Pigs can fly indeed
By Helvi Oosterman
Pigs Fly on Father’s Day in Bowral
Father’s and Mother’s days are a good excuse to go out to lunch; presents are forbidden unless they come in a shape of nice bottle of Shiraz for Gez and a bunch of flowers for me.
We had made arrangements to meet in Bowral as it is roughly halfway for us in Brayton and the family members in Sydney. We must have synchronized our travelling time well , as we all arrived at the agreed time, spot on at mid day. Son loves his beer and could not resist swapping the usual Shiraz for beer as the mini gift for his dad, and what better beer for the Pig’s Arms customer than the aptly named one: Pigs Fly!
I don’t know where he found it but I’m not inventing anything here; It does exist and it’s made by Bowral Beer Company and is advertised as Bradman Brew. I just found out that it got a silver medal at this year’s Food Festival in Sydney.
I could not help but sharing this with you, if only to prove that there is only six degrees of separation between just about anything; Pig Arms, Pigs Fly Beer, Bowral, Bradman, a bottle of Shiraz and the place where my son bought it, Burrawang!
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
See what happens when I’m in transit for a few days ?
Wowie !!
H, I think we’re on to a sales juggernaught here. With a little bit of re-badging, I can see Trotter’s Ale and the Pig’s Arms boutique pub / brewery emerging from the mists of inner cyberia.
Great news.
LikeLike
Warrigal, I always thought that scientists had to be very creative…
In all my businesses I have been most creative; creating my beautiful flower shop ‘Bloomsbury of Balmain’, helping ‘Balmain Improvements’ to make something special of old delapidated houses and especially of their dull non-existent gardens.
My sculptures and my canvasses have been my houses and my gardens…sculpting something out of Gez has been my biggest artistic challenge…we are getting there 😉
Now back to my non-creative pastime: clearing my cupboards, what to keep and what chuck away…
LikeLike
this was supposed go at the bottom..
LikeLike
Talking about six degrees of separation, or of some weird coincidences, but my last three callers all had concerns about ADHD. Dear friend retuned from interstate and and poured her heart out about her six year old grand daughter’s diagnonis with this disorder, the problems at school and with her diet.
A mate who helps us with alpacas called after long silence explaining that he’s had major worries with his thirteen year old son, who almost was expelled from school because of his bad behaviour and is now having counselling and diet changes because of this same syndrome…
Daughter went out on a girls-only-dinner on saturday night and reported to me that those two friends , both had sons dianosed with ADHD.
What is going on; is this the new RSI, bad parenting, is it in the genes or is it caused by our diets?
LikeLike
Maybe we should take this one offline, H. I have a great deal to say on this topic, but not so much for public consumption.
I can refer your friend(s) to a lot of good sources of information. It is certainly not bad parenting – but it is A) very real, B) in most cases manageable and C) in ALL cases a tremendously difficult challenge for parents.
In the mean time, there’s a helpful piece (I think) on the ABC’s Health website from a chap with whom you might be familiar – called John Hams.
Get back to me through the Email.
Kind Regards,
Mike
LikeLike
Thanks Emmjay, I’ll try once again to find the mysterious Mr Hams..so far no luck…
He doesnt seem to fit in my six degrees theme of things, maybe seven.
If I find him, I’ll pass him around. 🙂
LikeLike
Haven’t read it yet – too busy Twittering. I read Julian’s comment about a twittering travel diary on the decontamination blog.
LikeLike
As they say, whomsoever they may be, “Australia, it’s a different creation!”
Could have something to do with 50Myears of isolation.
LikeLike
Now how did this get here?
H, this was meant for you way down there at the bottom
LikeLike
Helvi’s story on vegemite has caused a world wide stir. Read on the ‘Ping Back’, whatever that means.
http://whats.chitbit.info/2009/09/07/vegemite/
LikeLike
Mrs M, the Littler M and me took a trip through Mittagong, Bowral, Robertson, etc a couple of weekends back. Crikey, new developments, spas, townhouses, retreats galore.
Our Robertson friends were grateful that we didn’t stop IN Bowral. May have caused civil unrest, middle-aged reprobate in mambo shirt, driving a…gasp… korean car.
Top story, Helvi!!!
PS I’ll try to get a slab of ‘Pigs Fly’, just for us to try.
LikeLike
There you go Mark (one or two ?), Robertson is literally six degrees away with it’s famous Babe, the little piglet. How could I have forget about her …
I’m trying get rid of some stuff, so far only been able throw away Gez’ things…but not his Mambo shirts, never…
LikeLike
(Not again)..How could I have forgotten about her..
LikeLike
I didn’t know pigs wore jeans!
I had to check mine there for a sec… my fly that is.
LikeLike
Yes Helvi, it was a nice Father’s day, I remember it well.
