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Babylon Burning

My Mountain Goats love is well known and they are probably the band that I promote the most to my friends and randoms in the street. The Mountain Goats are my 24hr a day band, a song for every mood.

I was reading Aquarium Drunkard the other day and saw this post – Under the Covers – Babylon Burning, my heart started to thump faster as I read the post and then when I clicked on the links and listened to the music, I had chills running down my back like I have never had before from a song and it was not just from the title track but the other 3 songs from the session as well. Talk about raw JD!

These four songs were recorded in a Daytrotter session at SWSX and the description of the session just makes me smile.

He performed most of the set sitting cross-legged on the cement floor of the Big Orange studio. Daytrotter

It is very well worth heading over to Daytrotter to read JD’s track notes as well as get/listen to the other three songs and to look at the super cute artwork of JD

Here is Babylon Burning, originally by Peter Tosh(he died on my 2nd birthday). I have had this song running through my head non-stop for the last 24hrs.
[audio:The Mountain Goats – Babylon Burning.mp3]

Note – this is an automated posting. Helen is out bush until July 2ish.

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Abstract Colours

Abstract Studies in Green

Taken at night in my room, a thick plastic bag over my computer screen, a polariser filter on my camera and cross-polarisation goodness occurs. I want to play with this idea further as I love the lines and colour graduations I have captured.

Note – this is an automated posting. Helen is out bush until July 2ish.

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Mackay Highlands Great Walk

So goodbye for a while I’m off to explore
Every boundary and every door
Yeah I’m going north.
– Missy Higgins

[audio:Missy Higgins – Going North.mp3]

Tomorrow morning as the sun peeps over the horizon, Mum and I will be going north to do the Mackay Highlands Great Walk, 57km over four days with two of Mum’s friends. We have been wanting to do this walk for over a year now but due to a number of things we have had to keep putting it off.

I am really looking forward to exploring some new country, with my camera of course :D. Though I am only taking a very minimal kit with me which will be the following. Camera, 70-200mm f/4, 50mm f/1.8, extension tubes, ef-s 18-55mm, tripod, a polariser filter and a cable release.

Now I am off to pack up as there will be no time in the morning as our destination tomorrow night is Rocky and then onto the Mackay region the following day. We should be back July 3 so until then remember to smile 😀

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damm my brother

Now, my brother currently lives in Iceland (actually four of my five brothers live in Iceland but I am referring to the first born son of my mother), the brother who has probably shaped my musical tastes more than anyone else. My brother gets to go and see all those cool Icelandic bands that I only get to listen to on myspace or on the CDs I get sent for Christmas.

What trigged this post you ask?
Karl, the aforementioned brother has just posted his photos and write up from the music festival that he went to over the Easter weekend. We both spent the Easter long weekend at music festivals which were on opposite ends of the festival spectrum. I went to the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival, Karl went to Aldrei fór ég suðuror I never went South. A music festival in Ísafjörður, which is the town where Karl was born and the largest town in the Westfjords with a population of about 2750. The festival is 110% free, the bands play for free, the events are free with the town pitching in to make it happen, all ages and true all ages in that the crowd ranged from babies to oldies. Best of all, it seems most of it happened in a fish shed, embracing the true roots of the Westfjords.

I was happily clicking the next button looking at all Karl’s photos and I came across this photo of Lay Low at which I jumped in my chair and made some noise along the lines of argrh as to the fact that I want to see Lay Low live dammit! I have been thinking about throwing it all in and going to Iceland Airwaves this year though I don’t think that will be on the cards till I have actually got a real job. Or figuring out a way to get Lay Low and some other cool Iceland bands to come to Aus and do a tour. That would perhaps be even cooler.

What is the point of this post?
Just me been envious of what my dear brother is getting up to in Iceland of course and making those envious feelings public, nothing more than that. Also admiring just how cool his photos from Aldrei are.

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Chocolate Mascarpone Tart

It was my turn to cook dinner last night and since we did not have a dessert on Sunday like we normally do I decided why not have one on Tuesday night. My plan was to make the Strawberry Mascarpone tart that I have made in the past but when I was looking at the recipe leaflet that came with the Mascarpone, the Chocolate Dessert was calling me. I quickly looked in the pantry to see what chocolate we had and sure enough we had a block of Cadbury Dark Cooking Chocolate. phew.

One thing I dislike about making dinner is that there is never any natural light around to take photos of what I make 🙁 and without photos I am reluctant to blog about what I made. I guess I should practice more with my flash and my DIY light tent which is what I use to take most of my food photos with during the day. Dinner last night was tagliatelle served on a bed of roast sweet potatoes slices seasoned with basil and topped with sautéed leeks, mushrooms and spinach topped with a rasher of double cooked bacon. It was rather nice 😀

Canon EOS 35OD w/ 50mm f/1.8 | f/5 | iso 200 | 1/160
Canon EOS 35OD w/ 50mm f/1.8 w/ 12mm extension tube | f/5 | iso 200 | 1/60 Canon EOS 35OD w/ 50mm f/1.8 | f/6.3 | iso 200 | 1/80

Chocolate Mascarpone Tart
This filling recipe comes from the leaflet inside Wattle Valley Mascarpone. This makes plenty of chocolate cream. To fill one 8″ pie crust you only need probably between 1/3 to 1/2 of what the recipe makes.

Filling
250g Chocolate
250g whipped cream
250g mascarpone
2 egg whites, whipped.

Tart Shell
One fully cooked 8-9″ sweet pastry shell. I used a Dorie Greenspan recipe for Sweet Tart Dough from Smitten Kitchen. I highly recommend this recipe it makes a delightful pastry shell.

Melt the chocolate and stir in the remaining ingredients. I whipped it after this to add some more air to the mixture and that worked out quite well. Fill a tart shell with the filling and transfer to the fridge to chill for an hour or so. If you don’t want use it to fill a tart you could fill small ramekins with the mixture and chill them.

Serve with whipped cream and strawberries or whatever berry takes your fancy.

Variation idea, I was just thinking that this could be quite nice with small chocolate chips or or perhaps coffee mixed through the filling.