A Painting a day...

I am proud to say I did quite a bit of writing last week! I don’t usually have time to because I work full time but I made the most out of the Easter holiday. I started reviewing shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and you can read my reviews of Jennifer Wong’s show and Ronny Chieng’s show on artshub. I’ve also got a review of Liberal Arts pending. For fun (and to keep myself writing), I’m thinking about reviewing the new Justin Timberblake album. It's a very interesting album and I'm still undecided about it. Have you guys listened to it?

I met up with my friend Susie and she told me she’s going to write 1000 words a day. She suggested I do the same with my painting, which I think is an excellent idea. I’ve been feeling a bit down about my painting abilities this week, only because I suck at painting food! Like I mentioned in my previous post, I really want to create an illustrated dessert cookbook and the food I painted just isn't turning out right. I know I just need to keep persevering with it. I spoke with my partner's sister who is an art teacher and she gave me some handy tips so I'm gonna incorporate that into my paintings. Susie suggested I go suss out the NGV for some inspiration, which is a great idea.

I was telling a few people about the dessert cookbook idea and I’ve been told by two people to look at Dawn Tan’s art. I did a browse today and I just love of her work! Her paintings are so fun and colourful with an endearing quality to it. Dawn's art is a great example of how art doesn't always need to look real.

I was also reading a blog post from Pikaland about how there are ways for us to make money so we pay our bills AND do our creative projects. It's just a matter of not wasting your time and doing it. If you're spending your time whining about having no time to 'create' while watching reruns of Big Bang Theory (which was what I was doing last year), then you really need to assess how to use your time more effectively.

Anyway, I felt pretty inspired by those two blogs so I painted a portrait of a goofy Great Dane. I'm very pleased with how it turned out!

Do a lot of work

Last week’s been a really good week for me, creative productivity-wise. I haven't reviewed anything in months so I'm proud to say I've submitted a review for Liberal Arts to arts hub. I’ve avoided writing reviews for performance shows because the turn around is crazy and I work full time, so there’s very little time to write a good review. When DVD reviews were up for grabs, I dived for them. It was hard starting them but once I started to concentrate more, everything flowed really well, which I'm pleased about. Watch out for my review of Liberal Arts soon! 

I've also just locked off the script to my first short film! I revisited it tonight after a 2-month break from it. I've made some changes, which I think makes it stronger. I’ve started contacting a few people who I’ve had in mind for certain roles and hopefully that will get things rolling. I’m still unsure if I should get a producer or not. Some people say yes, some say no. I guess I’ll just have to see how I go. I'll definitely need a production manager though.

A few weeks ago I made some amazing little cupcakes for my friend Al's 30th birthday party and I wanted to write a blog post about the recipes. This is what they look like. I was pretty freaking proud of how they turned out:

Then I had this great idea: Why don't I illustrate the cupcakes instead of taking photos of them? Then it lead to an even bigger idea: I should totes make a dessert cookbook featuring illustrations instead of photos. I started painting food this week and I've realised food is really damn hard to paint in watercolour!

Either you create something washed out like this:

Or you oversimplify to this:

I obviously feel really disappointed that I can't paint food very well. I guess I’m still trying to figure out my “style”. Once I know this, it will dictate how this cookbook will turn out. My problem is I try too hard trying to paint things realistically. I always have to remind myself it’s OK if something doesn’t look real. Somethings are more endearing when they look a little different.

Speaking of food painting, I found Heegyum Kim’s blog yesterday. She illustrates her recipes and the food she eats. It’s absolutely stunning and I’m studying some of her work to see how she does it. She doesn’t fixate of realism, but has fun with the colours and shapes. While I don’t think my painting style is like hers, it’s a great point of reference for me. I haven’t found many food illustrators so if you do know of any, please share in the comments!

I also found this quote from Ira Glass on Heegyum’s blog that I want to share with y’all. I guess it’s a reminder of whatever artform you pursue, it’s all about practicing a lot and learning through doing. I think TV and film have created this idea that if you are gifted, you don’t need to train. This quote by Ira Glass is great because it shows you just how much effort goes into perfecting your chosen art form. Think about our most esteemed athletes and musicians: they do so much training to perfect their talents. It’s a great reminder for those days when I feel dejected because I’m not drawing/writing/painting at the level I want to.

