Day 2: 24 December 2007; Palaces and Kasbahs in Rabat

It took a couple of hours to drive out of Casablanca across to Rabat. It was time for our first Moroccan lunch, and we were herded into a little restaurant in the main drag. I tried a simple omelette and mint tea – both of which were to become staples for the next few weeks.

Bread also features heavily in Moroccan meals...every Moroccan meal to be precise. It’s offered automatically, and is great for soaking up juices in tagines, soups and pretty much any Moroccan food.

Our local guide then joined us on the bus for a quick coach tour round the main streets. Every Moroccan town’s main street is called after the king – Mohammed V. At least that makes it easy to always find the main drag.

We drove into the guarded ground of the Royal Palace, which had a number of stylishly understated buildings. Fountains and broad boulevards sprawled before us, and our local guide explained that this area was actually a little city in itself. VIPs and the King’s servants and their families lived in various parts of the grounds. The guide pointed out the King’s personal mosque, where he recites prayers each Friday.


Next stop was a visit to Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. They’re REALLY into mausoleums in this country, and this one was another example of ornate decorations. The grounds of Hassan Tower were lovely and looked out over Rabat to the sea.


























The sun was well and truly out now, and it felt like summer – a lovely feeling in the middle of a northern hemisphere winter. It was starting to feel like a holiday!

Our final sightseeing stint for the afternoon was Rabat’s Kasbah – or Kasbah of the Oudaias. You can’t see much from outside the towering walls, which are ten metres high and 2.5 metres thick, but once inside, a magical maze of blue and whitewashed walls and narrow little streets revealed itself.

Cats scooted amongst the tourists and cars, as we walked slowly through what I reckoned was one of the most beautiful old towns I’d ever been in. I just loved the feel of the place.

We walked upwards to a large open area that overlooked the sea, and the rest of Rabat. It was on the walk back down through the Kasbah, that our local guide asked if I wanted to stay in Rabat with him and be his second wife. Nice! Fortunately the widely accepted practice of Moroccan men being allowed to take up to four wives was abolished some time ago. So I had to decline.



As we continued to head down the stairs, past people’s houses and yet more cats, we arrived at a fabulous little open air cafe that served mint tea and delicious Moroccan pastries. Some pastries resembled baklava, some were crisp pastry crescents, and they were all syrupy sweet and almondy.

The scent of citrus and the sea wafted everywhere, and we left the cafe to walk through lovely gardens. Orange trees laden with fruits lined the gardens, and as we were to see throughout the rest of the trip, lined pretty much every street.

Rabat’s Kasbah was indeed a little oasis in this buzzing city, and it was unfortunate that we couldn’t spend more time here.That said, we’d had a long day on limited sleep, so it was nice to get into the hotel and have a back bash for a few hours before dinner.

Our hotel was just opposite Rabat’s medina, which appeared from the outside to be completely packed with markets and people. Interestingly, our tour leader warned us not to go into this medina at night, and certainly not to go there alone.

We’d agreed to have a group dinner, and it was this evening I tried my first real Moroccan tagine – lemon chicken with olives. It was delicious!

It was also Christmas Eve, and the group was excited about the tour and in festive spirits. We sampled our first Moroccan red wine, the brand incidentally recommended by Lonely Planet, and a raucous night was enjoyed by all.

This was also the group’s introduction to Billy the Bull – Susie’s stuffed travel companion. Billy was sporting a stunning pink Chinese evening outfit, and he generated much interest from the locals, who I’m sure thought we were completely bonkers.

I wondered what awaited us for Christmas Day...

Day 2: 24 December 2007; Cruising in Casablanca

With a solid three hours sleep under my belt, the tour group congregated for breakfast and did quick introductions. Mohamed, our tour leader outlined the trip, and we set off for a morning of sightseeing in Casablanca.

The streets were busy, and men wearing cloaked jellabas were everywhere. We were to see many more jellabas in the coming days.

We passed Rick’s Cafe, made famous in the film Casablanca, and headed directly to the Hassan II mosque – undoubtedly one of the most iconic buildings in Morocco.



Completed in 1993, this monstrous structure and its vast esplanades overlook the sea. Our guide explained that some 6,000 builders worked day and night, in shifts, to complete the build in just six years. Impressive work!

