Lime-alade!

I made lime marmalade some weeks back. My cutting hand is still a little numb. Worth it, however. Mmmm, lime-alade. So good it is. Although it depends entirely on the quality of the limes I would say.

The recipe said to pick fruit with relatively blemish-free skin that felt heavy for their size, and to soak them in warm water for a couple of hours before cooking them. I guess to soften those rinds right up so they are melt-in-the-mouth rather than chewing-your-own-boots kind of a texture.

All in all, my lime-alade was a great success! It feels nice to get things right.

I Miss Bombay Food

The weather was incredibly warm here last Saturday. The time has come to pull out the cotton singlets and sombreros from their hiding places. Not that you can really hide a sombrero. Anyway, the weather has made knitting a blanket absolutely farcical. I don’t mind farcical, of course. I enjoy it thoroughly most times. If nothing else, it amuses people.

However, I think it is now the time to leave aside the knitting for a little while and start sewing with those wonderful fabrics I bought. Cotton dresses are definitely calling. This weather is also making me second-homesick for Bombay. This is almost like their autumn. It puts me in mind of food. Which is never really much of a stretch for me. Most things do.

Here is a list of food I miss from Bombay. Sometimes it is all about the food; sometimes the place where you have food is just as important.

1. The Parsi eatery Kyani’s in Dhobi Talao for the bun maska (essentially just fresh bread with butter), the plum cake, mawa cake and the chai. The chai is monumentally shitty. I’m fairly sure they just boil the same pot on the stove endlessly, leaving it full of chunks of milk and tasting more of sugar and water than anything else. Nevertheless, I love it and wouldn’t change it for the world.

2. The apple pie at Yazdani Bakery near Flora Fountain. Again, it is another Parsi eating place with similarly delicious bun maska and questionable chai. But the apple pie is a must. The ginger biscuits are also a must. But just look at it. It is this tiny, red gabled bakery surrounded by grey, faded, characterless buildings. Yazdani is from a fairytale.

3. The location of Harbour View watering hole for their buy-three-get-one-free beer deals. A cheap place to get alcohol, with views of the water and of the Taj Hotel. A rare bird indeed.

4. Gokul bar in Colaba for their masala papad and cheap alcohol. Fantastically unpretentious pub which usually has a mix of middle aged men drinking whiskey and college kids drinking too much of everything. It is dim, smoky and dusty and absolutely perfect.

5. Again in Colaba, I miss the deliciously oily steak with onions from the Goan eatery New Martin. Lord, is there anything those Goans don’t do well? Sausages, steaks, fish, beautiful beaches, chilled bear (or child bear, if you want to spell it properly)....

6. My dear old neighbourhood bakery, A1 Bakery for those delicious pavs that came home crusty on the outside and soft and steaming on the inside. I liked nothing better on hot Mumbai days than sitting on my window seat to catch any skerrick of breeze with hot buttered pavs and milky sweet chai. They also had the best mawa cake in the city. The guys who worked there knew my order pretty swiftly; 6 pav, three mawa cakes. Never fail.

7. If I may go a little Western on your arse, I wish here to pause and remember the beef sandwich with chipotle sauce and onions from Wich Latte in Colaba. They redecorated and got rid of it! It is chicken now. Damn political correctness. That sandwich was like Mexican heaven on a plate.

8. On the topic of sandwich-like items, I can’t leave out the Plant Burger from Theobroma’s, a shop set up by a Parsi woman and her daughter to bring delicious chocolatey baked goods to Mumbai. I don’t know when they introduced the lunch food, but it is sooooo delicious. I was violently ill a couple of times during my stay there, and that still didn’t stop me pigging out on their Plant Burgers and the delicious variety of brownies that is their speciality. Went straight through me, but was worth every stomach wrenching second. (Please forgive the detail. I have a problem with filters, especially in this E-world. Anonymity is a blessing for me, but evidently will be a curse for you if you read me too much.)

