Lunch dilemma

When I buy my lunch, which let's face it, is every day, I am always struck with guilt about spending so much money on food. Bla bla I could be saving $x amount per year bla bla.  I also have the whole try and eat healthy thing going on.  Here in lies the dilemma.  If I had my way, it would be sashimi every day. Love the stuff. It's light, and is good for my brain, etc.  Except that it is $9.90 for some cut up salmon.  And WTF? on the amount of carrot they give you.  It ends up kinda dry the way they shave it up so you can't really eat it.  I'm thinking half of my $9.90 is spent on safeway carrots and the labour involved to carve them up.  They would be better off giving you some fish, soy and then just 4 carrots in a bag that you can munch on later.   

I baked

2 weeks later, but oh well - I baked hot cross buns for the kids at work to celebrate easter!  Here is a picture of them in dough form (which we all know is better than when you've actually cooked the things).  I got the recipe from www.msn.com.au  - I recommend this site for recipes.  Easy to search, and they all come from the Women's Weekly.  Also, if you're a bit of a dud in the kitchen like me - it has a glossary so you can look up stuff like "What does shallot mean?"

 - Not that there were shallots in my hot cross buns.

FYI - they turned out really well (except for burnt bottoms - I blame the electric oven).  They were exceptionally good toasted with nutella. mmmm

Sticky

I went to visit my friend Sarah and her bubba Stelzie (nearly 2) on Saturday.  Thought I would take some tasty treats to munch on at their house and was in Errol Street, Nth Melbs, and had a total breakdown about what to buy to take.  I wanted something very delicious and pretty.  However, all Errol street had to offer was that horrendous Ferguson Plarre or whatever the hell it's called.  Who goes there?  I just don't get it.  And they're everywhere.  So I refused to even look at what they had to offer.  Then I went to Krifi - a deli but it was about $7,000 for a muffin plus I have heard bad things about that place.  So my only option was Bakers Delight which I know is a bit wrong.com, but then I spotted a Boston Bun and OMG, the nostalgia set it, took me back to summers in Perth with the cuzzies carving up the (home made) Boston. mmmm.  So off I went with my bun.  Now, I am sure if I had 2 year olds of my own, I would have knows that something with a 5cm layer of coconut icing is not the best idea for a little tacker.  Needless to say, Sarah and I had icing all down our pants, it was all over Stella's hair, and on the furniture.  it was fun but.

Would you rather be....

Me and the receptionist have been playing who would you rather be - and this is our top 5, sort of, not really.

It all started when were were like 'even though Heath is gone, i would so rather be Michelle Williams than Katie Holmes' and then it went to 'but I'd rather be Lisa from the Veronicas than Michelle' then I was like 'nah, but MK is better than any Lisa' and then we were trying to think who Katie beats, and all we could come up with is that weird mini indian muscle man.

Boooorrreeeeddd

Due to lack of anything else to do, I have been forced to back track to LAST weekend where we went for breakfast (well, it was 2pm, but it took us a while to get our shit together).  Anyway, we went to what used to be the ass end of Lygon St, but is now so hip and groovy that it makes the 'little italy' end out ass it any day of the week.  So yea, I think you call it Lygon St, East Brunswick.  And the place was called Gingerlee.  It's on a corner, and has nice big windows so lots of sun shines in and the whole placed is very relaxed but the menu is a little bit edgy which we love to find.  I had roast lamb & papaya salad (as you do for breakfast) but they had so many yummy options it was tough and I felt like i needed iron and possibly something green.  The coffees were top notch and came in cute brown nana cups from the 70s.  They were playing lots of country music and were quite happy for us to read 2 days worth of The Age (including Saturday people!) all afternoon. Bless them.  So much better than anything "proper lygon" has to offer (except the nova, and borders for reading magazines when you're waiting for your movie to start). 

ok that seriously only killed 4 minutes! aaaggghhh

$4 Coopers

Last night we went to Sister Bella - which is in Sniders lane, a stinky lane, off another stinky lane, off a pretty ratty main street (lonsdale). So Melbourne.  It is the new bar from those kids at St Jeromes.  And it's pretty cool.  Apparently, I have heard, the Coopers are only $4 bucks!! Except I didn't verify this because I kept sending my boyfriend to the bar because it was 600 degrees in Melbourne last night and they only had  a couple of (mostly broken) ceiling fans and the building itself is like a glorified tin shed.  But none the less, it was pretty cool.  A good place to go when you are not looking super glamerous (ie sweating like a pig). The way to find it is to look for the cute nana pot plants out the front.

