The South Coast

Wednesday a couple of my Young Men and I headed down to the South Coast. We left early in the morning, taking the King’s Highway, a narrow ribbon of bitumen which races across yellow, drought-parched paddocks and then winds through dim, grey-green groves of towering gum trees before plunging down the face of the Great Dividing Range via a seemingly endless series of tortuous hairpin curves. It was a pleasant two-and-a half-hour trip. Alex had brought his guitar, and he kept us entertained with his own latest compositions plus a few requests from me. In addition, we stopped en route at Braidwood’s award-winning bakery and breakfasted on their hefty meat pies slathered with tomato sauce. I usually don’t eat breakfast, but for this I made an exception.

From Bateman’s Bay we headed south along the coast til we came to Broulee Beach. I’m a bit of a beach snob, preferring the quiet, less-developed kind to the crowded, noisy ones lined with fish & chips shops and ugly toilet blocks, so the extra half-hour drive is worth it to me. As you can tell from the photo, it was a beautiful day to be at the beach. Admittedly, it was a bit cooler than it could have been, reaching only 22 (72F), but the sun and sand both felt luxuriously warm after the chilly weather we’ve been having in Canberra.

After warming up thoroughly with a long sunbake, we played in the surf, jumping over and diving under the waves. They weren’t the biggest waves by a long stretch, but they were big enough that some people were surfing on them, so they weren’t boring either. The water was bone-chillingly cold, however, so, after we’d turned blue, we had to soak up more solar radiation til returning to a normal—or possibly ruddier—colour.

Early-afternoon we stopped for lunch, which we ate in the shade of a large tree behind the beach, hoping to keep our consumption of sand down to a minimum. We’d all brought odds and ends from home, and we ended up with a nice meal: cheese sandwiches, most of a roast chicken, two kinds of potato chips (Thai sweet chilli and cheese & onion), and two bottles of lemonade. We managed to finish off all but part of a bag of chips and half a bottle of lemonade.

Then it was back to the beach for more fun in the sun, surf, and sand. I’m happy to report that I won four out of five arm wrestles, which is not bad considering that I was not the biggest competitor. We also buried Dobbie in the sand, sculpting the pile on top of him to look like a mermaid. I am afraid, though, that he’ll likely be getting sand out of his ears for the next fortnight or so. After a final swim, designed in part to minimise the amount of sand tracked into my car, we packed up our towels and sunscreen and headed back up to Bateman’s Bay, stopping at a developed beach for a shower and a chance to change out of our wet bathers.

Despite our earlier feasts, everyone was up for a bit of dinner, so we parked near the harbour to get some food. The boys chose the ‘safe’ option and headed off to KFC, but I went to a fish & chips shop and bought grilled fish, grilled prawns, chips, and a small salad. We then ate by the harbourside, watching the pelicans on the pier and keeping our food safe from the greedy seagulls which flocked ‘round us.

The drive home was longer than the drive down had been, as is often the case, but it was tinged with the quiet satisfaction that attends those whose backs are a bit sunburnt, whose bellies are full, and whose bodies are tired from a full day of good fun.

Merry Christmas!

It’s been a beautiful couple of days. Church yesterday was joyful—and surprisingly full of people. For most residents, Canberra is less home and more just a temporary absence from somewhere else (which I think is a shame, but that’s a topic for another post). Consequently, major holidays and long weekends generally turn the city into something of a ghost town, a phenomenon which tends to extend to our church services. It’s not unusual for our attendance on such occasions to drop to only 40 people or so, which is what I’d feared would be the case yesterday.

Instead, we had at least 131 people in sacrament meeting, that being how many I quickly counted from the stand at the beginning of the service. As usual, a large number of our ward members had gone interstate, but this time visitors to our ward actually outnumbered those missing. It was great to see the pews filled as they should be on Christmas Eve.

One reason we had so many visitors was because two babies were blessed at the beginning of the service. One of these was Xander, son of my very good friend (and dutiful second counsellor), Scott. He had asked me to help with the blessing, which was a great honour.

After church, I swung ‘round to visit my home-teaching families, taking them plates of homemade chocolate chip cookies. I knew people were busy, so I’d planned just to stop by, say ‘Merry Christmas,’ and leave the cookies, but instead I was invited in at each house for warm conversation and Christmas goodies. By the time I got home, I’d enjoyed homemade almond tarts, mince pie, and sponge cake layered with cream and fresh strawberries and apricots.

