Iron Chef Australia II

Laurel produced the above amazing announcement for the second Iron Chef Australia battle. Her photoshop skills are unmatched. Here's a nice picture from early in the evening perfectly displaying the theme ingredient for the battle. It's oranges, not wine. Also, that's our friend Tim in the picture and he actually is more excited to be there than this picture makes him look.

The party in full swing! Everything worked out beautifully, we could not have planned it better. We had seven entries- two entrees (aka appitizers), two mains, two desserts and Greg's orange, lemon, and cinnamon vodka infusion. Laurel made one of the desserts, which was ricotta pancakes with an orange compote and dark chocolate sauce. It won Best Use of Ingredient.

Brevin and Sadie brought their two boys along, Jackson (4 yrs) and Orion (1 yr). Jackson wanted us to take some pictures of him. This is our favorite. Not sure if he was being a pillow monster or what, but it's pretty great.

It never seems like we have enough counter space, but everyone managed.

Laurel keeping an eye on little Orion. He was very excited about all the activity!

The Balfrey-Boyd family took the orange theme to a whole new level. We may have to offer an award for Best Costume next time, because this was awesome.

Adrian and Cristy, the reigning Iron Chefs, made prawn, vegetable, and orange pockets. Below is a picture of one right before it went in the oven. The pocket let everything bake together- quite good. It was funny, apparently oranges = prawns in Australia, because half the entries featured prawns. Not that anyone was complaining, because prawns are delicious.

Cooking action shot! So much going on in the kitchen island!

Here is the eventual winner, Nabil's prawn and fruit biryani. Several of us agreed that since he's Lebanese and middle eastern food is extra delicious, he had an unfair advantage. It does not matter, though, he is now Iron Chef and totally deserves it.

Now as normally happens at our parties, we're pretty good with the camera for the first hour, and then completely forget about it. So, we only have a picture of the first dish as it was served, but fortunately it was the winner for Best Presentation, a grilled prawn salad with sliced oranges and an orange sauce. Both beautiful and delicious!

We had a great time, and like always, the entries were amazing. We've had three of these parties now, and we can't wait for the next one. What our friends have learned is that if they are coming over to our house they will not be leaving hungry. All of our get togethers seem to heavily involve food. Because really, what else is there?

Remember that time the President came to town?

So . . . this is embarrassing. The side effect of not being able to publish posts for a few months is that it really makes our laziness at publishing posts before the shutdown look ridiculous. Case in point. This happened in November. We are now telling you about it in July.

You may remember (or might not, it was a long time ago) President Obama came to Australia, specifically to Canberra and Darwin. Melbourne and Sydney were super pissed, and since all the media comes out of one of those two cities we heard a lot about how Canberra and Darwin were too small and not "worth a Presidential visit." Screw you Sydney. You may have a cool opera house and 20% of the population, but whatevs- Canberra got Obama!

After giving an address to Parliament (we got stuck in the traffic closures as he drove there) President Obama was going to go to the Embassy to give a private address to Embassy staff. Since Greg works for the US, he naturally got to go. Laurel, however, works for the Aussies. So she called in sick. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone. As with any event concerning politicians, the schedule got behind almost immediately, so we had a lot of waiting and standing around. Which is fine, because really, who is going to chastise the Leader of the Free World for being late? Also, Greg was able to convert a hedge into a cup-holder.

A helicopter came and circled the area a few times to make sure everything was legit. It was. I can only imagine how many pictures of this helicopter some of the nearby embassies took. Probably only two or three less than us.

When he arrived, the excitement was really building. The Ambassador gave a short opening address. He's a really good speaker, and a great guy, but I felt a little bad for him, since everyone clearly just wanted him to stop talking and give up the podium.

There he is! We were literally within 20 feet of the President of the United States. All we had to do was move to another country.

We were about one row too far back to shake the President's hand . . .

 . . . but this picture makes it look like we totally did.

Ah, don't leave! Melbourne and Sydney had a point. Darwin is lame, you should totally stay here. Sadly, he did not listen. Stupid future marine base in Darwin. Always making President Obama go visit it.

