Old photos

Inspired by the ‘grainy, crapola pics’ posted by Stephanie Wood on her blog The Elegant Sufficiency – I recently downloaded the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone (I somehow didn’t notice that it’s been one of the top paid apps for weeks now). It’s a camera app that allows you to choose from different lens, film and flash combinations that – according to Hipstamatic – “brings back the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras from the past.”

It’s $2.49 and you can buy different lens/film packages for about a dollar each. I’ve been going nuts taking retro-looking photos that remind me of the ones stored in the bottom of the hall cupboard at mum and dad’s place.

Here are a few of my favourite Hipstamatic shots…

Views from Wollongong harbour

Pools at Wollongong harbour

Dan standing on steps… at the beach and in the stairwell

Apples, pears and geraniums

Tea and socks…

Last night my brother and me were sitting around at mum and dad’s after dinner, sharing our favourite Hipstamatic shots and we decided to forage around in the hall cupboard box for some genuine 70s and 80s photos.

I just love these photos (they’re mostly of mum – it seems like dad was usually the photographer) – and I really want to post them on the website My Parents Were Awesome – because my parents were awesome (and still are – aww). They were such crazy hippies – lots of the photos are of them camping, going to parties, smoking, drinking or not wearing any clothes. And in the photos where mum is wearing clothes the fashion is fantastic. I wish she’d kept more of her stuff – although she was so skinny that I’d probably never fit into it.

Again, here are a few of my favs (I think they’re better than the Hipstamatic ones because you really can’t replicate the attitude, fashion or décor of the 70s)…

Mum at home…

Mum at various campsites…

A tinny of beer & a cigarette – still looking stylish

Hippie skirts and very short shorts

Ma and pa in fancy dress

Marc Jacobs Basil

Early last summer I remember buying a big bunch of fresh basil and sitting it on the kitchen bench in a vase. The scent filled our flat with that fresh, sweet basil smell and I said to Dan that I wished I could find a perfume with that smell.

So for my birthday in April he bought me Marc Jacobs Basil Sorbet. Due to the unpredictable nature of online shopping I only received it a couple of weeks ago. Since then I’ve worn the green, summery smell that cuts through cold winds and peps me up in the morning every day.

Each season Marc Jacobs releases a new range of Splash scents. Basil is from 2008’s Sorbet range (which also included Grapefruit and Pear) and this season there is a Patisserie range with Apple, Pomegranate and Biscotti.

Despite their simple, single names, each of the scents is quite complex. According to the Marc Jacobs description of the fragrance Basil has notes of basil (duh), lemongrass, tomato leaf, jasmine, freesia, orange blossom, musk, cashmere wood and sandalwood. It’s designed for women and men and comes in a neat square glass bottle.

The scent is quite light and doesn’t last a long time so I like to top it up during the day. The Splash scents are great value at $99 for 300ml (and you can find them much cheaper online) – the idea being that you can ‘splash’ them on more liberally than most perfumes.

Being limited edition collections, the older Splashes are only available online (try fragrance.net or strawberry.net), but the 2010 Patisserie range is in stores now.

The National – High Violet

Absolutely loving  The National’s new album – High Violet – which was released last month. Record-fiend-Dan brought it home on vinyl last Thursday and it’s been spending a lot of time spinning around on his new turntable.

The songs on High Violet are dark, melancholic, reflective and realistic – just what I love to listen to on a cold, windy afternoon in winter. I imagine some people might find the music a tad gloomy – but I like it for it’s moments of brightness and uplift. Some of the songs make dark comments about everyday life, but they do it in a kind of comforting, hopeful way.

I also love High Violet for a much more superficial reason – the stunning shocking-purple cover art and records. High violet indeed. It clashes rather nicely with the Ferrari-red turntable.

Here is my favourite song so far, I’m Afraid of Everyone:

Loving & leaving

Loving bright winter salads of radishes, beetroot and rocket

Loving: Dark chilli chocolate, radishes, gumboots, all black ensembles with patterned tights, days off mid-week with girlfriends.

