[NSFW Video] Cooking At #36 With Billgella Lawsoote – Episode 2: White Whine Fillet Reduction Surprise [NSFW], December 2015

 

White Whine Fillet Reduction Surprise
White Whine Fillet Reduction Surprise

Originally published in December 2015.

Welcome to Episode 2 of Cooking At #36 with Billgella Lawsoote.

Our legal people have been combing through our initial agreement with M/s Lawsoote and it does indeed appear that a clerical error DID spin the series out from the original 3.6 episodes to an eye-watering 36 episodes.

With the caveat of ‘ne’er the same kitchen twice’.

Feck.

So.

We present to you, the uninformed swill at the bottom of a glass of a really gritty Bordeaux, the sort you want to finish off with a knife and fork, the second in our (slap me now for using this hackneyed term) journey — pronounced with four Js: jjjjourney around the kitchens of Australia.

Today for your information, edification and inebriation, we have ‘White Whine Fillet Surprise’.

Short on the whine, long on the wine.

Warning: Billgella works a little blue in this edition beamed live (and by live, we mean recorded three weeks ago) from Paddington, NSW.

Here’s what some food pundits are saying about Episode 2.

‘I kept falling off my chair’. – Matt from Basildon, Essex.

Surely faulty office furniture is an office services issue, not the kitchen’s.

“Where’s the bacon?” – Johnny RT from Sydney via Liverpool UK.

Have you ever crossed a Basa with a pig, JRT? We tried once, and the pig thrashed around in the shallows for half an hour. It took us twice that long just to get the smile off his face.

DISCLAIMER: Again, please note this edition is not safe for work (NSFW). We did road-test it on a pre-school group at the Sorbonne School For The Gifted Culinary Toddler and the feedback was unanimous: “We’re including you in our mandatory reporting to the relevant authorities.”

Billgella Lawsoote returns in the new year with a multicultural melting pot Episode 3 from the heart of Kebabland, Sydney.

Good morning!

 

 

Talk With Everyone – Even With Limited Head Space, November 2015

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Sitting like The So Not Littlest Hobo on Oxford Street, writing a story about an indie band.

This is Limited Head Space.

It’s fairly descriptive of how I feel right now!

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Image courtesy of Limited Head Space

Dashing up Oxford Street tonight to get to the BWS bottle shop by 9.55pm, because NSW liquor licensing doth sayeth thou shalt not serve takeaway alcohol one second after 10pm.

Google Maps said I had 3.2kms to cover in 45mins. Yeah, try roughly a kilometre. I stopped and asked a Security dude outside The Paddington Inn at about 9.27pm how far it was, and he said, about 100 metres!

And it was at Paddo BWS that I met Denis serving behind the counter, and he told me about his band, Limited Head Space.

And he wrote the band name down on the back of a docket.

Right now, Denis and his mate, also in the band, have just shut up shop. It’s 10pm and the grille went down at 9.55pm. NSW Liquor Licensing laws: thou shalt not vend takeaway alcohol after 9.55pm. I may have mentioned that before.

BWS are all over this like a cheap suit. I have been that guy who stormed away at 9.56pm, stormed back at 9.57pm, then fumed off into the night before the sweep hand had time for another full revolution.

BWS St Leonard’s, April 2014. Ah yes, I remember it well.

The original text above cut out because in the 36 minutes that I was sat there outside Astton Shoes and some indie Bed, Bath and Table shop, my browser had fallen over nine times.

Ten times. I’m going to embed their video then make this thing pretty later.

Eleven times. Farouk!

My wine 🍷 is getting warm!

Bill Quinn with “Neville” the Labrador
Oxford Street, Paddington
22:22 Saturday 21 November 2015

12 times!

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Melissa Deaton-Johnathon’s Tribute To The Luke Bryan Memorial Car Park, November 2015

Image courtesy of Melissa Deaton-Johnathon of PostMan Records. Photo by Michael Johnathon.
Image courtesy of Melissa Deaton-Johnathon of PoetMan Records. Photo by Michael Johnathon.

 

At the time of recording, this was still something of a developing story, as the ripples from a fairly major event snafu were rippling outwards.

The press stories from Lexington Kentucky can tell the story better than a middle-aged music press writer from Sydney can. But put simply, there was a Luke Bryan concert at the Talon Winery and Vineyards in October 2015 that probably needed a better risk management plan.

To say the least.

Risk: half or more of the audience stay stuck in traffic at the time the concert starts, throughout the concert, after the concert, and as late as up to 4am the next morning.

Likelihood: high.

Severity/outcome: parody songs are written in the event’s honour.

Image courtesy of Rick Deaton
Melissa Deaton-Johnathon. Image courtesy of Rick Deaton.

And so it transpired.

Cut forward a few days later and the parody song (that Melissa Deaton-Johnathon wrote in her head in the car and then committed to Youtube posterity) was starting to go viral.

In stepped Lex-18 again, and the face and voice that launched several dozen Woodsongs Old Time Music Hour episodes was moving up to the majors.

