no subject
Mon, May. 23rd, 2011 07:18 pm
So Mother's Day was last weekend :D Yeah I'm going to put more effort into updating in a timely manner one of these days, I swear >>
But yes. We took Mum and Gran (Dad's mum, who is 92 going on about 70) to Monarto Zoo, huge open-plains zoo out in the middle of nowhere. It ws SO much better than when I last went, which was admittedly a good 15 years ago. There's about a dozen giraffes now, one of which came RIGHT up to the bus with her big beautiful eyes, then gallopped off when the bus made noises she didn't like. Heaps of gazelley antelopey type things, pride of lions (six lionesses and a pimp. I mean lion), and omg the baby rhino was adorable~ <3 He kept making all this effort to stand up, stood there proudly for about two seconds, then plonked back down on his bum next to mummy. SOCUTE. Chimps were fun, too. And~ stuff.
BUT THEN. The main event, so far as Colin and I were concerned, was our dinner :D Sent Gran off to do dinner with one of her other sons, then we put on a mini-dégustation for Mum <3 The idea came from Colin when we were looking through the recipe books for ideas and couldn't decide between the mussels or the scallops for entrée, so why not do BOTH? :D AND WE DID. And it was awesome.
Started with paté and crusty bread, the only point where we cheated and bought Maggie Beer's Pheasant Farm paté, because it's awesome, we couldn't do better, and paté is complicated.
Then~ next one was me, with the mussels done in an awesome creamy bacon, garlic, leek and cider sauce and omg it was good. Next was the scallops, me with a bit of Colin, in that he barbecued them (PERFECTLY I might add) and I did the rest (sauce and potato/garlic/cauliflower purée. For those keeping track, we're up to 10 cloves of garlic for the meal now). Then Colin's turn came up with~ a lemon and passionfruit sorbet doused in Omni (cheap bubbly) to clense the palatte. Next was Colin's mini filet mignons, also barbecued PERFECTLY and omg so smokey and yum, with a salad by me~ that Mum said could count as a course in its own right, so count it we did! :D And finally, dessert by Colin, sticky mocha and date pudding.
Including the paté, seven courses all up. Yeah~ we're never going to top that XD Mum was just grinning the whole time, so we felt good :D And it was much fun! I like cooking fancy stuff =3
In other, completely unrelated news, I'm going to Sydney~ in September~ for the annual CFUD meetup that I missed last year :D Looking at fares right now and~ yeah. I don't care about the bad press Tiger gets, it's bloody hard to look past them.
Qantas: $304
Virgin: $253
Jetstar: $238
Tiger: $99.90
SEE? Less than a hundred dollars return to Sydney, people. You can't beat that. You couldn't DRIVE there for less than a hundred dollars. I'll hold off and see if any intriguing specials come up from Qantas or Virgin but~ not expecting anything. $99.90!
But yes. We took Mum and Gran (Dad's mum, who is 92 going on about 70) to Monarto Zoo, huge open-plains zoo out in the middle of nowhere. It ws SO much better than when I last went, which was admittedly a good 15 years ago. There's about a dozen giraffes now, one of which came RIGHT up to the bus with her big beautiful eyes, then gallopped off when the bus made noises she didn't like. Heaps of gazelley antelopey type things, pride of lions (six lionesses and a pimp. I mean lion), and omg the baby rhino was adorable~ <3 He kept making all this effort to stand up, stood there proudly for about two seconds, then plonked back down on his bum next to mummy. SOCUTE. Chimps were fun, too. And~ stuff.
BUT THEN. The main event, so far as Colin and I were concerned, was our dinner :D Sent Gran off to do dinner with one of her other sons, then we put on a mini-dégustation for Mum <3 The idea came from Colin when we were looking through the recipe books for ideas and couldn't decide between the mussels or the scallops for entrée, so why not do BOTH? :D AND WE DID. And it was awesome.
Started with paté and crusty bread, the only point where we cheated and bought Maggie Beer's Pheasant Farm paté, because it's awesome, we couldn't do better, and paté is complicated.
Then~ next one was me, with the mussels done in an awesome creamy bacon, garlic, leek and cider sauce and omg it was good. Next was the scallops, me with a bit of Colin, in that he barbecued them (PERFECTLY I might add) and I did the rest (sauce and potato/garlic/cauliflower purée. For those keeping track, we're up to 10 cloves of garlic for the meal now). Then Colin's turn came up with~ a lemon and passionfruit sorbet doused in Omni (cheap bubbly) to clense the palatte. Next was Colin's mini filet mignons, also barbecued PERFECTLY and omg so smokey and yum, with a salad by me~ that Mum said could count as a course in its own right, so count it we did! :D And finally, dessert by Colin, sticky mocha and date pudding.
Including the paté, seven courses all up. Yeah~ we're never going to top that XD Mum was just grinning the whole time, so we felt good :D And it was much fun! I like cooking fancy stuff =3
In other, completely unrelated news, I'm going to Sydney~ in September~ for the annual CFUD meetup that I missed last year :D Looking at fares right now and~ yeah. I don't care about the bad press Tiger gets, it's bloody hard to look past them.
Qantas: $304
Virgin: $253
Jetstar: $238
Tiger: $99.90
SEE? Less than a hundred dollars return to Sydney, people. You can't beat that. You couldn't DRIVE there for less than a hundred dollars. I'll hold off and see if any intriguing specials come up from Qantas or Virgin but~ not expecting anything. $99.90!
