THE BEST PASTA DISH EVER !!!

Hi Guys ,
Pia, my Swedish artist friend asked me what I was doing over Anzac day week end.
This week end I am not doing much but taking care of me !

Louise have gone to Jindi Bine for the week end and Kevin is marching as the veteran he is, in the city, which leaves me to my self.
It is not often I get a chance to be all by my self and I do treasure it when it happens.

As you figured I love food, and as I have promised Pia the best pasta dish ever, by Jamie Oliver.

I made this for Louise and Michelle, and I tell you Michelle cleaned her plate twice.

PRAWN SPAGHETTI WITH CHILLI,TOMATOES, BASIL AND LEMON
Serves 8

800 g spaghetti
olive oil
1-2 chorizo sausage ( about 225 g total)
slice on an angle into 5 mm thick slices
3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1 red chilli, halved, seeds removed, finely sliced
4 baby fennel bulbs, sliced, leafy tops reserved.
A bunch of basil, leaves picked, stalks reserved and finely chopped.
750 mixed cherry tomatoes, halved.
A large glass of dry white wine, and one for the chef !
1 lemon
40 large green tiger prawns, peeled ( leave a few tails on if you like ), devined
Extra virgin olive oil.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add a good pinch of salt. Add your spagetti and cook according to the pack instructions - you want it still to have a bit of bite "Al Dente"
While your pasta is cooking crack on with your sauce.
Get yourself a large pan on medium heat and add a splash of olive oil.
Fry your chorizo for a few minutes until crispy and golden brown, then throw in the garlic,
chilli, fennel, chopped basil stalks, I wait with the tomatoes until the last minute otherwise they will turn into much. Pour in the wine and squeeze in most of the juice from your lemon, then simmer until the sauce thickens and most of the liquid has evaporated. Now add the tomatoes.
Add your prawns and cook for a minute or two until they are nice and pink.
Have a taste and season with a pinch of slat and pepper.
Drain your pasta, reserving a littke of the cooking water, then add it to the pan with your sauce.
Give it all a good toss together, the put it on a beautiful big platter and garnish with the leafy parts from your fennel. Bon Apetit !

Winter in Australia

Hi Guys,
Why is it that it is sooo cold in Sydney during winter ??? It is the worse place to be in winter!
Can any one tell me why?
Why is it so cold inside ?
It is as people try to ignore that it is winter, and just don't have heating inside their houses. For me who comes from Sweden and is used to cold winters, but warm houses, have never experienced anything like it.
It is like trying to live in a summer house that has been closed for the winter, you know how cold and damp it is when you first arrive in the spring to open it up. That is how many people live in Sydney during the winter, I just don't understand it ??

Oh, the fashion in the winter is a winter parka, scarf, hat with board shorts and flipflops, now does that make sense ??

Yarra Valley wine and cheese trial

Hi Guys,
You know that I am a member of weight watchers, so hard and so much fun??!!
Kate our leader at weight watchers has the best sense of humor and she is such an inspiration to all of us. We all need a Kate in our lives!! Some one that keeps us on the straight and narrow, when we don't.
Easter Saturday morning we woke up really early and went for a lovely walk in the area we were living, such beautiful houses from the Victorian time, large houses with large windows, wide streets and beautiful gardens. We had a coffee at the corner shop and went back to pack up as we intended to go shopping before every one else woke up.

Louise and I went back to COSCO on Saturday and filled the shopping trolley... here is where we fell off the wagon :) Areas with cheese, gorgonzola, blue stilton, goat cheese, cheddar, parmesan,
Jarlsberg, mozarella. We had to buy something !
Gorgonzola 1kg, spreadable goat cheese 500 gr, Jarlsberg middle cut, blue Stilton 500gr is what we checked out with, well, pork , lamb, prawns, pretzels in a jug bigger than life, the mayo in toe, salad dressing to last a life time, Not to mention the toiletpaper and kitchen towels, olive oil and sparkling water. We ended up paying over $500, "for toilet paper "??
Are we Crazy?
Apparently we have a problem with shopping or with food, what ever comes first.

