Delicious Dips

So I just established my first business.... Hooray! Now all I need is my first customer. As could be assumed from the title of this blog its me making and delivering dips to all of my wonderful friends throughout Sydney. Since its a shitty rainy winter day this is not exactly dip weather however I hope that once it starts to get sunny again I will get lots of loyal customers demanding my dips. Here is a quick list of available dips:

• Hommus
• Beetroot Hommus
• Pumpkin Hommus
• Besto Pesto
• Spinach and Sheep Cheese
• Basil, Chilli and Fetta
• Thai Style Pesto
• Roasted Garlic
• Fresh Salsa
• Super Spicy Salsa
• Babaganoush
• Roasted Capsicum
• Bean Supreme
• Guacamole
• Tzatziki

 Hopefully that is a sufficient list to get the party people excited. I really just needed to take that big first step of creating the facebook group and then let the orders roll in. Anyways thats enough outta me...

Word.

Mushrooms to save the world...

I was reading about fungi the other day and how they are absolutely incredible at breaking down all kinds of waste. The context for it was how certain fungi are able to help absorb and process oil from spills, such as the more recent horrible Gulf Coast disaster. There is a sweet video of the dude who has been studying fungi for like 30 years doing a TED talk his name is Paul Stamets: www.ted.com or http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/can-mushrooms-save-the-planet?utm_source=wkly20100820&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleVideo

Totally awesome.

Living without plastic

So today is the beginning of my journey without plastic. Well I should clarify, I am not disposing of all the plastic in my life, I have decided that I am no longer going to purchase anything that is wrapped or contained in plastic. This is may be quite challenging and fortunately it won't exclude beer and wine! However there are a few food items which I rather enjoy that are confined within a polyethylene cage. Tofu is going to be the single most challenging item to overcome. I am yet to find a brand of tofu which is available in an alternative packaging. Therefore my only option is to make tofu myself. This is a task I have been wanting to perform for a while and believe it is within my abilities to achieve. Now not using plastic bags has never really been an issue for me as I ride my bike everywhere and consequently always have a backpack with me ready to be filled with whatever items require bagging. That leads me to my next thought of loose items like grapes, which are measured by weight. I guess I will simply have to reuse some of the plastic bags my housemates have collected or conversely use paper bags designed for mushrooms of which I already have a few. So far I think this journey should be relatively easy. Fortunately I have access to a couple of food co-ops where I can buy in bulk using my own containers. So off I go on my plastic free adventure. Wish me luck and feel free to leave comments and helpful suggestions.

Travelling to infinity

I do enjoy coming up with random titles for my blogs. Finished exams, planning trip. That's the plan for the next week. Selling objects, hanging with Mr Ryan. Going to New Orleans again which will be cool. The initial time wasting part is out of the way. I know my way around and the cool places to go. It's going to be really hot when we are there. Summer time in the deep south. Thick air not very pleasant. Sweating profusely. Many beverages will need to be consumed. Hats worn to protect from the scorching sun. Shopping. Drinking. Mississippi Cruise maybe...? The Bahamas is still up in the air but getting closer to reality with RAR on the case. She's a bit good at the organizing side of things. I am good at the time wasting. Finding deals. It's debatable whether this is a strong suite of mine. Shit, I have to do a lot. Listening to Daft Punk Alive 2007. Pretty damn cool. Around the world. We have achieved this. Though no Asia. Russia is not one of my goals. Scandinavia I could do. Now I have some buddies from Denmark. Copenhagen is apparently the shit. Looking forward to seeing the US but not the heat. Its an easy thing to forget about. Lemon iced tea is also the shit.

Pointless

Ok so starting a blog when you have nothing to talk about is never a good idea, particularly for me who has trouble staying on point anyway. The topic of this blog will evolve as I write. At the moment I am reading a NY Times article about the "art" of microwaving. Fascinating stuff if you own a microwave which we presently do after not owning one for a few years. During our time of not owning a microwave you learn to cope without them. Even if you have come from a household which used one almost religiously. Pots and pans become your best friends. Now I am quite the foodie I love to cook well fry mostly. Pizza is one of my specialties.

Random Pizza recipe:
The base that I have come to love using due to its amazing convenience are pita breads. These tasty flat breads are ideal for a tasty vege pizza. Smear whatever pasta sauce or tomato paste you have around all over it. Add some oregano and salt and pepper to this for extra flavour. Fry about 10 thin slices (5mm) of eggplant in olive oil until they are a bit brown and look good. Apply these to the base. Then dice mushrooms and whatever anti-pasto bits are around like olives, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes etc all of these are delicious and awesome! If you have fresh herbs add these like basil or coriander even. Grate some cheese my particular favourite is a cheese made by Nimbin Natural which is a vegetarian cheese and totally great for everything. Add a bit of grated parmesan to this then sprinkle some pepper or a random compatible spice on top and pop it into the oven at 200 degrees celcius for about 12 minutes. There you go tasty goodness...

