Nothing quite like homemade...

I am growing exceedingly fond of convenience in the kitchen, but there's nothing quite like the home-made version of a favourite food, especially when it's made from something someone close to you has grown or cultivated themselves. 

Which is how I came to make several batches of quince paste not once, but twice this month. A work colleague (let us call her Kee Bordz) very generously provided me with several bags of quinces (some bruised and battered, some with just the right amount of that weird sticky fur) from her tree. Lugging them home on the tram, my mind wandered to the possibility of making my own quince paste, given I am a fan of the Maggie Beer variety. 

I'd heard making your own was a bit of a pain, and friends had warned me it wasn't worth the effort, but I paid a visit to taste.com.au and found a recipe that looked easy enough. 

Peeling and chopping quinces is a real bitch, there's no denying, but if you have a good grip on a sharp knife and a decent peeler, you'll be right. All the recipe requires is a food processor or KitchenWiz, as well as a diffuser for your stovetop and off you go. Oh yeah, and about three hours of spare time where you will essentially be chained to your stove...

Seriously, though, despite hours of stirring, the result is worth it. I have made it twice now, using the recipe above. My only cavil is that I can't seem to get the intense berry-red colour that everyone else seems to brag about. Mine is more of a dark salmon pink. Texture and taste however, are perfect and the fact that I have had requests for it, means I'm onto a winner.

Enjoy with some creamy brie or a tangy cheddar.

Des Bishop bangs my drum

Apparently, Good Friday is about the son of God dying so that we might be saved, or redeemed or something. Or maybe it's about having extra fish with your chips to mark the start of an extra long weekend.

Anyhoo, for me and Muddy K, Good Friday this year was about having a day off work, having a late shower, and then heading into town for some Melbourne International Comedy Festival fun.

We scoffed a quick dinner of Barossa Valley shiraz and some aoli-soaked fries before noodling down to the Hi Fi Bar on Swanston Street to see Des Bishop Likes to Bang.  Why this show? Well, frankly, in the festival program, there's a photo of Mr Bishop wearing a tie. I thought 'He looks smart. He must be funny too.'

And he was. Very, very funny.

American by birth (a New Yorker to be precise), and an Irish resident since his teens, Mr Bishop has great fun taking the proverbial out of Irish drinking habits, Irish emigration, the pleasures of an Australian holiday working visa and the trauma of buying hair dye for men. He knows just how to work both the natives and the Irish expats in the crowd.

Along with an extended bit on his own teenage drinking, there is a fabulously filthy extended riff on hotel sex, menstrual sex and hotel menstrual sex:

"The maid'll walk in the next morning, thinking she's stumbled onto a crime scene."
"Do it in the shower. Pretend you're making a horror movie."
"Hey, moisture's moisture!"

The show ends with a spot of audience participation. Mr Bishop has taught himself to play a Roland V-drum kit in the belief that anyone can write a hip hop hit, provided the lyrics are just "arrogant enough" and the chorus ripped off a known, popular track. He enlists the aid of audience-member Sean from Adelaide who provides a terrific Bon Jovi "Always" chorus to accompany Mr Bishop's own hip-hop composition.

The show runs until 22 April. Check it out.

Garden of Nerdy Delights

Last Saturday morning I enjoyed a long and leisurely walk around the National Rhododendron Gardens up high in Melbourne's Dandenong Ranges, with young Hardy Ruggs, another member of the extended Karpitz-Venetian family and a fellow gardening nerd.

Whilst the rhododendrons won’t be blooming until late October / early November (and according to Hardy, they are pretty spectacular!), there’s still much to see during autumn - deciduous trees turning that perfect caramelly brown-red; Rosellas munching on Hawthorn berries, and some late-blooming Azaleas, among other gardenly delights. The cherry walk and lily-pad covered fishpond make for terrific photo opportunities, especially when the sun is shining as brightly as it was last Saturday.

Enjoy a bag of fresh figs in one of the gazebos like we did and your morning or afternoon will be complete. The gardens (which are two minutes from the centre of Olinda) open at 10am and entry is free.

In praise of the unassuming. Small cafes and no queues are just right for a Friday night feed.

I mean no disrespect to bogan shoppers when I say that battling one's way through Melbourne's modish, faddish dining / cafe scene can be pretty bloody brutal, akin to a Boxing Day sale crush at Highpoint. Once you've waited 45 minutes for a stool at the bar at Mamasitas, you and your dining companions will talk about your experience (a long wait peppered with inane conversation on a dark and steep staircase at the top end of Collins Street) in the hysterical tones of someone who's been wrestled to the ground by some hairy Maori security guard for accidentally walking out of Myer with a packet of discounted Chrissie cards.

