Excited by aubergines!

I'm thrilled! A feature on eggplants in today's Epicure (The Age). I'm just making a note here so I know where to find it later. And to remind myself to make the recipes. That relish sounds fantastic. Yum...

Eggplant Bake: From The Age

Crazy cakes and cake tins

It's heading up to "birthday season" in our household and while doing some research for my next cake creation, I found this amazing sculpture of a centipede made from recycled bundt tins. The whole process is shown here. This is my kind of art!


Gib and I are both July babies and are having a combined birthday party. After the fish, axolotl, wasp cake and giant squid, I'm about to embark on my craziest, most ambitious cake ever. I'm a bit nervous. Gib has decided he wants a leafy sea dragon cake. Bloody hell! Any suggestions are welcome.

Eye Spy... a magic elixir

When your nose is blocked and you can't taste a damn thing, Vegemite on toast is where it's at. I swear it cures colds (or at least makes them more tolerable)

Courtesy of bababooie

For a general all purpose item though, my favourite is toothpaste! (the non-gel, non-whitening kind)

• Clean CDs/DVDs
• Cleaning pencil marks and crayon off walls
• As an antacid - only use a small amount! (the peppermint, calcite and sodium bicarbonate help neutralise acid late at night when you've had too many nachos and your local supermarket has closed)
• Cleaning silver
• Cleaning grime off your sneakers
• Removing water stains from wood

Thanks Amy for this week's theme, and to Cindy, our lovely Eye Spy host!

Too cute

I found this adorable bias binding in Kim Anh fabrics. The cuteness of stuff like this makes my heart skip a beat and go weak at the knees. The little duckies are definitely my favourite.

On dagginess and overalls

A while ago I lamented how overalls are just extraordinarily uncool these days, unless you're under the age of 4 or pregnant. I'm a bit proud like that, concerned about first impressions and running into people I know down at the shops while looking frumpy. I would love to wear overalls in public anyway, but just don't have the charisma to carry it off. And I don't really want people thinking I'm expecting when I'm not.

Anyway, I have been working on my car recently and I usually just wear grotty old clothes that I don't mind destroying, but then Gib said to me "Geez dude, you totally need a pair of overalls". Why had I not thought of it before? Finally an appropriate place to wear daggy overalls! I did some searching at all of my local op shops and online, and it seems that overalls for people my size are quite hard to come by: the kids sizes don't quite extend to size 12-14, and adult overalls are mostly men's ones, and are far too big for me. So I decided to just buy a pattern and make them myself.

As an aside and while we're on the topic: why do all pattern magazines always have models with really dorky hair-dos? And poor colour coordination? I always wonder when I buy a pattern: am I really going to look as un-cool as this person in the photo? Will my clothes be poorly fitted like on that model? Pattern magazines have a way of making really hot people look ugly. It all adds to my nervousness about making my own clothes.

There were only two overall patterns I could find, both in Burda's "Young fashion" magazine. This pattern was "easy" and had wide legs (I love wide leg pants). Although, I think these might be a little too wide-leg to the point of being impractical for my purposes, so I might need to make them narrower, and and I'll need to check the length, but often 3/4 pants are just right for me. We'll see. So soon I'll have my own pair of overalls to wear in the comfort of the garage, where it wont matter if the pattern does turn out to be a bit crap and where it doesn't matter if I look like a big dork! Here's the pattern:

Burda 7822: These two sporty and super-comfortable outfits really fit the bill for leisure and holidays/vacation! [...and even working on cars]

Mild panic! And some nerdy knitting...

While I know I promised I was back last week, a couple of days after that post I went into a mild panic once I realised it was a little over a month until the confirmation of my PhD candidature. I have to submit a 10,000 word essay (mostly there, just need to make it somewhat tighter and more coherent) and do a presentation on my topic. I'm ok with presentations, so long as I know my stuff. However when you're constantly dealing with things that you don't know, and most of the people in your field don't know either, you start to wonder whether you know anything at all with all of this unknown stuff around all of the time...

But then when I actually uncurl myself from the fetal position and take a few deep breaths, I realise that I can almost make a semi-sensible sounding presentation and the past 11 months of solid reading, reviewing and getting to know my participant group haven't been all a waste. However, I've got a bit of work to do over the next few weeks. I still promise all of the things I promised you last post, but the blogging might be a bit erratic over the next month and my usual post-every-2nd-day average might go out the window.

Oh yeah, and some batteries for my camera so I can download all of these exciting photos that I need to blog about might come in handy too.

