motion phase starts here

:)

Phone camera dump :D

Farmer or fisherman? o_o;

new tyres! So cute when the wheels just dangle like that

Mum's delicious home made buns

Ted and I

Christmas is so close!!


p.s.

Balsamic cherry tomatos with Garlic chicken

Our delicious dinner

and beautiful Garman who made it

-Mushaboom

But in the meantime we've got it hard
Second floor living without a yard
It may be years until the day

My dreams will match up with my pay

Super easy gourmet pizza

Ingredients (serves 1):
1 piece of Lebanese bread, or any type of round flat bread
2 slices of Coppa
2 slices of smoked ham
1 medium avocado
hand full of rocket
a few sprigs of parsley
pepper and Parmesan to taste

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Arrange ingredients onto the bread and bake for 15-20 mins

Presents for the little ones¬

These days, it's more fun to buy Christmas presents than to receive them! Today I spent almost an hour looking around the Christmas section at Myer.
My nieces live in Shanghai and they're just getting to the toddler age and I think Christmas should be very special for them :D
So I decided to buy an ornament that they could hang in their room to get that Christmas spirit and then a little toy/candy on the side.

Got stuck between three ornaments! They were all so pretty. Finally decided on the snowflake, it's most economical as it could last throughout the entire winter without looking over-due XD

Also got a Poo-lar bear XD
It's a polar bear that poops jelly beans (hence the name poo-lar bear)