Our tour inside the mosque took us past huge halls, decorated with ornate plaster carvings, marble, granite, cedar wood – all material came from Morocco with the exception of 57 Italian chandeliers and Italian marble pillars.

It was astounding to think that this building could accommodate 25,000 worshippers inside and another 80,000 worshippers outside, at any one time. Because it was a working mosque, the guided tours were squeezed in between the five prayer sessions each day.

Our guide was quick to point out which behaviours were part of the Islamic religion, and which were not. Taking shoes off at the entrance at the mosque for example, was not a religious thing, but simply a way of keeping the mosque’s floors clean.



The mosque was deceptively high tech, with a roof that actually opened like those in sports stadiums. They reckon it got pretty warm and whiffy in the summer heat with 25,000 people inside...

Hundreds of loud speakers were ingeniously hidden in the timber pillars in the ceiling, and the floors were apparently centrally heated. The attention to detail was amazing. Millions of zellij (mosaic) tiles lined the walls and everywhere you looked, there were intricate designs in any manner of materials.

We then walked downstairs into the huge ablution rooms. It’s not obligatory to wash at the mosque, but it’s available if people want it. Again, this would be an amazing site to see, when fully packed with people.


























The final stop was the enormous Turkish bath underneath the Mosque, built mainly as a way of showing curious tourists what Turkish baths are like. Again, this isn’t a formal part of the mosque, but more used as a social add-on to it, and is really common throughout Morocco. This Turkish bath had never been used though, and there seemed to be continued debate as to whether it would be opened up to the public, or simply left as a nice place to sit for a few minutes.

We mosied back to the coach, just as the sky cleared up and gave us a great view of the mosque under blue skies. It was warming up too. I was liking this place!

Day 1: 23 December 2007; Christmas chaos at Heathrow

The first day of my holiday started with a pea-soup fog blanketing much of London. There was bound to be traffic carnage out on the roads, and people carnage out at Heathrow, as some 18 million Brits embarked in the annual Christmas getaway. Blurgh!

My bus ride out to the airport was uncharacteristically on time...so much so in fact, I arrived at Heathrow four hours ahead of my scheduled departure time. Oh well...i didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Morocco was calling!

And that’s when the real chaos began. Shabby T2 was packed to the rafters with people desperate to escape the UK for Christmas. Tempers and frustrations were obvious as the ground staff herded only those people whose flights had been called, into the check-in area, while everyone else had to wait in the overcrowded top floor of the terminal. People were sprawled over chairs, the floor and every other available space...Heathrow’s much anticipated Terminal 5 is allegedly going to improve this increasingly feral situation this year, but I think it will be a very long time before this airport can live by BAA’s ridiculous tagline of Making Heathrow Great. Making it bearable would be a good start.

Hours rolled by, and finally my Royal Air Maroc flight was declared open. The basement floor of T2 was even more crowded than the top floor, and flights were now being delayed and cancelled left, right and centre. Disappointed passengers were asked to leave the airport, because there were no facilities to rebook their flights onsite. They called in airport police to the check-in counters just prior to announcing the cancellation of a flight to Algeria...I don’t know what they thought the problem was going to be, but it certainly fuelled more angst amongst an increasingly pissed off crowd.

Royal Air Maroc had about 200 people in its check-in queue at this stage, and as we watched the clock tick by, it became less and less certain that we were actually going to get away at all. News eventually came through that our plane hadn’t even left Casablanca yet, and that they would only board us if our flight could get out of Morocco. There seemed to be about 3 million screaming kids, and even more screaming passengers, as BA, Alitalia and Lufthansa continued to cancel more flights...I felt truly sorry for the many Christmas plans and family reunions that were being systematically stuffed up by the fog.

Finally...after more waiting, we got the fantastic news that our plane was on its way, and we could be checked in. It took about another hour to process the huge queues, get through security and find somewhere to perch in what was now the most over-crowded airport I’ve ever seen.

Departure times were being constantly revised and pushed out....it was shaping up to be a very long night. My flight finally took off just after 10pm, five hours after its scheduled time.
Two of my soon-to-be tours buddies were sitting next to me, and we acquainted ourselves, chatted for a bit, then slept.

