Bay Beats is on!

The inaugural Fraser Coast Music Fest has started! There's a great line-up, hope to see you there...

 

While it's too late to effuse about Frank Benn, I'll definitely be in front of Stage 1 for Forbidden Road, Arcade Vandals, The Bobkatz and Dogwood Crossing. Come find me and Pickle!

Cheers, KangaRue :)

 

Bay Beats

There's a music festival coming to Hervey Bay! I thought my days of attending easily accessible day or weekend long music festivals was left long behind me in London. So the inaugural Fraser Coast Music Fest on Sunday 2nd June, 2013 is a definite SilverLining in Pickle's and my new simplified life. Even better, it's FREE!

The day will be filled with music by local bands and artists across three stages. I've been somewhat - pleasantly - surprised at the level of home-grown talent. I've been lucky enough to see a number of performances in the five months since I moved to Hervey Bay, particularly enjoying Frank Benn, Dogwood Crossing and Sam Hutchinson, who will all be performing at the festival.

I'll definitely be taking Pickle along, as he loves listening to music, and it promises to be a family friendly event. There will also be stalls, rides, a kids activities tent, a car show, food, a bar, and a laser-light show finale, so it sounds like there's something for everyone. Tell your friends - if this year's event is a success, there are plans to expand it to a two-day festival next year... See you there!

Location:  Seafront Oval, cnr Charlton Esplanade and Main Street, Pialba (Hervey Bay)
Date:  Sunday, 2nd June, 2013
Time:  9:00am to 9:15pm

Are there any other local bands or artists I should be keeping an eye out for?

Cheers, KangaRue :)

This is not a sponsored post.


UPDATE:  Arcade Vandals are through to the Grand Final of Last Band Standing (battle of the bands) and are confirmed for the festival.  I've been told they're a good band to watch, as is Auraview (also through to the Grand Final).
Anyone know if Auraview will be at the festival?

Horsing Around (7/365)

Pickle was ecstatic when two police horses came into view today. Not Hervey Bay locals, they're visiting from Brisbane for the Scout Jamboree.

He showed no fear, despite them being 16 & 17 hands high - which looked enormous in comparison to Pickle!

7 January 2013

Cheers, @Kanga_Rue

Happy 2013! (1/365)

I'm not a fan of New Year's Eve. Something always seems to go wrong, sometimes catastrophically. I've had one New Year's Eve that I truly enjoyed from start to finish, in 2008, and included some of my favourite people in the world, having a murder mystery dinner at home. But it was the exception that proved the rule.

Having had a pretty challenging year (some of my friends say I can be the queen of understatement), I'm keen for the fresh start a flip of a new calendar seems to bring.  I mean, we've even moved across the world, to start a new life, just the two of us. This hasn't been without its own challenges, not least being the seemingly un-Australian level of bureaucracy I've encountered (but that's another story all together).

To kick start our New Year, I decided to cook a fry-up for breakfast. Fresh eggs from the Grandparentals neighbour, with decent Aussie bacon, polished off with a hunk of delicious watermelon. What I hadn't considered was our lack of cooking utensils. Most of our stuff is still en-route from the UK.

Have you ever tried to get a fried egg out of not a non-stick pan without a spatula?

I managed to get Pickle's out - his breakfast was perfect. My egg cracked as I was getting it out of the pan, but managed to make it to the plate still runny. So while it wasn't perfect, it was pretty darn close. If this is a metaphor for our year ahead, I'll be happy with it.

So on that note... Happy New Year!

I've realised that if I'd had the right tools, my breakfast would have been perfect too... so what do you consider to be the right tools for a happy life?

Cheers, KangaRue

PS. My Project 365 went kaput last year for obvious reasons, so I'm going to keep it pretty basic this year and see how I go - wish me luck?

Vamping up Halloween

I love Halloween - any excuse to get dressed up in fancy dress is a good one, but unfortunately I'm to busy with uni work to get all dressed up this year.  However there is a SilverLining... tonight I have achieved something I've always wanted to do - carve my very first Halloween pumpkin.

I'm also a huge vampire fan(g), so here is my pumpkin unlit:

And in all its glory...

And from a slightly different angle.

Please let me know what you think.

Cheers, KangaRue

Neighbourly Nuptials

Boy Wonder and I were lucky enough to be invited by our neighbours (Mr & Mrs N) to their son's wedding last weekend.  As our first Indian wedding, we were excited to look forward to a traditional Sikh ceremony.  But unlike Western weddings, this wasn't going to just be an event over in one day, but it lasts about a week!  We were invited to party with them on both Thursday and Friday nights before the big day on Saturday.

