Happy Birthday Timothy

It was my cousin's birthday yesterday. He lives 10,000km away so I sent him this in lieu of a physical gift.

Christopher's Carrot & Sweet Potato Soup

I like to get a bit creative in the kitchen, and this is a little recipe I came up with a few years ago. I liked it so much I wrote it down. The spices give it a bit of a curry feel, but there is no chilli in it so it's safe for the capsaicin-shy!

Since it's around 40°C all week this week I won't be cooking any soup, but next time I cook this recipe I'll add a pretty picture!

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp butter or olive oil
• 10+ medium sized carrots (or equivalent), peeled and chopped
• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 large onions, peeled and diced
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped

• 1 tsp black mustard seeds, bruised in a pestle and mortar
• 1 tsp grated nutmeg (straight from a whole nut is good)
• a little turmeric
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary, ground or chopped (or substitute dried)
• 1 sprig fresh sage, ground or chopped (or substitute dried)
  
• 4-5 stalks garlic chives, chopped
• salt and cracked pepper
• milk, hot water

Method

1. In a large saucepan, sauté onion with the cummin until the onion is translucent.
   
2. Add carrot, garlic and sweet potato and sauté briefly.
   
3. Add water to cover the vegetables (you can save time by boiling it in the kettle while sautéing the vegetables).
   
4. Add the remaining spices to taste (excluding the herbs)
   
5. Simmer until the vegetables are soft, add the herbs when they are almost done.
   
6. Blend the soup with a barmix - leave a few chunks if you like.
7. Add a little milk, serve and garnish with parsley or fresh coriander!
   

Server 5-6.

Bon appétit!

Sweet Australia

I'm back after a long, busy weekend. It started with painting my lounge room ceiling on Friday night (thanks for the help Alex and Jess!). Saturday and Sunday afternoon were largely spent driving around looking at possible sites for our wedding ceremony (with a bit of Tour Down Under in between!). Fortunately our journey took us past The Olive Grove in McLaren Vale so we could pick up three more jars of what are arguably the tastiest Kalamata Olives in the world!

Yesterday was a day at the cricket at Adelaide Oval - is there a more Australian way to spend Australia Day? I managed to spend most of the day in the sun without getting burnt! Hooray for sombreros! I also managed to get my sister's line of towels on TV! I think I did, anyway - it was on the big screen at the oval...

A good day in all, if you discount the outcome of the game!

Enough talk, here is my creative thing for today: a web site I did a few years ago for Procontrol Systems, when I was working as The Filament Factory. Enjoy!

Beans, beans

This one was for a tee-shirt design competition. :)

Sydeney

It appears I may have missed a few days. The excuse reason being, I am currently busy working on a couple of projects, namely a web site and a short promo video for a Fringe show. I will post them when they are done!

I guess it is about time I introduced myself properly to the web, just in case anyone is reading and wants to know:

My name is Christopher Mardell. In case you hadn't picked that up yet!

I'm a creative all-rounder but my main fields of study were Screen Studies (including a major video/film production element) and Animation, along with a bit of drama and creative writing. I also reached grade 7 on the Saxomophone, and play a bit of piano as well, and if you hadn't noticed from my previous posts, I enjoy graphic design and painting as well! I'm trying to collect the whole set, so if I'm missing anything important, let me know. Oh, yes. Photography. Really enjoy photography. There should be some photos posted on here in the next little while. In fact, here is one now!

I took this photo the morning after I proposed to my fiancee, Amanda, at our hotel in Sydney. The bridge in the background is the Sydney Harbor Bridge, in case you didn't recognise it. I chose this as my first photo post not for its technical excellence (of which it has none) but for three other reasons:

1. I'm introducing myself, and this is me, albeit an unrecognisable rendition of me. Although my mother would probably know that face any day.
2. It puts me in a context: Australia. Sydney, despite popular opinion outside Australia (and perhaps in Sydney itself) is not the capital city of Australia. Nor is Adelaide, which is approximately where I live.
3. I like it. In spite of its poor focus, crooked framing, and so-so lighting, I think it works. Tell me if you agree or think otherwise! (I'm hanging out for some comments here!)

Just for fun, here's another one. Just in front of the third 'sail' from the left on the Opera House is where I proposed*:

Sydney Harbor, early morning in September.

It is now latish evening in Adelaide (for a school night**), and time for me to call it a night.

*I'll tell the full story with pictures one day - hold me to it!

**Although I have not been to school for years...

Cocktail party

I threw this one together for a friend's cocktail party a couple of years ago (I have removed the contact details to make it look like an invite note pad). This one reminds me of an little pastel-coloured invitation pad I had when I was little, except it was in the shape of cupcakes.