Then we were too hot to function, so we went to find food in cooler pastures so decided on Sahara, which is up some stairs next to Revival on Swanston Street.  It used to be really laid back and you could get this kick ass bagel and a beer.  Now, the room is still really cute and slap dash, but they have given it this 'fine dining' twist (white tablecloths, table service, etc) which is all very nice but kind of doesn't work.  It was pretty empty, but it could have been pumpin'.  The dips we had were nice though - chunky pesto, not like Chris' Skinny on a plate.  Service was really nice too and there was home made lemonade.  mmmm refreshing.

Rock Step, kick, kick, land.

Ok so here is a picture of some of the dudes you will meet at Swing Patrol. Swing dancing is a new hobby my friend Athalia and I have decided to partake in.  It's actually really fun - a cross between grade 6 bush dancing lessons and speed dating.  All kind of traumatic but in a fun way.  All the dudes are actually quite nice, except for one guy that had a handle bar moustache and stared right in your eyes and might have been carrying an axe - and also this really gigantic ranger.  Anyway, the dancing is all kind of easy which is good - and it's quite satisfying to know how to do a bit of boogie at the end.  Plus there are beers afterwards so you can gossip about the sweatty guys you have just danced with.  The teachers are great too and they have classes all over Melbourne.  Get into it :-)    www.swingpatrol.com.au

[the dude up there is bill gates. haha]

2 plus 4 = 6

OK so that pic above is not representative of the food at The Montague, but sausages are pretty funny and they do have an impressive charcuterie selection.

So Saturday night was 'date night' - and we went to The Montague in Sth Melbourne.  Short story is that it used to be crap and now it's great and a bit fancy pants!  The food is the kind you pay a bit more for but you don't feel like you have been totally ripped off at the end.  We ordered lots of tasty treats including goats cheese and beetroot salad, ocean trout, carpaccio, but because we are in with the chef, Jules, we ended up having 6 courses - including charcuterie (prepared meat products, hehe, salami, confit, etc = katie has to go to gym in the morning) - and scallops and desert of peach tart, dark choc mousse and panacota, and then a cheese plate.  We had some lovely Portuguese wine and a lovel pinot from NZ.  Service was really great too - not overly fussy - but we never had an empty glass.

Annie Town

The very hilarious Annie Choi has this blog right? She lives in NY and is a writer. I don't know her. Anyway she had all these plastic homies and said she would send them to ppl if they wanted them.  I said I did to see if she would actually do it.  She did. I got a letter in the mail. hehehe how funny.  Anyway, check it out at www.annietown.com and you'll see my little homie with his friends from (now) around the world.

breakfast

300 smith street
lots of trendy folk there - lots of skinny high wasted jean fashion going on. great room with sky high ceiling and beautiful marble bar [from japan i believe]. big comfy booths and outdoor front and back.
YUMM food. we sampled the french toast - with nectarine ice cream thing and a pumpkin and halomie pide (ugh, how do you say that? is it like rhymes with ride or is it like rhymes with g'day?). Coffee was lacking. and there was a mission for sugar.

www.cavallero.com.au/
http://www.theage.com.au/news/bar-reviews/cavallero/2007/04/09/1175971007029.html

magnation

another tasty gem from magnation (frankie magazine)

www.magnation.com.au

Jitters

it's fun to go to hobart

www.menumate.com.au/takeaway/Tasmania/ Tasmania/findrestaurants.aspx?

apparently it's a restaurant. who knew?