Went with Sasha for ramen yesterday, then we spent the whole afternoon at the Free Range Gallery on Wellington St., making zines. I was nervous beforehand cos I’m not much of a scenester and don’t know a lot of people in my city’s arts crowd. I found out about the Perth Zine Collective‘s zine-making event through my friend/ex-housemate Miko, who’s super community-oriented and pretty much the only person I knew, so I ummed and ahhed a bit before deciding to go.

The event was part of Processed!, which is a subset of the Fringe World Festival going on in town at the moment. It’s a 24-hour thinger, spread over 2 days, in a little room full of stuff you can use to make zines. It was so peaceful, no obligation to chat to people, but after about an hour of sitting in the same space as everyone, you can’t help but feel comfortable and used to their presence. Talking, listening, eavesdropping, speaking up – it all felt cool and totally not awkward. A very nice change from an office environment where from the outside, it looks like the same kind of motion, yet any kind of noise or overhearing is like a disturbance.

Best way I can label the afternoon would be as an “introvert party”. I’m glad I went.

I made a zine called “Thoughts That Changed My Life” – you can see it at my portfolio - but the pictures I really want to show you, the part I’m most proud of, is my little sister’s zine. Sash came with me blind, never having seen a zine before, then proceeded to make a beautiful piece of art. Here be pics:

My talented little sister. ^___^ She wants to design t-shirts in her spare time. I’ll keep you posted on her artistic journey.

A nice day. Relaxing and fun, zero pressure. Would totally do again.

I had a nice time at training last night. Unlike usual, my head didn’t run its anxious post-mortem of things I said or did that might be totally stupid. I’m getting comfortable with saying and doing stupid things; I mean silly little things, not like property damage or endangering other people. That’s beyond stupid.

Today was nice too. I bashed out in 3 hours  a flyer design that I thought I’d get stuck on for days. Then played support for a winning team with awesome teamwork in a ranked LoL game.

I have a little desktop and windowsill farm at work, noticed some lettuce seeds I sowed for microgreen experiments have started to peek out their sprouting faces. The capsicum plants in my windowbox are responding to sunlight. Do plants respond to all light or only light that gives them food? Well, I’m hoping it means they’re not being deprived of precious UV by the window tint. They get full blast sun for about 5 hours every day.

Can capsicum thrive indoors? We’ll find out. More to come as things progress.

We were surprised a couple of weeks ago to find four little tomatoes growing on the vine. This is an heirloom variety known as Tigarella, which we picked up at Bunnings last year. I don’t know much about heirloom veggies other than not being able to get them at the supermarket. I feel pretty special eating something not found in a shop. :)

It tastes salty, doesn’t have the sour tang of shop tomatoes. Wonder if it’s the breed or our garden. We’ve treated this plant organically with lots of runoff from the worm cafe. I was worried it wouldn’t have enough room in its little pot (5L, I think?) but looks and tastes like it’s happy.

I learned that tomatoes don’t need to be hand pollinated – just give them lots of fertiliser and it will just happen. Yay!

Gong Xi Fa Cai, everyone!

Today was busy. Wonder if it’s foretelling the new year. I do like getting 2 new years. It’s like the first few weeks of the western new year is just a practice run for the real one. If this weekend is anything to go by, I can look forward to good times with friends, fun projects and more food than I can imagine. ^___^

We woke up early this morning for a mate’s baby shower. I don’t enjoy this sort of thing,but as far as family friendly parties go, this was okay. Nice and relaxed, participation in organised games completely optional, bacon and egg rolls.

Terrarium workshop in the afternoon at Mr Sparrow in Subiaco. The pic for this post is my terrarium – minimal. It’s a “tiny house in a landscape” like on Tiny House Blog. The class was so much fun. I wanted to get to know some of the other terrariers better, but after two days and an early morning of socializing, I’ve used up all my chat.

Will post more pics later. And I have to tell you about this cosy little bar that only just opened up recently. Later.

