Dragon Toast...

My all time favourite meal when I was a kid was a recipe my big sister and I learnt on the Curiosity Show (ah Prof Rob and Dr Deane, so many memories). It was called Dragon Toast on the show and consisted of grated cheese, milk and butter mixed together.

I’m sure the mini-gourmands of Junior Masterchef would be horrified to know that the fromage du jour was Kraft Cheddar cheese, so soft you could use it to take fingerprints, and came in a blue cardboard box.

I came, I saw, I tweeted...

It's one of the greatest misfortunes of history that the Romans didn’t have Twitter.

After almost 20 years of gathering dust on my bookshelf I’ve taken down my copy of Martial’s Epigrams to learn the art of pithy sentence writing for my Twitter account.

Tis the season to hang tinsel…

So after 30 hours of travelling, door to door, I’m home from Cambodia in time for Christmas with my beloved family.

A good night’s sleep has given me lots of holiday spirit and I’m about to start glazing the succulent ham with my friend Amanda’s spectacular recipe of orange marmalade, whisky, mustard and cloves.

Tiffy is ignoring me and I think she is writing a letter to Santa “Dear Santa, please don’t bring mummy any presents this year as she gave me a bath just when I was smelling nice from rolling in a dead bird on our walk this morning.”

Mission: CAMBODIA

Is this how history will tell it? That Asia approached a political precipice while Nancy and I got our nails done?

It can’t be a coincidence that Nancy and I are visiting Cambodia just when the news of a certain North Korean leader's demise was made known to the world.

Nancy and I are two-thirds of the Charlie’s Angels team created in Edinburgh circa 2007, with the Edinburgh Film Festival as our cover. The team was made up of our very own Charlie, aka Olivier, and our third Angel, Rosalynn, using the EIFF press team as our cover.

It’s been four years since the original team has been together but we’ve managed to get a small enclave every so often. In the four years since we were recruited Nancy and I have managed to meet up in Rotterdam, New York, Vienna and now Siem Reap.

To lull suspicion about our movements I arrived in Cambodia first, landing in Phnom Penh on Friday 16^th December. I maintained my cover of harmless food tourist, first established on my European travels this year. Aha, you say, there is a reason for all those pictures of food and wine after all. It was the natural progression for my cover to attend a Khmer cooking school in Phnom Penh. I worked hard at my cover, going to the markets and then making yellow and red curry paste by hand using a very large wooden mortar and pestle.

I’ve never been able to make it properly at home, always giving up halfway through in exhaustion at the amount of work. But that wasn’t an option with my cooking teacher prowling the kitchen exhorting our class to work harder. And my efforts paid off, with perfectly ground and pounded paste giving off a tantalising aroma.

Any family member who may be reading this and may be stuck for Christmas ideas: a large marble mortar pestle would be a welcome addition under the tree! And you’ll be repaid with displays of my new Khmer cooking skills, so win/win. Here's a few more examples: prawn salad and custard cooked in pumpkin.

On a somber note, I did visit the Killing Fields just outside of Phnom Penh on my first day. I won’t go into too much detail as it was very upsetting, particularly seeing scraps of fabric lodged in the dirt tracks, all that remains of the three million victims of Pol Pot’s madness. All I want to say is that this horror happens the world over when someone decides they have more right to exist than their fellow man. That to me is the true meaning of evil.

My feeling of horror and nausea didn’t dissipate either when my tuk-tuk driver offered to drive me to a rifle range to ‘shoot things up’. I gave a vehement no and asked to be taken to the Royal Palace. Here the frescos along the corridors of the Silver Pagoda were a welcome balm.

Also calming to the spirits was an evening dining at Romden restaurant. Run by a children’s charity it helps street kids and orphans develop careers as chefs and in the hospitality industry. My cooking teacher trained at its sister restaurant, Friends, and I recommend both, the fish amok I had was absolutely delicious.

That was the first of several excellent amoks I’ve had since my arrival, and is a favourite along with papaya salad. I arrived early for my rendezvous in Siem Reap with Nancy, so I was able to do a reconnaissance of the important town features: restaurants, spas and shops.

Appropriate for two of Charlie’s Angels, we held our latest reunion poolside at the Sonalong Boutique Village and Resort.

 It was somewhere in between the hours we spent lounging by the pool and then pampering ourselves at the U & Me Spa in town that that world first heard about Kim Jong Il.

We didn’t hear the news straight away, we did spend a bit of time web searching on Nancy’s i-Phone but that was only to see if we could buy a Greek island for $100. We did find a site that accepts offers but they were coyly keeping the asking prices a secret. I’m thinking of offering $10,000 and then finding nine other people to stump up a thousand bucks each if it’s accepted. Anyone interested?

Today’s mission was a little more strenuous than our pool day, we were up early to visit Angkor Watt, the ‘official’ reason for our visit here.

I don’t think my snaps can do justice to the magnificence on the site, the combination of thousand year old temples, detailed wall carvings and encroaching jungle are spectacular. The view from the top of the temples is breathtaking, and not entirely due to the ladder you climb to get there.

