How to Make a Manhattan

M and I put this together. Make sure you watch in HD if possible!



Not for the faint of heart ;-)

It's May!

To all of you who were in any level concerned that I wasn't blogging much lately, you are so sweet. When even my brother asks me why I haven't been blogging, it means it's been too long.

Nothing wrong happened and I am healthy and well. It has been a wonderful month at my new job and I like it more and more each day. I work with great people, the job is fun and interesting, and it makes me feel useful and needed. Life is great.

M is doing well too, he got a haircut and he looks so handsome!!! I have been telling him for months to get it done and I'm happy to announce that he will never look back again :) 

So back to my promise... here's a couple of beers we tasted this month...

The brewery: Matilda Bay (Victoria)

The beer: Dog Bolter Dark Lager

Appearance: dark brown, however not really cloudy. Little to no head after pouring.

Aroma: Molasses, roasted coffee, very mild.

On the palate: As expected with most dark ales, a thick malty flavour, with a touch of sweetness similar to molasses. However it is not overpowering and a great addition to any warm meal of red meat or spicy food.

The brewery: Matilda Bay (Victoria)

The beer: Bohemian Pilsner

Appearance: Pale gold and clear (after a few seconds of settling). Lovely head retention.

Aroma: Very mild scent of hops.

On the palate: A classic Czech style lager, crisp and refreshing. A firm and pleasant aftertaste reminiscent of sourdough bread. A classic, in every sense of the word.

The brewery: McLaren Vale Beer Company (South Australia)

The beer: Vale Ale Pale Ale

Appearance: Pale and unfiltered (ie. cloudy), fine and dense head.

Aroma: Mild, of wheat or bread.

On the palate: Spicy and hoppy. Medium bitterness with a touch of fruity sweetness. Caramel-like aftertaste.







We've been cooking up some other amazing things around here lately and I hope I get to share some soon...

Australia's finest

I am a beer fan.

Always have been since that first chilly can of cheap watery beer. Not really, not then at least.

I *am* a huge fan of beer, and our love affair started when I moved to Boulder, Colorado to attend graduate school. The United States is the country with the largest number of breweries in the world, and did you know the state of Colorado has the largest number of breweries per capita? It is therefore little coincidence that the Great American Beer Festival takes place every year in Denver, featuring over 400 different breweries, over 2,000 different beers and hosts almost 50,000 beer lovers in one long, magical, beer heaven weekend.

I did attend the festival and I will leave those embarrassing stories for another occasion, my point here is I loved beer ever since and I love to drink my way to variety and look forward to the surprise of opening a new brew every time. 

Recently I was gifted with The Beer Lovers Guide to Australia, which I quickly devoured and learned (in general) about the history of beer, how it's crafted and how it can be served and enjoyed. The book also features a long list of Australian craft beers and micro-brews which in turn inspired me to go out and taste them!

So I give you...

20 OF AUSTRALIA'S FINEST BEERS

Randomly selected by me ;) 

I plan on enjoying each one of these over the next few weeks and sharing my tasting notes right here on Bongaloo, so stay tuned and don't blog and drive.

New new beginnings

After 5 long months of application after application and rejection after rejection, I finally landed a full time position in the hospitality industry. I mean a real job, a job with a salary, benefits and other perks. A job where I get to dress up as an adult, and get to meet very interesting people.

Needless to say I am jumping-out-of-my-socks excited. Today was my first day and I met so many lovely faces and places and learned a thing or two about the business. Last but not least, the office is in a *beautiful* location.

Oh proletariat, how I've missed thou.

Red Velvet

Last week I met with the ABCD (artists, bloggers, crafters, designers) group of gals of which only a couple I had been following online prior to the meeting.

I'll admit, as lovely as everyone was, I felt out of place because I was literally the only one who wasn't trying to grow a business or make money out of their website. Still some of them however encouraged me to try and come up with a business idea, and said that I should make cakes for people.

Now of course I have thought about this before, but I simply don't feel like I can easily compete with so many amazing pastry chefs out there, or differentiate myself from others who like me, learned their own way to patisserie. Disclaimer: I don't really know what I'm doing when I bake a cake, I follow recipes, not write them, and I often imitate cakes, not create them.

But anyway, after that meeting I just felt like my blog needed one more cake :)

Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting is a classic, rich, opulent cake, and more importantly, red = awesome.

This time I'm going to walk you through my creative process.

First you need an idea: I should bake a red velvet cake. Check.

Then you need a recipe. I used this one. Check. Then bake the cake, in as many layers as you'd like (I did 3), the general rule is you bake the batter until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

I usually take a very sharp knife to cut the top of the cake and make it flat. Then I flip the cake upside down so that the flattened surface is the bottom. If you use a bread/serrated knife you will have crumbs everywhere.

After you make the frosting, you need to frost the cake. The cake must have cooled by now, otherwise the frosting will turn into a watery sugary mess, it is CRUCIAL that the cakes and frosting remain cool at all times. If your kitchen is hot, you might have to put the frosting in the fridge for a few minutes at a time.

Start with the "crumb layer" this is just a thin layer of frosting that gives shape to the cake and keeps it from crumbling too much. I use an icing offset spatula that I got as a present one Christmas.

I also use a decorating turn-table from IKEA, $15. This makes life *way* easier.

