Gluten Free Caribbean Black Cake

I decided to pick up the unspoken challenge laid down by my childhood friend Cleo when she tagged me in a photo of her black cakes which is a traditional Caribbean fruit cake made with fruit that had been soaked for months in rum/sherry then baked with molasses and more rum poured on top. It has been at least ten years or more since I last made one of these and given my stomach problems I would now have to make it gluten free.

The Aussies – bless their hearts love fruit cakes so locating the supplies was quite easy: mixed dried fruit already mixed and in packages are sold at Woolworths as are dark brown sugar, molasses, rum, rice flour, and the standards – eggs, butter, baking powder, butter, mixed spice, vanilla. I did have to go to Coles to get the xantham gum though.

Since I did not have months to soak my dried fruit in alcohol I decided to cheat and boil them in some rum instead, about 10 minutes of boiling and they were nice and plump and had absorbed all the rum and could be removed from the heat.

Lacking a hand or stand mixer (not yet replaced from my move) I decided to try to cream the butter and sugar in the food processor – if anyone tells you this cannot or should not be done laugh in the face of their negativity and whip out the Kitchen Aid. I have never had such beautifully smooth creamed butter and sugar ever!

I added the molasses, then eggs and in another bowl sifted my rice flour added the baking powder (opps just realized when writing this that I used unsalted butter and forgot to add salt but it turned out great anyway). I looked it up online how much xantham gum to add – for cakes the rule is ½ tsp per cup of flour http://glutenfreerecipebox.com/xanthan-gum-how-much-use

Combined everything together – it was a little moist so I added another ¼ cup of sifted rice flour and a pinch of xantham gum which gave it the right texture. I preheated the oven to about 160 C and put it in using parchment paper to line the tin.

I think over all it took about 90 mins to bake, I cannot be sure as I did not have a recipe with a time stated and was going by ear but I cleaned up the kitchen, mopped the floor, called my Mom and took out the trash.

Here is the recipe I came up with

·         2 ¼ cups of rice flour

·         1 1/8 tsp xantham gum

·         1 ¼ tsp baking powder

·         ½ lb butter

·         1 cup dark brown sugar

·         1 jar molasses  ~ 1.5 cups

·         Vanilla

·         1 tsp mixed spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice)

·         5 eggs

·         20 oz dried fruit (boil in rum)

·         Rum

After I took it out of the oven I poured 3 more capfuls of rum over the surface and covered it with foil and went off to the gym while it cooled down.

The texture was amazing!! Moist and flavorful the fruit plum and juicy with rum when you bite into it, even I could not tell that it was not made with rice flour. However, my stomach can and I will not be waking up in the middle of the night with crippling stomach pain. Tonight I get to have my cake AND eat it. Hmmm now how to get rid of the rest.

First Apartment Inspection

I recently had and survived my first rental inspection. What is that you wonder? Well here in Australia the majority of the property market is controlled by Property management agencies and rental agents and as part of their duties and as I suspect to convince the owners that they are doing a good job they inflict upon the tenants inspections every 2-3 months. I received a letter in the mail that I would be inspected in a week and a half and that I needed to have the property in tip top shape, I should also not try to reschedule or change the date as that was the only date I was going to get. Like the telephone, UPS and cable guy they gave a wide window 9am to 4pm so naturally I could not sit around all day waiting for them just to find out what it was going to be about.

So since I did not have any pets and pet paraphernalia to hide to I cleaned nonstop for 3 days and hoped for the best despite being really annoyed about it. I kept thinking – “I have been renting for the past 12 years how dare these people inspect me and question my house keeping skills?” See when you get that letter in the mail it feels really truly, deeply personal but it really is not personal. It has nothing to do with me as individual it’s just a really odd system. But I suppose with regular inspections you do not have the problem of people renting out houses to then turn into indoor pot growing farms as we have seen in some areas of California J

A week later the inspection report came in the mail and is below for your enjoyment (or NOT)

There were also pictures of almost everything/area in the apartment but it will be quite a bit of work to get them out of the PDF and attached to the blog. So the area I was digned in like the patio I have to remedy before the next inspection - I am not sure what happens if you just ignore the warnings but I will let you know if I find out :-)

Things Western Australians like

1. Chicken Sushi - One of the most popular items here at "sushi" restaurants is the Chicken sushi; teriyaki and karaage. They consist of the chicken, rice, mayo and seaweed in a roll. You will be hard pressed to find raw tuna, raw salmon, hamachi but you will find plenty of chicken rolls being consumed on a daily basis all across Perth.

