Get your name up in lights - Sydney Festival

Idea: Get your name up in lights!

With a tag line like "For the 23rd Kaldor Public Art Project, US artist John Baldessari is giving more than 100,000 people the opportunity for their name to appear in lights on the side of the Australian Museum. Will you be one of them?" Who could resist? I couldn't! I got my name up in lights! My time was 6.50pm tonight!

So it's official people - I'm famous! And anyone else can be too (so long as you get in on time!) It's quite an interesting experience to see your name up in lights, but more than anything, it's all a bit of fun and another bit of the Sydney Festival to engage in.

Pub lunch, Wildfire, followed by a dash of Smoke & Mirrors

 Idea: A day of eating and playing

The boy met me at work today and we were in the mood for a pub lunch. I ordered what I always do at the Hero of Waterloo: Lambshanks and the Boy ordered the Bangers and Mash. Good proper pub food. It's not the cheapest, due to location: The Rocks, but it's good tasty, hearty fare. The lamb always melts off the bone, the gravy is thick, salty and goes perfectly with green beans and mash. Apart from a random, appetising, sad looking bit of tomato of the Boy's, his meal is exactly the sort of pub food that we were craving.

A Wildfire style Wagyu flat iron steak 200g, burnt eggplant, variations on onion, aerated potato ‘veloute', rosemary and oxtail jus and a glass of Stoneleigh Pinot Noir wine for $30. Yes Please. I love these Fast Festival Feasts and have tried to go to as many as possible during Sydney Festival this January.

I've been meaning to go to Wildfire for ages now and thought that this would be the perfect chance. I know that in the past, Wildfire's reputation for rude staff has gotten the better of it, but on our visit the service wasn't bad at all. Although, there was a minimum level of service required for us seeing as we had one meal on our menu: wagyu, which they didn't even ask how we wanted it cooked. The meat was tender, the aerated potato veloute was essentially pureed potato and cream, which was an interesting take on the idea of potato mash being served with steak. The rosemary and oxtail jus had depth and theingredients complimented each other nicely.

Wagyu flat iron steak 200g, burnt eggplant, variations on onion, aerated potato ‘veloute', rosemary and oxtail jus.

Add caption

Quite a few of the sides looked like they were worth trying and we settled on a crunchy spinach side of some kind (that doesn't appear to be on their online menu). It was crunchy and refreshing. The views were of course to die for and the Boy and I were both happy with our Wildfire experience.

Next up, we were off to see Smoke and Mirrors:

Having a nice cold bottle of white wine

In the Festival Garden - it was very packed by the time the sun dipped down.

We needed another quick bite to eat so the Boy got a Chilli Dog, which he said was satisfactory.

I got some dumplings, which were fab!

Walking through the faux vineyard

Time for Smoke and Mirrors to begin!

The strong men were my favourite act

If it wasn't sold out already, I would highly recommend going to see Smoke and Mirrors. So instead I'll say that it deserved its many awards and try to get tickets next year! What a great night!

Menya Mappen Madness and a Spanish Cat

Idea: Grab a quick Japanese meal before running off to a Spanish lesson

In case you're confused about what's going on, there's instructions. Cute, Japanese pictures to guide you through your eating experience. Make sure you return your tray like a well behaved diner. There's some old school Japanese movie posters as decoration, but apart from that it's all about the food. Menya Mappen is a self serve style bar. Choose your dish, which they prepare right in front of you, grab a tray, slide it along and pick up your extras along the way. Included in the ridiculously cheap meal is a scoop of chopped green onions and tempura crumbles if you so desire them. We decide to top up our dish with everything and choose far too many sides. It's quite easy to get carried away.

We both order the Keke - udon with kadadeshi soup ($3.90 regular size). Now, I'm a big eater, but even the small size is big enough for me and could be a meal in itself without any toppings. We grab extras like the sweet potato tempura (60c), massive chunks of tempura onion, fried bean curd, seaweed, menma (fermented bamboo shoots), prawn tempura and other pickled vegetable toppings.

fried bean curd, sweet potato tempura sides

prawn tempura, onion tempura sides

We only had a few minutes to eat before our Spanish lesson began (our first one, so we didn't want to be too late)! We scoffed our food extremely fast. It was salty and delicious. The tempura batter wasn't the nicest I've had but overall it was very satisfying. Such a simple, cheap and healthy (well, except for the tempura) meal. Miss C and I waddled to our Spanish class at the Spanish Cat. Sooo full! Buenos noches! Como se dice "more Japanese food" en Espanol?

A beachy weekend involving a crab named Craig and a game of cricket

Idea: Head to a beach house with some friends and a good ol' game of cricket

I think that there's nothing better than having a bunch of friends, a beach house, hot weather and some bbqing action! Oh - and did I mention the crab?

The beaches up around Hardy's Bay are beautiful and there's great spots for kayaking, fishing and more, and it's just over the water form Palm Beach. One of our crew even caught a crab. With a hand line. That's skill! We named him Craig and then debated over the most humane way of um... well... you know... "preparing him for our plates." We put him in the freezer, then into a pot for 10 minutes. Much to our horror, he started blinking at us as he defrosted before we put him into the water! Yes, there were girly squeals, there were calls of "stop punching yourself Craig" and lots of "we're so sorry Craig, really sorry."

