Sunday Arts

Oh hello there! Nice to see you again. Have you lost weight? Why yes I have, thanks for noticing Number One Millionaire readers. My oh my, it has been a while since I've seen you. I am unfortunately far too busy and important to post regularly. Lie. But, seeing as I am back in blogging world i should probably post something. Yes, good plan.

Yesterday I was at Jaimie's, we were lying around and lamenting what trashbags we are and discussing our soon to be transformation from ladettes (relatively speaking, we aren't THAT bad) to ladies (on another side note, don't you love the link to my last post? yeah, I am some kind of writing genius). So watch out people of Canberra, you may not recognise us when we start wearing tweed and pearls over our turtlenecks. Or you may recognise us because of it. Anyway, what I am getting to is that we were watching Sunday Arts and I was thinking what a sweet show it is and how it is now my third favourite Sunday TV show. They had a segment on Fiona Hall and her current exhibition, Force Field being held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. So for today's post I will be putting on my rarely used and slightly dusty art history hat, so that I can swoon for a bit over the art of Fiona Hall.

She has this amazing way of taking objects and transforming them, sometimes unrecognisably, into something completely different. For example, her birds nests created from shreaded US one dollar notes, or her Paradisus Terestris series.



As well as works created from Coke bottles, video tapes and all sorts of other materials. Check it out if you are in Sydney, I plan to.

Here is a link to with more info on Hall, if you are all interested. It has lots of photos of her works and links to articles as well.

I'm a trashbag.

Oh mother of all things nasty,

I remember very little of last night. Oh dear. I am the anti-responsible Ted Noffs worker. My ribbons are still in my hair. I hate everything.

Why me?

Nice Day for a Picnic (Part 1) or Adventures with Faun-Fiend Tom.

I have now officially been trying to post this mother fucker for the last week and a day. I really hate Blogger. So let's imagine it's last Wednesday afternoon. The sun is shinning, the weather is brisk and you're pretty happy with everything the afternoon has thrown at you. You're in the moment? Right, let's do this.

Wasn’t today just the most beautiful autumn day? Staying inside on such a magnificent day was simply unthinkable, so being the cool cats that we are, we went for a picnic. Lovely Julia baked for us, and then up into the pretty hills of Fadden we went.

Now, I was going to make this a serious post about Julia’s Nigella-esk culinary prowess, but narrating our picnic in picture form is way more fun. I’m passing the baton to Julz to post about how to make the food etc and to give you lovely readers some form of intellectual fodder, because you certainly aren’t about to get it from me…

From the photo up the top you can see us standing at the bottom of Julia’s driveway about to head off on our fun times picnic. I’m obviously too cool to be part of this picture and out of protest have turned my back on it. Now if you scan in closely…






... you’ll see Erin checking out my amazing pins, Katherine lopsidedly trying to do a Paris Hilton pout, Vanessa being somewhat offended by said pout, Tom giving Julia a greasy for not piggybacking him up the hill, and Diana setting the stage for the retardedness that is to come. Seriously though, you need to zoom in on this photo. It is just too funny.

So off we went to find our spot of picnicking heaven. Five minutes later we were drinking pomegranate juice, toasting our good fortune and settling down for some delicious food.






Food that tasted so amazing Katherine and Tom found it hard to keep in their mouths.




It could be said that we were all having a pretty great time.






Until the attack of the killer (awesomely delicious) passion fruit melting moments…






...when suddenly Tom went crazy and turned us all into…

...BUSH FAUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was all innocent fun at first...




...but there was something un-nerving about the look in Tom’s eyes (or mayhaps teeth?).

Katherine was first to fall victim to the insane faun-fiend Tom, closely followed by Diana.

He became unstoppable. Vanessa, myself and Pete soon fell victim to his crazed faun-adoring eyes.






Oh the joy it gave Faun-fiend Tom to see us with those cute furry ears!

Erin, being rather kinky, warmed to her inner faun which confused Faun-fiend Tom.

He got angry and even more confused…

(Grrrrrrooooaahhhh!?!?!)

So we decided to go home and drink tea.




But on the way home a miracle happened!

Tom managed to crap out his inner faun-fiend (which took the shape of a picnic rug), Katherine caught it ready to safely secure it in a plastic container, Vanessa rejoiced by laughing at his evident pain and Julia seemed strangely un-phased by the whole event.




This may have been because...