Leaving: 4.56pm sunsets and dark bus rides home, McNuggets on a hungover Sunday (ugh – what was I thinking?!), persistent sniffles, mining companies.

Let’s Colour Project by Dulux

Is this the best ad you’ve ever seen? It’s certainly up there as one of the best I’ve ever seen. Apart from the awesome soundtrack by Sigur Ros’s Jonsi, it’s just a beautiful idea and execution. So beautiful that I had to share.

With a boyfriend working his way up the advertising industry ladder, and with advertising being a large part of the media landscape in general, I always take a keen interest in what’s going on – and often get outraged by some of the awful things advertisers do! But, I found this outstanding example of how amazing ad campaigns can be through one of my favourite websites, Mumbrella.

This clip is the long ‘film’ version of Dulux paint’s new advertising campaign (there’s a 30- second and 60-second version for TV), and according to the Let’s Colour Project website the footage is all real, and the painting is all done by local communities in Brazil, France, the UK and India.

The website says the ad was filmed in:

The streets of Lapa, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where we added colour to homes and a hotel lobby with the local community. It will not only be appreciated by the residents but also the numerous visitors to the famous Lapa stairs.

A council estate in Aulnay-sous-bois, Paris, France. Since the 2005 riots this area has been in constant improvement and development, so it was the perfect area to bring some colour to the regeneration project that was already underway. The Let’s Colour Project had such an impact that it encouraged the local residents to host their own painting event in addition to ours.

Virginia primary school in Tower Hamlets, London, UK. Together with the parents, teachers and children we transformed the school’s playground, hall and a classroom with vivid colour. It injected enthusiasm and joy into everyone, particularly the children who helped us document the painting.

A community square, school and main road of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. Known as the blue city, we painted in shades of blue, purple and pink leaving this already vibrant city a little more colourful.

Also on the site, you can explore lots of different photo galleries and documentaries of the making of the film.

Now, I know it’s just a paint ad (and it’s very clever so it will probably make the company lots of money), but I think this is the perfect example of how big companies can get involved with communities on a grassroots level. As well as bring communities together to colour places like schools, council estates and roads, future events (see the Let’s Colour Project blog for more info) help promote local artists, filmmakers and musicians. How cool would it be if they came to Australia – I know quite a few rather dull, uninspiring places that could use a nice bright paint job.

Well done, Dulux. *Clap, clap, clap*

Swiss brown mushroom, baked asparagus and organic soft pecorino risotto

Swiss brown mushroom, baked asparagus and organic soft pecorino risotto

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

400g Swiss brown mushrooms

2 tbs olive oil, plus 1 – 2 tbs extra

1 – 1.25 litres chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup Arborio rice

½ cup dry white wine

1 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed

2 tbs fromage frais, crème frais or mascarpone

Salt and pepper

¼ cup loosely packed basil leaves, finely sliced into ribbons

½ cup grated soft pecorino, plus extra crumbled to serve

Beautiful fresh ingredients

Heat the stock. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, and add 4-6 stalks to the stock (along with your onion peel and some extra basil, if desired).

I like to add extra flavour to my stock to mirror the taste of the risotto

Finely dice the remaining mushroom stalks and combine with garlic. Slice the mushroom cups.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a heavy-based saucepan and add the onion. Cook for 4-5 minutes until soft and translucent. Add garlic and mushroom stalks and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Adding diced mushrooms with the garlic and onion gives an interesting texture

Add rice and stir for 1 minute to coat each grain of rice in oil. Add wine, and stir until wine is all absorbed.

I love cooking risotto because there is an excuse to crack open a bottle of wine early. At the moment I am obsessed with finding the perfect viognier

Add ½ cup of stock stirring gently and regularly until fully absorbed. Repeat, ½ cup at a time, until rice is al dente. This should take around 15-20 minutes and you might not need all the stock. (To test to see if rice is cooked, first taste to see what you think, then – if you’re not sure – place a few grains on your chopping board and press down gently on each grain with you finger tip. If the rice breaks down into three small white sections, it is done.)

Almost done...

