Sydney - Aroma Festival

Giraffe Monitoring the
Situation

We wondered down to the Rocks where there was a festival going on for the day on Sunday.  The Aroma Festival featuring coffee, tea, and chocolate. How could that be bad?
The Rocks was alive with people meandering around.  The festival was comprised of tables and tables of vendors, each displaying their wares. Almost all of the vendors represented some kind of food or drink.  There were also several stages with musical and dance presentations. I liked the stage with the harbour bridge as a back drop.

We had fun wondering around seeking out the tables that had taste testers. I thought having samples was a good idea. There were so many vendors that we found ourselves preferentially stopping at the tables that would let us taste test...seemed like a small expense to entice a sale.  The granola, cherry and nut places were yummy.  We were also able to sample many different teas.  I found it odd that none of the coffee places were giving out samples.  We also looked around for cleaver names and investigated those booths. Matthew's favorite was a coffee place named "Sacred Grounds".  After the afternoon of smelling and sampling (and some buying),
Matthew chose a coffee place and we were able to witness the artistry of pouring a pretty cup of coffee.  I never knew that coffee had become an artform...apparently it has in some places.  This guy was a master with milk foam.  :)

View from Sydney Harbour Bridge

      We walked home over the Sydney Harbour Bridge as the sun set and the lights of Sydney began to glow. It was a nice (and yummy) day out.

La Boheme Opera - Sydney Opera House

La Boheme was playing at the Sydney Opera House.  Puccini's opera is the classic love story about two friends in love with two very different women.  They are Bohemians who struggle with passion,  jealousy and ultimately, health and death. The Sydney production set the story in 1930's Germany.

I looked into tickets which ranged from 65 to 280 AUD on the website but I could not find any seats under $150.  We had previously been to the theater and found out (what is not advertised) that sometimes they sell discounted standing room only tickets for that day's performance.   Sometimes people stand in line well before the box office opens.  The best part is that the standing room tickets are full view tickets where you can see the whole stage as well as the surtitles (which are not subtitles because they are above the stage).  For La Boheme, the $150 seats are restricted view, so we decided to try our luck with standing room tickets on a Thursday night.

We were lucky that Thursday morning. There was only one lady in line ahead of me and she didn't want all ten available tickets.  The tickets were less than the lowest price that I had seen listed.  Yea!

Matthew came home from work and we dressed up, donning our most comfortable shoes.  As we took the ferry over from McMahon's Point, it was hard to believe we'd actually be going not just in The Opera House but in the actual Opera Theatre.  We were both excited.

The inside of the Sydney Opera House echoes the shapes from the outside.  The bathroom stalls are even wavy.  We felt very grown-up to ascend the stairs up to the main level.  Since we would be standing for a long time, we sat on a bench just outside the ticket taker until the very last moment.

I was amazed at the intimate size of the theater but due to the shape, there are many restricted view seats.  Since the theater is so steeply sloped, the stage is viable even in the back.  The standing tickets were great...one of the best places in the house.  We could see everything well.  There is a little half wall in front of you that you can lean against.  At intermission, we quickly found a couch to sit down on and helped ourselves to the water provided.   After intermission we were pleasantly surprised when the usher told us that we could sit anywhere there were seats available (I guess they figured that if they were not there by then, they were not coming).  Yea!

La Boheme
The music and voices were amazing.  The staging was sometime great and sometimes just plain strange. In Act II, the restaurant scene for Muzetta's Waltz was incredible. There were so many things to see.  In Act III, the staging was just... well... strange.  It was supposed to be in a guardhouse that had a fenced courtyard but it looked more like a jailyard for no discernible reason.  It was just odd.  I felt like there was something missing in the story, but evidently Puccini's edited out a scene that helps the story flow.

Another thing I questioned about this production was that the scene featured on some of the advertising posters has a woman up against a wall with a man leaning into her and rain falling.  The posters have an emotional resonance.  I loved the poster.  But this scene did not exist in the presentation we saw and the couple featured on the poster were not in the opera.  It was not just different performers...that scene did not exist. Strange and somewhat disappointing.

