Nat's Big Fat Gypsy Hen's Party

Nat is getting married in a fortnight. Huzzah!

As Anna and I are (extremely proud to be) her bridesmaids, we put on a Hen's party for Nat this Saturday just passed. The theme was My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Check out my extreme abilities in Photoshopping!

It's insanely super nice putting on a party for someone as in: taking what their idea of an ideal party would be and then actioning it. Not too many tacky Hen's party games either - the lack thereof not being to the taste of everyone but certainly to mine, and most importantly, the Bride's.

We did however play "pin the dress on the Gypsy Bride". I made this one up myself, and Nat did look stunning if I do say so myself:

That's a cat on her waist FYI:

Anna was in charge of drinks and plied us with strawberry daiquiris and champagne with cassis. Pink! Delicious!

Dinner and then into town to have some very civilised drinks at the Library. Gypsy Love Potion! More pink and also like drinking a Turkish Delight. Ridiculous coloured drinks make me so happy.

And now for my favourite photograph of Nat and me ever (I'm the one with all the bronzer in case you can't recognise me without my glasses on).

Currently playing: La javanaise by Serge Gainsbourg

 

 

SCP Sunday Film Fest: The Six-Dollar Fifty Man

Things to like: that kid's weird face, his tracksuit, the broad Kiwi accents, the smoking Principal.

The Great Knicker-Making Mission - Part the Third (French knickers, twice)

The last time I blogged about knicker-making was in September of 2010! Last year, studying etc rather ate into my knicker-making time. This year, with my beautiful new sewing machine and much more time on my hands, I have re-discovered my knicker-making passion. Have I mentioned in the last five minutes how much nicer it is to sew with this beautiful machine? So very much nicer, an absolute pleasure.

This weekend I made two pairs of gorgeous French knickers from a very fine cotton & silk fabric. The fabric was possibly the most expensive fabric I've ever bought, but it's worth every cent - incredibly soft and absolutely gorgeous. I'm finally getting to a point in my life where I feel I can trust myself to sew well with expensive fabrics! There is nothing like a wisp of silk around your nether regions to make you feel freaking gorgeous and super extra fabulously sexy, and the cost of buying something in a similar fabric in a shop would be beyond ridiculous.

The first pattern I used was from the web. I'd completely forgotten that I'd seen it until Craft started publishing their best-ofs at the end of last year. You need to measure yourself in order to make your own pattern, but the instructions are very simple to follow and the knickers themselves are very easy to make.

I trimmed mine using some elasticated lace that I had lying around, but unfortunately when I went to elasticate the top of the knickers I didn't have enough of the fold-over elastic that is specified in the Craft directions. I just pulled the elastic through a casing which is not the most elegant of solutions but is totally fiiiiine.

The biggest issue that I found with this pattern is that I ended up making the knickers far too big. The elastic will be fine in terms of keeping them up, but they aren't very sexxxxy looking, really. I wonder if this is because I overlocked all the seams instead of sewing them regularly - there is a very generous seam allowance in the pattern and I used a fraction of it. Next time I attempt this pattern I'll shave an inch or so of the edges in order to get a better fit.

The finished product: not too shabby, I think. It's a shame that you can't see how amazing the fabric is from this photo.

 

For the second pair I used an 80s Kwik Sew pattern that I picked up via Trade Me. Strangely Shannon thinks his mum had this exact pattern which could mean that I'm wearing the same underwear as his mum - a little Freudian spookiness there.This was my second attempt at the pattern, the first being in a fine cotton which is shear enough to sit under slim-fitting skirts but tends to ride up rather.

This French knicker pattern has a number of major differences to the one above. Firstly, the fabric is cut on the bias which gives more drape to the fabric in the legs, and gives the knickers a bit of stretch as well. The second difference is that the knickers are made in only two pieces compared to the four above. The lack of the side seam does help to make the French knickers sit nice and flat under your clothes, as well as removing a step from the process and I'm all for making things much easier in my life.

Again, I overlocked all the seams on these knickers. I had a quick try on, and I think the added seam allowance makes them more comfortable than the last pair I made on which I allowed a 1cm seam allowance. This quickly ate into the knicker fabric, which, in turn, tends to eat into my butt.

