Love-All

The Virgin Suicides came to mind when I saw the first of these neon green paste-ups around our neighbourhood. This one from yesterday is quite obviously a scene from an old-school porn flick? With a title that's a play on tennis-related words like "Grand Slam" and "balls" maybe? Looking forward to spotting the next one by the same artist.

Gnome Chomsky

Will's baby reminded me of these pictures of a Garden Noam that we spotted sitting high up on a wall along Crown Street some time ago (it's sadly no longer there). Part of the Gnome Rebellion, I think. More pictures here.

Re-living My Childhood With Tatty Devine

How To Make Jewellery with Tatty Devine was a little surprise (it was not on the shopping list that I gave her!) that my sweet pal Ms Carpet brought home for me from her recent holiday to London. She knows I love my Tatty Devine bling. And how much I like to make things. Hee.

The one thing from this colourful happy book that I was most eager to try out was the Shrinky Necklace. They were all the rage when I was in primary school but my father, being Asian and thus over-protective, didn't give in to my pleas to put sweet wrappers and chips bags in the oven. "The fumes from melting plastic is poisonous!" he said. So, 30-odd years later, here I am experimenting with my first ever Shrinky thing. No parental permission or supervision required. Excitement! Woo!

However, there's a new hurdle - finding the right plastic to shrink. In the last three decades, new technology and food safety rules have changed the make-up of the plastic used in the making of food packaging. Foiled wrappers (for potato chips and my favourite Japanese snackeroos) and thicker plastic (the Neon Worms bag) don't work. It looks like I'll have to eat loads of instant noodles (in thin plastic packaging) to make a necklace like the one the girl is wearing in the picture. Yeah.

PS. The Tatty Devine Sale starts on 3 January! Start making your wish-list!

Still Have Some Christmas Pudding Lurking About?

And don't know what to do with it?

Head over then to Wee Birdy where my pal Top Bird shares my recipe for some rumblin' rumballs made from leftover pudding. Very easy, I promise, and so much fun to make! For your New Year's Eve party this evening, perhaps?

Will's Golden Child

Photo by G

"Haven't seen this one before!" was the note that accompanied this picture that my pal G sent me yesterday.

It's new to me too! Wheeeeeeeeee! I'm happy to see that Will has stuck a piece that is much bigger that his usual on the streets of Sydney (G says this baby is along Liverpool Street, at the entrance to the World Square food court)! I hope there will be more* to come!

And happy too that my pals are feeding my fan-girl habit by sending me pictures of their own sightings! Tee hee hee.

*Will had said that he was leaving me a Christmas surprise in my neighbourhood but I've yet to find it. I wonder if it's a baby too. I have to look harder!

Tiny Taiwanese In Chinatown

We don't know why Cho calls himself the "Dumpling King" because there sure are no dumplings on his menu. Zilch.

What this tiny eatery has loads of is Taiwanese "small eats" - little platters of savoury sides/appertisers - in the glass display cabinets that line their shop windows, tempting and taunting us as we wait for a table in the always-long queue.

The small plates of delicious-ness are not all that Cho serves. This green board is only half of their main menu!

Our picks from the display cabinet - crunchy deep-fried school prawns, chilli anchovy and stir-fried beans - to nibble on while we wait for our lunch. We love our Taiwanese "small eats"!

My crispy fried chicken lunchbox. The light five-spice batter rocks!

The boyfriend's bowl of beef noodles. Flaky chunks of slow-cooked beef and slurpy udon in a Taiwanese-style beef broth. He likes!

Beers? No. Tasty frothy shaken iced tea. But beers would have been good with all the crispy crunchy things!

Cho Dumpling King
Shop 6
8 Quay Street
Haymarket
Phone: (02) 9281 2760

Puppy Pals!

Dream job!

Pressies In Black & White

1. Store-bought clothbound sketch pad with a homemade "gentle prodding" message for a boy who has stopped drawing. And who also loves Helvetica.

2. For the same boy who's shorn most of his hair off recently. Less hair = more face = needs more interesting glasses. The Lemtosh from the MOSCOT Originals range, a reproduction of a style from their 1930-1970 archives.

