Photos from the week

As I am doing more of 'not quite 365 photos' I may as well post random photos from last Saturday(actually the one before as I forgot to post this when I wrote it).
I spent most of last weekend (you know, the election one when we didn't get a government) fixing a wordpress site, which is a huge challenge for me as it involved editing code and moving around files, none of which I had ever really don before. Mostly my skills are about my ability to google the right phrase and find someone who was worked out the solution and written it down in simple idiot proof steps.

 I celebrated my website and it being Saturday with some 'Spritz', which is Aperol and Prosecco and a little soda water. Look how happy this prosecco cork is 'Pop Me!'

Here I am watching election results and tweeting.

Then I got sick of it and watched Dr Who instead, he wasn't happy about the idea of Tony Abbott as possible PM either.

TGFIO

That stands for thank god Friday is over. Tres busy day. Got to uni at 8:30, taught till 10:30, which included an altercation with the rudest ever IT guys who kicked me and my students out of class in the middle of their test despite me saying we would only be another 15 minutes at the most. no please, thank you, sorry. I feel a complaint coming on. Anyhoo. I took some photos from the classroom, it has a pretty good view.

The city skyline from a kinda unflattering angle.

The architecture building, possibly one of the least attractive buildings at uni. Which is a worry really. And I say this with my most open minded, I respect all periods of architectural design, kinda hat on. Still fugly.

This arvo I worked like a (slightly confused) demon and (almost) sorted a wordpress site for one of my projects. Helped by the lovely shilo of yikes machine I now have a much much better understanding of what is going on behind my easy as pie wordpress admin panel.

I then madly emalied english art collections about some reproduction rights that I am hopelessly behind on.

That all called for two enormous glasses of wine and pizza at my local.

Behold my zinfandel and behind my recently finished chablis. My local has both these by the glass, which is one hundred kinds of brilliant in my mind. Plus it is 5 minutes from my door. Win.

Now I need to get some sleep so I can have energy to deal with whatever tomorrow brings election wise.

Winter Flowers

I was super impressed yesterday that a friend had almost done a whole 365 photo blog. I would love to write more often here in my personal blog. I used to write almost daily in another online journal, but that was semi-private so I think it made it easier. It isn't just a privacy thing though, not exactly, I think because this blog is open and because so many people have such lovely blogs I get worried that my posts are boring or amateur or pretentious and so on. Today I figured that I can either wring my hands over all those things, or I can just write something, or post a photo and say pish pash to those who would judge me.

So today I took some photos in the hope that maybe I might start writing something (almost) every day.

I am feeling completely and utterly OVER winter. My apartment is antarctic and I just got a huge electricity and gas bill. I am a little cheered up by all the late winter flowers that have started to bloom though. I can't have them at home so I just enjoy them in the gardens. Here are some rust and purple coloured irises in the Carlton Gardens. The colour is amazing, sort of not a 'proper' flower colour, more like a dried flower that has been hand-coloured by a granny with too much time on her hands. Or something.

And some magnolias. These are everywhere at the moment, the pink kind, the yellow kind and the loose petalled white ones. There are magnolia trees planted along Gertrude St in Fitzroy. When I was a little girl I thought they must be homes for fairies and spent hours taking them apart looking for said fairies, and destroying mum's flowers in the process. Sorry mum.

Sunday

Went to visist my sister and Hamish the Wonder Dog. We had soup, and apple and apricot crumble and caught up with my great aunt. Hamish is a bit sad as Mum has been away for so long, but this is not his sad look this is his 'is your camera food' look.

These are the tomatoes for the roast tomato, onion and capsicum soup. Despite the time of year the tomatoes are pretty good, I got them from John at Tomato City at the Vic Market, he gave me a few extra. I also got a free banana at another stall, I obviously had my market mojo going on.

The roasted stuff, the soup is very nice you just cut the tomatoes, capsicums and onions (with skin on) in half and roast with some garlic cloves and then take the skins off and bung it all in a saucepan with some stock and blend tills it's smooth. I was thinking today that I would probably like to add some chilli to it at some point...

Here it is all ready to nom on. I didn't eat all the bread, it was to share.