There is constant conservation work going on all around the area, supported by UNESCO and international governments. I think it’s best that I let the photos speak for themselves and get back to my next mission…lounging by the pool!

Run Rudolf, run!

I love Christmas. Absolutely adore it. Wearing tinsel as a feather boa, breaking out into songs in shopping centres, sure I can do those things the rest of the year too but in December I don’t get odds looks from strangers.

I’m going to cause a bit of controversy here and come out and say I love tinsel trees. Yes the real trees are beautiful and I grew up on a farm where we actually had pine trees so every year we had a real tree, smelling of fresh pine needles. But I feel so sad seeing the tree drop its needles and slowly fade away, that now I always go for the tastefully fake option. Plus it means the tree goes up on 1 December and stays up all the way to the 12^th Day of Christmas. In fact last year it made its appearance on the 30^th November, just because I couldn’t wait anymore.

You’ll be pleased to know I managed to hold off until the 5^th December this year, mainly because I was in Melbourne at the start of the month where I visited all the Christmas sites, from the exhibition of Christmas trees in Federation Square to the Myers window along Bourke Street.

While I was travelling in Europe I had many long debates about the most pressing issue of the day: is it better to have a white Christmas or celebrate with sand, surf and sun?

I’ve had the best of both worlds this year, travelling in Europe at the start of winter meant I could see Christmas markets in Budapest with brightly coloured matryoshka dolls and gingerbread and lights being installed in cities all around the continent.

I felt a particularly frisson of pleasure in Cardiff seeing the lights hanging all around the city, waiting for the switch to be turned on. Last year the cast of Dr Who threw the switch and the city went wild.

But just as I was feeling all aglow with the Spirit of Christmas, I discovered the dark secret of Cardiff’s Yuletide enthusiasm.

A street away from the city centre are the Cardiff markets and here was the sign below, advertising exotic meat. I admit I scoffed a bit at seeing kangaroo, it’s hardly exotic, I’d call it more ‘road kill on the Tuggeranong Parkway’, but then my eye went to the top of the board and I saw…reindeer!

Run Rudolf run, don’t look at the pretty lights, it’s a trap!

However you are choosing to celebrate this year, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

And don’t forget to come back and visit this blog in 2012!

Canberra. It’s really not as bad as you think, Part 1.

Yes, I know, damning with faint praise and taking a cheap shot all in one go. But when I came home from my travels, a good friend suggested I take photos around the city as interesting as the European snapshots I’d been sharing via Facebook.

Now when it comes to PR I’m good, I’m very good, and I’ve had some challenges in my career (a day to arrange a media event on the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for its 75^th anniversary and find someone born the same year it opened for an energetic bridge climb? Tick!) but I feared this could be be my Waterloo.

It’s not that Canberra doesn’t have a nightlife or culture. It’s just that on a weeknight these things can be a bit hard to find. Scottish comedian Danny Bhoy summed it up earlier this year when he performed here on a Thursday night. “The biggest laugh I’ve had all day was from the stage hands, when I asked where we were going for dinner after the show.”

But, always game for a challenge I’ve started scouring the what’s on guides for new and previously unknown events to take part in.

Which is how I came to drag BFFs MattyHari and Captain Kangaroo along to The Front Café and Gallery in Lyneham to hear a Gypsy swing band from Melbourne, La Mauvaise Reputation, http://www.lamauvaisereputationband.com/fr_home.cfm

I do love The Front, it has a good line up of acoustic acts that they get to perform, shock/horror, on school nights. It’s a fairly small venue so it fills up quickly, and it usually doesn’t take long for the audience to get into the spirit.

La Mauvaise Reputation had a good reception tonight and there was plenty of clapping and foot stamping to accompany the double bass and guitar in French Chanson versions of Edith Piaf, Serge Gainsbourg and Charles Trenet. It was so vibrant and lively and the crowd so enthusiastic that for a while I thought I’d stumbled back to the bars of Paris (as opposed to stumbling from the bars of Paris as I was doing nary a few months ago).

It was brilliant seeing the audience getting into it, and again I don’t want to give the impression that Canberra audiences are unresponsive. It’s just that here in Canberra I’ve witnessed some excruciatingly lame audience interactions.

Like in 2008 during a stand-up performance by British comedian Bill Bailey. Visiting Canberra eight or so months after Kevin Rudd swept to victory with the Kevin07 slogan, Bill Bailey was being gently mocking about the name Kevin lacking a certain gravitas. 

“Kevin07, gone in 11,” yelled out some socio-political thinker from the back rows. While the rest of the audience squirmed in acute embarrassment at this example of parochial commentary, Bill Bailey took it in his stride and got the night back on track, moving on to tell us about his experiences of ASBO culture in London. Pausing to ask if we knew what it meant, he asked what it was called here. “We call them youths!” yelled out the self-proclaimed wit (I’d preface that word with ‘half’ or, more fitting,  ‘f*ck’), and this time his neighbours practically stifled him to prevent any more biting satire.

People of Canberra, I issue this plea, put a bit of EFFORT into your heckles. We can attract world-class comedians to our town, but we want them to come back.

And as for that Kevin07 heckle, in hindsight it’s STILL neither funny or prophetic.

