red & white

hi team, here's another one from the night at the midland atelier. again, i can't give credit to the person who made this artful arrangement and left it in their workspace for me to photograph, sorry. happy friday and have a good weekend!

orange

these were taken a while ago, at a function at the pattern shop at the midland railway workshops. the workshops are one of my favourite places in perth, very favourite, and the pattern shop is now the home of the midland atelier. i'm not 100% sure who is the maker of these miniature chairs so feel a bit bad i can't give them credit... the other day i came across an article in vogue living about jon goulder, and i suspect they are his, but can't say for sure.

the workshops are a great place for photos, and i just think its a wonder they were not demolished after they closed. they're a really interesting part of perth history, and well worth a visit. there is a little interpretive centre, but if you can get a tour of the whole site it will be worth it, especially before much more redevelopment occurs. more info here.

red & yellow

the bottle shop next door to the chinese rant. taking photos at 10pm on a friday night on beaufort street is fun, what with people yelling at you out car windows and everything.

blue & red

more faulty signage that amused me, this time found on beaufort street. what would a chinese rant be about i wonder?

white & black

this had me laughing to myself all afternoon. the new c.w.a building in west perth has only just been finished, but all the signage has fallen off already and landed on the awning. it is rather amusingly now called the C N RY W M N' A S I

i especially love how the letters have fallen in order, amusingly and pathetically resembling the word ASSOCIATION as it would have been on the wall.

orange & white

another scene from home. i have another similar cat in the kitchen (see a photo here) but he is a single fellow. these two have managed to stay together through their op shop adventures.

brown

i think these horses are meant to be bookends, but they don't weigh enough to hold anything in place so instead they are just decorations.

its very wintery here, and i am feeling very home-y, and not much in the mood for going out and taking pictures of things. its too cold!

blue

these are some things on the top of the cupboard in the kitchen. i'm pretty sure the cake tin came from a neighbour - i use it to take things to morning tea at work. the vase was from freedom, the litte deer thing came from the op shop. and the tea pot was found in my mum's "to be chucked out" box earlier this year. i think when i was a kid our whole kitchen might have looked like that tea pot.

black & yellow

this is another elk necklace i bought at the same time as the one in the last post. i'm really into stripes at the moment, as you can see. the t-shirt is from temt. i'm such a cheap arse with clothes.

anyway, i had two blog milestones yesterday. firstly mandy at the 16 house blog used one of my pictures in her "friday favourites" story (see it here) and put a link to my blog. no-one has used one of my pictures before (that i know of...) so it was a really nice surprise to see it pop up in my google reader. secondly i have my first follower who is not one of my friends! welcome! i decided a while ago i would keep doing this even if no-one ever saw it, or if the only people who looked were people i knew... but its kind of nice to think of other people looking too.

red, white & black

i bought this elk necklace for myself for my bday which was a couple of weeks ago. i haven't worn in yet, i think i like it so much i am waiting for the right outfit, the right mood etc before i wear it. in the meantime i am just looking at it! seen here with a cheap-as scarf i got in target yesterday.

grey

rainy days starting here in perth... after a dry, very cold, winter so far we are apparently due to get a whole month's rainfall in a few days. took these on my dash home from work in between the showers.

red & yellow

top tips for marmalade making:

1. choose your fruit depending on your level of patience. thick skinned fruit like grapefruit and oranges take longer to cut up. thin skinned ones like cumquats are quicker to cut up, and i think its easier to cut them neatly. this is important! you don't want a jar of raggedy hacked up fruit do you? well, i don't anyway. i like all the bits to be the same size and to be very small, but that's just me. maybe that's why it takes me so long...? oh well.

2. with fruit that doesn't have large pips, i save all the insides, put them through the blender and add it to the pot. with fruit that has large pips you can still strain the insides and add the juice. it doesn't say to do this in the recipes but i have just always done it, it seems such a waste to throw out the insides. i imagine our nanas were clever enough to do something else with the insides, make some awesome cake at the same time as making marmalade.

3. soak and scrub the labels off the jars before you start. while the fruit is boiling you will be sterilizing the jars, you'll run out of time if they have labels on them that need to be soaked.

4. i bought a very clever thing that is an enamel pouring jug on a long stick. i think its for making coffee. its very useful for pouring the marmalade from the pot to the jars. put newspaper or a tea towel down, this is the messiest bit. it takes forever to get rid of marmalade that has cooled and set on your bench. if you don't have a coffee pot thingy you'll need a ladle or something.

5. if you like marmalade that is solid you'll need to boil the sugar for longer or at a higher temperature. when you do the plate test you'll want it to be very resistant. i like it quite liquid-y. did you see the recent masterchef episode (no. 63) where they were judged by the country womens' association, and one of them was berated for having runny jam...? well i'm afraid i would fail the cwa jam test, but it doesn't really matter does it? make it however you like it.

orange

last weekend i made marmalade. i've made it a few times now. its one of those things that before you give try it for the first time you think its going to be really tricky, that maybe you need to be some kind of masterchef food genius to be able to give it a go, but that's not really true, its actually quite simple.

i won't give a recipe because i don't really use one - i did start with one, but now i just make it up. if you google it, or pinch one of your nana's recipe books you'll find a recipe to give you the proportions and technique, but its just basically fruit, sugar and water. i don't use pectin, as i find the pectin in the fruit is enough. for this batch, i used 3 oranges from a friend's neighbour's back yard, a lime that i grew, a grapefruit stolen from over a fence, and about 30 cumquats from my mum's house. i don't think you should buy fruit for marmalade, it just doesn't seem right! i've always gone to lengths to gather fruit from friends, or use excess from what i've grown (or, yes, nicked it).

its quite time consuming and fiddly, and if you don't like sugary-sticky types of messes then this is not for you. there's so much cutting up to do, and the removing of labels and sterilizing of jars etc... its really not to be undertaken if you are in a bad mood, hungover, or in any other sub-optimal state of mind.

the best bit is adding the sugar and watching what was just boiling fruit and water turn into a different substance. it makes this scary noise as it boils, and changes colour, then you do the plate test (to see if its going to set) and you feel like you've really made something.

give it a go this winter!