Angela and Manuel

There were prawns and oysters, platters of cheese, and of course more champagne, and David loaded up the grill with a rack of lamb that had been marinating on the sideboard. He cut up the ribs for serving and they were delicious– charred around the edges and pink and succulent inside. This is a treat we don’t get in the States.

The Lamb cutlets entree prior to being grilled

We were a varied group, including several artists (Danelle Bergstrom, Sean-James Cassidy, and John Firth-Smith), a contingent from Sweden who came with Danelle, including a labro-schnau-doodle who along with Jed, scoured the floor and generous fingers for morsels of tasty meat. Also, David’s sister Sue, and her husband John and daughters Rebecca and Jessica were visiting from Perth, in Western Australia.

Everyone starting to sit down for dinner

Enjoying the conversation and champagne

Dinner was rolled out into the front gallery later in the afternoon, where there was a long banquet table beautifully laid with a colorful setting. Names were lettered on the back of cards featuring prints by artist-in-presence John Firth-Smith, and each setting included a cracker, a festively-wrapped device that pops with a little explosion when the two ends are tugged. Crackers are a British tradition, and once they are opened, everyone has a colored paper crown to wear. Silly hats, it seems, are the proper way to demonstrate that you are partaking in a festive occasion. Even Jed was given a hat to wear as a collar. Dinner was somewhat traditional, but that is not to say boring, as that made it all the more grand for its un-ordinariness. Beautiful tender roast beef, crusty roasted potatoes, parsnips and carrots, along with a tankard of a jus reduction; Accompanied by risotto, grilled bread, and light, flavorful salad of rocket, pears, roasted red pepper and shaved parmesan.

Ingredients for dinner

The main course for Christmas dinner – wonderful!

Au Jus and condiments for the filet

Potatoes

Risotto with Parmesan

Rocket and Pear salad

Kisses from Jed

Dinner is rolled out and served

Everyone enjoying dinner

After dinner there was a gorgeous dessert featuring a silky chocolate cake dusted with cocoa and decorated with currants. It was divine– rich and smooth, and almost custardy, without being intensely sweet. There was also ice cream and sorbet, and a cheese course and homemade fudge brought by one of the guests. This carried on, with coffee and cognac, until we all felt ready to lie on the floor of the gallery for a nap with the dogs.

Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Coulis and Currents

We lucked out on having a warm, but not scaldingly hot day. On Christmas Eve, the thermometer was inching towards 100, but things cooled off a bit for Christmas Day, with sunny mid-80’s. With all the warm weather, we’ve found it a little hard to get into the holiday spirit here in Sydney. But it really was a treat to have a such a festive event to attend and meet some new friends. It gives a whole new spin on the holiday. David and Manuel did an outstanding job planning and executing the event, and we feel really lucky to be included among their guests. Thanks guys! And Merry Christmas to all.

Merry Christmas from Angela and Eric!

You can view even more photos of Manuel and David’s Christmas dinner.

Food shopping here in Sydney is definitely a new experience. Like most large cities, grocery stores are tight on space. There aren’t the big suburban shopping stores they have in the States. One would think that this would be pretty much just relegated to the downtown areas, but it’s not. Even in the outlying areas the grocery stores are narrow aisled and short on selection (comparatively).

Some of the things that I miss that I can’t find here are stuff like cereal that isn’t WeetBix. I was particularly fond of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch back home, but alas, it did not make the trip over. No regular Cheerio’s, but they do have the multi-grain version. Raisin Bran is Sultana Bran (a sultana is a white grape raisin). It just doesn’t taste the same. In fact, most of the cereal here is like Musli. I have found Frosted Flakes and the Nutri-Grain isn’t too bad.

On the sandwich front I was glad to see that they have crunchy peanut butter. My fall back sandwich has always been a PB&J, but you can’t get a decent jelly. I love Raspberry Jam, but the closest thing they have is something called “conserve“. It’s more like a mix between jam and something you’d find in a jelly donut. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good jelly donut. But I am particular about my peanut butter and jelly combo. And don’t get me started on the sandwich bread. All of it is like the german bread – hard and stale. I think it’s because they don’t use all the preservatives that are so rampant in baked products in the US (which is good). But lack of preservation makes the bread go stale and moldy in about 3 hours (which is bad). On the bright side they have something here called “Turkish Pide Bread“, (this isn’t anything like our pita bread) which is basically a long flat oblong loaf of what can best be described as Thomas’ English Muffin bread. Toasted, it is basically eating ambrosia. But you have to keep it refrigerated as it goes bad quick. But since it’s best toasted it doesn’t matter. But the fridges are small here and having all that bread in there takes up a lot of room. But you pretty much have to go shopping every other day since you have to carry your groceries back by hand about 10 blocks. But you can get online delivery of your groceries. But we haven’t tried that yet. Anyway, it’s complicated.