We enjoyed discussing the show on our way home.  Matthew had announced before the show how he had discovered that the musical Rent was loosely based on La Boheme.  I laughed and said "not so loosely". He agreed after the first scene that loosely was not the right word.  We watched the DVD of Rent 2 nights later so he could see it.  I like that they had all but 2 of the Original Broadway Cast in the movie instead of hiring Hollywood stars. Anyway...

Overall we enjoyed out night seeing La Boheme at the Sydney Opera House.  We enjoyed the show and were blown away by the voices.  We had a fabulous night out.   Glad I wore comfortable shoes!

Food Experimentation Stories

When you are cooking in a one bedroom apartment that is not yours, you have to be creative about how to cook what you would be able to do in YOUR kitchen.  I also do not like to eat out so we experiment with different types of food.  It is also different to cook in a different country where things do not always taste the same.  Ask about German Strength onions or English peanut butter or the whole adventure of trying to find sour cream on two continents and three countries.  

So one day I mentioned that I have had gnocchi recently and decided that if cooked well...it is good.  Matthew decided that we could DEFINITELY cook it because after all...it is only potato pasta and we have cooked with potatoes before and cooked pasta before...how hard could it be?  :)  Australians have a strange affinity to pumpkin...so why not make pumpkin gnocchi...no problem.

We looked at 3 different grocery stores for nutmeg (called for in the recipe we had for gnocchi).  Luckily the Google kitchen chef came to our aid and bested a small amount of nutmeg upon us and wished us luck in our endeavour.  We needed more than luck as it turns out.

We decided that we could deviate a bit from the gnocchi recipe in how we cooked the potatoes and that we decided to make pumpkin gnocchi...not regular gnocchi (should have been our first big flag).  The recipe said to bake the potatoes in the oven but since we were cooking the pumpkin in the oven and our oven is small, we decided to boil the potatoes.  Little did we know that this was a bad idea.  We also decided to cook a double recipe since we had so many potatoes.  It is probably not the best plan to cook a double anything when doing truly experimental cooking...but since we had made pasta several times before, Matthew made the assertion that we would be fine.

Our first sign of trouble was when the dough had the consistency of pancake batter even after we had added all of the flour.   We did not take this as a fail because we had made pasta before.  So add more flour.

2 more cups of flour and we now had cookie dough.  According to the resident expert of the house, pasta dough is dry and this was not it...we needed more flour.  So add more flour.

One kilo bag (2.2 pounds) of flour later (3 times the amount called for in the recipe).  AND since we had made pasta before, we knew there was a problem, it was still too sticky.

We aborted the effort to get the right consistency of dough and tried to cook some of them, trying to get something for dinner but deciding that we were not going to keep anything left over.  Well...not shockingly, they tasted like flour and were pretty slimy (the recipe said that if they were slimy....we should add more flour...ha ha...we found that funny).  The good news was that they sat like a lump in my tummy and so I did not feel hungry once we declared the dinner a fail.

I did something strange that night.  I was so tired from cooking that day that we cleaned up the counters and cooking implements but left about a 4" ball of dough in the bowl to discard the next morning.
We were greeted with a surprise.  Our dough had decided to escape.  It made it up and consumed the bowl and was making a run for the counter.  I approached carefully and when I touched it, it deflated a little bit.  After Matthew left for work, I turned my attention back to it and I swear it had inflated and grown more.  I decided to cook the thing as it smelled like sourdough, that and it would be a WHILE lot easier to throw out if it was solid.  I was picturing a B movie and seeing it climb back up the trash chute and come smother us in the middle of the night.  Turns out, it made a pretty good sourdough bread that made a killer french toast.
We have not tried gnocchi again yet...just because this loaf of bread was tamed, does not mean that the next one will not turn on us.

