The weekend of heppy!
I have had a WONDERFUL weekend!
It started Friday night when Liz and Chelle came to stay with us for a night, and I went out to have nyummy asian food in Dickson with them... mmm. Laksa. How can you go wrong!
We got up reasonably early, and despite the fact that Canberra isn't very big, Chelle got lost going for a walk. It might not be big, but it's hell confusing - all the streets are curly and curvy, and because Canberra has no billboards (yeah, it's a bit Pleasantville) and the burbs aren't that old, it's actually quite difficult to find your direction because of the distinct lack of landmarks. It's all curvy roads and dry roadsides and rather conservative looking homes, and poor dehydrated drought ravaged gardens. (Well except for the parliamentary circle and anywhere near the lakes, which are divinely green and rather lovely). Anyway. I go rescue Chelle, who was half way back to Sydney, and we all took off to Belconnen fresh food markets and had brekky at the organic cafe there. Pretty nice. The eggs are amazing, though the quality of their roasted veg has gone down - no zucchinis or other greens, just sweet potato, pumpkin and carrot. Other than that it's a gorgeous little cafe with really good organic coffee and incredibly indulgent chocolates, and lots of hippy-chick sorta things like ear candles and organic sushi ingredients and stuff. We were having so much fun that we forgot to take photos. Always a good sign :D
Then I took off to work for a few hours, and after that the foody joy continued.
I was wailing away a week or so ago about how it's a bit sucky that Lebanese food is so luscious, but takes so long to prepare, so a few girlies put their hands up for the experience of coming over and making stuffed vine leaves. If you do this alone, you need about 3 or 4 hours. If you have girlfriends and a bottle of wine, you can knock it over in 2. And the 2nd hour is when they're cooking on the stove top, so it's an hour of rolling spliff-type munchies, and an hour of hanging out, drinking wine and gossiping enthusiastically about all sorts of silly stuff.
Divine, wonderful, beautiful way to spend a Saturday arvo! There will definitely be repeats of the experience, next time I'm doing stuffed zucchinis. *droool* The recipe for the stuffed vine leaves is very accessible, you can find it in this little Woman's Weekly book. A lighter, more traditional lemon-flavoured style can be found elsewhere, but I love this one because it's so sweet and rich with the tomato sauce.
And finally, the roast of doom later that night. Need I say more? Despite a no-show (silly boy doesn't know what he's missing, nor how sought-after a seat at the Doom Roast is), it was a raging success, especially with Maddi's home made margarita ice cream. Mmm.
Could it have been any better? Not in a million years. Bring on the 4 day week, I feel like a million dollars :D Now I'm just hanging out with a glass of rose and reading Jane Austen by candlelight. *heppy heppy heppy*