The thing that struck me the most was how colourful the clothes of the women were - bright jewel colours adorned the room.  There is a lot of singing and drumming.  This is Mrs N on the drum to kick start the celebrations on Thursday night.

Thursday night was Mendhi night.  These are the henna decorations that are worn on hands and/or feet to unite in the celebrations for the bride and groom.  I'd never seen mendhi applied before, and the two girls that came to do it worked so quickly.  I chose to have the designs drawn on both my hands.  The henna comes out very dark and is initially raised on the skin while it dries; as it does so, it stains the skin in a reddish brown.  The girls spritzed glitter onto the designs to match each persons outfit which was a really nice touch.  Here's mine...

The hospitality was incredible.  Everyone kept trying to feed me!  The homemade food was delicious.  The aubergine curry Mrs N made on the night was my favourite.  Though most guests were vegetarian, they also made a chicken dish just for me, which was incredibly thoughtful.  I'm glad to have tried it as it was melt in the mouth delicious. 

There was a chickpea curry on the Friday night that was also gorgeous!  Everything was home made on these days - even the chapatis.  And there was a gorgeous sweet, which I later found out was Gulab Jamun, made with milk powder and sweetened with a sugar syrup and a hint of rosewater - not only was this served on both nights, but Mrs N insisted I take a box full home with me - yum!

The singing and dancing continued.  While the songs were sung in Punjabi by the older women, I was told they were rather raunchy... and a further elaboration of this made me view the arm gestures and banging of a large stick in a whole different light!

The younger girls danced around, a few of them dressed up as men, turning their scarves into turbans, while one of the aunts was the demure bride.  The dancing continued.  And it's still only the Thursday night!

Friday night rocked around.  Tonight was the N family's chance to celebrate the groom. 

There was more ceremony with the sisters dressed in white and Mrs N arriving with ceremonial vessels on their heads topped with candles.  These vessels were then passed between family and friends.  I'm not sure of the symbolism, but it was obvious that everyone was taking part in congratulating the groom on his forthcoming nuptials.

The groom was in great spirits - he barely left the dance-floor!

Saturday came around far too quickly!  With the ceremonies starting at 9am, it was an early start to the day after two late nights out.  We headed to the temple, where the families met outside to exchange gifts of sweets as part of an engagement ceremony.  We then moved inside for tea and refreshments of samosas and pakoras, which was a different start for breakfast than I was used to but tasty.

I'd chosen to get a traditional salwar kameez for the day, which I really enjoyed wearing, and I think was appreciated.  This is a long top, with trousers and a scarf that can be used to cover the head in temple.

Shoes off and we headed into the actual temple.  The traditional bridal colour for Indian weddings is red.  So the groom and male family members were in red turbans or head coverings.  Both men and women are require to have their heads covered in the temple. 

There were various Gurus who lead the ceremony at different points.  The holy book was kept under a covered canopy with a Guru sweeping a feathered fan across it regularly.

The bride arrived, accompanied by her brothers and cousins.  Her dress was incredibly elaborate, and looked like it could weigh a tonne!  Apparently it can weigh 10-20 kilos, which must be exhausting. 

Both the bride and groom looked a little nervous, which is unsurprising given that they were being watched by about 400 of their nearest and dearest.  

The bride is led around the canopied area by her family, and on the fourth time the couple are married. 

Time to head to the ceremony, where the numbers grew to between 700 and 800 people.  And it got even more glamorous, with the suite lit in pink and chandelier-style centerpieces.  The bride and groom arrived looking much more relaxed.  They fed each other cake and the families fed them cake too, which was surprisingly touching (though not the most photogenic, so I've left those shots out!).

They shared their first dance, then the dancing started, interspersed with dinner... and more dancing!

What a sensational experience, shared with lovely people.

Cheers, KangaRue

Ag-solutely Delightful

 Recently catching up on my Twitter feed, I heard a couple of people discussing The Royal Norfolk Show.  As they were discussing good food, it grabbed my attention, a quick google, a phone call to BoyWonder and we decided to take the day off work later in the week to head up there.

I love Ag Shows, but it had been years since I've been to one - The Royal Easter Show in Sydney was something that I loved going to as a kid.  The animals, produce displays and shows meant a great family day out, but as I got older, the focus of the show seemed to become more commercial with increasingly ridiculous prices for showbags and rides.  To be fair, there now seem to be some more reasonably priced showbags, but with the most popular lolly bags being $12-15 and the kids character bags at $20-25, it's not going to be a cheap day out for anyone.

