My brother's new camera

My brother decided to get a micro four thirds thingymajig, as his DSLR is too bulky and he doesn't want to use whatever point and shoot he has. He ended up getting a Sony Nex 5N and set me on a mission to go take pictures with it. In a way it was also a way for me to figure out whether I wanted to use one or not, and wow, even though I thought I was getting most of my manual focus shots OK, turns out only about half of my pictures actually worked.So my first project was to take pictures of food. I specifically ordered a flat white to test out my skills, but it turns out none of my 4 or 5 shots were actually 100% in focus. So instead all I have to present are two awesomely lit photos of short blacks (some sort of Colombian single origin I believe) sitting next to their decor.And of course, I fail at taking photos so the best photo taken, ever, was by my boyfriend:

I reckon I took an okay vertical shot, which was at the same time but from a different angle. Also no, size does not matter, it's just that the vertical fits better in my blog which is the only reason the picture above isn't any bigger. Also, I had a dream that coffee was extracted from diamonds that burned in the sunlight.

 After this great adventure, we also bought a fancy percolator and made some swallow coffee at home! He was freaking out that something would die a miserable death where I was too confident nothing could possibly go wrong, even though I had poured water past the pressure valve. In any case, turns out the beans make the coffee in this case - as there was no crema so the intial taste of the coffee is bitter, but then comes the body that instant coffee and stale grounds severely lack, and then it finished with a sweetness that comes a moment after the sip.Anyway, afterwards we had the opportunity to go to Randwick and try out some food from Elysium. It featured in the SMH Good Food Guide, and so I tried out a steak - medium rare sirloin, which was quite yummy with delicious onion rings and tasty baked potatoes! My main reason for going was to try the bombe alaska; my brother had always wanted to eat one ever since he discovered the hilarious name of the dessert but hasn't yet had the chance to taste one. So I went and did it for him! It was interesting enough, I didn't expect it to be pink, and I'm not sure it was quite the definition of a bombe alaska but it was still cool. It was pink meringue on the outside (and no, it wasn't set on fire for us sadly), with some sort of mousse like thing on the inside with choc honeycomb bits. The caramel sauce that the "bombe" sat on was delicious, and there was a nice toffee ice cream that sat on a bed of crunchy toffee nutty things.

And then finally I ran around the city shooting the birds that doesn't afraid of anything! :)

MINE MINE MINE

Aeropress!

This week I finally managed to summon the courage (i.e. work the sorcerous voodoocraft) to visit Swallow and get the brewstation goodies. I'm always terrified that if I order fancy coffee, the baristas will start talking about crazy flavour profiles that I simply don't understand.We got lucky this week since they were already in the middle of making an aeropress coffee, so I just took my time to stare at it, all the while thinking "YES THIS IS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO SAY HEY LETS TRY THAT." So we ordered our aeropresses and sat down at the table.It was an incredibly cool process as we got to smell the coffee straight after it was ground, and I was surprised at how fine and powdery the stuff looked. I don't think I managed to smell anything except "generic coffee smell," but that was fantastic nonetheless. It was also served in a pretty looking glass and I was very excited since I'd heard that these brewing methods made the coffee "tea-like" and brought out interesting flavours.I can't remember which origin I had, but it was described as having a plum-acidity and chocolate finish. I also tried taking a picture of it, but I failed. Anyway, it was definitely a very different experience of drinking coffee, it was not as kicky-punchy as espresso. They also told me that the flavours would change as it cooled, and I loved it when it was warm - apparently the coffee is sweetest at around 60° which I definitely noticed. As it cooled it gained acidity, and unfortunately I don't like acidity so I wished I drank all of it while it was sweet - but hey it was learning.The greatest thing about this coffee adventure was that my boyfriend got a different bean, which had a spice-acidity with cinnamon and stuff, and a chocolatey caramel finish. Because we tasted them side by side, the differences in the beans were amazing! I knew that each origin had its own flavour profiles, and to me that it was always as mysterious as trying to figure out wine flavours. However, since we had two beans right there, it was awesome. I finally think I figured that spice = chai, plum = plum, and chocolate = bitter 99% stuff! And I could be incredibly wrong with that :DIt was definitely fun, which means more brewstation, and perhaps even some Single Origin side show to come!JAPANESE FILTER

Welcome to the gingerbread family

I would almost make an ice cream sandwich pun, but that would have been very bad.Went to Swallow this morning in the hopes of interesting nibbles. Alas, there was no fruit mince pie, but there was a gingerbread family to be had! It wasn't until I got home and opened it that I realised that it was an entire family for real.

What I've noticed was that a lot of the small-batch, in-house stuff can be a little unpredictable. It's definitely cute that they're all different colours of burnt-ness, but they did taste a little too much of baking powder. I know this because there was this one time my mum made some cookies and we had to throw them all away because there was nothing but the flavour of bicarb soda in them  :(

Also,  I've finally decided to accept my mum's opinion that water orbs, while pretty, are bad for plants. These are the tiny little balls that absorb water and expand to giant jelly like things that are fun to play with, and are sold as being pretty vase fillers. However, flowers die really fast in them and my bamboo plant isn't as green as the ones outside because of them, so I think one day I will get rid of them. GOODBYE FUNKY ROOT PICS

And a few days with my new phone and I've already made it crash. Still getting used to some of the settings,  like the inability to customise the number of home screens and the fact that I have to have a google search bar at the top, and the set icons down the bottom. However it's definitely a lot smoother than my old milestone. Today I  played around with a drawing app, got out of it and was doing normal phone things when all of a sudden my phone froze. Then it randomly shut down and wouldn't turn on again. Weird thing was, the phone kept getting hotter and hotter, so I ended up taking the battery out and it went back down to normal temperature. So I put the battery back in and everything was fine. Yum Android lol.

Swallow + Skyrim bday goodness

Swallow is an amazing little cafe. It has awesome kicking coffee, possibly as good or better than some of the cafes in the city! So strong and tasty, with good food too.And then my super crazy lovely boyfriend gave me Skyrim without warning, so now I have to play it too :)

Also today in the city while I was trying to buy juice, some old man asked me if I had $4. I said no, so then he asked me if I had $3. I said no again, and went to buy my drink. Then, from the other side, some old lady approached and from what I heard, it sounded like she was asking the old man if he had $3. It was such a LOL moment! And also why I hate the city sometimes. The look when you refuse to give people money obviously shows they don't need it in the first place.FIREBALL