So back to tonight’s gig, La Mauvaise Reputation ended with a song about a metro-ticket collector. As Paul the lead singer explained it for those of us who don’t understand French, I had the chance to relive for MattyHari one of my greatest moments in Paris. “See it’s just like that lovely Parisienne metro officer who thought I was 25 and was going to charge me the student rate,” I stage-whispered to her with pride.

“And the song goes on to say how the ticket-collector goes mad,” Paul continued to the audience.

“But that’s not like my ticket collector,” I quickly assured MattyHari. “He was perfectly sane.”

“Of course he was darling,” she replied soothingly. “Now be quiet and let the nice man sing his song.” 

Put your best foot forward…

I’m off to see the West Australian Ballet perform Cinderella today, so naturally my thoughts have turned to shoes.

I’ve often wondered how, if Cinders’ shoes fit her so well she was the only one who could wear them, she came to lose one in her midnight flight. Maybe the high heels had gotten too much to dance in, so she’s taken them off to keep on boogeying with the Prince. Just as well she didn’t try this in a Canberra night club, the bouncers would have threatened to evict her if she didn’t put them back on “right now!” I possibly know this from first hand experience.

Thanks to the fairy godmother known as Internet shopping, I have the perfect foot attire for today’s performance. I will be donning my fabulous John Fluevog yellow maryjanes, shoes that blends style, fun and comfort in one delightful package.

I discovered Fluevogs last year, whilst shopping along Chapel Street in Melbourne. Only a few shops stock them in Australia and only in a limited range, but fear not shoe lovers, the Fluevog website has a cornucopia of choices. A visit is a wonderful way to while away a few hours, http://www.fluevog.com/

As you can tell I love shoes, it’s one of the factors that identifies me as an inhabitant of the Bridget Jones-Carrey Bradshaw ghetto (work in PR/have a mountain of shoes boxes in my cupboard/insert your own conclusions about the state of my love life here). Browsing through a book store or shoe shop always puts me in a good mood. If only I could find a shop that stocks both.

And I’m not fickle in my shoe love either, I take good care of each and every pair, careful to polish and repair my darlings regularly. It can’t be a coincidence that in addition to Cinderella my favourite fairystory was the Shoemaker and the Elves; I can’t tell you how entranced I was when the poor shoemaker would awake each morning to find the worn-out footwear of the towns people transformed into rows of shining shoes.

Even when a pair of favourite shoes can’t be repaired anymore and have to go to the Great Bookmaker in the Sky, I still keep them. One particular pair of favourites was the camel-coloured cowboy boots that stood me (yes, pun intended) in such good stead for many years. Sadly a year in Edinburgh made them a victim to the ravages of the centuries’ old cobble stones of High Street, so they were given an honourable retirement and shipped home to Australia. Today they nestle in a soft coth bag at the top of my wardrobe, with my collection of vintage fashion, waiting to become the Heather Collection that will grace museums around the world (it’s going to happen I tell you!).

At the time I packaged up my beloved boots I wrote them a small eulogy, which I’d like to share with you…

These boots were made for walkin’ (a melancholy day in May 2008)

It is with a sad heart I remove my beloved caramel cowboy boots for the last time. Sadly cuban heels and soles can, and have, been replaced, but there is no cure when the leather tears away.

Ah beautiful cowboy boots made in Italy. You are truly Spaghetti Western Boots and, like those movies, I have reveled in your kitschness. We both knew we'd never go to a Texan ranch, but we'd look fabulous if we ever did.

Seeing and winning you in that E-bay auction was a triumph. I knew there was a risk in buying you that way. Would you fit? Would you be comfortable? But from the moment I unpacked your buttery softness and slid you on to my foot, all doubts were swept away, Cinderella herself could not have been more delighted. 

We were together that glorious day in Melbourne when we met Anthony Stewart Head, and I am convinced that had you been with me a year earlier when I met James Marsters, he would have propsed on the spot.

Over the past 12 months we've bonded even closer, so far from home. You've protected me against the freezing chill of a Scottish summer and we've roamed the cobbled stoned streets of Edinburgh together. You were with me when I met Olivier for that first interview to work at the Edinburgh International Film Festival; arranging a meeting via text Olivier asked how would he recognise me? "I'll be wearing a black skirt and camel cowboy boots," I texted back. "I think I'm going to like this girl," he said. 

Boots, we've danced the night away, at the Fringe Festival Paint the Town Red Party where I slipped and pulled my dance partner on top of me. It was wasn't your fault boots, the blame lies with a treacherous bottle of red wine that had found its way into my possession. I was painting myself red. 

And the dancing has gone on, from an evening cruise down the Seine, to hip-hopping in Rotterdam. Given my height we may not have stood tall but we've stood proud. Good times boots, good times. 

You've earnt your rest boots, you've earnt your honourable discharge.

But not for you the indignity of the garbage bin, no you'll be lovingly packaged up and sent home to pride of place in that burgeoning costume museum of my life. There you'll be a reminder of what life is about: good times with friends, travels, nights of dancing and, of course, stalking James Marsters. 

That'll do boots, that'll do.