Fancy Cloud Biscuits- Con Stick
March 30, 2012
So I am in the midst of baking for my little lady’s party and I thought rather than banging on about cool local stuff this week I would share some of the party preps.
I actually spend a lot of time baking and making stuff and I plan to make a habit of posting about it more, after all I am a northern beaches local and that is really the only prerequisite to being featured on patchwork….
So without further ado…
1) Anything con-stick is a phrase my partner in crime (love you Betty) and myself coined in Brazil, where everything comes con-stick. These cookie pops as our state-side friends call them, are really cute and yummy.
2) I got the recipe for the sugar cookie dough here, as Sweetapolita claims it is ‘the perfect sugar cookie recipe’ and I am relatively new to the world of cookies I thought I would give it a burl. And they are pretty damn good.
3) To get the cloud shape, roll out your dough a bit thicker than you want your biscuits and cut using a flower shape, then (between two sheets of baking paper) give your thick flower a light roll to turn it into a cloud. If you have a big flower cutter you can just cut the flowers in half and get that flat-bottomed-cloud look.
4) Stick them on sticks and bake following the recipe #2
5) Ice them with royal icing. I like this recipe by Bec Loves Baking as it uses Pavlova Magic powder and it’s an aussie icon… I have to represent. I find it’s best to outline my cloud with the piping bag then put a bit of icing in a cup, add about 10 ml of water and spoon the inside in with a plastic baby spoon.
6) I put cellophane bags on them and made a Cloud-Con-Stick bouquet for Betty when she had her bub and she was pretty excited. In her words, ‘this is an awesome boquet…you can’t eat flowers!’
For the party I will put them in an apothecary jar in the centre of the table. Pictures to come : )
cLick here for more aRticles bY Patchwork Peninsula, Sydney’s number one northern beaches blog….AS VOtEd BY COoL PEOpLE!
The Sugarmill Surf’s Buy-Sell-Trade
March 22, 2012
Four Season’s Pizza Cafe Collaroy
March 18, 2012
There is a new pizza store in town, Four Seasons Pizza Cafe.
Don’t worry, I have made it my business to check it out for you all, it’s a tough gig but someone’s got to do it right?
After the trail of uninspiring cafés that have squatted in the space on Collaroy St next to the YHA Sydney Beachouse backpackers, it is pretty exciting to see one that (hopefully) can last the distance.
“I thought there was some sort of rule where only Thai restaurants were allowed to open in Collaroy,” you say. Well I did too but here we are, proven wrong.
So the lowdown is…
What: Four Seasons Pizza Cafe- not too swanky, not too Dominoes
When: Open 7 Days for dinner and drinks- Saturday and Sunday for breaky and coffee
Who: A young guy called Scott a who abandoned his cycling career in Europe so he could ‘get a real job‘ opened it up with a silent partner
Where: 4 Collaroy St, Collaroy- 99817780
Why: Because the pesto and feta pizza is awesome and they sell alcoholic ginger beer
We like it because it has…
- Friendly service and a cute little garden dining area.
- A choice of a whopping 42 pizzas priced from $12 to $19.
- A decent wine menu, a good bunch or beers and BYO with a $3 per bottle corkage… making it actually worth bringing your own bottle if you want.
- A TV with all Foxtel channels so if you want to watch something random like Ice Hockey when there is cricket on at the pub, it is not a bad place to pull up.
- The pizza’s are baked with low-fat cheese and without oil on the pan and so it’s pretty much just like eating a sandwich (we choose to believe this statement.)
- A great position for people-watching as Collaroy YHA Backpackers are next door and it is open late.
- Pizza that is just as good the next morning for breakfast.
- There is now somewhere to get coffee after 4pm in Collaroy (YEY)
cLick here for more aRticles bY Patchwork Peninsula, Sydney’s number one northern beaches blog….AS VOtEd BY COoL PEOpLE!
Kony 2012
March 9, 2012
I am weighing in on the Kony 2012 conversation, I figure I’m allowed to as the debate has reached the northern beaches, it has reached everywhere and that is why I am so fascinated….
If you aren’t sure what the whole Kony thing is about, watch the above video that was released by Invisible Children on Monday. And if you want a run-down that won’t take you 29 minutes, The Huffington Post has a pretty good story here and Aljazeera has a good article here.