Casablanca’s airport was fairly quiet, and it took no time to get through customs. Large piles of luggage congregated around the carousels, which didn’t bode well. Some bags from our flight arrived, but it took another 45 minutes for the next batch to come through. The cleaning staff were busily mopping, while we weary tourists wondered if we’d get to our hotel before daybreak.

My bag finally came – thankfully – and I went out to meet the tour guide, and let him know that my travel buddies still had not received their bags. He mentioned that two of the tour buddies that had arrived early had still not received their bags....unluckily for them, bag-tracking would be an ongoing nightmare throughout the trip.

Some 45 minutes later, the remaining bags arrived, and we exited into the chilly Moroccan morning en route to our hotel in Casablanca. My head hit the pillow shortly after 4am, but I was at least there, and couldn’t wait to get out and explore this mysterious land!

A belated Turkey for Christmas

I've always found one of the best ways of beating the post-holiday blues is to ensure I have another holiday booked....and Turkey has been somewhere I've wanted to go for a long time!

So...this is the next big trip on the list after Morocco...a two-week birthday present to myself :-).


* This picture is courtesy of Explore UK.

Apparently I should be living in Tokyo

A funky little application in facebook called WhatCity suggests I should be living in Tokyo.

You plug in answers to a series of questions - sort of like a little personality test - and WhatCity returns the city that think most resembles your personality traits.

Here's what it says about why I should be living in Tokyo:

"Admit it - you love the taste of teriyaki bowls, sushi, tempura, and a side of wasabi. Salivating yet? Living in Tokyo lets you treat your tongue to new and exciting experiences. Have fun with all the new tools and gadgets, making your life easier in this technologically-advanced city."

Given my love of all things Japanese, this was hardly a revelation!

Show me the Souk!

I'm SO excited! Only a few sleeps to go before I head off on a two-week tour through Morocco.

I've previously spent one day in the Moroccan port town of Tangier, but two weeks of roaming round the imperial cities and out the Sahara desert will be something altogether unique.

I'm travelling once again with the good people at Explore. I liked the length of their tour, and that it covered all the imperial cities as well as the desert. Bring on the souks and the mint tea! The optional night's camping in a Bedouin tent in the Merzouga Sand Sea and the camel ride should be unforgettable.

The travel dossier warns me that it can get rather chilly out in them thar hills....freezing in fact...snowing in fact! Should be interesting.

I look forward to many blogs posts with amazing desert pics, and am most curious about what Christmas Day in Rabat will be like.

Whoohoo...not long to go!

Day 4: Meandering through German wine-country

We woke up to dark clouds and another hearty German breaky. I think I was consuming more bread, rolls and crackers than I do in an entire year, but the bread was fresh and seemed to be the thing to do. I was also getting into the cold meats and cheeses, ala continental breakfast.

Throughout the day, we climbed slowly in altitude and it was starting to get chilly.

We were driving through yet more green hills, and saw what looked to be a concorde perched on a building. Despite Betsy’s nagging and flashing, we detoured into a town called Sinsheim, and into the carpark of a huge open air aeronautical museum. There was indeed a concorde perched aloft the building, and all sorts of other planes held by huge metal struts in really interesting positions. Talk about a random place to build a plane museum!

We carried onwards to the town of Tubingen. By this stage it was pizzing down – our first real unpleasant weather of the trip. We finally found a parking spot and headed into the Old Town.

More quaintness, this time with a little river flowing underneath the front doors of a row of houses. They all had little bridges from the footpath to their front doors. Wouldn’t want to take a wrong step after a big night out…We eventually found the main piazza and the huge Rathouse (townhall). It was ornately decorated and like most places in Germany, sprouted little planter boxes of geraniums and other coloured flowers. Other buildings in the piazza had that characteristic Old Town lean about them. I loved the decorative signs and murals on the buildings. It’s just so much nicer than drab grey concrete.

The rain continued to fall, so we headed back out of town to find a hotel. That was only because we couldn’t find one hotel near the centre of town. The “hotel route” signs seemed to take us round the town in loops, and Betsy was madly beeping and flashing. The Greek-family owned Meteora Hotel became our bed for the evening. They even ran a very large Greek-restaurant, which for some reason made me chuckle. The area – reasonably high in the German alps - did not have a particularly Mediterranean feel about it. Surprisingly, we saw a lot of Greek restaurants during the rest of our travels through Germany, Switzerland Italy.

