We've been regulars every Tuesday at the Fringe Bar for about a year now. Tuesday evening is when the pub holds trivia hosted by Mike Blades (who moonlights as an 80s DJ on the weekends). We always meet the same crew of friends there, order something from the bar menu (recommend the chicken parm) and have a glass or two of wine. I usually get a select few answers right..normally the pop culture ones like, "what was this name of this Jennifer Lopez song from 2002?" Luckily we have lots of trivia wizzes on the team to take care of the tough/random Qs. I enjoy doing trivia, but more so I enjoy this evening as a constant in my week. It's never a question whether people are going -- we always have a team there and I love that.
There's lots of pubs that hold trivia nights in Sydney. I know that the Light Brigade, London Hotel, The Royal Hotel and North Bondi RSL have trivia nights. I haven't been though..I'd say we're fiercely loyal The Fringe!
In other news, we went ice skating last weekend..at Bondi Beach! They Sydney Winter Festival has expanded to more locales through out the city this year. After skating while looking down at the beach and ocean, we headed to the 'ski chalet' which served mulled wine, german beer, bratwursts and dutch pancakes. It was some good, Southern Hemisphere winter fun.
I thought I'd dedicate a blog post to something that we've been spending a lot of time on....watching Masterchef! The show is somewhat of a phenomenon in Australia. The first season last winter was wildly popular. So popular that this season the show airs every night. EVERY night - like the news! The premise is that there's 25 amateur cooks, chosen from thousands no doubt, who go through tons of cooking challenges as teams and individuals. And the expectation for the final product is a restaurant quality dish. It's pretty amazing what some of these amateurs can do.
Australians are obessesed with the show and Mike and I are no different. I've never really watched food shows before, but there's something so likable about the judges and the way it's produced.. Two of the judges are famous chefs - Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris - and the third is Matt Preston, a food critic who is famous for wearing cravats. He even came out with a cookbook called "Cravatalicious." Wow.
Well, it's almost 7:30 so I better wrap this up. Tonight is a masterclass where the chefs will teach the contestants to make the perfect risotto (I know this because of the teaser on Facebook). Haha, I'm obsessed.
We're feeling a bit soggy as it's been raining for at least three weeks straight. Apparently the month of May was the wettest in seven years. And the rain here isn't the drizzly kind..it's big fat drops of rain (i.e. don't get caught without an umbrella). As a result, the past few weekends have been pretty lazy for us..watching movies, cooking, drinking red wine etc. We have a few space heaters going as well, which helps given there's so much glass and tile in our apartment.
The ocean's personality has definitely changed since Summer and Spring..check out these pictures. Angry sea..argh!
Today we celebrated ANZAC day, which is a national day of remembrance (always April 25) in Australia and New Zealand commemorating all those who died and served in military operations for their countries. It's the Aussie and Kiwi version of Veteran's Day, if you will. There's a few traditions for ANZAC day that we fully embraced - ANZAC biscuits and Two-up.
The biscuits (aka cookies), which I made yesterday, are supposed to resemble the biscuits that women on the home front made and sent overseas to soliders. There are no eggs used in ANZAC biscuits as eggs were scarce in war time. Instead the binding agent used is a golden or treacle syrup. Here's the recipe I used that Arley sent me after making these for a friend of hers. They are quite buttery and sweet!
Two-up is a gambling game that is *only legal* in public on ANZAC day as a way to remember the soldiers who played it extensively during WWI. How great is that? Consequently, most every pub in Australia is packed with people drinking beer and playing Two-up on ANZAC day. Mike and I followed suit of course.
We met up with one of our Aussie friends, Tim, and his mates at a pub in Balmain called The Dry Dock Hotel. We played Two-up for nearly five hours - it was so much fun and of course addictive! The game is basically a heads or tails coin toss (game of chance) so anyone can take part in the action. The bets hover around $5 to $20 so no one is losing big money. I tripled my money and Mike had a few highs and lows and unfortunately ended on a low. So, I bought dinner :)
After a blustery fall day, last night we had a "cracker" sunset (really good). I ended up breaking part of my cheapo tripod, and was soaked by a few big waves, but it was definitely worth it. I've caught a few sunrises as well, but this was the best so far. Living at the beach has its advantages and hopefully we have many more of these to come.
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