While I would have loved to begin my annual dress-up party institution this year, I was merrily preoccupied during this, my birth month, with an important wedding of two Very Important People (who bestowed upon me a year's subscription to Donna Hay Magazine. Thanks guys!).
So while the institution will have to wait, I decided a dress-up dinner wouldn't, and the Fantastical Five will be gracing my world with their presence tomorrow night for what may be termed a Mish-Mash Dinner.
The rules of Mish-Mash Dinner are as follows:
1) Before dinner, guests will visit the Salvos together to choose their dinner attire, and may come as anything or anyone. I'm thinking 80's Bride, but if I can find a jumpsuit of any kind I'll go with that for sure.
2) Guests contribute to dinner by choosing a course to bring. Nobody is allowed to discuss what course or what kind of food they are bringing with anyone else.
3) After dinner, guests will participate in a game that incorporates elements of all the games in the games cupboard, in one giant, all-encompassing Supergame!!
The desire for the ludicrous seems to be increasing as I get older. I'm starting to wonder if in 30 years I might just be my mother, who I think has forgotten how to be serious at all. Trust me, next time you think you're having a normal conversation with her, look hard enough and you'll see a twinkle in her eye and you'll realise she's either having a subtle dig at something (probably you), has made a glorious, unnoticed pun, or is possibly getting ideas for a surprise skit at her next formal work function involving a wig, false teeth and a piano accordion.
Mish-Mash Madness
Forays into the Foreign
The freshest foray by the Fraternity of the Fantastical Five into the field of fine foreign food was in Ethiopian cuisine. Cafe Lalibela in downtown Footez, to be specific.
I'd never had Ethiopian, so luckily one of the Fantastical Ones had gotten the dates mixed up and ended up down at the restaurant the week prior, went oh heck I'm here now (bless him) and sat down and discovered how it works exactly.
The review of Lalibela in the Age describes the system better than I could, but basically, it's a finger-licking, bread dipping meal for sharing. There's no cutlery, or any of that unnecessary hooey, but instead they bring out big plates of this soft, spongy flat bread and pour the main dishes on top. You then tear bits of bread off and scoop up the meat or lentil-based stews with it. It's fun, and the food is hearty, but not heavy. And at $12 a main: value.
The meal was followed up by drinks and dessert at Carsons Lounge in Yarraville, where we were served desserts almost as fantastical as us, and where I learned that semifreddo is not just ice cream with its nose in the air, but is more like the love child of ice cream and whatever other dessert it has cared to have a dalliance with. Enjoyed while seated on huge leather lounges by a roaring fire. Ahhhh...fantasmagical...
Cafe Lalibela
91 Irving St, Footscray
(03) 9687-0300
Cuisine: Ethiopian
Mon-Wed 10am-10pm; Thu-Sat 10am-2am; Sun 11am-11pm
Licensed, BYO
Dishes $10-$12
Carsons Lounge
33 Ballarat St, Yarraville
(03) 96878478
Cuisine: Modern Australian
MasterChef Finale
Joolz wins MasterChef!
Was she deserving? Well, she was controversial throughout and I thought she really should have gone in two of the eliminations before the final. But she clearly beat Poh in the final, so good on her. Australia loves nice, down-to-earth people. So long as they don't put a foot wrong or become too successful, so help us, or we'll be ready to tear down that poppy with our bare hands!!!
Got to say, I'm missing having something decent to watch in the 7 o'clock time slot, but never fear, there will be another series before we know it.
MasterChef Final Two
1) Australia's first MasterChef is going to be a female. Surprising.
2) Didn't see any tears over Chris.
3) JOOOOLZZZ!!!!
The old girl's inexplicably scraped through every time she's stuffed up (and those times seem to be fairly frequent and numerous) and she's still standing at the grand finale with Poh. If she does get walloped, Poh would be a deserving winner.
MasterChef Final Three
So, MasterChef is down to the final three. The ol' Jules is still plugging away at it, which is nice to see. She's put a lot of blood, sweat, and possibly tears into her food (look, it all gets cooked anyway). Although to be honest, I thought she should have gone home on the back of the unfortunate custard pie disaster the other night. We all have disasters, but having one on national television is tough. A bit audacious to send Lucas home when his pies were, at least, three dimensional.
It didn't surprise me that they weeded out Lucas and Julia as soon as they came back. I wondered if they were going to realise that taking contestants out of the series so early on meant viewers would have no investment in them when they came back.
As for Matt's tears tonight...! When he teared up talking about how his kid had cooked squid at home because he liked Sam so much I was like, oh yeah, kids turn us into regular blubberbies...but over Justine?! All three of them, in fact! The poor guest judge would have been sitting there wondering whether he should dab his eyes with his hanky just to fit in.
As for that chocolate mousse cake.....
Oh glory...