Now, you may notice below how smartly dressed Laurel and Greg are. They look good (and patriotic). They put some effort in to looking their finest, since how many opportunities like this do you have? And if you aren't going to suit up for the President, who exactly are you going to suit up for? Strangely, we would estimate that only about 40% of the crowd followed this philosophy. There were quite a few people in shorts and sandals, which just seemed weird. Suit up, America, suit up.

Alice Springs

The first order of business after we were dropped off at the hotel was a badly needed shower. Greg thought he had a tan- turns out it was just a fine layer of red dust coating him from wet to toe. As soon as the water hit him, tan gone. Dang. Freshly clean, we headed out to a local pub for dinner and drinks, and a night of partying with our new friends. It was New Year's Eve after all. Olivia's friend Macaela on the front row looks slightly uncomfortable becuase that guy has his arm around her. Over the course of the night he went from moderately irritating to obnoxiousy hitting on anyone within 100 meters. Good times.

Laurel and Greg, enjoying some adult beverages.

The next day Olivia flew off to Queensland with Macaela, but we stayed two days longer to check out Alice Springs. We quickly realized that this was a mistake. Alice is not a town that exists because people want to live there. Alice is there because a town needed to exist in that area. Also, it was well over 40 degrees Celcius every day. Insanely hot. Even with sunscreen, the sun made your skin feel like it was sizzling instantly. We quickly determined that there wasn't much to do anyway, so we rented movies and stayed in the blessedly air-conditioned comfort of our hotel room. "Super 8"- fantastic. "Friends with Benefits"- probably better than it had a right to be.

We did venture out briefly to climb ANZAC Hill to get a view of the city and take a few pictures. Alice Springs has a population of about 50,000 and sits in the middle of a large canyon. Here's a view of the main road, Gap Road, so named becuase they dynamited a gap in the ridge in the background to get the road through.

Here are a few more views from the hill. Pretty, but barren. We cannot imagine living here, especially before electricty was invented.

ANZAC Hill is so named because on top of it rests Alice's monument to the ANZAC veterans of the Northern Territories who have lost their lives in various conflicts. At this point in the blog, we are hoping we don't need to break down what ANZAC is anymore.

Flying back, we knew we had a couple hour layover in Sydney, and we had been issued individual one-time passes to enjoy the Qantas lounge when we had been promoted up to the second tier "Silver" status. That's pretty much the only thing Silver gets you, so we decided to make use of our passes. We entered a whole other world. A world of free food and alcohol, nice people, and a waiting area so nice you may not actually care all that much if your flight is delayed, since you know, free alcohol. Look at this!

They say that when you are someplace you've never been, expecially when you feel it's above your station, you're supposed to act like you've been there before. We failed miserably at this, and pulled what is perhaps the most tourist thing anyone has ever done. We took pictures of the Qantas lounge. Comfy chairs! Your own store, so you can be sure that the issue of "Vogue" you're buying has never been sullied by the hands of the great unwashed downstairs. Just amazing.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Free internet. Oh my God.  We haven't seen this since we left the States in 2010. Did Greg really have any need to check his email? Of course not. But he could, and that is what was important.

Guys, it took us six months, but that was our epic trip to the Northern Territories with Olivia. Such a great idea, we owe you one, Olivia! Everyone, if you are ever in Australia you need to get out there and see the Outback with its amazing rock formations and canyons. Just don't plan on spending any more time in Alice Springs then you have to.

Day 3- King's Canyon

Welcome back everyone! After persistent blog errors that were preventing us from loading pictures, we kind of said screw it and stopped bothering for awhile trying to fix it. Today we took another crack at it, and either we did something different or the problem resolved itself. Either way, Diary of a Wombat is live again! We've got a lot to catch up on, so we'll try to post a fair amount over the next couple weeks to try and catch up. Starting off, we need to finish off the amazing trip we took to the Northern Territories with Olivia over New Year's.

Our third and final day of our camping extravaganza took us to King's Canyon, which was the big unknown of this trip for us. We had never even heard of it, but we think it was the best place we went to. Uluru may get all the press for its importance to Aboriginal culture, and for being an amazingly big rock, however King's Canyon was just amazing. Greg thinks it was the best hike he's ever been on.

We started our day, once again, at 4am. After eating a hearty breakfast, we hightailed it to the canyon so we could watch the sunrise. Needless to say, it was gorgeous.