I guess I probably didn't like cocktails when I was five.

Autumn Leaves

Flowers on black

I think this one needs a poem in the corner - a haiku or something.

I'll sleep on it.

3sushi

Acrylic on canvas.

Possibly the first canvas painting I ever did.

Pristine beach

Forlorn

This is not a picture of how I am feeling at the moment.

Freshly squeezed

This poster was my submission for the Adelaide Fringe 2009 poster competition.

I was planning to finish the poster on the Thursday night, and submit it on Friday afternoon in my lunch break. Then, on Thursday afternoon, I found out the entries were due THAT DAY, not the next day, so I had about 3 hours in which to catch a train home, finish it off, drive halfway across town, get it printed and deliver it — instead of a whole evening plus a lunch break. It wasn't quite as finished as I'd planned, but considering my suddenly-shortened deadline I was pretty happy with the result!

What I found interesting is how similar my background colour was to the winning entry!

The Letterbox (a short story)

It was not a pretty letterbox. Simple, green, painted Zincalume® — slightly dented. The number, 29A, was hand-painted, and poorly at that. There was a padlock, but the latch was missing so it wasn't actually locked shut. And the whole thing was not actually held in place; it sat loosely in a hole in the ground, propped up against two additional supports, like tomato plant stakes, from which it had long since broken free.

When I first moved into the house, our wonderful renovator's-delight, I figured I might replace the letterbox — send it off to scrap metal, freecycle it or chuck it in the wheelie bin, and upgrade to a newer, better model. Harder, better, faster, stronger. Not a brick-and-mortar bomb-shelter of a box (that would be stronger than my fibro-cement house), but something a bit stylish and funky. And new. That was the plan, anyway.

Then, late one night, around the end of the school year, just before Christmas, when parties were raging and the summer nights were balmy (although we'll say this particular night was dark and stormy), a handful of drunken youths rumbled past our house and knocked over the sorry letterbox, clean out of the ground. Being half-asleep and lacking any weapon more intimidating than a sponge mop, I opted not to chase them down the street in my boxer shorts, but quickly restored the letter box to its former glory, propped up against its secondary support posts.

The next day, it was knocked over again, though I didn't notice until after the fact, and again a day or two later. Suddenly the letterbox was no longer a thing to be replaced. It was a part of my home, and was to be defended. Each time I found it lying pathetically on its side, I would quickly prop it up again, and try to wedge it in place. Rather than fixing it securely straight away, I devised a plan to capture the culprits on video and expose their heinous crime; to teach them a lesson they'd never forget: Don't touch my letterbox. I downloaded some (free) motion-detecting video-recording software and worked out where I could position my video camera, peering through a hole in the venetian blinds like a film-noir detective. All I needed was the shadow of a slowly-spinning ceiling fan for dramatic effect, and my trusty tripod.

But where was my tripod? After weeks of gradually painting, ripping up carpet and unpacking boxes, my tripod had not yet surfaced. By the time it reappeared, the letterbox had not been touched in days. Perhaps my quick and relentless re-propping had deterred the vandal, who could clearly see that their destructive blows were in vain and my steely resolve was insoluble. I never even got around to trying the motion-detection software.

A couple of weeks later, I was painting the living area with my parents, who had come around to help for the afternoon, when I heard what sounded like a door slamming. A quick wander through the house revealed no wind-slammed doors, so I dismissed the noise — until later that day, when my dad queried why the letterbox was lying on its side. The wind may have been suggested as an explanation, but, wind or angsty teenager, enough was enough.

$6.40 later, I now have a bag of quick-set concrete. Our letterbox will be cemented in the ground, and in history, because no-one will take it down again. I may even put some concrete in the box so if anyone even tries to mess with my letterbox, they will get more than they bargained for.

It may not be pretty, but it's my letterbox - OUR letterbox - and I WILL DEFEND IT!

I might even give it a paint job and a new latch, once the kitchen is done.

A creation a day

Hello world!

OK, now that the basics are covered, I need a mission statement; a statement of purpose. Here it is:

"I will add something I have created every day, and add it to this blog.

If I miss a day, I must catch it up.

It can be anything creative: a drawing, a painting, a recipe, an essay, a story, a photo. As long as it is something.

Past creations and entries can be replaced or added again if they are improved.

Philosophical, scientific, ideological or religious discussion is allowed, but does not count as the created thing unless it is an essay."

Today's creation is this blog.

Welcome to my little experiment.

-Christopher