Upper Reach Winery and Broads Cafe

We live half an hours drive from the Swan Valley.  Popping up for lunch is something we could easily do, yet rarely get around to.

For this year's annibirthary ( a word we have coined to cover the convergence of  our anniversary and Craig's birthday) we booked the cottage at Upper Reach Winery for Friday and Saturday night.

The Cottage sits at the front of the property, fenced off from the road for privacy. It is the only accommodation on the vineyard and despite the fact you have a clear view of the next door property it feels very private. It is all high ceilings and creaky floor boards that gives a lovely character feel.  The kitchen is well equipped and there is everything there you could need, except a cheese knife. A small and forgivable oversight in our view.

Say Cheese... The Cheese Barrel in the Swan Valley

The Cheese Barrel was a chance discovery for us, which is surprising because we live in Perth and we LOVE cheese. 

 

We were on our way to Upper Reach Winery, where we had booked the cottage for the weekend, and spotted the sign on Great Northern Highway. No further discussion was required about where we would be having lunch the next day.

The Cheese Barrel sits alongside Olive Farm Wines and has as extensive a list of cheeses as the Olive Farm does wines.

They don't make the cheese they serve, which they tell you as you walk in the door. I got the vibe that some people obviously think they do and hat has caused them grief in the past. They do, however, import some amazing cheeses from all over the world.

The Hobbit - The Movie

I didn't race out to the cinema when The Hobbit was first released.  In fact, I waited a full year, and watched it on DVD.  This was not because I'd read bad reviews, in fact I don't think I read any.  Nor was it lack of interest.  I loved the book when I was a child, and enjoyed all of the Lord of the Rings films as well. I'm not normally one of those people who wants to book to make an exact picture image in my head either.

However, there was something suspicious about them splitting what was a rollicking tale of some 95,000 words into more than one movie. It didn't feel like a decisions born of a desire to do the book justice (as would have been the case with the TV series they should have made out of the recently released Ender's Game), but felt as if the project had been taken over by either accountants wanting to squeeze every last cent out of the franchise, or nerdy Tolkien types who weren't ready to let go of Middle Earth yet and who knew they would never get the opportunity to make anything from the Simarillion. Or perhaps both.

Dinner before a show - The Aviary

The Aviary is a short walk from the state theatre center, straight across the railway line. We made a nice early booking online so we could be in and out in time for the start of Other Desert Cities.

The online booking was fine as far as it went, but there was then a follow up phone call the next day to confrim, which I always find a bit odd. Of course it ended up going to voicemail, and the number they left for us to call back on went to a recorded message saying there was no one to take the call...

Using a little ingenuity we managed to get in touch and confirmed the booking, after which everything went beautifully.

The restaurant is decked out in black white and green, with bookish wallpaper that strikes me as a bit messy, but others would no doubt find whimsical.  The lighting was low, keeping with its bar themes, but we could read our menus without engaging the flash light function on our iphones so apprently that's a step up on Rockpool.

The service was lovely and perky, friendly, engaged without being hovering or overly formal.

The menu is designed to be shared, and having eaten there once and getting a feel for how this might work I'd take that approach if eating there again.  As it was, each of us ordered a dish of our own and that worked out fine too.

The sweet and sour pork belly was a hit as was the salt and pepper soft shell crab.  The duck was a bit more on the so-so front, but I think we all have very high expectations of duck these days.

Desserts were very generous in size, and they served us the nicest coffee I've had in a long time. We were in and out in good time without feeling rushed or anxious or needing to clock watch at any stage.  I do believe we'll be back, and this time I'll be saving room for a dessert myself.

Blogging about a bistro - Bistro Guillaume

You know the foodie world is mainstream when the waitress needs to warn you that the pork belly isn't crispy when you order it.

We dined at Bistro Guillaume on Saturday night, courtesy of a gift voucher from someone for some favour done sometime. If I'm honest, without the voucher I probably wouldn't have ventured over to the Crown Casino Complex, so it's lucky really as it was a tasty meal.

Not being regular visitors to the Casino we had to do a lap or two to find the restaurant.  Many of them were signposted, but we didn't see a sign for this one.  The entry reminded me a bit of an airport lounge for some reason, thought the crockery chandelier probably wouldn't be prominent in the QANTAS frequent flyer lounge.

