This is... my favourite thing from nature

Even though I put forward the topic this week, I actually had no idea what my favourite thing from nature was! However, after much thought, I realised that my interest was very broad and could only be reduced to this: Australian bushland.

Courtesy of wikipedia

There are the muted greens, the dryness of it all, the variation in shapes in the foliage. Then there are the coastal bushes too, with their fat, furry leaves. When I was young, I never ever tired of long family car trips with miles of dried grasses and eucalpyts. As I got older and learned a little bit about native plant physiology (it always comes down to physiology and "how stuff works" for me), the bushland that I had loved as a kid suddenly had a new level of awesomeness. Like learning how the odd features of coastal plants, like their furriness, help them to survive. Or why eucalypts suddenly sprout leaves from their trunk after fire - and look pretty silly - was because of a fascinating process called coppicing, where buds under the surface of the trunk suddenly sprout to compensate for the leaves lost in fire. Actually, all of the eucalpytus' adaptations are pretty cool. It's combined beauty and function makes it a never ending source of fascination for me.

Thanks to Three Buttons for letting me choose this week's theme, and for hosting This is!

This week's 'This is' theme!

Ooh I was stoked to be asked to name this week's This is theme. Over the past week or so I've been hanging out in the garden, heading down to the beach to enjoy the warm weather, listening to fruit bats arguing in the trees. There are the big things, like clouds and oceans, and little things like bugs and flowers, and I find thinking about them as a whole is very humbling. So with that in mind, this week's theme is:

This is... my favourite thing from nature

This is... my favourite quote

I picked this quote up a while ago while reading a translation of Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings. It was mentioned in the introduction and it has stuck with me ever since:

"Empty your cup"

There's a little zen story that goes with it too:

A professor went to visit a famous Zen master, Nan-in, to learn about Zen. As Nan-in quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master filled the visitor's cup to the brim and then let it keep pouring until it was spilling all over the floor. The professor watched the overflowing cup and cried "What are you doing? It's overfull! No more will go in!". "You are like this cup," the Nan-in replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."

There are many lessons to be learned from this short story, and I try to keep it in my mind all the time. Be it with my PhD or karate, when I meet new people or cooking or gardening. This quote really struck a chord with me because so often I get tunnel visioned or stuck and so caught up in my own ideas and preconceptions that I can never see another side and I've found that reminding myself to "empty my cup" is incredibly useful for overcoming these things.

Photo by ~Lε@H

Thanks to Strawberry Kisses for this week's topic, and Three buttons for hosting this is...!

This is... a favourite recipe I'd like to share

This is a new favourite recipe. Quick, easy and convenient to make, super tasty, and convenient to take to work for lunch (I get so bored by sandwiches). I was inspired by a recipe featured on taste.com.au, which is a finalist in a reader recipe competition in Good Taste magazine. The original recipe says to bake the avocado and sour cream, however I can't stand the bitterness of baked avocado, so I chose to have mine fresh at the end. Serves 6.


Vegetarian Mexican lasagne

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 2 brown onions, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cumin (I might have added some more cumin just because I love it so much!)
• 1/4 pinch allspice
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 750 g tin red kidney beans, drained
  
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 4 pieces corn mountain bread
• 2 avocados, mashed
• 235g (1 cup) sour cream
• 1-2 cups coarsely grated cheddar, depending on how cheesy you are feeling (of course you can substitute low fat dairy options if you choose)
  

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. In a large, heavy based fry pan, heat the oil and add garlic. Fry for 30 seconds before adding the onion. Cook, stirring regularly, until the onion is soft.
3. Add the spices, cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add beans and tomato, cook for 4-5 mins until beans are heated through.
4. In a large ovenproof dish, layer with two of the corn bread pieces. Spoon half of the bean mixture on top. Sprinkle with half of the cheese. Layer with another two pieces of corn bread, then bean mix and cheese.
5. Place in the oven and bake for 30 mins until the cheese is golden and bubbly.
6. Serve topped with mashed avocado and sour cream.