Art Attack!

A few weeks ago, I did a watercolour painting course at CAE. It was great. If anyone is considering taking it up, I strongly recommend doing an introductory course because watercolour painting can be a little technical. I'd strongly recommend the course at CAE. The teachers are great and it's good fun.

Before the course, most of the things I painted were landscapes, and I'm not very good at that. After the course, I had a look at some watercolour artists. Most of them paint landscapes but there are a few like Emil Nolde who also paint portraits and flowers. Nolde's work is very gestural and vibrant, very different to what we associate watercolour with.



Anyway, I've started to paint more animals now. It's much more fun and you can be a bit more detailed with it. I'm not great at it but I'm getting better, I reckon. I would ideally like to paint something more colourful.

Here are some paintings I've done after my painting course:

We played with the paints at CAE, trying to make the paints melt into each other. It looks very cool!

We learned to use salt in our paintings. The salt soaks up the paint, creating a cool effect like stars in the sky or give the effect it's snowing. The effect varies depending on the colour of the paint and how dry/wet it is on paper. For this one, my paint was a bit thicker and dryer so the snowing effect wasn't as obvious.

I was given a cretionist brochure one morning and it had some great images in it. I ended up painting these giraffes. I think it turned out really well. It's not perfecting but it's still kind of cute.

This one was a bit disappointing. I found this really cool photo of an own but I just couldn't do it justice.

I read article about award-winning hens and there was this photo of a stunning white rooster. I had to paint him. Again, I couldn't do it justice. It was also trickier than other animal portraits because he's white and in watercolour painting, you don't have a white paint option – it's whatever colour your paper is.

I painted this guy today. It turned out all right. I'm pretty happy with it although I wish I could paint his skin folds better.

During high school I was really interested in using biro to create the illusion of texture. I decided to play with biro and watercolour. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I might do more of these later.

If anyone has any recommendation of things I can paint, please let me know! And you can follow me on instagram if you wish: instagram.com/chouxchoux

Daiso review: Japanese camembert + cheddar cracker

My friend Nghi has just started blogging about snacks from Asian groceries. Naturally, I got really excited because Asian snacks just taste so good. His reviews are good fun and it reminded me of when I reviewed Daiso candy last year. By chance, I stopped by Daiso to buy a pillbox for my dog and got distracted by the beautiful colours in the Japanese snack and candy section. I decided to buy some of the snacks, rather than the candy because the last time I did that, I just felt really awful from the sugar crash. I don’t get sugar highs so my energy levels just plummet after sugar.

I bought two snacks but for the sake of my waistline, I’ll only review one for now (EVERYTHING IN MODERATION, RIGHT?).

I don’t know what this snack is called but this one caught my eye because it’s a camembert and cheddar flavoured snack. Cheddar is the implied flavour of most cheese-themed snacks so adding camembert to the mix certainly aroused my curiosity. I love my soft cheeses (but nothing goat, please) and was interested to see how they’d make the snack camembert-specific. Cheddar usually overpowers the more nuanced cheeses.

As soon as you open the packet, the strong stench of cheese punches your nose. It’s unpleasant at first but once you’re able to recognise the smell, it mellows. A thick yet airy rice cracker is individually wrapped, dusted with an orange powder. It is crunchy but chewy, so the cracker might not be very fresh. The flavour is excellent: It has the sharpness of cheddar but hints of the musty camembert. Its strong unami flavour works well with the cheese, but part of me wants this snack to be saltier. When I finished one cracker, I wanted another cracker just to sate my salt expectations.

Overall, it’s a very nice snack. However, due to the somewhat stale condition of some of the crackers, I probably wouldn’t buy them again unless I wanted to suck the flavouring off each cracker, which is what I kind of want to do right now.

I have a salt problem.

Dinner at Bistro Guillaume

Last weekend, Liam and I celebrated our four-year anniversary. The past four years have absolutely flown by! In the past we’ve never really celebrated anniversaries, but I wanted to celebrate this year. My friends are always celebrating milestones of their relationships so we decide to have a special dinner. Since Liam has the holy Entertainment book, we decided to take advantage of the 25% off voucher and have dinner at Bistro Guillaume.

