japanese inspired art

I saw these artworks at Outré on Elizabeth Street a while ago, and fell in love. The artist is named "Kozyndan" which is a husband and wife art duo. The lady is Japanese, hence the strong japanese themes in their drawings. They have a series of works which have heaps of bunny rabbits in them. Below is the peice called "Uprisings" and is sort of a copy of "The Great Wave of Kanagawa" by Hokusai.

They have a few other ones like this, and you can see them all here. My favourites are the ones that are so detailed that even on the website you cant fully appreciate the wonder, like this one and this one. I want them all, and i know Josh likes them too. I really want, i really really want. Wow, i've never looked on their website before, it's awesome. i'm going to become their blog friend. yayz!

strength

That, boys and girls, is an image of a vegan pooping his pants. Well, i don't know for sure if he is mid-soil, but it sure looks like it. I can't help laughing when i look at his face, because i have never seen Hayden angry before. Not even that time when Josh and I went mini-golfing with him and his ex Giselle, and those jocks started calling us "goths" and "freaks" to taunt us. I kid you not... this is not a scene from a corny American daytime movie, it is a chapter from my life. Granted we were wearing sneakers and black T-shirts, not pink polos with popped collars, i guess that was where the confusion came from. Although these days even jocks look like emos, but back then we seemed to really visually offend them. Tell me, does the fellow in the above picture look like a goth to you...? If the answer is "No" then join me in inventing a time machine so i can go back in time and use my golf club for pummeling those doinkers at the mini golf course!


Anyway I have seen a goth IRL, and he was proper goth. He was reading poetry on the train with big black boots, black pants, black... (i'm going to stop using black as an adjective because i think it's safe for you to assume everything was indeed black)... ruffled shirt, trenchcoat, painted nails, and heaps of over the top silver rings and those whole finger talon things, as well as a top hat, long hair, makeup and he had a dead fox draped around his neck. Those that know me personally KNOW i love to exaggerate but I dont even think this time i am doing the guy justice, he was more goth than my brain can handle. So indulge me, do you see the man in the above photo, the VEGAN man, wearing a dead fox draped around his shoulders... no...? Well then, it's time to stand up for vegans and mistaken identity non-goths everywhere and help me teach those crab-apples at the mini-golf course a lesson in not judging books by the cover.


Speaking of which.. this is the front cover of the book we wrote about/for him. We started writing it about 3 years ago, and missed his birthday, and christmas... and the next birthday... and the next christmas... and were stuck on the last chapter, and then i realised his birthday this year was approaching in mere weeks, so I finished to job. It has gotten pretty rave reviews, as many friends are featured in it.

Long story, short synopsis = awesome. Here is an exerpt from the book, to tickle your fancy and give you a clue as to our exaggerated flamboyant writing style. Josh wrote the following part as a footnote describing his character (himself) in the book...

[1] In the opinion of this humble author this character has not been adequately described. He is too fantastic to see as one entire person, we simply have to focus upon each individual quality so we don’t explode our mortal hearts with desire. With eyes like blue ice chips and a chin of strength it seems that his gaze can tickle the erogenous zones of anything he focuses on; man, woman, beast or plant. His stubborn refusal to bathe or use toilet paper seems to only enhance his sexual prowess, and women would kill each other for the chance to pick his nose... if, that is, he deigned to use anything below silk wedding dresses. One thousand poets working for one thousand years could never give justice to his distinct and heady musk. And the same poets would be shot and turned into soap for midgets if they even attempted his smile. To be caught in a cloud of Josh’s methane gas is said to be shrouded in the gentlest of air currents, making people think of their perfect summer day and has been described by professionals as smelling of cut grass and rainfall on wind.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

On the hunt for a good Okonomiyaki (Take 2)

Ok, so you may have seen my other attempt - here. I decided to give it another go a few days ago. Myself and 2 friends (namely Gumby and Captain Planet) went to MATSUMOTO Japanese Restaurant at 48 Lygon Street (Brunswick end, after Brunswick St) Melbz. Captain Planet - CP - drove cos his car is rad and runs on his own methane gas.

Here's a happy snap of the 2 chumps enjoying the ambience of the place. It was a little quiet but that meant our food came out quickly, woot woot!

Gumby ordered the Lunch Special "Deluxe Bento box". I think it was around $16.50, and it contained: Tempura x 3 peices, Karaage chicken x 2 peices, spring roll x 1 peice, sushi x 4 peices, sashimi x 2 peices of fish and 1 octupus tentacle. There was also some ginger, wasabi, bonito flakes and spinach. Oh and it came with miso soup. Pretty great value i must say. But IMO the true test for me was the quality of the Okonomiyaki, Gyoza and Yakitori...