The original non-vegetarian mexican lasagne

Thank you three buttons for this week's theme (and for hosting This is...) because you all know just how much I love sharing my new favourite recipes!

This is ...what I'm surprised I like

Nattō is a traditional Japanese food of fermented soy beans, often eaten with rice for breakfast. I was first told about by Kat who likened it to "snot", and then I was offered some by my friend Erika, who lives in Nagano, who absolutely can't get enough of the stuff. It's quite pungent like blue cheese and very sticky, as you can see from the picture. To be honest, I was a little bit nervous when I tried it because food just shouldn't be sticky like that. The more you stir it, the stickier it gets. It kind of creeped me out, but I was very surprised indeed to find that it tastes delicious. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find it here in Australia yet, although I'm sure it's around.

This is... my favourite movie

I'll choose three favourite movies of mine (in no particular order) because it's so hard to separate them:

• Run Lola Run. This was the movie that got me listening to electronic music. The soundtrack is awesome. And I adore Lola's character. Almost like a human superhero.
  

• City of Lost Children. This movie is fascinating and a little bit dark:

"The plot revolves around a mad scientist, Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who lives in an old oil rig off the coast of a surreal Dickensian French city. Krank does not have the ability to dream, and as a result he is prematurely old. In order to supplement his dream deficit, Krank kidnaps young children in order to study and extract their dreams. Unfortunately for Krank, this scheme fails as the experience of being kidnapped and harangued by the menacing Krank is so traumatic that the children have only nightmares."

• Pan's Labyrinth: it takes place in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. It's a fairy tale-like story, but I would not let my children (if I had them) watch it. Make sure to have a box of tissues with you while watching this one.
  

This is... my current reading material

I'm back on the Mainland and slowly catching up with all of my blog reading. I'm still in anti-climax mode after arriving in late last night and don't know what to do with myself, so catching up on the "This is" posts seems like a good start (rather than, say, unpacking/washing/tidying).

My current reading material, which I arrive at work to every day, looks very much like this:

Courtesy of jepoirrier

... except multiplied across my entire desk and with extra coffee and tea stains on top. I recently went through and organised it alphabetically and arranged them into folders, however my unsorted pile of "interesting new articles" is growing rapidly and I am not sure if I will ever get to the bottom. But surprisingly, I have actually been looking forward to reading my humongous pile of papers. I like to think this is a good thing.

In my spare time I have been plugging away through the Chronicles of Narnia which I am thoroughly enjoying. It is something easy to read that doesn't constantly have funny phrases like basal ganglia (the word "ganglia" always sounds silly to me), gamma-aminobutyric acid or rostroventral lateral medulla, but at the same time has great depth. I have just started reading The Silver Chair. I am quite a hopeless reader when it comes to fiction novels and I have started many books and never finished them. I usually only have time to read when I go to bed, and I only ever read 2 or 3 pages before I fall asleep. So a book has to either be really exciting or really easy for me to ever get through it.


Thank you Champagne Dreams for the theme and to Three Buttons for hosting This is!

This is... my favourite kitchen tool

Ok ok, I've already blogged enough about my knives... so I'll post about my second favourite kitchen tool... but it's a tie between the mandolin and stab mixer.

The mandolin

Gib gave me this for my birthday and I was concerned that it would become one of those gadgets I never use, but boy was I wrong! After watching Iron Chef America, I always wondered how they made those "noodles" out of carrot or zucchini, and then we started to notice that every Iron Chef had a mandolin and how much it sped up their food preparation. The mandolin really comes into its own when chopping/slicing lots of vegetables say, for stir fries or stews, or for slicing lots of vegetables to go on the barbecue (onion, eggplant). It's most awesome for slicing up cabbage for okonomiyaki (recipe here), which needs the cabbage nice and thin for best results.

Tonight's meal: onion cooked on the bbq to go with our veggie burgers! (Hmm, I should really get onto cooking that after posting this...)