You will be relieved to know that we did use the pasta masters knowledge (even without a rolling pin) and made a great pumpkin pasta for lasagna and pumpkin bread for a great Italian dinner.

Love Never Dies - The Musical

Love Never Dies from Andrew Lloyd Webber was showing at the Regent Theater in Melbourne.  We decided to treat ourselves to a night at the theater.

Regent Theatre Foyer

     The theatre is beautiful. The walls are carved and ornate having a regal air. Just beautiful. The painted ceilings and window boxes in the foyer with large sweeping curtains added to the rich vintage feeling of the Regent Theater. It was impressive.
Love Never Dies is the follow on story to the phenomenal Phantom of the Opera that opened in the West End in London 1986 and is the longest running musical on Broadway to date.
The story of the Phantom and Christine continues 10 years later at Coney Island where the phantom is now running the freak show. He has never lost his desire for Christine. Christine is a world renowned soprano. She accepts an invitation to come to New York to sing, not knowing that the Phantom is behind the invitation. She brings her family including her husband, Raul whom she had run away with at the end of the original story. He has not become the ravishing hero that he once was.

Inside Picture of Pamphlet

The show is visually stunning. Everything was big with lots of colors and interesting things to look at in every direction. It was impressive and mesmerizing to watch.

There were a couple of musical highlights, particularly some of the interplay of voices in one duet and one quartet. I did not feel that had the depth of music that most of Webber's other musicals have. I was not singing a song from the musical days later. All of the main performers in the show that we saw had beautiful voices and sang marvelously. It was great that no one person stood out. They all were strong.

The story, however, is...well...lacking and that's putting it very nicely. There are multiple story lines and not all of them make sense. It felt like they were trying to make a soup from everything in the fridge without paying attention to what was going in and they just hoped that it would taste good. But in the end, the flavors didn't blend at all. In my opinion, the story was not well thought out, the plot was weak, and it relied on the original story to carry the show. It seemed like this amazing artist just wanted some cash so he churned something out based on a previous success and did not care about the quality. I was disappointed. At one point, when one of the biggest twists was introduced, I lost the story as I searched in my own memory asking "What? WHAT?" "When did THAT happen in the original story?" It is not a good thing to have happen while watching a performance...to spend more time in my head than paying attention to what was happening onstage. Matthew and I exchanged notes at intermission and he was just as perplexed as I was. The second act tried to tie everything in a neat bow but they had already let too many things unravel.

Overall, it was a nice night out listening to beautiful voices and watching amazing sets in a beautiful theater...too bad about the story.

Dandenong Ranges - Melbourne Weekend

     Our second weekend in Melbourne Australia began with a quick trip back to the Victoria Market for some picnic supplies.  We decided to go hiking in the Dandenong Ranges.  They're a range of high hills about an hour  east of Melbourne. We headed out in our little ugly green rental car.  This thing was ugly.  Ugly Green.  As in no-one-ever-should-ever-have-painted-a-car-this-color green.  It did manage the trip out the expressway quickly though and we began to drive further up into the hills.

     The Dandenongs are actually 5 individual parks (some national parks), a bunch of smaller forests and sanctuaries with various villages all stuck together to make one big region.  Since the whole area encloses several small towns, it's not actually uninhabited.  We drove up on one of the main mountain roads to Olinda, which is where two of the main roads cross. The drive up was pretty and very twisty.  Good thing we didn't blink because the town wan't very big. And this was one of the bigger towns.
     Since it was already early afternoon, we stopped at a random roadside B&B.  This region has a ton of little hotels and B&Bs.  The main industry around here is "quaint".  That B&B told us to go back into town and stop at another B&B in an old mill that ran a booking service. We turned around and headed back into Olinda and found The Loft In The Mill right at the main crossroads.  It was tricky finding a parking spot, but managed to find the main reception area.  We decided not to book anything immediately and instead wait for evening to increase our negotiating power.  We grabbed some hiking maps and headed out to find a spot for an afternoon hike.