If you don’t know, Bistro Guillaume is a French restaurant, owned by chef Guillaume Brahimi. Brahimi owns a bunch of restaurants in Australia, including the very famous Guillaume at Bennelong, which is at the Sydney Opera House. Fans of this year’s Masterchef will remember the contestants had to cook for 60 people at Guillaume at Bennelong, and the multi-talented Kylie was booted off. SO MUCH SAD FACE.

I’ve never had proper French food before so this was very exciting for me. I don’t really know much about French cuisine. I know country style French food is very hearty – think beef burgundy and lamb navarin. In general, I feel french food is very simple and almost rustic in its essence.

We decided to plunge ourselves in French cuisine by ordering an entree of escargot persillade, which is snails cooked in a sauce made of parsley, butter and bread crumbs. They came with crunchy fingers of toasted bread. I think persillade might even be the French version of pesto. Despite my aversions to lamb, offal and pork, eating snails is easy, probably because I eat a lot of seafood and I just associate the texture of snails with mollusks. The waiter presented us with two of these ceramic dishes. For a moment we thought they accidentally gave us two servings of escargot, but we realised that was one serve. The snails were very tender, not at all chewy. The persadille sauce was piping hot and very rich. The parsley almost had a grassy flavour while the bread crumbs gave it some texture. I felt the serving was too big. Liam and I would have been happy to share half the serving.

Liam ordered the barramundi with carrot and ginger puree, coriander butter, topped with “pomme allumettes”, which is meant to be potato batons, but the ones Liam had are much finer and longer. Liam chose this dish because he loves coriander. In fact “love” doesn’t even touch on how into coriander he is. Maybe this image will help. I didn’t try this one but it looked yummy and light and Liam seemed happy with it, even though he thought it could have had more coriander.

I spent all of last week trying to decide what to order. I had my eyes set on the steak frites BUT the roast chicken with paris mash and chicken jus also sounded amazing. After a week of agonising, I settled on the steak and fries. It just sounded too good to pass up. It was a big meal: the steak was charred nicely on the outside and juicy on the inside. The bernaise sauce was buttery with an acidic punch. The fries were fantastic. Liam said they tasted like pringles, which they kind of did! They were delicious. I really liked my dish. I guess the only criticism I have was the steak had some grisly bits.

We also ordered a side of broccolini, to fool ourselves into thinking we are being healthy. The broccolini was bathed in butter and topped with toasted almonds. Yum.

Liam and I also took some nice photos of each other. I look terrible and old; it's like I don't know how to smile. However, Liam looks great! I posted that photo on facebook and he got like a gazillion "likes".

We were really full but we (OK, I) felt obligated to try the desserts. We originally set on ordering just the chocolate delice with coffee sorbet and praline. Then the waiter told us about the specials and I could not pass the opportunity of sampling a giant raspberry macaron with filled with actual raspberries. The chocolate delice was rich and heady with the earthier flavours of coffee and chocolate. Liam adored the sorbet because it tasted like it was made out of espresso. My favourite was the raspberry macaron. The sweet macaron shells were sandwiched with a tart raspberry sorbet, chantilly creme and juicy raspberries. The macaron was delicately laid on top of a pool of berry coulis. The sweet to tart ratio was spot on; it was just bliss.

How beautiful is it?

It was a wonderful evening, made even sweeter with the entertainment book voucher. It set us back $149 altogether, which is pretty good value in my opinion. I’d love to come back to Bistro Guillaume, whenever my wallet permits!

Do you have a favourite French dish?




Bistro Guillaume

Crown Entertainment Complex,
Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria

03 9292 4751

http://bistroguillaumemelbourne.com.au/

Photo Blog: Chicken Pad Krapaw + Thoughts on reviewing

Being a former film student, there are a lot of “classics” I have not seen. This list includes Titanic, ET, Schindler’s List, The Shawshank Redemption and Fight Club. For me, I can’t just sit there and watch film after film; I need to be in the right frame of mind. I tried to watch Anchorman the other day and I just couldn’t get pass the first 5 minutes, even though the film is meant to be hilarious.

