Adavera

Treattrackers found Adavera this morning over at Paddington. It's a shoeshop and the proprietor is a relative of mine, Kristen. She's named it after her two grandmas and Ada was my lovely Auntie Ada. There's pictures of the two grandmas on the wall. We could also see some nice shoes so I'm off to visit the shop at a time when it's open - not a Sunday morning.

Gourmet Providores is next door to Adavera at Paddington. We had some great finds in there - Red Kellys Lemon Myrtle Dressing from Tasmania, a new bottle of olives from Bunnyconellen called Dorsetshire Table olives, some beautiful Quick's cheddar from England, and the most amazing butter from France called Isigny Ste Mere. Steve the owner is nice and we saw all our favourite stuff in there.

We're having our 29th wedding anniversary today so we went off to Sympatico over at Paddington. I had corncakes with bacon - yum! David had Turkish eggs. What a nice, young friendly staff and very helpful. They smiled a lot and they seemed to be having fun together. It was nice.

treattracker Mark's Mum Kerry made him a lovely rug to keep him warm for the winter.

Here he is sharing his warmth with the girls - Amy, Elizabeth, and Danielle watching the last Lions game for the season. Hooray, we had a win over Sydney.

The Gentlemen

The singing goup has a new name - it's now The Gentlemen. They're doing well. Here's Adriana, Sammi and our Amy with one of their new professional portraits.

Plate Up

David has just been to the shop Taste - For the Love of Cooking to buy some plates. We're making some cassoulet tonight - that's French soup. We might use our new plates!

Pearl Friends

Here's our lovely friend Daniel - proprietor of Pearl Cafe - our hero! Daniel has just come back from a tour of Europe to study what they do over there in the food scene. Daniel says they stayed in and cooked most of the time because he couldn't get over the amazing produce in the markets. Had a great time but it's nice to see him back.

Here's our two friends Midnight and Smokey the antique cats.

We found the girls at Woolloongabba admiring the antique cats again. They have named them Midnight and Smokey. Someone had already scrunched up a pamphlet and been playing with them under the door earlier this morning.

Pennisi Treats

And the cheese 'fridge! Every cheese in the world I would say.

Here's Pennisi Cuisine's deli sausages and smallgoods 'fridge.
treattrackers went to Pennisi Cuisine today. What a great shop! You can get sachets of European hot chocolate for $1.50 and you should see the range of flavours.

Here's the Courier Mail's Fossicking columnist David Costello outside Pennisi Cuisine, in Balaclava Street. We had a nice visit to them this morning.
Here's a link to his latest column.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25973151-5013516,00.html

Here's David with the lovely Kata Pennisi of Pennisi Cuisine. Kata is very proud of her daughter who has found a nice fiance in Sydney. He's one of the Rodriguez Bros who supply Kata with the most amazing sausages.

Veggie View

I've just unloaded my Veggie Man's box of goodies and look Amy has bought a beautiful bunch of Geraldton wax for my grandmother's jug. Phone Danielle on 0418112106 or Chris on 0422407111 for veggies delivered to your home.

Health Food around the Corner

treattrackers are lucky to live in the same neighbourhood as the nice organic health food shop, Vive. Here's David Costello with two of his favourite purchases - Meredith Farm sheep milk yoghurt and cocoa muesli made by Therapeutic Gormet called Wake Me up before you Cocoa. Here's a link to the Courier Mail for you.http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25909886-5013516,00.html


We've just come home from a trip to Shlix gelato in the valley. I had the wild cherry - it was so wild! Shlix is so trendy and yummy. The gelato is made from low fat milk so that's a bonus and they have no additives.

Here's two of the owners. They are nice guys from Israel and have opened their little friendly ice-cream and salad shop in Brunswick St. Our lovely Danielle really likes working there.

Wow! Here's a picture of their gelato cabinet. So many choices.

Danielle's new workplace. I like the trendy printing on their signs.

Busy Brunswick St on a Tuesday afternoon. Shlix - a cherry ice-cream pick-me-up for a tired Year 4 teacher.

Belle meets Selby. The children from across the road brought over their new King Charles spaniel puppy, Selby. Old Belle couldn't give two hoots. In fact she asked to be put out the back saying 'I'm not puttin' up with this!'

Choko Heaven

Here's another old photo of the vine. Dad would harvest the chokoes in summer and we would eat them for months and give them away to all the neighbours. The best way to eat them was with the Sunday roast of mutton, lamb, or beef. After we got home from Mass, the vegies would go on. In those days the chokoes tasted great probably Mum was roasting them in lard!

