- I was a member of the winning team in the West Auckland badminton interclub competition when I was at high school. If forget which year though. I would have a photo to prove it but never got around to picking it up from the badminton club.
- I don't like fresh figs. I only recently discovered this one myself, much to my disappointment after waiting months for fig season to arrive. Ah well at least I still like dried figs.
- I was a founding member of the award winning boy band "Four"
- I am getting married in February. OK so I guess most of you already knew that, but I kind of like telling people.
- My favourite type of fish is tuna
- I painted my first ever guitar purple.
- The first music concert I paid to go to was Guardian in 1996. They sat down on chairs until the very last song. Not a great stage presence.
- My first ever game of golf was played in Fiji at the Denarau Golf & Racuet Club with water on 15 of the 18 holes it is not an ideal course for a first round. It was part of a business conference I went to with Dad and Mum (I was a part time employee of theirs) and the tournament was an 9 hole Ambrose tournament. Between the 4 of us in my team we lost around 20 golf balls.
- I was on TV in the Philippines.
- The first CD I ever owned was a double CD of Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien and Not of This Earth. It was a Christmas present from Craig in 1994. Sadly it was stolen in 1996.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
10 things about me
This is a somewhat different post to my usual. For 1 it is going to contain a numbered list and 2 it is not about food, well not mostly. Dan tagged me the other day, which apparently means now I am supposed to write 10 things about myself that most people don't know. This is somewhat tricky as a large number of my readers are close family members or people I grew up with, and most of the remainder know me in Vancouver. So this leaves 5 months of my life where my none of my readers were around except Tiffany and I already wrote about the interesting parts of those 5 months while I was in PNG. So odds are that most of you will already know a bunch of these things anyway.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
GIIP meeting
A couple of weekends ago (yes I know I yet again have been very slow posting anything new) I went to the second meeting of GIIP (Get Involved In Photography) at my church. GIIP is a group of people who get together once a month or so to learn and share stuff about photography. At the first meeting we were given an assignment, we each had to take 3 photos on the theme of Spring and print them out so we can all look at them and give constructive feedback on the photos.
So for the few weeks before the meeting I was busy trying to come up with some interesting photos of Spring. It was already too late to catch the cherry blossoms and the tulips and daffodils were a little past their best. I took a few walks around Vancouver taking photos of ducklings and gosling but none of them were very good. Then one Sunday afternoon I took a long walk up to Queen Elizabeth Park where I found a bunch of flowers that were still looking pretty good. So I snapped a bunch of photos of them and a few of them turned out OK. Well, really I only liked one of them but was running a bit short on time so selected two of them as candidates for my photo assignment.
With time running out and inspiration still being somewhat elusive I decided to turn to the subject of a fair number of my photos, food. I thought about what food reminds me of Spring, and the first thing to come to mind was rhubarb. Excellent I can make something with rhubarb in it and take a photo of it. And for that added cheesy bit of creativity I thought maybe I could include the springform pan that Shannon and Lucas gave me at their farewell evening. So now I needed a recipe that would use rhubarb and a springform pan. I decided maybe a rhubarb cheesecake would work well, I had never heard of a rhubarb cheesecake but thought maybe it would work OK. So I did a bit of a google search and was surprised to find a bunch of recipes for rhubarb baked cheesecake. The next day I went off to the supermarket and bought the necessary ingredients and set to making the cheesecake. Actually before I started making it I thought I would try taking a few photos of just the rhubarb on my coffee table, just in case the cheesecake didn't look very good. I took a bunch of the rhubarb and the springform pan together too, trying to be all arty but they looked kind of stupid. Anyway, I baked the cheesecake only to find that it didn't really photograph all that well, just as well I took the photos of the rhubarb beforehand. The best photo of the rhubarb unfortunately was taken at a bit of an angle and the corner of the table made the photo look not so good. So I kind of cheated and rotated the image a bit and replaced the corner of the table with clone tool. Much better. So now I had my three photos and I was ready to get critiqued, well OK I wasn't really looking forward to the critiquing so much.
As part of the critiquing process the group had to choose their favourite of each person's 3 photos, and that photo is then going to be printed out real big, framed and hung on the wall in the foyer at church. And what photo did they choose of mine? The rhubarb. So maybe I do have an artistic bone in my body somewhere after all.
Next month the GIIP group is taking an early morning outing to Jericho Park to take photos together. The meeting time is 7am. Sadly I am going to have to miss it as I will be in Colorado that weekend with Tiffany where I will finally get to meet her family. OK I am not at all sad about that really, I would much rather be with Tiffany, and 7am that is just crazy.