9. Candies in Bandra was a great place to spend a lot of time. In terms of food, I usually got the kheema (spiced mince meat) roll or the okra chips with yoghurt dip, plus the chocolate lava for dessert (yes, it is as good and gooey as it sounds). The food was probably not the main thing, though it was fantastic to get a whole heap of stuff and pig out under the trees on a hot day. The location was priceless though. You could spend all afternoon there chatting and smoking with friends. It’s usually a real college crowd, or upper middle class families eating there, but it’s also a fun place to people watch. Withering social comments abounded. Much fun had by all!

10. The final place is a whole suburb. Matunga. It is fenced in on three sides by train lines, and has beautiful old houses and green patches of parks here and there. It is almost like a mini South India in the heart of Mumbai. There is a plethora of eating places, mostly South Indian. We usually haunted Cafe Mysore for the spring dosa and the idlis steamed in jackfruit leaves, or Cafe Madras for the filter coffee and the medu vada (black lentils which are turned into a batter and then fried, served with a spicy tamarind stew known as sambhar). There is also another Parsi place here, called Koolar. It is a tiny place, but it feels big because the walls are covered with mirrors. There are a bunch of old soft drink ads on the walls, along with some questionable 80s glamour pictures. This is the place to be for Irani chai (black tea with lemon or mint).

Letter to a Sewing Machine

Dear Bernina Sewing Machine (possibly called Bowie or Fleetwood),

I hardly knew what life was before I found you. You are beautiful, my Bernina 801 Sport. Your brown 80s facade is like the delicate crust of soil on the edge of my favourite boots in winter. Your plastic tartan cover is like the best of Johnny Rotten and the best of Mrs Beeton combined. I want to thread your needle and wind your bobbins all night long.

I am sew into you, my Bernina. I know you will forgive my horrible puns, because you are so Swiss and stoic. We could make great things together. We could be happy just in each other’s company as time unspools before us. I promise to rub your feet after a long, hard day and service you anytime you want.

Be mine, oh beautiful Bernina Machina, always. At least until I can afford to upgrade to the delicious Bernina 1008.

All my love

xoxox

n

Wool Makes Happy

I have three beautiful new skeins of red red red red wool. This is beret material. To be continued....

The wool is from Nundle Woollen Mills. I am thinking a road trip would be fun. The problem is I wouldn’t want to come home. I bought my lovely wool from the cafe Coffee and A Yarn. I do so love cafes filled with wool (or wool shops filled with coffee?). I think this is one of the most unpretentious cafes in Newtown these days. Bless its caffeinated, furry little heart. I love it.

My other new wool is a Boysenberry delight for the Ice cream Blanket.

So delicious it will be! I’m in for the long haul knit.

Take Shelter from Take Shelter

I would gladly have Michael Shannon’s babies. I would also gladly be his long-suffering wife. I would draw the line, however, at supporting his affiliation with the film Take Shelter.

That said it is not a bad film. The majority of it is very well done; superbly acted, beautifully shot, tense and thoughtful. It is just the end that is abysmal. Not in terms of the emotional content, but in terms of ridiculous plot twists.

Clumsy plot twists ruin films for me. I know that endings can be the most difficult things about writing, but I also believe that they should be given enough time to be worked out properly. Twists at the end of films should be done with a high amount of discretion, because they are so easy to get wrong.

Mr Jeff Nichols got this one all wrong. Take Shelter progressed as a fine, tense film about personal struggles and twisted into a supernatural hybrid mandrake beast. I don’t know what possessed him; I can only surmise that it was the old Writer’s Block when it comes to endings. I saw it all the time in my Undergrad days of editing seminars, and experience it myself all the time.

Maybe this is a reason why being a Writer/Director is a potentially dangerous thing. I think there is much to be said about collaborating on works; fresh perspectives are always a good thing for writers. Too often I think that writing is seen as a solitary pastime. Seeking help is a fine thing to be able to do. It is also good sometimes to have someone there to slap you upside the head and tell you to get your head out of your own literate arse.

Mr Nichols, on the bizarre and unlikely chance that you are reading this, please next time hire someone to help you out. I am available during regular office hours, and fully prepared to spend late nights with you talking over scripts and Michael Shannon.

I wouldn’t recommend Take Shelter. However, I would always encourage people to go and see new things. Why the heck not; see it. Just don’t expect the brilliancy that the hype suggests.