For dinner, we passed on Greek food and set out to find something a bit more German. We came across what looked like a great restaurant – warm and cosy, full of people and a good atmosphere. They said they were full, but we were welcome to try their downstairs restaurant. So off we trotted – down what looked to be the first and only flight of stairs. There were bathrooms, and two other doors, one of which I gave a mighty push and barged into the kitchen. The other door didn’t seem to lead to anything substantial, so we poked around outside in case we had misunderstood. Again, there was another door right round the other side of the building, but with no markings.

We were slightly exasperated at this stage, and went back in to get clear on the instructions. The waitress ushered us out to the loos and insisted that the next door did in fact lead to steps, and to take them all the way to the bottom floor. Right. So…down we ventured…and down some more, and then the dining space appeared. It was completely underground, dimly lit, full of chairs and tables and a couple of patrons, and a huge collection of homely junk. There were old sewing machines, palm trees, barrows of mock fruit, paintings, kitchenware and quite randomly, a big plastic flying duck attached the ceiling. It was very bizarre – hilarious in fact!

The menu looked great – it featured Swabian food, which we discovered was the region we were in. They had the ever-desirable schweinhuxe, which Dad and I decided to have – again. The Swabian version of pork knuckle was different. They called it suckling pig, and instead of roasting the pork to make the fat crackly, they left it soft. While I probably didn’t need any more lard for the day, it was slightly disappointing that there was no crackle, but the pork was delicious and tender. There was sauerkraut galore – also a slightly different version to what we had been eating in the north of Germany. This version was more pureed. And of course, there was spetzle – German noodles that are sort of like long flat pasta, but more randomly shaped cos they’re homemade. All that was covered in rich gravy and washed down with some fine Swabian beer.

The guts and butts were growing by the day, but we were indeed enjoying the food!

Day 3: Here comes Heidelberg

A big hearty German breaky helped the inescapable hangover, although the bendy little roads did not. By about 11am and a few coffees though, we were starting to feel less shoddy. Ten points to Dad who had the unenviable pleasure of driving for the day – and negotiating with Betsy - with a pounding head.

Heidelberg was our destination, and we meandered through green rolling hills laden with vineyards and orchards. They looked to be mainly apples and stone fruits, and the squat trees were absolutely bulging with fruit. European drivers flew past us. We were doing a respectable 90-100kms/hour on secondary roads, but these guys had to be overtaking at speeds of 120-140kms. They do like to go fast!

Heidelberg finally came into view. The Neckar River runs straight down the middle of this predominantly student town, although the side which houses the Old Town and the huge old Schloss was definitely the side to see first. Parking was once again a nightmare, and we had to do a couple of laps of the town before we could find a space. It was interesting to hear a news report that morning that estimated that by next year, more of the world’s population would live in cities than in rural areas. God knows where we’re all going to park in the future.



Anyway…we eventually found a small gasthoff right in the old town – next to a sex shop I might add. The sex shop looked out of place amongst such grand old buildings. A big hot lunch helped to take the final edge off our Rudesheim heads, and we were then ready to tackle the 320-ish stairs to the top of the Schloss. Our guide book noted that this was one of the oldest castles in Germany.

The main castle was being restored, so unfortunately had scaffolding round some of the turrets. Nevertheless, it was immense and stunning. The grounds were lush green and very well kept, and the huge trees looked like they’d been there as long as the castle. The view over the city from the top of the hill was great – I love looking over Old Towns, with their uneven and colourful rooflines. A charming arched bridge crossed the river and Heidelberg’s cathedral seemed to stand out as the centre of town.

The castle had sustained some fairly major damage in the war, and they had left the remains of a huge chunk of turret where it h ad fallen. Amazingly, huge amounts of the castle remained intact, and while we didn’t go inside, people wandered round the turrets and walls. It would have been a historian’s paradise. I just like very old chunks of rock!



We admired yet more view, then made our way down the 320-ish stairs, headed straight for a café to rest the knees and ankles and pigged out on yet another strudel. We were on holidays after all!

We then walked across the pedestrian bridge to the other side of the Neckar, to get some pics of the town and castle from a different perspective. It was quant and quintessentially German.