The stab mixer

With 800 watts of blending power, it's the ultimate tool for making soups, dips and sorbets. In winter making soups, it's just a tool I can't live without. Why fuss with transferring to/from the food processor then having to reheat when I can just blend it up in 2 minutes with this? My favourite thing to make in summer is canteloupe sorbet and without an ice cream machine, the stab mixer works great. It crushes all of those ice crystals and makes perfectly smooth sorbet.

Thanks to handmaiden for another great topic! To join in the "This is..." fun, head here.

This is... what I want to be when I grow up

One of my pet rats has recently developed a chewing habit and I've now lost not one, but two mouse cables in two days. So I'm typing this using my keyboard only. I think I'll leave adding pics until tomorrow.

Ever since I was a little kid I have always been fascinated by biology. I mentioned in a previous This is post that my favourite book as a kid was "The Body and how it works", and things haven't changed much since then. My dad is an incredibly functional person, an inventor in his spare time, always questioning how things work and how they could be better, and my mum is nurse, so it's really not surprising that I wound up in the field I'm in. I've always been fortunate enough to know what I've wanted to do. By midway through high school, when people asked me what I wanted to be, I'd say that I wanted to research things, like the brain and behaviour (not as a psychologist though). I never realised that what I wanted to be was a "scientist": I thought scientists were people who spent all day in lab coats in white, strerile laboratories doing chemistry-like experinments. I didn't realise "scientists" could be from the natural sciences too. I also didn't know until the end of my first year of uni that the name of the field I was interested in was "physiology". After a few years of working in the physiology field I've tried out quite a few things and I discovered that research is a really exciting thing to be a part of. I can't discuss too much of my research here, not because it's super top secret or anything, but because it'd compromise my semi-anonimity. However I will say that it seems almost criminal that I get paid to be fulfilling my childhood dream of studying the nervous system. I know, I know... I'm young and in a few years I'll be bitter and jaded from the lack of funding and the grant chasing etc etc, and I'll read back on this and laugh, but for now I think it's awesome.

I also want to be a mum... but not quite yet (I'm not grown up yet!). There were so many wonderful things I got to do while I was growing up, and there were some pretty awful things too, but I wouldn't be without those experiences either. I'd love to be able to guide my own children through those experiences too. I don't know what to do with babies, they're a complete mystery to me, but toddlers and children - at least other people's - I enjoy. Children provide such a fresh outlook on everything.

When I grow up I want to be still challenging, understanding, questioning, keeping that fresh outlook. Gib's grandma is like that. At age 89 and going to her grandson's rock concerts, going out walking every day, always learning new things and always positive. That's how I want to be.

Thanks to Cindy at bugandpop for this week's wonderful theme and Three Buttons for hosting This is...!

This is... what I do with a spare 10 minutes

I'm quite industrious and like the concept of efficiency (that's not to say that I ever actually achieve it, but I do aspire to it!) and there are lots of things I like to do with a spare 10 minutes.

Food "research": Definitely my favourite 10 minute filler is flicking through cooking magazines, books and websites. I could look at food-related material for hours.



Housework: I actually made a list about 6 months ago called "Things you can do around the house in under 10 minutes". It was to encourage Gib to do more housework because he has this idea that housework takes an immense amount of time and therefore never has time for it. The list had things like taking out the rubbish, stacking/unstacking the dishwasher, putting on a load of washing, putting clothes away, tidying the desk. It was moderately successful, but I had to keep changing the colour of the sign so he would notice it. I'm always amazed at how much housework can be achieved in 10 minutes.

Stretching out: waiting for my lunch to finish in the microwave or for the kettle to boil, or when my head is aching from too much new information at work, I like to stretch. I'm all for incidental exercise, and stretching in my spare moments is so refreshing! There are a few that I can do that don't make me look like a complete idiot, such as discrete calf stretches, pec stretches, hip flexor stretches... Maybe, for ultimate efficiency, I could stretch and work at the same time?

