Book Review: I, Iago

They called me "honest Iago" from an early age,
but in Venice, this is not a compliment. It is rebuke.
One does not prosper by honesty.

Nicole Galland's novel provides a different perspective on the Shakespearean tale of Othello ... the villain's perspective. Narrated by Iago, the architect of Othello's downfall, the story cleverly weaves a background, his motivations for his actions, a different view on the circumstances.

The story behind the creation of the novel is that the author had been involved in putting on one hour versions of Shakespere's play only to discover when they went to do Othello that the actor to play Iago hadn't even read the play. She worked through the character with him but that raised more questions and ideas for her about Iago's motivations, his relationship with his wife, his actions when he was found out and the other character's responses.

The story starts with Iago growing up in Venice, joining the Venetian artillery, falling deeply in love with his wife Emilia and becoming Othello's ensign. But his jealousy of not being appointed lieutenant and over Othello's obsession with his beautiful wife Desdemona drive him to action that leads to disastrous results.

In this story Iago is a complex man. Dismissive of the Venetian class system, yet driven by a need to raise his status. Deeply loving of both Emilia and Othello yet he destroys them both as he himself is destroyed. Known for honesty but brought down by lies. It is a convincing story of a man's downfall.

I have to admit that I'm not that familiar with Othello the play. I knew the basics but I think I've only seen a television adaptation once so the twists and turns were a surprise but I think you would enjoy it as much if you were familiar with the play as if you had never seen it. Overall I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in Shakespere or even just a villain's perspective on his crimes.

Restaurant Review: Kinn Thai

A warm Friday night, some spicy Thai food and a tasty cocktail is pretty much my idea of bliss and I had the great pleasure to enjoy it at  Kinn Thai.

If you haven't come across it yet, it has replaced Wagamama between Sammy's Kitchen and Wood and Coal in the North Quarter of the Canberra Centre. Wagamama had languished, mostly empty for quite some time. Kinn Thai couldn't be more different. On the Friday night we visited it was packed and we watched the rapid change over of tables. I'm sure they did at least three seatings at most tables.

We had no booking but being just two us and quite early, about 6pm, we scored a table straight away. By the time we left at 7pm however there was a queue and I could see our table being snapped right up.

The menu offers lots of the usual favourites but one option I like is that for most types of dishes - eg stir fry - they offer a base and you choose your protein. Being our first visit we went with our benchmark Thai dish - pad thai which we had with chicken - plus an entree of duck pancakes and a second main dish of a crying tiger salad.

We also ordered cocktails. I ordered a Ho-Ra-Pa ($14) which is Don Julico Tequila, Thai Basil with a hint of raspberry and ginger ale. S ordered a caprioska ($12) made with cachaca, brown sugar and lime. Both were delicious, although we each liked the other's better and ended up swapping. My only comment was that the Ho-Ra-Pa came out in a glass like a mini fish bowl which was a bit difficult to drink from.

The pancakes came out incredibly quickly - they actually beat our cocktails to the table. The pancake itself was very tasty, quite different to the Chinese style ones I'm used to, more chewy and tasty. It was filled with generous chunks of duck, spring onions and cucumber and accompanied with hoisin sauce. At $10 for 2 pancakes it is on the expensive side for a small entree but we both loved them and would order them again.

Next dish out was the crying tiger salad ($23). It gets a 2 chili rating on the menu and deserved it, my first mouthful had a big chunk of chili which got me right in the back of the throat. But if you like chili I think you will love this dish. It was fresh and flavourful with the taste of the herbs and a generous amount of lemongrass. The beef was incredibly tender, you could cut it with a spoon and while this is quite a decent serve the two of us had no trouble finishing it.

Finally we had the pad thai. We had chosen chicken ($16.50) but it also comes in vegetarian, beef and prawn options. I would definitely rate this as a good and tasty pad thai. It was slightly heavy on the tomato for me and S would have liked more peanuts but that was really nitpicking. Again a very generous serve disappeared fast, although with so many other interesting things on the menu, I'm not sure I would order it again.

All up our meal came to $75 which given that it included two cocktails I thought was pretty good

Service was great. The food came out promptly and the wait staff were attentive if, it seemed, slightly inexperienced with the iPad ordering system.

Every dish we saw going past looked and smelled great. S who isn't big on going to the same place twice commented that he would be keen to return and try a few more dishes.

