Many mushies pasta

For my birthday, Tim bought me a pasta maker. It is heavenly. It's stainless steel, shiny, solid and a beautiful piece of machinery. It also requires levels of patience that I do not have and sadly were not included in the box. I can stand and stare at it for ages, but when it comes to neatly rolling pasta...aaarrrgggggh!!!! So my job has become to make the dough and patient, calm Tim is the roller of pasta. I have managed lasagne sheets (not without cussing) but to be honest anything more is probably not feasible if a) we want home made nice looking pasta and b) we want to keep the machine in one piece.

So. Following a trip to my new best markets, we had a mountain of mushies (wild pine, those long little ones, swiss brown, those weird white ones, oysters and a few others) with which to make a delicious feast. These little guys are my fave. I reckon you could live under these. But only if they were pink and spotted.



The mushies we cooked really simply, with butter, garlic and thyme from the herb garden, and some stock right at the end. The pasta making happened thanks to Tim:







Isn't it dreamy? There was actually enough pasta for 18 people (I love carbs, but even I have my limits) so the mushies were slightly lost, but the ample wine consumed during the evening of preparation made me completely unconcerned.

Nesting

Recently, I went on a weekend jaunt to Our Nation's Capital with Tim and his folks to see the Degas exhibition at the National Gallery. It was a great weekend - I really enjoyed the exhibition (once Degas got over the awkward portraiture phase!) and also got a chance to catch up with both my brothers as well as J and GSquared (who lives in Canberra).

On our second day there, trapped in a suburb that we seemed to keep winding up in, Tim and I walked into a Chinese antique shop and found some coolie old Mao propaganda posters. As not-very-wealthy decorators, the 25 clams a pop was the right price and the crazy old propaganda cartoons tickled our fancy (particularly the one about the Korean war, with China supporting Korea with money and food, and American planes being shot down in the background). Just before going to Wagga we had them framed, thus ruining the cheap as chips appeal:



Crap photo. I took it.

They are going to be living in the study (which is currently a dumping ground as we're in the middle of merging possessions and finding places for things in the tiny apartment). I had a horrible (but environmentally friendly) light in the study (a 'daylight' energy saver. Do not buy. Go for any other colour), which we have since covered with a Chinese patterned lantern. Go Maz shopping!



Finally here is a picture of some flowers (a better photo, I'm learning!) that we bought at my new number one markets, the Everleigh Markets at The Carriage Works in Redfern. Farmer's markets a few suburbs away with amazing flowers, produce and, well, everything! Hurrah! If I actually ever ride my pushbike there I will be living the dream!

Two weddings and a grad!

The Congraduations went well, as far as these things do. The ceremony could not have been more dull, especially as I was quite early on. If I wasn't sitting right at the front next to the security guards I would have legged it after walking across the stage. As it was I stuck it out to the bitter end, to find afterwards that the refreshments I was dreaming of were sadly of the non alcoholic variety.

To remedy this, we (Tim, J and her squeeze GSquared) went for a boozy lunch at the Three Chefs (maybe it was called that? Some number of chefs, anyway), one of Wagga's better restaurants. I can't remember what I ate but I did drink adequately. We then followed a boozy lunch with a boozy dinner at the Magpie's Nest - another lovely Wagga restaurant set a wee bit out of town. It overlooks the city and we were there at sunset to watch the sun go down and the lights come up.



I remember what I ate here cos we'd joked about ordering the most elaborately named dish on the menu (while the food is great the descriptions are rather preposterous). I had the duck, and while I can't remember exactly how it was written about I seem to recall it taking four lines. It was heavenly though. I also remember some rather lovely flavoured bread.

Next stop was Bowral, for a wedding of a friend from school. Tim took some rather lovely snaps on his camera - this is just one of the night before the wedding in the misty highlands. The venue was phenomenal - gorgeous old estate with manicured gardens, lots of which would surprise you as you turned a corner. Just breathtaking.



The other wedding was a beach number at Balmoral and was just as lovely but completely different. I actually have no snaps of that one at all - once again Tim was mega photographer and I held the job of Chief Wine Drinker (actually that's not true; Tim took that one too!).

After Easter I've just been taking it easy and trying to catch up on work, sleep and play. We went for an autumn walk around The Bay last week - although it resulted in blisters for both of us (stupid old converse trainers) it was lovely.





Naturally Tim took these. Punk.