mountain masala

finally a good food photo!

making stock from red snapper. fished baked with tomato, wine, basil along with baked veg was excellent. stock tasted horrible.

new 'pro', metro and videos

got the new macbook pro on wednesday, and have been stupidly using up half my week of holiday loading stuff into it... apparently I've been culling software, but you wouldnt know it. the frustrating things are reinstalling software with machine code/activation code crap, finding fonts, missing serial nos, etc etc. the music gear is the most annoying...

BUT I cant complain - a fast 300 Gb HD and 4Gb RAM. and I will have my life back in order. really. after 2 months without my computer, half the time has been spent locating data and putting it back where it should be.

so I've been watching movies while the computer has been busy.

the leonard cohen tribute "i'm your man" is stunning, as much for the interviews as the music. nick cave is humble and generous, bono tries to be... i heard first-hand of 'grown men' weeping at his mclaren vale concert here and am so sorry i miised it. a classy film and worth seeing. (and to think he was just that annoying drone guy my older brother used to play....) i admit i've only 'recently' gone back and listened to him and finally 'got it'... (but, you know, i have old records and even old CDs of other icons....)

finally saw the whole of sigur ros' "heima" movie, after having started to watch it about 10 times late a night. amazing. gorgeous. stunning. brilliant. no wonder the critics have raved, but more importantly it seems to capture so much of young adulthood - creativity, relationships, environment, heritage, openness. a remarkable meditative experience.

and the rest of 'manufactured landscapes' by edward burtynsky which I've blogged about previously. i have to say again that for anyone with an interest in technology, globalisation, and art, this is mind-boggling. burtynsky photographs technology and its effects as others photograph nature, and here his main subject is china. the factories, refuse, people. the scale, scope and global stretch are staggering.

[aside: i've been thinking for about 6 months of running a fortnightly late afternoon wine and cheese filmfest at college called "the twiligh zone"... any takers?]

and a bit of bruce springsteen's "seeger sessions" dvd, which i have to say seems, quite shallow and contrived by comparison, even though i love the folkyness and the music itself.

last night we went to see metro street, a new australian musical put on by the SA state theatre company, starring veterans deborah byrne and nancy hayes and three younger actors. front row seats. the cast singing in our faces. it was billed as a drama about family life - it was about dashed career hopes, breaking relationshionships and terminal illness. nevertheless a great script, fabulous complex music with poetic lyrics and excellent staging. the writer is matthew robinson.

The Advertiser said "As with most musicals, Robinson's score has its highs and lows - a few toe-tapper tunes, a hint or two of Sondheim, some very busy narrative numbers and even one Annie Get Your Gun turn. His lyrics are better than his script which tends to cliche - but this bright young playwright/composer is just getting  started. His promise is immense."

well yes - lyrics reaching at deep issues, drama script was good, not great, but lifted by performance. musically it wasnt andrew lloyd webber thankfully. several brilliant numbers with multiple characters onscreen in different 'scenes' singing complementary melodies together.

go see it.

just starting a week's holiday today. we spent easter at yarrawonga in northern victoria, staying in a cabin with old friends from melbourne. great autumn weather. a lovely day in rutherglen visiting a cheese factory, an orchard with yummy jams and pastes, and several wineries.

our friends were told to visit warrabilla wines, just west of rutherglen. the australian wine companion apparently gives the place 5 stars. fantastic, full bodied reds (well, some were purple), big on alcohol (17-18%). the region is known for durif, which was first planted here in 1908 (as well as the fortifieds of course). the winemaker is a big friendly, farmer-type, probably fortyish, who kept filling our glasses and took us on a tour out the back. james halliday recommends putting their top of the range wine away for 50 years! marvellous stuff - i highly recommend it.

i flew to sydney for a two-day national consultation of uniting church theological educators. I thought it was a pretty ho-hum event, with th.e biggest discussion around what we are doing in SA. still it was good to catch up with a few folk and chat about my research project.

then flew to wagga and drove to west wyalong where we celebrated my mother-in-laws 90th birthday, a niece's 21st and our wedding anniversary all on the same day! a loooong drive home yesterday. found the freezer door open and the whole thing full of ice....

a new emusic month!