2. Cooked Tuna from the Can in/as sushi rolls - while we are on the topic of sushi the other item you might find 'odd' on the menu is the cooked tuna rolls. They are not seared tuna but tuna from the can mixed with mayo (like a salad or sandwich) then put in the center of a roll. I recall eating with a group and asking a girl what she was ordering and she said tuna rolls, I perked up and said oh they have raw tuna here? She made a eww face and said "it had better be cooked"

3. Canned Tuna - Keeping with the tuna theme there is a HUGE selection of tuna in the store and boy oh boy do WAers love their tuna. Not a day goes by at work that someone does not pop open a can of tuna at their desk. There are as many flavors as there are kangaroos and some of them are not bad (TMI warning - some of them have sent me to the bathroom with runny bum). There are flavors like tuna and sweet chili, tuna and rice, tuna with onion and tomato, tuna with lemon and garlic etc. I even saw a can of tuna paella the other day. If you can think it up there is a tuna for it.

4. Large unattractive Christmas decorations - that could possibly fall or revolt and kill you

5. Coffee - Perthites love their coffee and the coffee here is rather excellent for some people though it borders on a bit of snobbery as with anything else e.g. wine, cheese. When I first moved here I did hear about how Starbucks was shitty coffee and you will never find a Starbucks here. The good news is there are plenty of excellent coffee shops to choose from and since I still cannot remember what a flat white and other local names are I stick to mochas - the bad news? Its EXPENSIVE - a tiny cup of coffee will easily set you back $4.50. My next problem with coffee shops other than the price is the speed - they are sloooow. When I first moved here I used to walk out of coffee shops because I couldnt handle my life passing by waiting to order a cup of coffee while the barrista lovingly made the coffee of the one person ahead of me. Now I am no less impatient and cranky but I take a book and my blackberry - catch up on my emails and reading. Today the wait for my mocha was 13mins.

6. Milo and Instant Coffee at work - Every company I go into there are jars of instant coffee and milo in the kitchens/breakrooms. Some provide machines that have beans but others just rely on instant which makes item 5 above so confusing - and explains why so many people go out several times per day to buy coffee at coffee shops.

7. Dressing well - Perth chicks are among some of the best dressed women world wide and they make it look effortless. I would love to know how they afford it too as given the price of clothing and shoes here it is not cheap to look great. One client I go into the Receptionists and Assistants are all Gucci, Prada and Birkin'ed out. I might need one of those jobs because clearly they are paying their receptionist more than my company is paying me. But over all the average Perth chick puts herself together well and just standing at the bus stop each morning I feel incredibly shabby. They make me want to try harder.

8. Fries aka Hot Chips - other than your Asian restaurants most restaurants here will serve an entree with Fries better known here at Hot Chips. You can also get them at lunch spots etc. And they so are good, in fact Perth has some of the best fries I have had anywhere as the junk in my trunk would attest. Oh and some vendors get all testy when you call them fries and say "they are not fries they are chips" so I call them fries just because LOL

stay tuned........more to come as the journey continues

Scarborough Beach

My friend S drove me out to scarborough beach the weekend of CHOGM when we had the day off so I could see it - I would have to say it was awesome to walk on the sand. I will have to look into getting a car and learing to swim as these are not gentle lapping caribbean waters but beautiful non the less

Note the big no swiming sign then note the people in the water below.

What if the US took over Perth

A few weeks ago one of the guys wrote an article for the company newsletter entitled ‘God Save the Queen’ in which he outlined that since the US had proven unfit to financially manage its affairs the queen was taking back its independence and that some changes would be made. Here is a snippet:

"In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendencyto elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we

hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. You should look up

'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate

effect:

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Like

wise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be

replaced by the suffix '-ise’. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable

levels (look up 'vocabulary').

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is

an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English.

We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into

account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.'

4.You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that

you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent.

Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone

or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with

immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit

of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British

sense of humour.