I then spent the rest of the evening across the border in Queanbeyan, visiting my friends Wayne and Angela. They both come from Spanish-influenced cultures (Chile and the Philippines), so Christmas Eve is the focal point of their Christmas celebration. I was late getting there, but they were still eating dinner, so I happily joined them, the missionaries from their ward, and our mutual friend Sam for a feast of roast beef, roast pork, steamed prawns, mashed potatoes, Greek salad, and Caesar salad. It was an excellent meal, both because it was my first meal of the day (not counting the sweets from earlier) and, more importantly, because it was shared with warm, generous friends.

I didn’t get home til quite late, and I then stayed up to wrap presents, something I’d not yet gotten a chance to do. Consequently, it was difficult to wake up early this morning, but I did so, getting up at 7:00, because I didn’t want to miss our ward’s Christmas morning service. It was a perfect start to a blessed day of remembrance. We prayed, read scriptures, and sang carols together—the children still in their pyjamas—before returning to our homes.

I then started work on our Christmas lunch, preparing garlic prawns, pineapple chicken with red chilli, teriyaki beef, rice, and a salad of cucumber, bean sprouts, and pickled radish. I was joined by my friends Kali and Nita, Kali’s brother, Nita’s little sister, and Eric, a guy I met two weeks ago. He’s just moved to Canberra and has no family here, so I was glad to invite him to join us. It was great to have a houseful of good people to spend the afternoon with.

This evening was set aside for that great Aussie Christmas tradition: cricket. We met up with some friends from the south side of the city and played until the sun went down. I have to admit it wasn’t exactly cricket weather tonight, though. In fact, it felt a bit too much like a northern-hemisphere Christmas all day; despite the forecast, we never actually reached 20 degrees (68F), and it was only 13 degrees (55F) this evening, with a stiff breeze making it feel a lot, lot colder. I was glad whenever the batsman sent a ball my way; the running kept me a bit warmer.

The greatest source of warmth today, though, was the gratitude I feel for my innumerable blessings and all the good people in my life—all gifts through the grace of Him Whose birth we commemorated this day.

Brew, Take Two

So we just cracked open my second attempt at ginger beer, and I’m happy to report that it managed to surpass the first bottle in quality. It was hotter, more gingery and less citrus-y, and considerably fizzier. In fact, it was so fizzy that I had to keep loosening the cap to let some of the carbon dioxide out and then tightening it again to prevent an eruption. This took several minutes, and even then I experienced some spill-over.

I attribute the improvement in flavour to the fact that, as planned, I upped the quantity of ginger by 33%. That was a good idea. And I’m pretty sure the fizziness is due to my having gotten brave enough to let the brewing go on a bit longer than I did last time. When I finally put it in the fridge, the bottle was so tight that I couldn’t really dent the plastic at all. This will prove to be a tricky balancing act in future since I like the increased fizziness, but I’m not too keen on possibly having to remove shards of plastic from the walls and ceiling of our kitchen.

Birthday Dinner

Today was Daniel’s birthday, so tonight we had a birthday dinner for him at our house. I told him the menu was up to him, and he requested gyoza (pan-fried dumplings) and mango piña coladas. To round out the meal, we asked the guests to provide Asian salads, Samoan chop suey, Chinese barbecued pork, Japanese curry, soft drinks, and cake.

We bought ingredients to make 120 gyoza, though I think we only had enough filling for 114 of them. They may have been the best gyoza I’ve ever made; the minced turkey filling seemed to be spiced with the perfect quantity of ginger and garlic and rounded out with just the right amounts of cabbage, mushrooms, carrot, and shallots. Daniel, Troy, and Kali formed most of them whilst I was busy first boiling and then pan-frying the dumplings. I also cooked up a big pot of rice to go with, and we had two dipping sauces, one quite traditional (soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and chilli paste) and one a bit more adventurous (with basil, mint, sugar, and fresh red chilli).

Once everyone was here with all the food, we had a blessing and began our feast. Once again our dining table was loaded down under a mountain of good eats. There’s simply nothing better than communal eating: Everyone contributes a little, and somehow there’s more food than anyone could conceivably finish off in one go.

After everyone had finished eating, it was time to whip up the piña coladas. We’d gotten a great deal on mangos at the markets earlier, picking up four huge ones that had been marked down because they were a bit overripe—perfect therefore for tossing into the blender with pineapple juice, sweetened coconut milk, and ice. Nita helped me by scooping out the mangos (a task I’m never too keen on since I hate getting sticky), and together we blended three full jugs worth—about six litres. Amazingly, the sixteen of us managed to polish off every last drop.