We were booking at fairly short notice, and knew there were restaurants there we just weren't going to get into.  We had a good vibe about Bistro Guillaume as they had kindly donated a recipe book to a fund raiser we were involved with last year.

I'm not late night party folk. I turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.  Not being able to get a dinner booking until 8 o'clock because they structure them around show times (EMPIRE - the sexed up version of Circ de Soleil in this case) was a little off putting for me, but I'm sure it is very convenient for those going to a show. I know - I wouldn't survive long in Spain.

The black and white decor was very french, as was our lovely waitress. You don't eat out in Perth anymore without expecting to pay $40 for a steak so the pricing was on par with what I might expect from a place like this.

As it was a latish sitting for us we skipped entree and went straight for mains;  Pork Belly (not crispy) for me and the steak for him. They were both delicious. Melt in the mouth, soft, perfectly cooked and flavorsome. The apple flavours were perfect with the pork and the watercress salad served with the steak was a standout. As was the fresh bread, served with unsalted butter and salt on the side.

We shared a dessert, a chocolate and salted caramel tart, which was nice. $22 for a dessert felt a little over the top for mine, but I'm sure they used all the very best ingredients.

We didn't linger after dessert, and certainly didn't venture back into the Casino.

While looking for the restaurant we had passed through the gaming area, filled with seemingly sad and disinterested people sitting alone in front of machines with their grumpy faces on.  The only people smiling seemed to be those that probably shouldn't have been allowed in the doors under the responsible service of alcohol laws. We waited at one of the bars for a drink for about 15 minutes without being served before giving up and trying somewhere else.

We did get a nice pre-dinner cocktail from the lobby bar, served to us by a young man who looked like he would have preferred to be anywhere else doing anything else. The drink itself, a mango martini, was fruity and nicely dressed despite this, though a glass shaker was harmed in its manufacture.

 The Western Force was having a function on the night we were there, so we got to do some great people watching as a stack of guys and dolls dressed up in gown and suits wended their way through the bar. They were an interesting contrast against the dressed-down hotel guests who seemed to be coming back form the beach.  Which was odd as it was the middle of winter, and rainy outside.

Over all, if this restaurant wasn't in the Casino complex I'd go back with friends. If we were going to a show I'd pop in then. Over all the complex itself was the turn off for me, which is not the fault of the staff, nor a judgement on the high quality of the food, It says more about me than it does about either of them.

Books 2012 : Fiction

As I said in a previous post, I read too much to fit all of my reviews for a year into a single post, so here is my 2012 reading list which I will endeavour to follow with more detailed commentary.

I was given a Kindle for Christmas 2011.  For a long time I was unsure about giving up paperbacks for their digital equivalent.  Having made the move I am very glad I did. For me the Kindle was the perfect choice.  I now also have an ipad, but for my everyday reading I use the Kindle.

There are always those occasions where a book isn't available electronically, or it is just cheaper to buy it from the Book Depository UK in hard form than to buy it electronically, but for convenience I buy it as an ebook wherever I can.

One of the things I love is that Amazon keeps a handy list of my books, so I only have to remember the hard copy ones, and those I borrowed. I was surprised to find when compiling this list that Amazon does not allow you to export that list.  Instead I have chosen to use Calibre, which also syncs up with GoodReads.

My other happy find of 2012 was a great list of free books from Amazon, updated daily http://www.squidoo.com/the-best-of-amazon-daily-free-ebooks-kindle-ipad.
You get a good sized serving of chaff with the wheat, but if you're on a budget and willing to sort through reviews to see what is going to suit you it's a good thing to know.

Classics

 

With the arrival of so many Massive Open Online Courses line edX and Coursera I had to check some out.  For some reason I thought a class on Fantasy and Sci-fi  fiction would be interesting.  As part of the course work I read a few things I might not have otherwise read, but overall I find the forum focus of the classes to be a bit too full of ego for my taste.  The arts is not about being right but about being interested and interesting. Not that I bothered to say that and let them lay waste to my view of course.

More on trolls (Internet and fictional) some other time perhaps.

