Family Quotes

My grandmother on organising a new mobile phone:

“I didn’t ask for global warming as I’ve already got it.”



George on Australia’s performance in the Ashes:

“It’s a national emergency.”



Mum talking about her new camera:

"My camera is not to take any photos of coffee ever."

Tasmanian Coffee 3

For part one click here
For part two click here

Consumed at Queenstown Railway Station whilst waiting for the West Coat Wilderness Railway to depart.



At Tarraleah. Running out of petrol I found a cafe, they didn't have petrol but they did have toast and coffee, and could point me in the right direction. Tarraleah seemed to be a tourist town, a place for people to stay the night and get wed. A lot of blue houses.



At the cafe at the Tahune Air Walk. Easily the worst coffee of the trip - tasted like cough syrup. I will never buy coffee at tourist attractions. I will never buy coffee at tourist attractions. I will never...



A very nice cafe in Sheffeild. Skwiz Cafe and Gallery. They collect Tea Pots and have Folk Music on Fridays. They had a lovely note written on a newsletter, which silly me did not write down, it started like this "we believe in mix-matched chairs and tea pots"



Ross



Richmond



Queenstown

Tasmanian Coffee 2

For part one go here



In Port Phillip Bay from the Lavender Cafe on the Spirit of Tasmania 1. Woken up at 5:30 for a 6:30 exit, the tables are littered with hundreds of coffee cups.



Had a coffee and pudding at my motel's restaurant in Lindisfarne. People look at weirdly when you just order dessert and coffee. Don't tell them that I had a pizza at Sorell.



A hot chocolate from a chocolate shop in Launceston, once again I had to stir it up, but this one was beautiful.



Best coffee of the trip from This Cafe in Launceston.



Coffee in LaTrobe - I had given up trying to find The House of Anvers.



Another coffee in LaTrobe after another unsuccessful search. I had a good vegetable pie to eat with my coffee. There seems to be a lot of pie shops in the north-west of Tassie.



House of Anvers's Chocolates. I had trouble finding Anvers. It is in LaTrobe, but on the highway, not in the main street. This is a small hot chocolate and it filled up my cup twice. I had fun taste testing free chocolates. I'm told that Anvers's chocolates are dairy free and egg free.



A Devonshire Tea from Ida Bay. This was the furthest south that I could buy food and when I saw that they had a Devonshire Tea, I knew what I had to order. There was heaps of jam and cream - you had to have a degree in engineering to work out how to put it all on the scones. Beautiful!

Tasmanian Coffee

In Tassie I had 23 cups of coffee, hot chocolate and tea. Which sounds pretty bad when you write it like that, but in reality it works out to be two cups a day.

Huonville - in the south. This was dessert after a beautiful vegetarian pizza that had artichokes, asparagus and other vegies.

I didn't spend a lot of time in Hobart. But just enough time to drink a coffee.

Hot Chocolate in Grindelwald from a 'swiss' chocolate shop. It was interesting having to mix it up yourself, but unfortunately didn't taste as good as I was hoping.

Coffee at Dubbil Barril - in the first class carridge of the West Coast Wilderness Railway. They treat you very very well in first class, I could have drank coffee for the entire trip if I wanted to, but I restrained myself and only had one with lunch.

In Devonport. I disembarked from the Sprit of Tasmania 1 at 6:30ish, parked at the Tourist Information Centre and went straight to the only coffee shop that was open - a place called Banjo's. I later realised that Banjo's is a bakery chain that has stores in other Tassie towns.



Coffee at Bellerive. I had driven for hours tring to find an Indian restaurant, or any restaurant that had good veggie fare when I found this lovely French place which is a restaurant by night and a patisserie by day. The menu had duck and snail dishes. I had a wonderful minestrone soup followed by a coffee whist reading Theif of Time by Terry Pratchett. This coffee was by far one of the best on my trip.

The polite French waiter was also a Terry Pratchett connoisseur and hailled from Footscray in Melbourne.



A free coffee at Beauty Point whilst I waited for a documentary on the platypus to start at the World of the Platypus.



Coffee in Bass Straight - at the Leatherwood Restaurant on the Spirit of Tasmania 1, drank while on the way home, watching the sun set.

A busy birthday weekend

I have had a nice birthday and have been spoilt dreadfully by all of my friends. I had dinner on Saturday with Stace and Aiden and Elspeth who gave me a beautiful book, and I had fun being beaten at chess. I will need to practice my chess skills.

Then on Sunday I had morning tea at 'Snow Pony' on Whitehorse road in Balwyn. Their coffee was beautiful. The owners also own 'Porgy and Mr Jones' in Camberwell which has won awards due to their coffee and breakfasts.

We had to wait for about 45 minutes to get a table, which I didn't mind doing, but boy my brother couldn't stand it, and I don't think my Dad or stepmum was too impressed. But the coffee was worth it.

Then off to rehearsals in the city.

Then afternoon tea at the Tin Pot with Erin. And Aniko and Julian were able to drop by too. So I had beautiful friends, beautiful conversation and good tea in a proper tea cup.

And Sunday dinner with family. I got a lovely card from my nephew "To Anjroo' and read to him a lovely story called 'Mowgli Brothers' which Erin kindly gave to me.

At work on Monday I went to reception and Diana jumped out of the recycling bin wearing a multicoloured wig and blowing a horn.

