Australian Rules Football

On Sunday, Chris and I spent the afternoon at The Gabba watching our first ever match of Australian Rules Football. Sunday's game saw the Brisbane Lions taking on the Adelaide Crows. We were really excited to go to the game, and it was a bit of a last minute decision as we bought our tickets late on Saturday night. In Australia, Aussie Rules competes with rugby as two of the main sporting events. Chris and I like Aussie Rules better than rugby, probably because it's a fast and physical game...much like hockey.

After a rip roaring start to the season, the Lions have gone downhill and stayed there. The final score on Sunday was 97-104, in favour of the Crows. So far this season, the Lions have 6 wins and 14 losses and only 2 more games left in the season. Even though it's been a rough year for the Lions, Chris and I have really enjoyed watching a brand new sport.

I will attempt to provide a brief idea of how the game works. The game is played on an oval shaped field that is about 150m long and 135m wide. At each end there are 4 posts. The two end posts are short and known as the behind posts. The two middle posts are high and known as the goal posts. If the ball is kicked between the goal posts, a team gets 6 points. If they get the ball between a goal post and a behind post, they get 1 point. The ball can only be kicked in, not carried.

There are 18 players from each team on the field at one time. They can kick the ball to each other as well as punch it with their hand. They cannot throw the ball. Also, the players cannot hold onto the ball. If they get tackled, they have to throw the ball away or else they risk a penalty. There are many more rules, but I won't go into too many details. If you want to know more, Wikipedia has a good summary of the rules and the game in general.

The season runs from March to August and then the Grand Final take place in September. The Grand Final is always played in Melbourne, regardless of where the teams are from. The stadium where the finals take place is called the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and holds just over 100 000 people, so it must be quite a place to have a sporting final!

Aussie Rules is a fast and physical game and is a lot of fun to watch. I'm so glad that we went on Sunday and I hope that we'll have a chance to see a game next year before we go back home.

Oh, one more thing! After the game is done, they open up the field to the crowd and everyone brings their own AFL ball and kicks it around. It's really neat, but a bit of a hazard as you probably have a few thousand people on the field kicking and tossing footballs...I got hit in the head once by a rogue ball. Despite that, it was lots of fun to be on the field!

Pass it On

When I was at the library a couple weeks ago, I picked up Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food DVD. I love watching cooking shows, but I've never watched Jamie Oliver. I don't have anything against him, I just never took the time to tune in to one of his episodes. So when I spotted the DVD at the library, I thought I'd give it a fair go (as the Aussies say).

It's essentially a 4 part series where Jamie goes to this town in England called Rotherham and tries to get people to start cooking again. His goal is to teach eight non-cooks how to cook nutritious, easy meals and in turn get them to 'Pass it On' to the rest of the town. It's obvious from the start of the program that Jamie is really passionate about getting people to cook healthy meals everyday. He wants people to get off of fast food and processed food and to start cooking with fresh ingredients.

Well, the other day, Chris and I caught an episode of his latest tv show called "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution". In this show he's in the United States, specifically Huntington, West Virginia. Huntington was named among the most unhealthy cities in the USA by the Centre for Disease Control, so Jamie thought it would be a good place to bring his Food Revolution. He takes on the school lunch program and attempts to get rid of the processed foods and hoards of french fries being served to kids everyday, and introduce fresh and healthy lunches. It's a really interesting show and sheds some light as to why more and more kids are becoming obese. Either way, I recommend watching it.

In watching these two programs, it's hard not to get drawn in by Jamie's enthusiasm and passion for healthy food. And whether you like Jamie Oliver or not, you can't deny that he's trying to do a great thing by getting people to eat healthier. If you think about it, where did you learn to cook? I think most of us would answer "from watching my mum". I never had formal cooking lessons (unless you count my Foods Course in high school). But, I would always sit in the kitchen and watch my mum cook and help her out. And this is how I learned to cook. But, if the newest generation of parents aren't cooking healthy foods for their children, and the kids don't have a chance to watch their parents cook, how are the next generation of kids going to learn to cook and eat healthy? Food for thought.

Chris and I both love to cook and try new recipes. But, we don't really share our cooking experiences with anyone else. So, in the spirit of Jamie's 'Pass it On', I thought we could try and dedicate a blog post each week to cooking and healthy food. Maybe it will inspire someone to try something new.

Healthy cooking everyone!