Arboretum View

     We chose a spot on the map called Eagle's Nest thinking it would offer good views and be high up.  On the way we passed an arboretum that was pretty but decided to find something less manicured.  Also Eagle's Nest would be higher up, right?  Evidently eagles in Australia nest in the lowlands or at least not at the top of the hill as the road went down the ridge pretty steeply.  We also almost immediately ran out of pavement and the road turned into dirt.  Which thanks to all the recent rain, was actually muddy.  After a couple kilometers, we hit the turn off for Eagle's Nest, but found out it was closed for construction (and even more downhill).  We drove down the dirt "road" and found a spot where someone else had pulled off the road.  We figured there must be a trail head.  We were right.
     The trail itself started on the far side of a little creek and then split to go around the bottom of a hill.  We chose the right fork semi-randomly and started around the hill counterclockwise along the muddy trail.  Since we still had about 3 hours of daylight, we set a leisurely pace.  We decided to walk uphill first so we decided to take the first trail that went up (since Eagles Nest had not offered the overlook we were hoping).  The first trail we came to was a fire road and it went straight up the hill to our left.  We started up the steep, muddy hill.  I quickly became concerned about getting back down.  I had visions of sliding down on my bum and ending up full of mud.  We turned around.  Thanks to Matthew for support, we made it down, safely on our feet.  We decided to continue along the base of the hill and hope that it was less muddy.
     This path was more like a trail and less of a road (which was good). The trail wound through a forest and even had some elevation.  We were able to see on the top of a nice hill as well as down along a creek over the course of the couple hour walk.  The forest around us was almost all gum (eucylptus) trees with a tall canopy and leafy undergrowth of amazing ferns.  It smelled wonderful.  The whole forest was well watered, so everything was green.
We liked the fun moss that grew on the top of tree stumps and fence posts.  It liked us too and even gave us a smile.  Such a neat place.
We did not run into any animals but it was fun to listen to the multitude of different bird calls.
Due to Matthew's great navigation, we ended up waking in a loop (not too bad for not having a map).  It was a nice walk.  Back at the car we grabbed a quick snack and tried not to get the car too muddy (even though a bit of mud might have been an improvement on the car color).
       On our way out of the forest we passed a sign that said Berry Farm.  We had to stop. They advertise berries year round.  Unfortunately, Australia does not grow berries in winter and therefore there were no fresh berries for sale.  They did, however, have frozen berries.  We purchased some kumquats and 1/2 kilo (the smallest quantity they would sell) of frozen raspberries. If we must...we must.  We consoled each other over the tragedy of being forced to buy 1/2 kilo of raspberries.  We were not heading to a freezer anytime soon...so naturally we had to consume them as we drove. YUM!
Now that we were armed with berries, the next order of business was finding a bed for the evening.  We stopped at several B&Bs to try and find a place to stay.  One place was situated on the top of a hill and we stopped to watch the sunset through the trees.  It was beautiful.  The raspberries made the sunset even more spectacular. :)
     We had no luck finding a place that had vacancy and were directed back to Olinda and Loft in the Mill because they have a booking service.  They recognized us when we walked back and were happy that we did not get lost in the woods or attached by drop bears (a very concerning thing in the wilds of Australia).  The nice thing was that they did have a booking service, the bad thing is that they had in their heads the type of place that one desired and pretty much pushed you in that direction.
We ended up in a VERY nice place for the night but it was WAY more than we needed or wanted. Oh well. When we arrived, the parking lot was full and there were LOTS of people dressed up in dresses and uniforms in the lobby.  The hotel was hosting a fire brigade event.  I felt out of place in my muddy hiking clothes.
We checked in and went up to our room.  The "honeymoon suite" was almost the size of our apartment and had the largest 4 poster bed that I had ever slept in in my life. It was quite amazing.  The room was also freezing.  They apparently do not heat the rooms ahead of time.  We put the heat on full blast and went downstairs to eat.
.  We ended up sitting in the bar area because it had a wood burning fire.  One of the chiefs of the fire brigade thought our fire was too small, in his professional opinion, and thew more wood on the fire. He kept checking on us...it was cute.  At one point he ordered the staff to get us more wood. :)
A couple we met and spent most of the evening chatting with (not with the fire brigade) mentioned that the Rhododendron Garden was worth a visit...even in the winter. So after breakfast, we headed back to Olinda to the garden. We were both impressed. The park is about 20 hectacres, which is a decent sized garden.
There was not tons in bloom but what was impressed us.  The colors of rhododendrons were varied and beautiful. One of my favorites was the beautiful camila tree that had various colors of flowers from bright pink to soft purple.  I also loved the Winter Gold tree.  It stood out and even glowed even with no leaves.  Some of the other plants including the banksias It was a great garden.