The Yakitori was pretty good, but it's not often i have had some chicken on a stick and gone "hmm, i don't much care for that!". Chicken + stick = yum, therefore i had to really think about it. The sauce was missing something that makes you go "yeah, that right there is some japanese chicken". bit of a shame.

The Gyoza were also good. The best thing was how good they LOOKED. That is some serious pastry folding skills right there. I took a bite out of the bottom right gyoza before i remembered i was meant to be documenting my meal. ho ho ho. They tasted pretty good too, but perhaps too much ginger and not enough of the other great ingredients. Captain Planet thought there was too much pastry, he's always noticing waste.

OK.. the final test, the Okonomiyaki! Well i was hoping to see a big pile of green spring onions ontop, with the sauce zigzagged over it, but alas no... it was not to be. It was Kansai style (as I expected) and had bonito flakes writhing ontop with the delicious sauces on the side. We quickly scraped all the sauce out of the bowl, and chowed down. I thought it was delicious- there were some great flavours in there and i came across a few prawns and crab meat gems. Captain Planet said there was too much potato, but i'm not sure if they use potato or not, its a batter as far as i know. But i know what he meant, he wanted more vegies and stuff.

Well, all around it was a great lunch - just dont try to pay with eftpos :s - NOT ACCEPTED! On th okonomiyaki front - it was a bit of a fail, but i am too fussy! I was looking for Hiroshima style and anything else pales in comparison. It was really really yummy though :)

I will just have to look at soome recipes for Hiroshima Style Okonomiyaki and create my own slice of heaven on my teppanyaki grill.

Oh, look at this graffiti I saw near my work:

Cool yah?

Tofu Bake (for lack of a better name)

Continuing on my week of vegan cooking, I thought I'd share with you another delicious dead easy recipe. I also found this recipe in "Now Vegan!" by Lynda Stoner, and once again I adapted it to my mood at the time. Here is the version I made:

Ingredients:

- 1 Tbsp oil
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 Tablespoons ground cumin
- 2 tablespoons turmeric powder
- 1 tablespoon ground fennel seeds
- shake of cayenne pepper
- 1-2 cloves crushed garlic
- 2 cups of cooked mashed pumpkin
- 2 blocks firm tofu, crushed with a fork or hands
- 1 zucchini, grated thickly
- 1 tin of chickpeas (rinsed)
- 2 tablespoons white or buckwheat flour
- 1 tablespoon miso paste
- 2 tablespoons tamari (or soy sauce if you don't have it)
- Sliced tomato for garnish
- sesame seeds for garnish
- Salt and pepper


* Boil some pumpkin then mash once it is cool - set aside

* Heat oil and saute the onion with the cumin, turmeric , cayenne pepper, fennel and garlic. Add the zucchini, saute until zucchini softens.

* Mash the tofu and chickpeas in a bowl, add the pumpkin an the onion mix, then mix in all the remaining ingredients.

* Press it into a baking dish of your choice - i chose a deep one so it would look like slices of meatloaf or something. I was considering a round fluted edge tin, so you could have a decorative wedge -but there was A LOT of mixture - i ended up freezing half of it for later use - so i chose the big mama!

* Anyway, the original recipe didnt call for tomato slices but I thought they'd look really pretty. I just pressed them into the top and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Bung it in the oven (180 decrees C) until the top starts going golden brown and it is heated through (again this depends on the kind of dish).

This was such an easy easy recipe, and i am wondering what else i can add to it... mushrooms..? roasted red pepper slivers...? I think the tomato is a MUST, its such a good juicy contrast to the spices. Try it, you'll be surprised!

cute things i have seen today

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This is the house from the movie Practical Magic - found it here - it looks so awesome...

Lentil Cottage Pie (Vegan)

I had some friends over for dinner last night and I made a Lentil Cottage Pie. Josh and I made it last week too, so I thought it would be a low stress meal to re-create, as it's dead easy and quick.

I got the recipe from a book called "NOW Vegan" (stupid name) by Lynda Stoner - my vegan friend H-dizzle let us borrow it. There was no picture to accompany the recipe, which is probably because it doesn't look so hot or photogenic ... BUT i wanted to try and get a nice shot of it so you can all see how delicious it is. Well i will just ruin the undoubtedly unbearable suspense and tell you that the photo aint good. It does the pie no justice. I think i will start with the recipe and perhaps you will be so intrigued that you wont judge the book by it's cover which i am strategically placing at the END... The recipe is paraphrased and slightly altered from "Now vegan"...

