A Very Voodoo Christmas

Quite a few Saturday nights ago , Mum joined Matthew and I at the Step Inn for A Very Voodoo Christmas. The reason? Cactus Cadillac were playing their second gig, I had missed the last one as I was in Melbourne and Mum didn’t go. This gig though was very much a family affair with numerous friends and family of Cactus Cadillac along for the ride πŸ™‚

I like the Step Inn in theory, I like that they are booking a very wide range of shows from folk to dub to pyschobilly and everything in between. I have a love/hate relationship with the lights though. Sometimes they are excellent, sometimes they are good, other times they are crap and it changes drastically between bands on a night. Cactus Cadillac were the first band and they had dim blue lights on their faces but normal sunlight lights at waist level. For the other bands though it moved to just normal sunlight lights as the whole lighting which was focused at the very front of the edge of the stage which meant that most time band members were in the fall-off, whilst the instruments were in the full light. It was interesting. That is why most of these photos are just photos and nothing more. I would take red Zoo lights over patchy lights any day.

Cactus Cadillac.
Cactus Cadillac is fun. They are boys who have slept on our floor numerous times over. Whilst Carter may be my primary little brother, Tom and Yuki are round often enough as well that they are just part of the family. I enjoyed the set, it was by no means mind blowing it was only their 2nd gig and Carter was distracted by the cricket on the TV at the back of the room apart from that, they are doing what they enjoy πŸ˜€

Cactus Cadillac

The Dead Ringers.
I only saw a little bit of this set as I went over to Tounge and Groove at West End to see The Chocolate Strings (damm great music) with Clare as her farewell before she headed to Washington DC, where she will spend the next 9 weeks or so as an intern for Massachusetts Democrat Congressman, John Tierney. Jealous? yes. The Dead Ringers were a band that I found on myspace looking for local alt-country bands so I was surprised seeing them at a Bad Moon Show but they do have a fair bit of rockabilly elements in their alt-country.

The Dead Ringers

Foghorn Leghorn.
Some nights you just need some Ska to keep you going and Foghorn Leghorn are always there to provide. They have this absolute cracker of a songs about Emo kids and cheering them up, there is actions that go with it, it is pretty darn amusing.

Cry like an Emo, Foghorn Leghorn

The Bad Moon Company.
What do you if a few songs into the set the double bass gives up the ghost? You become a rockabilly covers band whilst people attempt to fix the double bass. You get it working, you go back to playing your own blend of rockabilly/pyschobilly. Then the double bass croaks it again, repeat steps from before. It croaks again. You play it to the best you can. Everyone goes home early because it just doesn’t want to work. That was quite sad as I was looking forward to a big night of Bad Moon Co goodness.

The Bad Moon CompanyThe Bad Moon CompanyThe Bad Moon CompanyThe Bad Moon CompanyThe Bad Moon Company

To see the rest of the images from the night go here – A Very Voodoo Christmas

in the kitchen

A lifelong investment Pasta

Today I spent the day off and on in the kitchen, just having fun. Mixing and matching flavours. Listening to the radio, watching the wind outside blow and swoop all over the yard. The wind that we have at the moment is something alright. Last night I made a batch of Tomato/Capsicum Pesto. So so so so so yummy. Today I made pasta for uno. Yep 90g flour, 10g semolina, 1 egg = pasta for one. Mainly it was pasta for one because I rolled it out with a rolling pin and well I enjoy making pasta but hand rolling pasta is a whole lot more intensive than with a pasta maker. I had planned on having it for tea tonight with some anchovies, mascarpone, bit of basil and a bit of sun dried tomatoes. That can wait for tea another night. Instead for tea. I had a brothy soup of sorts. As we do every year we have a smoked leg of sheep (it is meant to be a leg of mutton but in reality it ends up a leg of lamb), every year it gets hacked to pieces till it gets left in the fridge with just a bit of meat left on the bones. Today I decided that I would make a broth. I grabbed my shiny new Le Creuset and set to work, sweated down an onion, a few cloves of garlic and then in went some carrots and beans. After they had softened a bit, the bones went in, covered it with water, put a few bay leaves and peppercorns in and left it. It simmered away for a good hour or two, then I threw in some chopped up chorizo to add to the smokey flavour of the sheep. A good while later the rest of the meat had fallen off the bones and I now had a very fragrant, wholesome brothy soup. Toasted a few slices of bread and mmm dinner was nice πŸ˜€ especially soaking up the liquid with the bread πŸ˜€