So while I'm combining Science with my craft blogging, I may as well share with you these. As regular followers of this blog may know, I just love it when art and science combine, and I have particular respect for people who go out of their way to make their art anatomically accurate.

This one is particularly dear to my heart. From The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art. Thank you very much, Kat, for the link! They did an MRI on it too (but, as they note, they didn't think it was worth attempting an fMRI, hehe).

And here is a frog and mouse dissection kit, by CraftyHedgehog

3 out of 4 biologists agree: Knitting in Biology 101 is the cutest biology project, ever! If you think so too, then this, my friend, is the art object for you.

Cute but creepy!

Wrapping is totally overrated

I know wrapping totally makes a present special, and I think it's really cute and really appreciate it when other people go to the effort for me (I love that a lot, actually) but when it's the other way I completely lose inspiration. I apologise in advance to any family members who receive presents from me. In fact, recently I gave a friend her Christmas present in a green shopping bag.

Well, it's green. Surely that's festive enough?

I've been seeing all of these awesome bloggers get excited about wrapping and I've been feeling pretty bad about my apathy towards wrapping presents.

Laura over at Bugs & Fishes makes me feel ashamed

So I was very relieved to read Georgie Love's Ultimate Guide to Gift Wrapping: scrunch paper around it, and then sign it from your pet. I like it. It's good to know I'm not the only one.

Georgie Love knows where it's at.

It's tempting.

On the other hand, with certain people, I do tend to go over the top with wrapping. My dad is notorious for weird wrapping, and hates to wrap things unless it's in 100s of layers of paper, or in a giant boxe when you're giving them a match box. He's the master of wrapping things to look like what they are not. Or having little wrapped boxes that lead you around the house, or under the house, that give you a clue to where the next part of the present might be. Last year, Gib and I "wrapped" my dad's present in a wooden box that had to be unscrewed with an electric screw driver. And the wooden box came after about 5 layers of newspaper, and finally Christmas paper.

So I think I inherited my dad's wrapping attitude.

Deconstructing Dark Cloud's pants

For years Gib has yearned to have pants like Dark Cloud's from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In about a week he needs a costume for an event we are attending, so he's going as some sort of warrior, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to give them a go. I'm not aiming for his pants exactly, but a similar style.


The problem:

I've been trying to take still shots from the DVD and work out how on earth they made those pants look so damn cool. I thought it would be straight forward, but there are surprisingly very few shots of the pants at angles that make it easy for working out how they are made. It's been hard to work out whether there is more than one layer, or if its just folds because the legs are really wide, or if there's a split somewhere. I have thought that maybe they were constructed like hakama...

... or wrap pants ...

... or Thai fisherman pants ...

...and after watching and replaying various sections and replaying over and over again, it's still too hard to know. The best view of the pants in full was in a scene where Dark Cloud was cartwheeling down sand dunes in a fight scene, and the pants billow out in full. I'm pretty sure from that the pants are just one piece, and the things I thought were splits are just folds (but the fabric is quite fine, so it looked like it could be a separate piece).

The conclusion:

I have come to a workable conclusion (as in, I don't care if it's wrong, this is how I'm doing it) that the pants are massively wide fisherman pants made in 4 panels, and the extra layers in the legs are just extra pleats that tuck in at the front.

Solution:

I took Gib down to Ziguzagu in Richmond and we picked up some beautiful hemp fabric that I've dyed black (or tried to. They are dark brown and still ok. My constant disasters when it comes to dying fabric can be left for another post!). I'm going to work with two patterns and nut out a pair of pants from there. They might turn out nothing like Dark Cloud's, but it'll be damn fun trying to make it.

Nudicake

Sorry I'm a bit late in reporting this, but I was very excited to hear from a.s.h. who commented on my blog a little while ago to say that she'd made her very own axolotl cake! It looks terrific. You can see the final result here. I love sharing knowledge and ideas and hope that other people can learn from my successes and failures. It's one of the reasons why I started this blog, so to see things like this really makes me happy.

I love giving birthday cakes to my friends each year. It's fun for me and it means that my friends don't have to find space for more junk in their small living spaces. But as time goes on, my friends just seem to want aquatic animal cakes. And now it seems as though they're competing for the strangest aquatic animal cake. The fish cake was fun and easy, then there was the call for an axolotl cake, then an octopus cake and now... a nudibranch. I started wondering what on earth I have started (and what is wrong with my friends?!). I suggested to my friend that perhaps she would like star fish instead, but no, a nudibranch it is. I do love nudibranchs, they are totally stunning little creatures. However how on earth do I turn it into a cake?! The cake itself should be easy (a loaf cake of some sort should do)! But I suspect I'll be needing a lot of food dye. I've got about two weeks to work it out.

