May #SMAJ was a gelato appreciation class at Gelato Messina in Fitzroy. We got to learn a bit about Gelato Messina and how to make gelato, eat a three course gelato degustation menu, scoop some ice cream, decorate and eat an ice cream cake, and taste as many of the gelatos as we wanted.
It’s expensive, as everything from them is, but it was a pretty cool treat activity. Plus we got two cookbooks, cooler bags, and a tub of ice cream each to take home.
God Save The Quince: speculaas, toasted milk skin, quince puree, cultured yoghurt gelato
First time seeing milk skin in real life. It was crunchy! I really liked the tanginess of the gelato.
The Italian Rhapsody: crispy eggplant, mascarpone cream, Amaretto Disaronno jelly, espresso gelato, chocolate crumble
Served in a flower pot. The crispy eggplant was actually really yum. Like chips!
Magma Mia “Here I Flow Again”: salted passionfruit and white chocolate curd, black sesame seeds gelato, dark chocolate sauce, green tea moss, crystalised sesame seeds, yuzu pudding
This one was crazy. The rocks were made of chocolate and each filled with something different. I loooved the salty passionfruit curd.
Scott scraping some strawberry gelato into a bowl.
(A slice of) Dr Evil’s Magic Mushroom Cake: dark chocolate gelato, peanut cookies, dulce de leche, flourless chocolate sponge, popping candy feuilletine grass base, red chocolate glaze, white chocolate dots
This cake was good. We learned how to assemble the different inner bits and do the glaze and attach the dots on the outside. Looked fun. I suppose now I need to step up my ice cream cake game!
We chose pear and rhubarb, blood orange, pistachio praline and Giant’s Milk (milk gelato with milk crumb and milk jam) to take home. That last one sounds really plain but was actually really tasty. Pistachio praline is definitely my favourite regular flavour from them.
We wanted a quick, cheap, relatively healthy lunch out the other day and ended up at Huff Bagelry in Carnegie.
I had smoked salmon, cream cheese, and capers on a garlic, salt and rosemary bagel. It was quite tasty, but the bagel destroyed the roof of my mouth. So many scrapes.
Scott had meatloaf, cheese, tomato relish, and tomato on sesame seed bagel. Quite unphotogenic but he said it was nice.
Overall, I find bagels very disappointing in this country. They’re more like regular buns with a hole in the middle. I miss Montreal-style bagels.
Scott took us up Eureka Skydeck for April #SMAJ (Scott’s Monthly Activity Jaunt). It’s 88 floors tall. I quite enjoyed it! The views are amazing. But I wouldn’t bother with the Edge part. That was cheesy and not scary at all.
I liked the binoculars. You could do some major creeping with them. I found the hospital I work at but I couldn’t see our house.
Minus one star for not having a Himalamazon ride like the CN Tower.
Afterwards we went to a nearby food truck festival where we split a chicken shawarma and this very tasty spicy Sri Lankan pancake stirfry dish.
These monthly updates seem to be the easiest way for me to semi keep up to date with blogging so I think I’ll just keep making them.
We have officially started looking for a house to buy. We went to a mortgage broker and have been watching auctions for practice. We went and looked at one place but it wasn’t quite right. I’m a bit picky, I want a bath tub, ducted heating, a garage, and hopefully still walking/biking distance to work. We are trying to stay calm and be patient. There’s another one posted right now that gets an 11/10 on location scale, but we haven’t seen it in person yet.
We saw Tom Gleeson at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. We’d only just seen his TV show Hard Quiz for the first time a week or two before but found it quite amusing, so when I opened the comedy festival brochure and saw his show ad it seemed like a good one to go to. It was good. I wish I could think of the right things to say as quick as he can.
Twinsies! Volunteering at the Victorian Championships. I did the computer job, which is typing in the weights that the coaches/athletes want for their attempts and then marking them good or no lift. They can increase the number several times per attempt so you have to stay alert. It’s a good job though because you can see everything. My big goal is to qualify for this comp next year. I hope they don’t change the qualifying totals.
Was cleaning up my platform one night and realized I used every single change plate possible in one training session, hahahahaha.
I went to the footy three times and watched Melbourne lose three times. Depressing. At least the Melbourne v St Kilda game was kinda fun because we met up with my friend and sat right behind the interchange where we could see all the players up close.
And the Anzac Day Eve game was cool too when they did the lights out ceremony thing. Then we found out we were sitting in the wrong spot and had to move up to the real general admission which at that point was very full so we had to sit in the second last row. Much nosebleed.
After that game I decided I was going to stop paying to watch Melbourne lose. (I would still go if it was free of course, haha). Then they won the following two games! I don’t think they look very good as a team this year though.
We played a few new games. First pictured: Puerto Rico. I got a good deal on this on Facebook Marketplace. One of the other couples in our game group loves the game so we got them to teach it to us. It seems fun, not as complicated as Agricola, some depth. I like that you’re constantly doing something, even when it’s not your actual turn. But it needs 3+ players so we haven’t played it again yet.
Second was Terraforming Mars. We played this once before with Other Scott, but over Easter we played it a couple times on our own. It’s complicated and hard to be strategic/offensive, but really fun to just play because there’s lots of stuff to do. I would like to play this more.
And lastly, Camel Up. My coworker raved about this game, and it delivered. It’s quick and silly and probably 50+% luck, but very exciting and fun. It’s been a hit with every group we’ve played with. Da Boys caught on quickly and liked it too. The dice rolling pyramid thingy is 100% gimmick but it does legitimately make it more fun, haha.
We had a very relaxed Easter. Watched a lot of TV and movies and caught up on chores. We didn’t go anywhere this year. But two of Scott’s uncles came to visit which was exciting. I hadn’t met either of them before. Pat was so excited for bro time.
Approx $1K worth of Lune croissants. :’) They made a special ANZAC day kouign amann, which was (unsurprisingly) delicious. Everything they make is amazing.
My old trivia group finally coordinated a reunion trivia night and then as usual everyone bailed one by one except three of us. UGH. At least once Game of Thrones is finished the more reliable trusty trivia sub-group will restart.
Scott’s Monthly Activity Jaunt (#SMAJ – hashtag still in development) for April was going up Eureka Tower, but I think I’ll make that its own post because this is getting long enough already.
Really weird looking restaurant. It was a stone brick motif on the wall, and neon outer space carpet on the ceiling?? It looked like it could have been a bowling alley in a past life.
Hot Stone Pot Bibimbap with mozzarella. I truly appreciate that Koreans like to add cheese to dishes that many other people would not try. But, and this really pains me to say (see blog tagline), the cheese in this case was not necessary.
I think my sister just fainted.
Bibimbap is good on its own! Although we’ve been making this a lot at home lately and I think I like my homemade version better. This one had too much rice for the amount of toppings.
1/2 Cave Salt wings, 1/2 Sweet Lava wings. Very crispy. Quite inconsistent sizing, some of them were huge and some were actually quite tiny.
