Stripes, Rainy Days and Much Mohr

Clockwise (L-R): cucumber pickles, mochi with mung bean paste, a punny fish and chip store, mornings in a suburb of Sydney

I am gradually growing to like the camera in my phone, it's convenient for those unexpected moments.  Every week I volunteer at an organisation and I always walk past this fish and chip shop called Mohr Fish.  I really do love a good (or do I mean terrible?) pun.  Mohr Fish, Mohr's Circle?!  If the pavement weren't so grimy I would be on the ground laughing.

One thing that doesn't make me ROFL are mornings that look like the picture above.  This is at 6.30 - 7am when sunlight should be streaming through the window, blinding me.  At least the weather has been consistently bad, every afternoon for the past week there have been thunderstorms/rain so at least I know when I have to bring the clothes in from the line.

One topic I do love to talk about is food.  Cucumber pickles are simple to make and is a staple in my world.  I always eyeball the proportions but usually it's 1:0.75 of sugar to vinegar since I like it a little on the sweet side. Basically you just make the brine to your taste and then add a clove of sliced garlic, one star anise and a few flakes of chilli to the liquid and then dump your sliced cucumber in.

It'll be ready in 30 minutes and the flavour intensifies with a longer pickling time.  I leave it in the fridge and take some out each time for dinner.  To make it extra crunchy you can salt the cucumber before pickling.  Sprinkle salt onto the slice cucumber, let it sit for 30 mins, drain and then rinse and drain the cucumber.  If you need a recipe to follow, this one would be a good one to use.

Now continuing on with the food thread...I am indifferent towards mochi, I like the filling but don't like the chewy texture of the exterior.  For some inexplicable reason I wanted to make some from scratch.  It's very laborious making it from scratch, allow ample time for wrapping.

I made a mung bean paste instead of red bean paste because that's all I had in the pantry.  I used the bean paste recipe from here and the mochi recipe from here.  If you decide to make it I would suggest adding a little more liquid to the mochi paste as it was very dry when I made it,  add about 1/4 cup more liquid.  Also if you let the cooked dough cool a little, it becomes much easier to work with.

Wearing: Lee blue jeans and Minkpink black and white striped shirt

I am definitely a jeans and T-shirt type of person.  It's comfortable and practical.  Usually I will wear a pair of ballet flats with this but if it's raining or I am in the lab for uni I will wear sneakers.  In the future I am trying to purchase less casual tops since as my Dad correctly pointed out, I am not a kid anymore and so T-shirts shouldn't be a staple of my wardrobe.  This year I am looking for nice soft cotton button up blouses and plain coloured shirts rather than the graphic T-shirts you will typically find me in.

Clockwise (L-R): Travel by Land candle lid, the actual candle, updated watch, the weave of my cotton curtain


I ordered a Diane von Furstenberg scarf for my sister as it's her 30th birthday soon.  It's from some fancy schmancy store called Matches.  Their shipping was a eye-watering £30 which is about $45 AUD. They do wrap it up nicely I will admit.  So to soften the blow, I bought this candle for myself.  It has a bergamot scent, very citrusy.

I discovered that you can update the look of a watch by changing the watch band. Before it was one of those leather cuff watches, like these ones.  Kinda too sporty, beachy for me because I am neither. After several years of constant use, the strap has become worn, the dusty pink has become pinky grey, the notch that I usually tighten the band to has slowly merged into the next notch.  So at the jewellers I got the band replaced with this brandy coloured leather band.  Much more grown up now.

Brigadeiros

These are extremely easy to make,  no need to bust out the thermometer or water bath or 6 mixing bowls.  LESS DISHES TO WASH.   Brigadeiros are a South American sweet that is a popular food for childrens' parties.  I would say these are good for any party, who can refuse sticky caramels with sprinkles?!

The chewy and sticky texture contrasts nicely with the crunchy exterior.  It is addictive.

I followed the recipes exactly so here is the link. And here is where I first stumbled upon them.

Sweet, Crafty and Phoney Things

About a month ago I finally got a smartphone!  Since I am a tightass and I am careless with my telecommunication devices, I got the HTC Wildfire. It's lucky though as I have already dropped my phone onto the train tracks! Only once though. So far.

Apart from being as excited as freshly percolated coffee about the Wifi and GPS on the phone (I will never get lost again!), I was even more psyched about trying the camera apps. So far I have only tried the free ones - Vignette Demo and Retro Camera.  I also have installed Little Photo and Magic Hour demo but have yet to use them.

Of the two I have tried, I prefer Retro Camera, since each of the preset filters try to imitate the aesthetic of a particular type of film camera.  I think they do anyway, I don't know enough about film cameras to be sure.  Let me know if you know!  While on the other hand, Vignette Demo lets you adjust the settings and filters until you are happy with the results.  For me the photos end up looking a little unclear and over edited, but it probably is just a user problem and I like the flexibility and control you get with tweaking photos.

Sadly there is no Instagram for non iPhone phones.

This one was taken with the Vignette Demo camera of my much loved coffee press.  I added vignetting and a blue filter for extra funzies.

These two pictures below are of a collaged shoebox and were taken with the Retro Camera using the Bärbl camera filter with the flash on.  The colours are less saturated and are cooler than in real life.  There's also some vignetting business going on around the edges.  Overall the photos look OK (they looked better on the phone's small and crap resolution screen) but  don't mimic the softness of film as the photos still look sharp.

These marshmallow lollies were addictive, they are matcha flavoured and have a matcha paste centre.  Luckily they are on the pricier side otherwise I would be eating these all the time.  The photos below were taken with...you guessed it, the Polaroid filter.  As you can see, they are way too sharp to look anything like actual polaroid photos plus the colours are too saturated and 'correct'.  Also the scratchy bits look fake.

This New Zealand brand of chocolate also have really cool flavours like kiwi and cocoa nibs which unfortunately aren't sold in the supermarkets except at the IGA in Market City (this is the only place I know of, this is in Sydney by the way).   I also really like the toasted coconut and milk chocolate flavour.  This photo was also taken with polaroid filter... I think it was a different one.  My finger was probably covering a little of the lens hence the flesh coloured blur on the left.

While I have yet to find an app that I like as much as my film camera, I am still impressed with what you can do with a camera phone these days.  The search continues. 

Momofuku's CRACK PIE

Well, it's taken me about 4 months to finish my roll of film, develop and scan the prints into my laptop.  I know, it is slack.  So this crack pie has been and gone for many weeks, possibly many months.  

This recipe was bookmarked in my brain for the longest time after reading about it here, here and here.   And you know, the whole food blogging community was absolutely HYPING about it so I had to try it.  Well after reading all these posts about how ah-maze-ing it was, I had very high expectation of this pie.  My opinion?  It was...OK.  I was expecting some kind of food/sensory experience that would leave me wordless, blow my mind, transcend this dimension of space and time.  

But, no.  It's sweet and deceivingly rich, it tastes good when it's straight from the fridge but turns to goo quite quickly if it isn't eaten immediately.  

Also, there was oil aplenty dripping into the bottom of the oven as this was baking.  It's definitely a recipe you should try but for me, it's probably a pie I won't be making again. 

Or maybe  I need to go to NYC to eat it from Momofuku Milk Bar itself.

You can have a crack at the recipe here.