One of my favorite pieces in the Whitney Biennial:
Long tech rehearsal today. Band is amazing, as most of them have just gotten off the 20+ hour flight — they check in to the hotel and then are rushed over here to the venue. They all work hard and no one complains about being tired, not once.
It’s like doing a first gig ever — so many new songs and so much to remember — lyrics, marks, lighting, guitar chords and settings — I’m scared and overwhelmed. Kind of nice, though, thrilling even, being less than sure and confident about it all. Jumping in the deep end without too much of a safety net. But scary as hell.
Aussie cuisine:
Pie Floater — a meat pie “floating” in sea of mushy pea soup, with a squirt of tomato sauce on top. To be eaten when drunk.
Flavored milks. Saw a large strawberry milk at the venue lunch counter. Milk here comes in a variety of flavors, such as apple, banana, caramel, chocolate, cookies 'n cream, lime, malt, mango, papaya, strawberry, tropical fruits and vanilla, with a few more exotic flavors available.
NZ features many more flavors — spearmint and…peanut butter flavored milk!
Woolworth’s in Whangarei (NZ) decided they could get around some selling restrictions by also selling "Milk Flavoured Milk". Milk flavored milk!
South Australia has the highest consumption of flavoured milk per person, where Farmers Union Iced Coffee outsells Coca-Cola.
I remember from a previous visit the shockingly unusual crisp (potato chip) flavors. Ham and mustard. Big red and meat pie. Feta and herb, Thai chili.
To be fair, almost every restaurant meal I’ve had here has been extraordinarily delicious. It would be nice to think that the cooking is simply all top notch, which in many cases it is, but I think other things might be involved. I’m going to suggest that due to the relative sparseness of the population here, and the fertility and abundance of the local fields and seas, there is an unusual availability of fresh produce, meats and seafood. I suggest that it is this freshness of all of these that makes the foods so much better — and that we, especially in NYC, are just not used to super fresh foods. The taste is definitely better.
I had some calamari that were lovely and an octopus over greens that was much much better than the mangy little tentacles served up in top restaurants in NY. This was like a steak but with big suckers on the side!