Which is why Stellini bar in Little Collins Street is such a welcome experience. Small, cosy, with a familiar Italian menu of pastas and risottos, this is a terrific place for a quiet but elegant Friday night feed. Unusual when you consider it's my lunch venue of choice for scoffing a panini and talking pop-culture with my adopted brother Torn Karpitz. Somehow I never imagined it could morph into such a good dinner spot.

Muddy Karpitz had the pork sausage linguini and I had the fish of the day, a delicious salmon fillet cooked just right followed by dessert of tiramisu and creme brulee and great coffee. The wine and beer choices are excellent, and the staff friendly and attentive.  And there's just enough weird eyewear and Mac stuff on the other patrons to give it the Melbourne White Person tick of approval.

So next time you feel like an uncomplicated, cosy and satisfying night out with a loved one, and don't feel like queueing, check out Stellini's.

Between an indoor rock and a fun place...

If you read my recent post on turning 40, then you'd know that since hitting that milestone, I have taken to trying new experiences as a way of dealing with encroaching middle / old age. I did the salsa dancing lessons thing which was nice but expensive; I'm doing the compulsive spinning-class thing which is not-so-nice but not very expensive either and I'll be doing the German language lessons thing later in the year - not sure if that will be nice at all, what with all those guttural sounds and all...and images of Angela Merkel dancing in my head. Like, what's with the pantsuits, Ange. Do you and Hilz get a two-for-one offer for heads of state? But I digress...

So to add to the laundry list of cool things to do before middle age officially sets in, and inspired by young Red Karpitz who is a recent convert to the activity (and wouldn't shut up about it), I went indoor rock-climbing with my adopted younger (and significantly hotter) sister Silky Karpitz just last week at a place in Melbourne, called the Hardrock Climbing Centre.

Oh. My. God.

The evening went a bit like this:

6:30pm - Arrive at Hardrock 30 mins ahead of agreed 7pm catchup with Silky. I like to do a reccy.
6:30-6:35pm - Admire strength, agility and overall hotness of climbers.
6:35pm-6:36pm - Start wondering what I'm even doing there.
6:37-6:45 - Have anxiety-induced meltdown. Internal stream-of-consciousness monologue of panic along the lines of - OhGodIhatehowmymotherneverletmedooutdoorsystuffwhenIwasakidIhateherIhateherIhateher...
6:46-6:50 - Start sending Silky panicked phone texts asking if it's too late to back out. Apparently it is and I should just chill the f#ck out until she gets there.
6:51 - Silky arrives just in time to talk me off the proverbial ledge and stop blaming my parents for who I am today.
6:52 - I take the advice Silky gives me along with a deep breath. I'm amazed she doesn't bitchslap me into the next millennium, the way I'm carrying on.

So for the next few minutes, we fill out the required paperwork and collect our gear - a harness-come-chastity-belt-type-thing with something called a 'carabina' dangling off it and a pair of climbing shoes.

I'm starting to get a bit distracted now, especially when the instructor starts running us through the basics of getting your harness right, attaching the ropes and then getting into the actual climbing part. There's two things you need to know - climbing (scaling the walls Batman-style) and belaying (handling / holding the climber's ropes and hoping you don't kill them) - the instructions are fairly straightforward and take around 15-20 minutes.

Then there's a practice climb on a shortish wall with easy hand- and foot-holds. Silky and I each take our turn going up and coming down. Suddenly, I'm hooked.

I'm sure the instructor can see the glint in our eyes now, so she sends us on our merry way with a knowing smile - I bet she's seen hundreds of middle-aged scaredy-cats go through the same internal meltdown before getting up on the wall.

"Stick to the climbs rated 15 or under" she says, so off we go.

And so we climb. We belay. We abseil. We tackle walls that look easy but turn out to be hard, and vice-versa. We wrinkle our noses at the occasional whiff of stale sweat that permeates the ropes, walls and floor. We make it half-way up some climbs and all the way up others. We laugh when each of us hasn't given the other enough slack rope when we try and stand up after coming down (do it and you'll know why that get's a laugh!). We enjoy the attention we get from some of the fit young things around us.

