The 3 F's

October 5, 2011

Wrangler Product Night Spring/Summer 2011

As a part of my employment with Glue Store I was last night invited to attend Wrangler’s product night held at 1000 Pound Bend (361 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne Victoria 3000). Through Glue Store we often get invited to product nights before brands release their seasonal collections into the stores. They often involve nibbles and drinks, a presentation, product knowledge development and giveaways.

Firstly the venue was wonderful. It was a little bit of a maze down Heape Crt to enter the venue but we soon found this Melbourne CBD hidden gem. Walking up a wooden stairwell we entered into a warehouse style room. The walls of the room were manned with wonderful artwork. When I asked one of the guys at the bar whether of not they held 21st birthday parties here his responce was, “there is over $5000.00 worth of artwork in here,” enough said. The rustic atmosphere was well suited to Wranglers long living legacy.

The presentation commenced with a short video spanning the history of Wrangler from past to present. The video definitely established the brand essence of Wrangler including hard rock tunes, 70’s music icons and western cowboys among many other videos, images and music.

The history of Wranglers presence was then refined with a slideshow containing decade by decade iconic images e.g. the women’s high cheeky shorts in the 70’s. We were then graced by a fashion show presenting us with the product Glue Store will be receiving over the Spring/Summer period. The boys were a bit smitten by the models (there were a lot of dropped jaws in the room). They then continued with breaking down the different fits in their denim collection.

Through the presentation you could certainly see the companies commitment to the brand. This was expressed through how proud they are of their roots and showing how they maintain this whilst developing it in the modern society. Their dedication to the quality and fits of their jeans also fulfilled this loyalty to the brand.

Here are some photo’s of the night which also include what you will be seeing in Glue Store over the next few months (some of it has already arrived).

This post:

Wrangler

http://www.wrangler.com.au/

http://www.facebook.com/wrangleraustralia

Glue Store

http://www.gluestore.com.au/

http://www.facebook.com/GlueStoreAUS

1000 Pound Bend

http://thousandpoundbend.com.au/

5 Comments

October 3, 2011

Cooking Polish Food with Babcia

Being of a Polish background I have grown up to appreciate authentic and delicious European food. This was introduced to me by both my Babcia’s (pronounced bub-cha), which means grandmother in Polish.

Both of them are amazing cooks and have many signature dishes. My Babcia Anna who lives quite close to me makes what she calls Rogalicki (pronounced as read)- a Polish shortbread biscuit filled with plum jam. Many times when my friends have come over the first thing they do is open up my pantry to see if there is any Rogalicki and the one time there wasn’t, I was convinced they were going to walk straight back out. Babcia Tosia who lives in Brisbane makes the most amazing Polish donuts called Paczki (pronounced ponch-ki). Paczki is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with jam covered with icing sugar. There are only three places I have been where the Paczki are NEARLY as good as hers:

Parisian Patiserrie Bouglangerie in North Essendon (option of custard, apricot jam or chocolate filling)
Coffea on Victoria St (around the corner from the Queen Victoria Market)
Carlton Espresso in Lygon Street

I thought it was about time I started to learn how to cook some traditional Polish food so on Friday I went to Babcia Anna’s house and she taught me how cook Golabki (pronounced go-lomp-ki). As many European grandmothers say, “I don’t have a recipe”, but in this case she had to be more precise for me.

Golabki is made from lightly boiled cabbage leaves and/or peppers, which are wrapped in a parcel-like manner around minced pork or beef, chopped onions and/or rice or barley; baked in a casserole dish and finished with a drizzle of tomato sauce. Here is the recipe.

Babcia Anna’s Golabki

Makes 50-55

Ingredients:

1 whole white cabbage
2 cups of white rice
1kg of minced pork
1kg of minced steak
2 large onions
½ a cup of chopped parsley
4 medium size garlic cloves
2 teaspoon of marjoram
2 teaspoon of mixed spices
2 cubes of beef stock
1 tablespoon on Maggi
2 teaspoons of salt
2 teaspoons of pepper
2 180g cans of crushed tomato’s
4 rashes of bacon (include fat and of a rounder style rash rather then a long one)

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees

Soften the cabbage by boiling it in a large saucepan for 15 minutes, turning it occasionally. Drain and then carefully peel off the leaves, keeping them whole. Tip: use a sharp knife to cut out any very thick white veins.