But back to The Royal Norfolk Show...  it was a proper Ag Show.  I had a brief stint at an Agricultural Advertising Agency in what seems like a lifetime ago, and BoyWonder grew up in the country, so we know what a real Ag show is like.  And this one didn't disappoint.  After a quick glimpse at the dogs, we legged it over to the food tent to watch Dr. Tim Kinnaird demonstrate making the most beautiful Rose Macaroons (with natural colouring made from beetroot extract).  I'd sent a couple of cheeky tweets to Tim a day or two before the show, so it was lovely to meet him afterwards for a giggle.  And while I completed meeting the Masterchef 2010 finalists, I never did find out who was which of the hear-/see-/speak-no-evil monkeys.

Further wanderings around the food tent, we discovered Edinburgh Gin.  Now I'm usually a Tanqueray girl, but OMG, this is absolutely delicious.  A distinct yet subtle taste of botanicals, some specifically Scottish in origin (juniper berries, milk thistle, pine and heather) as well as the distillation taking place in "Jenny", a Scottish Copper Pot Still, have led to my changing allegiance at home, and hopefully out-and-about as it becomes more widely available.  The Sheep Dip Whisky that originally caught my attention at the stand was also really nice - beside the great name - with hints of orange, and low-peatiness, so yes, a bottle of this also made its way home with us.

Time for some lunch.  I'd been tweeting with Sarah from Bray's Cottage about the show (it was her tweet originally that led me to discovering it was on), I was on the hunt to try The Perfect Pork Pie.  Now, I'm not usually a huge fan of pork pies - I find them too fatty with too much jelly.  BoyWonder decided on a medium traditional pork pie (supposedly for slicing or sharing between two!) and I went for a Thai chilli version.  WOW!  This really is the best pork pie I have ever tasted.  The quality of the meat from home-reared rare breed pigs is obvious, it was well seasoned with a hint of onion marmalade, and the pastry was lovely as well.  Now I just need an excuse to order some!

Off to check out some livestock, everything you could possibly imagine from birds, alpacas, cows and bees... but my favourite was this inquisitive pig.  I named him Bacon.  I think BoyWonder's perverse sense of humour must be rubbing off on me - growing up he (briefly) had lambs named Lamp Chop and Mint Sauce.  Then we wandered around the farm equipment, saw the tractor show, with some really old tractors as well as the most modern bells-and-whistles variety.

Pork crackling and some craft stalls later, we spotted some bikes.  I had been on the verge of buying a new bike over a year ago before I put my back out.  Then my physio said no cycling (anything sitting was putting pressure on my problematic lower back).  So the old bike remained in the shed - it was just to heavy for me.  Lighter in weight and cheaper in price than the one I almost bought a year ago, I fell in love with this gorgeous pale-gold traditionally styled bike... Pretty isn't she!  I've now started cycling to work, and one week in my back has been pretty good, my knee has bothered me more. 

We apparently "had" to see the ferrets.  I've not been won over, though they have soft & silky fur, they stink.  So we headed back to the dogs, and saw the cutest puppy - we'd been speaking to her owner at the start of the day - win the best of the Toys category.  Now, I've wanted a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel for a while... the name Grace Kelly has already been chosen to join Lulu & Hermes in the handbag inspired names of our fur-babies.  And I think BoyWonder may be won over now as well.  Time and budget restrictions mean it won't be happening anytime soon, but how long can we resist these big brown eyes?!

What a fab day out!

Cheers, KangaRue

PS.  Do you like Ag-shows?  Have you ever been to one?  And are my pun-titles killing you?

Tasty London

What a great way to spend a London Summer evening, attending the showcase of the London foodie scene at Taste of London... if only the weather had cooperated!  But the food, drinks, atmosphere and all the friendly people Aussie_Foodie and I met more than made up for the rain.

We kick started our gourmet evening with one of the most spectacular dishes of the night, the seared wagyu sushi with sauteed foie gras, finished with a touch of wasabi and drizzled with a sweet soy reduction - an inspired execution of ingredients by Dinings.

Next up was L'Anima's smoked purple aubergine and burrata with basil and chilli jam.  Chef Francesco Mazzei  was at front of house briefly and was happy to answer a couple of questions from us.  The aubergine was lightly smoked and was complimented beautifully by the creaminess of the cheese, with a tang from the jam.  If the food kept up this standard, we were in for a night full of treats!