Craig the blue swimmer crab turned bright orange the second he hit the water. And he tasted delicious! So fresh and lots of white meat. We decided not to serve him with any flavours, so as to not spoil the flavour. And yes, we played with the claw... It was too hard to resist. Poor Craig!

Then next day, the Boy and I were off to the cricket. My first game! It was Australia vs England. I'm Australian. He's... wait for it... English. There was some friendly rivalry going on there. I'm not a fan at all of watching sport, especially not cricket on tv. But, I have a confession to make. Going to the cricket is fun. There's drunk bogans acting up. Irish "angry elves" sitting next to me wanting to fight the Aussie bogans in the front. Evictions from the crowd. You have to get lots of beer. I suggest bringing a picnic in your bag (we did!) There's games with empty beer cups, blow up balls and kangaroos (just watch out that the fun police don't nab them). Yup, I've been converted!

Except for getting a little bit sunburnt, it was an amazing weekend of fun in the sun! Oh, and did I mention that Australia won the game? Because we did!

Checking out Ms. G's cooking

Idea: Check out Live (Sydney Festival) and see what Ms. G's cooking is like

Review to come from last night's eating and drinking adventures from Ms. G's.

Fast Festival Feast at Mad Cow and a drink at Grandma's Bar

Idea: Go to a Fast Festival Feast and check out a new bar

Click here to visit this post on my new site www.missfeathers.com.au

Some foodie things I’m a just a little bit in love with at the moment

Some foodie things I’m a just a little bit in love with at the moment:

Gray Works has amazing chopping boards. I want to buy them all! This one I find especially lovely with it’s little walnut feet and pomegranate seeds (yes, I’m aware that’s it’s just presentation, but it’s hard to resist). Some of the boards are really rustic looking, whereas some are a little more polished. Their workshop is located in Woodstock and the artist’s Andrew Gray and Elizabeth Bryant say that before turning a piece of timber into anything, they “get to know it,” you can’t get more eco-hippy than that! They’re a featured seller on Etsy.com at the moment, so you can snap up pieces of their work easily online.

Cukorcookies are “hand baked using only organic ingredients, including Tahitian vanilla bean paste and hand decorated with love.” I have one word for you: yum! They are insanely cute, appropriate for Valentines Day, especially if you enjoy filling your loved one with sweet baked goods and did I mention that they are cute? 

“Chalkboard Signs-Great for herbs, flowers or potted plants.” I’ve seen similar ones before in my local nursery and I think they’re fab. It’s a great way of remembering exactly which seeds you have planted in each pot. And of course they look good.

Having a few herb pots is the best way to perk up any home cooked meal up by placing a few springs on the top (if they’re small plants) and hopefully they end up replacing your need to go out and buy any. I’ve got a large garden at the moment, so there’s always basil, parseley, shallots, chilli, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, some wild rocket and other bits and pieces. 

 It’s always so satisfying picking produce from your own garden and it’s a great excuse for me to put chilli into almost every meal I cook. Heirloom seeds are also worth investigating. You can buy them online, buy some nice pots and off you go. Some interesting pots:

Do some seed bombing! “Practice random acts of gardening with these seed bombs!” There are many different kinds of these, some of which are “pet-friendly seed bombs have been formulated to appeal to cats and dogs, and include a mixture of catnip, cat grass, wheat, oats, and rye.” I wonder what my Jack Russell will think about these? Some have native seeds in them, so you can feel like you're doing a good deed. So, what are you waiting for, go seed bomb!

White tea with jasmine (image) is also one of my latest obsessions. Although I haven’t yet tried out the White Jasmine Sparkling Tea. Hmm, I have to say that I'm not so sure about that one. And these tea ducks! I gave one to my mum for Christmas and she loves it. I bought it from the MCA gift shop, which I think I may have to ban myself from!

 

Great things to eat off and drink out of:

 I’m sure the mushrooms would be quite annoying to clean in the washing up, but who can resist it’s childish story-book appeal? I also love the colours of these bowls, I'm sure they would make whatever food you place within them even better. Or even as a decorative fruit bowl:

My brother got a similar mug for Christmas. Lots of fun.

I'm loving everyday objects made of porcelain at the moment. I've got some porcelain scrunched up "plastic drinking cups" at home. They fool people all the time. More object de art than anything else, but also practical.

Great as drinking vessels, or vases

So very very true

You can spell out your name, or your initials, or corny phrases...

I heart vintage-y looking cake stands even though I don't have much of a sweet tooth.

Corny, but lovely at the same time. I think there's a bit of a Valentine's Day theme here.

Yes, another vintage-y looking cake stand

Fantastic feathery measuring spoons. Much more interesting than your average measuring device...

Ok- essentially I just want everything from this website (Not on the High Street)! When I go to London this year, I’m stopping by and picking up some great stuff!

The best home for home made cupcakes and muffins.

Some organic shaped pieces.

Frankie Magazine online food section

Good pots and pans, stemless glasses for red wine, cheeses, and cooking recipe blogs and websites, such as FeelingNibblish.

And that finishes my long list of foodie/ drinking things that I heart at the moment.