The Archibalds

.

The Archibald Prize is an annual prize for portraiture in Australia.

Every year the thirty or so finalists go on tour and I try to catch them when they are in Victoria. This year they were on display at the stunning Tarrawarra Museum (and winery) in the Yarra Valley.

The winner was a painting of Australian artist Margaret Ollie. (Above)

To put its size in perspective, here is a picture of the artist with Margaret, in front of the painting:




A fascinating cross-section of styles on display and then lunch at the winery.

Not very hard to take at all!
...

Variety, being the spice of life. And cooking.

.

Going across numerous food barriers tonight (we have a three course candle-lit dinner every Saturday. Numbers vary depending on who is home, who is visiting, who is in town. If you are in town, drop in.).

Starter: Chickpea pancakes with spicy cauliflower, lamb and yoghurt.

Main: Curry laska.

Dessert: Lime curd puddings with apricot puree and vanilla ice cream.

Something to please everyone.

I have made a laksa from scratch a couple of times before but, today, opted to use a commercial laksa paste. I wandered into an Asian grocer and and a lady asked what I was looking for.

"If you were making a Laksa, which of these pastes would you use?" I asked. (probably she would make her own but I asked anyway.)

"Well" she replied "Caucasians usually prefer this one..."

Now, that wasn't what I asked her. If I wanted the Caucasian preferred laksa paste I could buy it from Woolworths. I wasn't sure if that was racism or not.

I eventually opted for one from Singapore - laksas are from Malaysia so they should know something about them. The other products, Caucasian preferred to boot, were from Thailand.

...

Still alive. Sort of. Kind of.

.

Blogging enthusiasm has been at an all time low of late.

Originally this blog was started as a core family blog but few, if any, family seem to read it. One maybe. Around it were three other blogs covering sex, religion and politics. This meant I could rant and rave 'off broadway' and not startle the gentler members of my reading family. The religion and sex blogs still exist but I am not planning any posts. I think I have said all I want to on those subjects.

The active blogs are listed in the side bar on the right. A chemistry one that will get spasmodic posts, as required, and I am keeping the original political blog as there is too much disinformation out there not to point at it in amazement or dismay from time to time.

Through all of this my alter ego, Mr Newbery, has continued to write his rhyming slant on the world.

The blog no longer automatically posts to Facebook but I will manually add links as it seems appropriate.
...