How To Fake French

I am TRYING to learn French, ok? I'm at that understanding more than I can speak stage (read: I can understand a few words here and there and can still barely string two words together). Despite living with Frenchmen, all I seem to have picked up are these 'listening noises' shown in this video. That really is how they roll!
A-puh!
Oh lala!
Oh la la la la!
Achhhhhhhh



By the way, just pretending to be French (doing a French accent when reading) helps me get the right pronunciation and also (a handy thing about English being such a magpie language) half the time I can just 'make up' French words by taking a likely English word and saying it as a French stereotype would.

And here's how to use Oh la la (so versatile!)

Gyoza in Lemongrass Broth

This soup with dumplings (the Japanese 'potsticker' kind, not the stodgy British kind) is just delicious and makes a filling meal. I always thought of 'broth' as something like watery healthful but bland meat stock for the infirm - not so in this recipe! We've been getting asparagus just recently in our organic delivery box (Australia has food in season at strange times, lucky us). If you want to make this when asparagus is not in season, use your imagination and substitute some other yummy veg like something from the broccoli family maybe.

By the way, it's easy (at least here) to grow lemongrass. I have a border of it doing well along the wall below the leaky gutter - perfect as lemongrass likes water which is a scarce resource here.

This recipe comes from a beaut book by Nicola Graimes called New Vegetarian Kitchen: Raw/Broil/Fry/Steam/Simmer/Bake. (Recipe is hers but photo is of my attempt; hers looked good too!)




1. First make the gyoza. Put the aduki beans, sesame oil and half the soy sauce in a bowl and mash lightly with the back of a fork, leaving some of the beans whole. Stir in the ginger, spring onions, garlic, cornflour and cabbage, Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix well.

2. Put 1 heaped tablespoon of the filling in the centre of a gyoza wrapper - you want the parcels to be as full as possible. Brush the edge of the wrapper with water, top with another wrapper and press the edges to seal. Set aside and repeat to make 11 more gyoza.












3. To make the lemongrass broth, put the stock, lemongrass and lime leaves, ginger, vegetarian fish sauce, lime juice and caster sugar in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain the stock into a clean bowl, discarding the solids, and return broth to the saucepan. Add the remaining soy sauce, coconut milk and chilli and cook for another 5 minutes until slightly reduced and thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 70 degrees celsius / 150 fahrenheit and heat a griddle pan (I didn't know what one was so used a frying pan) over medium heat. Toss the asparagus in the sesame and sunflower oils and griddle it (fry) for 5-7 minutes, turning occasionally, until tender and charred in places. Transfer to an ovenproof plate and keep warm in the oven.

5. I fried the gyoza with just a little oil in a non-stick frying pan but the recipe suggests deep frying: To deep fry the gyoza, heat the remaining sunflower oil in a deep saucepan to 180 C / 350 F, or until a cube of bread turns golden in 40 seconds. Fry the gyoza, 3 at a time, for 2 minutes, turning once, until golden and puffed up. Remove, using a slotted spoon, and drain on kitchen paper. Transfer to an ovenproof plate and keep warm in the oven while you cook the remaining gyoza.

6. To serve, heat the lemongrass broth, if necessary, then ladle it into four large, shallow bowls. Sprinkle with coriander and put three gyoza in the centre of each bowl, slightly overlapping them. Arrange the asparagus on top and serve immediately.

One Second films

We can observe a surprising amount in one second. I remember the moment I realised I count to ten in less than ten seconds; a revelation.


Enjoy these seconds of beauty.

Seconds Of Beauty - 1st round compilation from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

So Dead Happy

You know when you're so happy you have to watch yourself for smugness setting in? Well the following song, chorused along to in the car road-tripping around the North Island, really grew on me with the lush speed of the rain-drenched NZ Spring. It's catchy. The verses turn out to be a little more grim than the impression I'd got from the song -which was soley based on its smug wee chorus - 'so dead happy'.
I was watching Seinfeld the other day (YEAH, it's related!) and it was that episode where George decides to bow out of any office meeting where he makes a joke that cracks people up. He figures (thanks to advice from Jerry) that by leaving the meeting immediately he'll go out on a a high note like a stand up comic before he can lose them again with another joke that won't hit the mark. Well that kind of 'that's it from me, folks' feeling hits me pleasantly when I hit the hay some nights - ok, not so much a feeling of WANTING that night to be my last, but just that if it WAS, I'm all happy with my life and could leave it there -je ne regrette a rien. No regrets.

I may sort of regret this long-winded introduction but for me feeling content with my life in the moment and in general brings a lot of that 'so dead happy' feeling.



Here, from the album 'The Woolshed Sessions' my sister gave me (and the only CD we had to listen to for much of our trip!) is Dead Happy performed by Andy Hummel and mates. Just try not to sway your head in the chorus!

Cave of Forgotten Dreams review

He ran away from the circus to become a scientist. One of the charming experts featured in The Cave of Forgotten Dreams was so moved by the experience of visiting the Chauvet Cave that it changed his life (he still LOOKED like a juggler though).
This film may not have outright changed my life but it did fill me with awe and inspire me to experiment with 3D cinematography - do the people have to look so flat? It also made me wonder about the ethics of inflicting confusing accents on audiences for extended periods of time. Not even so much accents as voices - the filmmaker, Warner Herzog has a distinctive slow, 'storyteller' style of narration. (Here I was thinking 'Plastic Bag' had had an affected voice for humour's sake).