Overall we really enjoyed our dinner. I can't wait to go back with a crowd and try some of the seafood dishes (S doesn't eat seafood) as I've heard great reports about the crispy soft shell crab.

Kinn Thai Restaurant
125 Bunda Street
Canberra City
http://kinnrestaurant.com.au/canberra/

Random Musings: Frocktober

It is that time of year again - Frocktober! The month where I wear frocks every day to raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.

The start of the month has been extremely busy. Last Saturday I held the "Spring High Tea" a fundraising high tea for Frocktober. I was lucky enough to be supported by a host of great Canberra businesses with items to raffle and auction and over 60 people attended the afternoon to enjoy delicious food and drink provided by the Canberra Institute of Technology and hear the lovely music of the Canberra Girls Grammar string ensemble.

It was a fabulous afternoon. The final bills aren't in but it looks to have made around $2,000 for the OCRF which is a complete thrill. You can read more about it here.

Aside from that I've been wrestling with the usual Frocktober challenges - having enough work appropriate frocks, battling wind and full skirts, figuring out how to accessorise for the weather. But it is a fun challenge and as always I'm enjoying it.

As always, Frocktober makes me think of the person whose diagnosis and death put me on this path to supporting the OCRF. It is 5 years now since Aunty Sue died and I'm still not used to the thought that she isn't here with us. It was her diagnosis that made me aware how difficult ovarian cancer is to identify and that without an early detection test we will continue to see a woman die every 10 hours from this hidden killer.

So while I may be spending the month having fun wearing frocks, it is for an amazing cause. Frocktober has already raised over $100,000 month for more research. If you want to donate, you can do so at: https://frocktober2015.everydayhero.com/au/lisa-robey

To see all my frock efforts visit my Instagram page at: https://instagram.com/lisablithemoments/

And if you feel inspired, it isn't too late to join in. Head to http://frocktober.org/ to get all the details.

Happy Frocking!

Recipe: Flourless chocolate, hazelnut ricotta cake

If you have a food intolerance, life can get a bit boring food wise. It isn't just that you are limited in what you can have, it is that people get good at making one thing that meets your needs and you get to have it over and over and over.

I'm lucky enough not to have any real food issues but I seem to be surrounded by people with them. At a recent dinner 11 of the 14 people there had special dietary requirements. So while I can eat everything, I do spend quite a bit of time thinking about new and delicious things I can make for my friends who have limitations.

When it comes to gluten free baking I started, like everyone it seems, with a flourless orange and poppyseed cake. Now there is nothing wrong with orange and poppyseed cake, mine is actually pretty damn delicious, but I realised that more often that not it is the only gluten free option in cafes and so my friends had it a lot. Since then I've been experimenting with a range of flavours and particularly with different nuts to replace the seemingly ubiquitous almonds.

This cake is great. Rich, moist, packed with flavour. You certainly don't feel like you are missing out on anything with it and I'm yet to meet anyone who doesn't love it. It is best the day after it has been made after it has spent a night in the refrigerator really developing that dessert like texture.

I've got two options for toppings with this recipe because S and I can't decide which is best. Topping one involves sprinkling grated chocolate over the top of the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. It melts and forms a super chocolate layer. However it isn't that aesthetically pleasing.

Topping two is a simple dusting of icing sugar before serving which looks great but doesn't add a lot to the flavour.

Tips: Place a bowl of hot water in the bottom of the oven to add some moisture. This helps prevent cracks, although mine does often crack a little. If you don't like orange you can leave the zest out but it does add a lovely complexity to the flavour. When you take it out of the oven it will slowly drop in size, but that is what creates the great texture so don't worry when it happens.

Enjoy!

Flourless chocolate, hazelnut ricotta cake
120g butter
250g caster sugar (divided into 150g and 100g)
1 tsp vanilla paste
zest 1/2 an orange
4 eggs separated
45g cocoa
1/3 warm milk
240g hazelnut meal
300g ricotta
flaked almonds
either 20g grated dark chocolate or icing sugar to decorate

Preheat a fan forced oven to 160oC. Grease and line a 20cm baking tin.

Cream the butter, 150g of the sugar, vanilla and zest till light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions.

In a small bowl, mix together the cocoa and milk to form a thick paste. Add to the butter mixture (note make sure your milk is only warm as it will help dissolve the cocoa but not too hot so that it melts the butter).

Add the hazelnut meal and mix well, then fold through the ricotta until all combined.

In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then beat in the remaining 100g of caster sugar until thick, glossy and hard peaks.

