Sunday, January 06, 2008

The first 2008 meeting of the Frugal Cultuvorians

Taph and I met at lunchtime for a picnic in the grounds of The Australian War Memorial and what a frugal feast it was:Taph's home made village quiche (so called because all the ingredients came from either people she knew or locally), my couscous and I-made-up-the-recipe-myself Moroccan carrot salad (using leftover's from New Year's Day's lunch), snow pea sprouts (also NYD leftovers), rice crackers and home made hummus. With local apricots courtesy of Happy Spider (who was spending the afternoon entertaining the migraine monster instead of us) and banana pikelets with jam for afters.

Once we'd finished we wandered up the hill and spent 4 hours in airconditioned comfort watching Lawrence of Arabia and knitting time thief watch caps (as you do).

Now I'm tempted to spend the evening watching The English Patient but I'll contain myself and sort myself out for the work week ahead...

5 comments:

  1. oh I love it. What a great idea and a fabulous inaugural picnic. I want Taph's village quiche recipe. Oh and the carrot recipe. Perfect.

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  2. Looks like a delightful lunch!

    Can I ask, and please don't take this the wrong way, but doesn't it drive other cinema attenders nuts to have the scrape and click of knitting needles in the cinema? It would drive me nuts, be like having inescapable insect sounds. Maybe you sit miles away from others, but even so. I know that chatters, who appear to think there is no difference between a DVD at home and the (public) cinema irk me immensely. And even a scratchy bag of lollies comes to an end, whereas knitting, I imagine, continues throughout the screening.

    You and Taph are doing awfully well at frugalling frugally, though.

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  3. Bells: Carrot recipe (such as it is)

    * Make a french dressing for a lettuce, mandarin, snow pea shoot and hazlenut salad using olive oil, balsamic vinegar (as it's the only wine vinegar you have), wholegrain mustard, sugar and some juice from the can of mandarin wedges. Sit in the fridge for 4 days
    * Grate all the carrots you can find in the bottom of the fridge (in this case 2 and a half). Add the remainder of the packet of pine nuts in the cupboard.
    * Add 1 tpsn honey and approx 1/4 tsp ground cumin to the dressing. Place bottle in a bowl of warm water to liquify it then shake to combine.
    * Decide the suggestion of black olives for the salad (found in obe of the many Carrot Salad recipes you've perused) sounds iffy. Scramble round on the baking shelf until you discover some rather old currants. Pour currants (approx 1/4 cup) into a bowl, cover with dressing and microwave for 30 seconds in the hope they'll plump up. Add to carrots with remainder of the dressing. Mix.
    * Chop up the most undead bits of the bunch of coriander in the fridge(leftover from the Bean Salad on New Year's Day) Toss through the carrots. Serve with couscous.

    Rooruu: I've never really considered that but I have to say we click very very quietly. And since we're knitting on corcs there's no moving round of needles and starting new rows. But, yes, most places we watch movies there's plenty of room to leave space between us and everyone else. I believe the chap eating rustly sweets was making more noise than us :-)

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  4. When is your cookbook being published. I feel there is a niche market not being catered to at the moment.

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  5. It was frugal, fun and involved knitting and good company - all requirements covered. :) Alcohol would have been nice, but Adam's Ale sufficed.

    Rooruu: No one has complained about the noise and we do sit fairly far away. If someone politely objected to the noise we would, of course, put the knitting away. If they rudely objected they would be run through with a handy dpn.

    Any comments we have received have been positive. That being said, I'm always on the look out for plastic or bamboo needles of the right dimensions (4.5mm 40-60cm long - just saying ;) ) because they are almost silent.

    Bells: I'll put the recipe on my blog tonight.

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