I posted before on Port Lonsdale pier here. I have a lightweight version of Photoshop (Essentials) and wasn’t able to export the RAW to jpg again. That first time was kind of an accident! Now I have a bit of software available from Sony for my camera that allows me to open a RAW file, fiddle a bit, and export to jpg. Well, I still don’t have a lot of control, but I kind of like these anyway.
On this one I specified a gray point, whatever that means, but I shifted the color a bit. Took out some blues.
This one is a different angle on the pier. I warmed it slightly. Then I applied a “creative effect” called landscape. Then I quickly typed here what I was doing so I wouldn’t forget. Then I adjusted something called a D-range Optimizer where I added +17 to the Amount of highlighting. (Shrugs.) Then I lowered the highlighting a lot and raised the shadows a little, managing to reduce some of the white foam in the waves. Well, then I switched from landscape to nightview in the Creative Style, applied some noise reduction and voila.
Then again, here’s the original:
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We went to an off-the-beaten-track spot for these photos of the famous Barwon Heads. Leanne Cole, our fabulous hostess, friend, and fellow blogger, came to a stop at an intersection in two roads that seemed like they were in the middle of nowhere. “Hmmm,” she said, looking down to the left where the new road dead-ended. “I wonder what’s down there?”
Well it wasn’t long before we were turning left, parking, and exploring.
First we came to this sign:
The life of the Barwon begins in the Otway mountain ranges, where raindrops drip from eucalypts and giant tree ferns, into small, trickling creeks. These creeks wind their way through forests, farms and towns, combining to form one of this region’s most important rivers. The Barwon River is truly a river of life — it provides water to the people of Geelong, a home to many native wetland plant and animals and a relaxed lifestyle to all of us who spend time enjoying its beauty. A meeting of two waters. Here at Barwon Heads, the life of the river merges with the life of the sea. This natural meeting place teems with marine and freshwater animals, providing food for the abundant wildlife to be found in the Barwon’s mudflats, mangrove forests and rocky shores. Like the river, the Barwon’s short-finned eels have a long journey of their own. These eels breed in Queensland’s Coral Sea and swim thousands of kilometers from the Barwon over the course of their lives.
Then we wondered what this industrial looking smoke-stack type thing was:
And as we wandered I snapped shots of the coastline:
And of course I had to capture a dead tree, or in this case, a denuded crap of brush:
Then Leanne and I settled into trying to shoot stop-action waves while my hubby, the ever happy paleontologist-and-seaman-at-heart studied the rocks and gazed out over the waves.
I wasn’t going to do this because after all, everyone in the U.S. who cooks the traditional fare, cooks basically the same thing on Thanksgiving. But I didn’t see too many other Thanksgiving feast food photos in my reader, so here they are.
Here is the table. After we discovered I had turned off the oven where my husband was baking the stuffing, and it had been off for half an hour, I decided to drink some of the sherry I used for my squash recipe. The wine glass is a gift from my friend and critique partner, so it’s a nice reminder of one of the people in my life for whom I am very thankful.
All the way back in 2005, Sunset Magazine did a contest for Thanksgiving and put all the recipe winners in their September (I think) issue. I use that magazine every year to make this because my husband and mother in law love it. It’s not super sweet, which they prefer, and it’s quite fluffy and light (though not low-cal).
Sweet potato maple cream cheesecake with a graham cracker and pecan crust
That magazine also has a recipe for stuffed kabocha squash. I noticed these squash at the store this year so I decided to go for it. I’m so glad I did. It was fantastic, tho’ the photo’s a tad blurry.
Kabocha squash stuffed with veggies and glazed with a sauce of Worcestershire, soy sauce, sherry, cumin, cayenne and butter and olive oil
The turkey was my husband’s masterpiece. It finished a couple hours sooner than we expected, necessitating a bit of an acceleration in the kitchen as I had been using the long afternoon to write a new scene in my work in progress novel. The turkey stayed on the barbie for another hour, on low, gently smoking to a crispy-skinned exterior while retaining a succulent interior (due to being stuffed with quartered oranges):
He also made the best cranberry-orange relish I’ve ever tasted, with the mushy part being pleasantly sweet from sugar and the best orange crop ever from one of our trees, and contrasting with lots of whole and nearly whole cranberries which burst upon the tongue with freshness and a tangy tartness.
I am thankful for my health, for my family, for my friends, for having enough to eat, for all the variety of life, and for being a writer. I am also thankful for a new habit I have of thinking about things I like and appreciate for a minute and a half, first thing upon waking every day. This new habit is better than coffee for setting up a joyful day. I recommend it.
I signed a pledge not to shop on Thanksgiving. I am also not going to shop today! So there! I’m going to do my favorite thing: write.
Thanks for visiting, and enjoy the day.
Here are a few people who blogged about Thanksgiving:
Love is what it’s all about–
but food is a close second.
Nia Simone, November 28, 2013
I was asking an Australian friend if they have any holidays that are basically about food. Not really. Okay, so I have several Australian friends, many of whom I’ve met through blogging, so pipe up if you disagree! Of course, as you know, the food in Australia is amazing, so perhaps we don’t need a specific holiday centered on feasting there.
Australia is my other home, and this is becoming clear as one fellow blogger thought I was Australian. I love Australia and my Australian friends. Today is an American holiday, though, and I’m going to celebrate it by starting this celebration of food off with home-grown and home cooked foods before moving on to some of my international culinary samples.