Fold the egg whites through the cake batter a third at a time. I do this by hand with a spatula carefully lifting and folding the mix so that you don't knock too much air out of the egg white.

Pour into the prepared tin, sprinkle the flaked almonds over the top and bake for 40-45 minutes until springy to touch. It may still look slightly wobbly in the tin but if the centre bounces back at the touch it is ready.

If you are using the chocolate, sprinkle over straight away so that it melts on the hot cake.

Allow to cool completely in its tin before transferring to a plate. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night.

Serve cold from the fridge, dusted with icing sugar of using that option and with a good dollop of whipped cream.

Random Musings: Knowing (and respecting) your limits

Today is a glorious spring day. Warm with a light breeze - just the perfect day to get out and go crazy in the garden.

A few month ago, however, I had a car accident. It wasn't very serious, the car was fairly easily repaired and I didn't even think I'd hurt myself other than bumping my shoulder but it turned out that "bump" was a partial dislocation - and didn't I know it a week later when the pain kicked in. Anyone who has had a shoulder injury knows that they are slow to heal. It has been a long road of chiropractic visits, massage and rehab but I'm pretty much back to normal.

Lets just pause on the term "pretty much" for a second.

Right now I'm still doing my rehab exercises. Day to day activities are fine but for an office dweller like me, that doesn't involve much manual work. So much as I'm dying to spend the whole day overhauling the garden, I just can't. A couple of hours and the tired feeling kicks in and I have to stop. Not because I want to, but because I have to or I risk setting back my recovery.

It is awful that moment when what you mind wants you to do and your body can do, don't match.

I recently caught up with an old colleague and somehow our conversation turned to exactly this topic. She told me that recently she had been at the gym doing intervals after a huge and exhausting week. Her mind was saying "go, go , go" and her body was valiantly trying but couldn't keep up and she found herself in tears. She said it was like the dichotomy between what her mind wanted to be able to do and what her body was capable of just broke her soul for that moment. She wasn't upset, or even really distressed but the tears were just the way her body was trying to tell her that she had to stop.

I know precisely what she meant. I've found myself in tears for exactly this reason - most mortifyingly in the middle of a dance class - on a number of occasions. I have to ask myself, is finishing the garden, doing that extra set of intervals, taking that extra dance class worth it when our bodies are clearly saying no?

I don't think that we give rest the importance it deserves. In our busy world there is always something else we could be doing and taking time to let our bodies recover seems to go missing in that equation. So I'm doing my best to buck the trend. I'm listening to my body when it says it is time to go to bed, even if it means I miss the end of a TV show. I'm recognising the evenings when I just need to stay home on the couch. And I'm stopping work in the garden, even when there is more to do.

Because there is always tomorrow and isn't tomorrow better when you feel well enough to enjoy it?

Do you know your limits? And more importantly do you respect them?

Random Musings: Spring

It is spring. 

The sun is shining. 

I'm wearing a t-shirt. 

Flowers are everywhere.

The world is good!

Book Review: The Empress of Icecream

Her body belonged to a king.

But who would melt her heart?

I'm just going to say this - if you are going to read a book centered on ice-cream, do it in summer. Reading a book filled with lush descriptions of various frozen desserts, sorbets, sherbets and of course ice-cream while the weather is of a temperature similar to that of a freezer makes for a chilly atmosphere. But that isn't to say I didn't really enjoy it.

Anthony Capella's books all centre on food so it is probably of little surprise to anyone that I'm drawn to them. However I also enjoy how for all bar "The Food of Love" he has set them in detailed, yet not well know (at least to me) historical contexts.

I particularly love a book that has me reaching for Wikipedia to find out more about the real people behind the fictional characters and his latest book "The Empress of Icecream" certainly had that. It is centered around Louise de Keroualle, the famous French mistress of Charles II and a fictional, but based on real people, character of the royal ice-cream maker.

Real historical events are cleverly interwoven with a fiction to make a tale that is not only a great read but an insight into a smart, savvy and highly influential woman who had an amazing impact on the English court. My library categorised it as a romance and love stories to wend their way throughout the book, but I think it has a lot more to offer than just a simple love story. I enjoyed the history, the lessons about ice-cream and England in the time of the Restoration.

I have to say, I think that this is a perfect summer holiday book. Light enough to read while on holiday but with enough substance to keep you engrossed. And of course all those delicious descriptions of ice confections that may just send you visiting the freezer.