Courtesy of fuzzy squid

Thank you Hoppo Bumpo for a very practical This is... theme (I can't wait to see other peoples' ideas for 10 minute fillers!), and to Angela at Three buttons for hosting This is... (head here to join in)

This is... my absolute favourite band of all time

"My absolute favourite band of all time" has changed over the years. When I was a teenager, my absolute favourite band changed pretty frequently and each were going to be my absolute favourites forever... until another one came along.

My first CD
The first ever CD I bought was Grinspoon's Pushing Buttons EP, back in 1998, in my second year of high school. I still remember the moment so clearly: I bought it from a little CD shop in Oakleigh Central and it was thrilling, liberating to buy it, with my own money. I remember clutching it all the way home in its little white paper bag it came in. I could now choose to listen to whatever music I wanted, without being constrained to only my parent's music collection. A little step towards independence. Although my dad's music collection was pretty hot: Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, The Beetles, Queen... I was fortunate to grow up on that!

My first absolute favourite band
I got hooked Placebo. They were angsty and different and I loved it - and my parents hated it. I thought the androgynous Brian Molko with his unusual voice was pretty damn cool. I guess it wasn't so much that I liked their look (tight pants have never done anything for me, nor have men in mini skirts, no matter how cute they are), but they just represented something different that I identified with at the time. They remained my favourite band for ages, until they released a bunch of dud albums. Placebo toured in 1999 but I was too young to see them play at the Prince of Wales. But then my brother told me that they were doing a CD signing at Gaslight Music! I actually got to meet them. I was shaking. The signed CD is still sitting happily on my shelf.


Present "absolute favourite bands"
Now my favourite bands are Lamb, followed closely by Massive Attack. I first discovered Lamb back in 2001 when I overheard some people at a bus stop discussing them and I thought they sounded like my kind of thing. Lou Rhodes is a beautiful singer and I had the fortune to see her play last year. It was chilling. She's one of those people who exude balance, calm and serenity, but intense passion at the same time, and it comes through in their music. Lamb's music is uplifting (even their "darker" stuff on their latest album is uplifting) and soothing to the soul. Very earthy.


Massive Attack's albums are on the same level (same genre too), although they have a terrific balance of dark, grittiness and beautiful, joyful songs.

Thanks to Curlypops for this week's awesome theme (so much reminiscing!) and to Angela at Three Buttons for hosting This is...

This is... my favourite fabric/craft supplies shop

Kim Anh Fabrics on a late, sunny Saturday afternoon

This is my all time favourite fabric and craft supplies shop: Kim Anh Fabrics, in Oakleigh. Why do I love it so much? They stock a great brilliant range of fabrics, mostly dress and suit making fabrics, but also many cotton fabrics for quilting, kids designs, flannelette, brocades, pure wool fabrics... but be warned, this place is full to the brim - almost overflowing - with fabrics of all types and sometimes you need to contort your body in strange ways to get around the shop.

They also stock tons of "handy things": twill tapes of all colours and widths, bobbins sold individually, zippers, braids, trims, ric rac of all sizes and colours, buckles, buttons...

And the best part is they are cheap but still great quality.

Kim Anh Fabrics
26a Portman St
Oakleigh VIC 3166
(03) 9568 7313
Open Monday - Saturday
Map:


View Larger Map

Thanks to handmaiden for a great topic and to Angela at Three Buttons for hosting This is... (go here to join in!)

This is... my favourite children's book

I adore kids books. In fact, I'm half way through re-reading the Narnia series. I love the simplicity and sheer fun of children's books. And I love the illustrations.

I loved Jim Henson, Sesame Street, the Muppets (I still do! Probably moreso now!). When I was in early primary school, my favourite books was definitely:

The climax in this book is what gets me every time! Our copy is one of those giant books and it's falling to bits from so much reading. I think it was passed down from a cousin originally. This book is all in the telling.

"Lovable, furry old Grover is distressed to learn that there's a monster at the end of this book! He begs readers not to turn the pages, but of course kids feel they just have to see this monster for themselves. Grover is astonished--and kids are delighted--to discover who is really the monster at the end of the book!"

