It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to...

Not really, no tears here. Had a very relaxed birthday which centred mostly on food.

I spent my friday roaming the streets of Fitzroy looking for something lovely to treat myself. It wasn’t hard to find lovely things as there were many but it very hard to choose, I stumbled into a fabric shop which will have to be revisited once I need some fabric, several gift shops with cute stuff and home wares, I returned home with some decorative papers which will be used at some point in a crafty way.

In the evening we had dinner at The Graham, I enjoyed a sesame spinach and enoki mushroom rice noodle roll with a hot broth to start, while Andy had a pork ballontine with a shallot puree. For main, I had Pan fried herb gnocchi with green veg and a cheesy sauce, while Andy enjoyed a chicken kiev with braised leeks, all very yum. We shared a chocolate mud cake with red fruit for pudding, along with a couple of delicious glasses of wine.

I had been waiting for the Gasworks Farmers Market for quite a while, after having read about it in a foodie book and missing the market last time it was on I was keen to make sure we went. It happens once a month on a Saturday, opening at 8am until 1pm, so we woke early (for a weekend) packed our bags (although we should have taken more or a trolley) and headed out. The market takes place in a park, stalls are all around the space many filled with fruit and vegetables, and the food is fantastic, next time I would get breakfast there as there are several cooked food options to enjoy.

We decided to buy anything we liked and then put together meals afterwards ‘ready steady cook’ style. Purchases included potatoes (from the potato stall), mushrooms (from the mushroom stall), parsnips, leeks, corn, peppers, rhubarb, apples (from many different fruit and veg stalls), watercress (from the herb stall), sausages (from the meat stall), etc... We decided we would have a roast, mushroom risotto and a BBQ from our harvest, along with apple and rhubarb crumble and a cake.

So there was some cooking (and eating) in the afternoon!

The market is a must, 5 Stacey stars (take a trolley).

Twist and Shout!

St. Kilda Festival continued for a week, culminating in the big day on Sunday. There were several stages for different music (pop, hip hop, indie, etc...) we listened to a little of each, we didn’t know any of the bands so if nothing else we got an insight into Australian music.

There was more than just music; there were many stands, some selling clothes, food and general stuff. Some were selling a very special foodstuff, Da-dada-da-dada-da THE TWISTY POTATO (on a stick) I have mentioned it before, but this time I had room enough (in my tummy) to eat one. Andy wants to bring them over to the UK and make a fortune, they were $5 each and to make them they spiral a potato, dip the potato in a batter mixture and deep fry then you could have any flavouring added to it. We had a plain salt and a hot n’ spicy, but you could have had cheese, vinegar, vanilla sugar, even chocolate (you know I am a chocoholic but I couldn’t quite get my head around a chocolate flavoured potato)!

Bikes featured heavily at the festival, with pro riders, BMX riders and some quite impressive motorbike stunts which we enjoyed watching whilst sat on a hill.

Unlike the last weekend, we were not fooled by the cloudy grey sky and slopped on the suntan lotion, which was good because like last weekend the sun and the wind came out in the afternoon.

It was a nice afternoon, even if I had the sniffles (aww...) which was rounded off by a hotdog BBQ, and an evening spent trying to fix the mouse on the computer as it had stopped moving only to realise half an hour later that actually the whole computer had crashed and the screen was frozen (noticed only because the clock on the screen had not changed).

Other random stuff

Just wanted to share a few bit of info with you and a few photos.

Firstly the building and the story behind the building of the BBQ.

The BBQ was a self build, not a worry after the many years of putting together flat pack furniture from IKEA. So after the purchase was made and a short drive home assembly began, only to find (or not) that there were 3 screws missing.

One phone call and another drive we collected the screws (for the handle). When screwing in the handle, it snaps (the shops are now shut). Another phone call the next day results in a handle being sent through the post. After a couple of days a courier drops of a package, I open package to find that the new handle is in 2 pieces.

Another phone call, a new handle will be couriered round tomorrow, the guy even wraps the parcel himself to ensure enough packaging material is used. So it took a while but we have a fully functional BBQ and all in all the shop people were very good and I can now enjoy barbecued corn on the cob, YUM.

Next, comes the lettuce and the spring onions, the lettuce comes with roots and the spring onions are really long. No real reason for this just I thought it was interesting/unusual.

Lastly, I am a learning to crochet, I have had a lesson, so send in your requests, I am a little slow at the moment so they might take a while, I also need to buy more wool as I only have green left, which is fine for practise and green objects but it is a little limiting.

A little bit pink...

The weekend was left open, no fixed plans were made. After a spontaneous trip to South Melbourne market on Saturday which resulted with Andy hacking at a piece of fish on Saturday night trying to make his own fish fingers (let's be posh and call them goujons, he was succesful in the end thanks to the addition of Panko breadcrumbs), a slightly better plan was made for Sunday.

The weather had been a bit rubbish, with some really big downpours, so I packed the ol' faithful (in other words the umbrella) and we headed out on a longgggg walk to St. Kilda (it doesn't look that far on a map, bit it is). The stretch of beach towards St. Kilda was full of kite surfers (I am kind of planning to do this, although it does consist of 2 lessons before you are actually allowed to kite surf, one learning to fly the kite and the next learning to flying it whilst up to your neck in cold salty water).

The reason behind this longgggggg walk was to check out anything going on in St. Kilda as the festival had started, but more importantly to view the craft fair at the esplanade (a curve of road).

The craft fair was really quite impressive, it is held every Sunday, there were stalls of clothes, woodwork, jewellery, soaps, paintings, juggling equipment, bags, and the list goes on. We didn't buy anything, not because there was nothing we wanted but because we needed to check out the policies on bring stuff back to the UK (they had beautiful wooden boards, but I would need to be sure about getting them past customs before buying).

The trip also included Andy taking me out for lunch (I know, I know). We had a lovely pizza in a cafe on Acland Street, before heading back past the craft stalls for one last look and beginning the walk back home. It was at this point that the sun decided to come out for the first time in a couple of days, the wind continued to blow and Andy and I started to feel the burn (not from the walk, we didn't go that fast, the burn of the sun and wind). You might think why not use the umbrella as shade, unfortunately the wind put paid to that (and almost to the umbrella).

So here I sit and I am as the title says... a little bit pink (or very pink). So the lesson learnt is when packing an umbrella put in the suntan lotion and as the girl guides/scouts say "always be prepared".