Banana Crêpes

One of the best things about visiting Asia (particularly Thailand & Indonesia) is, without a doubt, banana pancakes for breakfast!

I've tried to make them on a couple of occasions but have not been very successful...until Monday! Here's what I got them right after a few tries:

Banana Crepes:

Mix together:

• 1 happy chicken egg (free range)
  
• 1 cup of self raising flour
• 2T olive oil
• pinch of salt
• 1T castor sugar
• add milk until the mixture is a nice pouring consistency.

Method:

• Heat a little olive oil in a good non-stick pan
• pour and spread a thin layer of mixture onto the pan
• cook the one side until it lifts easily from the pan (light brown)
• Flip the crepe over
• put THIN slices of banana on one half of the crepe & fold the other half over the banana half
• cook on both folded half sides till golden brown

Serving:

• Serve with good honey! (I recommend Bluegum Honey from Woolies!!)
  

(pic from this site)

Back in the Day SA

My (much mentioned) (and well deservedly so) friend, Elaine, has an ongoing project in which she sources, sorts, scans, blogs etc etc slides from wherever she can get them. Elaine holds the occasional themed slide show with theme(s) such as 'boats and beaches','urban spaces' or 'people and families' for interested friends. Pete organises some music and voila: an evening of art and entertainment.

These slides provide a voyeuristic glimpse through the eye of random South African photographers & photography enthusiasts' slide collections from long ago..

One of the many extensions of this project is the Back in the Day SA blog which features a pick of amazing slides which have been scanned...

...with a few pondering remarks as to what was going on. Visit the blog for a view into 'yesteryear South Africa'

The Tudors

Geoff and I have been watchin an episode of The Tudors almost every evening... we're nearing the end of Season 2... Pete & Elaine have also been watching, and we've been relying on Elaine's inquisitive nature & internet browsing skills to fill us in on what really happened in History. (It turns out that the script follows history reasonably accurately, with the embelishment of rumours becoming realities in the series).

I just can't help feeling sorry for many of the women in the story. The king is not a very nice man at all. (Actually, most of the men in the story are rather wicked.)

3 episodes of season 2, season 3 and 4 to go!

No Parlo Americano

I hadn't realised that there was such a cool original for the radio remix 'No Parlo Americano' >

because I simply LOOOOOOVE the remix!

Family Fun

We visited our friends, Peter & Yuliya & their two boys, Sasha & Max just before Christmas... We had a fantastic photoshoot with them:

They have the strangest spider installation in the bushes at the entrance to their home.. These spiders have taken up residence & joined web-forces to create a massive mega-web:

Saving The Pigeon

When Geoff got home yesterday, we discovered that a (probably first) flying lesson had gone into a bit of a disaster with this baby landing in our pool:

We saved it with the pool net and put it into a crate with some newspaper, food and water. This morning, the bain of our balcony (a mating pair of rock pigeons) were cooing around the crate looking all puffed up and concerned. We're uncertain as to whether this bird will survive. Its not looking good....

Marbled Orb Weaver

Watering our garden the other day, I frightened a HUGE spider that ran across its web and into hiding when the hose water found it. I finished watering & found that the spider had re-claimed its position in the center of its web...I fetched my camera:

...& looked it up online:

One feature of the webs of some orb-weavers is the stabilimentum, a crisscross band of silk through the center of the web... The band has been hypothesized to be a lure for prey, a marker to warn birds away from the web and a camouflage for the spider when it sits in the center of the web. However, recent research suggests that the stabilimentum actually decreases the visibility of the silk to insects, thus making it harder for prey to avoid the web. The orb-web consists of a frame and supporting radii overlaid with a sticky capture spiral, and the silks used by orb-weaver spiders have exceptional mechanical properties to withstand the impact of flying prey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb-weaver_spider