Mmmm so hungry right now but I am going to go play floorball and then have tasty indian food! Woo catch you next time kids...

Green Living?

It may seem crazy but would it be possible to harness the energy from ourselves? Every movement we make creates energy, typing is just one example imagine if you were able to power your computer based on the pressure you applied to your keyboard. I was reading last week that a company is looking to harvest the energy created by rain droplets falling on rooftops through peizoelectricity or something like that. Wouldn't it therefore be possible to capture the energy of my fingers as I am sure they apply far more pressure than a raindrop would.

So I started this blog to talk about being sustainable but now all I can think about is all the wasted energy that is produced by people being alive. When you think about it thats all we are is energy. I once read somewhere that there is only a set amount of energy on Earth and that is just constantly changing form and never actually disappears. So where does all this energy go? It seems that this is what the focus of this blog is becoming, a random thought process attempting to understand the world around me. I have always been a questioner is that the right word...? Curious really. Curious about how things work and what happens to them. I think its crazy if we don't question what happens around us.

Energy right that was the topic. So lets create a hypothetical situation and really try to understand how much energy is contained within the earth. Is this a crazy thing to do? Maybe it is but then again maybe not. I have a rock and its filled with minerals. I take the rock and using heat from trees that I have cut down and then I need something to heat the rock in that also won't burn so how do I get this. What is the extraction process for obtaining precious and useful metals? Hmmm time to stop this blog and start another.

"F*cking Idiot!"

Ok greetings all, this is my first legitimate blog. Woo and Hurrah!!! Consequently I am establishing my blogging career with a little story about what happened on my morning cycle commute.

Due to another punctured tire on my bike (which did not get fixed over the weekend), I was not riding my bike this morning. This is not unusual for me as I have experienced multiple flat tires recently and consequently ridden four different bikes to work over the last couple of weeks. So this morning I was riding Rachel's (my girlfriend/life partner/soul mate) bicycle.

After a brief sojurn to the petrol station to inflate the tires I was merrily riding along until caught at the traffic lights at the intersection of George and Cleveland streets in Redfern. As they usually do the lights changed and the accumulated pedestrians and cyclists all dutifully crossed Cleveland Street through to Prince Alfred Park. Now I was not the first cyclist off the blocks there was a woman who propelled herself very quickly across the road, however I was not far behind.

As I arrived on the footpath there was a large bearded man walking with headphones on who was not looking where he was going. I saw the man and assumed I would have enough time to ride in front of him and that he would notice me as I was unable to stop due to another cyclist being right behind me as well as several pedestrians.

At this point I fgured I only had 2 options: either predict his movements by assuming that he would be aware of my wheeled presence and possibly slow his gait so I could pass in front of him or stop suddenly and potentially have the cyclist and pedestrians behind me crash.

So I took the usual cyclist option and plowed on ahead and alas my assumptions were wrong and the bearded man was totally unaware of my presence. I was able to dash in front of him without hitting him, however I seemingly interrupted his zombie like trudge to wherever he was going and caused him to menacingly yell "F*cking Idiot!" at me.

Now my initial response to this was to turn around a laugh at him which I am sure antagonised him further, however then I began to ponder several things at once. Firstly about the man and his grumpy demenour, wondering whether he was had a: bad morning; bad weekend; bad year etc; or whether he was generally a mean spirited grumpy ass mutha f*cka!

Then I pondered whether it was me being a cyclist that pissed pedestrians off in general. Is it jealousy because we have wheels and can get to places faster? Or because sometimes we are forced to cut pedestrians off and seemingly jump out in front of them. I try to be a good cyclist and not piss pedestrians off when I am forced to ride on the footpath due to an overall lack of cycling infrastructure.

My finally thoughts until I started writing this blog was whether it was Rachel's bike that was cursed. Do people respond differently to cyclists depending on the type of bike they are riding, much the same as people do with different cars? I know on my bike I only occasionally get yelled at by cars &/or pedestrians. Yet Rachel tells me she gets abused quite regularly, so I guess the logical step is to start collecting data on cyclists and the types of bikes they ride and the level of abuse received. So whoever reads this I would appreciate your comments as I begin my journey to find out whether various styles of bikes receive more abuse than others.