****In the interest of full disclosure, before I go on, I feel the need to let you know I have a major crush on this campaign. It is MASTERY of story telling and the fact that the Invisible Children were able to pull this off in the manner they have is nothing short of awe inspiring. Their website is genius and they deserve props for their yoda-style understanding of new media…. I was moved to tears by their cause and how they communicated it…..enough of that though.
With all the Kony hype, I thought I would share some stuff that I found interesting.
- This morning on the Today Show (March 09, 2012) Karl Stephanovic asked one of the Directors of Invisible Children, Zachary Barrows, a lot of great questions. I admit, I like it when Karl put on his serious-journalist-hat as much as I like his morning-after-the-grammies-hat. He is such a frustrated hard hitter. He addressed some of the big questions circulating.
- On Crikey, Bernard Keane has some interesting points in his article if you can dig through the I’m-much-smarter-than-you-and-you-are-all-sheep-but-I’m-a-fox attitude. Honestly though, I found it frustrating to read. He skirts around suggestions of ulterior motives for the movie, mentioning Uganda’s oil reserves but not following through. He is like that drunk who says “I’m not going to go there,” and then hangs out there all night. He underlines the importance of questioning these things, whilst presuming no one else does. But the bit that I found perplexing is his claims of “unlike the video, the scepticism wasn’t viral”.
This is the main part where I disagree, in my experience the people on my news feed who actually wrote about Kony (as opposed to just clicking ‘share’) were all dismissive of the cause, sceptical of it’s motivations and presumptuous about the intelligence of the people who had ‘shared’ the video. Just like Keane, they suggested no one had bothered to do any ‘independent research’.
The question that I have is; within the three hours post-video, how much ‘independent research’ was actually possible?
What is done with your donated money?
Sceptical Facebook users are pointing out that only 31 per cent of donations are going to the cause. From what I understand 31 per cent of the money is used on the ground to build schools, infrastructure and provide an “early warning system” and the rest of the money funds filmmaking and the awareness campaign.
The Aljazeera article, here, has a good break down.
“The group has been accused of spending much of the money it raises from donors on staff renumeration and filmmaking, and Navigator, a US watchdog charity, has previously given it two out of four stars for financial transparency and accountability….
In a blog responding to criticism, Invisible Children said…it had spent 80.46 per cent of its funds on programmes furthering its mission. It said its two-star accountability rating was due to the fact it had only four independent voting members on its board of directors, rather than the required five. It said it would add an additional member by 2013. ”Invisible Children’s financial statements are online for everyone to see,” the statement said.”
Invisible Children, in fairness, describes themselves as, “using film, creativity and social action to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Kony’s rebel war.”
Are your Facebook friends suggesting you are naieve for supporting Kony 2012?
Another main argument against the Kony 2012 doco is: the-masses-are-being-manipulated and it is propaganda. Any piece of media that has an agenda is propaganda of some kind. The doco is beautifully made, narrated by a blonde child, shows images of horrible abuse and young people uniting against it. It is a mastery of visual storytelling, created to tug the heart strings and go viral….and it worked. Is this a reason to dismiss its’ message?
I don’t know about you but all I wanted was a cold, glass bottle of Coke after watching The Help but it didn’t stop me from supporting the movie’s success the Oscar’s.
Does simplifying the issue remove credibility?
And if there was a movie like this, you could bet your curly-whirly it wouldn’t go viral ….and, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?
I wont be surprised if this phenomenon turns out to be more than meets the eye, or if more dirt is dug up to tarnish the reputations of Invisible Children members. Or if somehow it is used by the American government to push their own agenda. But I am in awe of their skills to spread the message and the simplicity of putting a little face to the existence of child soldiers. Bringing the world’s eyes to the issue of child soldiers in Africa is a worthy cause…. It is important to both pay attention to, and question this campaign….
oh, and I wouldn’t bother with the wrist bands and posters, this shit is already everywhere.
Palm Beach Markets
March 3, 2012
Where: Governor Phillip Park, Palm Beach
When: 9am to 3pm on the 4th Sundays of Feb, March, April, May, September, October and the 2nd Sunday of December.
Why: Let me outline my experience for you.
- Picked up coasty friends from the ferry, got to markets, ate banana and maple syrup Dutch pancakes, drank coffee, bought a cowboy bib from the Chick Pea’s stall ($12.50)… Read the rest of this entry »
Patchwork Peninsula is back….