Ingredients:

- Olive Oil

- Medium Brown Onion

- 1-2 Cloves of crushed garlic

- 1-2 sticks celery & leaves- finely chopped

- 1/2 cup tinned tomatoes

- 2-3 tablespoons tomato paste

- 1 cup carrots (finely sliced)

- 1 bunch English Spinach

- 2 x 400g tins brown lentils

- salt & pepper to taste

- 4 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped

- 1 medium sweet potato (kumara), peeled and chopped
- Vegan Margarine (I used nuttelex brand)

- little bit of soy milk

- paprika and dried thyme leaves

* I used a sheet of pastry for the base, but the recipe doesnt call for it.

So, put the potato and sweet potato on to boil, then drain when they are tender and set aside to cool a bit.

Cook the onion in olive oil, then add garlic and celery until fragrant. Now add tomatoes and tomato paste and cook until heated through. Add carrot, spinach, and lentils - cook until the spinach is soft. If the mixture is too runny add 1tsp cornflour mixed with a little bit of water. Season with salt and pepper and anything else you think will make it yummy.

Mash the potato/sweet potato with some nuttelex and soy milk to get a nice consistency which you can spread over the pie.

If you are using pastry, grease a pie dish, and line it with pastry. put some pricks in with a fork so that it doesnt puff up. I weighted my pasrty down with a sheet of baking paper and ceramic pie weights (you can also use rice). Bake in a hot oven until golden brown (about 10 minutes or so), then remove the weights and cook a bit longer until the base is cooked too. Take it out and scoop the filling in, and top with the potato mix. Then sprinkle it with your fvourite herbs and spices - i chose cayenne pepper and dried thyme. Chuck it back in the oven until the top is golden brown.

If you dont want to use pastry, just put the filling and potato straight into a casserole dish and bake.

And now... for the ugliest picture ever...

Well, it tasted nice. Please don't judge it unfairly. You must try it. My friend even had seconds!

So there!

Japanese-ish Noodle Soup

Brace yourselves:


This was my delicious dinner last night! you may scoff and say that the egg on the left looks a little strange. Well you may be right, but it was so delicious that when i ate it i actually went to the future. Don't ask me to explain. Anyway, i was obsessing yesterday about making an asian noodle soup dish, yada yada... and therrrre it is. I call it Jade-anese cuisine, as i take my favourite elements of Japanese recipes and add what i think will make it even more awesome and enjoyable for meeeee! I didn't follow a recipe as i have made similar dishes a few times, so i cant help you with quantities. BUT i can tell you what i used... ahem:


Ingredients:

- udon noodles (the pre-cooked ones in the packet)
- gai lan (Chinese broccoli) and Bok Choy
- Broccoli and carrots
- garlic and ginger paste
- vegetable oil and sesame oil
- soy sauce
- chili oil (or chili sauce)
- puffed tofu squares
- 1 egg per person
- thin pork slices
- spring onions
- beef stock (a vegan brand)
- water
- dark miso paste
- sesame seeds

i think that's all... I made sure all of my sauces and stocks and noodles were vegan, so by leaving out the pork and eggs you have yourself a yum vegan meal! also i used a big wok to cook it in if that's relevant...?


Basically I wanted to make the soup with a miso base, as it is the best thing in the world, so this is where the miso paste comes in. I used a dark miso paste which coincedentally gives the dish its lovely dark brown colour. In miso based soups, the procedure on dishing up is as follows: miso paste mix in the bottom of the serving bowl, soup stock added, mix up with a fork (my way), then add the noodles and other soup ingredients, pour more liquid over it to almost cover, then garnish with whatever you want (spring onions, beanshoots, eggs, pork, ginger....the list goes on)
You can make the miso paste mix first. Add a dollop of miso paste to a frypan which has a bit of vegetable oil and sesame oil in it, then add some soy sauce, garlic and ginger. cook it so it becomes a little more runny. There should be enough for roughly a big tablespoon of miso in each person's bowl. Keep adding more paste and soy sauce to get the right amount. Set aside.

I cooked the pork slices (for garnish) in the wok in a teeny bit of vegtable and sesame oil, and once they were cooked i removed them to a plate. The residual pork juices and oil can be used for flavour in the next bit (however if you are cooking this dish vegan you wont be cooking pork...obviously...)