Ane Brun - "A Temporary Dive"
The Fireman (aka Paul McCartney & Youth) - "Electric Arguments
John Hiatt - "Beneath This Gruff Exterior"
M. Ward - "End of Amnesia"
Goldmund - "Two Point Discrimination"
Nick Lowe - "Jesus Of Cool"
Slow Runner - "Mermaids"
The Everybodyfields - "Nothing is Okay"

plus i made my pilgrimage to harvey norman in west wyalong (formerly "fred's"). always has cheap cds, so I got 5 for $40, including gotye, the new nick cave, glen hansard & marketa irglova, norah jones and michael buble cd/dvd.

off to empty the front lounge so i can paint it.

and the hard drive seems fine now...

at college they're interviewing for the missiology lecturer today...

i survived, but did the drive?

i survived our first VET audit today (re-registering as a vocational education provider). all better than I expected. the agonising thing was that I was TOTALLY SURE that we'd get criticised for our teaching and assessment strategies not being up to par or matching, because I know where things could be improved...

I waited for 3 hours to be called back into a feedback meeting, only to find out that
(a) I wasnt needed
(b) we had been approved
(c) the auditor had been taken on a tour of our library and gotten stuck in the rare books room as she is an old book fan....

sigh

came home - reconnected 2TB HD which has been into college to transfer data to the new Mac Pro.

........... disk problems........ 15 days left on warranty. driving to yarrawonga tomorrow for easter, then sydney and west wyalong.....

bugger.

off to cook dinner and pack for the trip.

bugger.

i'm a happy camper tonight

 

daily headspa

jana and paul have started daily headspa - a blog about finding a deeper, balanced, enjoyable and purposeful life. perhaps that sounds cliched, but for them its about spirituality as part of everyday life in ways that are imaginative, practical and fulfilling for ourselves and others.

paul is from adelaide, jana from the US (trying to remember which state!). i've known paul for years, stayed with both of them in london briefly, and they're now in darwin ministering at nightcliff UC.

they are remarkably creative, relational, well-grounded human beings. part of their ministry is life-coaching individuals and groups, bringing their christian spirituality to bear on that, but in a way that respects other people and their life stories. in other words, this is not unsubtle evangelism by any means, but rather seeking to help people know life in all its fullness.

locals will also know that paul is the dad of half of the pop duo lover's electric. that half being david and the other half being eden. jana is a "foodie" and blogs that here.

i wish they were here in adelaide but i suppose the northern colony is close enough.

stations 3 and 4

station 3 - Broken Loyalty - Mark 14:66-72

i got this idea from the "alternativeemerging" egroup.

the station had black plastic folded over with tiles inside it. there was a picture of a rooster and I had my little orbit speaker with ipod sfhufle attached. the ipod had one track on it - a 40 second loop with a rooster crowing once in the middle of it.

It is not hard to disclaim the ones
who let us down
who promised much
and failed to deliver
To their faces we agree
to others we complain,
critique, compromise
hypothesise, demoralise

In fact its easy
to convince ourselves
that we were right to begin with
that things aren’t that simple
that we could have done it better
more gain for less pain

Jesus betrays our trust
by not endorsing our hopes
not paving our future path

Not only does Jesus break our hope
in who we thought he was -
he expects our fractured faith
our misguided belief, our limited trust

God lives on broken promises

How do we justify ourselves
for breaking trust with God?
 
Reflect on your own allegiance with Christ
your alliances with people on God’s behalf

What is broken?
What needs breaking?

Take the hammer
and hit the black plastic

a night for novita

one of the young people from our church is organising this charity event as part of his year 10 studies. looks like a great night. we're going.

click on the image to see the whole thing.

if you live in Adelaide, buy a ticket or spread the word!

turkish meatballs and chilli crab

a few days a go I made this turkish meatball recipe from The Complete Book of Turkish Cooking. Its a fantastic book and cheap!

make meatballs from the following:
250 g minced lamb
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp pine nuts (I didnt have any so used slivered almonds instead)
2 tbps currants (soaked in warm water for 10 mins)
1 tsp paprika
breadcrumbs from 2 slices day-old bread (we didnt have any so we threw in some oat bran)
1 lightly beaten egg
1 tbsp tomato sauce (ketchup)
1 bunch each chopped parsley and dill (we didnt have any dill...)
Pepper & salt if you wish

make meatballs the size of a large apricot and then flatten them slightly. Shallow fry in sunflower oil.

bizarre event, freaky photo

barak gives liz an ipod

why am I reminded of gandalf visiting bilbo's house? who's trying to dissapear with the magic ring?