THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

Yes it beats my why though msolga. I see Whiting being sold in Port Lincoln at $20.00 per kilo, yet in the fish shops in Adelaide it is priced at $45.00 per kilo Melbourne & Sydney are again further away, so, yes I can see it gets a bit pricey. Try and see if you can buy Abalone, and if you can have a look at the price, bet you'll get a shock to the system.

Abalone?
I can't recall seeing it for a while. I believe most of it is imported now? To Japan & other places?

The fish mongers I buy from are fantastic. They've been around for years & years & have a local reputation to maintain. Everything is clearly labelled - price, source of the fish (including within Oz), etc.

And nothing is too much trouble. I've asked things like "I want to cook ........... (insert recipe) but the suggested fish is not available locally. What do you suggest as a substitute?". They'll then happily go through the possibilities, prices & their recommendations ...often the less expensive ones. Or I'll come across some variety of fish I'm not familiar with & they'll happily suggest suitable ways of cooking it, oven temperatures, cooking times, etc. And everything is so fresh!
I reckon they're worth paying a bit extra for!

msolga abalone is out of reach for the local buyer, the whole catch is being exported to Asian countries, the price sometimes reaching $200.00 per kilo here! When I go to our west coast I usually get spoilt by some of the local divers, who know how to prepare and cook them properly, and I must say it is a real delicacy but paying that sort of money for them, no way.

It would appear your fish mongers are a dedicated and helpful lot, which is good, because the customer keeps coming back. We have them here too, they're well established and sell A1 quality stuff. Most of them are family concerns and their names are households words. One of them is so well known he has been running his own TV fish show here for the past few years. Look at the following link it may be helpful.
http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/shows/show.asp?id=160&tab=episodes

Obviously I meant to say most abalone is exported to Japan & other Asian countries, Dutchy.

Yes, I've eaten some very rubbery abalone in my time! I know what you mean about the cook needing to know what they're actually doing with the stuff!

The place I frequent (though not all that often these days) is fantastic! I first discovered them when I lived something like a minute's walk away. As a renter, something like 25 years ago. Then a couple of bought homes meant I moved a bit further away ... and now it's 10 minute drive by car. But I always head there when I think "fish"! Actually, the owners (a family business) are quite famous in Melbourne. But still in the same small & unassuming shop.

Hey, but you don't need a fishmonger, that's perfectly clear!

Today is a public holiday in Australia. (Good morning, Oz! )

It's ANZAC Day & all over the country, in towns & cities, people attended dawn services. This one was at the Australian War Memorial, in the nation's capital, Canberra:

....And before I go out & enjoy my morning walk, I just want to say that it's a beautiful, crisp, sunny morning here in Melbourne, Oz. A perfect day for a holiday (with some more rain predicted for Friday).

And a very good morning to you msolga nice to see you up and about early. An overcast day for the Anzac Day March here in Adelaide with the long awaited rains predicted to commence falling tonight. My God do we need it! Will be watching the march on Television and remembering those that gave up their lives. Have a nice day.

Check out this story which was featured on the ABC's 7: 30 Report, last night. Oz girls who married American soldiers & left home for the US 60 years ago.
Very interesting! There's a video link link to the story contained in the link below.:

Australian war brides to be honoured in special Anzac celebration
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 24/04/2007
Reporter: Tracy Bowden

Between 1942 and 1946, some 15,000 young Australian women fell in love with US servicemen and made the long voyage to start a new life in America. As part of Anzac Day commemorations in Washington DC this year, a special reception will be held at the Australian Embassy in their honour.


Transcript:

KERRY O'BRIEN: This year's Anzac Day commemorations in Washington DC will include a special focus on Australia's Second World War brides, with a reception at the Australian Embassy in their honour. Between 1942 and '46, some 15,000 young Australian women fell in love with US servicemen and made the long voyage by sea to start a new life in America. Six decades later, many of them still call Australia home. The ABC's North America correspondent Tracy Bowden reports.

TRACY BOWDEN: They met in October, 1944. ... <cont>

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1905908.htm

How did I miss your post this morning, Dutchy? It's a mystery to me.

(You must think I'm very rude, not saying g'day back!)

Thank you for your wishes for my ANZAC day. Very quiet here (Is everyone sleeping or out of town?), sunny & pleasant outside. I've walked, visited a nursery, done a bit of shopping & had my fix of my favourite coffee at my favourite cafe ...

And you?

Our post crossed at the same time 10.27am that's why you probably missed it.
My day seems similar to yours, have watched the march on TV and then went myself for a walk around the vineyards nearby. On my way back dropped in at 'McCaffee' and had a mug of cappuccino my favourite drink.
Just doing a few posts and then back doing my crosswords in Lovatts magazines.
I also wish to compliment you on the David Hick's thread, I think you've done a marvellous job, and deserve a medal.
Take care.