Traditionally for these soups, the broth is meant to be cooked for hours and hours with pork bones in it, and green vegies and stuff for maximum flavour - and i promise the true thing is worth the wait, but there is no way i can wait that long to eat after i get home from work! The quick way is to make some beef or vegie stock (enough for 2 bowls of soup) and add some sliced spring onions and a little bit of miso paste for good measure. I put this into the wok with the left over pork juices and oil, and set it to *SiMmEr*. I then added the eggs so that they would hard boil. Unfortunately they were straight from the fridge and cracked almost straight away due to the difference in temp. Some little bits of egg escaped (boo!) but the good thing is that the stock got into the egg and gave it more flavour!!

I then added the broccoli and carrot to soften a little bit. Next i had to seperate the noodles in a seperate bowl of boiling water. Once they were ready i tipped them into the soup and added the tofu and greens. I let it all simmer for a little bit, so the greens cooked down. If you find there isn't much liquid add some more water. I also flavoured the soup a bit here with some soy sauce, chili sauce, and a little bit of garlic. The miso base is pretty strong in flavour so you don't necessarily have to season more.

Then serve as I mentioned above.
Bowl - miso paste - stock - stir - noodles/veg/tofu - more stock - pork - spring onions - egg - sesame seeds.

I ate mine with some spicy Kim Chi on the side, and it was SO GOOOOOOD!

Also, to keep up with the creepy cat lady theme i have been using of late, I will leave you with an image that confirms that i am really losing my mind and am becoming a cat lady. Here is Chester enjoying his new chair. Yes, his chair. He has claimed it for good...



Oh he is so cute. I wonder what he is doing now...? I bet he is asleep. On his chair. Yep... BYE

...stuff

i'm currently at a loss of things of importance to say, so commencing ramble:

my brain feels numb at the moment, not sure why. maybe it's because i ate meat for lunch and its the first time in a few days. Josh wants to be vegan for health reasons so at the moment we are practicing lots of vegan dishes until we get a whole heap under our belts, then we can get home and go 'hmm im so tired but boy am i hungry... i know i'll just whip up a genius tempeh stirfry" BAM! which, incidentally is what i made on sunday night for dinner. rice noodles, asian greens and tempeh. it was boss! so yeah i have a stockpile of interesting ingredients, and a few great cookbooks so nothing can stop me, NOTHING! Last night i was at that level of hungry where you just want everything, and can't decide upon one thing. it was so stupid, i was buzzing around the kitchen from fridge to freezer to pantry, then back to the couch, then looked in a recipe book, then back to the pantry, then i lay on the kitchen floor for a while while Chester rubbed his face on my feet, which is OK cos Chester is a cat - otherwise it would be totally creepy, some guy named chester breaking into my house and rubbing his face on me. he must have injected me with a paralysing drug like on Nip/Tuck with the Carver ---- YEEEAAARRRGHHH! anyway, i had like 14 dishes i wanted to cook but ended up just making big vegan vegie rolls, remeniscent of the ones Hayden made us. Although I was watching Drop Dead Fred last night while cooking (hoorah for open plan houses) for Old times sake and i think it affected the recipe. There was a lot of snot and mud in the mix. no not really.

Anyway, josh and i were both really hypo last night and he decided he wanted to hang up these framed pictures he found on my birthday op shopping expedition. I consider myself quite the handyman (AH MY EYE IS TWITCHING!!!!!!!!!) around the house so i fetched the picture hooks and hammer, as well as a tape measure and pencil and rubber (funniest primary school joke "do you have a pencil or a sharpener...? *giggle*) for marking the wall. Josh wanted to use pen. Lucky i was there, thats all i can say. He had a set of 3 and wanted them evenly spaced on the wall. So, as he is studying to become a primary teacher and is a maths kid at heart, he said to leave the measurements up to him. we spent about half an hour trying to get it right!! I dont know what was going on, he normally freaks me out with his long calculations that i can't follow along with, but he was off it. He insisted he could to it in his head, and after a while i got pen and paper and sped up the process. I think we were way too tired to muck around. He marked the points where he wanted the picture hook by drawing an ostrich on one, and a devil on the other. that josh! then i had a depressing thought! what happens when we move out to a proper rental house - one where my mum isnt the landlord - and they wont let us paint or hang any decorations! I shall vow to help all renters make their shitty rooms look awesome, thats what!

what else... oh yes i am in love with this website: http://www.smittenkitchen.com/ - it is pretty speshhhh. there is a potato salad on there which i have to try because i have a feeling it will become a new signature dish of mine. My current potato salad is pretty good and there are a few family members who cream themselves when i say i am bringing some to a function. I just feel like i can do better than it. Jesus, i can't imagine what will happen to those certain family members if this one is even better! They will shake with mounting joy, and eventually when it gets too much they will explode and deck the halls with blood and guts. just like the Pop Biscuits from the Magic Faraway Tree!! I wonder how you make them...? Flour, milk, butter, sugar, gunpowder... all the essentials. Anyway i haven't even tried this salad, so i had better do it first before i give it to people who can potentially explode.