Of course I finished off the last of my pesto the other day so I made a new lot which was a blend of Lemon Basil, Greek Basil and Sweet Basil. I love pesto. Just so darn tasty. There is nothing quite like the smell of basil.

Christmas Morning Tea

Morning Tea

Morning Tea on Christmas Day is always a sugar filled event; rum balls, apricot balls, vanilla rings, lebkuchen, loftkâkurs. Then a touch of savoury with pineapple dip and salmon dip.

It is also a time for all of Grandmum’s good china to come out. I think Grandmum would roll over in her proverbial grave if we used anything but the good china (proverbial because she was cremated). The glasses are one of the most treasured pieces in the good cupboard, my aunt brought them back from Venice many years ago, it does feel quite refined drinking lemonade out of those glasses πŸ˜€

Christmas Ornaments

2000 Christmas Shooting Star

I was given this star by my host family in Germany where I spend Christmas 2002. It well actually Germany in general gave me the Christmas ornament bug. I could quite easily decorate our entire tree with my ornaments. I received a very cute little star this year from the Oxfam shop and I plan on getting the 2007 Swarovski star in the next few days.

to market

On Wednesday I went to market. to market.
I walked up and down.
Tomatoes, $8, great for sauce
Rockies, $2 a carton.
Cherries, super sweet.
Listening to their calls.

Some stand and watch you, waiting for you to decide that the price & quality is right. Others see you coming and do their best to talk you into buying from them.

There is no partridge in my pear tree but I do have 20kg of tomatoes, 8kg of capsicums, 5kgs of cherries and 4kg of mushies.

Which will become/has become
frozen mushies & capsicums
semi-dried & dried tomatoes
dried roasted capiscums
pasta sauce
frozen cherries for baking
cherries for eating πŸ˜€

We picked up two cherry pitters from the shop which made it so quick and easy to pit the cherries for freezing. I also picked up a curved paring knife, which has made coring the tomatoes a dream. It is now Monday morning and I just put on the last lot of capsicums to dry and there is one last tray of tomatoes that will be dried in a few hours. For some reason, I am guessing the weather it has been taking a lot longer to dry the tomatoes & capsicums than usual.

I spent a period of time each day, sitting at a little table on the back cement, with a box of tomatoes on one side, my drying trays on the other and the waste bucket between my legs. I core, halve or third the tomatoes depending on size, pop the backs, squeeze out some of the excess juice, arrange them on the trays and pop them in the dryer. Some of the tomatoes I have seasoned with some salt and pepper but the others are 100% tomato.

The dried roasted capsicums are possibly my favourite though, they have this slightly smokey intense capsicum flavour, are about 2mm thick and have a texture similar to a fruit roll-up. Quite nice.

Today is Christmas Eve, it about 8:30am here and we are about to put up the Christmas Tree, like a good Icelandic family, we decorated the house yesterday and put our outside lights up last week. Mum and I went to the farm yesterday to get our tree and of course to decorate Grandad’s house ready for Christmas Day at the farm.

new computer

grevillea

I took this photo the other week in the garden as the 50mm 1.4 was begging to go out and play in the daylight instead of spending its time confined to dark concert venues. πŸ˜€

This post is coming at you from my new computer, that I built the other night. It is a dream, so fast and we haven’t even overclocked it yet. Lightroom is just buzzing along and I love it! Delay loading images, what is that?

The other great thing is the sound! I went from a motherboard with el cheapo onboard sound to a not motherboard with not so el cheapo sound and the very first thing I noticed when I hooked up my speakers was the sound, it was so clear and crisp!

We are in the middle of Christmas preparations at the moment. We are going to get the tree tomorrow.