Richard's blog

We made this curry last night, mostly improvised. It’s really good! Would be awesome in winter. Enjoy.

Makes 6 good serves

Ingredients
1/6        Japanese pumpkin
1         european eggplant – medium
2        cans of chickpeas – drained
1        can diced tomatoes, with juice
1        cup hot stock (i.e. Massel “chicken” stock)
1        bunch coriander, roughly chopped
1/2        bottle Patak’s Tikka Masala paste (according to the internet, this is vegan)
100mL    cream (if not vegan)
1         medium onion
1        clove garlic
Oil
Cooked brown rice, to serve

Roughly chop the onion, mince the garlic and fry for a few minutes with the curry paste and some oil.
Dice the pumpkin and eggplant (maybe 1.5cm cubes). Add more oil (quite a bit) and sauté the vegies in the pan to seal for a couple of minutes.
Add the can of diced tomatoes including the juice and the stock. The vegetables should be well covered. (You may need to top it up.)
Bring to the boil then simmer for around 30 – 40 minutes, until the pumpkin is very tender. (For quicker cooking, slice the pumpkin more finely.)
Add chickpeas and cook for a further 5 minutes.
Add cream (It actually looks quite nice without.)
Serve on a bed of rice with a sprinkle of chopped coriander.

Yum.

Life’s good. Here’s some of my favorite stuff from this year:

Music

• I’m All For You (Joe Lovano) – IMHO this is an outrageously good jazz album. Lovano is a saxophonist with an effortless touch – so smooth you almost lose sight of how clever he is. I think this is a good thing: I like my jazz complex but not fish-slappingly so. Highlight is a slow-mo, swung rendition of Countdown.
• Red Clay (Freddie Hubbard) – a superb classic jazz album
• L.S.T. (Tokumaru Shugo) – If you haven’t heard most of the sounds on Tokumaru’s recordings, it’s because he sits with 100 instruments and makes them all himself. Whimsical, box-defying, life-affirming.
• Goldberg Variations (Simone Dinnerstein) – Self-funded recording that went global. Unashamedly emotional. Bach purism is kinda boring anyway.
• Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Strauss, performed by Tokyo Opera)
• Das Rheingold (Wagner, performed by the Met in HD)

Written

• Foreign Affairs magazine. The people who make the decisions also write the articles. Nuff said.
• Co-opetition (Nalebuff and Brandenburger). About the economic games we play.
• Analysis for Marketing Planning (Lehmann and Winer). At first glance this book is boring. When you dig deeper you realise it’s most of what you need to know.
• Lord of the Flies (Golding) – no, I hadn’t read it before!

Food and Drink

• Whisky Live (Sydney). Because tasting 30 – 40 whiskies in a single session is always a good idea
• Ichiro’s Malt Mizunara Wood Reserve Whisky. Equal parts exceptional and expensive.
• Huxtable, Smith Street, Melbourne. Small, interesting dining done well.
• Menya Warito, Ikejiri Ohashi, Tokyo. You have to wait in line for nearly an hour, but it is worth it.

Web

• Booko.com.au because paying $100 for a book is not cool when you could pay $40
• Pictures for Sad Children. Because life is too good not to be a bit sinister sometimes.
• TedTalks. Great people giving great talks on the web!
• ArchDaily. Because I like this stuff.
• Information is Beautiful. Because the nerd in me likes information and the aesthete in me can’t stand mess.

Thanks to the people who introduced me to these things!

My blog is 6 years old today. How old’s that in blog years?

I don’t like Ashton Raggart McDougall’s design philosophy. I can’t like every architecture firm’s work, and I’ll pay that their work is distinctive. I don’t mind if they get commissions to build freestanding buildings like the Melbourne Recital Centre.

What I really don’t like is Ashton Raggart McDougall being allowed to desecrate iconic modernist 80s architecture with their disrespectful, faddish refits. Melbourne was (I use the past tense) lucky to have one of the largest works of the eminent Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa – Melbourne Central. Melbourne Central now has giant multicolored spots spray painted on the side. And some kind of “playful” hoarding with the word “FLIP” on it in huge red letters. It’s B-grade postmodernism grafiitied onto a classic.

And now I see they’ve been awarded the commission for the refit of Roy Grounds’ masterpiece, the Melbourne Concert Hall (Hamer Hall). I think you would struggle to find a finer example of early 80s architecture in Australia than the Arts Centre precinct. The NGV refit (by Mario Bellini) was pretty sensitive, but sensitive is not really a word in ARM’s architectural vocabulary. Already the entire river facing promenade has been ripped from the building. The graphics on the hoardings show some twisted, curvy confection in its place. The site for the refit is here. If Melbourne Central is anything to go by, don’t expect any respect for Sir Roy Grounds’ vision.

If the Arts Centre was a Victorian terrace, there would be a rabid blue rinse set up in arms and interfering. But because we’re still negative about the 80s, there is barely a whisper in defense of our finest buildings from this period. Unfortunately, when we do come to appreciate them in years to come, they’ll have been defaced beyond recognition. Let’s hope the future likes ARM.

Good graphic design is inexpensive. Sure, hiring a visual branding outfit and doing the unexpurgated positioning exercise is expensive, but if you already know who you are, a smart graphic designer can get you close for 1/10th of the price. So it’s surprising to me how many products in the supermarket don’t even look like they’ve had the benefit of a graphic designer. Given the huge proportion of decisions being made in the “last six feet”, design that makes the customer feel good could be the most cost-effective marketing you could do. Here’s some things I bought on a recent weekly trip to Thomas Dux that are ahead of the pack:

Salty Dog Chips. I love how the dog looks like it’s doing something naughty. I think that resonates with the furtive naughtiness of eating crisps.

Nudie’s whole direction is so cute, spirited and cheerful.

It kinda looks like the brand is “I WANT” but Commissary Kitchen is responsible for this one. Why make the consumer turn it over when you can talk to them on the front? Use of “I” engages the consumer’s higher level wants.

Great form factor and stylish packaging. It wouldn’t really matter if the tea was shit, which given the flavour of Darjeeling Cherry, it probably is.

Can’t immediately think of a more bullseye execution than this. Brilliant.

Great sense of locality and craftsmanship but executed in a modern way, rather than Ye Olde or Down Country design. Actually the cheese is only slightly above average and tastes relatively mass-produced, so they are investing a bit in dis-satisfaction here, but in terms of getting into my trolley, it’s full of win.