3. A book for a girl who loves fashion and who's also currently on an autobiography/biography-reading kick.

'Tis The Season To Eat Baked Goods

1. Super-buttery (yeah!) candied ginger and cranberry shortbread - baked and beautifully-packed by our pal G

2. Quite a few flourless chocolate cakes and carrot cakes from Bourke Street Bakery - I didn't have the time or energy to bake this year and these are my cop-out gifts for my aunt and my cousins. Our friendly neighbourhood bakery's Christmas pre-order service could be your saviour next year too!

3. My first (I refuse to travel and queue!) Adriano Zumbo macarons - a gift from my little dude pal on a whirlwind visit to Sydney! He's the sweetest!

4. My aunt's latest slice from her huge repertoire of slices - buttery biscuit base + melted chocolate layer + shredded coconut + almond flakes + macadamia nuts = her best so far!

5. A rich and dense slice from one of the Bourke Street Bakery cakes that we kept for ourselves - cop-out pressies they might be but I would never give gifts that I don't want to receive. It's a rule I firmly stick by.

Have baked goods made you merry this weekend?

Rummy The Reindeer

Rummy the Reindeer says...

"HAVE A GOOGLY-EYED CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL!"

I'm off to drop off some Rummy-fied pressies now. Hope you'll be all googly-eyed from all the feasting and merry-making by the end of today too! The sign of a fantastic time had! Woooooo! xx

Merry Christmas From Crown Street

Not your run-of-the-mill yawnsville Christmas window displays at a few of my favourite shops in our 'hood. They are never boring all year round!

Chee Soon & Fitzgerald // Sark Studio // The Kido Store // The Standard Store

Merii Kurisumasu!

Vanilla ice cream on a warm sweet sweet potato mash (sounds strange but so good in the mouth!) and green tea ice cream with a red bean paste. All served with a totally unexpected sprinkle of conflakes (brought back sweet childhood memories!) and topped with delicately-sliced apple "fans" (so old-school that it made us all laugh). The sweet end to our multi-multi-multi-course "orphans" Christmas Eve dinner with our pals Mr R and G at My Zakaya, our new favourite local Japanese eatery.

A sunny Sydney Summer evening (finally!)...good company...chilled beers...loads of delicious food (it's our third visit in a month and I think the boyfriend and I have tasted most of the what we want to try from the menu!)...we can't think of a better way to while away Christmas Eve!

"Deck The Halls"

A little Christmas pressie that I brought home today for our little apartment. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. We're not the "boughs of holly"-type people but pictures of cute likkle bwoys and girls? YEAH!

This particular hand-tinted vintage photo of these rosy-cheeked brothers, I've been admiring for months in our friendly neighbourhood junk shop! The naturally-aged frame, the composition, the hand-drawn background and, of course, the subjects, were all so...so..."I want!". But the boyfriend and I have set a limit to the amount of money we'll pay for each picture we add to our collection and these boys were way above that number. And today, on my walk home from dropping off some of my homemade chocolate truffles to customers, I saw "Closing Down Sale" signs tagged all over the shop window! It was a sad sight (we love that shop!) but I walked right in, headed to the musty corner where I last saw the boys (they were still there!), asked for the sale price (within our limit!), parted with some truffles money and happily carried them home. Fucking-fa-la-la-la-la! Merry Christmas, halls!

New Dude In The 'Hood

Freshblood Mr Sweet next to the Funky Buddha who's been around the block a few times.

Mr Sweet reminded me of Mr Nice. Must be his retro-stylishness. And those dilated pupils.

BeeBeetle

This little thing came to play on our balcony two evenings ago. I don't like buggy things but I think he's alright. So shiny that you can see my reflection on his back!

Pho Lunch

Pho for lunch! (I like saying that. Tee hee hee.) At Pasteur today. Another old Chinatown favourite of ours which, strangely, hasn't made an appearance on this blog. And we've been getting our soupy rice noodle-y fixes there since 2004!

This is our usual order. Refreshing fizzy lemon sodas to sip on while we wait for the "special" beef bowl for the boyfriend (very thin and pink beef slices + yucky cow "insides") and for me, the crispy-skin chicken (so so good dipped in that happy sauce!).

It says on their signboard "The best noodle soup in town". Indeed it is!

Pho Pasteur
709 George Street
Haymarket