ADL-SYD-San Francisco

Well flying really sucks. We all know that it's the destination that matters. But I'm bored, tired, can't sleep and so may as well do something with my time. If I'm going to keep a travel diary, now is as good a time as any to start.

Warning to any readers, I do usually keep a travel diary, but never before have I made those diaries public. But the diary is for my benefit, not yours. So apologies if I bore you with the mundane sometimes, but I want to read back in years to come and be reminded of the things I had forgotten about, mundane or not.

So here goes, just a few random notes about the trip so far:

Left the house this morning, got a text to say flight had been delayed half an hour. Mild panic attack before the brain registered that it was only half an hour and that was still plenty of time to make the connecting flight.

On the flight to Sydney, sitting adjacent me and Ros, was a mother and toddler. I was pleasantly surprised about how placid this child was. No tears with cabin pressure; no issues with boredom; no hassling mum the entire flight and; no interaction with other passengers. I didn't hear any other children on the flight either, so you can imagine my surprise when, the plane landed and the mother got up and I saw she had another child on the other side of her, also under the age 3! To whom does one credit such behavior? Mother or child, (nature vs nurture)? Both? I'm sure many parents would love to know the answer.

Astoundingly, I have realised that on the international leg, that I haven't heard one child cry or whinge, and there is at least one baby on board. Wow!

So anyway, Ros, for some unknown reason decided to put all her toiletries in her carry on luggage. This is quite a mystery to me because only weeks ago she reminded me that you can only have a small bag with no more than 100ml bottles of liquid in each. So when we got to Sydney we did a bit of re-arranging of bottle contents into smaller bottles, but that cost us time. Went through to the international airport, decided to grab a bite to eat, seemingly unaware of the time... And all I can say is, lucky the flight to SF was delayed, else I doubt very much we would be on it!

Going through the bag check was still a debacle, they confiscated one of Ros' bottles, but allowed her to put some bottles in my bag, so the rest came through. Much to Ros' relief.

I don't like when the seatbelt sign comes on mid flight.

I think economy is luxurious. I can't begin to imagine what those people in first class are doing with all that room. Then again, I'm sure none of them will be undergoing a hip replacement on arrival.

We are flying United, so all the crew have American accents. That put a big smile on my face when I first heard it, but I really dont know how I'll cope when I'm surrounded by it, all day every day.

Watched Arthur with Russell Brand, that killed some time. And just finished watching a movie I think was called Thankyoupleasemore....but I can't be sure of that. I enjoyed it despite it being a chick flick. I forgot to load movies on my iPad so I had little choice.

Who invented noise cancelling headphones? Bloody genius.

I will post this uneventful piece of writing when I get some wireless connectivity... Whenever that will be.

Are we there yet?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:2761 kms to go til destination

Is there anybody out there.

Hello?

I might, just might resurrect the blog in a couple of weeks, for a few weeks... Watch this space. If you're watching at all.

Ciao for now.
Nina


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Choc mini muffins

This recipe is out of The Age's "epicure chocolate" cookbook. And these little muffins are very easy and just delicious!

Ingredients:
1 cup cold water
1 cup sugar
125g butter
2 generous tbsp cocoa
3/4 tsp bi-carb soda
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180c.

Combine water, sugar, butter, cocoa and soda in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil slowly. Simmer for 5 mins and cool. Add the eggs and sifted flour and mix well. Place mixture in prepared mini muffin trays (I use paper patties to more easily remove the muffins afterwards). Cook for 10-15 mins.

When they've cooled, I dip them in a chocolate ganache. For this I use 100g dark cooking choc, 1 cup cream and a tsp of butter. Melt over a saucepan of water.



Enjoy!

Observations from a nation that runs on time!

