March 2, 2012

Food that I miss in Australia

Dinner at Melt Bar & Grilled, Cleveland

When it comes to food, there isn’t as much I miss from home these days. I’ve grown to really love the food in Australia, and Sydney in-particular has to offer. I’ve found new brands that are similar to what I was familiar with back home or I’m happy to just swap what the states had to offer with the best of what this city has. However, there are still a few items that make my list of “missed foods” while abroad.

Mexican Food – Sydney has a great variety of food but they do fall short in this particular category. At home we go for Mexican at least once a week. It’s a cheap and good option. I think the part I dislike the most is how expensive it can be here, and no free chips and salsa – such a bummer. I miss those giant cheap margaritas that come in every flavour too.

Flautas from Luchitas

Chicken Wings – A huge bucket of chicken wings from Quaker Steak & Lube sounds awesome right now. You can go to chicken shops here and get whole, half or quarter chickens severed with salads or chips, but it’s not quite the same as hot wings.

Pumpkin sweets – I have found that pumpkin is typically a savoury food item in Australia. Pumpkin salads and sides are popular. I eat a lot of pizza with pumpkin topping. However the pumpkin I miss is sweet. I love pumpkin cookies, pie, ice cream and pumpkin roll. Drool.

homemade pumpkin roll

Pulled pork sandwiches, sloppy joes and other BBQ treats – Aussie BBQ are all about the sausage sizzlers but I miss foods from picnics at home. I love BBQ chicken on the grill during the summertime. Sloppy joes on burger buns were always a staple in our mealtimes at home as well.

Bagels and flavoured cream cheeses – I couldn’t even tell you where to get a good bagel in this city. There was a chain called “Bagel House” that did some different varieties and sandwiches but last I heard they went out of business. The grocery store sometimes carries plain and blueberry, but not guaranteed. I don’t think you can buy flavoured cream cheeses such as strawberry and honey. They have original and chives I think.

blueberry with strawberry cream cheese

Chocolate and peanut butter – How is chocolate and peanut butter not a worldwide sensation? I love it. You can buy overpriced Reese’s peanut butter cups here, but in general peanut butter with chocolate is uncommon. I hear that Zumbo has a chocolate peanut butter & jelly macaroon, maybe I should try that.

What foods do you miss from home when you’re away? 

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March 1, 2012

The 30 Day Blogging Challenge

My Blogging Plans

After much slacking, I have a new 30 Day Challenge to motivate me this month.

I’m going to be blogging every day in March. A previous challenge of mine was “writing every day for 30 days.” While this was a rewarding challenge, I found that I didn’t record or measure it properly. I blogged, wrote in my journal mostly and also wrote some posts for friend’s blogs. This time around I’ll only be blogging. I have created a content calendar for the next 30 days with designated topics. While some of the posts will still appear on blogs other than mine, this time I’ll be pre-planning which posts and where they will be shared.

Steve Hopkins, who blogs at The Squiggly Line, helped inspire this particular 30 Day Challenge. He is also blogging for 30 days and asked others to do the same. Follow the chatter on Twitter #b03 and remember, it’s not too late to join. If you are planning on blogging this month, leave me a comment or tweet me so I can follow your blog posts too.

Will you be joining the 30 day blogging challenge?

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January 31, 2012

Never Eat Alone: 4 Networking Tips

cc license, marcia.furman

I’m always telling people about how Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi is my favourite business book. It made me cry (not sure if that’s a normal reaction). It was a gift from my best friend senior year of college. Ferrazzi put into words exactly what I had on my mind, but didn’t know how to say at the time. He validated the way I feel about networking and relationships.

Here are a few beautiful lessons I’ve learned from that book, and just from living. I hope they’re insightful or relatable for you.

Give to others without expecting something in return. Give your time and talent. Help connect people, teach someone, give someone a recommendation or advice. Don’t ask, “What will this action deliver me in return?” as a condition of choosing to help someone. Give selflessly, and your life will be richer. I swear by this tip.

Never attend a “networking” event. Every event is a networking event. In fact, life is one big networking event. I love Ferrazzi’s approach to networking as a lifestyle and I’ve tried to adopt this same attitude.

Understand and ‘see’ relationships. I refer to this as my “online stalking tip.” The internet has A LOT of information (if you haven’t figured that out by now) so use it to your advantage. Understand how people are connected. Research what they do, learn their story and see who their friends are. Be driven by relationships before and after meeting new people.

Be genuine and interested. Gosh this one is important. If you are hitting on tips 1-3 and mucking up this one you could get in trouble. I would give you the advice of ‘fake it till you make it,’ but I’m not sure if that applies here. Please be genuine in all that you do. It will help your relationships thrive.

Have you read Never Eat Alone? What advice would you add to this list?

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January 3, 2012

Hello 2012: Some New Year (sorta) Resolutions

I’m not big on New Year resolutions, but here are a few things I’d like to work on this year.

