Reckons, Morgan Avery, Page 46

I know the hair makes you look different, but, didn’t you used to be more gold coloured?

2006-02-17 Morgan Avery

The end of Stargate Atlantis season 2 (which I must say felt pretty abrupt, guess we’ll see what comes down the track in season 3) has lead me back into the fold of Wormhole X-treme! I mean, uh, Stargate SG1. I’m watching Season 8 right now, and it features what might very well be the finest ever recap episode: ‘Citizen Joe’ (ep 15). Funny, sweet, in-jokes & ffan references galore (which while protesting any attempt to label me a fanboy, I still noticed and enjoyed – in my humble opinion, there is a huge difference between a fan and a fanboy, maybe I’ll go into it some time).

Stargate really does kick a whole lot of arse, and heading back into SG1 has really reminded me how much is missing from Atlantis.

I’ve also been watching some Babylon 5 lately, I’m not quite sure what to make of it, I’d caught a couple of episodes before, and my first thoughts on popping the first DVD was "this is rubbish, what’d they use for the graphics, a Commodore 64?" and similar thoughts, it’s hard to watch SF created in 1993. I might skip ahead a season or so and see if it catches me.

Surprisingly, the alien makeup in B5 is still better than in Stargate Atlantis – which is quite an achievement for a show well over a decade old.

We’ve watched maybe 5 or 6 episodes of Invasion, and it kicks the arse off Surface. I mean, really. It just goes to show, if you want to make a TV series that doesn’t suck, hire actual actors. Probably a good idea not to have cute little aliens on screen as well. If for some reason they bother making a second season of Surface, I’ve got a good feeling I’m not going to be watching it.

Lastly, I got a cheque from the Ministry of Justice today, how many people can say that? (Ok, the answer is hundreds, but you know.)

My ricey lunch.

2006-02-13 Morgan Avery

So, I’ve been known to give off a bit of a false impression of myself through this site, and my dietary habits are one of the things I’m most prone to lying about, so today I present my most common lunch. (Well, aside from something like toast.)

Rice with tuna and furikake. Furikake is a Japanese seasoning sprinkle, full of lovely things like dried bonito, sesame seeds, sugar, seaweed, bean powder, and egg.

My rice method requires fairly accurate measurements. If you follow the instructions everything will work out just fine.

1/2 cup of rice.
1 cup of cold water.
A little oil.
Tuna (or a hard boiled egg or two, if you prefer).
Furikake.

Heat oil in a pot, rinse rice under the tap (I put it in a sieve) then drain as well as you can before dumping in the pot. Stir around in the pot with a wooden spoon while it sizzles up a bit.

Pour in the water, stir it around well, get all the rice off the sides of the pot, scrape the wooden spoon around to make sure none of the rice is stuck to the bottom.

Put the lid on the pot, wait until it comes up to the boil, then turn the heat right down, below low if you can, really just keep it so it’s barely on. Now leave it alone. Don’t take the lid off. Don’t stir it. Don’t even look at it. Set a timer for 15 minutes, and try to avoid even thinking about it. You see, your sizzingly and boiling were really just a practical majick to entice kind hearted spirits into your pot, they do the job of the cooking and puffing up of the rice, and if you bother them, they’ll all run away.

After 15 minutes, the kind spirits will drink up all the water, and leave, you’ll find a bunch of little holes, that’s where the spirits were lying while they did their work. Stir the rice up so any excess moisture on the rice steams off. Unless you cheated (or estimated, against my advice) your water & rice quantities, there will be no spare water in the bottom of the pot.

Put as much of the rice in a bowl (or on a plate) as you want to eat, all of it makes a very filling lunch for a big lad. Add some chunks of tuna on top.

Got your favourite furikake? I’ve got mine. Chilli flavour. Awww yeah.

Sprinkle on as much as you like. I get about 5 meals from a pouch.

Mix everything up a bit, and it’s ready to eat. And so good.

The One with the Birthday

2006-02-11 Morgan Avery2 Comments

Jesus, 29? How can this be? I feel like a kid. But 29 isn’t kiddily at all, is it?

Anyway, we had a few friends out to dinner at Canton, and it was good.

My new favourite t-shirt.

My new favourite tattoo.

An underexposed Dylan. I’d rather have a dark photo than use a flash, you see. It mostly works, as long as I get my settings right.

Francois and Melanie. One of the waitresses was playing with his baby at the time.

Karl trying to get Louise drunk.

This is either Matteo, or Cthulu. I’m hoping for the latter, the sooner we have our souls devoured, the sooner the pain is over.