Video and story from Lex-18: http://www.lex18.com/Clip/11920177/luke-bryan-fan-writes-parody

Very early one morning in Sydney, and later in the day only it was yesterday the day before in Lexington Kentucky (paging Dr Who to the TARDIS, Dr Who) Melissa spoke with Bill Quinn about the whole shooting match:

*** Audio file will be removed by the end of March 2020 ***

*** Audio file will be removed by the end of March 2020 ***

MDJ1
Image courtesy of Melissa Deaton-Johnathon

Continue reading

[MUFW* Video] Cooking At #36 with Billgella Lawsoote – Episode 01: Shredded Wheat/Blowing Mayo [MUFW], November 2015

Salience. Image courtesy of guerrillaguide.wordpress.com.
Salience. Image courtesy of http://www.guerrillaguide.wordpress.com. Always be the red chili if you can. Green is fine and dandy, but a pale imitation of rojas. Root. Rouge. Red!

* Mildly unsafe for work

Cooking At #36 is a new series launched today from kitchens around Australia, eventually the world.

This innovative, jerky-handed phone camera series takes you, the poor, ignorant, unclassy, unclassified, joke of a wretched wastrel, awash in a sea of processed mediocre food, TV dinners, and fast food that’s slowly filling you up with salt and plastic — we take your sorry arse pics…

I’m sorry, I’ll read that again.

We take your sorry aspic, and sauce a better way to cook.

And live!

Episode One (Shredded Wheat/Blowing Mayo aka Resilience Is Useful).

The pilot was produced in a secret Holsworthy kitchen. Another pilot was picked up in a Moorebank Sports Club – she was either Randy or Chastity; such a fine line betwixt and between, I find.

Road-tested on six selected Overheard Productions friends and strangers who all were unanimous in their reviews:

Greek Fetta Chorus: “We’re calling the Critical Assessment Team. Put down the phone and step away from the maple syrup.”

Actually, they said lovely things, but I’ll add the reviews later.

There’s time for one. “Alison from Athenry” says, ‘Show us your chips, Billgella!”

And another: “Axminster Al from Barking in Essex” says, ‘What’s with the fruity 80s English accent?’

Well, Matt, I mean, “Al”, I left Herefordshire in 1979, so blow it out your East End!

Genog! Enough! Basta! Roll tape!

Thank you for watching, and I sincerely hope you all out there get a bit of Mayo Action tonight.

Goodnight!

Billgella Lawsoote
For Cooking At #36 with Billgella Lawsoote
A Division of Overheard Productions
A 36 Steps to ? Enterprise

11:00 AEDT Saturday 14 November 2015
Wattle Grove Shopping Village — see Michel’s Patisserie’s new drive-through (but only on Thursdays)

Billgella Lawsoote eating out -- one of my FAVOURITE things to do. I LOVE eating out!
Billgella Lawsoote eating out — one of my FAVOURITE things to do. I LOVE eating out!

[Video] Wattle Grove Shopping Village: Michel’s Patisserie Gets A Drive Through, November 2015

“Welcome to Wattle Grove. May I take your order?”

On Thursday 12 November 2015 at 2.30am, the Wattle Grove branch of Michel’s Patisserie had the quickest reno it’s ever likely to get.

And probably without the requisite planning approvals from Liverpool Council.

You can read all about it elsewhere, and probably watch some news footage too, including the young Channel Nine reporter and her cameraman who looked like a hipster who’d escaped from Rozelle, and was wielding for network television news transmittal (I ship you not) a Go Pro.

Huzzah for technology.

Here are a few pictures of the devastation, plus some video courtesy of Overheard Productions WTAF and Overheard FM. Reporting for all channels, here’s Phillip Mahkawfee-Khup.

Your reporter, Phillip Mahkawfee-Khup, has more.

Pictures are being added but this is for the 11pm news, so cut it, print it.

23:16 AEDT Thor’s Day 12 November 2015 Continue reading

Craig Coombes – Larger Than Life, October 2015

Interview with Craig Coombes of Naked Tuesday dot me

Image courtesy of Naked Tuesday
Image courtesy of Naked Tuesday

This is an interview I did with Craig Coombes in 2013 at his home in Melbourne for a book I’ve been very slowly putting together on grief.

I’ll include the background of the interview and the book at the end, but since that conclusion will no doubt waffle on for quite a bit (much like the author), let’s dispense with that for now and first get to the subject matter and the man himself.

Craig Coombes received a terminal diagnosis of throat cancer in 2012. Instead of feeling sorry for himself and hiding away from the world, Craig chose a fairly unconventional way of expressing himself and what he was going through.

It’s an approach that’s resonated with thousands of others around the world via social media, and literally millions through his television appearances.

And happily, Craig is witnessing this as he continues to defy the medicos, batting on way past the initial prognosis of his existence.

I started by asking Craig where he was up to at that point, in August 2013.

It started with a diagnosis of laryngitis (as you can tell with this wonderful voice of mine!) Through not improving, and tests, tests, tests, it became, “Sorry, cancer”.

You hear that word, it does change your life completely.

