If you like it...

It is that time of year again chickies, that time when one must get pen and paper or laptop and keyboard and declare their favourite things of the year. I love and hate this time of year. I LOVE finding out other peoples favourites, then judging them. But I HATE writing my own lists as I fear being judged. Luckily, this year I do not need to do any lists as there is only one song, one video, nay one person whom I love above all others - Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé's fierce alter-ego.


The music video for Single Ladies (as well as the song) has made my year, I love it. And there is a lot to love. The repetition of the line, 'Single ladies, Single ladies' over and over. 'If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it' - classic lyrics. Then there is the video, my god. From the leotards to the rad dance moves to the ass slapping and the bionic hand, there is not one element I dislike - it is all genius.

As a belated Christmas present here is the mp3 and if you have not seen the video yet, I beg you, implore you to follow this link to YouTube and watch it (due to evil record companies I can't put the video on the blog, sorry guys), it will make your 2008.

Beyoncé - Single Ladies

Merry Christmas

I know we're a few days late, but better late then never i say. Look forward to some good old fashioned end of year posts over the next few days. 

Hope you've all gained at least 5kgs and that Santa spoilt you as much as he did me.

xoxo

Your Personal Moon

Your Personal Moon is a collaborative art project between two Russian artists, Leonid Tishkov and Boris Bendikov. From what I can gather from various websites and bad Google translations, is that the project is an ongoing series of photographs and installations based on a concept by Tishkov, with photographs taken by Boris Bendikov. Some websites seem to think that the light boxes are made for production, which would be awesome and I would love one for my backyard, but as far as I can tell it is solely an art project.
Tishkov says the idea for this project came when he wanted to recreate this work by the Belgium Surrealist artist, Rene Margritte.

Rene Margritte, Le Seize Septembre, date unknown

From that first photograph the idea seemed to take off and the artists have created many photographs of the moon lightbox in various locations. These are some of my favourites from the collection, but you can also find more images here and if you are brave enough to take on Google translations you can read an interview with the artists here.

Summery Seduction

ll


Is anyone else having trouble believing that we're currently residing in the season of Summer? I don't know about you, but I feel like I've only bared my legs to an unsuspecting world a handful of times since Autumn and ordinarily, well....it would have been more like four or five handfuls (poor world). Not that I'm complaining. I hate summer. I always find miserable weather inspiring, and heat and sunshine just...laze inducing. So really, this is a fitting farewell before I brave the oppressing burn of Southern India.

Anyway, I'm sure that at least once in the next month or so while I'm away a moment will arise in each of your lives when the thought of cooking or eating anything involving heat will induce nausea. What follows will be just the thing for that day. This recipe is also for my friend Tim who has recently acquired a vegan housemate and asked for advice on what to feed her. Tim: this. Or, if we're to dip into my small archive, you could also go with this or this, or even this, sans egg and butter.

This recipe really is gorgeously cooling, and almost unsettlingly attractive for a food-stuff. It's all coy in pink and green; I half expected it to jump of the plate, give me a flower and do a little curtsey. It would be just the thing for a post-gluttonous boxing day lunch, and would also make a very classy entree at a summer dinner party. The boy and I enjoyed it all the same as a light main course with some rice and steamed boc choy to the side, on an almost warm night earlier this week.


Silken Tofu with Pickled Ginger, Cucumber and Mint

Adapted from the Longrain Cookbook: Modern Thai Food

Ingredients

1 400g packet silken tofu, carefully sliced (I picked up a locally made one from Choku Bai Jo in North Lyneham shops - delicious!)
1/2 Cup Coriander leaves
1/2 cup mint leaves
1/2 a small red chilli, finely diced
1 lebanese cucumber
2 tablespoons Pickled Ginger (available at Asian Supermarkets)
1 spring onion, finely sliced on a sharp diagonal

Dressing
1 tablespoon Japanese soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon finely sliced (or morta and pestle pounded) ginger

fried shallots, for garnish

Method

Combine all dressing ingredients and set aside.

Cut your cucumber in half, lengthways. Turn each peice on its side and finely shave into thin half-ribbons, using a sturdy vegetable peeler, thusly:

Combine the cucumber with the herbs, ginger, chilli, and spring onion, and pile artfully atop the tofu.

Drizzle with the dressing, and sprinkle over the fried shallots.

Enjoy, preferably with Jasmine tea served in pretty little cups. Pure class.

Of Candy, Empty Promises and Terrariums.

dd
Friends,

I know lately it seems like all I've done is promise recipes, and have yet to deliver, but, cross my heart and hope to die, I have a whole heap lined up to give you in these last two weeks before I depart for my Indian adventure. Seriously, I've taken photos and everything.

Oh, also, you should know that I've solved my Secret Santa dilemma (not that you ever knew about it, or cared - but I'm just so proud of myself that I have to share). I'm going to make mine a terrarium! (a cute little one! in a jar!) Hopefully it will turn out something like this one, from TheOakLeaves's etsy shop:



Then, if it's a success I'm going to make one for each of my bedside tables.

But if you'll excuse me, right now I have to dash to the supermarket, buy ingredients and make these. Pronto. I don't even care if it's 10pm.

Sincerely &c.

Julia.

Old at 22

I never thought I would feel old and decrepit at 22, but I do. And it is all thanks to this girl, who I found on Hel Looks.