At one point, I'm at the top of my wall and have nowhere to go, so I turn my head to take a good look at my reflection in the glass and notice the expression on my face is not fear but elation and pure joy.  When I look down and I see Silky looking up at me and her sure hands are on the ropes, I know I'm safe and there's nothing to worry about. Apparently she too feels the same way about me when she looks down.

Two hours later, we've finally had enough. There's a pleasant soreness in our muscles and that overwhelmingly delicious languor that comes with the after-effects of an adrenalin rush. Along with an appetite like a racehorse.

Burgers, beer and ice-cream follow. The evening's events are deconstructed and we agree this is the Best Experience Ever.

I go home to Muddy giddy with the after-effects and I promise myself I'll do this again.

Silky and I have a date with a smelly rope tomorrow.  There will be Scotch Fillet steak sandwiches and beer to follow.  We can't wait.

Work, life, bollocks. Why a day off work is no fun on your own...

Today is the day after the Labour Day public holiday in Victoria, in the land of Oz, and like a true Aussie, I took an extra day of annual leave to stretch out the long weekend.

The weather forecast for today had been looking good for some days, so I planned a day trip to Portarlington, a sleepy little beachside suburb on the Bellarine Peninsula, around 80 minutes' drive from my home. The plan was this:

Leave the house early with Muddy while the sky is still a dark, greyish pink, stop for a breakfast of delicious bacon and eggs or berry pancakes at the Sailors' Rest cafe in Geelong, grab the newspapers (broadsheets only - natch), some takeaway coffees, then head to the beachfront and park the car right under the conifers. We would spend our day swimming, sunbaking, reading the papers, then grab some salty and greasy fish and chips washed down with Blue Heaven milkshakes, followed by more sunbaking and swimming, then drive home relaxed and relatively de-crankified (unless West Gate Freeway traffic was hellish...).

Well, Muddy had other plans, and was unable to join me on this little trip so I put a call out to a few people asking if they'd be willing to play hooky and take the day off from their family, work or study commitments to join me. Sadly, there were no takers.


Haters. Dusty haters. You know who you are...

...and if any of you loved me just a little bit, you'd have said 'yes'. More importantly, if any of you really cared about your own work, life, balance as so many of you profess to do, you'd have given the Man the finger and joined me on my little late Summer (really early Autumn) sojourn. 


10 Other Reasons why you should have joined me:

1. Because the drive on the West Gate Freeway was dead easy. The sky was blue and cloudless up high and the roads below were just as clear, the cars driven by mostly polite Zen maniacs.

2. Because I had Machine Gun Fellatio playing on the stereo, then Beastie Boys and Roxy Music.

3. Because I was having such a good time singing along on my own to my favourite naughty Jewish boys, that I missed the turn-off to Geelong city centre and was half way to the Great Ocean Road before I realised what I'd done (Hey Ladies, No Sleep Till Colac!!!) but I figured it out and got to Portarlington anyway.

4. Because the bacon, egg and cheese toastie and capuccino from the Portarlington Bakehouse were awesome.

5. Because the beach was deserted, save for the elderly Italian couple who kindly looked after my stuff when I went for a faux-Triathlon-style swim/splutter to the safety buoy and back.

6. Because the water was ice-cold and crystal clear with nary a ripple, making for easy floating and staring at the sky.

7. Because the grilled flake and potato cake were just salty and greasy enough.

8. Because I would rather someone I know apply the second layer of sunscreen to my back, not someone else's elderly nonna. (Though her hands were pretty marvellous...)

9. Because George Megalogenis' latest book The Australian Moment is so good and so full of wonderful insights I needed to read bits aloud to someone every few pages, and lastly,

10. Because even the most self-contained person needs to share a perfect day with a loved one.


So next time someone invites you to take the day off work, school, study and spend the last days of Summer on the beach, don't say 'no'. Work, study and family will aways be there, but a hot sunny 30-plus-degree day in Autumn is rare and special. 


And so am I.

De-frag your life. The "100 Thing" Challenge. A special guest blog appearance by Red Karpitz.

I've always struggled with the contradictions of being a keen acquirer of shiny new things (clothes, shoes, kitchen gadgets, film posters, upholstery fabrics, furniture, bedding and the like) as well as an unsentimental 'chucker' of stuff.

This is mostly due to my fondness for William Morris' adage, “If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” 


I'm reminded of that fantastic line in the sitcom "Ned and Stacey" where Thomas Haden Church's Ned takes a look at his housemate Stacey's bedroom and shudders with disgust, "It's not just a messy room, but a messy mind...a messy soul." Muddy Karpitz and I truly understand his horror.

