Best Pizza Ever...

We are off to Melbourne tonight.  We get to see our great friends that live down there and we CANNOT wait!  I thought I’d post this amazing pizza that we have been making before we head out.  It has pear, Gorgonzola cheese and pine nuts.  Matt scoffed at it initially, saying it sounded gross.  After eating it, he swore that it was the best pizza I had ever made!

Ingredients for Dough:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
Combine flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl. Mix in oil and warm water. Spread out on a large pizza pan.
 

This crust part of the recipe is not mine, found it here.  Make sure you roll it out and use it pronto.  We did the dough portion of the recipe the night before and when we cooked it, it expanded a LOT.  It was still delish, but made our pan quite messy and a little more bready than we like.
 
Once you have the crust ready and rolled out, add a cheese sauce.  I used store-bought béchamel sauce.  I’ll try making my own once we get back home and I give it a try.  Not enough dishes in this apartment to bother trying.  Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over sauce.
 

Cut up pears into thin slices, and layer over the cheese
Sprinkle a good amount of pine nuts over the pears and then add the gorgonzola cheese over the top of it all.  I would prefer crumbled gorgy, but I could only find a chunk, so we just made due – squishing it, cutting it up etc.
 

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes. (until brown)
Enjoy!  We could both eat a whole one we like it so much!

A Festival of Lights...

We’ve been trying to get down to the Brisbane Festival for a while now.  It runs from 8-29 September (see how I put the day first, very Australian of me, I know!) and because we are about to head out to Melbourne for a holiday (yah!), Wednesday night was our last shot. 

The main thing was the light show that they do each night.  It was interesting.  I have never seen anything quite like it anywhere else. Essentially they sprayed tons of water into the air and then used that to reflect lights onto.  It had a bit of an 80’s dance party-ness about it, but it was quite pretty and they played it with music and one of my favorite covers by Peter Gabriel was played for part of it.  Even though it was a bit cheesy, I love that song, and it couldn’t help but be a bit romantic on the riverfront at night with my man, some 80’s lights and a great tune.

Listen to the song, and look at these photos and be carried to another time and place.  Hopefully a less cheesy place than the real thing!

Today's Wish List

Boots – Modcloth;  Pants – Forever 21;  Pin – ebay;  Top – Modcloth;  Earrings – Collette;  Jacket – Rachel Roy;  Necklace – asos;  Bag – Collette

Although it’s just moving into summer here in Australia, when I get home in a few weeks, it will be fall, so I’m trying to adjust my thinking to look forward to that.  There are some pieces that I would wear anytime of the year and you can see that here.  I love color always.

This season I’m looking forward to using some brick coloring and would love a pair of multi-tone boots like these.  I am finding myself getting on board with the animal-jewelry craze and insects often seem to be my go-to, but this dog necklace is really adorable
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There is nothing funnier than sitting in a meeting and the person presenting stops mid-sentence to say “are those dogs on your necklace?”.  This has happened to me twice with animal pieces.

Four Things...

Today I am feeling particularly antsy to go home.  Everything, it seems makes me think of home, or Philadelphia, or my friends – even my work space at home!  Matt and I have been indulging these moments of home-longing-ness and we egg each other on, saying things like, “what are you going to do when you get home?”  “what do you miss the most?” etc.  It’s hard to explain how living itinerantly affects your well-being.  There is certainly an overarching sense of adventure at first, then moments of missing something/someone, but then it starts to creep up on you that you are desperately in need of the normalcy and routine that home brings with it.

Sometimes we feel bratty because duh, we’re in Australia for FREE!  And we are so very grateful for that, and always will be, but to pretend we aren’t starting to miss home would be a lie!  So I’ve compiled a few things that we keep talking about when we long for home!

South Philly Taproom – this place is funny to us, because it is likely the #1 hipster hangout in S. Philly and that is certainly not our scene.  We went once on a whim and had this amazing grilled cheese and tomato soup that we have craved like wildebeests since we left Philly.  It is the best grilled cheese maybe ever and I generally hate tomato soup, but this one is enough to make you divorce all other soups for life.