I’m currently going through the Alien Quadrilogy. I have Alien Resurrection left to watch. Once that’s done, I’m going to put on my reviewing cap on and review all four films. I’m enjoying them a lot. I thought I’d hate them because I’ve never been that into science fiction. Although, I did enjoy Sunshine, but I don’t know if that’s just me being enamoured by Cillian Murphy.

I sometimes struggle with how much I reveal in my reviews. I read a bit of AV Club and while I enjoy them, I would never read them before watching something I’ve been looking forward to because I find they reveal too much or assume the audience has already seen whatever it is they’re reviewing. This is all fine because they want to generate discussions and interact with their readers. Sometimes to go into a bit more detail, you need to assume the audience you’re writing this review for has seen the film. If it’s merely to express if people should see it then, it really restricts you. When I review shows for artsHub, it’s for creative consumers who read reviews to gauge whether a show is worth going to (a balanced mixture of opinion and light analysis) and I find that kind of review to be quite tricky to write. I guess it’s all about practice.

I’ve never reviewed films before so this is going to be interesting. I mostly review comedy and theatre shows. I think reviewing a film or a TV show takes a lot more time. Some of the “how to” guides I’ve read on film reviewing recommend we watch the films more than once if possible, but I guess that just depends on how deeply we want to go into it.

On a completely different topic, I’m going to post up a recipe. My partner’s brother in law is Thai and ever since Liam and I started dating, I’ve taken on a keener interest in Thai cuisine. It's now my favourite type of food.

Since I’ve got a luscious bunch of basil growing in the backyard, I thought I’d use it today. The problem with growing basil in an Asian household is Asian cooking rarely uses basil. The only Asian cuisine that uses basil (that I know of) is Thai. They use holy basil, which is a bit different to the sweet basil we have here, but holy basil is so hard to find so sweet basil is a good substitute.

The recipe below is for a chicken pad krapaw, which is a chicken stirfry with basil. It’s very easy to make and when made well, it’s absolutely delicious. The one I made today was not as nice as the ones Liam makes, but I think I know where I went wrong with this one so the next I make it, it will be uh-muh-zing. A lot of restaurants offer this dish with random vegetables in it, which I absolutely hate because it’s not meant to have any vegies in it. If you wanted to be healthy and add vegies to it, it should either be some capsicum or string beans, not a medley of carrots and broccoli.

Chicken Pad Krapaw
2-4 serves

Ingredients:

6-8 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped (the more the better)
2 red chillies, thinly sliced (I used dried ones today, which didn’t have enough heat)
1 onion, thinly sliced (I used spring onions today)
2-3 chicken breasts, cubed (I sliced them into strips but cubes soak up flavour better)
1 Tbsp of oyster sauce
2-3 Tbsp of fish sauce
2-3 Tbsp of soy sauce
1 bunch of basil (the more the better)
Steamed rice, to serve

Heat up some oil in a pan or wok. When it’s hot enough, add the onion, garlic and chilli. Fry them until onion has softened and the garlic is starting to crisp. Add the chicken. Stir for a bit and then add oyster sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce. Make sure to coat all the chicken. Have a taste of the sauce and add more oyster/fish/soy sauce if required. You can add a bit of sugar if you want it to be sweeter. Add some water if you think it looks a bit dry. Once the chicken is cooked, turn off the stove and stir in the basil. Voila! You have a delicious stir fry. Serve with some steamed rice.

Like I mentioned before, I used dried chillies instead of fresh ones. I’d recommend fresh chillies as the dry ones aren’t spicy enough. Fresh chillies also add a bit of colour. I also used spring onion instead of onion. I’d recommend you use onion for a bit of texture. I picked a few basil leaves from the backyard, and I wish I used more. Basil is such a fragile herb. It has a subtle yet distinct flavour and it doesn’t keep well. If you add the basil during the cooking process, the basil flavour will disappear. It must be added at the end, and make sure you add lots of it!

What is your favourite cuisine?

Photo blog: red velvet cupcakes + herb garden

Momo chilling out after a haircut and bath.

Today has been a decent day. I went to yum cha with my mum, had a good chat with her about moving out, my career prospects and traveling. I've told her I'm pretty keen to go traveling for six months and just be a bit more independent. I just need some change and do some really pretentious activities like "work on myself". Places I've been thinking about going to include San Fransisco, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, but nothing is definite. I'm not sure if I should go alone or go with people.