With Bowral, what is the political make-up there? I get the feeling it is a hot-bed of’ Liberal’s everyman’, lots of red cardigans and green checked skirts.
Will have to unclasp my muzzle, throw a brick though Curry Colonel’s missus’ office. With luck I’ll end up at Berrima’s correctionel Centre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCoEDiZ1VYo
LikeLike
They are having some serious fun over there, aren’t they? Are they pig’s trotters on that serving plate…
Swine Fleish, by the looks of it.
LikeLike
We have two Burrawangs growing in our back garden. They’ve both been in for several years and though their thriving they’re still quite small at only about a metre in height.
Apparently they live for quite a while and in the past the blackfellas used to collect the seed structures, leach them in water and then make a paste from the pounded seeds. Whitefellas used to call them “blackfellas potatoes” as they filled the same carbohydrate and starch dietary requirement.
“Six Degrees” is taking off as a field of study in both pure and applied mathematics. It’s called network theory and research is pointing to all sorts of applications, not the least of which is the development of network algorithms that will speed web searches by disregarding those items insufficiently connected.
LikeLike
I did not know that Burrawangs were plants, maybe the bush tucker man explained the use of those seeds years ago, but I have forgotten it all.
LikeLike
Those who can be bothered know the Burrawang as Macrozamia Communis. Their related to Cycads but different.
LikeLike
Warrigal, my botany teacher at high school made us collect 50(?) plants during the long summer holiday. We had to press dry them , fix them onto nice big sheets of art paper, find out everything about the plant , Latin names and so on…
We learnt to know many plants but the latin names I have forgotten.
Now I look around in the neighbourhood and see which plants are suitable for the area and buy them.
LikeLike
Those must be the plants that some lost explorers got poisoned by back in the colonial past? I think the aborigines left them some large white seeds but the explorers didn’t know they needed to have the posison leached out first.
LikeLike
Haven’t heard that yarn but it’d be right. The leaching process is all important and takes a few days. The pounding is important too, breaking cell walls and liberating the contents into the paste generally.
Turn it into a patty and then slap it on a hot rock. Tastes like naan but sweeter. The old growth forests around Bega still have large numbers of mature plants and the local Yuin people still collect the seeds.
LikeLike
I did the Aboriginal native foods tour at Sydney Botanical Gardens with the kids nearly ten years ago now. That story comes from the guide. Did you know they have (had?) a native bee hive there in I think one of the heritage (not knocked down for the Gardens) gums?
LikeLike
They also have a couple of the biggest Burrawangs I’ve ever seen. 3 to 4 metres. They’re located next to the path that leads down from the gate on Mrs. Macquarie’s Drive to the restaurant in the middle of the gardens near the ponds. There’s a planting of about three or four amongst other plants. Very dramatic, the dark green fronds all radiating out from the centre with it’s bright red seed pods sitting in their cones, some split showing their bright yellow interior. I’m a bit of a nut for Zamias.
LikeLike
Now that would make the second time I’d searched out something in the Gardens as a follow-up to something from an Unleashed commenter.
LikeLike
Voice, you referring to Mulga’s tree aren’t you. I sometimes wonder what happened to him.
LikeLike
Yes Helvi and I was being curious. I should have been more circumspect. I googled Mulga a couple of months ago and he’s still posting, notably about Israel, just not on Unleashed.
LikeLike
Yes, bring back Mumbles, I say!
Mumbles…., where are ya mate?
Coo-ee!
LikeLike
So what do you think of the Gardens these days Waz?
LikeLike
I love wandering in the gardens but I haven’t been for some time. The last occasion was for a “professional breakfast”. A lot of creative types sitting around bemoaning the fact that people don’t “get” creativity. Their main problem was that they saw creativity almost exclusively in terms of the arts. Apparently you can’t be creative in the sciences or business. I was there to support a pal who was giving the keynotes between munching on muffins and slurping on coffee.
My contribution that morning was to take them all to those Burrawangs, explain that the aborigines used the seeds to make a kind of “bread” but then explaining to them that the seeds raw were poisonous. I then explained the leaching process.
I asked a simple question relating to the incipience of such a process. How do you discover that the seeds are good tucker when they will have killed or made ill all those who have tried them without leaching out the toxins. It’s highly unlikely that some smart woman said I’ll just soak these in the creek for a day or two then they’ll be alright.”
Was it an accident? Were the seeds collected for some other purpose, then left neglected by the creek; maybe the creek rose, the seeds soaked, were then rediscovered a few days later. But then why pound them and make the paste? And the “cooking” is the last essential step. Without the heat the bread is still a little bitter.
Someone got very creative, I told the assembly.
Apparently I’d misconstrued what they meant by creativity. They went on to discuss a program of theatre workshops in industrial locations where the funded creative types would lead the workers to enlightenment through play acting.
I had to wash my hair the morning of the next breakfast.
LikeLike