February 28, 2012
Hi, how are you, I missed you. Did you miss me?
I will take that as a yes. So I have had a pretty epic blog silence, but I have a really good reason. One awesome, hilarious, funny, time consuming reason, check her out;
So now the plan is to start blogging again… Look out peninsula, here I come. So many new restaurants, stores, events, issues…so little time.
Drop me a line if you have anything awesome going on between Palmy and Manly that you think Patchwork may be interested in.
Here is my new Facebook Page; please like me, I don’t want to eat worms.
E-mail us @
patchworkpeninsula@yahoo.com
Follow us @
www.twitter.com/patchworkbeach
or send us presents @
Po Box 1410
Deewhy 2099
Ahhh, it feels good to be back.
Hurley Australian Open Of Surfing Crashes Over Manly
February 28, 2012
*Awesome photo by Rod Owen
So you have either been hanging out under a rock or you have noticed that a travelling circus of awsomness stopped by Manly recently.
It really was a spectacle, a giant skate bowl, heaps of tents full of great stuff, pretty people all over the shop, epic bands and of course…the best surfers in the entire world. It was good to see the Northern Beaches hosting such a huge event.
Our local girl Laura Enever almost went all the way but we love her no less, she bowed to one of the most amazing talents female surfing has ever seen, and she went down fighting.
One of my fave pieces of footage from the whole event is this awesome little guy, Keegan Palmer, absoloutly ripping it up. I particularly like his casual attitude to the whole thing. In my experience eight year olds are usually pretty excitable.
My favourite moment of the event: watching The Living End, dancing on the beach with my little lady and eating the last chicken cheese and jalapino casadia from the Mexicano tent.
What was yours?
New Legislation For Eroding beach
June 16, 2010
*Original Picture by ROS CANNON, gussied up by Patchwork Peninsula
Today the Manly Daily published an article about new legislation that allows beachfront land owners to take privately funded action to protect their houses from erosion. You only have to take a walk from Collaroy to Narrabeen after some big swells to find huge sand cliffs and realise that this is a real problem.
This legislation is beneficial for the average [non waterfront] residents as; if the waterfront landowners are being looked after now, before it becomes a problem, at no cost to the tax payer…then it hopefully won’t become our problem. The reality is; if houses and gardens start crumbling into the waves, these rich and powerful beachside dwellers will make it our problem. You know, friends in high places and all that jazz.
The concerning issue here is really the possibility of structures that could ruin the beach for the average bear…check out the Manly Daily’s take on the whole thing. Read the rest of this entry »
Plastic Photography= Dreamy Winter Shots
June 16, 2010
Local northern beaches photographer Tim Hixson took some time to chat to me about plastic cameras so grab a cuppa, sit down and get ready to fall in love……..
In search of an analogue oasis in this digital desert? Ready for a new low tech cult following? Plastic photography may just be that slice of retro you have been longing for. Like most things trendy and alternative these cameras were once a throw away item but alongside Pez dispensers and Converse, plastic cams have slowly climbed the cool ladder. Reminding us that all you really need to take a photograph is light. Read the rest of this entry »
Patchonnaire: Benconservato Illustrations
June 9, 2010
Warning : this seriously cute art may encourage you grown-ups to find your inner monster.
Benconservato is the alias of Emma Kidd an artist/ illustrator/ lomo photographer who has travelled and lived in both Europe and a land full of mythical animals. Her heart is somewhere between the two, her desk is on the Northern Beaches.
When she is not creating goodies for her stall on Etsy she is most likely blogging .
If you want to check out her stuff in a bricks and mortar store, Pulp Creative Paper in Balgowlah and Pulp Life in Manly both stock her wares. She was sweet enough to chat with Patchwork about 4am drawing sessions and plastic bags.
“I am an artist and illustrator type that has fallen in to the land of imaginary creatures and monsters. I have always been doing something creative for as long as I remember, be it photography, printmaking or doing what I mainly do now.
I love/hate what I do because….
I love what I do because it gives me freedom. Although there are chains that bind you to it. It is addictive. It wakes you at 4am and insists you get up to bring it into being. Hate is there also, but it is too strong a word to use perhaps.
My ultimate weekend would entail….
My weekends fall during the week (as I work in hospitality too) I’m not too good with “time off”. I need to be taken away or I just work. Read the rest of this entry »