A collection of nudibranchs

1. By CW Ye
2. By Doug.Deep
3. By The Sprain
4. Also by Doug.Deep (don't you think this one looks like Mr Blobby?)
5. by d0c3nt
6. by Nick Hobgood

Food links

Love food hate waste is a website so full of useful tips. Food wastage is something that really makes me bristle. Knowing how to use up leftovers and produce at the end of its shelflife saves you time and money in the future. Simple things like stewing fruit or turning them into muffins - both of which are quick to make and can be frozen - mean you have a quick dessert or snack on hand. Knowing how to make dinner out of whatever is in the fridge or making an entire spare meal to freeze for later not only cleans out those vegetables but means you don't have to cook dinner next week. Or even buy lunch for next week. And don't even start environmental effects of food wastage... it's great to see these sorts of websites and people talking about these issues again, putting out suggestions. Take a look!

I've been dying to make this recipe for Stove-top sweet and spicy beer "baked" beans. I have been oggling this recipe for weeks now, dreaming about what sort of beer would go best. Something rich, like a Coopers, or maybe something a little sweeter like Beez Neez...? I've decided that it's a physical impossibility to buy navy beans - canned or dry - in Melbourne. I think SPC and Heinz must buy out every single little navy bean that comes into the country. So I've decided that cannellini beans it is.

Ever since I embarked up on my gyoza making fad, I just can't get enough of dumplings. Steamed buns, steamed dumplings, lightly fried dumplings, bought, home made, snack or main meal. It really does not matter to me. I have found little links like this one, by Alton Brown (commentator on Iron Chef), and this one featured on (where else but) the Cook and the Chef.

I realised that I haven't read anything from Smitten Kitchen for about a month. Oh my... what I've missed! Reading her website makes me so excited, my heart goes all a-flutter reading her recipes. Everything she cooks is totally divine and her photos are so inspiring.

Keeping the door open

At work they have this thing about turning the air con right up. I often find myself sitting at my desk in a tshirt when it's about 12°C outside, which I can't really complain about (although I do think that their energy consumption is excessive, and especially since the institute I work for is trying to "stay green", but that's another story). But the real "problem" is that the air blows so hard that my door closes. It makes me look entirely anti social, like I enjoy sitting in a stark white office with no windows and fluoro lights and want to be left to read research papers all day without distraction.

So I've decided to make a door stop. It will not only brighten my office but will also create an inflow of sociability and welcome distraction into my dull space (times when I have wedged my recycling paper bin in front of the door have shown this!).

There's a nifty pattern in Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing book, which looks ace, but I think it might be a little big. I could scale the pattern down though.

Photo from supergail - isn't that fabric adorable?!

I have also just found this tutorial for a cute little pyramid shaped door stop. It's a little smaller and I like the shape, but I could go either way. Both seem like excellent projects to start using some of my stashed fabrics on. Tonight I finally have a night off to myself and I hope to spend it practicing some printing and sewing.

Pyramid door stop by all it took was one stitch

Update!

So this evening I did actually get time to do some sewing. I decided to go with Lotta's pattern, but I reduced the size by one third and the whole project took me about 2 hours to make (adjusting/making the pattern, sewing and finishing). I chose the fabric to match the blue/green colour of the carpet in my office. Unfortunately the lighting all around here is terrible, but hopefully I'll be able to get an "action shot" at work.

Let's learn so I can learn more!

I have just ordered:

To go with this book that I already own:

So that I can hopefully read and learn to make cool things like:

...these adorable little characters from Fairy Tale Small Stitch Pattern Book from Kitty Craft


...Lotta's Handmade Project book which I have oggled for ages


Have I ever mentioned how much I love cotton and linen? This is cool.


...this bag, featured in Cotton and Paint


...and this awesome kid's play cube, featured on Angry Chicken a while back. Although I think I could adapt it to make a terrific foot stool for me instead.

I started learning a while back however my teacher got a better job other than teaching me. But Gib also wants to learn now too, so I have a buddy to practice with. I've already stuck the Hiragana and Katakana charts on the back of the toilet door.

Too much cute

I've been a little pressed for time of late. You know, busy but with nothing to show for it. No time to download photos from my camera even. So I'll present you with some things that I have been oggling over and drawing creative inspiration from when I should have been working.

There is one thing that makes me go weak at the knees: cute food accessories. And no one knows how to do that better than the Japanese. Oh, these make me melt!

