No one was more excited when we got a shiny red Kitchenaid than my shiny new husband. Even more so when he discoved it came with the extra mincer attachment.
His dreams of making his own special meaty blends could come true.
And with the sausage stuffing attachment the snags have come forth. Casings from Broadway Fresh were procured, natural of course. When loading the skins onto the stuffer and filling occurs I must confess it I'd a very phallic operation.
Trial and error had proved that cooked cous cous is a better filler than rice. And if using chicken then darker meat is best.
Our favourites so far have been the lamb with mint and fetta (as pictured here).
Chorizo is definitely on the cards as is salami, a Christmas present for mr blue-eyes of Preserving The Italian Way has very detailed descriptions of all the best salamis.
We're also going to look into using pork from Pasture Perfect Pork which produce happy pigs and beautiful meat.
Stay tuned for more meaty adventures.

Christmas tends to fill me with a degree of dread, finding presents for people who don't need anything or for people who need everything. Trying to avoid buying into the consumer horror that the shops become this time of year.
After a couple of tight years i've started to get on the home-made bandwagon.
My earlier attempts weren't so successful - over baked ginger biscuits, leaking jars of preserved lemons...
Having Mr Blue-eyes on board does help as he is a real doer and very handy in the kitchen (his snags to come) and with a sewing machine.

So inspired by our time in Tuscany where we sampled many varieties of Siennese panforte we've been baking slabs of Panforte this week. Of course there are as many different recipes as there are churches in Italy but in the end i went with the ever reliable AWW
It has been a good recipe that allows for variation in the fruits and nuts and our 3 batches and included moist figs, glace ginger and craisins. A trip to The Essential Ingredient was a must for rice paper and a digital sugar thermometre as i was not heating sugar without one.
So we baked them low and slow, chilled them in the fridge and now they're ready for carving up and wrapping in recycled scrap booking paper.

Our last days were spent in Rome. We were a little fatigued by the shuffling tourists by that point. To avoid said groups we even spent a day shopping away from any churches or ruins.

This picture was taken near the coliseum and tested my patience.

After much pallaver with ferries, trains, buses and cars we skipped Sardinia and hired a car from Bastia in northern Corsica.
Unlike the fiat panda we got for Tuscany the vw polo actually had balls and a gearbox.
We made short work getting out of town and up the windy coast road. We stopped at a tiny harbour to stretch our legs.

It takes a special tool to try and pick one of these, that tool was called Marion.
I'd seen these in the fruit shops around the island so knew them to be edible. My lgic was that I'd be ok to pick one and have a go.
The small black dots onthe fruit are actually clusters of tiny prickle. when you grasp one your hand is infested with tiny painful prickles.
It then takes your husband and his trusty Swiss army knife tweezers 20 min on the side of a remote road to remove all prickles.

Sure if we wanted to spend nearly $150 for 50min ride we could have taken a gondala ride. We spent that and then some on a fine dinner of octopus carpaccio and scampi pasta instead.

Our first afternoon in Venice just around the corner from our hotel near the Rialto on the nth side. Very glad we didn't come here in summer and also glad that the island wasn't flooded as it can in autumn/winter.

Ok so maybe we did get into the spirit of things and maybe a moose head like that one on is in a box on it's way back to Australia.

After a week of hard graft at the financial conference mr blue-eyes was allowed out to let his hair down.
6000 bankers cut loose at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. Taking over 3 ballrooms with free booze, karaoke, bands and games. Be very afraid...
This was one of the state rooms decorated with gilt bird cages. I thought should be spared the sight of bankers getting rowdy.

The weather for the last few days has been as the English would say pants. Would have stayed in watching CNN and blog feeding but hunger drove me out of the hotel. As my eating times are still off I was
After something that served food at all hours. Cafe drechsler is the answer. Near the nacht market (which iwill visit again when it isn't pissing down) cafe drechsler is full of marble, dark wood chairs and cream banquettes. The menu is Viennese but lighter and more modern than the schnitzel fare of more touristy places.
The above dish was guess to a point but I was able to figure out that it had pork and saurkraut which is alles klass by me. It also had some fine bits of some kind of fried bread, oh yes indeed. This and a fine Pinot have helped block out the weather.

In the museum quarter this isthe ceiling of the cafe ive spent the last hour and a half mooching free wifi and eating a rare light lunch.

I like to order without using a phrasebook from menus with no English. The offered me schnitzel but I said nein I want something I mispronounced. I think it was pan fried chicken with field mushrooms and some kind of Viennese gnocchi. Not bad.

In an attempt to stave off jetlag I hired a bike from a bike station near the hotel and rode off into the brisk morning. I spent nearly an hour dodging chestnuts on the paths through the park.

Checked into lounge at 6am local time hit the bar not longafter that. Free bloody marys and asahii beer for dave. 8hrs later weeeee

Missing him already. Hope he still loves us in 4wks.

So after Mr Blue-eyes popped the question last September a thousand questions were generated.
We've knocked over most of the big ones like date, style, venue, bridal party (or lack thereof).

