Disco Knitter

Sad, but true.

The Lactation Resource Centre put on a conference/seminar every year for health professionals working in lactation, and every year there are exciting international guest speakers. Last year I saw the speakers as a webcast, but I really wanted to attend this year. Of course, registration fees were beyond the meager budget, so I was really excited when an opportunity came up to volunteer (and possibly sneak into the sessions).

And then a week passed, and another week, and I hadn’t heard from the organisers, so I figured I’d missed out. No friends Nigel once again.

But yesterday I was emailed a registration confirmation, and I’M IN!

I used to get excited about going to concerts and parties. Look what I am reduced to.

Just made these this morning. Best. Pancakes. Ever.

1 Cup Self Raising Flour
1 Cup Milk (I used Soy)
1 Egg

Mix.

Cook.

Eat the fluffiest pancakes you’ve ever had.

Recipe from here.

A new ad featuring Pamela Anderson dressed in a gold bikini, rubbing herself against another woman in an office environment, and being splashed with a white liquid has been taken off air. Crazy Domains (the company being advertised) managing director Gavin Collins said the ad was “tongue in cheek” and blamed feminist bloggers for stirring up complaints.

Because of course, it’s UN-AUSTRALIAN to complain about women being objectified.

SMH article here. Can’t wait to read the Hoyden on this one!

Link here.

It is common for women to believe that there will be a problem with their milk after a natural disaster, that the stress, or lack of adequate nutrition will make their milk “bad” or somehow unsuitable for their babies. In fact, the human body will provide milk for an infant even when the mother is malnourished.

And with the influx of foreign aid comes powdered infant formula (PIF, sometimes referred to as artificial baby milk or ABM), with the inference that this is better for the baby than what the mother is already providing.

And in a disaster, where there is a lack of clean water, giving a mother powdered infant formula often means she has to make it up with dirty water, leading not only to introducing infections to the infant, but by depriving her of breastmilk, she is also deprived of a natural defence against life threatening diseases.

In normal circumstances, breastfeeding needs to be protected. In a disaster, it is vital.

My first FO!

Are you scared?

Water droplet at 2000fps.

40.

I do hope to get a lot older, but 40 has a certain gravitas. I do feel that 40 year olds should have a certain amount of their shit together. Not all of it, of course, or you might as well give up, but 40 means goodbye to nightclubbing (at least the way *I* used to do it), and hello grown up and responsible.

So I am planning a party. A knitters house party. Mum and Dad have said I can have the house at Pearl Beach for the weekend of my birthday, so people can come and go all weekend, and hopefully some people will want to stay over, so we can all sit around and watch movies, drink wine, knit, and chat.

Sounds like a proper grown up part don’t you think?

And this is a bicycle built for two. Perfect t-shirt for a small squishy boy?

Thanks to my friend Simone who made Inigo’s first birthday cake, and then shared the recipe with me to make his second.

Ingredients
250 g butter
250 g white chocolate
200 mL water
1½ cups caster sugar
1¾ cups plain flour
1 cup self-raising flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

And food colouring. Don’t bother with the liquid ones you get at Woolies, you need specialty cake decorating gels. Liquid colours won’t give you the intense colours that you need for the full rainbow cake impact, and if you’re going to go to all that trouble, you want to get the wow factor. I got mine here – cheaper than eBay, and awesome quick service.

Method
Preheat oven to 150°C. Line the cake pan with baking paper (this cake will stick).

Heat butter, sugar, chocolate, and water in a saucepan and stir over low heat until all combined. Let it cool a little bit so the self-raising flour doesn’t fizz before its time.

Sift both flours together and blend into chocolate mixture (don’t worry about lumps).

Stir in eggs, sour cream and vanilla (use a whisk for this bit and any remaining lumps will break up once these wet ingredients go in).

Pour the mixture into a deep 20 cm tin* and cook for about 1 hour, or pour into two 20 cm shallow tins and cook for about 45 minutes (this time is way out – cook it until a skewer comes out clean which will take much longer). I would also seriously consider cooking the cake/s au bain marie ie. once the mix has been poured into the cake pan, put the cake pan into a big roasting pan and fill the outer container with boiling water so the cake won’t form the really thick crust that comes with having to cook it for so long.

Recipe notes
Instead of sour cream you could use thickened cream, yoghurt or condensed milk, this just adds to the moistness of the cake. Also great with white chocolate ganache (hell, what isn’t?).