Bento lunch box from sugar charms

Bento lunch box from sugar charms

Apple coasters that I purchased from Daiso

Monkey mayonnaise containers, with banana scoop! From sugar charms

Little animal sauce bottles available from ebay

Adorable mushroom bento lunch boxes

Animal clips by Denise Cortez

Decole animal face jugs by SmileOvni

Decole ketchup by cutesypoo

Decole mushroom tea pot by glumpire

My birthday cake idea... and more than you ever wanted to know about wasps

My birthday is coming up fast, and as nontraditional as it is, I love making my own birthday cake. It's my present to myself, my opportunity to think up crazy ideas and try to turn them into a cake... sometimes my ideas are successful, sometimes not so successful. This year I'm going to attempt something a little more extreme, and many I know (like my mother) will say it's gross. Not quite as gross as the guy who makes body parts out of bread, but I guess the inspiration is kind of gory. This year I have decided to make a wasp cake. They are creatures that have evolved some of the most fascinating life cycles, they have beautiful bodies (I think so, anyway) and watching them in garden as I was growing up definitely fuelled my passion for gardening and the world of zoology (interestingly, Pip at Meet Me at Mikes had an interesting post along those lines the other day), so I've decided to honour them in cake form. And making a wasp into a cake is going to be a tough challenge - I love a good challenge!

Wasps aren't so gory, you say? Sure, they hang about during summer and you have to watch your soft drink, and they have a horrid sting, but they're not so bad. Wasps are amazing and gruesome parasites, and if you're at all queasy, I'd suggest stop reading now.

Why are wasps so damn cool?
Here are some examples. There's Hymenopimecis whose larvae live on spiders. The larvae change the host spider's behaviour so it weaves a web in which the wasp larvae can hang their cocoons. And then they eat the spider.

There is the Emerald cockroach wasp, Ampulex compressa, who has long been known to "mind control" its poor cockroach host. It eats the antennae off the cockroach then insert its spine into the ganglia (basically the brain) of the cockroach, semiparalise it, then guides the cockroach around like a horseman on a zombified horse, using the cockroach's remaining antennae like a leash, back to the wasp's burrow. It then lays its eggs in the abdomen of the wasp.

Then there is the larvae of Glyptapanteles partially develop inside caterpillars, then manipulate the caterpillar into caring and tending to the larvae as they grow. The larvae partially eat the caterpillar, eating their way out of it, but still keep it alive. They form cocoons, and the (possessed) caterpillar continues to watch over the cocoons until the adult wasp hatches, and then the caterpillar dies. There many more tales of wasps doing amazing things to their hosts, and I would suggest to anyone who is interested in knowing more to read Carl Zimmer's brilliant book "Parasite Rex". This book will totally turn your ideas about the food chain on its head.

The cake

I intend to make the body out of either a log tin or a large rectangular cake cut in half. The plates of the abdomen will be made from Orchard soft icing. The legs can be made out of many things: licorice or other similar confectionery, soft icing etc. I'm not too fussed about that. The wings will be the challenge (and the part most appealing to me): I'm going to try to make them out of toffee glass poured into a purpose built "egg ring" in the shape of the wings... unless I can think of a simpler solution. I'll have to try that out before the day I make it.

Fantastic pizza dough FAQ

Last month I wrote about how easy it is to make pizza dough. It seems that Deb from Smitten Kitchen agrees, and recently posted this fabulous FAQ called '10 Paths to Painless Pizza Making'. Deb lives in an apartment with a small kitchen, and doesn't use any fancy accessories to make her dough.

Sometimes I have run out of yeast and have a massive hankering for home made pizza but can't be bothered going to the supermarket. The pizza shop is walking distance, and they do make lovely pizzas, but I want my OWN toppings. So Deb's #10 tip I love; it had never occurred to me:

"Go to your local pizza shop and ask to buy a dough."

Brilliant.

Links...

I've finally got myself organised and uploaded a complete album of my Food Photos of Japan.

I have a strange desire to make bunny rabbit cupcakes to go into some bunny print cupcake pans I have.

Some vegetable comics. They're so dorky that they're funny.

I am currently enjoying Culinary Concoctions.

Craft City Melbourne is also of great excitement to me

I have been asked to make another hippo... I don't think it will be as stressful this time around!

I want to try my hand at making my own ricotta cheese.

From Cupcake Fun

Leftovers and seconds

I loathe to throw out any fruit or vegetables (except for maybe those furry gray carrots that get pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten about for a few weeks) and so I'm always trying to think of inventive things to do with nearly-past-their-used by date items in my fridge and fruit bowl. My food delivery comes on Fridays, so often Friday or Saturday is when I cook to make way for the new stuff.

