Chilled out Sunday with Damien (26th April 2009)
Had brunch with Damien late this morning at one of his favourite cafes in town, Sweet Mothers Kitchen. Yawn, I could do with more sleep but I would like a yummy brunch too, hmm…I do need that first cup of coffee to wake me up desperately though…The place was busy despite the pouring rain outside and fortunately for us, we only had to wait a short while for a table to come available. Had their waffles with grilled banana and bacon with maple syrup (cost $14.50, pretty average waffles) while Damien had a Breakfast Burrito, a large tortilla wrapped up and filled with scrambled eggs, black beans and melted cheese, served with salsa and guacamole (cost $11.50). We also tried their beignet (pronounced BEN- YAY) which cost $3 for 2 large New Orleans donut dusted in icing sugar – yummy but we had no more space to fit a beignet each after our meals. Thankfully Kim and Colm popped over to join us and Colm helped polished them off :) You know, Colm makes a very good human food disposal – he’s always helping finish up our plates whenever we go out for group dinners and where does it all go??? He doesn’t put on anything!! So unfair :/
Left Sweet Mothers about 1pm and accompanied Damien shoe shopping in town. It is always fun to shop with boys – like me, most of them only shop when they really have to and often have a good idea of what they needed to buy or style they are looking for (not like girls who would go out to buy 1 item and end up home with 2-3 bagfuls of stuff). Plus it’s nice that they would ask me for input on the items they are planning to purchase – I get to be fashion consultant for the day!
Eeks, it’s just pissing rain! Said our goodbyes about 2pm to do our own things and caught up again at 7.30pm to watch The Da Vinci Code at his place. It was a long movie which I had thought would have been creeper with that psycho albino monk, Silas, played by Paul Bettany in it. Still, there were scenes that made me cringe like when he would whip himself. Eee…Lots of mystery behind the story about the Christian world and Jesus descendents. I’m not religious and don’t really care if there really are people carrying the Jesus bloodline. I mean, think about it – those people would be like you and me, another human, not someone with supernatural powers so what is the point of keeping such people ‘safe’ and a secret?
In between watching the long movie, Damien and I experimented on an artichoke he bought at the supermarket earlier during the week. I’ve not seen artichoke in its original form (I’ve had artichoke hearts on antipasto platters and they are yum!) and this huge green flower has a large head with an edible bud and leaves/petals. Reminds me much of a cactus, really…It was quite funny that we looked up the internet on how to cook and eat an artichoke. We steamed the artichoke in a large pot of water with a clove of garlic, a slice of lemon, and a bay leaf (apparently, this adds wonderful flavour to the artichoke). Took about 45 minutes to cook the thing – it is deemed cooked when you are able to pull the outer leaves off easily. This is all so interesting! My eyes were all excited like a little kid, eager to see the result of our experiment, hehe…How do we eat it? Well, you can have it cold or hot (I prefer it hot), served with a dip of melted butter, balsamic vinegar, mayonnaise or just extra virgin olive oil, which was what we had. Pull off one leaf at a time, dip the white fleshy end into the dip, place in mouth with dip side down, and pull through teeth to remove the soft, pulpy, delicious portion of the petal. Pretty much stripping the insides of the petal (you don’t eat the petal and be careful of it’s sharp pointy end). And you would continue on until all the petals are removed and what you have left is the artichoke heart. Remove the fuzzy bits (called ‘choke’), cut up the heart and have it with your dip. I can’t quite describe the taste of the artichoke – kind of a light grassy taste to it on its own. I had SO much fun cooking and eating the artichoke – another first for me! Learn something new everyday ;)
Oh yeah, I bought Damien an ANZAC biscuit since it was ANZAC weekend and he was telling me during brunch that he hasn’t had one yet – now you can’t say you haven’t had the biscuit for the weekend!
Left Sweet Mothers about 1pm and accompanied Damien shoe shopping in town. It is always fun to shop with boys – like me, most of them only shop when they really have to and often have a good idea of what they needed to buy or style they are looking for (not like girls who would go out to buy 1 item and end up home with 2-3 bagfuls of stuff). Plus it’s nice that they would ask me for input on the items they are planning to purchase – I get to be fashion consultant for the day!
Eeks, it’s just pissing rain! Said our goodbyes about 2pm to do our own things and caught up again at 7.30pm to watch The Da Vinci Code at his place. It was a long movie which I had thought would have been creeper with that psycho albino monk, Silas, played by Paul Bettany in it. Still, there were scenes that made me cringe like when he would whip himself. Eee…Lots of mystery behind the story about the Christian world and Jesus descendents. I’m not religious and don’t really care if there really are people carrying the Jesus bloodline. I mean, think about it – those people would be like you and me, another human, not someone with supernatural powers so what is the point of keeping such people ‘safe’ and a secret?
In between watching the long movie, Damien and I experimented on an artichoke he bought at the supermarket earlier during the week. I’ve not seen artichoke in its original form (I’ve had artichoke hearts on antipasto platters and they are yum!) and this huge green flower has a large head with an edible bud and leaves/petals. Reminds me much of a cactus, really…It was quite funny that we looked up the internet on how to cook and eat an artichoke. We steamed the artichoke in a large pot of water with a clove of garlic, a slice of lemon, and a bay leaf (apparently, this adds wonderful flavour to the artichoke). Took about 45 minutes to cook the thing – it is deemed cooked when you are able to pull the outer leaves off easily. This is all so interesting! My eyes were all excited like a little kid, eager to see the result of our experiment, hehe…How do we eat it? Well, you can have it cold or hot (I prefer it hot), served with a dip of melted butter, balsamic vinegar, mayonnaise or just extra virgin olive oil, which was what we had. Pull off one leaf at a time, dip the white fleshy end into the dip, place in mouth with dip side down, and pull through teeth to remove the soft, pulpy, delicious portion of the petal. Pretty much stripping the insides of the petal (you don’t eat the petal and be careful of it’s sharp pointy end). And you would continue on until all the petals are removed and what you have left is the artichoke heart. Remove the fuzzy bits (called ‘choke’), cut up the heart and have it with your dip. I can’t quite describe the taste of the artichoke – kind of a light grassy taste to it on its own. I had SO much fun cooking and eating the artichoke – another first for me! Learn something new everyday ;)
Oh yeah, I bought Damien an ANZAC biscuit since it was ANZAC weekend and he was telling me during brunch that he hasn’t had one yet – now you can’t say you haven’t had the biscuit for the weekend!
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