This is the apricot and apple crumble, I poached some apples and then added some tinned apricots. The crumble had some golden syrup in it, my sister's suggestion via someone else. It was nice, made it sweeter but in a tasty way. If I used golden syrup again I would probably add a bit less sugar to the crumble.

I ate this in front of an open fire, with dogs sleeping in front of it and a cup of early grey tea. Perfect winter's afternoon.

On another topic I bought some new Mimco hair accessories yesterday and the week before. I like them a lot. The hair combs are usually so spensy but these were hugely reduced. I like Mimco but a lot of the barrettes are so blinged up and heavy that they won't stay in my hair as it is so thin.The combs work much better. When I bought them yesterday the sales assistant said 'OMG these prices are crazy' like she had only just realised they were on sale. I felt like replying 'No what is crazy is that your plastic hair combs are normally $50'. But I just smiled an said 'yeah OMG WOW.'

Feeling cross

I am feeling a bit cross today.

I am cross that there seem to be no options for me to teach art history so instead I end up teaching some watered down cross over stuff that I'm not really passionate about.

I'm cross that I didn't apply for some tecahing I actually wanted to do because I didn't want to get in someone else's way and was also worried I wouldn't get it because the person running the course might have something personally against me.

I'm cross that I work my arse off on too many things that I don't even get paid for.

I'm cross about being 30 and still in a state of perpetually being broke.

And now I am having a cry.

/rant

Farmer's Market

On Saturday morning I schlepped on down to the Farmer's market at the Abbotsford Convent, which I love and I wish it was on every weekend instead of once a month (though there is also one across the road at the Collingwood Children's Farm once a month too). I would quite like to take my proper camera down but I think it would get in the way of my shopping. Anyhoo these are just diary snaps really. It was cold and sunny and rainy all at once.

 My vegies, lots of green stuff. Cavolo Nero or Tuscan Cabbage or Kale or whatever you want to call it is one of new favourite vegetables. I use to eat it a lot in Italy but I had never cooked it before about a month ago. I put some of it in my cauliflower, potato and leek soup on Saturday. I feel a bit odd buying silverbeet as usually Mum has lots of it at her place but as she is off gallivanting around the UK I have to buy it myself (but at $2 for an enormous bunch I think I will cope).

Broccoli and secret vegetables (beetroot, mushrooms, swedes etc).

Getting coffee is one of the highlights of my visit, easily pleased. I buy them from one of the stalls who also sell coffee beans, I can't remember the name though... I also bought a chocolate croissant from the Convent Bakery and it was ok but not great for $4, very cold and sort of flat tasting. I have to admit that I am not really much of a fan of the convent bakery, they seem expensive but a bit average and it takes forever to get coffee and two out of the last three times I have been there they have forgotten my order. Anyhoo. About two seconds after I took this photo the heavens opened and I had to duck into a doorway, which had some fancy columns but I didn't take a photo. You will just have to imagine me in jeans and a pink cashmere jumper and a bright yellow woolen beret while scoffing a chocolate croissant and looking whimsical or maybe just cold.

xK

To remind me to watch this

I am just pasting this link to a 'soapbox' talk by Shane Maloney on libraries and the need for quiet. You can watch it too if you like.
http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/shane-maloney-in-praise-of-shhhh/

Stuff what I has been bakin...

This afternoon I decided to bake a quince cake so I could say I had achieved something in my day beyond reading a lot of blogs and watching Grand Designs. I am waiting for it to bake at this moment, I could even live blog the cake *dashes to kitchen* *dashes back* it is rising nicely and slightly browned but needs a bit longer. Hmm. Anyway I have been baking quite a lot lately and taking photos with the idea of posting them here and making me look like an industrious weekend baker. Unfortunately I'm not a very industrious weekend blogger so I am just going to post lots of them now.

Crostata di Nutella or Nutella Tart

This was based on the type of tarts you get in Italy, I especially eat them in Rome. Often they have pinenuts on top but I used hazelnuts instead. I invented it and it is involves making shortcrust pastry, blind baking it, filling it with nutella and briefly baking it again and then covering with roasted hazelnuts. Good times. I also made some baby nutella biscuits with the leftover pastry.