While cooking the risotto, place asparagus stalks into a shallow baking dish and drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Place into a 180 degree oven for 10 minutes, or until cooked too your liking. Take one third of the asparagus and cut into 2cm pieces.

Cook asparagus how you like it, but I think baking adds more flavour...

Once rice is cooked, taste and season the risotto. Add fromage frais and stir through. Cover risotto and set aside for 5 minutes.

Heat 1 tbs oil in a small pan and sauté mushrooms until browned. Season well. You can also add some extra garlic, wine or stock to the mushrooms if desired.

Browning the mushrooms

Keeping 2-4 tbs mushrooms aside, stir remainder into risotto with grated pecorino, asparagus pieces and most of the basil.

Stirring the cheese and vegetables through.

To serve, spoon onto warm plates and top with asparagus, remaining mushrooms and basil and crumbled pecorino. Season with salt and pepper.

Market day

Spoils from the markets

Every Friday in Wollongong’s Crown St Mall is market day. A whole range of stalls offering locally grown and produced food, as well as sellers with other goods like clothes and jewellry, line the lower end of the mall.

I’ve recently started heading there before work to buy a couple of loaves of amazing Berry Sourdough and a few select organic vegetables for the weekend. Last week I had a decadent Friday off work and did my whole weekly shop at the markets. And I discovered Megan Devine’s stall selling Highland Organics cheese, produced just up the hill from Wollongong in the Southern Highlands.

Fresco Pecorino and Berry Sourdough

Highland Organics  are made in Picton by French cheese makers using milk from Nowra – so very local for everyone in the Illawarra. Their organic credentials are backed up by the very strict guidelines of Australian Certified Organics. You can read more about the company and cheese-making here.

At the Wollongong markets stall, Megan was passionate, knowledgeable and happy to chat about the way each cheese is produced. She also seemed to have an in-built recipe search in her head: when I arrived at her stall she was telling the woman in front of me how to combine the bread and vegetables she’d just bought into that night’s dinner.

I decided to taste and buy some ‘Fresco Pecorino’ cheese, which was a soft, mild and salty cheese that won a gold medal at the 2008 Royal Easter Show. With strawberries from the stall next door, Megan also managed to tempt me to buy her deliciously creamy fromage frais – which used to make a strawberry fool, as well as stirring some through my risotto and serving the rest with tomato and basil on toast for breakfast the next day.

Kale, fennel, eggplant, mushrooms...

When told Megan I’d bought asparagus, pumpkin, mushrooms, tomatoes, beetroot and fennel she rattled of a whole range of tasty sounding meals – like a pumpkin, beetroot and rocket salad with caramelised walnuts and her organic fetta, or a simple but amazing ox heart tomato, basil and pecorino on Berry Sourdough toast – but I decided on her suggestion of a Swiss brown mushroom, baked asparagus and organic soft pecorino risotto – yum! See my next post for the recipe.

Dragons vs Raiders

One of three Dragons' tries is scored

Sport is not listed as one of my interests on this blog. This is because I’m not really very sporty. As a baby I was chatting away in full sentences before I learnt to walk, and I only learnt to skip with a rope about six months ago

However, on the weekend I partook in a very sporty, very ‘Wollongong’ activity by going along to the final St George-Illawarra Dragons game to be played at the WIN Entertainment Centre before they tear down the old western grandstand and build a new $29 million one.

The rusty old western grandstand's last game.

Unfortunately for all the excited, nostalgic Wollongong punters the Dragons were out-classed by the Canberra Raiders – who are much lower down this year’s competition ladder.

But it was fun to be at the footy, shivering in the late afternoon sun and nursing hot chips and a cold beer.

The crowd on the hill

Review: Cloud Control

Gold Canary/Vintage Books single

— supported by Richard In Your Mind & Sooners
Harp Hotel, 21 May 2010

I first saw Cloud Control as the support band for Yves Klein Blue earlier this year at Waves in Towradgi. At that gig, Cloud Control managed to severely upstage the main act – possibly due to Yves Klein Blue’s terrible luck with their PA and mics that night. So I was keen to see what Cloud Control could do as headliners.