Colouring

Here is where being married to a maths nerd is handy – but don’t worry, I married one so you don’t have to. My cake batter weighed at about 1600gms, so I separated out the batter for colouring in the following proportions -

500gms – red
400gms – orange
300gms – yellow
200gms – green
150gms – blue
50gms – violet

Pour the colours into the tin in the above order, trying as much as possible to keep the pouring centered. You will end up with a tin that looks like a multi coloured target from the top, and each colour will fall “inside” the previous colour like a bubble.

1.7 litres (3 pints) = 200 mm (8 in) ROUND = 180 mm (7 in) SQUARE
2.3 litres (4 pints) = 230 mm (9 in) ROUND = 200 mm (8 in) SQUARE
3.4 litres (6 pints) = 250 mm (10 in) ROUND = 230 mm (9 in) SQUARE
4.5 litres (8 pints) = 280 mm (11 in) ROUND = 250 mm (10 in) SQUARE

And if you want more rainbow goodness – try pancakes!

And our group is awesome.

We have a landscape architect, a few designers, an art director, a pattern maker, a career coach, a rare book maker, and a lawyer. And three of us used to work in the film industry. It’s an ecclectic group, but mostly with a strong design/art background, or at least a strong interest.

I did some sketching/doodles the other day and I realised that I haven’t done anything like that for about 20 years. So I got to class early, and sketched away happily, absorbing the “studio air”.

We have about 6 weeks of school and I may not produce anything I’ll want to share with the world, but I know I’m going to have fun!

I’ve often thought about this, and have made the decision to try to raise an emotionally connected boy who isn’t afraid of colour, who doesn’t use violence to solve his problems, and who doesn’t pee on the toilet seat. I’ve wondered if the boy/girl divide is more nature or nurture, so I was happy to find this post.

Especially since (no matter how he dresses), heaps of people seem to think he is a girl anyway.

I took some pics for a newborn baby and her family a few months ago, and word got around, and now I have my first paid gig.

Check out the rest of the shoot here.

Thanks to Not Martha, I now have a recipe for perfect popcorn, and I can throw away my stupid microwave bags. Anyone up for a movie night at mine?

Edited to add – if you want to stick with microwave popcorn, try this.

Greetings:

Mrs. Rosario Ana C. Labindao.

At least this one will only be attractive to particularly selfish and greedy people who deserve to get scammed!

• Vanilla vodka makes a surprisingly good Gimlet (though my favoured version has equal parts vodka and lime juice – half cordial and half fresh
• Cooking with a child that hasn’t had a nap is quite like going to a teppanyaki restaurant. But much less fun
• When said child that says “I’m not going to sleep”, and I reply with “yes you are, you’re so tired that you’re almost dead”, and he picks up the chant “almost dead, almost dead”, it’s not exactly funny, it’s hysterical
• Parents and children have different needs, sometimes they intersect, sometimes they collide
• The bunny is now unofficially named Carrot. Inigo insists that his name is neither Vizzini or Tiberius, but it is most definitely Carrot. I have been told, but I am a recalcitrant type
• I am loving TransUrban beyond words. Yes, I know it’s unusual to profess undying love for a company that builds toll roads, but if it means that my husband is home BEFORE 5pm to deal with the feral offspring, then build me another M5
• According to Head Office, I have completed my last unit, and have now applied for a volunteer position with the Australian Breastfeeding Association. I now have a Certificate IV, I did it in under 12 months, and I have proved to myself that I have a small ability at this study thing. Now I just need to apply myself a bit more and do other interesting things. What next? Is there a diploma in World Domination?

…that he isn’t always a toad.

Nanna brought over Inigo’s new house yesterday, and after a few minutes of assembly, Inigo got very excited, and then very confused as to why we were bossing him around to take a picture instead of letting him enjoy his fabulous new toy.

Co-incidentally, mum bought this at a garage sale on the weekend, from a man that I used to play pool with twenty years ago.

Warning – this one starts out quite loudly – turn the sound down if you have sensitive ears!

This one was shot in the car, so apologise for the wonkiness. Inigo was shouting his songs out for ages before I decided to video him, and halfway through he seemed to get shy and pipe down a little.

I made a rainbow cake. The cake is itself was a bit of a fail, due to my extreme tiredness, I put the oven on the wrong temperature, and the cake ended up strangely dense, even for a mud cake. But I think I did OK with the icing, and the Alex letters that were made out of biscuits iced with royal icing.

Alex was very excited by his Diego t-shirt, and Buzz Lightyear watch and walkie talkie set.

Inigo was excited by the cake, and ate three slices. Then not much lunch.

Gonad coached the boys in how to pull silly faces. It’s important to learn these skills from a master.

Alex wasn’t impressed with the cake, but the biscuits were a hit.

And the neighbours were strangely quiet in the rain.