Stanley Park

On Sunday we decided to do a good walk through Stanley Park with our buddy from Adelaide, Ed, with the aim to hit a lot of trails that we have not yet ventured along. It was a beautiful walk and was so great to see the park properly. I always see it when running or riding, so i never get the time to take in the views, sounds and smells. I also enjoy taking photos of fungi - and there was a lot of fungi about. It must be the season for it.

Countdown Stop # 3 - Fable

Wow, the weeks are flying by. We are already at countdown eatery # 3. We headed to Fable because of amazing reviews, and they did not disappoint. As I'm eating healthily at the moment I got a beet salad, and their take on falafels. Both were amazing, and the salad was the most interesting thoughtfully pieced together salad I've ever bought out! A complex mix if different delicious sauces, rocket, perfectly cooked beetroot and some popped wild rice which added an amazing texture comparison. The falafels were amazing. A great mix of blended chick peas and whole chick peas for texture, some nice greens on top and an amazing sauce.

Updated Showreel

I have finally got some new footage to add to my showreel. In this latest update my work on RIPD has been added.

Rigging Reel 2013 from Tim Forbes on Vimeo.

For any more info shoot me an email at: timforbesdigital@gmail.com

Swimming

After having a tiny bit of quite time after the Marathon, I'm trying to get back into swimming again - I know this is one I'll lose quickly if I drop it. So today was my second day in the pool this week. I'm going to try to stick to twice a week, and I'll mix up my sessions to try and keep improving. My first session is a long slow session. I guess equivalent to a long slow run in running training. For this I'll just swim out 3-4kms non stop, at a slow and steady pace. Easy right ;-). Session two is my medium session, it has a total of 3kms, but is comprised of 1km of warm up, followed by a 1km pyramid session, with a 30sec break between each stint, allowing me to push out a higher pace for each leg of the pyramid. This runs 50m, 100m, 150m, 200m, 200m, 150m, 100m, 50m. This is then followed by another 1km pushing a decent pace, but by no means threshold.
My final session is based on drills and works out to be 2km-3km in length with a mix of 100m and 50m sprints, pull laps, and drill laps such as lay out kicking, catch up, extended doggy paddle etc. These drills go for 1km and are structured as 50m drill, 50m front crawl making sure to focus on what the drill was teaching.
This setup trys to keep it interesting, but obviously ensuring a decent distance every session with the long triathlons coming up in the new year.

Baking

Wow! It has been quite a weekend of baking. I must have felt like I needed some carbs after my 3km swim this morning! Anyways I baked two sourdough loaves, 2 Country loaves, one free form and one in a bread tin.We are also having friends over and I have made pizza dough - which is going bonkers! The two sourdough loaves were a bit of an experiment. So they both started from a 16hr levain build, I then mixed the final dough and let ferment for 2.5 hrs, folding twice. After this I shaped out two round loaves and these went two ways. Loaf A had a final fermentation for another 2hrs and then was baked. Loaf B was retarded overnight in the fridge, so that fermented for another 12hrs or so.
The results of this in terms of visibility are obvious. The one that spent some time in the fridge didn't rise as much, the one that was baked straight away is by far the best sourdough loaf I've done in terms of crust texture and rise, however the sourdough flavour is more subtle. I am yet to taste loaf B, but will review more when I do.
The second bread I made was the country loaf. This loaf comprises of a poolish, built 16hrs before the final build, and utilises 50% of the final flour so you have a high percentage of pre-fermented dough - giving a stronger flavour in the final bread. This loaf was amazing. The crumb is really light and spongy, a total delight to eat, it almost feels like you aren't eating anything, but you get this delicious yeasty flavour, and could quite easily demolish a whole loaf in one sitting. The crust was super light and crispy, and just crunched when cut, sounding similar to deep fried tempura batter. This was one of the nicest loaves I've made and it will definitely become a staple loaf in my repertoire.

Cibatta

I baked this cibatta loaf the other day. I ws really happy with how it turned out. The flavout was delicious and the crumb turned out just how I hoped with some nice big holes. The bread was made using a poolish type of pre-ferment that fermented for about 14 hours before making the final dough. The final dough was amazing and full of life. It was bubbling and had an amazing elasticity and lightness.

Countdown Stop # 2 - Twisted Fork

Tonight marks out second countdown restaurant and we decided to go to Twisted Fork - we had only heard good things. It was a great night and the food was pretty good. I got mushroom risotto and a Chorizo, goats cheese and spaghetti squash salad. Kate got the mushroom risotto and a goats cheese tart. We shared a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. Over all it was a pretty good place to eat. Minor niggling complaints, risotto was a bit on the under cooked side and Kates tart was a bit lame for $9 when compared to my salad. But it was still a really nice night out with Kate.