Ever since attending a wine tasting course a number of years ago I've wanted to try the bubbles from Nyetimber.  Touted as the a rival to Champagne, due to the similar geology and soils of the traditional region, we would have happily bought a bottle had it not been for the ridiculous restaurant-sized mark-ups of the prices.  So we settled for a (plastic - ick) glass of the 2001 Classic Cuvée which was delightful with hints of toast and honey.

Club Gascon's Pimm's Foie Gras was a surprising combination of England and France.  The quality of foie gras was unsurpassed and melted with a delicious creaminess.  Combined with the sweetness of the Pimms soaked fruit and foam, this was another highlight of the day... though I don't think it will surpass the the traditional matching of Sauternes.

Earlier in the day Aussie_Foodie had been tweeting with Tom Aikens, from the Michelin-starred Tom Aikens Restaurant - he recommended the lamb... the 7-hour confit Daylesford lamb with balsamic onions and mash.





Melt in the mouth delicious, the sweetness of the onions was a beautiful match, though I'm not convinced by the mash foam... I would have preferred something more buttery.  Mind you, it didn't hurt that Tom came out to meet us in person and that (BoyWonder look away now) he's an absolute cutie!

A friend from work recommended I visit Trishna London - the original Mumbai restaurant is reknowned for it's seafood, so I couldn't go past their Seafood Biryani served with cucumber black pepper raita.  I wasn't previously aware of the restaurant so read up on it during the day and also discovered that they tweet; I was expecting a high standard of ingredients and innovation, but I still wasn't prepared for the utter deliciousness of this dish.  The seafood was perfectly tender, lightly spiced, complementing the natural flavours rather than overpowering.  I'm hoping to blog more fully on the restaurant soon, as this was my top dish of the day, and I'm looking forward to exploring their menu further.

We stopped for a glass of wine and some Colchester Oysters, reminding me that it had been far too long since I'd visited The Company Shed, another blog post coming up perhaps?  Then a stop at Glorious Foods to try their soups, the Sunny Thai Chicken was light, refreshing and full of flavour.

Leave Aussie_Foodie alone for two minutes, and I find her doing "laybacks" across the bar getting free shots!  

Since I was obviously behind on the drinks, we headed to try the Rekorderlig cider...

... kicking back on a deck-chair - in the rain - with a refreshing glass of the strawberry and lime.  It's a hard life, but somebody's got to do it!

Whipped goats cheese with pickled beetroot and Regents Park honey from Odette's was light and fluffy and well balanced by the stickiness of the honey, the crunch of a few well placed nuts and the light pickling of the beetroot.  Another dish maintaining the high standard of the day up.

And in keeping with the, unplanned, goats cheese theme of the day (not that I'm complaining!), was the Salt Yard's Courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese and drizzled with honey.  In a light tempura batter, the full-flavoured goats cheese was lifted by the sweetness of the honey, our only complaint was that we had to share... now how to convince BoyWonder that we should grow courgettes next year?

It wasn't all amazing.  The rendang from Awana was disappointing.  While the beef was beautifully tender from it's slow-cooking, it just didn't showcase anything spectacular; perhaps my expectations as an Aussie, with our wide exposure to Malaysian cuisine, were too high.  Perhaps I just chose the wrong dish, but for now I'll be sticking with my local, less glamourous, but so far more authentic and delicious Kaya House.

There were a number different suppliers showcasing their products.  One of the first we tried was Laverstoke Park Farm; their buffalo mozzarella was the creamiest I've tried in a long time and the buffalo chilli biltong and dry beef sausage have already been broken into this morning.  The two James' from Field & Flower raise, hang for four weeks and deliver boxed traditional British grass-fed cattle - the colour and marbling of the meat looked fantastic, and I've got some mince for BoyWonder to make into burgers and barbeque which I'll blog on that later to let you know how it tastes.  Lowland whisky producer Auchentoshan won me over as I'm not a fan of the peatiness of Highland whiskys... I thought it an inspired decision to bring home a bottle for BoyWonder to appease him for my shopping, and the tasks I've set for him.

My main regret of the day was not getting to try Trinity's pigs trotters on toasted pain polaine with fried quail's eggs, sauce gribiche and crackling which was awarded Best Plate.  It was my "not to be missed" dish of the day, but we simply ran out of time (gutted)... nor did we try any of the desserts.  Four hours is just not enough time, but I don't think my wallet would appreciate a second day!

Cheers, KangaRue