By dinner time, we were (surprisingly) up for a beer again, and tried more local lager – or pils as they say. We found a quaint little German restaurant full of old musical instruments used as decorations – violin and tuba light shades abounded!

The food, as it had all been, was hearty and yummy. I had a game-stuffed ravioli, although it looked more like a green lasagne. In any case, it was great.



We called in an early night after a final wander back over the bridge, and a peek of the backlit castle. Wunderbah!

Day 2: Get your motor running – driving down the Rhine

The Rhine beckoned and we were up and out early. Mum and Dad had previously been to a small town called Rudesheim, about 30kms north in the wrong direction, but said it was worth seeing. Lonely Planet chose to differ and said Rudesheim was kitsch, overpriced and a tourist drag. So..I was interested to see what it was like.

The satellite navigation system in the car, which had been nick-named “Betsy”, took us off the freeways and onto the little winding roads through small towns and villages. We weren’t in any screaming hurry, with a week to wind our way down to Stresa.

A little car-ferry punted us over the Rhine, straight into Rudesheim, which I loved straight away. Give me kitsch and quaint any day!



Rudesheim fronted the river, and yes, to be sure, a whole bunch of very touristy shops lined the streets. But the buildings were gorgeous and the cobbled little paths screamed to be explored. We had beaten the tourist buses, so got a good look at the place before it really started to heave.

The stunning Boosenburg Castle, which still touted its 12th Century tower, dominated the foreshore, while cruise boats and a train ferried tourists up and down the river. Old castles perched high on the green hills and vineyards – it was fairytale-esque.

Keen to sample the local fare, we decided an apple strudel was in order, and pottered back up the hill into the old town. With cream and icecream, the warm apple strudel was fab. It seemed a fitting early lunch in this gorgeous little town.

We decided at that stage that we liked it so much we’d stay the night, and found a quaint little guest-house right in the centre of town. They were also able to garage the car for the rest of the day and evening, which got it out of the way. We were noticing that parking in these joints was a complete nightmare!



So…free of car and with a bed for the evening, we set about sampling some of the local lager. After a gruelling search for the best pub, we lurched into a little open air biergarten where a band was just setting up.

There were table-loads of oldies boozing away, and then the band started its oom-pa-pa music. They really would have passed as a German band, but we later discovered they were Czech.

Anyway, one drink turned into a round after round, and our drinking buddies at neighbouring tables started to lean over and chat in broken Germanglish, Frenglish and Italinglish. Eventually we all resorted to the universal language of Slur and understood each other perfectly. Many hilarious things happened in that drinking session – much of it captured on blurry video. History will show a bunch of very drunk people singing very loudly for a long time, but for us it was one of those classic afternoons that you simply can’t plan or manufacture. Our fabulous (and cute) Czech oom-pa-pa band finished their 4-hour set and a “woman” (read, mutton dressed as Suzi-Quatro style lamb) and her two band buddies took the stage for the evening session.



How we managed to eat dinner that evening is beyond me. I do recall that it was great food, but I don’t recall how we managed to find our way home. People partied way into the early hours of the next morning, and sang the whole way home. Together with bells that chimed all evening, and raging hangovers, I can safely say that we had been well and truly Rudesheimed!

Day 1: My Big Fat German and Italian Road Trip

My parents are over, and we’ve just started a driving holiday through Western Europe. I shall declare it my Big Fat German and Italian Road Trip.

I arrived in Frankfurt on Thursday evening and met up with some colleagues in the Dow Jones Frankfurt office for lunch. Thanks to Matthias, Frank and Connie for giving me an introductory German lesson, and introducing me to hanuta – yummy chocolate wafer snacks. For Australians, they’re kinda like inside-out Tim Tams.

I caught the train back to Mainz, a sizeable town about 30kms south of central Frankfurt, and reunited with the folks after their 3-day drive through Frrance. We met at the Mainz Hauptbahnhoff, dumped our bags and set off for an afternoon stroll around the Aldstadt (Old Town).



German architecture is quite distinctive – I have no real clue about which period of architectural history it comes from, but it’s colourful and ornate, and really nice to look at.

We made a bee-line for the Rhine – I didn’t realise it was such a wide river – and then mosied our way through narrow cobbled streets into the Aldstadt.