I'd been pondering what to do with some broccoli I had in the fridge: I hate the stalks and I'm always trying to find ways to conceal them in things so I can't taste them and don't have to throw them out. I also had some daikon and carrot lying about so, before I headed off to work I whipped up some quick Japanese pickles. I'm not sure if this is how it's supposed to turn out, but I'll let you know how it tastes in about 4 days.


My favourite thing to do with tired fruit, apart from stewing it and eating it with ice cream, is turning it into muffins. Three lonely kiwi fruit were still left. They'd been left in the bottom of the bowl and almost forgotten. I also had a banana that I had frozen in the back of the freezer. I made this recipe from a base muffin recipe that I have and hoped for the best. Although the photo doesn't look that exciting, these muffins are actually very tasty and are definitely on my "to make again" list. The kiwi fruit gives them a bit of zing, the banana keeps it smooth and sweet, and the ginger gives them a lift.

Kiwi fruit and banana muffins

Wet ingredients:

• 100 g butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 banana, mashed
• 3 kiwi fruit, diced
• 1/2 cup low fat milk

Dry ingredients:

• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 12 hole muffin pan.
2. Combine the wet ingredients.
3. Mix in the dry ingredients. Mix until the dry ingredients are just combined.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked through. Let to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool.

Apple and rhubarb compote

This morning I visited the Holmesglen Tafe farmers market and, in addition to the delicious goats cheese, locally made olive oil, freshly baked sour dough, zucchini pickles and organic kipfler potatoes, I also bought 1kg organic fuji apple seconds. I used a portion of these to stew up with some rhubarb I had lying about in the fridge.

I adapted this recipe from the recipe for rhubarb compote in Beverley Sutherland Smith's "A taste for all seasons".

• 250 g apples, peeled and diced
• 1 rhubarb bunch (500 g)
• Juice of 1 orange
• Several strips of orange rind
• 1/2 cup sugar

Place all ingredients in a dutch oven or heavy based saucepan (I added a little bit of water just to get it all started). Bring to the boil then reduce to a low simmer for ~30 mins until the rhubarb is just soft. Remove orange rind and serve. Can be frozen for up

Gray's Anatomy -- in bread!

Quick! If you've got a weak stomach, stop reading now!

My dear friend linked me this the other day, knowing only too well my passion for both food and the biological sciences, particularly anatomy/physiology (the field in which I work). I have never been game enough to combine these two interests - I don't think my friends and family would like me for it if I did! - however a fine art student from Thailand, Kittiwat Unarrom clearly has more guts than me (heehee, had to throw that in) and bakes bread in the form of dismembered body parts.

"Inspired and informed by anatomy book and visits to forensic museums, he makes sure that none of your various body part bread desires go unfulfilled: he also makes feet, hands, and internal organs which come displayed impaled on hooks. Made from dough, raisins, cashew nuts, and chocolate, all of the works on display are totally edible."

Even if you're unlike me and anatomy isn't your thing, the level of detail in his work from such simple ingredients is just amazing. But what I really appreciate here is the combination of fine art, science and food. This gets a big gold star from me!

Make your baked beans more exciting

Here's a typical Sunday afternoon post-training lunch. So quick and easy whip up, healthy and really tasty. Those chilis you can see in there are our little homegrown ones and they certainly have a bit of punch!

Depending on what's in the kitchen, I will add any of the following, in any combination, to my baked beans:

- Garlic
- Onion
- Chili
- Broccoli
- Mushrooms
- Egg
- Spinach
- Cheese
- Corn
- Pumpkin chunks (precooked in the microwave)
- Capsicum
- Thyme or parsley
- Spices: cumin, coriander, paprika, fresh cracked pepper

I used the first six ingredients in the beans I made yesterday (those chilis are our own homegrown ones! Oh boy they have some punch), and served it with a thick slice of wholegrain toast. Delicious.

Sassy Apron - Summer edition

I'm totally lacking inspiration here. I have some great summery fabrics that have been sitting in my stash for ages. I have a pattern - well I'm going to trace around one of my super comfy aprons that I own. But I am at a total loss as to where to go next. I have no idea what sort of layout I should do. I want it to have pockets because apron pockets are always useful, but what sort of pockets? Do I want to put any extra embellishments on, other than the ricrac I have to edge the apron with? I've been doing some little doodles in the margins of the research papers I've been reading while studying, but none of them have excited me so far. I really need to get this apron sewn this weekend so hopefully some wonderful, bubbly, summery idea comes soon!