Grimm, Jacob    Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm
Stoker, Bram    Dracula

Speculative fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Larson, B.V.    Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)
Jemisin, Jemisin    The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy 1)
Brockway, Robert    Rx - Episode 1: The Blackouts (Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity)
Hunter, Elizabeth    A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book 1
Grant, Mira    Feed
Grant, Mira    Deadline: The Newsflesh Trilogy: Book 2
Grant, Mira    Blackout: The Newsflesh Trilogy: Book 3
Scott, Paul    The Jewel In The Crown (The Raj quartet)
Cooley, Trevor H.    Eye of the Moonrat (The Bowl of Souls: Book One)
Lee, Jack J.    Hero's Curse (The Paladin Files)
Donaldson, Stephen R.    Lord Foul's Bane (Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)
Donaldson, Stephen R.    The Illearth War (Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)
Donaldson, Stephen    The Real Story & Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap Sequence: 1: v. 1 (Gap Into 1 & 2)
Donaldson, Stephen    This Day All Gods Die: The Gap Sequence: 4: v. 4 (Gap Into 5)
Donaldson, Stephen    A Dark and Hungry God Arises: The Gap Sequence: 2: v. 2 (Gap Into 3)
Donaldson, Stephen    Chaos and Order: The Gap Sequence: 3: v. 3 (Gap Into 4)
Rick Riordan Percy Jackson series
Engdahl, Sylvia    Stewards of the Flame
Reid, Ruthanne    The Sundered

 

Mainstream & Young Adult

 

On reflection I think the YA genre has always been my genre of choice even though it is relatively newly (un)defined.  Maybe my ppsyche is stuck back there for some reason, but I love it because it is brave enough to take some risks that I think fiction aimed at a more mass market backs away from. Teenagers are fearless after all and much more open minded and unbreakable than people think.  I wish I had been kinder to my teenage self.

 

Green, John    The Fault in Our Stars
Stockett, Kathryn    The Help
Barnes, Julian    The Sense of an Ending
Kidd, Sue Monk    The Secret Life of Bees
Jacobson, Howard    The Finkler Question
Hemmings, Kaui Hart    The Descendants
Nicolai, Adam J    Alex
Brown, Pat    Only the Truth
Christopher, Thomas    Never Too Far
Lin, Sheng-Shih    Daughter of the Bamboo Forest
Irving, John    In One Person
I actually bothered to review this at the time so I won't repeat it here.
Johnston, G. S.    Consumption: A Novel
Sawyer, S.D.    Prelude to Reveille: A Vietnam Awakening
Cronin, Keith    Me Again
Alster, Pam    Robin's Blue
Nevola, John E.    The Last Jump: A Novel of World War II
Bekendam, P. D.    Prime of Life
Prosapio, Stephen    Dream War
Kraus, Jim    The Dog That Talked to God
I seemed to read a number of books with religious themes this year.  This was more by accident than design. as I am the least spiritual person you are ever likely to meet.

Books I started but didn't finish

Roman, Mark    The Ultimate Inferior Beings

Books 2012: Audiobooks and podcasts

If I have learnt a lesson recently it is that I need to write reviews as I finish the book, movie, meal, whatever.  Having left everything to the end of the year I find I need to split things up into manageable chunks.

Audio Books and Podcasts

In 2012 I listened to as many stories as I read, maybe more.  This was due to a continued enjoyment of my favourite podcasts, an attempt to increase the number of times I ride to work and a better set of earphones.
My podcasts of choice for 2012 were Pod Castle, Escape Pod, Star Ship Sofa, Selected Shorts - PRI and The History of Rome.

My audio faves of 2012 were;

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I seem to have come to Science Fiction a little later in life than you might expect. My journey to it has passed through fantasy to speculative fiction and back to some of those books I probably should have read in my teens.

Ender's Game is one of those I am grateful to have discovered.
I actually listened to Ender's Game rather than reading it. I was painting the spare room in 40 degree C heat at the time and multi-tasked by having this playing on my i-phone through Audible.

Experiencing this book nearly 30 years after it was published makes me all the more appreciative of some of its concepts, and the way that science fiction becomes science fact.