The Domstrasse (cathedral) dominates the square and there are heaps of little pubs and cafés around. The weather was good and heaps of people were out, having a quiet Friday afternoon drink. As we did too.

We were desperate to find somewhere to have schweinhuxe – roast pork knuckle with sauerkraut – which has long since been a favourite pig-out food in our family. Our recollection of pork knuckle from a little Bavarian restaurant in Sydney’s Beverly Hills brings back memories of hugely lardy, crackly pork, lots of gravy and cholesterol overload. But god it’s good!

A few beers into it, we set off in search of schweinhuxe, and our search ended successfully all of five minutes later, when we found a lovely traditional looking restaurant. We confirmed that they served this pork with attitude, and had ordered three before we’d even sat down. Our collective mouths watered.

Our three big shanks of pork arrived pretty quickly, complete with the symphony-inducing sauerkraut and a creamy horseradish dip, which I’d never seen or tasted. It was like white wasabi, and went fantastically well with the meal, although it had that wasabi-like tendency to nearly blow your head off.


























This pork knuckle seemed to be a healthier option – not so much dripping with lardy crackle, but there was a good slab of it, and the pork itself was very tasty. More beers, and we toasted many times to the first of what we knew would be a bunch of spectacular German meals.

A little Japanese Cocoon in London

Following the yummy Taste Festival in June and a sampling of its delicious wagyu beef over hot stones, a visit to Asian-fusion restaurant Cocoon moved rapidly onto the to-do list. We crossed off the task last Saturday night.

It's really centrally located, just off Regent Street near Piccadilly Circus.

When you walk into the bar and restaurant section on the 2nd floor, you walk into a sea of mute green and orange - it has a modern, casual, somewhat retro oriental feel to it. And then you're seated at low tables with rose petals sealed into a laminate table top. The cocoon shape is everywhere - round edges, smooth lines, circles.

Two veteran sushi chefs were in full view of our seats, preparing bits and pieces. I shall remember to try to get a seat at the sushi bar next time - I love watching sushi chefs do their thang.

We munched away on some steamed edamame beans, which somehow now seems the thing to do before a Japanese meal. While I was very tempted to order the wagyu beef on hot stones, I really could not stomach the £65 price tag. So...instead, I ordered yellowfin tuna sashimi and beef gulgogi for the main, with a side order of sesame spinach. Ant ordered the wild mushroom spring rolls and BBQ chicken. And sake to wash it all down.

The meal was really well presented and delicious. The servings of the mains were huge - much bigger than you would usually expect in a place like this. We couldn't actually finish everything on our plates, which is pretty rare for me.

The one thing I didn't really like about the service was that the waitress cleared our plates too quickly...she practically grabbed them as soon as the last mouthful went down. Although the place was crowded and we had to be out before the second setting, there was really no need for them to be as er....efficient as they were. The sake really complemented the food as well.

Cocoon is renown for its sashimi and sushi and the yellowfin tuna was spectacular. I would love to go back again and try a more fishy meal.

This one is definitely worth a visit!

Trip Advisor's travel map in facebook

Ah, facebook...the distraction of it. TripAdvisor has created an addictive little application that you can install into your facebook profile, and lets you plot down to a city level, where you've been.

I like this version better than some of the earlier attempts, that would shade the entire country of Russia if you had only been to Moscow. This version lets you mark specific cities or states.

It tells me I'm up to 265 cities in 41 countries - I still reckon Scotland and Wales count as seperate countries, but this version does not. Anyway...as you can see, there's some vast empty areas on my map, which are yet to be explored, but are definitely on the list.

I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so

Inspired by the brief visit to Japan earlier this year, we decided we'd do a Japanese themed dinner party last weekend. Japanese ingredients are really easy to find in London, particularly in the Japan Centre in Piccadilly (which even offers a home delivery service), or most of the shops in China Town. Most large supermarkets even stock sushi rice and seaweed sheets these days.

Anyway, Ant and I decided that sushi and sashimi would be the order of the evening. I made a brief detour en route to work a couple of days before the big event, and spoke with the very helpful fishmongers at Applebee's Fish near the delectible Borough Markets. They said they would have sashimi-grade salmon and tuna in stock on Saturday. Apparently it's best to check in advance that they'll have the very freshest of fish the day you need it.