FIN: Turban

Stunning vintage pattern! I love it! Highly recommended. Some dear soul posted it here on Ravelry.

The edges of it do come out a bit raw. You just can't go past a bit of the ol' moss stitch. That texture is fantastic.

I thought I would run out of wool for this one, but it took almost exactly two skeins. Lucky for me I bought more wool just in case I ran out, so I can make another of these babies soon! Wheeee!

Reasons to Love Lace

An exhibition dedicated to it is one very good way. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney recently held a design competition which had the theme of ‘lace’, and this exhibition is the best of the entries. There was no restriction in terms of technique or material, but it had to communicate an idea of what lace could be.

In essence; lace can be freaking anything. Clothes, jewellery, artworks, video installations, chairs, fences, wall hangings, cars, engines, curtains, lamps, little bronze creatures with wacky headwear... absolutely anything. Even the entire female reproductive system, knitted with human hair.

It is so incredible to see how many techniques there are to interpret the idea of lace. There were similar ideas or inspirations circulating; relations to the veins in a leaf, memories of lace doilies or the pattern of urban road networks, but the works were so varied in their craftsmanship it was mind-boggling.

One of the most striking things about lace is its inherent eroticism. It is the way it both conceals and reveals that makes it so incredibly compelling for clothing design. It also unique because it is not just the material that makes lace, it is the empty space between. It is the play between space and non-space, light and shadow, and between positive and negative.

It really made me want to try again at doing lace knitting. The results just would be so rewarding, especially after all that hard work. The Powerhouse Museum also has a lace study centre where they preserve lace from all ages and from all over the world. Here are some of my favourite pieces from the exhibition.

Tuneful Tuesday: Too Cool for Bollywood

These are songs that are technically part of Bollywood, but go far beyond the masala cheesiness of a lot of the films.

This first one has a violence warning. An interesting film, but problematic of course. Beautifully shot however, and some of the best use of Bombay scenery ever.

This song 'Saigal Blues' is from the film Delhi Belly, albeit as background music for the opening. The clip below is compiled by someone else though. It's worth a look. :)

Duniya (World) from the film Dev D just makes me dance, but not in a creepy Bollywood way. Almost like ska/rap. Either way, I loves. Can't hurt that Abhay Deol is so cute and trying to flee north from Punjab into Uttarkhand and possibly Kashmir. <3

Delhi 6 was not a good film at all. Which is a shame, because the music was fantastic, and I want to love films that have cities as their backdrop. And with Sonam Kapoor? Oh! She is a goddess.

Peepli Live caused controversy. Beautiful scenes however, and the controversy needs a big debate. Meantime, just enjoy the music.

Material Comforts

I’m absolutely positive that the wait to go into a new fabric store is a form of sexual tension. Experience has since told me that the guilt from going in to aforementioned fabric stores and spending lots of money (albeit on beautiful material) is the equivalent of having revenge sex with an ex-boyfriend. Not that that’s ever happened. But I imagine on the scale of Guilt Incurred it comes close.

Japanese prints and Liberty of London cottons. They are so pretty. In the mad lustful frenzy that ensued my breaking of the sexual tension, I played with things that I really should have steered clear of, at least until there is a significant incoming flow of money, rather than just the relentless outgoing that pretty fabric has reduced me to. Oh cottons fair! Ye are cold hearted wenches.

Oh, who am I kidding. I HAVE NEW FABRICS AND THEY ARE EDIBLE. They make me drool at their colours and patterns and potentiality. I will gladly make a nest out of them in which to raise my young. The Fabric Store here has a lot of cheaper designer fabric, but not a very good website. Tessuti Fabrics is here and has the most delicious website and store. Clothfabric here I didn’t find (also I’d already spent too much), but they look like they have some nice earthy fabrics from how the site looks.

So here are my three beautiful fabrics.

And here is the pattern I am planning to make in triplicate with these fabrics. A very beautiful Cynthia Rowley creation. This will be my first sewing project unaided by my lovely Mother. The problem now is to find a sewing machine. But that is a whole other post....