Baths! – don’t freak out, we shower in Australia, but our service apartment doesn’t have a bathtub.  Matt is a huge bath fan.  Picture we’re late for some event and he runs up to get ready, I say hurry, we have 15 minutes and the next thing I hear is bathwater running!?! Wha the?

Projects – Right now, when I get home from work and Matt from volunteering, we might go for a walk, a run or go to dinner.  But if we are in for the night – we only have two options: TV or reading.  There are no projects because there is no stuff, and there is no stuff because there isn’t any room and we can’t bring back too much.  I am longing to work on projects whether throughout the house or to create something that I have an idea for

Doing nothing – we keep coming back to this because the time here has been so wonderful but also so jam-packed.  This is due entirely to my insanity.  I make sure we have something worthwhile to do every weekend, and most of our weeknights.  I just can’t bear to have any time wasted in Australia.  What if we never come back?  It took me 16 years to get back to China and there is no reason to come back here that we can foresee, so I need to DO IT ALL!  As our time is winding down, people have been telling us, you’ve got to do this, or you simply can’t skip that, but we have to say that we just can’t!  When we get home, we are both wildly looking forward to having a weekend with nothing to do but catch up with friends, sleep in, take the aforementioned bath, and relax in our much-missed home

What would you miss about home if you were away for 4 months?

Here are a few pics from our weekend in the country.  We went to Goondiwindi and saw a commercial farm, swam in a dam, drove around, rode motor bikes, ate some great food with new friends and enjoyed every minute!  Isn't the sky so blue??!

The Photo Dash

Just a quick note today.

Last night I had a massage at a Chinese Massage House.  I got a great deal on Groupon and my lower back has been killing me, so I took advantage.  We made reservations at one of Brisbane’s top restaurants for afterwards. 

We decided to walk, thinking it’s not that far and I loved what I was wearing so I thought we could take some photos on the way.  Well, we ended up practically running to not be late, so these shots were literally taken as we were running, pausing, running, pausing.  The ones with the brick are taken as we waited for the crosswalk to change.

Matty thinks I’m a crazy person

The massage and dinner were awesome.  Restaurant in Brisy: Moda

Jacket: BCF

Dress: Asos

Bag: China

Jewelry: Gifted

Belt: Gifted

Shoes: BCF

Peace I leave with you...

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. – John 14:27

This has really been my anchor this week, maybe this month.  There are some things going on in my life that threaten to overwhelm me, toss me about, crush me against the rocks and I’m lousy at surrendering, at stepping away from the feeling, the fear.  Instead I (like most women I imagine) wrestle it, think about it over and over and over ad nauseum until I want to escape from myself as much as the thing that is hurting me in the first place. 

I want to let go, I want to learn to trust.  I know things work out one way or another eventually and I want to stop being afraid and angry.  Fear makes me really mad, and then a vicious cycle begins.

I need an anchor to cling to. 

It’s like a simple prayer when you haven’t the words for anything elaborate and so all you can muster is a “Help me, God”. 

He answers the honest heart.

BCBG Maxazria

Obviously I'm not at NYFW this week, as I'm in Australia and who would invite me anyway?  But someday I plan on being there.  I don't need to be up front with anyone who matters, I'd be just as happy oogling the designs from the back.  I spent some time today searching the collections that have shown so far and there have been some beautiful pieces - frocks, tops and the like, but sometimes I wonder - where is the magic?  I know there can't be something unbelievable at every show, otherwise it would make the special mundane, but it's been a while since I've seen something really other-worldly if you will.  

It seems that fashion of late follows the trends instead of setting them.

That all being said, I still have a soft spot for BCBG MaxAzria. It's probably because for one of my birthdays, Matt took me to the store and said buy whatever you want.  It was one of those Pretty Woman shopping moments (when she buys the clothes, not when they turn her away!) and was very special.  This season's collection isn't anything that will change the world as we know it, but there are some bright moments. 

When I get home and back to my studio, I will have to make myself one of these fab harnesses to wear over flowy dresses.  I am in love with how it pushes a wispy gown into masculine territory.  Well done Maxxy.

A few other things I've been noticing around the web: 

Interesting article on Craft

Zac Posen and W118 had interesting shows at NYFW as well

If you haven't caught the show An Idiot Abroad, I highly recommend it

Two new favorite blogs: Young House Love and Adored Austin