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly

$10/US gallon. Get used to it."

Based on the president being here 2 days ago and having resided in the US for the past 13 years myself I propose the following – the US should invade Australia starting with Western Australia and change/implement the following:

1.       Public Holidays – there are not enough public holidays in Australia and not all states have the same holiday on the same day. For example queen’s birthday is not the same day in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. Also between Easter and October (queen’s birthday) there are no holidays which make for a long, exhausting work life.

2.       Shops will be open past 5:00 PM during the week and on weekends – this is 2011

3.       Buses will be required to run past 7 PM (Melbourne and Sydney are already on board) and public transportation will be expanded to go where people want to/need to go

4.       Real Target stores – I should be able to go into Target and buy: some bananas, bell peppers, raw chicken, pampers for the imaginary baby, dog food for the imaginary dog, a pot to cook the chicken in, toilet paper, laundry detergent, a pair of shoes, cleaning supplies, bath towels and a DVD player.

5.       Places where you can get breakfast after 10:30 am

6.       There will be no fees to cash a US check – my parents sent me a check for my birthday. No matter how old I get I still get a thrill to get a little spending money from my parents however it was going to cost me a fee plus 6 weeks to cash it. So I am sending it back to the US to my friends to deposit into my US account.

7.       Body shop items would not have a 45% mark up – there is no reason why a lotion that costs $18 in the US should cost $30 here. None at all!!

8.       Cab drivers would actually know the suburbs – and if that is too confusing the streets will be renamed to have unique streets per suburb

9.       Tourist places would accept US dollars – nowhere here accepts US currency you have to go to a converter to get it changed which I find odd because even back home in the Caribbean you can walk into a store pay in USD and even get USD change back if they have sufficient on hand

10.   Real Mexican food, I will stay this again REAL MEXICAN FOOD! – I have been making my own Mexican food since I have been here and thanking God and patting myself on the back for my awesome cooking skills. My guacamole will make you weep with joy – seriously. So far as best I can tell guacamole here consists of mashed avocado with tapatio 

11.   Real Sushi, Real Sushi, Real Sushi – if you told me I would never see good sushi again I might not have come. Perthites would be required to undergo sushi training repeating “If it walks on land, squawks, lays eggs it cannot be called sushi”

12.   No metric system – you will have real units of measurement like calories, ounces, pounds, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons. I am so frustrated with figuring out food here case in point shredded cheese – my old cheese was 1/4c per serving (in the US) here it is 30g. So in the old days if I wanted to put some cheese in my scrambled eggs I would use either an 1/8c or 1/4c and would know exactly how many calories I consumed. Now who has time to get out the scale at 6am? Plus what is a Kjoule anyway?

13.   No more field hockey which is the most gimpy looking game in the world – it will be replaced with indoor ice rinks and ice hockey. We will import come Canadians to do the training

14.   Every street sign will be large and have numbers – there are too many streets in Perth with no numbers in either direction so you do not know where you are AND the buildings do not always have numbers either.

15.   Well I like tea and I like tea time so I think a daily 4PM tea time should be an OSHA requirement and paid for by the company with real fresh baked cookies (call them biscuits if you want) tea, sandwiches on real china (after all you currently only get a 30min lunch break)

16.   One hour lunch break – all employees all companies and if you want to work through lunch and go home an hour early you can do that

17.   Linked pharmacy records – I miss the utter deliciousness of being able to go to the Walgreens in the Castro to fill a prescription, the one near my house in SOMA to do the same and one in San Jose to do the same thing and all I need was my name and maybe ID because the records were linked. There is none of that here – the same pharmacy in different suburbs a few mins away have no idea who you are, do not have your record and you have to carry around the scripts in your purse. So ridiculous

18.   Do away with doctors charging fees for writing prescription renewals and doctor referrals – whenever I need a refill I need to either go see the Dr and pay $80 for the visit or call the office and ask for it to be written at which point I have to pay $20 for him write a refill

19.   No drugs in boxes – all the drugs here from your asprin to your antibiotics are in boxes and I do not understand why as it is currently driving me nuts. The same GSK product in the US that came in a plastic bottle here comes in a box with the pills you have to push through the foil.