...she was in-fact the culprit! (Omg!) By making our food taste sooooooo amazing she single handedly drove Tom insane, making him try to convert us into ‘cute fauns’ because she thought we looked funny.



I’m on to you and your amazing food Julia….



Oh god. I have way too much time on my hands.

Love,
Jaimie.

Detox Noodles

I've been waiting for Jaimie to post her quirky and all together delightful description of our picnic before I post my picnic recipies (beleive me, they're good ones)... but this seems to be taking a while, and I can't just leave you with nothing. For all I know, we have a creepy fan out there (you know, like Mel on Flight of the Conchords) who only eats what and when I post, and I can't just let the poor kid starve. Plus, I know, I promised weekly noodles, and have done little to deliver (and I'm sure you're all gonna hold me to that, legionnaires of fans).

This is a recipie I made up yesterday out of what was lying around. It's very fresh, very slurpy whilst similtaneously crunchy, and very yummy and utterly healthy...perfect detox food really. So I made it as a dedication to those friends of mine I knew would be in need of detox yesterday from the evils and tempations of the week, or more specifically, Saturday night (see bellow). I, however, was in need of detox from nothing but my own boredom, but liked to imagine it was from my wild, youthfull week of illicit drug use, casual sex, purgatory and bathing in a mixture of KFC, vodka and coke. (Yes, I like to imagine that I live in Vice).



Soba Noodle Detox Salad
Serves 4
I just used whatever appropriate fresh ingredients I had in the fridge for this, you could also add all kinds of exotic things like cubed silken tofu...and other stuff like that. I guess this is semi inspired by a Bim Bim Bab Noodle dish I like to eat at Izumi.

Ingredients
300g Soba Noodles
1 lebanese cucumber, sliced into thin strips
1 red capsicum, sliced into thin strips
2 handfulls beansprouts
coriander, for garnish
toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
finely sliced dried seaweed, for garnish (optional)
finely sliced fresh chilli, for garnish

Dressing
1/3 cup Japanese soy sauce
1/4 cup sesame oil
juice of one lime
2 tablespoons mirin (Japanese vinegar thing)

Method
1. Boil the noodles in a pot of boiling water till al dente. This only takes around 2 minutes, or possibly even less. So stay on your toes!
2. Rince noodles in cold water until cooled completely.
3. Mix together all dressing ingredients.
4. Place noodles in large noodle bowls, add capsicum, cucumber and beansprouts, pour over dressing and stir gently to combine.
5. top with sesame seeds, chilli, coriander and seaweed

NB. I didn't have sesame seeds (yes, the plight of modern life), so used cashews instead. They didn't really work so well.
To toast sesamee seeds, simply dry fry them in a small frypan over medium heat untill they go golden brown.

Why?

I woke this morning to a bombardment of 'why?' questions.

(This dog asks 'why?' a lot too).

Why does my bag smell like Jagermeister?

Why did i give my number to a very strange (in a kind of scary way) male?

Why did i tell my grandmother to come over for tea this afternoon after work when i knew i'd be hung-over?

Why did i tell her i'd bake?

Why is there a rooster outside my door here at work?

Why did i send people text messages when i should have kept my hands in my pockets?

Why am i such an embarrassment to all things female?

Why won't my 'Nice day for a Picnic' totally awesome picture story not post on this stupid blog?

Why did i insist we call 'new' Nathan, Nathan original?

Why did Ben Hermann keep calling me 'Northam' and then ruffle my hair? How did he even know that was my last name? And who ruffles hair these days?

And finally, now this is the real puzzler, why the fuck do i remember everything when i was so very drunk?





For those lucky souls who don't know me in 'real' life i'm one of those special kids who as soon as they even sniff alcohol will have no recollection of anything thereafter. But not last night! Oh no, painfully i remember everything. Everything (i think). I like it the other way, as much as i bitch about it i kind of like not remembering anything.

So Vanessa, i'm sorry. You know why. But we did look pretty freakin' awesome as Velma and Gloria, Film Noir hatted Femme Fatales.





Oh, on a really hilarious unrelated side note, yesterday when Torben and i went to buy alcohol (what a mistake that was), he realised he'd forgotten his money, he then lamented this fact by saying, 'Oh Jaimie, i've left my money at home. I'm such a muffin'





I nearly cried i laughed so hard.

A hodgepodge of a post.

