Yes, we have no bananas

In field-food has a tendency to become very repetitive, especially when it’s the same thing everyday. Because cave work is so hot and sweaty and the caves are dark and humid and often muddy you never really feel like eating anything. But the energy is needed and snacking always helps give you a blood sugar boost in the cave. Our in-cave food consists mostly of Pokari Sweat, an isotonic drink that I believe is Japanese, and SilverQueen, a brand of chocolate bar. The Pokari Sweat is excellent because drinking just water isn’t enough in the caves to give you energy back and replacing lost salts when in the tropics and doing hard work is obviously a very good idea. Plus its not too sweet. As for the SilverQueen, we try for the dark chocolate variety, partly because it has a slightly higher melting point than the other ones, and partly because when you’re in a muddy cave, the dark chocolate hides the dirt the best.

One food that never travels particularly well is the humble banana. So you can imagine that in a situation where there are big packs with everything loose inside being banged against rocks and hauled up pitches that bananas would not necessarily be the cavers’ fruit of choice. And yet we haul in quite a few bananas. Being the tropical variety they are the very small ones which you can eat in two mouthfuls, or one if you feel like showing off, and not too sweet. Very tasty but not very practical.

Bintang Beer

Ahh, Bintang Beer, Indonesia’s local brew. For the first half of our trip we’re in southern Sulawesi, which is quite a conservatively Muslim area and so drinking is fairly unheard of round these parts, at least for Indonesians. Still being a fairly tolerant bunch, westerners aren’t expected to comply and it’s fairly easy to buy. Of course, public drunkenness is still very much frowned upon and since the owner of our accommodation is quite a devout Muslim, a Hajji we don’t drink at our place. We are therefore generally forgoing the post-field beer (which is a travesty for any self-respecting geologist) except when discussing goings on with the village patriarch who some people visit on the occasional evening before dinner. The second half of the trip will be spent on a catholic island though, so I expect there will be more drinking there. Meanwhile, in the port area of Makassar, the nearest major city where we’ve spent a day or two it’s possible to buy a couple of bottles, and sit and watch the sun set over the Celebes Sea. Perfect.

Never judge a burger by its cover

This is Brodburger, home to the best burgers in Canberra.  This fact is not disputed by any local, they are the best.

Located in a caravan on the lake on the south-side this place has a steady throng of customers every lunchtime, seven days a week. Politicians and public servants during the week, families and students at the weekend.  On a sunny saturday lunchtime its very popular. Its achieved cult status in Canberra.  Occasionally unknowing authorities try to shut it down, the popular uproar is so great it never gets far.

They only have a certain amount of stock per day, and they close once its sold, we were lucky as we were the last in the queue before they decided to stop selling.  As they make the burgers to order, and with such a long backlog of customers building up it took an entire hour to get round to our order. But if you bring along a picnic blanket and the weekend paper, its a very enjoyable wait on the grass by the lake. A perfect way to hang out with friends (in this case my housemates) at the weekend.

And the wait was worth it. The burger was brilliant. Big and filling but not oversized and stuffing.  Meaty, perfectly done and slightly pink on the inside. Crisp not soggy lettuce and tomato.  Good amounts of relish and sauce, enough to add flavour, not too much to make the burger soggy or overpower the real flavours. Good quality bread, not too doughy. You get a choice of cheese with it, brie, swiss or blue (in the form of a sauce in the case of the blue). I'm not usually a blue cheese fan, but it was just the right amount of blue cheese, enough to compliment the meat and make it cheesy, not too much to overpower.  Can you tell I loved this burger!

At long last: My Cherry Ripe Cherry is gone

Finally, the iconic chocolcate bar of Australia has been thoroughly product tested by yours truly.  Ladies and Gentemen, this is the Cherry Ripe Review:

I'm just back from a week's holiday in Tasmania with MC.  It was awesome, and hopefully there'll be lots of blog posts coming in the next couple of weeks with lots of photos. Located in Hobart is the Cadbury factory, originally producing chocolates for a large area it now produces all of the slab chocolates for Australia and New Zealand, providing hundreds of jobs to Hobart and the entire state with their constant need for a hefty supply of milk.  Anyway, we went for their tour which sadly is no longer a tour due to 'ealth and safety but a talk, and a video and some tasting!  Obviously very glossy and brightness and lights and happy, but then the kind of people that go on chocolate factory tours (mainly old ladies on the day we went) are those who will lap it up and are willing to overlook the propoganda style talk.  Isn't being part of Kraft wonderful for example.  Anywhere that gives me a bar of Dairy Milk (now Fairtrade!) on entry gets my vote, and then free samples at the start of the tour! Like putty in their hands.

