Australia Day

We found out about lots of exciting things to do on Australia Day. There was an aborignal festival called Yabun and planty to do at the Rocks and Darling Harbour including lots of live music and fireworks.

However in the end we had a bit of a quiet one. We just went to Darling Harbour in the morning; there were already a lot of people there. The food festival hadn't started so we went to Nick's for breakfast. I forgot to take my hat or cover my shoulders and the sun came out quite strongly. Luckily I was able to remedy this by buying an Australian flag and draping it over my head. Which, after all, is what Australia Day is all about.



Getting into the spirit of it

Star Trek

I'm sure most of you would agree that one of the major failings of this blog is that there are insufficient posts on the topic of Star Trek. And while searching on Google today I found the most amazing site.

Motivational pictures... made from Star Trek (OS) screen shots!



No caption required

You can view the entire series (there are a lot of them) here.

Back to Blue Eyed Dragon...And more Asian cooking

We couldn't resist going back to Blue Eyed Dragon on Friday and getting Jade to cook for us rather than attempting her recipes ourselves. We couldn't have the set banquet as you need a minimum of 4 people but maybe when Sean's family are here....

We had been impressed by cooking the squid at the Seafood School but neither of us was particularly enamoured of the sauce so we consulted my Kylie Kwong book and found a recipe for Stir-fried Squid with Garlic and Chilli. So Saturday evening I sat back and read Leviathan while Sean cooked the squid, plus Deep Fried Prawns with Carrot and Chilli dipping sauce and Mum's Fried Rice.



Kylie's book

The food was all delicious except for the dipping sauce, which just tasted of sugar and vinegar. The squid was a real star turn with a nicely balanced authentically Chinese tasting sauce. It took Sean two hours to chop all the ingredients, but I think it was worth it!

Sydney Seafood School



Jade and Muriel Chen

As I mentioned last time I posted, I received registration at a Sydney Seafood School class as one of my Christmas presents and so along we went last Monday.

The classes are held upstairs at the Fish Market. There is a demonstration room, which is much like those you see on TV or elsewhere with a counter and an overhead mirror so you can see what's going on. You then move through to the kitchen, to have a go yourself, before moving to yet another room to eat what you've just cooked.



Overhead mirror

Our class was being run by Muriel and Jade Chen, the mother and daughter team from Blue-Eyed Dragon, our local Taiwanese restaurant. We've been to this restaurant several times as it is just down the road from us (just past Viva Goa) and they have recently updated their menu to include salt and pepper soft shell crab. We are now going even more often.

Jade (also known as "mum") runs the kitchen at Blue-Eyed Dragon, while Muriel is responsible for front-of-house. This meant that we had seen Muriel before (and she recognised us) but not Jade, as she'd been hidden in the kitchen. They worked really well as a chef demonstration team - Muriel explained what Jade was doing, while making jokes about how she never had to cook because she could just get her mum to cook for her.

The two dishes of the evening were Calamari Salad with Taiwanese Five Spice Garlic Sauce and Prawn Omlette (Chinese Style). We learnt how to clean, peel and score Calamari to make it curl up excitingly and how to marinade prawns before making the omlette with them.

Then through to the kitchen.... This turned out to be much harder than I thought. I cut my squid through the eye, resulting in black aqeuous fluid all over my chopping board. Not a good start. Jade came to give me a hand, but even after she'd shown me what to do I still couldn't remember and had to watch Sean being shown by our more observant table-mate before I really understood what was going on.

I also learnt how to chop things without cutting my fingers, courtesy of Muriel. It's quite hard to explain via text but basically involves bending your fingers to arch your hand. I'll have to practise this at home.

All the food was really tasty and we were provided with a bottle of wine between 4 (except of course on our table it was between 3) and some steamed rice, which made it into a proper meal. We'll definitely go back; we're just considering which course to go to next.

It's not too long now till Mike, Donna, Pam and Paul come over to visit. I'm really looking forward to seeing them. One of the things that is difficult to organise is what everyone wants to do while they are here. To that end Zoe and I have created a web page 'Williams in Australia' to outline some possible options. If anyone else is interested in things to do in Sydney you can find it here: http://williamsinaustralia.googlepages.com/

Goodbye to my parents

We've again done loads since I last posted. Carrie and Daniel came over for New Years Eve and we went to the theatre the night before. I then fitted in some final trips to the zoo and the Opera House with my parents before they left. We went to see The Marriage of Figaro (with dinner at Bennelong beforehand of course).

Also notable is a game of people in the pot we played on New Years. I was feeling a bit silly and so my entries into the pot were nearly those of famous people but slightly modified so they included an animal. This led to the classic clue "Furry Communist" followed by "Fidel Castro" (he was in the pot but not who we were referring to!). The complete list was:

Rudolph Hitler
Carol Doberman
Tony Bear
Koala Marx
Bee-linda Carlisle

I'm back to work today, so don't expect any more exciting posts until after next Monday, when we'll be attending a seafood cookery class (a Christmas present from Sean).



Pre-theatre dinner on 30 Dec



Playing People in the Pot on NYE



A silvery gibbon at Taronga Zoo



At the Opera

Zoe and the Tower

Zoe jumps off the Sky Tower in New Zealand.

Thought I would post a quick comment about New Years Eve here in Sydney. It was very cool. Carrie and Daniel joined Zoe's parents, Zoe and I for dinner and the fireworks. The fireworks were spectacular and we had a great view from our balcony. I linked up with my parents and Mike and Donna over Skype for New Years in Australia and then joined up with them over the phone for New Years in the UK!

Here are some good links to the fireworks - they lasted 15 minutes in real life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7--uJ1Q1Mrc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVb9gnCrHKI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqeA2NkmUyo

Zoe will post presently on what we ate...