Boil the rice for 15 minutes in 4 cups of water and drain.
Chop the onion, garlic and parsley very finely.
In a large bowel mix the rice, minced pork, minced steak, onions, parsley, garlic, marjoram, mixed spices, maggi, salt and pepper together. Crumble the beef stock cubes into the mixture and also mix through.
Place a large tablespoons worth of the mixture on each cabbage leaf then wrap the leaf around a couple of times to make a little parcel. Make sure there are no holes and all the mixture is covered. Be careful not to put too much mixture as the cabbage leaves will break or you won’t be able to cover all of it up.
After each Golabki is done place them is a stainless steel oven dish (will need 2 large stainless steel oven dishes). Try and squish as many you can possible.
Drizzle the cans of crushed tomato’s over the Golabki.
Cut up the rashes of bacon into very small pieces and sprinkle over the Gobalki (when the bacon cooks it releases it’s fat and adds a great flavour the Golabki).
Cook in the oven for 2 hours. Cook for the 1st hour at 180 degrees and for the 2^nd hour at 200 degrees.
Serve 2 or 3 Golabki per plate. Optional to add a dollop of sour cream on the side.

Babcia Anna recently bought a copy of the book Rose Petal Jam: Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target. It is honestly one of the most beautiful Polish cook books ever. It is contemporarily written whilst still maintaining a traditional ambiance. And for my Babcia who thinks she is the best cook ever and who rarely refers to a recipe book, this is a testament to how lovely it is.

If anyone needs any help on how to cook these or even has any questions about other Polish foods please comment on this post or tweet me @bellaaa_k and I will respond.

This post:

Parisian Patisserie Boulangerie

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/71/1529111/restaurant/Victoria/Parisian-Patisserie-Boulangerie-Essendon

One of my local favourites

Coffea

http://www.coffeacoffee.com.au/

Their signature Castagnaccio is also delicious

Carlton Espresso

http://www.docgroup.net/

Truly authentic, tasty Italian food and to top it off cute Italian boys

Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rose-Petal-Jam-Recipes-Stories/dp/0956699200

You can find many other traditional polish foods to cook in here.

Some other Melbourne based Polish eateries:

The Polish Club Albion

19 Carrington Drive, Albion VIC 3020‬

(03) 9363 3941 ‬‎

Serves up Polish favourites at a dirt cheap price (literally under $10 for an amazingly yummy plate of Polish food).

A great blog:

Polish Classic Cooking

http://polishclassiccooking.blogspot.com/

7 Comments

September 30, 2011

The Show with Alessandra

Alessandra (Ali) is my 9 year old pseudo-cousin. Her parents Chris and Joey are long time close friends of my Mum and Dad. My parents are also her god-parents and vice versa for my brother. I often baby-sit Ali approximately once a month.

Earlier in the week we went to The Royal Melbourne Show. It was a sunny 22 degree blue skied Melbourne day (which surprisingly stayed that way).

Over the last couple of years I have been a little underwhelmed by The Show but I must say this year was awesome, specifically the food area in the Grand Pavilion. As mentioned before I am a massive foodie and I started eating my way around the Grand Pavilion like food was going out of fashion.

Firstly we circled the taste testings of the Woolworths stand until we started recieving dirty looks from the staff (we were like a flock of seagulls every time a new platter was presented). We continued to walk around the stands to see what we would have for lunch and then it caught my eye, the Mammas Gozleme stand. Every festival, fete or community event that I go to I am on the lookout for this stand. Gozleme’s are a savoury traditional Turkish flatbread that is filled with a variety of ingredients. I had the beef, fetta and spinach creation and it was the highlight of my day. I love how such a simple creation is so ridiculously tasty. They don’t hold out on the oil but when something tastes that amazing who gives a flying f***.

I still get excited when I see the Dippin’ Dots stand. For those of you who don’t know what Dippin’ Dots are, it is an ice-cream that is made up of small spheres formed by flash freezing ice cream mix in liquid nitrogen. Whilst being more of a fun way to eat ice-cream they are also deliciously full of creamy flavour that melts in your mouth. My preferred flavour would have to be Cookies n’ Cream.

We traditionally finished our day off with a fairy-floss stick. All up, the show was really good. The rides are still heaps of fun for the kids (she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face), the animals are very cute and the food was satisfying.

Note: Don’t bother going if you are going to complain about how expensive the rides are as it is no mystery that the show is a little hefty money wise.