Christmas Aussie Style

Lamingtons and lemonade for santa.  Pink and purple Christmass trees, neon pastels being used more than red and green.  Plum pudding a celebration dish.  “Dreams of plum pudding..and all thru the house…” 
Christmas in Australia is a day of family get together but because it is summer like they go to the beach, have a picnic or bbq.  It is kinda like Thanksgiving and the 4th blended.  As it is during Christmas that they have a big feast and everyone comes together to recconect.

They also have Xmas in July when the weather is coldest and this is called Yulefest.

Oh and they have a great British tradition of Xmas crackers/poppers.

Much of my insight came from the book titled Christmas In Australia by World Book Encyclopedia, Inc. II Series, 1998.

Floral Beauty

Wattle and bottlebrushtrees are just lovely. The wattle is a blooming sunshine of a tree.  It has the brightest yellow flowers adorning it’s branches and the bottlebrush has bright red flowers, that  indeed look just like bottlebrushes.  There is also lots of jasmine which scents the breeze. It is very lovely, I do miss my roses but the jasmine almost makes up for it.

Birds of The Rainbow

The birds here are not little itty bitty song birds, though they do have very colorful and at times soothing bird calls.  The birds here rather call or chatter more than sing.  I here koookawwwww oooohooooooooo not tweet tweet.  It is hard to describe really.  The birds are much larger too, for instance they have gigantic magpies and beautiful green and fuscia parrots that flit from branch to branch like our sparrow.  However, the magpies will occasionally dive at you as they are bold and brave much like this land of  Australia.    The bird unique and common here is the Kookabura.

Timtam vs. The Oreo

Wow, the dang Timtams win.  Timtams are these incredibly over the top decadent cookies that every Aussie knows of,  much like how all Americans know of the Oreo.  They are two chocolate biscuits filled with chocolate creme and then double dipped in chocolate. It is basically chocolate, chocolate, chocolate: in cookie form.

Australia Celebrates Literacy..how very cool!

Australia celebrate’s their children’s advancement in learning by having a week devoted to literacy and numeracy.  I just want to say cheers to that!

I can not get over the use of the word Capsicum

Funny to me is that aussie words are darling but when it comes to vegetables they are rather formal.  For example they use the word capsicum for their bell peppers and couregette for zucchini. I am still trying to figure out what swede is, another one of the vegetable names I see in Australian recipes.  Oh, and my favorite is the word auburgine used for  eggplant, it makes it so elegantly french. 

 Because I am a word lover, I must wonder about the development of the lingo here. Why aubergine in Australia but eggplant in America, we both had English ties to Great Britain, which is why I believe we speak English vs. French or German. 

 I can not help but wonder why we differ so in our names for the common vegatable.  Is Australia more French influenced in it’s cuisine, is corregette used in England and then America adopted the word zucchini? 

 I am not sure, perhaps one day I will discover the answer to this trivial observation.

Sunny on the eyes

Of note: of all the news I have ever seen in my life by far, no joking, Australia has the best looking news casters and weatherpeople.

Whenever I see the women newscasters, I think am I watching a model? She does not look like a serious woman reporting news this is true of the men too.  They always are dressed up to date and actually quite stylish not overly stuffy or conservative.

It certainly makes the news  more fun to watch.

Missus Ozwald can you please pass the vegemite?

New Words:

Docket~receipt
Duni~blanket or comfortor
Pram (short for prambulator)~stroller
Nappie~diaper
Lolly~candy

Favorite Sayings:
“No worries..”
“(Mutton).. dressed up as lamb.”  -Meaning an older woman trying to dress like a young thang’.  It refers to cooking which I assume because mutton, which is old sheep, tastes so strong that when you cook it to be like tender sweet lamb, it never comes out right.
“I’ll give you a ring.”

G’day Mates!

This is a day to day journal of my ponderings and discoveries of the Great Oz…Australia that is. It seems I had so much more to write, but in keeping up with my baby I have not jotted down many of my musings. Which I have had, but now since I am writing, seem to have forgotton.

One thing I enjoy is discovering new food and tastes.   New foods that I have found at the grocery have not been many but they do have this pourable custard in a carton similar to cream. I have not tried it yet but I think it is like a thin pudding that is meant to be served over fruit.  I bet it’s yummy.  Other yummy things I want to try are the different candy bars. They don’t have Hershy’s instead it is Cadbury. One bar in paticular that I am curious about is one called Turkish Delight which is nougat and fruit covered in chocolate, I think it is probably very “delightful” or totally “not for me”.

My to try candy bar list:

1. Turkish Delight
2. Violet Crumble
3. Flake
4. Cherry
5 Slab

I must say as far as dairy is concerned I think that Australia’s dairy, especially there yogurt is far superiour to that of the States. They have more than 15 different brands of yougurt and the flavors are outstanding. Flavors like mango and passionfruit, french vanilla and blueberry etc. etc. The yogurt for those of you who care is very thick, creamy and just darn wholesome.

In general I would say this place really is great! The people are warm and sunny as is the weather.  The attitude is light hearted not overly dark or serious and I luv it! It is for me “quite refreshing”

Well that concludes my recent discoverys, not much I know but I am working on it.  Till tomorrow..

Cheers!