The only problem was that in order to get up to that ridge to watch the sunrise we had to climb "Heart Attack Hill." Heart Attack Rock Staircase would have been more accurate. We did not count steps, it would have been too discouraging. Here's Greg at the top, admiring the view. Totally worth it.

Laurel and Olivia, taking a well earned rest.

After some time to rest and enjoy the sunrise we started the trek through the canyon. This was a typical Aussie bush hike. There's no real "trail" or "guide signs," you just kind of walk the path that seems most logical.

A lot of the rock formations have names. This is "the Camel."

We had a great hike through, around, and over-top the canyon. Here's an assortment of the pictures we took.

After we hiked for about an hour we came around a  corner and could see the opposite face of the canyon, a sheer wall. Pretty impressive. Fun rock facts- The white portions of the rock are limestone. The black portions of the rock are oxidized iron.

Looking down is the small pool at the base of the canyon that's a great swimming spot, even if the water was freezing.

About half the group though was undeterred, Greg being one of them. I mean, when are you ever going to have the chance to do this ever again. Brrrrrrrrrr, refreshing! Can you find him in the picture? Hint, look for the beard!

A couple more landscapes for you. Australia, you are a beautiful country.

On the way back, our Tour Guide, Carmen, gave us a lesson in Aboriginal pictograph writing. Below is the summary of our trip. The three concentric circles represent important places. The writing is all very vague, and does not give a lot of specifics in terms of names, places, or dates; instead relying on context and the reader's own knowledge to fill in the gaps.

We're back! We went on a three day camping trip to the Outback and didn't die! We're quite proud of ourselves.

All in all, this was just a fantastic trip. We highly recommend www.therocktour.com.au to anyone who wants to see Uluru and the surrounding areas. We had a great time, the guide was a lot of fun, and best of all, it was about an eighth of the price of flying directly to Uluru and staying at the hotels there. Plus, this was a way better, more authentic outback experience.

ANZAC Day

Today (April 25^th) is ANZAC Day. ANZAC stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corps. It is a public holiday in both Australia and New Zealand, which commemorates the military service during WWI. It’s similar to Veterans’ Day.

There are two primary traditions on ANZAC Day. The first is a public memorial service called the Dawn Service, which is a reminder of the dawn landing on Gallipoli in 1915. In Canberra, it’s held at the National War Memorial.  The service features hymns, prayers, the procession of veterans and current soldiers, commemorative speeches, etc. It’s a huge deal. People start arriving by 4:30am to be there in time for the 5:30am service. It sounded really interesting, but the 4:30am arrival time discouraged us from choosing to go.

The second, equally popular, tradition is called Two-up. This is an Australian gambling game, which was played by Australian soldiers who were bored and looking for something to pass the time in the trenches. Essentially the idea is that one person places 3 coins on a paddle (which looks to be about the size and shape of a ruler), tosses them into the air, and people bet whether at least two will land on heads or tails.

Traditionally the coins are pennies, which are no longer used in Australia but are taken out once a year for just this occasion. The, usually large, crowd stands in a circle, with the person flipping the coins in the center as well as several other people who are there purely to help manage the betting process by passing around money between participants. Basically, the way the betting works is you find another person that wants to bet the same amount of money for the opposite outcome. Each bet is usually just between two people, so there are many bets taking place at the same time for each toss. The person who calls tails holds the money, and the final money exchange at the outcome is simply on the honor system. There are some more obscure rules and betting options that it seems only true Australians really understand. The game is only legal on ANZAC Day after 1pm and can be found all over Australia at their many pubs and labor clubs. We went to one of the labor clubs near our house to check it out. We had heard it was hugely popular and quite intense with people calling out bets, cheering for their selected choice during the coin toss, and cheering/groaning when the outcome was called. It did not disappoint. Laurel participated on the gambling. She won one and lost the second, so in the end broke even. That seemed pretty good for our first Two-up experience and since most of the minimum bets seemed to start at $20 we stopped there.

We don’t have any photos, but I did get a video on my phone of the action. Unfortunately, our blog has not been letting us post photos for about the last month (hence the lack of recent posts). It doesn’t look like it’s going to be cooperative with the video right now either. Hopefully we’ll be able to sort out the problem soon so we can get out this video as well as a bunch more photos.