I saw chokoes on the tv the other day with a cook from Louisiana on Martha Stewart making a choko salad - but I can't remember what he called the chokoes. Here are young Roser cousins Elizabeth, Amy, Emily, and Grace visiting Nanna and Pa's in Warwick(where we all grew up - they lived there for 45 years!) The choko vine grew over the chook pen in the summer to keep the chooks cool and then it died back in winter. Dad would cut it back hard and then it would come back as lush and shady as ever in the next summer.

Relations Visit

Michael Roser works for the Toowoomba Chronicle and Terri Roser is a Dental Therapist. They love Toowoomba because it's Terri's home town. Her parents Bill and Marge Coleman still live up there. Michael and Terri have just come back from a tour around Europe where they visited their older daughter Emily(my lovely niece) who lives and works in Paris. They found some relatives in Ireland too.
treattracker Mum has just had a lovely visit from her Toowoomba relations Michael Roser, Terri Roser, Grace Roser and lovely Lily. Grace and Lily have just moved to the big smoke to a flat in Auchenflower. Mum and Dad brought down belongings and money to help them get set up. What a nice cuppa we had. The girls are beautiful! Good luck to them.

Thynne Rd Treats

We loved the Granite Honey Richard! David has been buying really expensive honey to ward off sore throats and coughs and your's is really nice and cheap! Shelley really recommended this special honey and it's great!

Richard Gruber of Thynne Rd Deli always has his shelves stocked with the latest ranges of foodie treats!

Our home away from home! We thilnk these old guys belong to a singing group. They looked so cool!

Antique Fun

I have just had the nicest outing with my girlfriends Robyn and Ria! We can remedy all of the problems with the education system over coffee! These girls are such good teachers-just the sort you would want for your own child.

We went to the antiques centre for a browse around and a chat and a

coffee.
Here I am with entrepreneur Ria who has a space at the centre. Her stuff is doing really well I'm glad to report. Don't you just love the 60's cup and salt and pepper in the coffee shop?

Deli Dreams

My azalea is flowering! It thrives on neglect. I like my mutant pink flowers on a white flowering bush.

David's backyard veggies.

Richard's amazing shelves at Thynne Rd Deli.

Such a welcoming atmosphere at our favourite deli.

Gentlemen Pics

Amy Costello, one of our beautiful daughters had some professional shots taken for her singing group Sammi Griffen and the others. Here's Adriana, Sammi, and Amy in one of the shots.

Coeliac Treat

One of our very first contacts for the Fossicking column in the Courier Mail when David Costello first took over from the retired Gail Boyd was the lovely Melinda Trembath. Because she had coeliac's disease she created a beautiful range of gluten free goodies - brownies, cakes, slices for the cafe trade. Since then Mel has gone from strength to strength and her latest is a range of gluten free crackers. Yes, now all of you coeliacs can have crackers and treats. This is a picture of the natural ones and we also tried the poppy seed ones. Didn't get 'high' unfortunately!

Feast on Fruit

Another one of our Saturday morning rituals - a trip to Feast on Fruit at Morningside next to the big Woolies. We buy cat and dog food and toilet paper at Woolies and the rest we spend at Feast on Fruit. It has a great deli at the back so we get great ham, olives, cheese from there. David Costello, who writes the Fossicking column in the Courier Mail every Tuesday loves this shop. He's been working so hard lately - not only as the foreign news editor but on the articles he writes for love as well. Here's links to two of the latest. One on tai chi which he has loved practising for years and one on the jus makers at Burleigh. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25871552-5003426,00.html

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25876358-5013511,00.html

A Pearl to Start Weekend

Here we are outside Pearl Cafe for our Saturday morning breakfast. We had a crowd this morning with all the gang including Nicole Kidman lookalike Julie Anderson. She's gorgeous!(as are we all!)

Here's the gang again! Elizabeth liked the look of the healthy looking hanging plants under the awning!

David, who's foreign editor at the Courier Mail, likes to get his newspaper reading started for the weekend. The weekend pack of papers is the size of a small forest of trees but there's nothing like being informed.

What a beautiful cool August morning. The wind has changed to a winter westerly but we still can't miss our outing to Pearl. The council has done up the very beginning of Logan Road to perfection (after a long-drawn out process). Don't you just love the street light shade? They are so pretty and modern-all different shapes and colours. I love them.

Corny Pic

Here we are at Sonoma cafe at Sandgate. David had the Lamb's Fry.

Here's our nice friend Pam who liked the eggs bendict. That dressing sure looks nice.

Amy tries the barbecued prawns for Saturday lunch at home.

Mark and Amy share a cob of barbecued corn.

Here's David getting the barbecue cooked for lunch. He got the corn idea from abc radio. Unwrap the corn, take out the hairy bits and then wrap it up again in the green outside skins after coating with a lot of herbed butter. Wrap in alfoil and barbecue. Yum!