20.   The drugs will not be behind the counter – all the pharmacies have the drugs behind the counter so you have to ask for your aspirin then they ask you questions. I want to be able to come in browse, read labels and when I want advice then I ask them for it.

21.   The city will be pet friendly – it is a sad fact that there are few pets in Perth every time I see a puppy I get excited. I moved here thinking I would get a bigger apartment, maybe with a garden and would get a puppy and that was one of the motivating factors and now I cannot have a pet because no landlord or rental agency or even complex will allow pets.

Aussie Words and Phrases

 Here are some of the common words or phrases I hear on a regular basis. So far I have not adopted any although I have been doing a lot of whinging lately :-)

Word/Phrase	Usage/Definition
Tosser	Someone who is disliked. Urban dictionary says it’s also the same as a wanker
Budgie Smuggler	The Aussie name for speedo
Ute	A truck – a pick up or small single cab with long back
Ova	???
Arvo	Afternoon
Cheers	Use it however you like I cannot find a pattern
Ta	Thank You
See how you go	“Why don’t you do this impossible thing and see how you go”
Leave it with me	I will take care of it
Knackered	Tired, worn out
Whinge	Whine, complain
Brekkie	Breakfast
Biscuit	Cookie
Bogan	The term bogan is Australian slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for an individual who is recognized to be from a lower class background or someone whose limited education, speech, clothing, attitude and behavior exemplifies such a background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan
Tomato Sauce	Ketchup
How ya going?	How are you?
Rockup	Arrive, turn up “What time should I rock up to work?”
Stubby	Beer with really short top
Done and dusted	Finished
Hungry Jack	Burger King (Don’t ask)
Maccas	McDonalds

Perth Orientation Services Review

Blogging is seriously hard work especially when you have to go to work really early and your blog site is either blocked or monitored at your new job so this review is really over due.

Background
As you know I relocated from beautiful San Francisco to Perth Western Australia for work - I was told by my new employer that I would be put up in corporate accommodation and that I would be provided assistance with finding an apartment. About a week and a half before I arrived I was told my housing fell through and would I mind sharing a two bedroom with another lady who was relocating as well and already had an apartment for 6mths - I did not mind (that arrangement turned out to be quite fortunate as she is rather lovely). In any event the 'help' in finding a place to live consisted of "Here are the links to the housing websites", "Here are the best areas given you won't have a car just yet", "Don't go into these areas after dark" and "If you take time off to go look at apartments you have to make the hours back up". I had 1 month to find a place to live and after 1.5 weeks of calling rental agents to view places and not getting anywhere I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Solution
I thought at first Perth would have Rental agents that you could hire to find a place for you and they get a cut after you sign the contract; you know, like how it would work in the US. However, here the rental agents control the properties about 90%+, fewer than 10% of the rentals on the market are by private person to person rentals. It is a strange system especially when the property owner is right here in town most of the time.

Example: Bob has an apt as an investment property. In the US Bob would put an Ad in the paper or Craigslist, hold a series of open houses, get some applications with a $25 application fee for the credit check, select his tenant, collect his first, last and security deposit, tenant would move in and every body happy yeahhh!!

In Australia Bob would contract that out to Rental agency XYZ - rental agency will hold only 15min open houses, applicants will pay a weeks rent as the application fee, bond agency will hold the bond and every 2-3 months the rental agent will come out and inspect to see if the tenant is good at cleaning up after themselves thus making Bob feel like the money he is paying them is well spent.

Enter Perth Orientation Services - I found them online after hours of searching and was relieved after reviewing their website and seeing the services they offered. It seemed like they only worked with really big companies but I took a chance and sent them an email outlining my situation and the services I was looking for. Within a few hours I had a response from the owner Sue Pember - she explained that they were usually hired by companies in the Perth area to help the employees that the company relocated from overseas but she was willing to make an exception and work with me. I felt tears of relief welling up in my eyes sitting there at my desk - see it was July 15th and I had to find a place to live by Aug 1.

A few emails were exchanged during that day and the next to work out a contract since I would be paying for this myself and 2 days later I had my first meeting with my consultant the other Sue - Susan Lam. She was not at all freaked out with the short time frame and said she would get right on looking at places that met my requirement, arrange the appointments with the rental agents and also pick me up and take me to see the units - this was key as I did not know the area, public transportation here is not that strong, I was still expected to work a 40hr week AND no open houses are on the weekend.