People had been playing Guitar Hero throughout the night or just sitting in groups and talking. We got three more free dining chairs last week, so, between our lounges and our chairs, we almost had enough places for everyone to sit this time, lacking just one seat. That’s very cool, especially considering how little furniture we used to have just a couple of months ago.

After more Guitar Hero and good conversation, it was time to cut the cake. We had no candles, but I struck a match and stuck it into the top of the cake, and then we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ as fast as we possibly could before the match could burn out. The cake was awesome—dense and chocolaty with a fudgy icing.

As always, I’m immensely glad for good friends and good opportunities to celebrate together.

A Night in Bethlehem

Our ward Christmas party was this past Saturday evening, and it was a radical departure from our traditional Christmas celebration at Bro Laney’s farm (across the border in New South Wales). Christmas parties at the farm are all-day events filled with swimming in the small dam he has for watering his animals, taking ‘sleigh rides’ on the back of an old car bonnet dragged behind a ute,* carefully tending the goats and pigs that are being spit-roasted for that evening’s dinner, and singing Christmas carols around a bonfire once the mid-summer sun has finally gone down.

This year the Ward Council decided to do something requiring considerably more planning and effort by recreating a bit of Old Bethlehem in the church hall instead. I really liked this idea because, as fun as it is to swing over the water on a ‘Tarzan rope’ and feast on crispy pig skin and pavlova,** it’s somehow more fun to spend hours working side-by-side with other ward members in planning and executing a large project like this—especially when, in the end, it all comes together beautifully.

My Young Men were asked to paint backdrops for the event, something we spent two whole Mutual nights working on, but our representations of brick and stone and desert landscape turned out great. In addition, I helped build ‘stone walls’ out of cardboard cartons, which were then painted as well. Others in the ward sewed costumes, built a manager, fashioned spears for the Roman centurions, constructed a glittering star, cut out gold and silver ‘coins,’ and stitched moneybags to keep the coins in. Moreover, food in abundance was prepared by various auxiliaries.

In addition, a nativity play was planned for the night, and I was asked to be Joseph. We had a brilliant script, written by another ward member, in which an angel choir narrated the story of the Advent using bits of traditional Christmas carols. This all required rehearsals, of course, both for the singing and for the actual acting.

But, in the end, it was all worth it. We worked from morning into the afternoon on Saturday to install all the decorations, but the hall looked great when we were finished. Vendor stalls made of ‘stone’ and ‘brick’ encircled three sides of the hall, set up to sell kebabs,*** fresh fruit, flatbread and dips, spiced rice and beans, baked goods, toys (handmade by the primary children), and wine (blackcurrant cordial).

Later that evening the ward—most of us decked out in our best bathrobes and tea towels—gathered in the chapel to sing and to pray, and then we were ushered by Roman centurions past tables where we signed the census and paid our taxes. Most of the rest of the evening was spent in Bethlehem ‘buying’ food at the various stalls, mixing and mingling, feasting and laughing together—and occasionally being harassed by the centurions.

When most had eaten, the lights were dimmed, and then the ‘angels’ arose from wherever they had been sitting around the hall and, with clear voices, invited the ‘faithful’ to come to Bethlehem. From that point on, I can’t tell you much since I was too much in the middle of things, but I think the nativity play went well. As I helped a very pregnant ‘Mary’ wend her way through the crowds of people sitting on the floor of the hall, even the smallest of children seemed to be watching in rapt reverence, so I’ll take that as a good sign. And I know I personally got a thrill up and down my spine when a family of shepherds knelt at the side of our humble manger to pay honour to the baby represented by the doll therein.

It was somewhat sad at the end of the night to help pull down the decorations, fruit of so much labour, but, if others walked out of the hall that night as renewed in their gratitude for the miracle of the coming of Christ as I was, it was most definitely all worth it.

*Short for ‘utility,’ this is an Australian truck. Imagine a much meaner version of an El Camino.

**The quintessential Australian dessert—a huge meringue base filled with custard and/or whipped cream and topped with passionfruit sauce and fresh fruit such as berries and slices of kiwi.

***In Australia, spit-roasted meat rolled up in Lebanese bread with various salads and sauces.

Ginger Beer

I’ve never been a big consumer of soft drinks. I think this may be related to the fact that they were rarely drunk by my family growing up. We used to get Sprite as a treat at Christmastime and for our Independence Day cookout. Homemade root beer cropped up at church parties and fairs during the summer. And, whenever I had something like tonsillitis, my dad would bring me home a bottle of soft drink to calm my stomach. Other than that, I mostly just drank water.