Thai Red Curry with Seafood (from Uncle Errik...I don't know where he got the recipe from)
-serves 4-6

800g salmon, tuna, or prawns (or all 3)
60g red curry paste
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 L coconut cream
1/2 red onion (large dice)
1 red capsicum (large dice)
1 medium carrot (peeled and thinly sliced)
100g green beans (stalks removed and cut in thirds)
1 tomato (large dice)
8 Kaffir lime leaves
100mL fish sauce
100g brown sugar
1 bunch coriander (leaves picked)
1 fresh lime (cut in quarters)

• Add 50g of curry paste and 20mL of veg oil into a wok on low heat and slowly fry for 5 minutes
  
• Take remaining curry paste and rub into prawns and fish. Cover and refrigerate until needed
• Pour coconut cream into wok and stir with wooden spoon to mix into fried curry paste and continue to cook on medium to low heat
• Allow sauce to simmer and reduce. Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables as described and keep ready
• Once curry sauce has reduced by third in volume and thickened (about 20 min.), add the Kaffir lime leaves, brown sugar, and fish sauce
• At this point, turn the heat up to high and add the veggies to the sauce and cook for 3 min.
  
• In separate pan heat a drizzle of oil at medium to high heat and fry the prawns/fish on both sides for 2 minutes or until cooked
• Spoon curry sauce with veggies over rice and top with seafood. Garnish with coriander and lime. Enjoy!

We had a lot of fun making this dish. I'm a bit of a curry light weight, but I found this to be fine on my taste buds. If you're not a big curry fan, maybe cut the amount of curry paste in the sauce. I halved the recipe and we still had loads of leftovers for Chris' lunch tomorrow.

I hope that you have some time to give this recipe a try. It was really tasty and pretty easy to make. Let us know how it turned out if you give it a try.

The Ekka

On Saturday, Chris and I spent the day at the Ekka. We had a really fun day experinecing one of Australia's oldest exhibitions. We started our day at 10am and didn't finish until about 12 hours later. We were tired and cold (yes, cold), but we had a great day!

We started everything off by visiting the agricultural part of the exhibition. It was fun to see all of the cows, horses, sheep and fair dinkum Aussie farmers. It sort of reminded us of home! Of course I loved the baby cows the most. One of the events I really wanted to take in was the sheep dog trials. I've never seen sheep dogs working before, so I thought it would be interesting to watch. The event was held in the main arena and it was a sight to see. It's amazing how those dogs work the sheep through the course. They are so patient and eager to get the job done.

After watching the sheep dog trials for a bit, we decided to head to the showbag pavillion. At Australian exhibitions, you can pay anywhere from $5 to $50 for these bags that are essentially what we would consider goodie bags. You can have a Nestle showbag where you get a stack of Nestle chocolates and candies, you could have a Marie Claire showbag where you'd get a couple magazines, perfume samples, coupons etc., you could even have a Winnie the Pooh showbag filled with little toys. They had showbags for everyone. Chris and I splurged and spent $3 on our Bertie Beetle showbag. It was filled with chocolate and lollies and were were told that it was the showbag to get. It was a bit disturbing though to see kids loaded up with these goodie bags. Sugar high, anyone?

Another highlight of our Ekka experience was the Strawberry Sundae cone. My mum even remembered these from when she was a little girl going to the Ekka, so I definitely wanted to get one a take a picture for her. Enjoy mum! It was a strawberry ice cream cone, but the bottom of the cone was filled with fresh strawberries. Yummy!

There were also a bunch of pavillions you could check out that had travel information, cooking ideas, merchandise, food...the list goes on! We spent a lot of time just walking around checking out the pavillions and spent even more time at the Queensland Tourism booth picking up travel pamphlets and getting ideas on places we want to visit.

There was of course your typical rides and games you would see at an exhibition, but we opted for a nausea free day and just watched people getting tossed and turned. Besides, the roller coaster looked a bit rusty and unstable.

At around 6:00pm we decided to head back to the main arena where we could watch the evening entertainment program. There was horse jumping, wood chopping, a jousting demonstration, a monster truck, freestyle dirt bikes, and fast cars. But of course, it all ended with a lovely fireworks display. After sitting for about 3 hours, Chris and I were cold, tired, and ready to head home. I would say our first Ekka experience was a success!

I took a stack of pictures, so if you want to see more, just click here.

Catching Up

Sorry folks, we've been slacking on the blogging! Our last post was at the beginning of July and it's already August!

Quick announcement: Sadly, Benny the basil plant did not survive the aphids. But, all the other herbs are looking great!

Life has been really good the past month. Chris was offered a paid 3 month contract with his department at the government, so that was a huge relief for both of us. We were hoping his 3 month internship would pay off and it did! There might be the possibility to extend his position until the end of the year, but right now we have to figure out if 3 months of unpaid government work counts as a job. Chris' visa only allows him to work for the same employer for a maximum of 6 months. So, if his internship is considered work, he can only stay on as a paid employee for 3 more months. We're hoping it won't count, but it's up to the immigration department.

