Say Cheese!

Fun party!

 So my brother had one of his famous dress-up parties, everyone always gets into it, and it means you are already having fun weeks before the event; trying to get your gear and props together. The theme this time was "Life of Brian" and they had hired a small movie theatre, where we all had drinks and middle-eastern snacks, and we watched the film . Most people were dressed as Romans or Arabs, a few bearded ladies, a seller of rocks for the stoning (my Dad looked like he always wears arabian dress). My brother actually made most of his Roman Centurion outfit himself, and his lovely wife looked an amazing Roman goddess.
However my man had come up with a related idea: we came as Brian and Hannah Tamaki. Those 2 are the self-proclaimed leaders of a church here in NZ, they get an income in the 6 figures, derived from the tithing of their followers, some of whom are the poorest and most under-privileged people in this country. Brian calls himself a bishop and she a pastor. She has been in the news lately with trying to worm herself into the leading role of the Maori Women's Welfare League, by rigging the votes in her favour.
As the "Wife of Brian", it took a lot of bronzing powder, and with big gold earrings and a plastic pink tiki around my neck , it got pretty tacky.

"He's not the Messiah, just a very naughty boy!"

Luckily for us most people got the joke!
There were some big Monty Python fans in the crowd, who (disturbingly) knew a lot of the script. But we all sang along with the end song "always look on the bright side of life!"

Happy Birthday M!

Our eldest is back in the country, she turned 20 in transit, so we had a little celebratory cake at her aunt & uncle's house. Little cousin was allowed to blow the candles too!

Yoghurt and ricotta.

And with my sis-in-law I attended a cheese-making course. It was very interesting, and much easier than you think. Hygiene and temperature are the key. On the left is yoghurt, so creamy it felt sinful to eat. On the right is ricotta, sprinkled with salt and herbs. Ricotta is made from the protein left in the whey, left over from cheese making. And I used some of the whey again to make pancakes!

My first little cheese.

This is my little brie-cheese, 2 weeks ago. Sis is making a washed rind cheese, which started out the same. Since then I have soaked it in brine, and turned it lots of times.

Brie about to be wrapped.

It now looks like this; covered in a furry white mould, which will give it its flavour.  Now it will mature wrapped up for another week or so, and then we will try it!
It's very exciting!

textile lollies

I have also been busy with needle and thread again, these are little danglies for on my zip pouches.
The colours make them look like lollies!
I even re-use some of the cut off bits of zips, you can roll them up and sew them into a little flower.

Time to eat!

And to top off our week, we had a lovely lunch on the deck with friends!
Oh I hope we will do this lots of times in the coming summery weather.