The old thing is that ‘Cancer is a word, not a sentence’. Did they give you hope?

That day they pretty much said it’s a tumour on my vocal chord. And thyroid cancer.

So we’ll do the operation, you’ll have some treatment, and everything will be fine.

Image courtesy of Craig Coombes and Naked Tuesday
Image courtesy of Craig Coombes and Naked Tuesday

It didn’t get fine, did it? Continue reading

Check the water and oil! Lime and Steel on the road, October 2015

Image courtesy of Lime And Steel
Image courtesy of Lime And Steel

A shorter version of this article appeared on Timber and Steel on 14 September 2015.
This article appeared in full in the September edition of Trad and Now magazine.

To tell the full tale of this article would be to sing you a mournful ballad of disappearing Facebook event shares and a 12 minute interview, ambitiously recorded on a Nokia dumb-phone so old it needs hand-cranking.

Suffice to say that the audio of that chat between the artist (in Katoomba, NSW) and the interviewer (in Nelson Bay, NSW) is available now on eBay on a listing called ‘Marcel Marceau’s Greatest Hits’.

Technology is a fickle mistress, sharing pain and pleasure in equal measure, and my thanks to Paddy Connor from Lime and Steel for his assistance and good humour.

Blue Mountains-based folk band Lime and Steel have hit the road, making sacrificial offerings to the gods of automobile reliability and ‘keepgoingability’ from Melbourne’s CBD up the east coast to Brisbane (with a stop-off in the nation’s capital).

Lime and Steel began as a rootsy folk duo of Paddy Connor and Ben Scott, but over the years their composition has changed, and indeed, their compositions have changed. Continue reading

The BordererS: To Canberra Polish White Eagle Club and beyond, September 2015

The BordererS Live
The BordererS Live

The BordererS from Adelaide have forged a reputation for frenetic, energetic live performances, built on the back of relentless touring.

September and October sees no let up, as having only recently returned from a very special performance at the Sydney Opera House (for the Sydney LifeForce Memorial Service on Suicide Prevention Day), the next few weeks has the band bouncing in and out of NSW, Victoria, then back to NSW for the Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival.

First cab off the rank is a performance in Canberra at the revitalised Polish White Eagle Club. This venue has long been a favourite of Canberra music aficionados, helped by the fact that the club has been for many years completely pokie-free. (A phrase to gladden the heart of many fine musicians — especially acousticos.)

The BordererS have been slowly building a loyal following of Canberra fans with repeat appearances at the National Multicultural Festival, and some memorable gigs at King O’Malley’s Irish bar among others.

A BordererS favourite review from National Multicultural Festival 2015
A BordererS favourite review from National Multicultural Festival 2015

They’ve also chalked up five appearances at the National Folk Festival and are always keen to return for more of the same. “The late night sessions at the National (when the festival shuts down for the night) with all of the top performers and the public all seated and singing together have been some of the most memorable nights in the band’s career,” Jim Paterson says. Continue reading

Clans On The Coast (Nelson Bay, NSW) Celtic Festival – Saturday 19 September 2015

Clans On The Coast, Nelson Bay
Clans On The Coast, Nelson Bay

Nelson Bay in the shimmering coastal locale of Port Stephens invites Celts and their friends* to a celebration of music, song and Celtic culture on Saturday 19 September 2015: Clans On The Coast.

* ‘Friends’ means all other human beings, so the invitation is opened fairly wide.

The day-long Celtic festival has been running for several years since Ron Swan threw on a Ceilidh at the local golf club in 2007, with 200 turning up and another 100 having to be turned away.

Nelson Bay is located to the north of the sprawling Tomaree National Park, less than an hour’s drive north east from Newcastle. It’s an area of stunning natural beauty, with bays, inlets, sandy beaches and walking trails. From October to March, the place is bustling with tourists, but the third weekend in September is ideal to take in the surrounds (and the festival) without an overwhelming holiday crush.

Nelson Bay
Nelson Bay

Continue reading

Interview: Ann Vriend (Canada) 2015 Australian Tour, January 2015

Image courtesy of Ann Vriend
Image courtesy of Ann Vriend. Photo by Brad Gibbons.

Ann Vriend is always a popular visitor to Australia at about this time every year.

The contrasts between frozen Alberta, Canada and sizzling Australia are rarely more stark than in January/February. So Ann can hopefully leave the tissues and cough syrup behind, and look forward to sandy beaches, dazzling coral reefs, and the inside of a string of popular Australian venues on her ‘For The People In The Mean Time’ tour.

On an afternoon when frying eggs on the pavement in rural Queensland was definitely an option, Bill Quinn spoke with Ann from her sick bed in Edmonton, as she was putting the final touches on her tour, and readying to hop on a plane the following week.

It was a baking hot day in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland, and the only place to get a half-decent phone signal was from the front deck at Maleny Hotel, battling the sound spill from rumbling trucks and other traffic on the main road through town.

*** Audio file will be removed be the end of March 2020 ***

*** Audio file will be removed be the end of March 2020 ***

AV2
Image courtesy of Ann Vriend

Continue reading