Lemon chicken. Very good, but not as good as the crispy roast pork (shutter speed was too slow to capture that, it was all gone in under 1/60th of a second.

Anyway, today I’ve been binging on birthday cake-pie-pudding – banana cream style. Awww yeah

Everyone who came: thank you. Everyone who didn’t make it… Maybe next time, eh?

The cheese makerer

2006-02-08 Morgan Avery

After wasting my morning in the jury room at the Auckland District Court (not being drawn in the ballot, and having to hang around for three fucking hours while they clown-arsed around as if it was their first time ever running a jury) I decided the rest of the day would be well spent being creative, first on the list was something I’ve never done before – cheese making.

I decided to do a really simple one to begin with.

Ingredients are simple and easy to find, milk, vinegar, salt. That’s it. The recipe I found was a bit bigger than I wanted (eight litres of milk? no thanks), so here is the pared down version:

500ml milk.
3 teaspoons of white vinegar (normal malt vinegar might be okay as well).
1/4 teaspoon salt.

Heat the milk in a pot to about 90C (don’t let it boil, if it looks like it’s about to, pull it off the heat right away).

Add vinegar to the milk. Give it a gentle stir.

It’ll start to seperate right away.

Leave it to cool. Doesn’t take too long from that heat.

As you can see, the seperation is quite dramatic.

Pour the curds and whey through a sieve. Gently.

Mmmm, delicious whey. Ok, not delicious really. I tasted it, it’s a little bit sweet, quite weak flavoured. Nothing too scary, but I wouldn’t want to drink it every day.

Curds! Looks just like cottage cheese. There’s a reason for that. Add the salt to the curds, mix it in well. Add more salt if you feel like it. Do it to taste.

Time for the taste testing.

Claire said it was very good. I said it would do nicely piled into a couple of toated sandwiches with a bunch of chilli beans. I was right.

My lovely city.

2006-02-02 Morgan Avery

You know what’s good, right? Fireworks. Yeah. What else? Japanese food. It’s true. What would be great?

So last night we decided to grab a bite to eat at Fuji San (we love that place, it’s definitely top 3 Auckland Japanese places for us, along with Tanuki (not Tanuki’s Cave) and Sharaku. Due to 1. quality of service – attentive yet discrete, no one comes to hassle you or see if everything’s okay, but they watch the room like hawks ready to swoop to your side if you give them the slightest flick of the head. 2. price. I mean, really. 3. Well, the food is really good too. Which helps, you know?

Anyway, I got a nice crumbed pork thing, Claire got her normal freaky fried tofu thing, and a pile of california rolls, so good. (Incidentally, the next table over featured none other than David McPhail. Crikey he’s got a great voice.)

We then wandered down Queen St, grabbed a white chocolate mocha, and headed up to Albert Park where I had a nice spot in mind for the Skytower fireworks. I think it worked out pretty well.

Nice evening.

Pie sandwich and other fooding tricks.

2006-01-24 Morgan Avery1 Comment

Ok, so a while ago I posted evidence of one of my experiments with sandwich technology, the "Diagnosis: Chronic Heart Disease," I was pretty widely ridiculed. But that’s to be expected when you’re way out here on the edge of gastronomy.

Today, I present my latest discovery: the pie sandwich.

I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

In less messed up crazy news, I’ve been greatly enjoying one of my Christmas presents, a Chasseur cast-iron grill pan. Crikey I love heavy enameled cast-iron cookware, but it’s such an expensive habit I have to let other people do all the buying.

I’m a better cook than you are.

2006-01-24 Morgan Avery2 Comments

I’m sorry if this comes as a surprise, but it’s a proven fact.

In fact, I’ve been a good cook since I was in my early teens.Â I have creativity and attention to detail, as well as a quite highly educated palate.

Lately I’ve been playing the role of house-husband to Claire’s bread-winner.Â This includes making up a delightful lunch for her every day.

Her lunch for tomorrow includes, along with a yogurt and a packet of jaffa cakes, a bowl of roasted vegetables (carrot, caramelised red onion, potato, and kumara), and a big moist slice of fresh baked banana bread.Â Delicioso!

You might well think you’re a good cook, and possibly you are, but next to me you ain’t shit.

In other news, we went to the Chinese New Year thing at the showgrounds with Dylan, Melanie, and Harrison on the weekend, it was okay I guess.Â I had some very nice (but quite greasy) noodles, grape juice, and very pedestrian chicken satays.Â Oh, and a Chinese biscuit.Â Unfortunately being a daytime even there was no opportunity for fireworks – which we really enjoyed when it was in Albert Park the last couple of years.