After each layer of frosting I put the cake in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to make sure the frosting sets (hey I never said the process was quick).

Next comes the decorating bit! This is the fun part :)

For my inspiration I used the ruffled cake from the Sweet and Saucy homepage. If only I could buy ALL their cake stands.

Anyway, I experimented with a few of my tips and settled on Ateco's No. 46. Then started piping away...

After the fact I decided that I shouldn't have done the top part, it looked a bit bulky. I much prefer the look of the first photo above.

So anyway, then you're done! I took some flowers around the house and slabbed them on top.

Mmm. Cake.

Sydney Markets

If you know me, you know I *love* markets.

For some time now I have been meaning to visit the Sydney markets in Homebush and I finally got around to it last week.

The markets open at 6am (5am for flowers) and I wanted to be there then, so I woke up at the unreasonable hour of 5 on a Thursday morning, to hop on a train for the markets (flemington station, on the inner west line).

The first thing you will notice when you arrive, is that it is quite loud for how early it actually is. There are lots of trucks moving around and unloading produce, innumerable and loud-beeping-reckless forklifts everywhere. There are huge crates of fresh vegetables all around you and it looks a little something like this:

And that's just the parking lot.

My first stop was the Sydney flower market. There was so much variety and the prices were fantastic! Even better, you didn't have to buy a truck load of flowers to get that price, almost everything was sold in bunches.

And just like there were people specializing in flowers, others specialized in greenery, wild flowers, and succulents (all personal favorites).

And of course you couldn't miss the orchids.

I also visited the growers and produce markets, which consisted mainly of big hallways with big farm names on both sides selling fruits and veggies. Beautiful and plentiful fruits and veggies, like the ones you see here:

But unfortunately the market itself was less romantic and looked more like this:

Everything was neatly packed in stackable crates and boxes, which suggests that people don't come here to buy just one apple, they come here to buy several kilos of apples, so mainly restaurants and retailers I guess. There were also no prices anywhere to be seen, so perhaps the prices change throughout the day and/or vary according to quantity?

I was a happy girl among so many flowers and veggies, not so much around the vicious forklifts and noises, but it was an interesting visit overall.

And on the way out, I ran into this:

...

(and then I went home and took a nap)

Bugs

I ate soup today that had a bug in it.

I spotted it right at the beginning of my meal and somehow convinced myself that it was a baby shrimp (I was eating Tom Yum). So I pushed it aside and ate away. Upon further examination I realized it was not a baby shrimp, but a small creature with an exoskeleton.

I don't know what it was, if the fact that I was really hungry, or that the soup was tasty, or the fact that maybe I just didn't think it would kill me, but I ate away and finished the soup without complaint. And no, I had never seen that bug before so I am not sure what it was.

I have been thinking about this a lot, and the truth is, I don't know what that makes me.

....

In other bug news, remember this post?

Check out the laundry I had just brought from outside:

Now look closer...

That my friends is a young male yellow flower spider (I'm no expert but it is a good guess, females have bigger abdomes me thinks). It was actually really cute and I was trying to gently get it on a stick so I could release it outside. I'm sad to report that he didn't survive the transition.

We also have one of these in the backyard and I am just boggled at how clever that spider is, with its little leaf protecting it.

I used to hate bugs, but now I am slowly making my peace with them...

Maximum wattage

DIY electric mixer!

Courtesy of my friend JM Custardcrusher*.

Supplies: a power drill and a fork.

Insert the fork into the power drill as if it were a drill bit. Make sure it fits snug so it doesn't come out at all when you pull it hard. Turn on the power drill and durrrrrrr.

Disclaimer: this should probably not be attempted by anyone. Instead you should get an electric mixer ;-)

*That's the alias he chose.

Gift ideas

Our cool neighbor friend celebrated a birthday last weekend and we discussed many a gift ideas for this chap. We know he enjoys wine and cocktails, but M and I (mainly I) decided that that was too cliche. We thought of many other nice things available for purchase but didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable about "buying" something... so instead I thought I could make something!

The gift receiver likes spicy food, he is also Australian born and raised so he likes barbecuing (that's a given for most Aussies), so I thought I could combine both likes into a single spicy, sweet and tangy homemade barbecue sauce!

I have made barbecue sauce before, it is ridiculously simple, but I personalized it and gave it a kick by adding two chopped up chipotle peppers in adobo, plus a little extra of he adobo itself.

We bottled it up and I scribbled some letters on a brown paper bag to create a personalized label (the pixelated area said "from [our address]".

I included the recipe in that little piece of paper that I tied to the bottle, you know, in case he wants to refill it.

This is another excellent reason to always keep your glass bottles and mason jars around. Now you go make something for someone.

PS. The original recipe is here, but remember I added some chipotle peppers in adobo for spice.

My first Opera: The Barber of Seville

I forgot to tell you guys! We went to our first Opera EVER last Thursday at the Opera Theater in Sydney's famous Opera House.

We weren't sure if we were classy enough for the Opera, but it was a smash hit! We loved it! We went to see The Barber of Seville, and purchased two of the cheap box tickets at $65 per person.

The set was beautiful, the props were clever, the costumes colorful, it provided English surtitles and this particular production of The Barber of Seville was actually VERY funny.

If you live in Sydney and have yet to go see an opera, do give it a chance, it might surprise you!

Here is a good review of the show.