The garden is known for the resident birds as well. The Superb Lyrebird mimics the sounds of other birds. They are amazing!  They also do a dance to attract mates. They look like large chickens with long tails and really strong, large legs. Wondering down a path, we almost stumbled over 2 lyerbirds...one on either side of the path. We were able to watch the bird dig at the ground, looking for grubs to munch.  A male bird ran across the path.  It was exciting.

Holland Honeyeater is a type of bird that frequents the gardens around the bottle brushes and banksias.  They were quite territorial and it was fun to watch the birds interact with each other. had one guy that decided to model in my photo shoot...I was excited. I think he would like his angles and the composition of his pictures (especially considering I do not have a whomping zoom lens).
We also enjoyed watching the surperb fairy wrens (and yes the surperb is part of their official name).  They are little small birds that have straight large tails that stick up another half their body size.  The male surperb fairy wren is shocking bright blue.  He was gorgeous but bounced around so much that photos were not possible.

Banksia bush

I was pleasantly surprised with the garden. It would be amazing in the spring (Sept/Oct) when the azaleas all bloom. We enjoyed our time in the Dandenong Ranges.

Melbourne Market and Wine Country

We spent a weekend in Melbourne Australia.  I had flown down on Sunday evening to work for a couple weeks.  We had bought a ticket for Matthew on Tiger Airways to fly down for the weekend.  When I arrived I found out that the airports were a bit of a mess because Tiger Airways had been grounded due to safety concerns.  GREAT...NOT!  We immediately bought a new ticket for Matthew on a different airline which was about $100 more expensive.  He arrived on Friday evening about 30 min late but did arrive safely.

Ever since we visited Melbourne the first time, Matthew has been raving about the socks that we purchased at the Victoria Market.  Now, almost 3 years later, the biggest item on his agenda was going to the market to buy socks.  Crazy I know.   So...the first full day in Melbourne...we headed to the Victoria Market.