Okay, i'm back. My house is still internetless but i'm going to find ways to try and maintain this glorious space on the interweb. I'm currently wrapped in blankets with tissues on one side of me, delicious homemade honey, lemon and ginger tea on the other (thanks Julz), and although i'm gravely ill (influenza my dears), i'm ready to jump back on the blog-wagen.

So let's see... where did i leave off?

Okay, in a nutshell, V-fest was mediocre. My highlight was found in the crowd of middle-aged drunk women waiting for Duran Duran. As Vanessa and I waited for arguably the best. 80's. pop. band. ever., we were enteratined by a group of very friendly 40 plus-ers, one of whom told told tales of being 21 and kissing Simon Le Bon and another (who happened to be gorgeously camp) showed us how to make a V for V-fest by essentially pulling your undies really high up your arse. Graphic, but fun.

My new house is cold, but it's homely. We're having a house warming party in two weeks with the theme Tim Burton vs. Wes Anderson. It's going to be swell, you should all come.

On another note, i would totally do this girl...

And now for something completely different.

The other day i found a whole heap of old songs which i'd totally forgotten about. You may remember some of them...

I can't explain it but somehow this picture seemed an appropriate match for how i feel about this song.

Milkshake -Kelis

A dear friend of mine put this song on a mix for me several years ago and i only just recently re-discovered it. It's by a band named -M- and this is the only song of theirs i know. It's a french pop cover of Close to Me by the Cure, and it's really freaking good.

Close To Me - M-

This next song is a Neutral Milk Hotel rarity. It's pretty special. If you're fan and you've never heard it before it's well worth a listen.

Oh Sister -Neutral Milk Hotel

Oh my golly goodness this guy Mojib is incredible. Yes, these aren't 'old' songs, in that i've only recently discovered him, but they're freakin awesome and you should all love them. What an amazing remix of Staralfur! Go buy his stuff. I'm especially fond of his song 'Underneath'. It's like a string/beat explosion of joy in my brain.

Staralfur (Mojib Remix) -Sigur Ros

Underneath -Mojib

Sorry for today's scattered post. I plan to have much more structured posts from here on in. Promise.

Love,

Jaimie.

Mirounga angustirostris

So I've hardly moved from my desk chair in three days. I'm pretty sure that by the end of honours I'm gonna wind up looking like this:


With a desk chair wedged somewhere awkward...

Sydney and stuff.

Oh my goodness, I'm in Sydney doing a course for work and i'm so excited i can hardly sit still, which is a little awkward as i'm currently sitting in an internet cafe.

I'm staying in a delightful hotel in Randwick (where they are hosting the course), we get $55 for each meal (!!!!), paid for the whole time we're here AND I get a highly regarded qualification for free! It's also restored my passion for the field i want to work in and really reinforced how important my role is in the lives of these kids. I really love my job! Life is really quite spectacular right now!

So yes, no V post yet. I'm away till Wednesday when i'll be getting back in time to have a trashy dance night with Pnau. Thursday expect a super-awesome-mega-post on V-fest, my new house, drunks, Pnau, homelessness and junkies. I've some stories i plan to post that will literally make your hair stand on it's end. As i said, i really love my job.

Now i'm going to try to get back to my hotel room with out being raped. Cross your fingers for me.

Love,
Jaimie.

Did someone say reality TV?

So I have realised that I have not posted for, well forever. I can't even remember what my last post was even about. Hmm, not noodles (i have eaten noodles, though not as nice as Julia's looked), not house (i wish), I guess it must have been good though (right? right).

As an escape from my many, many essays I have decided to recommend a book to you all. And when I say recommend I mean tell you about a book I just read that may or may not have been trashy.



The novel is OUT, by Natsuo Kirino and is about a group of four woman who work the night shift in a boxed lunch factory, one of them kills her husband and the others help her (for money) to dispose of the body by chopping it up. Everything that follows is how they deal with the event and how it changes them. They also manage to slight a casino owner/Japanese gang member/psycho and basically it all goes to shit after that. Like I said, may or may not be trashy, but I did really enjoy it. I choose to think of it as slightly less trashy because it is Japanese and therefore makes me feel like I am sampling the cultures of the world through the medium of literature and thereby gaining much knowledge.


Now I would like to share with you something that is most definately trashy, but so amazingly awesome. A TV show called "Ladette to Lady". Oh yes, ladette. to lady. Already sounds amazing, right? right.