For me, the experience of watching this film was like a fairytale education - relaxing in the darkness and getting absorbed in the magic of this underground world. For my boyfriend, it was a long drawn out struggle to stay awake - a real test of love! "But I enjoyed the first 45minutes" he assured me. Didn't he marvel at the last part where finally the narrator just left us to the cave to enjoy without his sleepy commentary? "Well, yeah but I was already tired by then - why couldn't they have had that quiet beautiful part at the beginning and THEN explained all about it?". The man at the theatre had wished us good luck because, personally, he hated it. "I was bagging it just now actually. The narration - how wanky!" Got to love his honesty. "But you know, you might love it if you're an anthropologist, or an archeologist or something - are you an archeologist?" I'm not but really, you don't have to be, it probably wouldn't be academically in depth enough for archeologists. I'm sure they, and most people watching this film, would love it though. If you're a movie 'buff' like our man at the cinema, you might not like it stylistically as a film, but you will be amazed by the beauty. Sparkling stalactites and stalagmites, formations I'd never seen hanging like curtains from the cave roof, the way the shapes and depth of the cave is rendered in 3D, and most of all, the grace and energy of the cave art and the powerful way the lighting was used to reveal it.

My boyfriend didn't feel he'd learnt that much but then he knew a bit about the caves already. I, on the other hand, was amazed even to discover there had once been rhinoceroses in Europe! I was also fascinated (and admittedly a bit disappointed) by the fact that there were so few signs of human life aside from the rock art. And was I the only one who couldn't see the depiction of the lower half of a woman? Perhaps none of the audience saw it - after all, my boyfriend was likely half asleep at that point and the only other people in the audience were two old and grey couples and perhaps the 3D glasses didn't sit well over their ordinary ones. Maybe I was the only one awake in the darkness, the tiny audience was as silent as the grave. I did like the end where I felt alone in the wonder of the cave, exploring by torchlight.

The part right at the end though, well! I think I'll leave you to make up your own mind what that wee director's add on was for? How shall we tie up this cave art documentary? How about dreaming doppelganger nuclear-albino crocodiles? Did the circus guy have a hand in this or is this just Herzog trying to mess with people who go stoned to 3D movies?

Soupe du jaune

It's officially Spring and the first Spring morning was all sunshine and promise- then the promise was delivered when the afternoon brought the gift of rain and the evening an impressive lot of stormy weather. So you can forgive yet another comforting meal-in-a-bowl type soup. Also, we had corn, pumpkin and cream cheese that needed eating, et voila! - a recipe is born! So I adapted a recipe from World Vegetarian Classics for corn chowder and made this rather wonderful roasted vegetable chowder - the roasting bringing out even more flavour and allows us to use heaps of garlic (entirely missing in the corn chowder recipe). The cream cheese with its richness and that touch of acidity complements and balances the sweetness of the vegetables. However, if dairy products are not for you, you can make the soup vegan by swapping the cream cheese and milk for soy milk.

Ingredients

1/2 Japanese pumpkin
3 carrots
3 parsnips
4 fresh corn cobs
1 L / 4 cups water (I may well have used more, so add more to get consistency that suits you)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 bay leaves
1 large or 2 small onions
1 bulb garlic (yes, a whole bulb, but don't worry, the roasting softens its flavour)
1/2 t dried sage
1 t fresh thyme leaves / 1/2 t dried thyme
3/4 c 200g cream cheese
1/2 c / 125ml milk
(or swap cream cheese and milk for 325ml unsweetened soy milk)

Recipe serves 6-8 (or more if served in mug-sized portions)

Directions

Preheat oven at 160 degrees celcius (my oven is quite hot but do keep temp lowish so veggies develop good flavour)

Spray a big baking tray with olive oil. Chop pumpkin into large slices (leave skin on - it will peel off easily once cooked) and place on the tray. Slice carrots in half lengthways. Dice a few pieces of carrot for chunky textures bits and set aside. Trim skinny parsnips ends off and set aside with carrot chunks. (seen here on plate with corn in a steamer. I also aded some chopped soft roasted bits, too, because I can't follow even my own recipes as I'm making them up).


Cut the bulbous tops in half and arrange these and the carrots around the pumpkin (or on another tray if they won't fit without overlapping). Place in oven and cook till vegetables are soft and roasted (with that nice caramelly chew on the pumpkin) but don't let them dry out or go hard and crunchy - we're making soup here!


While veggies are roasting, strip kernels from corn cob - like this: stand corncob upright (hold the top) and cut downwards with a sharp knife. It's a good idea to do this in a large bowl as they kind of ping off everywhere. Leave kernels in the bowl for now. To make the stock, place the stripped corn cobs and the bay leaves in a big pot. Sprinkle on a pinch of salt and cover with the water. Bring stock to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. At the same time, cook veggie chunks: In a steamer, place the corn corn kernels and twiggy parsnip and carrot ends and steam these as soup is boiling. Remove steamer once kernels and vegetables are tender.Discard the corn cobs and bay leaves.


Roughly chop roasted veggies, whizz in a blender/ food processor and add to the stock along with the remaining herbs. Add the cream cheese and milk to the soup mixture and stir / whizz with handheld blender till smooth and creamy. Return steamed veggie chunks to the soup. Reheat soup and add salt and pepper if desired.

Regina Spektor

One of the newest albums I own and it doesn't even sound too modern. But it does sound good: