Pierced with a horn, former vice president died (5)
Monday 30 April 2012
Solution for 29 April cryptic crossword clue
Coach’s dedication (9)
Solution –
Diligence
The tricky bit
is knowing that a diligence was a type of carriage or coach drawn by horses in
olden days. The setter of the clue
wanted you to think about “coach” in the sense of a sports coach – they’re
tricky that way.
Then another
word for dedication is diligence.
This is a double definition cryptic crossword clue. See the sidebar under the list of popular posts for links to further information about different cryptic crossword clue types.
This is a double definition cryptic crossword clue. See the sidebar under the list of popular posts for links to further information about different cryptic crossword clue types.
Live Fish, Wynyard Quarter
So a friend and
I tried another one of the restaurants down on the North Wharf in the Wynyard Quarter . Live Fish this time.
It is billed as
Hong Kong style alfresco dining. But to be honest it didn’t feel particularly
Chinese in layout. But the food was
authentic in taste. There was also a
large tank containing live crayfish and abalone which you could select. I didn’t choose either of those ($45 for the
half crayfish or $68 for one abalone just seemed a mite extravagant for a
casual lunch!).
I had prawns in
hoisin sauce. They were simply delicious
but there were only about 6 small prawns with a pile of green salad in the
middle and no rice. It just wasn’t
filling enough for lunch. And at $19 not
that great in value. The salad was
supposed to have a sweet chilli lime dressing but I couldn’t
really taste it.
My friend had
pan fried salmon with rice. The sauce
was a Cajun mayo (which doesn’t sound particularly Hong
Kong , does it?) – this was delicious.
The service was
a bit slow but we weren’t in any hurry.
For other posts about the Wynyard Quarter click here and here.
You might find my travel bucket list of interest.
For other posts about the Wynyard Quarter click here and here.
You might find my travel bucket list of interest.
Labels:
Auckland,
Food,
Live Fish,
Restaurants,
Wynyard Quarter
Location:Auckland, New Zealand
47 Jellicoe St, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
Sunday 29 April 2012
Solution for 28 April cryptic crossword clue
Clued ‘shone’ cryptically, as
planned (2,8)
Solution – On
schedule
So “cryptically”
indicates an anagram. It can only be of “clued
shone” since that has the right number of letters.
Scrambled you
can come up with “on schedule” which means “as planned”.
For a more detailed discussion of cryptic clues that involve anagrams, click here.
Hilton Queenstown - new hotel on glorious Lake Wakatipu
Looking out from the front of the Hilton, Queenstown at the jetty and the lake |
The front of the Hilton hotel, Queenstown |
There is a
lovely view looking out from the front of the hotel. But the entrance to the hotel and the back is
a bit poky in my opinion.
You can see the partly developed area behind the hotel - not very pretty |
The room was
spacious, the bed comfortable and the bathroom well appointed (but no natural
light as a result of the building being built back into the cliff).
The service in
the hotel was great. The food was
good. And the room service was even good
value as well as prompt. Most unusual.
The location of
the hotel could be seen as either a plus or a minus – it is at least 20 minutes
by road to the main centre of Queenstown.
Many guests go there by water taxi instead. So if you like to be within striking distance
of the bars and restaurants but not right in it, the hotel is great. Not so great if you want a big night out on
the town after which you just walk back to your hotel.
Water taxi on Lake Wakatipu |
Labels:
Hilton Queenstown,
Hotels,
Lake Wakatipu,
New Zealand,
Queenstown,
South Island,
Travel
Location:Auckland, New Zealand
41 Willow Pl, Kelvin Heights, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand
Saturday 28 April 2012
Harper Lee Quotation
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
– Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, born on this day in 1926
Click here if you would like to see my travel bucket list (not including places in New Zealand)
Click here if you would like to see my travel bucket list (not including places in New Zealand)
Anniversary of the Cave Creek disaster in 1995
Labels:
Current affairs,
Kiwiana,
New Zealand
Location:Auckland, New Zealand
Cave Creek, Paparoa National Park, West Coast, New Zealand
Solution for 27 April cryptic crossword clue
Dreadful, the French records (10)
Solution – Chronicles
Ignore the punctuation here. The
split of the clue into 2 parts is “Dreadful, the French” and “records”.
Dreadful = chronic
The French = les (in other clues it could also mean le or la – all being
words for “the” in French)
Chronic + les = chronicles which is a words for a register or record of
events.
This is an example of a charades clue. Click here for a post about charade clues.
This is an example of a charades clue. Click here for a post about charade clues.
Smoked salmon salad platter, potato wedges and corn
Smoked Salmon Platter |
The smoked
salmon platter was easy but looked great.
Just choose a nice plate, plonk your piece of smoked salmon in the
middle, surround it with little piles of red onion, pickled cucumber (could be
any sort of pickle), tomato wedges, slices of cucumber, lemon wedges. Sprinkle some capers and thinly sliced red
onion over the top.
Other things
you could put on the platter if you had them handy include, chopped boiled eggs
(see here for my way of doing them), blinis (you could make your own but there
are perfectly good frozen ones in the supermarket), finely chopped red chilli,
salmon caviar etc etc.
Sauce with mayo, horseradish and mustard |
The sauce I did
with it was made of mayo, horseradish sauce and Dijon mustard – with white pepper and a
teensy bit of salt.
Corn drizzled with butter, salt and pepper and parsley |
To make a meal,
I added one corn cob – boiled for 15 minutes in unsalted water. I put butter, pepper, salt and chilli flakes
onto it. Yum.
My best potato wedges yet |
For the first
time I made potato wedges that came out perfectly. I parboiled the potatoes (baking potatoes (Agria)
cut up into wedges) for 5 minutes, shook them up in the pot a bit after
draining, then coated them in a little vegetable oil, salt and white
pepper. 20-25 minutes in a hot fan
forced oven and they came out crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.
You might also be interested in a post I did on an asparagus and bacon salad. If so, click here
If you liked this post, it would be great if you shared it with your readers. You just have to click on one of the buttons underneath the post.
You might also be interested in a post I did on an asparagus and bacon salad. If so, click here
If you liked this post, it would be great if you shared it with your readers. You just have to click on one of the buttons underneath the post.
Friday 27 April 2012
Food on Friday: Fish and Seafood
ON
It's Friday again. So here is this week's Food on Friday. It's about fish and seafood this week.
Have fun linking up posts to do with anything "fishy" or to do with the sea! I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.
I have also now made up a Pinboard for the links in Food on Friday: Fish and Seafood. Click here if you would like to see it.
Enthusiasm
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet – died on this day in 1882
Click here if you would like to see my travel bucket list (not including places in New Zealand)
Click here if you would like to see my travel bucket list (not including places in New Zealand)
Solution for 26 April cryptic crossword clue
Safeguard a picture on shifts (10)
Solution –
Precaution
Safeguard =
precaution
“shifts” is a
key to there being an anagram involved.
The solution has 10 letters and so does “a picture on” – re-arranging
the letters you get “precaution”.
Collecting recipes - hard work but worth it
I risk being
thought of as a bit of a trainspotter with this post. As I have mentioned before I got sick of
having lots of cook books – most of which only had a few recipes I would ever
use. So some years ago I decided to
create my own recipe book/s.
Edmonds Cook Book – a NZ classic
I bought some
school exercise books – ring bound ones – very cheap. I divided them up into – soups, starters,
salads and vegetables, mains, eggs & sauces and desserts.
I taped all my
cuttings etc into the books. Then I
started on my least favourite cook books and felt like a vandal as I ripped out
the recipes I wanted. But I did find
that the recipes ended up being so much less bulky than keeping the whole book.
The key to this
working, though, is that I did an index for the recipes which I keep updated. The index is by ingredient – so if I have
lots of lemons, for instance, I can just look up lemons in my index and see all
the recipes I have so that I can inspired as to what to do with them.
This might
sound like quite a lot of work. But I
only update the books once or twice a year – generally when I am on
holiday. And when you do it, boy do you
get hungry!
So now I only
have about 5 cookbooks plus my recipe books.
The cookbooks I couldn’t part with include:
Stephanie
Alexander’s Cooks Companion
3 Thai
cookbooks – 2 from Spirit House and one from David Thomson
I do have a
couple of Jamie Oliver books left but may give them the tough love treatment
next year.
On re-reading
this, I realise that I missed an opportunity to make the covers of my own
recipe books beautiful. But although
they aren’t pretty, they are so useful.
Thursday 26 April 2012
Solution for 25 April cryptic crossword clue
Hood’s battle (9)
Solution – Balaclava
This clue relies
on you knowing 2 of the contexts of the word balaclava – one being the hood
over the face that criminals sport when robbing banks and other being the name
of a famous battle, the battle of Balaclava . In fact this was during the Crimean war
(1854) and soldiers serving then wore the sort of hoods that we now call
balaclavas.
This is a double definition cryptic crossword clue. See the sidebar below popular posts for links to further explanation of different clue types.
For the next clue in the series, click here
This is a double definition cryptic crossword clue. See the sidebar below popular posts for links to further explanation of different clue types.
For the next clue in the series, click here
Pasta dish with bacon
Pasta with bacon and vegetables |
So I had a
packet of bacon, some alfredo pasta sauce (nearing its expiry date), one
tomato, one green chilli, ½ a red onion, lots of garlic, ½ a red and yellow
capsicum (bell peppers to some of you).
Ginger corn on the cob and some cauliflower.
I chopped the
vegetables up while my better half fried the bacon – very competently I must
say.
I put the corn
in boiling water for 10 minutes, adding the cauliflower broken up into florets
in the last 4 minutes or so. Once the
time was up I spooned the veges out and kept the water to use for cooking the
pasta. I didn’t want to waste any of the
good stuff!
I then fried
off the onion in the fat from the bacon (the bacon was set aside to be added
again later). After 3 or so minutes I added
the finely sliced ginger and garlic. Because I had a lot of garlic on hand I
used about 10 cloves – but you could alter that to as much or as little as
suits.
Once that was
softened, I added the capsicum (bell peppers) which I had thinly sliced together
with some freshly ground white pepper (which was pounded up in my small mortar
and pestle). I used about 2 ½ teaspoons
– so the end result was very spicy. Use
1 teaspoon if you aren’t as besotted with pepper as me. I also added a spoonful or two of some chilli
relish I had in the fridge – you could use chilli sauce, or sweet chilli sauce
instead.
While this was
all going on, I had re-heated the water and put the pasta in for 11 minutes
from boiling. I used dried penne – but
any sort would be fine.
For the last 3
minutes of the pasta’s time I put the bacon back into the pan with the
vegetables and added the wedges of tomato.
I only added a smidgeon of salt – the bacon provides a lot of the salt
taste already.
So I put the
bacon mixture into a serving bowl and sprinkled a few crunchy fried shallots on
top (optional – available from asian stores in jars pre-prepared). In a separate serving bowl the drained rice
with ½ the pot of alfredo sauce warmed through.
I chose not to mix it all together for aesthetic reasons. And it also means you can serve yourself only
the portion of pasta and sauce that you think you should have.
For another
recipe, click here.
If you liked this post, it would be great if you shared it with your readers. You just have to click on one of the buttons underneath the post.
If you liked this post, it would be great if you shared it with your readers. You just have to click on one of the buttons underneath the post.
Wednesday 25 April 2012
MOMA – New York
It houses over 150,000 artworks – so it is clearly impossible to take it all in. There are some massive Monet Water Lilies – which have to be seen in person – you just don’t get the same impression in a small reproduction. Some of the other most striking art from my point of view is:
Joan Miro - Hirondelle Amour |
Picasso - Girl Before a Mirror |
Matisse - La Danse |
Van Gogh - Starry Night |
Jasper Johns - Flag |
Kandinsky - Painting No 200 |
Paul Klee - Two Tents |
Mondrian - A Composition |
It also has a great store where you can buy a huge range of prints and modernistic gadgets like a super iPad stand. They do have an online site although it seemed a bit unstable when I tried it recently.
Solution for 24 April cryptic crossword clue
Their new one’s surprisingly still in ignorance
(4,3,5)
Solution – None the wiser
So the clue that there’s an anagram involved is “surprisingly” – counting
letters you see that it must be of “their new one’s” rather than of “still in
ignorance”.
Anzac Day
They shall grow not old, as we
that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor
the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Bangkok - an interesting (and hot) place to visit
Visiting The
Jim Thompson house. He was an American
who settled in Thailand
and became a very successful entrepreneur in the silk trade. His house is now a tranquil spot to visit and
has a nice shop with quality silk goods for sale.
Visiting
temples in the Grand
Palace . A must see attraction. But no shorts or bare feet are allowed – ie flip
flops without socks not allowed.
Visiting
Lumphini park – it’s a large park (360 sq acres). It is full of people doing tai chi and
martial arts, having get togethers, biking, running and anything else you can
imagine.
Having lunch
down by the river – you will see from the picture the sorts of boats that whizz
down the river – and that the river looks pretty dirty. I wouldn’t want to fall into it.
But it isn’t
all pretty. And the traffic is pretty
horrendous – and interesting and exciting all at the same time. The people, though, are just great. Polite, friendly and peaceful (well, when
they aren’t protesting about something).
Labels:
Bangkok,
Grand Palace,
Jim Thompson House,
Lumphini Park,
Thailand,
Travel
Location:Auckland, New Zealand
Bangkok, Thailand
Tuesday 24 April 2012
Today’s cryptic crossword clue – solution tomorrow
Their new one’s surprisingly still in ignorance
(4,3,5)
Solution for 23 April cryptic crossword clue
An opportunist, a doctor accepting dare (10)
Solution –
adventurer
An adventurer
could be said to be a type of opportunist.
The second half
of the clue is “a doctor” in this case a + dr.
Those letters “accept”
a word meaning dare – in this case venture.
So a + d+
venture + r
This is an example of a container clue. For a more detailed discussion of container clues, click here
Happiness is not a Destination
Woolloomooloo Wharf & Manta Restaurant, Sydney
Woolloomooloo Wharf |
We went to Woolloomooloo
wharf in Sydney
more or less by chance. We had been in
the Domain and looked out and saw what seemed to be a line of bustling
restaurants in the distance. Consulting our
trusty map we realised that they were in an old wharf building that had been
restored and partly developed as upmarket apartments with moorings for yachts.
The building
itself was interesting, although a bit odd.
Cavernous spaces inside that didn’t seem to be used for anything.
Interior of Woolloomooloo Wharf |
We selected one
of the restaurants for lunch completely at random. The one we chose was Manta. A modern Australian restaurant. It wasn’t until we sat down that we saw just
how expensive it was – and then we thought , what the heck. But at $181 for lunch I won’t be back there
in a hurry!
The food, it
has to be said, was of a high standard.
We had prosciutto to share as a started – it was acorn fed, 3 year black
pig – and just delicious.
Lovely but expensive aged prosciutto |
Then the better
half had crumbed whiting which was nice with a scrumptious potato salad and
sauce.
Crumbed whiting |
I had spaghetti
with Alaskan crab which was slightly disappointing. For the cost I would have expected more crab.
Spaghetti with Alaskan crab |
I guess what
you are paying for is the setting – which was lovely – looking out on the
boardwalk and the superyachts.
Labels:
Australia,
Manta Restaurant,
Restaurants,
Sydney,
Travel,
Woolloomooloo Wharf
Location:Auckland, New Zealand
Cowper Wharf Roadway, Woolloomooloo NSW 2011, Australia
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