Thank you, Dutchy. You say the nicest things! But the David Hicks saga sort of wrote itself, didn't it? What an excruciating drama that was! (Glad it's just about over, or the worst of it anyway!)

Yep, it's seems that ANZAC day (at your place, mine & everyone elses') is one of those quiet, restful public holidays. Nothing too dramatic or strenuous. Enjoy the rest of it!

Hmmmm, I'm contemplating a bit of gardening before it gets too coolish. The recent rains have definitely improved things, but more needed, much, much more! (About 1/3 of my back lawn has now returned & it looks less like a dust bowl out there!)

Did I read something the other day about Adelaide having only 40 days of water supply left, or did I dream it?

You're dead right, water storage is critical here, and if no rain by June God help us. Weather forecast is for some very good rains in the coming days, believe it when I see it. Presently high clouds and quite mild outside, around 26 degrees. If the rains do come it will be a chance to get the veggie plot going before winter.

Lest we forget.

Anzac cove 1915



gallipoli facts and myths

A group of women up here are planning a rain dance, calling on the spirit of the earth mother to answer the call.

Apparently it must be performed naked so the earth mother can assess the participants fertility.

Whatever... no harm done if it doesnt work and a good time had by all.

It's really not all that much different here, Dutchy. Water storage levels are alarmingly low. We have pretty stringent garden watering restrictions here in Melbourne, but some of the country areas have a much tougher time of it & for much longer. I hardly ever use the hose to water my garden anymore. I have many plastic buckets lined up outside my backdoor, constantly being filled with grey water from washing up, washing the vegetables before cooking, water from cooking vegetables, soaking beans, etc .... every sink, basin & the bath has a container to catch water. I'm becoming a dab hand at "spot watering" the neediest plants in my front & back yards. (Luckily they are not huge gardens!). Things don't look too bad, all things considered.

(Ha! I just took a closer look at the 7:30 Report video on Oz war brides (15 thousand of them!) who left to live in the USA when they married US soldiers. (link on previuos page) The US soldiers on leave in Oz during the war were described as "over-paid, over-sexed and over here!" )

dadpad!

I missed all those posts by you, too!

Just found them!

Hope enjoying you're your ANZAC Day Holiday, too.

Last Update: Wednesday, April 25, 2007. 3:13pm (AEST)

'Defining moment' remembered at Gallipoli


Anzac Cove: Thousands have taken part in the annual dawn service. (Sky News)

Thousands of Australians and New Zealanders joined dignitaries from Turkey and around the world at a dawn service at the site of the Gallipoli landings at Anzac Cove today.

Many of the crowd had spent the night camping out at the site. ...<cont>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1906405.htm

The war myth that made us
Robert Manne
April 25, 2007/the AGE

Mystery surrounds Anzac Day. Why have Australians, despite the passage of the years, increasingly come to regard the beginning of one of the most terrible defeats the British Empire suffered in the First World War as their most solemn national day?

One explanation is fanciful. It suggests that something in the national psyche is drawn to stories of audacious exploits that end in disaster - Burke and Wills, Ned Kelly, Phar Lap, Gallipoli. Another is more persuasive. It argues that it was only with the news of the landing at Gallipoli that the Australian nation felt it truly had been born. But if so, why?

The historian John Hirst's convincing brief answer goes like this. Despite the creation of vibrant democracies in all the British colonies of Australia, despite the magnificent but sober political achievement of federation, in 1915 the key to the Australian political psychology remained a gnawing sense of colonial inferiority.

The Gallipoli landing was the first action of a solely Australian military unit. The first report to reach our shores came, importantly, not from an Australian but from the British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett. The mode was unashamedly heroic. "There has been no finer feat in this war than this sudden landing in the dark and the storming of the heights." Even more significantly, Ashmead-Bartlett wrote the words Australians most yearned to hear. "General Birdwood told the writer that he couldn't sufficiently praise the courage, endurance and the soldierly qualities of the Colonials (The Australians) were happy because they had been tried for the first time and not found wanting." Ashmead-Bartlett's report was published throughout Australia. The Anzac myth was created.

Soon the myth of Anzac gained two additional dimensions. Australians came to believe that during the terrible eight months on Gallipoli, fixed features of the national character had been revealed. Australians were innocent and fit; stoical and laconic; irreverent in the face of hidebound authority; naturally egalitarian and disdainful of British class differences. Above all, in times of trouble, they stood by their mates. The war historian Charles Bean was the most influential articulator of this myth. For the soldiers at Gallipoli, he argued, life would not have been worth living if they had betrayed the ideal of mateship. ...<cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/robert-manne/the-war-myth-that-made-us/2007/04/24/1177180648069.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1