Chopper Show @ Enmore

Today is an Australian Public Holiday for Anzac Day. The last few years, there has been a Chopper comedy show at the Enmore theatre, I have wanted to see the chopper show, mainly because I like chopper but have often struggled to find good company to attend with.

This year I found a willing participant. She is someone I once worked with.She has a similar appreciation of comedy and we were overdue for a catchup, so everything just fell into place. My friend had never been to the Enmore before and was happy to check out the venue.

The Chopper show is a sampler of the Sydney comedy festival. There were about 8 acts separated by chopper comedy. Some acts were certainly better than others, but it was a nice mix that blended Australia and New Zealand together.

We also had dinner at a Spanish tapas restaurant across the road and I did something I rarely do - Drink alcohol. I was a little embarrassed to be a bit tipsy, particularly in the company of my relatively small and light friend.

All in all, I had a fantastic night. Good food, good comedy and good company. I had high expectations for today and all were met. Days like these are few and far between, and something to remember on the bad days.

Stuffed Capsicums

I'm not huge fan of capsicum, however, love it when they are stuffed and fried. This dish is rarely cooked by my parents. I have been told many times that they are too fiddly and not worth the effort.

I had a couple at my nans about a month ago, and my uncle offered to teach me. That day was today. The dish is very simple but also very time consuming - you need to:

- Empty a few capsicums (the longer, thinner capsicums are better)
- Get hard bread and cut it into very tiny pieces.
- Dice a few tomatoes and add it to the bread.
- Chop up some anchovies and garlic, add it to the stuffing.
- Add salt, basil and oil. mix thoroughly.
- Fill capsicums with as much stiffing as possible
- Fry them, end first.

The capsicums were fantastic. I have a few left over for dinner tomorrow. What was even better though is that I had productive time with my nan and uncle - they enjoyed teaching me as much as I enjoyed learning. I can not wait to give it a go on my own.

A coworker that I have high respect for surprised me last week and showed up at the office unannounced. The surprise was amplified as he is now based out of San Jose and was formerly from Melbourne. The Sydney office is the last place I expected to see him but he had the opportunity of a Sydney junket to help out a local customer and grabbed it with both hands.

As i was on call last week, we agreed to meet up for dinner one day this week and that was tonight. We spoke for hours on work issues and my future career progression plans along with personal chit chat. His insight was impressive, for someone in his mid-20s he has slot of.maturity and knowledge.

He told me what I needed to hear - I am cruising in my current role and either need to become an expert or learn another product. We ended with an extended walk around the harbour foreshore before I ended up catching the long train home.

I had a really good time tonight, although I am definitely getting too old for these late ones on a school night. I will definitely pay the slumber price tomorrow.

Gnocci

My favourite food growing up was homemade gnocci. My nonna used to make this in kilos and my nonno was quite big on it as well. When my nonno passed away, my nonna stopped making it and the recipe. She would make them from scratch and mostly by hand - I'm told it was simple but fery laborious and time consuming.

My nonna's aunt has a machine to automate most of the process. She has been making her own batches and giving a bag to nonna whenever she does. Nonna isn't a fan of machine made gnocci, so she has been passing it on to me who is only too happy to accept.

We cooked a batch on the weekend and it was great. One of my new years resolutions was to learn how to make it myself and give nonna a person to pass on the recipe to. I'm a horrible cook but really want to give this one a go. She says it is better done in winter months as the pasta is less sticky. Maybe it is old age but I think there is a part of her that doesn't want to do this, though I'd really appreciate it if she gives this a go - I really want to eat nonnas gnocci one more time!

Catch-Up with my Sister

My middle sister returned back from a 10-day trip to Thailand on the weekend and her first chance to catch up with me was today. We went for dinner at Toros at Darling Harbour and took advantage of their "Cheap Tuesday Tapas" day.

Tapas Tuesday

The muscles were outstanding. The other dishes were good but I think we went a little heavy on the deep fried dishes. We needed a salad later on but the place was good and I would certainly re-visit.

We caught up with her trip. She rode an elephant, sat on a buffalo, did alot of partying and shopping - it was a very different holiday to what I would normally do. She enjoyed herself but wouldn't do it again and wasn't a fan of Air Asia.