We loaded the car and had really thought this expedition through.. we had a hugh eski box full with ice for the cheese, meat and fish, in the trunk.
As we left it was an exodus of cars driving in to COSCO, we had beaten them all !!

We drove out towards Yarra Valley, the wine growing area.
Wow !! This was an experience we promised to do again...!!
Like being in France. Mountains and valleys with Lavender fields and wine in rows as far as you could see. Large estates luring you in with all kind of goodies.
The route we had taken was called the gourmet route on the map.

Our intention was to visit the magical forest, and see the sculptures placed in the forest.
Intention went out the window when we visited Dominique Portet winery over a mediterranean platter and a beautiful bottle of chilled Savignon blanch wine in the French garden with the most beautiful view!
www.wineyarravalley.com
Life worth living !!

Listing on the internet

Hi Guys,
To get my messages out in to the ether I need to verify that I am the author ;)
I like the word "author", never thought of it for myself until now.. i Guess we are all authors of our own destination GUR44KZAVXQM, is my destination today!!

Chinese Massage and Oriental tea house

Hi Guys!
I have to tell you about the best Yum Cha in Melbourne!

Louise and I woke up to a sunny day and rolled out of bed. Wow, it is a great feeling having time off and doing what you want!!
We decided to go for a long walk and explore Melbourne by foot.
The first thing we went to was Fitzroy Garden conveniently located 5 min from our little hotel.
In Fitzroy park we found Captain Cooks original home delivered from Yorkshire UK.

http://www.visitvictoria.com/displayObject.cfm/objectid.00004969-98E0-1DB4-9D0380C476A90000/vvt.vhtml

Interesting and the best of all was the guy in the souvenir shop! Talk about loving his job, he could not stop talking about Captain Cook, we absolutely got our moneys worth out of him.
We meandered down to the green house and walked through, not wishing the girls in there to much sun as it was quite hot and steamy in there. We took of to Flinders ave and walked down toward the central part of Melbourne. As it was Easter friday we passed a chathedral so packed with people they had speakers out on the street as there was at least 100 people outside as well as a packed church. Very nice! We found ourself having to go through the masses and we were wished "Happy Easter" by every one, even the police wished us Happy Easter. Really Nice!

We bought an all day tram ticket and hopped on the tram.
Melbourne have a great trams system!
Almost as good as my home town Gothenburg in Sweden.

My friend Elaine had told me about a great place to have lunch, Chapel street in Praharan.
Armed with a tourist map and an all day tram ticket we went to Praharan, and with out a passport!!

It was a different world, almost like Soho NYC 20 years ago. We walked around and finally found the Oriental tea house.
We got great service and even better atmosphere, green tea and the food just went on coming. I truly recommend that you visit this little gem if you ever visit Melbourne.
"THE ORIENTAL TEA HOUSE" on Chapel street Praharan.
http://www.orientalteahouse.com.au/photos/w1/i1001216/

We left with a full belly and walked back , got lost in the shops, and found a lovely Chinese acupuncture/massage place. As I had a frozen shoulder and was in pain, I walked in.
$30 later my shoulder was healed and booth the little china man and I was totally worn out . he did a great job... forwarned me that I would have pain "tomollow"... did I ever.. and a hugh lovley bruce to remind me of him. Hey, I am not complaining .. different pain and full movement in my arm, Thank you :)

We took the tram back to the City and went to the Casino, to try our luck !
Our luck was that some one had made a BIG MISTAKE and locked most of the machines via computer and you could only play at the tables.
We played at the Piano bar instead, with a cosmopolitan and some free food.
We did not need a lot of persuasion to go home to bed, after all we had been out walking for 12 hours and after two cosmopolitan, sent on our merry way.
What a great Easter Friday !!