I decided on the Friday afternoon that I wanted to expand the meal to include a few side dishes, and surprised Ant with the er...amended meal plan. Let me just clarify that neither of us had individually or collectively prepared a meal like this. Nothing like a meal with high risk and a high degree of complexity to be served to unsuspecting friends:

- Tuna and salmon sushi, sashimi
- Inside out California rolls and maki rolls
- layered sushi
- shiitake mushrooms simmered in soy
- beans with sesame miso dressing
- edamame beans
- spinach with sesame dressing
- bite-sized pepper steaks
- pickled ginger
- black sesame icecream served wth Pocky sticks
- sake. of course!

On the Friday night, I began early, and started to prepare the black sesame icecream, because it was one of the few things we could do in advance. The smell of toasted sesame seeds filled the kitchen. It sort of smelt like a nutty, coffee smell. I'd never really toasted them before. The recipe I was using (not the link above, but similar), required the mixture to be stirred a couple of times after it had started to freeze so it all remained creamy. It sort of resembled the colour of Cookies & Cream icecream without the really chunky bits. Even in liquid form, it tasted pretty good. I was happy to have one dish on the way!

We set off early on Saturday morning to collect the fresh goodies. Borough Markets was comparatively empty at that time of the day. By 11am, the place is teeming - so it was good to be in and out before the hoards arrived. Applebee's had brought in a huge batch of wild Scottish salmon, smaller and less fatty than farmed salmon, but deliciously fresh and lean. I bought a whole fish, which the fishmonger then gutted and filleted for me - thank god. They know exactly what they're doing, and it looks extremely messy. I'm a wuss when it comes to fish blood and guts. I also bought two chunky tuna steaks. I found a nice chunk of something that looked like rib eye steak for the bite sized pepper steaks, and we bought a heap of vegies for the various salads and side dishes.

We were home by 11am, and literally did not stop cutting, cooking, rolling and arranging food until 7pm.

Japanese food is not at all difficult to make - it's just fiddly and each recipe usually requires a couple of stages of preparation. Sushi rice took the longest time to prepare, because it needs to be washed several times, allowed to sit before it cooks, cooked and then cooled before you can work with it. See my previous post on the joys of sushi rice!

And that really needed to be done first, so that we could use it in the various dishes.

The shiitake mushrooms simmered in soy was an interesting dish. It used dried shiitake mushrooms, dashi (a fishy kinda stock which I'd made from dried seaweed and katsuobushi, which are dried bonito flakes), mirin (a stock, distilled alcohol flavoured seasoning), sake, soy sauce and dark brown sugar. After I'd reconstituted the dried mushrooms in warm water, I pretty much just chucked them into the rest of the mixed ingredients and let them simmer for an hour. It was a shame I only used one packet - they were yummy!

The layered sushi was also an interesting spin on the traditional rolled sushi and/or nigiri sushi pieces. It used a sheet of seaweed on the bottom layer, piled with a layer of rice - flattened, topped with a sheet of smoked salmon, then repeated with another layer of seaweed, rice and smoked salmon and topped with yet another seaweed sheet, to create a 3-coloured, layered sushi. It was also chopped into squares, which breaks with the traditional shape. Each piece was topped with wasabi mayonnaise - a simple mixture of wasabi and Japanese mayonnaise that created a tangy, less vicious version of the infamous nose-rattling wasabi.

The rest of the preparation went pretty much without hitch (well, er, there may have been one or two tense moments, and a couple of sharp intakes of breath...), although it took much longer than we'd anticipated to roll all the rolls and arrange the sushi. We tried to be as pedantic about presentation and layout as the Japanese are.

In anticipation of the party, I had been accumulating a range of little Japanese bowls and plates. Having had the full monty Japanese meal in March, I wanted to attempt to create a Japanese table with pretty little bowls and platters. The Japan Centre has a reasonable selection of crockery, and also useful stuff like disposable chopsticks - yes, unenvironmentally friendly I know, but the pile of washing up was already mountainous....

Funnily enough, when it was all laid out, it didn't look like enough food or effort to have sustained 2 people each working continuously for about 7 hours. We also had miles of fish left over beyond what we actually laid out, and enough sushi rolls to make a substantial lunch and dinner the next day, but hey...better to have too much than not enough.