Named after the poem by englishman Robert Hendrick (1591-1674) (quite how I have no idea but i think it became a song, then something else, then a song again) the Cherry Ripe is Australia's oldest chocolate bar and is currently manufactured by Cadbury's.  Its pretty important to the Australians, JB's kids were really suprised to learn I hadn't ever had one. Fittingly my first Cherry Ripe was a free sample, a welcome to Australia here's your Cherry Ripe moment.  I went and bought another one half an hour later at the end of the tour!

A cherry ripe is basically bounty style semi-dessicated coconut, with Cherry juice to keep it moist and fruity.  And its covered in dark chocolate.  The result: pretty damn good.  Tastier than coconut based chocolates thats for sure. Not blow my socks off this is the best thing ever, but then thats rarely the case with iconic chocolate.  Certainly good, certainly will have them again. Tasty, tasty, tasty!



Multicultural Festival

Over the weekend there was a mulitcultural festival in Canberra, lots of tents selling food and beer, and a few stages with entertainment ranging from very good to cringing in the way that local dance groups can be.  It was all rather good.  I'd never really though of Canberra as being that multicultural.  Having grown up in London and seen how diverse Sydney can be, Canberra isn't that multicultural in, say percentage terms.  But it is very multicultural in the sense that there are many, many different cultures represented, which is good.  From pacific islanders, to the indian subcontinent, from west africa to the baltic states, there were a lot of tents from a lot of countries.  It could well be to do with the very transient population Canberra has, with all the public servants, students and embassy staff (which is where I guess a lot of the cultural groups come from) a lot of the population of Canberra is generally not from Canberra, its hard enough to find natives!  It was a good fun evening and involved for me:
Kebab thingys from a Macedonian Stall (there were two Macedonian stalls!), dumplings from a Korean stall, beer from a german stall, a bun from the Lithuanian stall, curry from the Ghana stall, beer and biscuits from the Sicilian stall and pancakes from a Dutch stall.

Tasty, tasty, tasty, tasty, tasty, tasty!

Mint Slices

Along with the Tim-Tam (which I've yet to review properly on this blog!) the Mint Slice is another aussie biscuit favourite.  Unfortunately, unlike the Tim-Tam, the Mint Slice just isn't that good.  Its just a bit soft, and mint kind of works better when crunchy.  Its certainly not up to a Viscount biscuit (the closest UK equivalent) or a mint Club. A bit disappointing to be fair.

The Great Australian Divide

Is apparently this:

The two different flavours of this popular brand of nougat filled chocolate (other brands of nougat filled chocolate are available). Both contain peanuts and coconut so actually taste pretty similar.  The Honey Log has more chocolate and equal amounts of peanuts and coconut and a honey nougat.  The Summer roll has more coconut than peanuts (but more coconut and peanuts than the honey log), less chocolate and regular nougat.  JB and ES prefer the honey log, NB, TB (the two daughters) and JB's various Twitter companions and random people in some seminar he was giving prefer the summer roll.

My decision: The Summer Roll is nicer.  I have declared my position!

More Snackfood!

So HSG (my co-supervisor or at least Post-Doc in the same group, its much harder to work out people's academic position in Australia) introduced me to this today - pictured on top of a very interesting sulphur anomaly!:

Its a Violet Crumble, basically a Crunchie, slightly longer.  But its nicer than a Crunchie, less sticky, less orange, and just more crunchy!  I approve.

Twisties

These are Twisties, another Australian must have.  Basically they're oversized NikNaks with Wotsits flavouring.  I'm not 100% convinced, not too much of a wotsits flavour fan.  but there you go!

Lamington

Contrary to how it sounds, Lamington is not a small village deep in the English countryside somewhere near Milton Keynes, but rather an Australian foodstuff.  An Australian Swiss roll would be the most accurate description.   Plain sponge rolled with cream with a chocolate coating round the outside and desiccated coconut.  Its rather tasty

JB is at pains to point out, however, that this is not an authentic Lamington.  I look forward the the real thing!!