Catching up

Catching up with Frankie in my new pjs!

The ‘words and pictures’ theme at meet me at mikes this week is catching up – and now that morristhebird has a couple of little posts, I’m feeling brave enough to join in!

In this morning’s 10am mail delivery at work I received an exciting parcel – pjs that I bought at Peter Alexander. I love online shopping, especially getting it delivered at work, because it makes the day just a little tiny bit like Christmas or something! Then this afternoon, I saw on Twitter that the new Frankie Mag was out, so I hotfooted it to the newsagent immediately!

From about 3pm this arvo all I could think about was getting home, putting my new assortment of pjs on (complete with eyemask and very sweet hot water bottle) and sitting on my lounge to catch up with Frankie!

Playlist – top five songs of the moment

I think I’ve been influenced by that facebook application where you pick your top five anythings – but these are five great songs featuring heavily on all my playlists right now.

1. Sweet Disposition – The Temper Trap

An Aussie band doing it big in the UK and getting some great reviews in the US, the Temper Trap have earned some recognition here with this great single which featured on Underbelly: The Tale of Two Cities.

My music guru boyfriend sent me a text last night on his way home from work to tell me that this will win the JJJ Hottest 100 this year – and after a few listens I have to agree that it’s a great single. The Sweet Dispositions EP (with also awesome track Science of Fear, which is getting lots of airplay on JJJ at the moment) is out now, and I think an album is coming up later this year – can’t wait!

2. Dog Days Are over – Florence and the Machine

A ridiculously fun song to sing along with – I like to put it on loud in the afternoons when I’m home by myself – as long as you can keep up with Florence Welch’s powerful vocal chords.

3. Geraldine – Glasvegas

An oldie but a goodie – I have just realised how strong James Allan’s Glaswegian accent is and I love to hear him sing the lovely Gs and Ls in ‘angel’ and ‘Geraldine.’

4. Sleepless – The Decemberists

This is my favourite of an amazing set of songs on the charity compilation Dark Was The Night. I also love Train Song by Feist and Ben Gibbard and So Far Around The Bend by The National who put the album together. Find out more.

5. Paris – Friendly Fires

“One day we’re gonna live in Paris, I promise.” Yep – aren’t we all! I also like the extended remix that I’ve been hearing in a couple of bars – it’s almost unrecognisable but good all the same.

Ridiculously simple hummus

Hummus with Lebanese bread

This is my very easy version of this versatile dip. I always make sure I have plenty of tahini and chickpeas in my pantry just in case – I can make this in under two minutes in emergency!

You can play around with the quantities of garlic, lemon juice and substitute ground coriander, or fresh herbs for the cumin if you like. Traditional versions generally use more oil, but mine is a bit healthier and I think just as good!

1 tin chickpeas
1 clove garlic
¼ cup tahini
1-2 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbs oil
warm water
1 tbs coriander or mint leaves, paprika and olive oil, to serve.

Add all ingredients except for water & garnish to a food processor/stick blender and blend until smooth, scraping down sides if necessary. Then add warm water a little at a time and process until you reach the right consistency – some people prefer a chunkier dip, while I make mine quite smooth.

Pour hummus into a serving bowl and top with paprika and a drizzle of oil, then scatter with coriander or mint. Serve with whatever you like!

I like it served as a simple dip with fresh Lebanese bread or wholegrain Sakatas or some other dipping material. Or it goes great on tortillas with some chicken strips pan fried with capsicum and onion, garnished with lots of coriander. Or, the other night I served it with some marinated baby octopus and a greek salad. See – versatile.

Zetta Florence / Cavallini & Co.

On a recent trip to Melbourne I indulged in my obsession with stationery and paper at Zetta Florence.

I bought a few leaves of gorgeous wrapping paper, and little desk calendar to brighten my desk at work. The paper has become part of a hanging display in my kitchen, and this afternoon I’m going to spend some time lining the base of an old radiogram that my boyfriend bought on e-bay with a sheet covered stamps and postacards from Paris and London.

Birds & branches

Italian food & drink - including my favourite Campari!

Zetta Florence is the exclusive Australian stockist of Cavallini & Co products – a San Francisco stationery designer specialising in vintage-travel inspired stamps, notebooks, magnets and all sort of beautiful things. Although, last week I was exploring the shops in the northern Wollongong suburbs of  Thirroul and Austinmer and found some very similar looking products at Nest Emporium (287 Lawrence Hargrave Drive, Thirroul NSW).

Cavellini & Co’s  travel related products remind me of the letters and photos that my grandma kept from when her family migrated to Australia from Wales. My grandad took a job at Port Kembla steelworks and paid the 10 pound passage to take his wife and four kids (including my mum) on a two month boat trip to the other side of the world.

An anecdote to April showers

Reece’s Peanut Butter cups remind me of a vending machine in a hostel in LA, and Madame Flavour’s Green, Jasmine and Pear tea is my newest discovery.

Mmmm... this was my afternoon snack yesterday. It brightened up my dreary afternoon muchly.

Together they made the perfect uplift in the middle of a rainy afternoon stuck at my desk yesterday.

Morris 2.0

Ok, so after nearly a year, I’ve been inspired to start this up again. I read many many blogs so i thought i should really get my act together with my own!

I just re-read my introduction about myself – written entirely in the third person, so i though it would be an ideal time to post a little piece i’ve been thinking about for a while. Here goes!

—

I often find myself running through facebook status messages in my head. Especially when I’m at work, or when I’m waiting for my boyfriend to get home from work in the afternoons.

Kate is hungry
Kate is wondering what an intelligent polymer is
Kate can’t believe it’s not past midday yet
Kate is going downstairs
Kate is chopping onions
Kate clearly needs to speak to another human being soon because she keeps reducing her life to meaningless one line descriptions in the third person.

Now, I’ve done a bit of market research (well, I asked my brother, boyfriend and a few of my friends!) and I’m not the only person who does this – everyone I asked knew exactly what I was talking about.

I tend not to actually write these status updates on facebook because I fear I won’t be witty enough! And people who post boring details about their life every hour kind of annoy me – there’s a guy in my friends list who has literally posted an update on his (recently amputated) big toe about 10 times a day, every day for the last two months.

But in general, I do like reading other people’s status – I find it fascinating that they actually sit down and think to themselves “hmmm, what am I doing right now?”

Everyday, usually with my 10am coffee, I sit at work and trawl through all the new status updates to see what people are doing. These are some of the things my friends came with today:

— Samantha is not having a good day and finding a bug on my sandwich didn’t help YUK!!!
— Sarah is slightly concerned as to why the right side of her lip has swelled up so greatly and now resembles a raspberry… Am I going to die?
— April cant believe she got seasons 1 AND 2 of Baywatch for $10 each!
— Troy has woken up to a slightly smaller foot
— Melissa this is a reminder to myself: pay $8 in library fines.

Truly fascinating stuff.

Other people have written obscure, startling things that have me dreaming up all sorts of crazy scenarios:
— Tim is crawling through the doggy door.
— Julia is dreaming of her previous life as a brunette carnivore.
— Emma was on fire last night…literally
— Alisha had forgotten about her obsessive competitive streak and pre-apologises to her future children for being a psyco soccer mum.

Recently I jumped on the newest social media bandwagon and got myself a Twitter account – where you have 140 characters to post whatever you like. I find it completely impossible to write anything, which makes me  a pretty hopeless Twitterer, because I can’t stop thinking in the third person.