Chinese New Year is this Sunday. Usually, we have noodles, meat & rice, low hai and sometimes shark’s fin soup. But my family are umming and ahhing this year because of the sad, sad shark video we saw today. Not gory, but – wow – how difficult to watch. Even if you try not to think about how much it suffers, seeing a shark without its fins just looks so wrong. :(

Controversy over shark’s fin soup has been going on for years. Giam Choo Hoo made good points about the public seeing selective imagery of mistreated animals and assuming the industry is lax and corrupt. At least, that was my assumption when I first saw the video.

Shark’s fin soup is delicious – taste and texture – and always served at happy occasions. Growing up eating it as the norm, it’s difficult to associate this meal with cruelty and suffering. And you know, when you learn about industry and practicality, you can pretty much figure it doesn’t make sense to do this kind of thing.

But it still happens. You see evidence of it happening, even with laws and regulations. What can you do?

Earlier today, I thought I would stop eating shark’s fin soup made with real shark’s fin (you can get gelatin-based imitation stuff) until this kind of thing stops. But will it stop? Even with more vigilant patrols, harsher penalties, stricter regulations, you still have to catch the culprits first. And if demand does drop and shark cruelty does stop, would it create a diminished industry with fewer jobs to offer hungry people? Could that be incentive for other bad stuff happening elsewhere?

As a consumer with very little control over how the rest of the world operates, I have no idea how to approach this in a right and meaningful way. I feel anxious that I don’t know what to do, and maybe even a little desperate to pick a side so I’d at least have something fixed to use as a reference. But there’s just so many uncertainties.

Maybe it’s all just Western propaganda. Maybe we Chinese have evil diets and superstitions. Maybe this is the nature of a dominant species. Maybe intelligent sharks are plotting against us and this is all part of the conspiracy. Maybe things just are what they are and all we have are equally correct and justified points of view. Maybe none of these things.

There’s still have half a packet of shark’s fin in the pantry. If all is as we hope, it is a genuine discard of a good fishing industry and okay to eat. If not, throwing it out would only add insult to injury. Many facts, many claims all over the world and the internet – but no way of knowing for sure.

We’ll probably eat what’s left over and not get any more. Forgetting right or wrong for a moment, it’s just hard not to associate it with sad things and maybes. I imagine this may be the unspoken topic at our dinner table. As an individual, perhaps the most meaningful thing I can do for now is consider and appreciate.

Image source: chee.hong

A dinner at Lapa, as we would learn, consists of meat. Lots of meat. Joe told us about this place just before Christmas, selling us on their $49 all you can eat deal. Yeah, you heard me. I was skeptical at first, picturing a Sizzler-esque buffet chamber – or maybe $49 was a special Scoopon offer that applies only to grey lamb and expiry-date mince. Lapa is none of these things.

In a nutshell – Lapa is amazing. Lapa will make you look down your nose at ‘food & wine’ steakhouses and novelty smörgåsbord dining halls. Lapa is… well, this…

In the beginning, there was sausage. Meager on the plate. In our naïveté, we chortled at the sight of it. Little did we know that the menu’s description of an “endless feast” really does mean an endless feast.

Lapa’s endless feast comes in two phases – the first is the twelve course introduction to their wonderful, wonderful meat; second is the choice to order more of any dish on their endless feast menu. Sorry for the blurry picture, I got a bit excited.

As the first phase progresses, waiters bring round skewers and trolleys of meat that they slice or tong onto your plate. They ask you before serving whether you are interested in that particular dish, so you always have the option to refuse, but unless you’re a Lapa veteran or are there for a specific meaty purpose, you wouldn’t feel like refusing. At least not for the first six or seven courses.

Steak at three different levels of cookedness. This one’s a team effort – waiter slices, you tong. In this photo, Joe is tonging while Chips spectates with lust. See that little green coaster off to the side? That’s not a coaster, it’s a sign – green side up if you want more food; other side is red for when you need a break.