After seeing so many possible combinations of things to have at our wedding I knew I needed some help.
I just has sooo many ideas and knew that all of them together would just to be too much, let alone me trying to manage it all now my new job has be working 10hr+ days.
And because I feel rather strongly about everything matching and fitting together I was running in circles trying to make it work.

I've been fortunate to find some sweet suppliers that are helping reign my florid ideas in and keep me to the original plan. So I thought I'd give some shout outs to the people who have the goods...(forgive me if I come over all bridal, normal programming will return after August 30)

• One of the first things I found was my dress and it was one of the first I tried on (isn't it always the way). I knew I was never a poofy dress kind of girl so it was refreshing to find minimal yet decorative styles with nod to years gone past. The lovely Shangying from Halcyon Collections is taking care of the frock for me from her St Tropez collection.
• I also knew a long veil wasn't going to do the trick and that I wanted something cute/retro, big love to Sandie at Sandie Bizy's Hats & Vintage Apart from being a cracking milliner Sandie has the most fabulous eye for vintage frocks and fashion. My aunt, cousin and I have all played dress-ups there and been seduced by her treasures.
  
• I dithered long and hard on colour and motif and reading too many bridal style blogs doesn't help either. This is where Alicia from Form Over Function has started to help. She found this endpaper from a book binders, it ties in nicely with the style of my dress, the venue and our 40's theming.

So a couple of weeks ago one of my favourite blogs www.jezebel.com put the call out for fashion crimes against bridesmaids and well as I've been 3 times lucky I knew I had some gold to share.
Jezebel is a great 'chicks' blog that covers fashion, politics, sexuality, gossip amongst other things with wit and intelligence and feeds my shallow and intellectual sides equally.

See if you can work out which one is me... Jezebel's Bridesmaid fashion crimes

After this wedding in particular I swore that if I ever got married that I would have no bridesmaids, I like my friends too much to put them through that sort of experience.

Naval tug in foreground, Port tug in middle ground.
All vessels manned by burly men of the sea

Naval tug alongside HMAS Success with Botanical Gardens and Opera House in background

Taken from the breezeway on HMAS Success whilst they were turning the ship. During the later stage of the refit they needed bring the starboard side of the ship along the dock. Tugs are needed when in dock to do this, apart from the fact that the engines hadn't been run at this point.
Both Naval and Port tugs were called in to turn the 18,000t of ship. The 2 powering towards us at the Port tugs that have come from the western harbour near Walsh Bay.

Something rather joyful about seeing sails filled with wind across the harbour.

Eating greasy food from the canteen on the Naval base was made easier when you get this view with it

Location: deep in the bowels of the Dept Education shuffling paper, stamping, filing
Time: a little after lunchtime, with 2 days left here
Mood: excited! after about 3mths of temping and debating with myself about having a career
or a job I have managed to find myself about to start work as a campaign coordinator for
a digital marketing/media agency.

When last I posted I was bashing my head against the wall doing powerpoint at a unfriendly research company. After 3mths of that I realised life was too short to be that miserable. One of the many good things that happened after I left was being taken to dinner at The Palisade Hotel on the stormy night i finished by Mr. Blue-eyes. It was the perfect antidote to unemployment.

So I soon landed here, well the red peg anyway.

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For about a month I cycled down at 7am (I haven't seen so many sunrises in a long time) and worked with boiler makers and welders processing paperwork for the refit of the HMAS Success. This was surprisingly enjoyable and a refreshing change from female dominated workplaces. These chaps even apologised for swearing in front of me, how quaint...
The canteen was everything a canteen shouldn't be and was quite a culture shock from my time working at the food magazine.
The views however never let me down, as you can see in the posts to come...

I had this song on high rotation a year or so ago but haven't played it since my PC of tunes was superceded by an iBook. Through the magic of Last.Fm i was reminded of what i have listened too in the past and even better i finally saw the clip for Beth Orton's song Conceived.
With bunnies, moles, squirrels and badgers amongst other furry muppets it is a winner in my books. Plus i got to sing along in my husky-flu voice, Mr Blue-eyes is at work so no one suffered (except Bruno)

Discovered whilst at work, via www.gettyimages.com
Not sure why they're in some wine but Mr Blue-eyes longs for a pet hedgehog. Very unlikely that they'll ever be allowed in Aus due very strict quarantine laws and a paranoia that they could get wild and take over the country. Which is an image that always makes me chuckle, hoards of wild rabid hedgehogs roaming the country.....

Born Jan 12, 6.15 am 3.27kg. Mary and bub home that afternoon and everyone is thrilled and delighted. Pete is just gushing.

Since i've been riding to work i haven't been walking Bruno in the evenings as much as he really needs. This article from the SMH lists all sorts of doggie friendly places in Sydney.
He does like a swim but isn't so good at not swallowing sea water when retrieving sticks & balls.
Must talk to Mr blue-eyes about getting him and us out and about.