I came across this gem of reality tv while I was flicking channels the other night after watching Harry Potter and avoiding my essay. I have to say, I could not believe my luck. The premise of the show appears to be; take a bunch of chav girls who like to drink a lot, sleep around and shake their fake titties and make them wear tweed while teaching them how to transform from a ladette (is this really a term people use? who cares, I plan to use it. a lot) to a lady. There are also pearls, cads and sexual etiquette classes (!) involved. best. TV show. ever? I'm starting to think so.

Oh the irony!

Yes, yes. I know i suck. I made a promise of fun time stories etcetera and i haven't delivered. But i will! Tomorrow! You see i'm very busy and important (and moving in to a new place takes some serious time). But i'll make an awesome post tomorrow, just you kiddies wait and see.

Till then let me just say that it's 7.51am, i'm at work in my rehab centre and i'm still totally wasted from last nights shenanigans.

Oh the irony!

Char Kway Teow

Oh, dear readers, I do apologise for my pregnant absence. It was a horrid history of anthropological theory essay which rudely theived me from you for eight whole days. Torturous, really it was. I remember thinking, during one of my lowest points, that the only midly positive thing about the entire essay writing experience was the pleasantly musty smell of an old Radcliffe-Brown book I was using. It reminded me of my friend Ebony, and how she thinks old books smell like custard powder, and then I found myself wishing that said book would turn into custard, along with my computer, my essay, the history of anthropological theory, and, indeed, the whole world, smothering me in creaming sweet goodness and alowing me to escape the inpenetrable hell of essay writing.

Fortunately for you, however, I emerged unscathed, and unsmothered (if you discount the shocking quality of the essay I submitted and the psychological turmoil my result is certain to cause me), to share with you my noodle recipie number two, which, sadly, doesn't contain custard (if that's where you thought i was going with this, I apologise, profusely).

Weekly Noodles, Part Two: Char Kway Teow.

This recipie is incredibly good, incredibly cheap, and ultimately quite unhealthy on its own. I suggest you serve it with green veg or similar. I made it last night from some house-sharing friends of mine and a few of their girlfriends (also very treasured friends), and it was gobbled up so quickly I forgot to take a photograph. Eek! Being a visual person myself, and understanding the importance of imagery to enspire cookery, I fleeced this one off the world wide web (it's amazing what you can find out there.):

Yeah, not the most presentable of dishes anyway, but I like to think I could've done slightly better. Anyway, as mentioned this is very quick and easy - really only takes around 4 minutes cooking time and the luscious thick slurpy goodness of the noodles is irresistable. The pork sausages, and quite possibly the soy sauces are laced with msg, but best not to think about that. I'm sorry I even mentioned it. Very yummy mmmm good. And Cheap. I bourght all the ingredients for seven people and it only cost me a mere $20.

Serves Four
Ingredients:
You Should be able to pick up everything you need from a well-stocked Asian Supermarket:
1 clove of garlic, finely diced.
1 small red chilli (or to personal taste)
1 Packet of fresh, thick cut rice noodles (usually come refridgerated)
3 handfulls of beansprouts
200gms tofu puffs, sliced.
6 Chinese Sausages, sliced on the diagonal into about 5mm pieces.
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup garlic chives, cut into 3 cm lenghts
4 tablespoons light soy sauce
4 tablespoons dark soy sauce, or (even better) mushroom soy.
fried shallots, to garnish
lemon or lime wedges, to garnish.

Method

1. Heat a tablespoon of cooking oil in a large frypan or wok.
2. When hot, fry the garlic and chilli for a minute
3. add the chinese sausage and tofu, fry around 2 minutes, or untill sausage gets slightly crispy
4. add noodles and sauces, stir untill everything is coated in dark sticky soy goodness
5. push the noodles to one side, making a gap in the pan closest to you.
6. pour the egg into the gap, and allow to scramble slightly - ie stir with your spatula so that it is semi-cooked, but still liquidy in parts.
7. stir egg through mixture, add bean sprouts (mmm...crunchy) and garlic chives.
8. when everything is combined good and proper, serve on plates!
9. sprinkle with the fried shallots and serve with the lemon or lime.
10. provide extra chilli passed seperately if desired.

NB: If you only have a small pan, it is best to do this in two seperate goes so to avoid over crowdning and unwittingly stewing instead of frying.