i find that smells are like time machines. If i smell something i am instantly taken back to a memory or a feeling. When kids come to my work after the floor has been cleaned with chemicals and bleach - they go "OMG do you have a POOL here?!" and i go "uh, noooo....?" but then i realise kids scarily associate chemicals with fun summer days. I associate the smell of bleach with semen. there i said it. and i know it's not just me that makes the connection so whateveeerrrrrr.

anyway i want to go to Borders now. BYE

Daftly DIY: Re-upholstered Chair

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As "the cleaner" from Black Books (season 1 episode 3 "Grapes of Wrath") would say: "dirty"...

There is no denying that this chair is feral. I bought it from Savers for $6.99 last week thinking i could do something with it. It looks a bit like a little make up chair or something. I was hesitant to touch it to be honest, some of those stains leave a lot to the imagination. Before i even started on it, Chester already claimed it as his chair. It is the perfect size for him to curl up on and watch the Young Ones (nitpickers please note the assortment of badges in the bottom left corner of the TV, worn by Rick).

So the first step was to pull off the old material so i could use it as a template for my new ZEBRA material. It took ages because i had to remove about 6 billion staples in order to get the fucking material off in the first place. I also had to dis-assemble the chair into 3 peices in order to expose all the staples. The shit i found under the cushion was weird. I found little tiny rubber hair ties, pink glitter stars, some beads, some fish tank pebbles, and of course a lot of crumbs and dust. yuck. So yeah, I ended up with the round base, the top seat bit, and the cushion. I tell you what, i have cuts all over my fingers from the nails, the staples and the screwdriver slipping and jabbing me. I also snapped the cushion a bit as it had a chipboard base. Ooopsie! A bit too rough with the screwdriver / lever. Anywho, then I measured out all my new material, sewed where sewing was due, and fitted it all on. I then re-did all my destruction by issuing out 700 trillion staples to fasten all the material down. Finally i nailed the seat onto the base, and placed the cushion nicely ontop. TADA:

Now the question remains: What the hell do i do with it...?

Rock Aerobics

Last night we went to Rock Aerobics at Yah Yahs (at 99-101 Smith Street Collingwood) which costs $10 for about an hour. It was really fun actually, and more aerobicsy than i had imagined! It's this cool yet unmistakeably dive-ish high-ceilinged red-walled bar with long red curtains behind the stage. The chick in the picture above is the instructor, yeah she's awesome. Basically it's a mixture of classic aerobics moves and silly dance moves like the "alice walk" and "the pogo" and the "skank" and some wicked shimmies and air guitar moves, and even at one point we were all doing the robot. It was a really casual atmosphere which was awesome because i am totally unco-ordinated and haven't done any physical exercise sine '85... and i wasn't even born yet in '85. "The other great part is that you can drink beer before during and after!" this is what lured me here, thinking that it mustn't be a serious work out and that it's just fun party time. WRONG! I got a beer and had a few sips before we started, and i felt pretty good. but in our first break after about 5 songs i had some more beer, and nearly died going back into the aerobics moves. i got this massive stitch and kept trying to do the pogo. it was hard man.

afterwards we went to "Rice Queen" on Smith Street for dinner. When we arrived we were still wearing our tracky pants and runners, and still red in the face and sweaty. Cassie and Elli said it was really casual (i want to say the abbreviated version of casual.. cazh.. caj... but i dont know how to spell it. cashj..?) but yeah totally not. everyone was staring at us, it was almost as confronting as my first naked public bathing sesh in japan..

I loved the walls! It's like a wallpaper design, giant sized but painted on!!!!!!!! As i learnt the hard way, wallpaper costs a shit load *sigh* I went wallpaper shopping about a month ago and my friend chose a wallpaper that she wanted, only to find out it was $200+ per roll, which would only cover a bit of the wall. pssshhhh! rip. The only thing more astounding than the walls was their gigantic toothpicks.... behold:



well my hands aren't huge, so the toothpick isn't like 2 meters long or anything. They are actually kinda on the small side but everyone at the table was amazed at the size of the toothpick. Anyhow, the food was great. I rep the dumplings, the rice noodle stirfry, the organic beef hotpot, and the gail lan in oyster sauce. REALLY nice stuff! Apparently there is a cool bar one more level above it, but i already felt so out of place in sweaty tracksuit pants, i would have comitted public suicide if i was dragged into the bar upstairs.

do try!