We already discussed earlier the whole “no cream for coffee” issue. But you can find cream in the diary section, along with milk and cheese (I don’t really eat a lot of cheese, so I can’t tell you if the selection is good or bad), yogurt, butter, margarine, etc. They also have this weird “fermented milk” drink called Yakult. It’s advertised as something that supplements the “good” bacteria for you digestive tract. It comes in these wee little bottles (said with Scottish brogue) and it tastes pretty good, actually. Kinda tart, not unlike yogurt, but also sweet and the consistancy of watered down milk. Nothin’ better than drinking down a bottle of 200 million bacteria. Breakfast of Champions and all that (actually I suppose it would be “Brekkie of Champs” here down under).

Next we have Meat Pies. Pretty much a staple here. Takes the place of the street vendor hot dog. I’m not a huge fan of “pie” food (other than an actual pie, that is) so I don’t think of this as a big culinary bonus. They also have a thing here called a pasty (rhymes with nasty – of course) which is like a meat turnover. I don’t eat those either.

One thing they do have a lot of here is cookies, or rather biscuits. There is more shelf space devoted to biscuits than any other product. And this is in stores that don’t have a lot of anything. They take their biscuits seriously here. You can find Oreo’s, but that’s about it for the familiar stuff. Angela finds lots of stuff she used to munch on when she lived in England, so it’s familiar ground for her. I usually try and get something new and different each time I go shopping, which, as I mentioned before, is about every two days since the fridge is too small to hold more than that. My favorite find is something called a “Venetian“. It’s a iced cookie with currants and a slight coco-nutty flavor. It’s a tasty flavor sensation. Oh, and pretty much every cookie, I mean biscuit, is made by Arnott’s. They are like the Kellogg’s of cookies, I mean biscuits.

Feeling like Mexican tonight? Well, you can kinda forget it. They do have El Paso stuff and refried beans, but no real salsa (except Dorito’s brand),black beans, or fresh tortillas. We did find some El Paso tortillas the other day (not fresh), so we’ll see how it goes. They do carry Tobasco sauce, but not my favorite Chipotle sauce, which tastes like smokey spiced goodness. I’m gonna have to bring back a bottle from the US when we go back in November.

The other issue is getting used to things that are familiar, but not quite. Celery comes in in meter length stalks (it’s really quite hilarious), green beans look great but taste like green nothing, pizza gets cut with scissors, you buy kiwis by the gross, Crisps (potato chips) come in weird flavors liked Roast Chicken, Prawn, and Sweet and Sour, ground beef is “minced” beef, fries are called chips, and they have a form of lettuce called “rocket”. I mean, rocket. That’s just made up.

You also have to get used to ordering things by weight in kilograms. One Kilogram is like 2.2 pounds to you and me. This can cause issues when ordering deli meats. The tough part is when you are buying produce, it’s priced like it would be $X.xx at 2.2 pounds. It just seems like a weird weight when buying one avocado, or an apple. Who buys 2 pounds of lettuce, for goodness sake? The gist is that it is tough to have any idea of what something cost when it is priced by the Kilo.

On the drink side, you can get Coke and Pepsi, but no root beer or Dr. Pepper. They have sarsaparilla instead. And there is this thing called a “Cordial“, which is basically fruit flavored concentrate that you mix with water. And if you ask for a lemonade, you are gonna get a Sprite. If you want a lemonade, you ask for a lemon squash. Iced tea that you buy in a bottle doesn’t taste like tea at all. Ginger Ale isn’t the same as Canada Dry, it’s much harsher and less sweet.

The last weird difference is the lack of the cheap and tasty hole-in-the-wall restaurant. In every city I’ve ever lived in, there were a plethora of great places to eat that were under $8 a plate and usually BYO. Hell, the best Indian restaurant I’ve been to is that same place I would never use the bathroom. Here, if it is under $15 a plate, it is pretty mediocre. The only exception has been the quality of the sushi restaurant Angela and I went to for our anniversary. The price was comparable to a medium priced sushi place in Pittsburgh. If you can pay over $20 you can get some really good meals here, but that means eating out is, at most, a once a week experience.

On the plus side, the fish is really fresh and tasty too.