Madame Butterfly

Last night we went to Madame Butterfly at the Opera House! Fun. I think that walking up and down the stairs at the OH is as good as anything that goes on inside it. You so get the "Sydney rocks and we are totally lucky" feeling.

So anyway, we were the second last row from the back - at least we weren't the back, and it was still great. My only complaint is that the woman sitting next to me had clearly recently put on fake tan and I could smell it through the whole performance. Ugh.

Anyway - love, lies, and a dramatic suicide. It had it all.

Here's me out the front. I need to get a new camera...

One week to Perth

This time next week I'll be packing my bags to head over to Perth for Emma and Murray's wedding!!!! EEEkkkk, so exciting. I'm totally looking forward to having a week with Em to hang out and help out with some last minute wedding stuff. I know it's going to be a totally beautiful wedding and it will be amazing to watch two such good friends marry each other. It's going to be the best day.
I'm a bridesmaid, and can't wait to wear my maids outfit! Long black maxi dress, vaguely floral and kind of Asian-esque printed shoes (with a really high heel), and a chunky necklace that teams with the theme... but I'll save pics of it all for after the big day. It's going to be amazing.

Recessionista

The second hand/ vintage clothing thing really isn't my caper, but wandering through the markets on the weekend which happen in the park near us, I spotted this little gem. It's Oroton, silk AND has horse motifs all over it!!

How much for this little lady I hear you ask - $10!!! Yes, that's right. A total bargain. Which is what we all need in touch economic times. And everyone knows the best way to pep up a tired outfit is some exciting accessories. It got it's first wear to work today. My personal favourite detail is the little horsies around the border... Giddyup!!!

Oh - the picture quality isn't great because my camera has died and I was using Jamie's blackberry to take the pics.

Blake and Roz wedding

You may recall Blake and Roz got a shout out at our wedding for being married a week. We unfortunatley missed their wedding, but when they came over for lunch on the weekend, they borught some wedding pics and music from their wedding! So I'm listening to the music now and thought I'd put up a couple of their pics. Both just looked stunning and it looks like it was an amazing wedding.

The lovely couple...

The kids got maried up near the Hawkesbury, and I love the beautiful lace on Roz's dress. The geometric pattern and scalloping are so lovely on her.Our wedding needed more animals...

I think you can totally get the vibe of the night from this pic - it looks so pretty, intimate, fun and warm.

Duck and bunny pie

Nom, nom, nom... We had Blake and Roz over for lunch on Saturday, and have long been talking up a duck and bunny pie which we made last year, and was totally ace.

The meat has to cook for four hours before you shred it, so I got up at 7:30 on Saturday morning with a roaring hangover to brown the meat before sticking it in the oven for the rest of the morning. This is the result when it came out, and it totally melted off the bone.

I wanted to take a picture of the finished product, but I couldn't find my camera and we were all hungry, but I assure you it was really good (turns out I put the camera in my handbag).

This is the meat all shredded up, and then basically you add heaps of herbs and top it off with pastry (I used pre-made, I couldn't face suet with my lack of restraint the previous night still lingering).

With a rocket and parme salad, eight hours later we were still sitting around the kitchen table. We had to make a couple of dashes to the bottleshop to replenish supplies, and had an excellent afternoon. Good times.

Buttons comes for a sleep over!!

Everyone's favourite dog with attitude came for a sleep over on Saturday night. Fun times!

Spare room done at last!

After the spare room became a bit of a tip, we decided to get it into shape. We bought some tall white bookshelves and FINALLY got all the books out from under the bed which got shoved there when we moved. Also a new white blind, and bedside light, so now our visitors will be even more comfortable. It looks so much better!!

What, no potato?

Many of you have either heard about or met our 85 year old Italian neighbour. I love that so often we are in our kitchen or out on the back deck and you can hear her yammering away in Italian. Plus she makes us snacks which is ace. We had a coffee with her yesterday and she was showing us her homemade pasta, but despite my best "oh, wow, that looks so great, we love home made pasta don't we honey," she didn't offer any to us. So we left only with a bottle of homemade wine and half a home made foccacia.

I was telling her I was going to make pasta e fagioli for dinner. She asked me what I was putting in it (when she got over laughing at my bad Italian pronouncing). I passed the test of using fresh, not dried borlotti beans, but failed dismally with failing to put potato in the soup. "WHAT, no potate? You need one or two, just for your husband," like I'm starving him or something.

Anyway, the soup turned out well, even though it didn't have potato.

To pour our wine with dinner we used our decanter for the first time, and OMG, it's so nice. We got lots of lovely crystal glasses and the decanter for wedding pressies, and it feels very luxurious to crack it all out whenever we feel like it. Like drinking tea in bed this morning out of our china cups. Just because we can.

Here's the decanter in action. We also got to use the fancy pourer Benno got us for an engagement present. Everything tastes better out of crystal!!

Blind love

We just replaced our old, wooden, dirty blinds with these nice new white ones. The slats are quite wide, so you get a bit of that plantation shutter effect without the massive price tag. Oh - and they are eco friendly too (not made of wood). It makes such a difference to the room, although in hindsight I should have taken a before pic since you aren't all here every day to see what it looked like before... But we are going to put them in the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen too. I think it will make a real difference to the house! Exciting.

Risotto

It's a rainy Tuesday night, which is a shame, because about a month ago I bought two tickets to see Slumdog Millionaire... at the outdoor cinema. So we've canned that idea, and Jamie is making a smoked fish risotto for dinner!! YUM!! It smells great already. Every time we have risotto I think of my family - we used to have risotto EVERY time Frank came home from a business trip. Usually with a roast chicken. Frank had a risotto cookbook which had such a great quote in it about risotto: "Rice is born in water but it must die in wine."
As a slight aside I'm watching Gweneth Paltrow's cooking show on TV which got all these great reviews (it's with that big redheaded American chef guy), and she's SOOOO irritating. So sanctimonious and smarmy. I never liked her. Mainly because she was so sanctimonious and smarmy about being a macrobiotic, vegan, yoga loving, married to a musician, holier than thou, so above Hollywood, never smiling, skinny, cow.
p.s. she's not a vegetarian on the show, but is trying to compensate for being a hypocrite by saying that she only eats unfarmed meat. Whatever.

UPDATE: Dinner was delicious. Here's a pic. I think it was one of the best meals Jamie has cooked. It was totally quick and really quite healthy for a risotto too (p.s. that's a poached egg on top, which went perfectly with it). And smoked cod is so cheap. If you are feeling inspired, here's the recipe!

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/5203/smoked+fish+risotto+with+poached+eggs