I just got the banana bread out of the oven, I think I’ve surprised even myself with how perfect it is.

Self-effacingly yours,
The Monkey

Let them eat cake.

2006-01-16 Morgan Avery

Claire stayed home from work, so of course I baked a cake.

No sooner was it iced than she was straight into it.

A weekend with friends.

2006-01-16 Morgan Avery

Saturday night we have Harrison over for dinner, he brought Dylan & Melanie with him. I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be a little ladies man, especially with that sketchy godfather of his. He certainly does like to cop a good grope.

Claire & Harrison

Claire put together a very nice spread of mixed salad with balsamic, absolutely perfect tuna steaks, and even made a fresh rocket pesto for the potatoes. Delicious.

Salad with balsamic, tatoes with rocket pesto, and perfect tuna steaks with lemon juice.

Sunday we had Adam & Sandra over, decided we’d like something easier this time, and got some very good fish & chips from a place at Greenwoods Corner.

Claire & Sandra preparing their meals.

The fish (snapper) was really good, the chips were just about perfect, and the potato fritters were crispy and wonderful, about the only thing they don’t do really well is a humble burger, I’ve had bacon, egg & cheese burgers there – the patties tend to be pretty crappy, and the buns are small and boring, last night though I went for a terakihi burger which was pretty good, same disappointing bun, but the fish was far better than their patties. Also got some crumbed prawns which were good, and Sandra had a crab stick, I don’t know what she thought of it.

This morning, as Claire was getting ready for work, I noticed that she’d warmed up the coffee machine, so while she was drying her hair, I whipped up a ristretto espresso for her, but that’s not all – con panna! Yum.

Espresso Con Panna

We got a new burr grinder, which is nice, I made the espresso with Allpress beans. Man the house smells good when I’ve been making coffee.

What did you do on your weekend?

Listless.

2006-01-11 Morgan Avery

I don’t know if I’m feeling a bit of a post-holiday depression or what, but the last few days I’ve been feeling increasingly listless, or do I mean shiftless.

There are a lot of things I want to get done this year, and it makes sense to make a start, but I just can’t be bothered right now.

At least I managed to build up my motivation to a sufficient level to get some baking done, you should smell my banana bread, oh boy. Just 15 minutes to go and it comes out of the oven.

Things I want to get done, well Claire actually listed a couple of them on her site, but let’s see now…

Sell a painting. I really enjoy painting, lately I’ve been playing with a new direction in style and I think it’s working out really well – you can be the judge of this I guess, look at the painting I gave my mother for Christmas, that’s what I’m talking about.
Finish one of my books. Any one of them will do, but it looks like the stupid sci-fi with the terrible name is furthest along now. I’d hoped to start off my massive;y successful publishing career with the zombie story, but it doesn’t like it was meant to be. But anyway, I want to finish one of my books, I probably won’t try and get it published properly, and will just get a small run printed off by on of the POD services, for distribution to friends – or enemies, depending on how well it turns out.
Get a more reliable income. I love running my business, and it makes me rich from time to time, but other times it just pays the bills. So I might make the business part time, and work with someone who has deep pockets for a while.
I want to shave off my beard. I’m a bit tired of it now, I want to try being clean shavewn, which is something I haven’t done in well over ten years now. I don’t know if I can stand it though, I have no idea what I look like with no beard. Also, Claire doesn’t want me to shave it off now – when I first got it, she wanted it gone, now I’m thinking of razing it, she wants it to stay, not helpful.
Start back into karate (or something) I really want to get back into some really strenuous physical activity, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Seido if it wasn’t for the other people that go. I don’t know if I’m very excited about doing it again this year, but it’s on my long term list. I’d like to get my brown belt (which, theoretically, is my next grading, but in reality after as long a break as I’ve had, who knows?) What I don’t want to get is the aggressive, over-competitive, arsehole, bullshit, cultist crap. This is a real risk, it was only after I’d stopped going for a while that I realised how much complete bullshit was involved. But I loved how hard the exercise was, and it made me feel good to be really fit.
Change cars. I really like driving Claire’s hot little hatchback, and I don’t so much like driving my 4wd. So I’m thinking about getting rid of the 4wd and getting a hatch of my own, or maybe a small station wagon. I still like the Toyota Caldinas. Maybe a Toyota Echo, though, I’ve seen some of them around the city that looked pretty sweet. (And some that looked like a tarts handbag, but let’s ignore them, shall we?)

Ok, 90 seconds to go on the banana bread, so I think I’ll round this off now. Bye bye.