Australia, however, has proven to be something of a garden of temptations in this area. I reckon I’ve drunk more soft drink here than I did in my entire previous life—something I’ll blame on the diverse range we have available. Who can resist such alluring flavours as passionfruit, blood orange, lemon-lime & bitters, sarsaparilla, or lemon crush? Better yet, most of these beverages come in a sugar-free variety, removing the major nutritional argument against consuming them.

My all-time favourite Aussie beverage, however, may be ginger beer. This is not an exclusively Australian soft drink, of course. I actually drank it for the first time whilst living in the Caribbean, where we never celebrated a baptism at church without a huge jug or two of Sister Winifred Carty’s spicy (and sometimes quite chunky) home-brewed ginger beer. In Australia, though, ginger beer is ubiquitous—so much so that a standard supermarket probably stocks a good half dozen different brands of it. These range all the way from the ordinary (virtually just store-brand ginger ale dressed up in a brown bottle) to the sublime (the version produced by Bundaberg, a rum distiller, which, like Sis Winnie’s home brew, is spicy, not very sweet, and borderline chunky).

Recently, I decided to try brewing my own. I was motivated in part by having chanced upon a web site maintained by an American professor of chemistry who also happens to be an avid brewer of ginger beer. His recipe seemed ridiculously simple—simple enough for a busy PhD student to try—so I took ten minutes Monday (that’s really all it took) and threw the whole thing together, using an empty two-litre Coke bottle that my housemate had saved for me.

I had to wait 48 hours before I could try it—24 for the actual brewing and then another 24 for the chilling—bringing me up to today. I have to admit that I was a little nervous when I first opened the bottle and poured out a taste of what looked not unlike dirty dish water. Sis Winnie, however, would be proud. It was almost perfect—spicy, not too sweet, and with an intriguing citrus undertone. It even had chunks in it. I think I may up the amount of gingerroot slightly in the next batch, but all in all I’m pleased with the results. I reckon I’ll be doing some more brewing in future.

Housewarming

After having lived in our house for over a month, the four of us finally got our schedules sufficiently in sync to be able to hold a housewarming a couple of weekends ago. We’d all thought that our new home, with its open-plan design and spacious areas, would be perfect for parties, but now we have indisputable evidence that it is. At least I know that I had a great time.

We decided to run with a Mexican theme (my idea), and dinner was a taco bar. We provided the mince, freshly made tortillas, and guacamole, and then we asked the guests to bring various other items (cheese, tomatoes, beans, etc.) in lieu of housewarming gifts. Making the tortillas was almost a necessity since the objects that pass for flour tortillas in Australia more resemble round sheets of vinyl than anything edible. They even come sealed in plastic bags with a shelf life of a year or two. Consequently, I’ve had to become a tortilla maker the past few years. I have to say, though, that these were the best batch I’ve ever pulled off—light and tender. I guess practice starts to make perfect.

Dinner preparations did not go off without a hitch, however. Our cooking appliances are gas, but our house is not actually connected to the mains, maybe because we’re so far back from the street. Instead, we have bottled gas, and, when we moved in, there was still a partially filled bottle connected, so we’d just been using that, not knowing exactly when it would run out. Naturally, it ran out late at night the Thursday before our festivities. I rang first thing the next morning to request another bottle, but that was when I discovered that the delivery trucks leave before 7:00 every morning. I was told that I could pick up the replacement bottle myself but that I’d have to transport it upright. Strangely enough, none of us owns a truck with a rack on the back…so we just had to agree to wait til the next week. That left us gasless over the weekend.

Thankfully, Keiran’s family had given him an electric frypan when we moved into our new house. It’s not the world’s best electric frypan, not exactly getting as hot as one might like, but it was better than nothing. It handled three dozen flour tortillas followed by 2.5kg of beef mince. Granted, it took about three hours to pull all this off, but, by the time most everyone had arrived, we were ready to eat.

And eat we did. Our dining table was groaning under the weight of a fiesta at the beginning of the night, and many of us were groaning under portions of the same weight by the end of the night. Though of course there was still room at the very end for the ice cream that someone had brought. Fortunately, after having joked that our dining room was better suited for dancing than for eating, I now have conclusive proof of that proposition as well, having given it a good swing-dance workout that night as something of a counterbalance to all the eating.

I think people had a good time. We’d planned to play some Night Games in the park behind and to the side of our house, but people seemed content to sit (both inside and outside), eat, drink, and talk. The last guest went home about 2:00 AM, so I’ll take that as a good sign. And the house definitely feels much warmer now. It’s such a blessing to have a home that can handle a crowd of friends.