Done with one adventure, onto another. On short notice from my daytime Sydney employer, I've been asked to move from Sydney to Cairns. It's a smaller town located on the north-east corner of Australia, and is well-known for its close proximity to the Great Barrier Reaf. For a number of reasons, I've decided to accept the offer to move to Cairns for the next three'ish months. There are several pros to the move:
Cheaper living - Sydney is proving more expensive than originally antncipated ... I will definitely be able to stretch my dollar further in Cairns.
Weather: The weather in Sydney, relatively speaking, hasn't been the greatest. I was getting a little tired of cold, cloudy and wet days, which has become the norm as of late.
Seasonal advantages / timing: October through March is a tough time to enjoy much swimming in the ocean around north-east Australia. These are the months when the increased jellyfish population tends to make a nuissance of itself. If I go now, I will beat jellyfish season by a few months.
Outdoor activities / adventures: Cairns is one of Australia's best areas for kitesurfing this time of year! And there, my friends, was the deciding factor.
So, to see everyone I've come to know in Sydneya one last time before my departure, I invited 15 or so friends (new and old) together for a See-You-After-Cairns dinner at Oregano, a restaurant I walk by twice every day (on my way to, and from, my gym). It seemed to be a popular spot with the locals, whose lead I was happy to follow.
I was really, really happy to be able to get as many people together for dinner as I did . For such a short period of time that I've been in Sydney, I've met some really great people with whom I've become quite close. These people, and several others who joined us for after-dinner drinks, have really added to my Australian experience thusfar. To bring them all together over dinner was a lot of fun, and it was great to see everyone get along as well as they did. * Minus, of course, for the food fight that broke out after dinner ...
Oregano is a Meditarranean restaurant located in Little Italy (go figure) which I suspected would cater to most everyone's tastes. Feeling adventurous, as usual, the duck and cherry pie spoke to my inner foodie. (Can those really go together in a pie filling? Why yes, yes they can ...)
Great dishes were enjoyed by all, and dinner was followed with drinks, clubbing, and some early-morning World Cup support of Team Germany. And, at 12:01 a.m., myself and the other Canadians at the table were able to wish everyone a "Happy Canada Day!" More on that in tomorrow's post ...
Recipe for duck and cherry pie below c/o Food24.com, with some of my own additions. Do yourselves and favor and buy readymade puff pastry, unless you really want to bother with scratch.
Opa!
* You didn't really believe we started a food fight in a restaurant, did you?! Come on ...
Ingredients
2 roasted ducks, (roughly 1 pound duck meat, removed)
1 onion, sliced
185 g bacon, chopped
15 ml fresh thyme
440 ml chicken stock
125 ml port
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 x 410 g can black cherries with juice
Salt and pepper, to taste
a little cornflour mixed into a paste with water
200 g readymade puff pastry
1 egg, lightly beaten
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Remove the meat from the carcass.Heat 30 ml of the duck fat in a pan. Fry the onion and bacon until lightly golden. Add the thyme, stock, port, cherries, pine nuts, juice and duck meat. Season. Bring to the boil, reduce and thicken with cornflour. Spoon the mixture into a pie dish. Cover with the pastry and decorate with leaves and patterns. Make a steam hole in the top or use a pie funnel. Glaze with egg and bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry is all puffed up, golden and crispy.
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