And they didn’t disappoint. An incredibly tight band, with spot on harmonies and richly layered songs, they deserve to be one of this year’s next big things.

They were supported by two very watchable and entertaining Sydney acts. We heard half of Sooners set – lots of slow, moody instrumentals and low vocals (reminiscent of Nick Cave and perhaps older Paul Dempsey) from tall frontman Robert Irish.

Next up, Richard In Your Mind played tracks from their new Summertime EP with lots of sunshiny, tropical and laid-back tunes. Singer Richard Cartwright was cracking jokes in between the psychedelic, tongue in cheek songs. With warped electronic sounds, and even canned ‘robot popcorn’ (as described by Cartwright) clapping between songs, it was a slightly nerdy, trippy rock comedy routine.

Both support bands seemed enamoured with the giant fish tank behind the bar at the Harp – and the tropical animal-themed evening didn’t end there. With Gold Canary being the most anticipated tune of the night, Richard In Your Mind also played a song with mentions of toucans, vultures and canaries, and later on in the night, Heidi Lenffer from Cloud Control mentioned that some of the audience were making bird sounds!

When Cloud Control came on stage, the quiet crowd left their bar stools and moved forward to the stage to bop along to the music. With a new album called Bliss Release, the band certainly seem blissful when they play together. They genuinely looked to be having a great time – they have a warm, relaxed style continually smiling at each other during euphoric songs.

Guitarist Alister Wright, with his strong, soaring vocals is the frontman, but the band all have equal stage presence, taking turns to introduce songs and lead the between song banter. Between the four of them they pack a much bigger punch than many larger ensembles with lush, layered sounds. They’ve recently supported Vampire Weekend’s Australian tour, and last November they toured with Leader Cheetah and, with Cloud Control’s transcontinental, African-influenced sound and echoes of Neil Young, I can certainly see similarities between them and both these bands. But I’d hate to compare them too much because, while their songs brim with nostalgia, they’re also incredibly original and exciting.

One of the best things about Cloud Control is the beautiful boy-girl vocals shared by Alister and Heidi. The set opened with the upbeat There’s Nothing In The Water We Can’t Fight, a song that showed off how well all four band members can carry a harmony with bassist Jeremy Kelshaw and drummer (and brother to Heidi) Ulrich Lenffer joining in.

Other stand out songs were Meditation Song #2 (Why, Oh Why), which gave the band a chance to rock out and get sweaty, the haunting, voodoo sounding Ghost Story and of course Triple J favourite Gold Canary. I was slightly disappointed that the band didn’t play an encore – but after such an uplifting, enjoyable performance it was hard to feel let down.

We bought a copy of the Cloud Control single on vinyl as we left for the night, and have had it on high rotation since.

— For more bands coming up at the Harp see local Illawarra music event company Various Industries.

Milk Thieves

http://www.milkthieves.com.au

I visited a beautiful little shop on the weekend that specialises in bringing fabulous Etsy and other online finds to Wollongong. It’s run by Emma-Lee, who I studied Graphic Design with at uni – and she does her design work from the shop as well. She sources jewellery, trinkets, bags, stationery and lots of other lovely little things from all over the net.

Milk Thieves is located at Shop 10A 157 Crown St Wollongong.

It’s towards the lower end of the Mall, inside an arcade that also houses one of the best vintage stores around – Medieval Disco – and right across the way from my favourite boutique, Babes. Combined with a takeaway coffee from Lee and Me, that’s pretty much my perfect Saturday morning stroll in town.

Gold bird earrings

Being a sucker for cute things – and especially buttons – I bought a few things on my first visit: earrings, two button brooches and some button hair ties. But be warned, Milk Thieves only accepts cash. I had an armful of stuff and then had to put some back because I didn’t take enough money – probably a good thing actually! I’ll definitely be returning, however, and hope to be spoiling my friends with gorgeous birthday presents from Milk Thieves from now on.

I’m so pleased to see businesses like this cropping up in Wollongong because I think it’s these ventures that give a city its soul and uniqueness.

Button brooch

Another brooch

More buttons - this time as hair ties