Cosco and Mayo in a jar

Happy Easter!!!
Louise and I went to Melbourne for the week end. The purpose for the trip was to get away and have some fun, and go shopping at COSCO wholesale.

We drove and drove through a very beautiful and for a change in 50 year ( I have been told), a green Australian out back. We started on Wednesday afternoon and got as far as Gundagai, where we stayed at the Budget Motel, in a purple clean room, charing the facilities with 100 truckies, we felt safe and slept like babies.
The next morning was glorious with sun and mist on the ground, the Coppers having "brekkie" at McDonald as one does! Especially if you are with Weight Watchers, as we are.
Whops! Hope Kate won't read this .

The countryside offered rolling green hills and a wast landscape you only find in Australia, the road was straight as an arrow for hours, and we were ahead of every one!
We stopped of in Aulbury for a quick pit stop, coffee and Dan Murphy's for some wine for the week end.
Aulbury turned out to be a beautiful little town with plenty of golf courses and good shopping.
The landscape did not change much as we drove towards Melbourne, but it was a feast for the eye to just let is slide by outside the car window.
Louise had bought a new Car, white with large windows LOL and a built in navigator !
Great we thought and left the Tom- Tom at home, big mistake !!!
As we approched Melbourne in the late afternoon, we wanted to go by COSCO to check it out before the Easter Friday close down. So we put in the Docklands and the street adress, the navigator took us to, God know where........ we eventually got there, more by default than with navigation help.
Finally we entered the world of huge shopping carts and free sample food. We joined as members, was photographed and printed out with little white memeber cards with our faces on them.

We could not resist the seafood counter and bought our dinner, giant Alaskan crab legs and oysters. Louise wanted Mayo, she found Hellman's real mayo in a 5 kg jar !!!
She had to buy it :)
Louise have carried that jar with her as her Teddy bear, in and out at every hotel room on this trip.
You see the Jar and then you see Louise !!

We checked everything out at COSCO and decided to come back on Saturday before we were due to drive back.

Just as a tip, if you ever go out of State with your navigation system, make sure it changes from one State to another. We learned the hard way!!

We left COSCO around 6 pm and thought we headed towards the hotel in Melbourne East. Wrong!
We were still driving back and forth at 9pm calling the poor man at the hotel asking for directions. He asked us " where are you?" We had no idea. We stopped and tried to ask at a petrol sation, The "moron" refused to tell us if we did not buy a $30 map. I do not want to tell you what we said.

We called the hotel again as we now knew where we were, the guy told us, Take a left on to Hunt road and then another left on to commonwealth road and then a right to , well it was not Hunt road but Punt road...... Oh dear we went around the stadium again and decided it has to be Punt and not Hunt, and did the exercise one more time and finally arrived at 9 pm. We logged the food and Mayo jar upstairs, as we had the top floor with no lift !! Yippie. So good to move the legs after having sitting for so long :)

We had a lovely dinner and some well deserved wine, before passed out.

The Art of saying NO !

Do You now how to say No ?

I find saying No is one difficult thing to do !
Why is it so hard to be nice to yourself ?

I had an E-mail from one of my dear friends, who had turned down a friends request to become her friend on face book. My friend needed to turn the request down, not because she did not like the person who wanted to be her friend, but what feelings that person brought out in my friend. gosch this is even difficult to explain..can you imagine living it ?

The point is, my friend was strong enough to look after Her self by saying No in a nice way.
This way she took care of her own well being and did not fall for what most people would have done, gone with flow, been nice to the other person , or to please that person hurt herself.
How many of us would have said "Ok, sure you can be my friend", been polite and done the "right thing" even if the right thing was wrong for us. I am so proud of my friend for actually standing up for herself. So easy to say but so hard to do.
I salute all of you who dare to be nice to yourself !!
Take care of yourself, love yourself first and make every one in your life happy, even if it means not complying with their wishes.