Which is why more and more we're coming around to the notion of something more than just an uncluttered home - an uncluttered life - and if we might paraphrase the late Mr Morris, 
"Have nothing in your lives that you do not know to be enriching or believe to be loveable." 

And why Red Karpitz's Toastmasters' speech (No. 3 in the Competent Communicator series - Get to the Point) 100 Things really spoke to me.  In it, Red talks about the value of divesting yourself of the things you don't need (unused stuff, excess material possessions) and paring your life down to the barest essentials, leaving space (both physical, mental and emotional) to focus on and enjoy the things that really matter - relationships, friendships, ideas and experiences.  A noble sentiment, well-expressed Red. Everyone else, enjoy. 


The 100 Thing Challenge


Mr Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and esteemed guests, today I would like to take you on a personal journey of consumerism and the salvation I found in the 100 Thing Challenge. 

A wise friend of mine once told me that I knew the price of everything and the value of nothing - she was right. Until recently, each pay-check rolled by to satisfy my never-ending desire for ‘stuff’. If I was able to get something for half price it was a bargain. Computers, mobile phones, tablet devices, clothes. There was an aching hole in my soul that could be filled with just one more item – a fantasy world that was always just out of reach.

Today’s peak was tomorrow's plateau, an un-winnable game. The latest fad would temporarily satisfy my novelty-seeking ways – at a cost. Promotions and salary increases did little to alleviate the relative poverty that plagued my existence.    How does a person break free of the cycle of spend and repeat?

A little investigation led me to believe I wasn’t alone in this thinking. A lot of people around the world felt “stuck in stuff.” They felt that their closets and garages were full of things that didn’t really make their lives any better. Closer to home, the feeling remained the same with the average Australian owing over $3000 on their credit card.

We have never been so rich; we had never been so in debt. 

I was convinced that consumerism is the religion of the Western world.

Recently, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a website called the 100 thing challenge. The goal of the 100 thing challenge was simple enough - to break free from the confining habits of Western-world consumerism and live a simpler life.
The author, Dave Bruno, outlines three main points:

• Point number one – Reduce  - Get rid of some of your stuff
• Point number two – Refuse to get more new stuff
• Point number three – Rejig your priorities

The first point was the hardest. It involved a stocktake of things I had collected in my twenty five years of existence. Items that defined me as a person, or so I thought.  Memories that I wasn’t too eager to throw away. 

I boxed up and passed on old and ill-fitting clothes. I gave away the majority of computer related components that I was hoarding for that rainy day. I sorted out the contents of my digital life – both an emotional and liberating experience.

As this process progressed I felt the weight of the digital and physical worlds lifting from my shoulders.  A sense of relief and excitement swept upon me as all the items I had made identity meaning out of were being purged from my life.
By clearing out all this physical, digital and sentimental clutter I was making room for the new.  

Freeing space up to move, to breathe, to live. 

Point 2, refusing to get new stuff, was about being conscious in consumption.

If I wanted something new could I borrow it? Rent it? Could I ask to get it as a gift? Could I delay gratification and avoid paying the early adopter premium?

Did I even need it in the first place?

I am pleased to say that I have been able to postpone big ticket items thus far – including that all important three piece suit that all adult males should have.

Point 3, rejig, was about redefining what is important.

I am convinced the real poverty we experience in the Western world is not a material one, rather one of time and experiences. It is not about having more - rather it is about doing more and being more. 

Last week I had my first near-life experience for some time – I went rock climbing in the city with friends – an amazing test of physical and emotional resilience that changed me. I want to do more of the things I enjoy with the people I enjoy. 

Ultimately, I must confess that I didn’t get down to one hundred items; my personal library contains more the one hundred books alone. However, without a doubt, the 100 thing challenge was a valuable and liberating process.

As a takeaway from this speech I propose that you all play ‘The Sims’ computer game for two weeks and determine if your life as a consumer has any more meaning than the characters you control in the game.

As for me I’ll be aiming to consume less and contribute more. Reducing, refusing and rejigging the items in my life as I strive to stay off the never-ending treadmill with the dangling carrot that is always out of reach.

The time, energy and money I save will be better invested in education, experiences and relationships. 

Clearing the clutter out of my life has allowed me to focus on what truly matters.

Thank you.