So for the few weeks before the meeting I was busy trying to come up with some interesting photos of Spring. It was already too late to catch the cherry blossoms and the tulips and daffodils were a little past their best. I took a few walks around Vancouver taking photos of ducklings and gosling but none of them were very good. Then one Sunday afternoon I took a long walk up to Queen Elizabeth Park where I found a bunch of flowers that were still looking pretty good. So I snapped a bunch of photos of them and a few of them turned out OK. Well, really I only liked one of them but was running a bit short on time so selected two of them as candidates for my photo assignment.
With time running out and inspiration still being somewhat elusive I decided to turn to the subject of a fair number of my photos, food. I thought about what food reminds me of Spring, and the first thing to come to mind was rhubarb. Excellent I can make something with rhubarb in it and take a photo of it. And for that added cheesy bit of creativity I thought maybe I could include the springform pan that Shannon and Lucas gave me at their farewell evening. So now I needed a recipe that would use rhubarb and a springform pan. I decided maybe a rhubarb cheesecake would work well, I had never heard of a rhubarb cheesecake but thought maybe it would work OK. So I did a bit of a google search and was surprised to find a bunch of recipes for rhubarb baked cheesecake. The next day I went off to the supermarket and bought the necessary ingredients and set to making the cheesecake. Actually before I started making it I thought I would try taking a few photos of just the rhubarb on my coffee table, just in case the cheesecake didn't look very good. I took a bunch of the rhubarb and the springform pan together too, trying to be all arty but they looked kind of stupid. Anyway, I baked the cheesecake only to find that it didn't really photograph all that well, just as well I took the photos of the rhubarb beforehand. The best photo of the rhubarb unfortunately was taken at a bit of an angle and the corner of the table made the photo look not so good. So I kind of cheated and rotated the image a bit and replaced the corner of the table with clone tool. Much better. So now I had my three photos and I was ready to get critiqued, well OK I wasn't really looking forward to the critiquing so much.
As part of the critiquing process the group had to choose their favourite of each person's 3 photos, and that photo is then going to be printed out real big, framed and hung on the wall in the foyer at church. And what photo did they choose of mine? The rhubarb. So maybe I do have an artistic bone in my body somewhere after all.
Next month the GIIP group is taking an early morning outing to Jericho Park to take photos together. The meeting time is 7am. Sadly I am going to have to miss it as I will be in Colorado that weekend with Tiffany where I will finally get to meet her family. OK I am not at all sad about that really, I would much rather be with Tiffany, and 7am that is just crazy.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
What's going on in the kitchen?
Well my conscience has got the better of me and I have decided to update my blog once again. It has been far too long yet again and I'm sure you are all wondering what I have been eating these last weeks. Whilst I am not feeling inclined to give you a meal by meal commentary on what I have been eating I thought I would just mention a few, mainly ones that I managed to snap a photo or two of before devouring.
So as you are probably aware it is Spring here in Vancouver, and has been for some time now. With the onset of Spring comes some rather scrumptious vegetables including one of my new favourites asparagus. Yep that's right, I quite like asparagus nowadays. And during Spring asparagus becomes very affordable. One day I noticed there was a bunch of asparagus sitting in my fridge (there are 2 for $4 bargains all over the place and so I invariably end up with way too much asparagus in my fridge). So anyway I decided that I would try asparagus soup. I had a quick look through my recipe books (very quick look as there are only 2 of them at the moment) and found a lovely looking one, wait no that wasn't the one I used, I must have found the recipe on the internet somewhere. Anyway the soup tasted jolly good and I took a photo of it before I polished it off.
Another side effect of it being Spring is that I start making more salads. This week has been a prime example of this. Last weekend I was down at Granville Island grabbing some yummy stuff, and decided to start my evening meal with a fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil salad. I first tried this combination in New York 1 1/2 years ago and I just can't get enough of it. The 3 flavours work exceptionally well together and I just love the texture of a good fresh mozzarella ball.
Yesterday I decided to have salad again as I had already had bacon and eggs for brunch so didn't need anything too fatty for dinner. As I was wandering through the vege store I spied some mandarins and decided to use them in a kind of asian inspired salad. Well OK, it wasn't really particularly asian inspired except for the soy sauce I put in the vinaigrette but it was really good anyways. So good in fact that I decided to make the same salad again for lunch today.
While I was home in NZ I watched a wee bit of the food network, ok I watched way too much of the food network. One of the shows was all about salads and one of the salad dressings had pomegranate molasses in it. I had never heard of this ingredient, but they said it tasted really good so I thought I would just have to try it some day. Today was that day. It is an ingredient used a bit in Mediterranean cooking and is available in Mediterranean grocery stores. I don't know of any of those in NZ, but in Vancouver there are at least 3 that I know of, and my bus just happened to be going past 2 of them today. So I got off the bus and bought a bottle of pomegranate molasses, ingredients - pomegranate juice. If you want to try some and can't find it in any stores then you can just make your own by reducing pomegranate juice (widely available nowadays) until it is relatively thick, one website suggested reducing 2 cups down to 1/4 cup. Now armed with my pomegranate molasses I had to think of something to make with it. I already had a salad planned for lunch (see above) and had the dressing already made for that. I didn't really feel healthy enough to have salad twice in one day so had to find another use for the molasses. After a quick google search I settled on pomegranate chicken. Basically you just coat a chicken breast in crushed walnuts and flour and cook it in a fry-pan. Then you remove the chicken and add chicken stock and pomegranate molasses to make a bit of a sauce. So I did this and the result was not quite what I was hoping for. I think maybe the ratios in the recipe may have been a little off, or else maybe more likely is I should have measured the molasses instead of just pouring it in. It is quite a powerful ingredient and is rather tart. I think it would have tasted pretty good if I had used less molasses, I will have to try it again some time. I think it would work rather well on roast lamb so I may try that some day too. It is also very tasty mixed in with orange juice and sparkling water, very refreshing.
Well that about covers all of my recent memorable meals. I guess I haven't been putting so much effort in to my cooking these last few weeks. I haven't had anyone over for a meal for a while so I will have to get on to that too, it might help inspire me get cooking again.
So as you are probably aware it is Spring here in Vancouver, and has been for some time now. With the onset of Spring comes some rather scrumptious vegetables including one of my new favourites asparagus. Yep that's right, I quite like asparagus nowadays. And during Spring asparagus becomes very affordable. One day I noticed there was a bunch of asparagus sitting in my fridge (there are 2 for $4 bargains all over the place and so I invariably end up with way too much asparagus in my fridge). So anyway I decided that I would try asparagus soup. I had a quick look through my recipe books (very quick look as there are only 2 of them at the moment) and found a lovely looking one, wait no that wasn't the one I used, I must have found the recipe on the internet somewhere. Anyway the soup tasted jolly good and I took a photo of it before I polished it off.
Another side effect of it being Spring is that I start making more salads. This week has been a prime example of this. Last weekend I was down at Granville Island grabbing some yummy stuff, and decided to start my evening meal with a fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil salad. I first tried this combination in New York 1 1/2 years ago and I just can't get enough of it. The 3 flavours work exceptionally well together and I just love the texture of a good fresh mozzarella ball.
Yesterday I decided to have salad again as I had already had bacon and eggs for brunch so didn't need anything too fatty for dinner. As I was wandering through the vege store I spied some mandarins and decided to use them in a kind of asian inspired salad. Well OK, it wasn't really particularly asian inspired except for the soy sauce I put in the vinaigrette but it was really good anyways. So good in fact that I decided to make the same salad again for lunch today.
While I was home in NZ I watched a wee bit of the food network, ok I watched way too much of the food network. One of the shows was all about salads and one of the salad dressings had pomegranate molasses in it. I had never heard of this ingredient, but they said it tasted really good so I thought I would just have to try it some day. Today was that day. It is an ingredient used a bit in Mediterranean cooking and is available in Mediterranean grocery stores. I don't know of any of those in NZ, but in Vancouver there are at least 3 that I know of, and my bus just happened to be going past 2 of them today. So I got off the bus and bought a bottle of pomegranate molasses, ingredients - pomegranate juice. If you want to try some and can't find it in any stores then you can just make your own by reducing pomegranate juice (widely available nowadays) until it is relatively thick, one website suggested reducing 2 cups down to 1/4 cup. Now armed with my pomegranate molasses I had to think of something to make with it. I already had a salad planned for lunch (see above) and had the dressing already made for that. I didn't really feel healthy enough to have salad twice in one day so had to find another use for the molasses. After a quick google search I settled on pomegranate chicken. Basically you just coat a chicken breast in crushed walnuts and flour and cook it in a fry-pan. Then you remove the chicken and add chicken stock and pomegranate molasses to make a bit of a sauce. So I did this and the result was not quite what I was hoping for. I think maybe the ratios in the recipe may have been a little off, or else maybe more likely is I should have measured the molasses instead of just pouring it in. It is quite a powerful ingredient and is rather tart. I think it would have tasted pretty good if I had used less molasses, I will have to try it again some time. I think it would work rather well on roast lamb so I may try that some day too. It is also very tasty mixed in with orange juice and sparkling water, very refreshing.
Well that about covers all of my recent memorable meals. I guess I haven't been putting so much effort in to my cooking these last few weeks. I haven't had anyone over for a meal for a while so I will have to get on to that too, it might help inspire me get cooking again.
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