Lemon Cake

This is one of my favouritest cakes. It is from The Cook's Companion and is called *runs to kitchen* 'Angie's Lemon Cake' it is very buttery and lightly lemony (p.s. the Quince Cake just came out, it smells delicious) I like to use the lemon's from my parents tree, which are those rounder less tart lemons with some What really makes it is the glaze, which is just lemon juice and caster sugar and it must be poured over the freshly cooked and still very hot cake after you have turned it out of the pan. This dissolves the sugar. I much prefer it to actually icing a cake.

Here it is posing with my enormous teacup to indicate how it will accompany my morning tea.

Chocolate Cake

I actually wasn't very pleased with this cake, it ended up a bit dry as though it had been overcooked but the middle didn't cook at all. Plus it fell out of the tin and broke. But the photos look nice so let's pretend it was gooey and chocolatey.

Quince Cake One and Two

I poached the quinces earlier this week and made this Quince butter cake from the Cook Almost Anything blog. It was delicious, but I had to take it over to someone's house and I only ate one slice so I decided to make it again. I made the first in a loaf tin and today's is round.

Mmmm Quinces. I haven't had them for ages but eating a few of these before I made the cake reminded me that Mum used to make Quince Crumble.

Cake One having its quinces tucked into it.

Cake One finished.

Cake two finished. The kitchen looks a bit ungracious with the empty bottle of white wine, but hey the cake is cooked and it smells delicious. Plus I need the wine now to help me think about rude things to say about masterchef. Byeeeee.

How to write like a...

I was googling something the other day that started with 'How to write..' I actually can't remember exactly what now as I was distracted by the hilarious suggestions that came up*.
The top one is 'shakespeare', I guess that is understandable, as are the other author based ones. It delights me that so many people want to write like Dr Seuss, but slightly worries me that so many are trying to write like Hemingway. The second one is funny. I could imagine 'How to draw like an architect'? But write? I guess they write, is it a special pretentious style with lots of black rimmed edges? Clearly a lot more people are having issues writing like a girl than a boy (or woman or man). I thought writing like a girl was easy, just add little smilies over the 'i's.
The funniest one has to be 'edward cullen' though. Seriously people googling it enough to make it in the Top Ten? He is a CHARACTER in a piece of writing that isn't even a very good piece of writing!! Anyway that is my musing for the day.

*I admit I was trying to work out how to write like a gangster, what'up hoes?

Markets in Venice

This was a few days after the conference. I decided I needed to get to grips with my new camera all on my own so no one would get annoyed at me standing and taking 10 photos of a doorway with different apertures and shutter speeds! I let my feet take me on the natural route from Cannareggio towards San Marco and then decided to pop across the Rialto bridge and go to the vegetable market to take photos of food.

The Rialto Bridge with a strange beam of sunlight hitting the underside.

Hello little dog! Little white dogs always make me think of the Venetian painter Carpaccio, little white dogs abounded in his paintings. For example here is one in one of the paintings from his series Miracles of the True Cross in the Accademia, I took a sneaky picture because he reminded me of Hamish the Wonder Dog.

Always have your boat well carpeted.

Radicchio.

Asparagus, I love how the vegetables are beautifully wrapped. 

Beautiful oranges, I wanted to buy some just for the wrappers.

Nom nom tomatoes, by this stage I was starting to feel sad about not being able to cook anything.

Carciofi!

Next to the vegetable market was a second hand/antique market. The prices were kind of insane, basically think of the most expensive price they might charge and then double it, so I just took photos. 

 Sorry the head is cut off, I was sort of 'shooting from the hip' as the stallholder was looking askance at my camera. 

Murano glass mirror anyone? I would love this didn't even dare to ask the price.

Ugly paintings and brass plates abounded.

Glass pencils, ugly pink and gold bowl? I meant to take photos of all the ugliest glass concoctions but somehow I didn't quite get the pictures. This is nothing compared to the 1 metre high glass golliwogs for sale in Piazza San Marco, ugly and racist. Actually if the bowl had been under 20 euro I probably would have bought it.

 This one I loved.

I LOVED this bling table, I was ready to buy stuff till another lady asked the prices and they basically started at 250 euro. Eeeek. It was mostly quite fancy and seemingly original vintage stuff but eeek nonetheless.