 

 

After a weekend of beavering away in my den, I'm feeling that I've maybe finally cracked the French-knicker making. I'm going to have a go with the tweaks on the Craft pattern, and see if I can lower the waist on the Kwik Sew pattern as it's a bit higher than I really like.

ALSO: a valuable tip regarding the width of your elastic: you want a good centimetre wide elastic at least. Any thinner and you end up in a seriously dire situation, with your knicker elastic all twisting around and folding in on itself and digging itself into your tender tummy. There is nothing sexy about twisted knicker elastic whatsoever.

365DOP: Mint & chilli chicken on lime & coconut rice

This week has been characterised by the acquisition of more Peta books. I bought both A Cook's Tour of New Zealand (2005) and Insatiable(2000) from Trade Me, and read Insatiable over my coffee on Saturday morning.

Insatiable came out at a special time for New Zealand cooking - I think it was only about then that people became more interested in cooking with the kind of Mediterranean flavours that Peta writes about, and which now form a fair part of my cooking repertoire. She also seems to be quite obsessed with extra virgin olive oil and verjuice in the book, both of which had recently emerged as THE thing to obsess about, in a culinary sense.

A Cook's Tour attempts to be an encyclopedia of New Zealand food and cooking, but it's a rather slim and completely subjective encyclopedia. I've flicked through it. The entry on roses includes a story about why rose gardeners are obsessed with roses: because the flower reminds them of women and female sexuality. Hokay.

Shannon and I were invited to a barbeque on Saturday night and I decided to take a Peta recipe from A Cook's Tour as our offering. The recipe that I chose was mint & chilli chicken on lime & coconut rice (p. 57). The chicken is marinaded in fresh mint, chilli, garlic and soy sauces for a couple of hours before being skewered and grilled. Peta recommends char grilling and serving the skewers with snake beans and rice cooked with coconut, ginger and kefir lime leaves.

I followed the recipe religiously - or at least, almost religiously. I dorked out on the lime required for the marinade and replaced it with lemon, I didn't have jasmine rice so I used basmati, I used chilli powder instead of chilli flakes because that's what I had on hand, and Moore Wilsons weren't carrying any snake beans when I went down for the ingredients - so I served green beans instead.

 

My skewers on the barbeque next to some freaky orange New World marinated skewers

 

The recipe was super easy to follow, and the meal was delicious! The skewers were easy enough to transport to the barbeque. For the rice: I prepared it at home as I thought I could just heat it up in the microwave. That worked fine in terms of quality etc, although nobody seemed too too keen on eating rice at a barbeque (quelle surprise?). I took about half the amount of rice home and my flatmate Fran made a lovely fried rice with it on Sunday night.

This meal then is quite different to anything I've done before ala Peta. Lots of Asian style flavours, and not terribly complicated in terms of technique. I usually avoid making rice using the absorption method but I was really happy with how the rice turned out - so ten points for excellent instructions Peta!

I'm super keen to make this again - partially because we have a glut of mint (for serious, so much) and partially because it's always nice to take something with interesting flavours to a barbeque. Don't get me wrong, I love sausages as much as the next person (Peta notes in A Cook's Tourthat New Zealand is a nation of sausage lovers with just under a third of people indulging once a week*) but it's always nice to mix things up on ye olde grill.

 

Dave has the skills, I am excited for dinner

 

*Peta also notes that one of her favourite kinds of sausage is Italian Pork and Fennel - FYI that's the sausage offering that we took with us. Peta much? Yes I am.

SCP Sunday Film Fest - Latcho Drom

So, this Sunday's video is not a Kiwi one at all, but rather a clip from Latcho Drom (1993). I've been sewing all day and listening to Tony Gatlif gypsy movie soundtracks. In my opinion, Latcho Drom is THE BEST hands down. I laugh in the face of Swing!

Watch this clip, and then go out and get the movie and watch the rest because it's fascinating and sad, and has beautiful music. And it's far more effective than Gypsy Weddings at romanticising a gypsy lifestyle. Really so much romanticisation.