Bikes parked in public areas are not chained – apparently petty crime in Japan is non-existent.
By 2025 there will be a new bullet train that can go as fast as 500ks an hour (the fastest in Japan now runs at 300ks an hour.
In Ginza Tokyo, 1sq meter of property costs US$300,000.
Traffic lights (at the top of the pole) are placed horizontally.
There are very few rubbish bins in the streets – rubbish is disposed of at home. The streets are very very clean.
No-one wears sunglasses (except for the young generation).
Gardens and parks are immaculately maintained.
People are very very polite, no-one complains at bad service etc.
Public places (museums etc.) are closed the day after a Public Holiday (and this is very annoying for tourists).
They love flora – there are pots of flowers everywhere.
I was surprised at the number of imported cars.
People go out of their way to help, they are very kind.
There is no talking on mobile phones on the trains, and in fact you are asked to turn your phone to silent on the shinkansen (bullet train).
They cut the crusts off sandwiches (and not just for toddlers).
They appear to love eggs….cooked or raw….
I was surprised to find the Japanese can bake.
They also love their pickled vegetables.
For all the cleanliness, the Japanese have an apparently primitive attitude to smoking. In fact smoking is still allowed in restaurants.
Turns out heated toilet seats are a necessity. And who knew one needed instructions to operate a toilet seat?
Even though you clearly don’t speak a word of Japanese, the Japanese continue to talk to you in their native tongue. This is very amusing.
The Japanese are so respectful, they even bow to inanimate objects, like the bus as it leaves the station. (I think I even saw someone bow to an escalator…)
Packaging is an art form.
Slurping food is expected.
Plastic food is everywhere, so don’t worry if you can’t understand the menu, just point to the plastic meal in the restaurant window.
Tokyo is a sea of black suits, they are more conservative than I thought.
There are vending machines on virtually every street corner. In fact, one small town I swear I saw about 6 vending machines on the same street on one block alone.
Icecream from a vending machine!
Hot coffee from a vending machine – would you like milk with that?
I was astounded at the number of Italian restaurants, and pleasantly, they can make a pretty good pizza!
I never got used to seeing books and magazines read from the back.
Food is everywhere. I kid you not, restaurants are everywhere you look.
127 Million people, 10% live in Tokyo and the entire nation runs on time!

Gnocchi

Hello, I'm back....maybe....

About two weeks ago I made gnocchi for the first time in my life. Today I thought I would improve on my first performance and make some to put in the freezer.

The ingredients couldn't be simpler

Potatoes (desiree)
Plain flour
Salt
1 egg

Today I used about 8 potatoes. Boil them until they are cooked through (I peel them before boiling, and add the salt to the water). Strain and then put them through a potato press. While the potatoes are still warm add the egg and integrate to the potatoes (use your hand). Then slowly add plain flour by the hand full until the mixture forms a dough that you can start to manipulate and its not too sticky. Be careful not to add too much flour. The softer the dough the lighter the gnocchi.

Break off small chunks of the dough and roll into long logs/strips, and cut into short pieces (about 2 or 3 cms long). Repeating until the dough is finished. Then each piece of dough has to be pressed/rolled into gnocchi board (use a fork if you don't have one). This bit takes a bit of practice.





Enjoy!

Granny Smith Green

I love the colour green. So for a long time I've known exactly how I would renovate my bathroom.

After four long long months, the bathroom and toilet renovations are finally complete. For the last 6 weeks I had only really been waiting for the vanity top to be made and installed. It finally went in on Tuesday, so I took a few photos to mark the occasion. It will probably never be this clean again.

Having designed it all myself, with advice from my builder along the way, this is the end result. I made a couple of mistakes that I won't highlight to you..but overall I am really pleased.









PS your eyes don't betray you - there is no door to the shower.

Lemon Curd

Well it's been a while between drinks, and I must say I thought this blog had died. But I've been off work a few days now, I've had some quiet time, and bugger me if I haven't had a couple of opportunities to get back into the kitchen. Not dead yet! And I needed somewhere to store this recipe.

Lemons have been falling off my tree, and unfortunately a lot of them have just ended up in the bin, but tonight I made some lemon curd as I'm on the hunt for the perfect lemon curd recipe. I posted one to this site back in July this year when I made some lemon cupcakes, but I think the method was a bit strange - you had to add the egg after the mixture had already been on the heat which I didn't like.

The following recipe is based on the recipe from the television show MasterChef. I had tried it once before and thought it was pretty good, but tonight I adapted it further myself. I think it's better now!

You will need:

3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
3/4s cup caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 3 lemons (or 4 if they're small)
125gm butter, chopped

Mix the egg and sugar together until dissolved (I used the stand mixer). Add the zest, mix further. Add the juice and mix again.

Transfer mixture to a saucepan and add the butter. Stir over medium/low heat until the mixture starts to bubble and thicken.