It was followed closely by My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes. It goes something like "The cat from Spain flew and aeroplane; The cat from France liked to sing and dance; The cat from Berlin plays the violin... but my cat likes to hide in boxes!" My all time favourite page from this book was "The cat from Norway got stuck in the doorway". I thought that was hilarious.

However around middle primary school, my love for non fiction books was unearthed. My all time favourite children's book was "The body and how it works". (Nerdy, hey?)

I wasn't able to find my original copy to take a photo (it's somewhere in these bookshelves!), but mine was hardcover with a pink spine. This is a copy of the front of the 1998 reprint in paperback.

It covered everything from digestion and the nervous system, to pregnancy and fetal development and I couldn't get enough of it. I used to read it all the time, from cover to cover, or sometimes just flick through it. My favourite pages in the whole book detailed the nervous system. There was this funny picture of a man with his lips and eyes and hands all exaggerated, demonstrating which parts of the body receive the most sensory information. My fascination with the nervous system pages was very telling about my future career path! It's amazing how my passion for my field of research started so young... (and then grew consistently with age!).

Thanks Potty Mouth Mama for a great topic! and also to Three Buttons who is the lovely host of This is ...

This is...how I like to spend my weekend

For me, weekends are the time when I get to catch up on all of my "girly" stuff. Gib is usually working on weekends til mid afternoon, so I get most of the day to:

• Go shopping with my mum
• Visit markets
• Catch up with friends for brunch
• Do some crafting/sewing/baking
• Hanging out in the garden weeding, drinking cups of tea
  

If Gib happens not to be working, we'll potter in the garden, go for a drive, explore the local Asian grocers, or go for a walk around our neighbourhood. Walking around our neighbourhood is one of our favourite activities, day or night. Not only is it fun to check out everyone's gardens and feel connected to the community, but it's the time when we discuss anything and everything, big things and little things.

A cool star shaped pod that Gib and I found on one of our walks. No idea what it is.

Three or four times a year I get the opportunity to attend weekend training sessions, or gasshuku, with some amazing karate practitioners. This weekend happened to be one of those occasions. The weekends aren't tough in a "let's do a gazillion push ups!" sort of way (it's never about that), but rather the visiting instructor will often take some simple things and present them in a different way, so the struggle is mostly in breaking old habits and being receptive to a different ways thinking. These sound simple but you'd be surprised at how many people attend these things and just do what they've always done and don't want to learn. I always come home exhausted, aching and bruised all over with my mind overflowing with new thoughts and ideas. The bruises are often a consequence of poor technique, or trying to out-muscle the big guys (I can be like a chihuahua sometimes: I think I'm a big German shepherd and can play like the big guys, when really I shouldn't)

This weekend we had Kancho Roni Kluger visit. He is a relatively small man, in his mid-50s, very warm hearted and he moves and sticks to his opponents so beautifully. I wish I could move -- and also teach -- like he does! I am now going to have a nice long, hot bath and unwind...

Kancho Roni Kluger

Edit: Oopsies, in my fatigued state last night I forgot to add: Thanks to The Bird Bath for this week's theme! And also Angela at Three Buttons for hosting This is ... !

This is... a work in progress

This weekend I've completed some works-in-progress, so they're not really works in progress any more... I'll post more about them later.

But my biggest work in progress right now is the apron I need to make for the Autumn Sassy Apron Swap. It's not even a work in progress yet, more like a concept in progress. I have a pattern for the apron, but it's just the fabric I'm struggling with. I have to make a pot holder too, but that will be easy peasy once I get the fabric problem sorted. I have both a Lincraft and a Spotlight within spitting distance of me but their fabrics are just totally uninspiring. No nice colours. Dull. Boring. Poor quality.

With my new book on hand, I've even contemplated printing my own autumn designs onto fabric.

How pretty! A leaf print from Onegirl

A leaf-shaped potato print by subbloke

Or stenciling.

Way too complicated for what I'm doing, but still inspirational. By Jen Spragia.