And one hundred more

Coffee in Sorrento. This was a nice comfortable looking place, a wood fire, nice sandwiches, sadly the coffee was not the best...

... so I walked down the street and had this Hot Chocolate...

... whilst sitting outside looking down the main street.

Then in Preston at the Greek cake shop.

At the Otway Fly

Max's at Melbourne Central - nice, but I think I enjoy the chocolate more than the taste of the coffee. Licking all the chocolate off the cup. As you can see, near the handle there is a lip, if you are not careful, this lip fills up with liquid and as you drink, the liquid goes all over your hand. I have worked out how to drink without this happening, but I think I should test my method a few more times.

In Marysville. Nice coffee, apart from a little bit of burnt milk - which is crime that should be punishable by death. In the background is George's long black.

Bought in Lonsdale Street, near Russell in a nice cake shop. Photo taken on car roof in the car park under the Arts Centre.

In Dad's favorite cafe in Knox City on the ground floor near the fruit shop.

At the same place on a differnt day, on a different coloured table.

One Hundred Coffees

This is my one hundredth post and what better thing is there to blog about than coffee? It was been a while since my last coffee update so this is what I have been drinking... For some reason I can only upload ten pictures, so here we go...

Cappuccino at Howlong - in NSW near Albury-Wodonga. The coffee cup in the background belongs to Lletna's mum.

In Doncaster Shopping Town. A very very good coffee. I can not remember the name of the shop. Something like "Coffee Hit" near Coles on the ground floor.

At the Melbourne Concert Hall in EQ.

In Carlton at the expensive place underneath the cinema.



Another one from "Caffeine" in Swanston Street - this one with a white lid.

Actors drinking beer with a coffee - Photo by Erin Voth.

That coffee was bought from a place just round the corner from Brunswick Arts called Serena Coffee on Hope Street. Beautiful coffee. I don't know if this is one that I drank or someone else.

Brunetti in Carlton

This was supposed to be a Chocolate Thinkshake but for some reason it is a Strawberry Milkshake.

Benalla

A pizza place in Apollo Bay. One of the two coffees I drunk in two days travel from Melbourne to Cape Otway to Colac to Home.

Mothers Day Bistromathematics

One thing that a lot of comedians and actors do well is to take a normal everyday occurrence and point out how totally ridiculous it is.

Douglas Adams in “Life the Universe and Everything” creates a spaceship that runs by the advanced mathematics that occurs in restaurants, including arguing over the bill.

“The third and most mysterious piece of non-absoluteness of all lies in the relationship between the number of items on the bill, the cost of each item, the number of people at the table, and what they are prepared to pay for.” (Page 342)

“… They had had the bill, had argued convincingly about who had had the cannelloni and how many bottles of wine they had had, and … had thereby successfully manoeuvred the ship … into orbit round a strange planet.” (Page 379)

Whilst having a Mothers Day Diner at a lovely Indian restaurant I was laughing at the absurdity of the bill, and realising how beautifully Douglas Adams had got it right.

This ‘light bulb’ moment struck me so late in life, because usually when eating out the bill is picked up entirely by one person, and we take turns to do so – except for in the case of parents and some friends who will remain nameless (I’m looking at you Aidan) who seem to pay more often then they should.

Samosas
Pakoras
Onion Bahji
Aloo Goobi
Dahl Mahkani
Mushroom Mutter
Pumpkin Masala
Matter Paneer
2 Garlic Naan
2 Plain Naan
2 Large Rice
3 Coffees
2 Mango Lassi
3 Lemonades

Seven People.
Food cost: $121.00



$100 from Lynne, argued down to $50, left early and $15 will be returned. Money to pay for Lynne and Gran

$40 from George to pay for George and Anne, argued down to $20.

$50 from Andrew to pay for Anne and Andrew (I had three drinks.)

$20 from Karyn to pay for Karyn and Gran

David did not pay anything or say anything.

Total: $125



(Page numbers are from my “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – A trilogy in four parts” book, so if you subtract 308 from the above page numbers you should get roughly the page number for “Life, the Universe and Everything”)

Can I Please Have a Drink

All I want to do is curl up with a good cup of coffee and read. I’ve worked extremely productively for the entire morning – much better then I have worked earlier in the week. And on my lunch hour I ordered a large coffee and sat down to read. But the coffee was horrible. I did something that I’ve never done before and that was to leave it there. I have to eat there as they make decent vegetarian food and they are extremely nice, especially to me. I went to the other café on campus and got a small coffee, but that was horrible too. Why can’t people make decent coffee? If I had my car on me I would go down to the street to find something.

Also to me an Australian cappuccino is better when it is a third coffee, a third milk and a third froth. If the froth is very thin, it has not been made correctly.

Listen to me whinging and wasting money when there are bigger issues around …

Quotes

I am often a bit slow to change my desk calendar which means that when I do, I have a number of interesting quotes to read...

"Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the tea break." - Earl Wilson

"However rare true love is, true friendship is rarer." - La Rochefoucauld

Not Quite Coffee

Its not Terry's, its mine! Possibly the best chocolate in the world.

The unobtainable coffee. The line just did not go down.

A groovy t-shirt - Caffeine

Birthday Cake

Groovy cup cakes in a shop window.