With an hour of our meeting my email inbox was getting filled up with properties from Susan, if I liked it she would book an appointment to see it. Finally I was now getting to view properties, getting to see the various neighborhoods and learning more about the city. Granted some looked great online and were disappointing in person but that is not what this post is about. Finally I found a place that I liked and then asked Sue P to extend the contract so that Susan L could take me furniture shopping.

Shopping for the New Place
I believe I failed to mention that Susan L is this tiny dynamo and no where was that more obvious than when it came to shopping. In five hours we managed to get; fridge, bed, couch, coffee table, easy chair, dining table, Ikea for the dishes, vacuum cleaner, rice cooker, microwave and a few other things I have lost track off. I have also lost track of the dizzying number of stores she took me to. Here is what I learned from her - do not accept the ticket price, ask them what is the best price they can do. If you see something at one store get the best price quote on it along with item name, number along with phone number and name of contact so you can call and order it over the phone to have it delievered. After I was gently chastised for accepting a price I decided to zip my lips and let her negotiate everything for me and she saved me a ton of money :-)

Overall
My overall experience with Perth Orientation Services was very positive although I did not use their full range of services I would highly recommend them to anyone and everyone moving to Perth. They know the area inside out and they know everything you need to do to get established here. I really wish my company would utilize their services for other international relocations because the reality of Perth is that it is a very difficult and frustrating place to settle into. When you come from a place like North America you know the way things should be/could be and none of them are that way here - so when a native or long time Perth dweller looks at you and goes "I do not understand why you cannot find a place to live it is so easy" and you just want to scream in frustration at their obtuseness its nice to have the staff at Perth Orientation Services helping you through it. Granted you could do it alone - (you could also extract your own impacted wisdom teeth with a pair of pliers and a bit of string) but I would not advise it.

Renting a Movie in the Matrix

My plans for this weekend were quite simple – sit on the couch, well more like the leather chair since I do not have a couch yet (long story) and watch some movies that I would rent, have a glass or two of bubbly and some nibbles and just unwind from a stressful month.

I would have to rent them because:

1.       Streaming movies from Amazon is blocked for someone living in Australia

2.       Netflix does not work here unless you go through an Xbox system PLUS based on my past experience with Netflix they do not have current releases for online viewing just via mail

So it was going to be a rental.

As I have done since I discovered the Internet I got online and searched for Video Rental in Perth and was excited to see quite a few results until I started filtering them out and realized they were all in the suburbs. The closest one required a bus ride then a ferry ride to get there – a situation that is just ripe for me paying a fortune in late fees.

So I decided to ask the locals starting with the ones I knew and no one had any idea! Finally I wandered into a game store and asked the guys there and they confirmed my suspicions – there are no rental places in the city proper where I live. They are all in the outer suburbs and vehicular transportation is required to get there.

I did the math – the average DVD rental is about 2 days, stores close at 5:00pm Mon-Thurs, I work till around 6:00pm, most busses stop running by 7:00pm, I worked in a different suburb than the one I lived in and than the ones the movie rental places where in, this meant that if I rented a movie on Saturday; I would have to make the return trip on Sunday to return it OR the earliest day I could return it would be Friday. Again! A perfect situation for late fees – might as well just buy a movie in that case. But I hardly buy movies because once I watch it I rarely ever go back to it.

I hate subscription type things for anything other than magazines but I might cave in and try Quickflix – the Australian Netflix counterpart/equivalent.

I never used to get my friends who moved from NYC to SF who complained about not being able to get a pizza at 3am. I mean seriously what are you doing up and craving pizza at that hour I used to think. But I get it now – life is made better and happier by conveniences. And when you know the way things could be or should be and they are not it drives you crazy. At least in SF if you really wanted pizza at 3am you could trot off to the 24hr Safeway pick one up and take it home. Perth? Better have that pizza in the fridge already

This is no “Adjustment Bureau” or “Inception” there are no doors or spinning tops to get me out of this one - this is simply my new reality in a city that is not very convenient to live in or as the kids would say “Just ain’t ready yet”