Tuulia, 11
"I like lolita style, because it's beautiful. I discovered it at Moon Kana's gig.
Now I'm wearing a shirt and shoes from China, a skirt made by my mother's friend and a headdress that I bought at a rock festival in China.
My mother has found many lolita-inspired clothes for me. I've also customized my clothes. Here at Ofelia I got an idea to make jewellery from old playing cards."

Not only does she have a great name (I imagine it to be pronounced like Julia, but with a T), but she is 11 years old! Her personal style is not my style, but the fact that she has so much style and intelligence about fashion at such a young age blows my mind. I'm fairly sure that when I was 11 I was still wearing my favourite stirrup pants with a turtleneck jumper and some kind of jelly sandal, or my Mum's favourite cat patterned jumpsuit. My sister and I had matching pink, black and green, floral patterned jumpsuits with pictures of cats on them, complete with googly eyes. I wish I was joking.

I also felt a little old and decrepit over the weekend, as the mud and the rain and the cold at Meredith Festival did dampen (haha) my enjoyment a little. Gumboots, however, are my new heroes, I do not know what I would have done without them. So waterproof, so mud resistant, so much fun to stomp around in, so rubbery...officially run out of things to say about the mighty gumboot. I wish mine had been as awesome as these, instead of boring black.

Sorry to have been so neglectful recently readers and thank you for staying with us, I promise lots more posts from now on!

Hello from Meredith!

If it had only been this wet we'd have been happy.

This is a super quick hello from Vanessa and myself as we huddle together trying to dry our selves after the wettest festival of our lives: Meredith Music Festival 2008.

Highlights included Man Man, Holy Fuck, Final Fantasy and the conversation i had with some randoms about how mega shit MGMT are. Low points included being constantly wet, our tent filling with water, sleeping in a wet sleeping bag, bogan mud fights and the mother fucking wind. Though, like most wet things, it was still pretty fun.

Full details when we get back to Canberra tomorrow.

Yours with a future pneumonia,

Jaimie.
x0x0

*heh, i fixed my somewhat hilarious typo.

Pleasant Distractions

kjkj

Oh dear. We've really neglected you of late, haven't we? We are three of the worst kinds of fake millionaires ever. The kind who spend all their money on drugs, plastic surgery and pussy, and none on bunnies, the environment or wasted youth. We're absolutely wretched.

My only excuse is that I am currently working in a job which essentially requires me to perform the following three tasks:

a) change et al (in italics, no full stop) to et al. (no italics, full stop).

b) change words ending in ...ize, ...ization etc. to ...ise, ...isation etc. (it seems many academics still don't get Australian spelling).

c) change " (double quotation marks) into ' (single quotation marks).

ALL EFFING DAY.

Which, as you can imagine, doesn't really leave me feeling all that artsy, crafty or witty.

On the plus side, however, such mundane work allows for tricky simultaneous working and day-dreaming to a degree limited only by my imagination (which is, in reality, quite dull at the moment, dominated largely by thoughts such as "oh gosh, I'm bored...I wonder if I should invent something...oh, I know! Maybe some kind of like, purchasable, synthetic chest-hair for men and women", or "oh gosh, I'm bored...why does hair fall on the body in such a specific pattern?....", or "oh gosh, I'm bored... I wonder where snails go during droughts?", "oh gosh, I'm bored...I really wish I was plaiting chest hair", or "mmm....chest hair"). Seriously though, I really do wonder about those snails. Don't you?

I took this photograph after one of the first rains we'd had here in months. The footpath was crawling with them!

Anyway, when I'm not day-dreaming about chest hair or snails, I do spend a lot of time carefully considering my plans for that glorious thing valued so dearly by those in full time work* (especially that of the editorial variety): The Weekend. Since weekends, like mornings, scarcely existed to me at all in any important way in my life prior to office work, I've only recently come to appreciate the sanctity of those two days beginning with S which fall at the end of the week. I plan to cram as much into this one as possible.

Thusly: A list of that which this weekend's Shortlist currently includes (otherwise entitled: Julzie recommends Pt 2):


1. Eating delicious mulberries straight off this tree.

2. Making these muffins. This is perhaps the greatest recipe for a baked thing I have ever discovered. And I hoard recipes. And I don't even ordinarily love, or even like sweet things. Not even kidding.

3. Taking said muffins, along with a salad (I thoroughly recommend this one, even if it isn't particularly seasonal) and a bottle of Rosé to the top of Mount Ainslie for a picnic with lovely friends and lovely lovers.

4. Thinking about this video, and how I am going to force my life to change because of it. You should watch it. It'll make you feel disgusted, depressed, guilty, inspired and motivated. In that order. Which really is the best kind of order, no?

5. Reading lots and lots of this fantastic book and fantasising about my trip to Southern India. (Oh yeah, I'm going to India. In January. I'm trailing this new thing called impulsiveness. So far I'm not so sure that I enjoy it.).

6. Going to see this at Canberra's very own National Film and Sound Archive

7. Making some kind of DIY craft project for my house. Contenders include this, and this.

8. Completing a very exciting DIY project of my own, soon to be featured on this here blog.

9. Listening, a lot, to this.

10. Contemplating the possibility of applying for a PhD thesis in Anthropology on long-stay caravan park culture in Australia.

And if I'm not thoroughly exhausted by all of the above:

11. Posting a recipe, just for you.

xxx

*I use this phrase lightly, as I am technically only in full time work for this one week, and on average arrive at my place of employment at around 10.30am. Still, I'll thank you not to impose your own values onto the degree to which I suffer.