The way in which social media, portrayed in Ender's Game on "the nets" where Peter and Valentine mould public opinion to suit their own aims, is simply remarkable. It reminds me that Science Fiction is far less about science than it is about the human condition and psychology laid bare by stripping away what we think we know about ourselves.

In the 80's Orson Scott Card would have been seeing Usenet groups and Bulletin Boards. In Ender's Game he talks about the nets as being regional, and I suppose to some extent we see some of that today despite the global nature of communications.

The theme of the uniting common enemy is one which flows through so much Science Fiction and its is not missing here. The Nuremburg defence comes through in this novel as strongly as it does in Stephen Donaldson's Gap series. For the protagonist, Ender, it goes further. He isn't just following orders, he has been deliberately manipulated into ignorance of the consequences of his own actions.

Is this book violent and disturbing? Yes, of course it is. Does that pose a problem for YA readers? No, I don't believe it does. I don't believe this story does anything to glorify those elements. As in Lord of the Flies it demonstrates that without boundaries children behave as poorly to each other as many adults do. Survival, greed for power and most importantly fear are strong motivators.

Anyone who thinks that children cannot be cruel and unkind and viscous with each other under certain circumstances, or simply when it suits their own ends, has forgotten those moments in the playground when it happened to them. True, most of these instances will not include physical violence, thankfully, but words can often do much more than blows. I don't think many would advocate Ender's approach to dealing with bullying however.

I'm surprised this book is not included in the Australian School curriculum. While Lord of the Flies was probably a great book for those coming out of the post war era in the last century surely this novel was one more appropriate for the Gen Y's, where perhaps the Hunger Games will be for Generation Next.

Certainly there is a lot of the cold war elements here which are dated in light of the modern day conflicts that we see, many of which are civil wars albeit supported by outside states in various ways, but there are themes of religious freedoms which could be unearthed from this novel which may be very relevant.

The character of Alai is intriguing and I understand he features in future books in the series which I look forward to exploring.

Ender’s Game would make a great text from which to start exploring the topic of ethics. You don't have to agree with any of the decisions made in this book to find something worth discussing about it. I think that is the most important role of fiction, to make us challenge what we believe, either to help us change it, or to enable us to explain why we hold the values we do.

I also wonder if there is something of The Outliers in this story. Ender may have been specially selected for his genetic heritage (though it is unclear how as neither of his parents appeared to show any of his characteristics), but it could be argued that the time at which he was born, and the sheer number of hours he trained, (surely at least the required 10,000 hours to become expert at something) might have made nearly any child into the military 'genius' the society needed him to be.

This was one of the richest stories I've encountered in a while and I feel really lucky that I don't have to wait for the next book in the series to come out. There is a lot to be said for being a late adopter in this case.

 

The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

No one could read Stephen Fry other than Stephen Fry. There is just something quintessential - the use of so many exact, erudite, and sometimes obscure words would seem inappropriate coming from someone else’s lips, but from Stephen, exquisite.

Listening to this volume of his autobiography makes me fall in love with the English language all over again. For all its twists and turns, designed seemingly to irritate the uninitiated, it is like poetry when it spills out in Fry's ever so english accent.

We listened to this volume while driving to my Mother's for Christmas in late 2011, so it a bit of cheat to include this review in my 2012 list but there you have it. It was odd also to be listening to tales of Footlights while driving through the karri forests of south west Western Australia.

It took nothing away from my enjoyment of this story. Nor did the fact that I have next to nothing in common with Stephen Fry. His desire to join in could not be further from my own introverted notion of choosing not to be noticed most of the time. And yet here is something there, something in the vulnerability that he shares so freely that is intoxicating.

Stephen Fry would have to be one of those people you'd have at a dream dinner party, if only you thought for a moment you wouldn't bore him silly the whole time he was there.

There is a theme in my reading for 2012 (ok 2011 and 2012) in how the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours rule applied. I have no doubt at all that despite his near genius IQ, Stephen Fry's true success comes from the sheer number of hours he has spent doing what he does best, entertaining others, with what appears to be a desperate desire to please others. And he succeeds tremendously.

That he is a flawed protagonist in his own stories is without doubt. But therein lies the magic of any good story.

I loved this book.