Food from the farm

One restaurant I have been meaning to eat at since it opened in Sydney is Chiswick.  It is Matt Moran's restaurant and the meat comes from his family farm and the veggies are all grown on site in a cool veggie patch they have.

So a group of us headed there one rainy night - it was the perfect weather to have a hearty home cooked meal and reasonably priced as well!  Highly recommended.

The crackling

The only roast that I have never attempted to make is a roast pork, I can make a mean roast lamb, beef and chicken.  I love pork but I love crackling even more and I had no idea how to do it and didn't want to stuff it up as I have such high expectations of it being right!

So the task was set.  We have a good butcher at the shopping centre here so I went and chatted to the guys, they were fantastic.  They scored the skin/fat for me, I looked up Jamie Oliver's slow roast pork leg with bone in and off I went.

I do love a good dinner party and this one was no exception!  8 people in total, and on the menu for the evening was: grilled haloumi with pear for appetiser; grilled prawns with butter sauce for entree; and then the roast pork with veggies for mains.  Eugene and Cath bought over dessert (apple pie and cheese platter).  I did matching wines for entree and main, then proceeded to empty the wine stocks!  

Wow, were we full at the end, the night went on until 3am so it must have been a success... and I absolutely nailed the crackling :) mission accomplished!

Long time friends

One of the countries I grew up in was Hong Kong and my sister and I went to an English school there called Island School.  I had a good group of friends and a couple I still keep in contact with happen to live a long way away... Angie (who lives in the Caribbean on the beautiful island of St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands!) and Emma (who now lives in Perth).

Luckily for me, our Dragon Boat National Championships were held in Perth this year!  This meant I got to catch up with Em which was great... we haven't seen each other for around 5 years, and have been friends for 29 years... but one thing I do really appreciate about having been friends with someone for so long is that whenever we see each other it's just like I just saw her the other day.  So good to see you Emma xx

For the catch up with Angie, this one is a little harder.  In September I will be in Hawaii and that turns out to be the location that is around half way between us.  So, Angie now knows the dates and timings that I will be there and she is going to try to come and visit with her family... I am crossing my fingers that she is able to make it as that would be awesome to see her - it has been around 12 years since I have seen her!

View of the world

One of the things on the list I was most looking forward to was to eat at a top 10 restaurant in Australia.  My sister Jacqui and I thought we should do Vue de Monde at the Rialto in Melbourne as I already had a restaurant task in Sydney on the list.  We had to book 3 months out so it was a long wait but boy was it worth it!  

We had a fantastic table near the kitchen which was fully open for all to see the smooth running of the evening.  Everything was extravagant and it really is an 'experience' you are going for as well as amazing food... fine dining at it's best.  

We had to make one of our own dishes by crushing leaves once dry ice had been poured over them. The wine decanter was a spectacular, the cheese selection was out of this world. We chose 7 dishes (from memory it was a choice of a minimum of 5 and maximum of 9 or 10).  Jacqui and Adam are vego and their dishes were amazing, as were my meat counterparts.  And yes I ate the chocolate souffle and loved every bit of it.

If you go, make sure you have around $350 per head ready... so worth every cent.

Getting fishy

Thanks to Mum for this Christmas present... to attend a cooking class at the Sydney Fish Markets. The list of classes to choose from was great and they have an amazing line up of chefs who run classes.  Kay, Cath and I went to a class run by Phil Wood who is the head chef at Rockpool.

What a great setup the Fish Markets have - a really cool auditorium with cameras set up so Phil could cook all the dishes we were going to do (with the most amazing seafood) and then we went into a massive kitchen with work stations where we were split into groups and we all had to make the dishes... then we went into another room and had to set the table, pour the wine and eat all our food!  

It was an excellent experience and amazing food, I have even cooked 2 of the dishes since the course. Highly recommended!

The 2nd date

This task was to go on a date (of which I have not done for a long time) and then a subsequent 2nd date with the same person (unless the person is deemed to be a bit crazy)... 

A big thanks to my friend Adrian for setting me up on a blind date with one of his friends, with whom none of my friends had ever met before.  He was a nice guy and the conversation flowed fairly smoothly and I got the guts to ask him on a 2nd date, which we went on.  And then that was that.

Then at the Dragon Boat National Champs in Perth this year, I met a friend of a friend - a very awesome guy who I have now been out on a few dates with and hope to go on many more dates with for the foreseeable future...

Task complete :) 

Being single in a big city...

There are many ways to meet singles in this modern age and having failed dismally at  'internet dating' couple of popular websites, I decided to have a look at the App dating game instead.

So my profile was set up on Tinder and the aim was to swipe right / yes to a minimum of 10 people. I did do that and chatted to a couple of people but nothing came of it... oh well! 

Then my friend Naari managed to get tickets to the launch party of Hinge... the newest sensation in dating, where it takes your friends' friends on Facebook and matches you up! Cath and I went to the launch party which was a bit of fun and a couple of drinks... didn't meet the love of my life there either.

Task complete :) and still no dates!