Home grown and home-cooked:
Vegan Thai
Lentil saladYummy ingredientsDinner time! (Very yummy)Vegan Thai with other veggies
Greenwich Village Manhattan:
Turophilia (excessive love of cheese) Greenwich Village, sign outside the cheese shopA bit of cheeseOctopus, beer and a dolmata at Boukies, Greenwich Village
Australia:
Barramundi at LorneStuffed squid at a tapas bar in Melbourne, DeGraves StreetJoe’s? I think, Sydney, by the riverSmoked salmon at Joe’s in Sydney
San Francisco:
Dessert at PiperadeAppetizer at PiperadePiperade Restaurant
Paris:
Christian Constant Restaurant startersI guess you could say wine was a big feature in Paris! This was dinner on the deck of our apartment.Veal — Opera HouseDeep fried Celeriac — Opera HouseCrepe de Frites Maison Robert on Champs ElyseesOpera HouseRolls, fresh, Opera HouseButter, Opera HouseTomato jam mozzarella bonito and basil sorbet, Opera HouseGreen pea soup cold with cream and goat cheese on toast, Opera HouseOpera House, Grey Goose is the house vodka
Rue Cler Produce outsideRue Cler Capuccino and Cafe Americain
Amsterdam:
Thai food
RijsstaaflAppetizers ready to go out to the deck of the houseboat
Texas:
The Brush FireTorchy’s Tacos, The Independent
More Manhattan:
Grilled camembert at The EateryMeat loaf ravioli mac and jack at The EateryLisa’s bagelSweet italian sausage risotto croquettesAt The Boathouse in Central ParkThe Boathouse, Central ParkFlor de Mayo, Peruvian restaurant upper west sideFlor de Mayo, Peruvian restaurant, upper west sideHot pretzel in Central ParkFlor de Mayo, Peruvian restuarant, upper west sideDeli, lower East sideSesame seed crackers at The EateryShmears at a deli in the upper west sideShmears, continued, at a deli in the upper west sideYet more shmears at a deli in the upper west sidePain au Chocolate at the Brasserie Pushkin across from the Museum of Modern ArtDining Room at Brasserie Puskin NYC
Blackbottom cheesecake from The Bake ShopGrasshopper (mint chocolate chip) from The Bake Shop
I have led you to believe Magnetic Island only has dead trees. This is far from the truth. I’m just a blogger who particularly likes dead trees!
Magnetic Island is just off the shore from Townsville.
It takes about an hour to get there by ferry. We walked over to the big ferry that takes cars. It is the one locals use and is half the price of the tourist ferry.
Showing you the beauty of Magnetic Island will take several posts. Here’s a little beauty to start you on this day before Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and just a regular day in most parts of the world.
Twas two days before Thanksgiving and the blogger was thinking about FOOD. Shopping and planning for the feast while reminiscing about food in Australia.
We ate lunch at one of the many restaurants by the river in Sydney:
Near Bondi Beach we enjoyed lunch at a sidewalk cafe:
After lunch, you could get a tattoo next door. My friend considered it. I did not. (I didn’t even get pierced ears until I was 30. (About a year ago. 😉 ))
Looks like I had seafood again.
In Melbourne, Leanne Cole and I split a basket of blueberry scones here:
And of course, I had a flat white.
Leanne then took us through more arcades and streets. At the end we saw DeGraves Street, which is closed to cars, lined by restaurants and filled with tables and heating lamps. We went back that night and had dinner at a tapas bar. We sat at a bench table inside as it was raining a bit, and just people watched. Since we accidentally ordered way too much food (tapas are supposed to be small plates!) we spent a few hours drinking champagne and lingering over the amazing food.
The next day was epic! Leanne took us along The Great Ocean Road. We stopped for lunch in Lorne:
where we all ordered the most amazing barramundi:
I can’t leave out dessert! So here is a picture of a gelateria where we stopped to fortify ourselves with a couple scoops in Watson’s Bay, near Sydney.
Watson’s Bay is stunning. On one side of this peninsula is the Pacific ocean:
and on the other side is Sydney harbor:
Come back in a couple days for pictures of our Thanksgiving feast. In the meantime, enjoy life and bon appetit!
I noticed a lot of cities in Australia have “Royal Botanical Gardens”. That’s a difference from the U.S. In the U.S. I haven’t noticed any royal anything. I mean, the reasons are obvious, but it’s not something I thought about ahead of time, rather learned about from traveling. (Love that.) This was one of the many little cultural differences I noticed between our countries. Traveling to a country that shares the same language but which differs in many cultural ways fascinated me. When I travel to some place that has a different language like Peru and/or is radically culturally different like Asia, there’s a feeling of being so far outside my native culture, it’s like observing everything through the walls of a bubble. When the language was the same and the level of development very similar, there was a comfort level (once I overcame driving on the opposite side!) and it was easy to feel at home. Without the bubble, more subtle differences surprised me and let me compare and contrast alternate histories as well as to see the influence of U.S. culture on my personality, word choices, values and preferences.
I think it’s interesting and it’s educational to me to see gardens culturally valued on the level of art. Every city not only has its museums and opera houses but also its botanical gardens. I think in the U.S. the equivalent would be city parks. And our parks have conservatories of flowers and that kind of thing, and gardens, gardeners and arborists certainly abound, but the emphasis and naming differ and I never noticed this aspect of culture until I went to Australia.
Of course, it being Sydney, the gardens lead down to water.
And what’s totally unique to Sydney, at the end of your botanical gardens trek, you come upon the spectacular Sydney Opera House:
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Nicci Carrera 