Well, in theory. The staff here are really happy to see you eat, and look very proud of you when you accept their food. So, you can flip the sign red side up, but you will cop a ribbing (GET IT?) when the next delicious meal comes out that you very reluctantly try to decline.

Don’t mistake the waiter’s expression for surliness. This is a look of concentration. At the time of this post, all the staff we met were passionate about the food and passionate about giving it to you. When you smile at them, they smile back. They joke, they flirt with the table. It is wonderful and we felt very special. This kind of proactively friendly service transforms the humble all you can eat gorging into even more of a dining experience.

It would have been about round 7 that my food coma started to come on, so memory gets a bit fuzzy. I think this is a piece of beef rib with crackling. Not sure, though. Everything began to look the same at this point. My forehead was radiating with warmth and meatiness. I accepted this bit of pasta-less eggplant lasanha from our vegetarian escort only out of curiosity and needing something to assist with meat digestion.

One of our lady friends has limited space in her pregnant belly, so she ordered a tasting plate à la carte. Lapa doesn’t usually offer the menu option if the table is going for the endless feast, but they very kindly gave us an exception for both mum-to-be and vegetarian. The taster looked awesome, had almost all of the dishes we had in the feast. This would be a very good value meal.

Close up of the yes/no signs.

Lapa interior vista.

And that’s it. No one left hungry, felt sated until the following morning. All went home happy because of the cheerful, friendly staff.

Aaaah, thinking about this place makes me smile. I’m already planning to go again.

It’s beautiful! (Photo by Doug)

But I didn’t water and then it went flat!

We were cressfallen. :(

But then we put a bit of water in and now it’s picked up!

And then we tried eating it and it was gross. Not delicious at all. This was fun, though. More desktop gardening to come soon, I hope. :)

Cress sprouts showing green bits. This stuff does not smell nice at all. Hopefully will smell fresh and tasty when it’s grown up a bit. Sorry the picture’s so blur, I used Camera360 again, which doesn’t seem to handle macro shots very well. Or maybe I’m just not very good at using it.

I meant to post this on Thursday, but must have forgotten to come back to it. There’s also a Day 5 picture that was meant to go up on Friday. Slow me. Here it is:

Hyper growth overnight. I’m stoked these seeds grew under office lighting conditions. If the sprouts are good to eat on Monday, I might look for more cress and chia seeds online for more office desktop garden experiments.

For Christmas, Swee furnished me with a cress postcard garden. As per instructions, I scattered the seeds and wet the paper, and sure enough, SPROUTS! As far as the eye can see. The picture above is day 2. Literally, overnight, young cresslings grow, reaching ever upward to a delicious end.

I played like crap tonight. Two weeks off for Christmas and my football skills have worn down to a nub. Ow, and my callouses have become tender, ow ow ow.

For football – competition in general – I’ve decided I don’t mind losing, so long as the game was good. By good, I mean good sportsmanship, fair play, human concern for teammates and opposing players. Better to lose clean than win dirty. I decided this last year after observing people who behave in all sorts of ways, and myself experimenting with behaving in all sorts of ways.

Sportsmanship far outweighed winning, cos even if my team wins or I play well, I don’t feel good if I’ve been a dick to someone. I guess that’s just me, or maybe I’m getting old and this is the beginning of matronliness. Anyway, I decided this after a frustrating period last year, and plan to use the sports seasons ahead to practise staying positive and focusing on the spirit of the game instead of getting upset about the result or how other people play. Wish me luck!

In other news, our garden is blossoming in lovely little ways. I’ve been repotting many things. Hopefully the end of summer will bring at least one juicy little watermelon, a couple of from-seed bonsai and delicious chillies. The picture above is our chilli plant in bloom with little white flowers. The bees and evil wasps hanging around our garden better do a good job of pollinating this shit.

Anyway, I’m off to eat pizza and play games now. Night night!