The market is a large, several square block building that houses hundreds of stalls selling everything from souvineres, leather jackets, and socks to cheese, fruit/veggies, and breakfast sandwiches with coffee and smoothies.  We were amused by the long line of people waiting to buy "American Doughnuts" from a VW bug van.  It was fun to watch them make the donuts and fill them with jam.  A lady told us that she traveled down from Queensland to have these donuts.  We decided to try them.  I will say...fresh hot donuts were good.
Lunch consisted of some fruit, cheese, jamon, and bread that we purchased at the market.  There is an outside seating area that was nice and warm.
After lunch we wondered into the non-food side of the market.  We looked at some aboriginal art from a local tribe.  We had noticed this tribes paintings at a stand at the market in Sydney. The have beautiful shapes to the animals that we both liked.  We saw several paintings that we both liked and agonized over which one, if any, to purchase. Negotiations ensued. :) We also saw this lady that carved flowers out of soap.  It was amazing.  She gave us a demonstration....we were impressed.  She even uses soap that smells like the flower.  She had roses, lilies, lotus flowers, and orchids. All carved out of soap.  In talking with the artist, she said she'd originally learned how to carve centerpieces out of fruit while in Thailand, but got tired of people eating all her hard work.
At some point in all of our wanderings, we noticed that people were packing up. We were surprised since it was only about 3:30 and the market had started to close down.  It became an urgent mission to find socks.   To everyone's relief, we found and purchased 3 pairs of socks.  When we were back in the hotel that night, Matthew tried on his socks and proclaimed to all who would listen how his feet were in heaven and made a face of utter bliss.
On Sunday we drove out to Yarra Valley.  Yarra Valley is the wine country on the east side of Melbourne.  It is only about 1 to 1.5 hour drive.  It was a wet WET day but we really enjoyed ourselves.
It was recommended that we go to the Yarra Valley Dairy for lunch.  The road to the dairy was not paved entirely...it looked like more of a dirt path and with the rain...well.  I was not sure if it was even the right way but the sign said to go forward and there was no other way to go forward but down the one lane muddy road.  The parking lot did have a couple of cars.  We found the closest parking spot that was on the uphill side of the lot so that if we did get stuck in the mud, gravity might help out.  The building looked like an overgrown shed with a corrugated metal roof.
Inside there is a counter and we were offered a free cheese tasting of about 7 different locally produced varieties.  We found out that it is better to put your name in for a table BEFORE cheese tasting...but oh well...we were dry and did not have an agenda.  The only thing they have to eat is a cheese plate and some baked goods along with coffee, tea, or wine (and in the summer time there is home made ice cream).

The cheese plate comes with bread and your choice of relish.  It is a LOT of cheese but very good.  We enjoyed trying the different types on each type of bread.  We both agreed that the Marinated Parisian Feta that they make (lower right little bowl) was the best.  It really did not taste like feta...more like the best goats cheese I had ever eaten.
We stayed until the cows came home... literally.  The poor cows sloshed their way down the path.  What started as one cow because a parade of woo (moo only we are down under).  We decided to buy some cheese to take home.  Our favorite came in a small jar or a giant one kilogram tub.
After enjoying the cheese and the floor show, we dashed out to the car...trying to avoid the big puddles.  We drove to the closest winery.  Yarra Yearing Vineyard (by the way...the titles of the wineries are all pretty confusing as many of them have very similar sounding names).  We walked in to a HUGE cold feeling building.  It was pretty but it was like they were trying to hard.  We decided to go try some place a bit more inviting.
Yearing Station was another that was recommended.  This was more our speed (except for the prices).  We walked in and they had wine sitting on on a simple wooden table.  The wine list started at 90 AUD!  They did have a roaring fire in the room.  Matthew did a wine tasting (only $5) and I warmed myself by the fire.  One of the vineyard cats was placed in his bed by the fire by one of the women working at the winery.  He was super friendly and so we cuddled some while Matthew sampled the peppery, light oaky finishes.

The lady serving the wine (sample 5 of 7 for Matthew) made a casual offhanded comment about the roos coming down from the hill. sure enough...looking out at the rows of grape vines...we could see several kangaroos.  The more we looked, the more we saw.  We have been to several winerys including thoes in California, France, and Italy but never would I have imagined placing a kangaroo in amoust the grapes.  We asked if they eat the grapes.  Apparently not...they only eat the grass and weeds, so they like them bouncing around.
We walked around the back of the house to see if we could get a bit closer.  It was fun to watch but they did get skittish if you move too fast or get too close.

Yarra Valley Vinyard - with Kangaroos

We had time to stop by one more winery. Warramate was right next door and night and day different.  This one looked like it was in someone's house...but not upscale house...more like the backside of a barn.  We walked in the and the guy poured us both a decent taste.  I declined since I was driving.  He poured himself a glass as well.  He told us that there was definitely a benefit to working at a vineyard as he smiled and took another sip of his wine.  This was the most laid back wine tasting I had been to.  We chatted for a while and Matthew bought a bottle.  The grapes were all the same but the bottles were about a quarter the price.

Yummy Cheese

It was a good day. The challenge was how to get the cheese home without leaking the olive oil all over our suitcase.