This year I want to spend more time outside. I’m going to leave early so I can walk more places instead of taking the bus. I want to sit outside on sunny days. I’m going to have more beach days on the weekends. I want to walk home across the harbour bridge from work.

This year I want to practice more creativity. I miss crafting. I used to enjoy hobbies like making my own jewelry, sketching, ceramics and scrapbooking. Being creative doesn’t mean I have to buy a new scrapbook, but I want to go back to crafting and creating. It makes me really happy.

This year I want to read more. This is something else that used to make me really happy that I rarely do anymore. I want to read more books, and avoid TV all together. I want to read to learn, but mostly I want to read for fun again. I think I’ll start with Tina Fey’s Bossypants. I heard it was a good read.

This year I want consume less and save money. I want to stop buying things I don’t need and collecting “stuff.” I find it shocking how much stuff I seem to collect. I want to get rid of the clutter in my room, and free up some space in my life so I can free up some space in my soul… dude (seriously though).

What are your goals for this year? 

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December 21, 2011

Aussie Phrases I Love

cc license, Neubie

These are just a few phrases and words I’ve come to adore while living in Australia. Some I’ve adopted into my own vocabulary and others continue to grow on me.

How are you going? – When I studied abroad in Australia we went abseiling our first week here. The instructor said to me, how are you going? So I answered “right handed.” She thought that was pretty funny. Looking back I can laugh about it now too.

Heaps – You can be heaps hungover, heaps hungry, heaps happy. It’s like a giant pile of emotion.

Totes- This is just a cute way of saying totally. I mean, this is just a totes cute way of saying totally.

Cheers – I like to sign off my emails with “cheers.” I like when people say “cheers” after you pay them at the register, and we get to say “cheers” as a toast at the pub.

What are you after? – This phrase might not be exclusively Aussie, but they sure do love it here. I notice it especially when you’re trying to pick something off the café menu.

Keen – I want get tickets to that concert, who’s keen?  I’m keen to get started on this work.

Average – an adjective to describe when you’re not feeling so great, or just so-so. “I can’t believe I had those tequila shots last night, I’m feeling pretty average today.”

Footy – I used to think Footy described AFL (Australian Football League) but apparently footy can also mean Rugby (NRL) or even soccer. I’m not really sure. I call everything with a ball (minus cricket) footy.

Ute – it’s a little baby truck. See photographic evidence below please.

Bogan – thank you Chris Lilly and Summer Heights High for teaching me what a skanky bogan was. Redneck, hill-jack, white trash… you get the idea.

Cheers big ears – I thought this was something silly my colleague Sam made up the first time I heard it. It makes me giggle every time.

Shout (a round) – Shouting rounds is fun. While buying rounds wasn’t a new concept to me, there is something unique about the Australia style shout.

Lemonade – it usually means sprite, but I’m pretty sure it can be any carbonated lemon or lime drink. The most important thing to know is that lemonade doesn’t equal a drink made of lemonades, sugar and water. Unless it’s “old fashioned lemonade” but you can only get that at the grocery store or markets.

What are your favourite Aussie words or slang? 

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November 22, 2011

A Year of Sydney Sunsets on Instagram

Sydney has the most gorgeous sunsets. I’ve been snapping photos of the sky for the last year on my iPhone. I love to share them on Instagram and Twitter one by one, but it was really fun to pull them all together into one blog post here. These are a few of my favourite snaps.

“With innovation and technology, seems we have forgotten to cherish the true beauty the world has to offer.”  ~A.C. Van Cherub

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November 6, 2011

30 Day Challenge: Going Veggo

cc license, Cyn74

I had an interesting start to this month’s challenge.  Tuesday was Melbourne Cup and after a few drinks I found myself scarfing down a delicious chorizo pizza. Not a very good way to start my 30 days as vegetarian. However, I’m hopefully on the right track now.

The idea of having a meat-free month came up as soon as I decided to start these 30 day challenges. I knew it was something that truly would be a challenge for me, considering meat is part of my everyday diet. Not only do I typically eat meat daily, I probably eat more servings than I should and I quite enjoy it — guilty all around.  Since moving to Sydney I’ve already had a mind shift around how I view food. I used to believe that a meal only was complete with some type of meat. Now I know that’s untrue, and I’ve found of wide range of vegetarian meals I adore.

I didn’t choose this challenge because I have any true moral conflicts with eating meat. Although I do recognise some of the environmental effects meat consumption has. Mostly I’m doing it out of curiosity. I want to walk 30 days in someone else’s shoes. I’m always curious about new foods and this will force me to be creative with my meals and perhaps try a few new things. My sister is a veggo (ex-vegan) and also encouraged me to go for it. Always helps to have people encouraging you to try new things.

Day six and counting… wish me luck.

Do you have any yummy veggo recipes to share with me? 

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