Thinking about Manweek

This week is Manweek - brought to my attention by Servant of Chaos last week at Coffee Mornings. It's about men talking about their feelings. Not easy - as I am finding now, since I've been thinking about this post since last Friday.

I'm going to be brief (it's a way of me getting out of this easily :) - but the thought that is in my head is that I am very good at relationships in general (business and personal) however I don't think I am good at communicating my feelings to those I care about most - particularly to my immediate family. I am going to talk about my father now - a man who reminds me of the good qualities shown by Walt Kowalski - Clint Eastwood's character in the movie Gran Torino I have the utmost respect for my father - he works hard at everything he does, is a good man but is easily misunderstood. Sometimes I think we misunderstand each other - and that I believe is due in part to the difficulty in communicating our feelings.

With this in mind, I am going to try to be a better communicator of my feelings. Meanwhile, I am going to say this: dad, I love you - you're a great inspiration to me, and I look forward to sharing many years ahead of happy family times, and great memories.

Phew! This post was extremely difficult to write, but at the same time, it makes me feel good to write it. For those men reading this, and who may also feel that they cannot communicate well with a loved one, perhaps try writing something down - a letter, an email, a blog post.

Online Communities - presentation to primary school community

I recently presented to my local school on online communities and the implications for our children.  This was prompted by my desire to share some of my own experiences with social networks with other parents who may be curious yet somewhat inexperienced in this area.  Particularly with our children having greater access and in many cases greater abilities than our own in navigating through and communicating with others on these networks.

I've embedded the presentation below: 

You should be on Twitter - creating serendipities and building community

Twitter is an incredible tool for so many reasons, it's worthy of a separate blog post and discussion. If you don't know what Twitter is, watch the brief video below to get a good overview (the video only skims the surface of it though):



A couple of reasons I enjoy using Twitter is it creates serendipities and builds community. Only today, we were celebrating our school's 90-year anniversary. I noticed Malcolm Turnbull was in attendence so decided to send him a notice on Twitter (I am wondering if he is actually using it or employs a ghost writer. See for yourself by visiting his Twitter profile here.)

Here's where the serendipitous moment occurred. Later in the day I checked my email and noticed that one of my Facebook friends (a past-teacher from the school who has relocated overseas) had "commented on my status" I realised immediately, that although this person wasn't even on Twitter, that they had seen my status update which had automatically been sent to Facebook via the Twitter/Facebook application. This person was pleased to be reminded of the event I was attending and had said so in their comment. I was really chuffed by that moment, as it showed how something so simple as a Twitter update (sent from my phone with an investment of time of no more than a few moments) had put me back in touch with them, and caused them some happiness and fond memories.

Creating serendipities and building community - two good reasons you should be on Twitter.

Poor Parenting or carefully staged moment?

In last Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald, I was chuffed to receive a call from one of my oldest friends Warwick La Hood, alerting me to this article. I still remember that scooter, but a 6 year old riding to school alone - can't imagine that happening nowadays!

Dad's Curry Recipe

Our family love hot and spicy. You'll find mum happily eating whole fresh chilli, and dad spicing up his curries with extra ginger (itself not too spicy, but read on) Recently dad has enhanced a vindaloo curry recipe and shared it with the whole family. So I've included it here for you all to enjoy. Caution: it is hot.

Curry Recipe

Choice of meat and quantity: Buy diced meat or dice it yourself into bite size pieces. Pork, lamb, beef, chicken or even duck are all good. Goat is thought to be the best but Sue would not eat goat or duck so I don’t use these.

500g of meat makes more than enough curry for 4 people or two meals for 2 people.

Process and main ingredients: Peel and chop up fresh ginger and garlic – say 2 to 3 heap tablespoons of each but this is not critical. You might use a little more ginger than garlic. Put the chopped ginger and garlic in a large pot.

Chop up 2-3 onions depending on their size and put these into the pot.

Add some olive oil to pot (say 2 tablespoons) and cook the onions, etc for around 5 minutes, stirring regularly.

Add the curry paste. I use Patak vindaloo paste but there are less hot pastes like madras. How much paste depends on taste but, for a quite hot curry, I use half a jar per 500g of meat. Stir the curry paste in well while you continue to cook on a low flame for a few minutes. The aromas should be great.

Add the meat and continue to cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until the meat is sealed.

Add one tin of chopped (or whole) tomatoes and the best part of a tin of water (use tomato tin). Stir this all in and allow to cook slowly (simmer really) with a lid on the pot. I usually add one or two additional chopped tomatoes but this is purely optional.

Other ingredients: No other ingredients are really necessary but I always add a few other veggies for taste and to fill out the curry. I add these shortly after the tomatoes. Per 500g of meat, I might add:

· One sliced and chopped capsicum (red, green or yellow);
· One large chopped carrot;
· One potato sliced into smallish pieces;
· Beans, peas or both;
· Some curry leaves (say a dozen)

Continue to cook on a low heat for 1-2 hours. Check occasionally and stir to ensure it does not burn. Add more water if necessary to ensure there is some liquid in the pot.

Serving: Serve with boiled rice, papadums and perhaps some mango chutney.

Tony and Anthony's new Food blog launched

Hey there, just a quick post to let you know I have started a new "food blog" - focussing on all things food, coffee and cafe culture in Sydney predominantly, with other regions covered from time to time. Hop on over to The Food Zeitgeist to read all about it.

Sydney - a treasure trove of food options

Near my office is a bakery offering Vietnamese-style Chicken Rolls for $3.20 ! This is excellent value and reminded me how fantastic Sydney is for its food culture. A couple of years ago the SMH ran an article about some of the best options for food around Sydney - here it is here.

The Sopranos is over

Just a brief note this week to recognise the end of The Sopranos Although the final episode aired in the USA back in June, I was pleased that I managed to avoid most spoilers. I try not to watch too much TV however this is the greatest show I have ever seen. Brilliant, intelligent writing, fine acting, high production values, great music. If you can relate to the feeling a really great drop of wine can bring, along with a really great meal, then that is how it feels to watch an episode of perhaps the greatest pop-culture masterpiece of its day credited for bringing a greater level of artistry to the television medium and paving the way for many successful drama series that followed.