I will be house sitting in December, which I am very excited about. My old tutor from uni is going away for the Christmas holidays so I'll be looking after his house. I'm actually just really excited about looking after his cat. He's such a cutie! He's the same breed as the I Has Cheeseburger cat. This will be a good opportunity to taste test the whole "living alone" thing, albeit a bit more comfortably than most "living alone" situations.

My herbs, photosynthesising. They've been doing really well! I made salad with mint and basil from the garden the other day. It was very exciting. The coriander is still quite "young" so I'm waiting for them to bloom a bit more before I start using it.

 I made a batch of red velvet cupcakes today. They turned out all right, although can I just say icing cupcakes takes some serious skill! I would have liked them to be a little redder. I'm thinking next time I make this, I might actually use beetroot juice instead of milk, or do half milk half beetroot juice. I read on wikipedia red velvet cake was sometimes made using beetroot juice, which enhanced its red colour. My vegan friend says vegan chocolate cake sometimes has beetroot juice, which makes it very moist.

I used the recipe from taste.com.au because it didn't require a mixer. I also halved the frosting mixture and used apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar because I didn't have any vinegar at home.

Rustic icing on cupcakes! I think it might be because I didn't beat the cream cheese frosting enough. On a different note, I'm looking forward to the public holiday on Tuesday! I don't have anything planned yet, but just the thought of sleeping in makes me happy.

What plans do you have this week?

Cambodian Wedding Part 2

The second day of the wedding was split in two. The first half of the day was the rest of the traditional Khmer wedding stuff: more blessings from the monks and exchanging of vows. The evening was dedicated to the reception. At most weddings, you hire out a function room for the reception. But when two very wealthy families unite in matrimony, they hire out all the function rooms.

Guys, I’m talking about 4000 people attending the reception.

Yeah.

I was told I had to wear a gown to the reception. I don’t own gowns. All gowns are longer than I am. I stood next to a tall guy the other day and I was the same height as his elbows. HIS ELBOWS. That’s how short I am. I ended up borrowing a dress from Liam’s sister, who bought the dress at some op shop. It was such a plunging neckline I had to wear a boob tube underneath. Paired with my over the top hair and the clashing eyesore of turquoise and lime, I looked pretty awful. But it was OK. I was having fun.Al looked gorgeous in her cobalt gown, which apparently cost her $300!

There were some stunning dresses on display, and sadly I didn’t take any photos. My camera is shocking in low light situations (as you can tell by these atrocious photos). The dresses the younger women were wearing were much more westernised. Think tight-fitting fishtail gowns dotted with sequins and $80K emerald necklaces. Pretty fancy stuff.

The reception was a boisterous yet contained affair. There was lots of dancing, singing, eating and drinking. The lights were so dim I couldn’t take any photos great photos. Some of the food presented that night included a curry, prawn and mango salad, scampi and suckling pig (I should say, a suckling pig at EVERY table) and ABALONE! It was pretty amazing. Al and I made the mistake of stuffing ourselves with the entrees and we could barely finish all courses, which was a shame because all the good food came at the end!

I can't remember what else we did. All I remember was we drank a fuckload of scotch (18 year-old Chivas, actually), and enjoyed good conversation with everyone. I also got to witness some Khmer traditional dance. It is such a contained and orderly dance, very poised and uniform. The dancers softly move their feet to the beat while their fingers delicately arch backwards. It’s fascinating to watch and impossible to mimic.

Later on, when everyone reached a state excessive drunken stupor, some brave young souls jumped on the gigantic stage and belted our some Khmer songs. I am super partial to karaoke so was half keen to sing but also not drunk enough to not care if I was dreadful. One of the groom's friends coaxed me to come on stage with him and we screamed something into the mic along with some of his other friends and the bride and groom. 

All in all a good night. I think by this stage, we were pretty exhausted by all the wedding activities. I can only imagine how exhausted the bride and groom must be. The next night was the last night of the wedding. We were told it was going to be a very chilled out affair at the groom's house so I was looking forward to a chilled out Khmer BBQ of some kind with close friends and families.

Oh, how wrong I was! But I'll talk about it in the next post.