Or even embroidering (something which I haven't practiced for about 5 years)!

Tree embroidery by apple apple

Maybe I need another trip to Patchwork on Central Park. Or I could make my own fabric. I had the idea of playing with those make-your-own iron-on transfers.

But I'm getting a little desperate. I have two weeks to find fabric/design inspiration! I think I might be spending the next couple of weeks doing little test runs of things, playing with ideas. Always fun to pass the time (what little of it I have right now!).

Thank you to Kept in a Jar for this week's 'This is' theme and to Angela for hosting This is!

This is... my trade secret

Here is my trade secret: sharp utensils. They don't have to be the most expensive brands out there, but it does mean keeping your cutting utensils cleaned, maintained and put away after use and only using them for their intended purpose. But apart from that, having sharp utensils makes everything easier and less frustrating.

In the kitchen: Sharp knives

I know I've mentioned these before, but honestly, cooking is just so much more enjoyable with a good sharp set of knives.

• You don't mash/hack your food up (i.e. tomatoes, pastry)
• It makes chopping quicker
• It makes chopping and slicing effortless (slicing carrots is a dream and pumpkin is a breeze)
• Your shoulders, hands and forearms don't get sore because your knives do all of the work

In the sewing room: Sharp scissors

It wasn't until I bought a pair of "good" scissors myself that I understood what my mum meant by "Don't use the good scissors!". I found that after using my sharp scissors on everything, they quickly became blunt and then I had to fork out for getting them sharpened. Lesson learned: only use them for their indended purpose (oh, and I guess "listen to my mother" is another lesson there too! Heehee).

• You don't hack up or drag threads on your fabric
• You take the load off your hands and forearms
• When you cut your sewing threads, the end is cut cleanly and makes it easier to thread needles

In the garden: Sharp secateurs, hacksaws

• You can prune your plants cleanly. If the branches are "hacked" and end up with frayed bits, it increases the chances of infection.
• Saves you buckets of time
• It makes pruning even more fun!

Thank you to Angela at Three Buttons for hosting 'This is' and also to Amelia for picking this week's theme! Looking forward to reading everyone else's little gems...!

This is... one of my other interests

I decided to get on board the "This is..." meme that's going around. I've thought about joining in for about a month now, but I haven't because I'm slack. But this week I finally decided to make a move and join in on the create-your-own this is...!

So I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to mention one of my other interests that I don't cover on this blog but is the one that pushes everything else I do in my life: karate. I started as a kid, age 8, wanting to keep up with my brother and be a ninja turtle, but it's more of a lifestyle for me now.

I love the physical aspect of it. The discipline. Pushing my body (and other people's!) to its limits, seeing what its capabilities and limitations are. The adrenaline rush. Making sure I maintain a good diet and get plenty of sleep, so I can tend to any injuries nice and early to prevent re-injury. It's about pushing myself to the edge but also listening and respecting my body as well.

Then there's the mental side to karate. It's the solid training in these things alongside the physical training that makes the martial arts different to any other fighting arts. In the way that science is a method for furthering the objective understanding about the world around us, karate is a method by which to understand yourself and your relationship with everything around you. My karate doesn't stop when I leave the dojo: it's in everything I do, but my "opponents" change. For example, to be successful in growing vegetables, you have to watch your vegetables throughout the seasons, see what they like and what they don't, and you can start to exploit that so that they're productive all of the time. The same "dance" or rhythm that exists in a fight with another person is right there in everyday things and the same way of thinking can be applied to both. But there's also a fundamental respect and humility that is cultivated as well.

One of my favourite places: The entrance to Kyoshi Mike Clarke's dojo in Launceston, Tasmania.

There are other ways, and possibly better or easier ways to become a fighter and to get fit and to learn about yourself and others but it's all about what works for you and karate is the one that speaks to me most, makes the most sense to me. I often think that if everyone chose to study a martial art then the world would be a calmer and happier place.

Thanks to Angela for hosting This is... It seems like everyone is onto it and it looks like so much fun!