What else? The weather here is getting absolutely lovely! It was a bit rainy and overcast in the middle of July, but it sure has turned around. This past weekend was supposed to be hot and sunny, so we decided we'd get an early train down to the Gold Coast and spend Saturday at the beach. It was beautiful and warm when we left at 8:30am, but by the time we parked our behinds on the sand at Surfer's Paradise 2 hours later, it was windy, cloudy, and threatening to rain. Boo!!! So, we toughed it out for a couple of hours and then decided to catch the train back. We would have been more upset, but considering it's only getting warmer from this point on, we know there are many more beach days ahead of us. Luckily, it was nothing but sunshine and blue sky on Sunday, so we headed to Southbank (a parkland area in Brisbane, located on the river) to enjoy some sun, reading, and people watching. It was such a lovely way to spend a Sunday.

Last week it was Uncle Errik's birthday, so we had him and Larissa over for a birthday dinner. I got three really wonderful Australian Women's Weekly cookbooks a few weeks ago and I found this recipe for goat cheese and smoked salmon stuffed chicken breasts. YUMMY! I gave them a trial run for Chris and I about a week before the birthday dinner and they turned out great. Easy to make and so delicious. So, for Errik's birthday we made those, scalloped potatoes, and a spinach and rocket salad with caper dressing. Larissa brought these absolutely decadent chocolate and hazelnut cakes for dessert. It was a really fun night! I even decorated our apartment with balloons, and birthday banners...I love a good party!

Starting this week, it's the Ekka, Queensland's annual exhibition put on by the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland. It's actually a state holiday on August 11th to kick off the event. And, it's the last public holiday before Christmas, so the Ekka is considered the "unofficial end to winter". The exhibition runs from Aug 5-14. I guess you could compare it to Klondike Days/Capital-Ex. There are free concerts, fireworks, and of course rides and plenty of unhealthy food.

At the beginning of September comes the Brisbane Festival which Chris and I are super excited for because of Riverfire. It's a huge pyrotechnics, fireworks extravaganza that is held along the river. The most exciting part...a dump and burn by a F-11 fighter jet!!! Last year was supposed to be the last year for Riverfire, but they must have heard Chris and I were coming to town because they brought it back for one last time!! Here is a Youtube video of Riverfire. Please note that this is only part one of three videos if you are interested in watching the whole thing. This is a video of the dump and burn. Needless to say, we are super excited for fireworks and potentially dangerous fighter jets with fire shooting out of them.

Anyway, time for me to go help Chris with dinner. BBQ salmon tonight!

P.S. This picture isn't recent. It's from our first days in Australia, but I had a complaint there weren't enough pictures of Chris and I together, so I hope this works :)

Aphids

I am sad to say that Benny the basil plant has aphids.

We weren't quite sure what was wrong with him, but he started to just sort of wilt and wasn't looking as sprite as usual. I thought it was because I was over watering our herbs...and thus now have an infestation of tiny black flies that sort of crawl around in the soil. Google's solution to the little black fly problem was to basically stop watering your plants until the soil really dries out. If you have really dry soil, the black flies won't lay their eggs (so gross, I know) and will therefore hopefully end the cycle of little black flies. Well, I have been depriving our entire herb garden, all 8 pots, of water for over two weeks but those pesky black flies are still around, and they seem to be multiplying. Fortunately the rest of the herb garden seems to be surviving both the lack of water and the black flies. I'm not sure how long this will last. Though, I am convinced the mint could survive a year long drought and come out of it with more shoots. It's getting out of control and I need to somehow contain it to it's pot...but that's another story.

Anyway, the rest of the plants are surviving my lack of watering and they seem to be doing ok (besides the annoying black flies). But Benny? He was getting worse. So today I went on Google and did some intense research. After many Youtube videos, I decided that I would cut Benny back until he was basically a shell of his former self. Just a few shoots here and there. I thought this would give him the chance to put his remaining energy into growing new shoots. Well, in the process of cutting him back, I discovered these tiny white, ugly, creepy crawly, give me shivers down my back insects stuck to the underside of his leaves. Google to the rescue again. So, after a few minutes of internet searching, I have come to the conclusion that Benny has aphids (aka: plant lice). Eww. Eww. Eww. So, I cut most of his branches off and checked the ones that I had left to make sure there weren't any of those white little monsters on the remaining leaves. Even now as I write this I feel like I have bugs crawling all over my head. Ugh.

Anyway, Benny is now in isolation (on the other side of the balcony from the rest of the herbs). I also cut down Boris (the other Basil plant) just in case he was infected too, but his leaves looked fine. Either way, I hope Benny survives. If not, we'll just have to fork over $3.00 for Benny II.

As for the little black flies...any suggestions from fellow gardeners would be appreciated. As long as they don't start killing the rest of our herbs, I can live with them. Though they also give me the creepy crawlies.

Hopefully I can post a new picture in a few weeks that will show Benny alive and well once again. Keep your fingers crossed!

Andrea