Our guests eventually arrived, and we got stuck into the food pretty soon after. I was keen for the fish not to sit around for too long! We cracked the sake and began to eat. The fish was delicious - definitely good quality, really fresh, and easy to eat raw. The boys had wasabi ironman championships and we all picked our way through the various tastes, textures and flavours. By all accounts, it was pretty good.

A couple of guests were slightly dubious about the sesame icecream - until they tasted it. Not a drop was left in their bowls, and we did a round of seconds. I had made a double batch of icecream on the basis that it was such a hassle, and on the remote chance it was good, I wanted to be able to serve everyone reasonable amounts of it.

Anyway, the party continued and we ate Japanese for a few meals afterwards. It was a fun night, and definitely worth the effort. Thanks to Ant (for his ever-present patience), Anne, Andrew, Kinga, Darren and Clare for being brave enough to try my untested Japanese experiment.

Here's how it looked before we demolished it.

The green, green grass of Wales

When Tom Jones sings about the green green grass of home, he's pretty bloody accurate about his beloved home country of Wales.

The Welsh countryside is indeed very very green. Which can mean only one thing...it gets very very wet there, very very often. Sobering thoughts as we embarked on a camping/socialising weekend in mid-Wales following the wettest June on record.

Heading out, cross-country from Oxford, our trip to the county of Powys and the mid-northern town of Rhayader (or a rural property just outside this village) took us through the rolling (green) English countryside and towns like Worcester and Hereford.

After a three-hour drive, we reached the property, a huge estate on which friends Nick and Rhian were based. Their cottage was nestled amongst vast green fields, some with sheep grazing, some with hilly forestland, and all by the River Wye. It was an idyllic setting.

Living in London, you get used to not seeing much wildlife, so after a few minutes in "the bush", it seemed that every sort of bird known to man called this place home. Ditto the sheep, who were to become the alarm clocks in the morning.

We spent a leisurely evening sitting around the fire (as you mid-Welsh summer), eating yummy vegetarian curries. Were it not for the copious amounts of alcohol we consumed, I'd have felt like I was at a health retreat.

Next morning, Rhian offered us some of her home-made elderflower champagne, which had been merrily bubbling away in the kitchen.

As Nick loosened the cork, the bottle practically exploded and elderflower champgne sprayed throughout the loungeroom. It was even fizzier than what appears to be the current craze of dipping mentos mints in coke bottles...

Most items in proximity copped an elderflower shower, including Nick, who dashed outside with the spewing bottle. It was pretty amusing.

Later, we set out for a drive through the (green) rolling hills in the heart of Wales, and into the Elan Valley. Sheep roam the roads in these parts, and we had to stop a number of times to let a little sheep family amble past. They don't seem to dock the sheep's tails here like they do in Australia, and it was really funny to see sheep with big woolly tails dangling behind them.

Out there, it's peaceful and the air is crisp and fresh. It was an unusually sunny day and it was so good to be able to look out to the horizon and not see people or buildings. We meandered round the little country roads, checked out a few quaint pubs and heard all about sacred geometry, which I intend to investigate in much more detail.

The weekend continued much in the same way, although I was feeling much less like I was at a health retreat when I awoke on Sunday morning to the sound of sweet little birds crapping sweetly on the side of the tent, and the all-the-more rather disturbing sound of my head about to explode. Pesky hangovers...at least I didn't have to resort to dunking my head in the River Wye, unlike one of us.

It was a very relaxing weekend - great company, food and scenery, and tainted only by the usual horror show drive back down the A40 to London.

Get me to Antarctica. Quick!

Oh, how do I love thee, facebook. Let me count the ways.

What I love about facebook is that you can find people with what mind seem like the most niche of interests. Like going to Antarctica for example, which is a huge mission of mine.

I got chatting with Kevin though one of the travel groups, who has recently been to Antarctica and more than happy to discuss the experience. He pointed me to his blog, fliesbynight, which displays some of the most stunning photos. He said he took over 3,000 photos in the 2-week trip. What a stellar effort!

Check out his photos of Antarctica. This is just one example of what you'll see. Fwaww. Stunning huh!



This photo is © 2007 Kevin Tangney. All rights reserved.