It was nice catching up with middle sister today. Its something I should do more often.

Knowing ones strenghts and weaknesses

I have a confession to make -  am a horrible cook. It may be a symptom of living at home too long, but I know how to make 3 or 4 dishes and that't about it.

Being on-call, I'm trying to cook for myself this week. I fried up a vege patty with some broccolini, snow peas and sliced mushrooms in soy sauce. I am trying to diet and eat healthy, but that is easier said than done.

Here was my latest effort:

Dinner

It was certainly not my worst attempt - but I wish I was a better cook!

Making use of a free day.

The best Christmas present my work gave its employees this year was a bonus day off on Christmas eve, and thus a 5 day weekend. I do not normally take leave on Christmas, I don't see the point as I have no young family also on holidays. That being said, I really appreciated it this year, particularly since I was coming off a week on call and was eager to break my house arrest.

I did some shopping with my dad this morning and had a siesta at lunch. I was keen to get out and do something but it was a scorcher outside. I finally trekked out to the air conditioned casino. Whilst I have visited many casinos this year when on holidays, this was my first visit to my home casino all year and the first since they finished renovations. Being Christmas eve, the place was a little quieter than usual and it didn't take too long to get a seat at.the poker tables.

The buy-in at my table was $200. I had my limits - 5 hours max or I would leave if I managed to get my stack over $500. I was off to a good start. first hand had pocket 5's. Flop was A52 and managed to win $50. Had AA 3 times, won 2 good pots and lost a small one. After 3 hours playing I was sitting on around $450 and looking for a hand to put me over the line.

I chanced 69 in a blind and after a lucky chase, made a straight on the turn. Pot had well over $100 in it so I tried to secure it with an overbet and went all in. I was called by someone relatively new to the table who was chasing a flush. It was a terrible call as he had little value, nonetheless, as is so often the case in poker, you can get lucky with any hand and the river gave my opponent his flush.
This was the turning point for me. I had a few other little victories and losses, but for the most part, spent the evening talking to others at the table. I ended my 5 hours $65 behind but had fun regardless and felt I received value for money.

I walked to central via chinatown and stopped by a food hall I enjoyed in my uni days. I would always get a Laksa and dessert at this particular food court, but the places I used to go to had both closed down. I bought a laksa from another place and it was good without being outstanding. I chose seafood, and it had real seafood in it (lots of fish, some Octopus and prawns). The best way to murder a Laksa is by putting crab sticks and extender in it. It was however, very oily and it was hard to take the liquid.

My Laksa from Eating House, Chinatown

Laneway at chinatown

I managed to squeeze in a small froyo on the way home and walked home in the rain. All in all, I'm satisfied that I didn't waste a day off!

Happy Birthday, Middle Sis!

Yes, you read right, Middle Sis is 33 today.

We have a tradition that we eat out on each others birthday, and today was no exception (thanks to my boss covering my on call for a few hours). We went to a Japanese Ramen place that has recently opened up in our area. I had eaten the Veg Miso Ramen there afew weeks ago and was quite impressed by it. Today, I chose a Salmon Ramen and whilst it was still good, I was far more impressed with the Veg Miso.

Vegetable Miso Ramen from a couple of weeks ago.

We topped it off with another FroYo. It was my sisters first (though I have managed a few now) and she was less impressed than I am. The best thing about the evening was that I was able to have a good talk with Middle sister. She seems in a pretty happy state with life right now. she is coasting through life. Its amazing how infrequently we talk these days.

Shopping for presents is becoming difficult as we grow apart, but I had scraped the depths of my knowledge of her to find the perfect present. 10 years ago, there was a particular Tarot card reader she was very fond of. i visited once, but it did very little for me. She changed locations 3 or 4 times and finally we lost track of her. Well, I managed to find her and bought her a voucher for a reading. Her reaction when I gave it to her was not what I expected - she had heard news of another Tarot card reader that was cheaper and local who was highly recommended by a friend that she was anxious to try. I think she will still make use of the gift, however, it was not the silver bullet I was expecting it to be.

Despite the nights shortcomings, I enjoyed myself. I think she enjoyed herself too. Happy Birthday Middle Sister, all the threes...