Now for something completely different

[MMDown Under]

47 minutes ago, By The Bay said:

There is talk of a tourist train operating from Dorrigo using the trains of the Dorrigo Steam and Rail Museum. Unfortunately, the talk has not resulted in it happening.

A tourist train from Dorrigo would be a good idea, if feasible, as it is such a beautiful place.  

[NSWP]

13 hours ago, lyndarra said:

Coffs Harbour is the only hold up but getting through was ok.

Dorrigo is a nice place. There's an excellent colletion of railway rolling stock there. Hundreds of wagons, cars and locos etc. You can see it on Google Earth.

Coffs Harbour bypass will happen in a couple of years, always a bottle neck that Coffs, many sets of traffic control lights to negotiate. You had a good run.

Edited December 28, 2020 by NSWP

[lyndarra]

6 hours ago, MMDown Under said:

A tourist train from Dorrigo would be a good idea, if feasible, as it is such a beautiful place.  

I was last there in early 2018. It coincided with a visit to the rail museum by a tv news crew announcing a state grant. The operators had been banned from accepting visitors due to there being no facilities such as toilets and no access for the disabled. I don't know if that has been remedied as yet.

[By The Bay]

On 12/29/2020 at 4:15 PM, lyndarra said:

I was last there in early 2018. It coincided with a visit to the rail museum by a tv news crew announcing a state grant. The operators had been banned from accepting visitors due to there being no facilities such as toilets and no access for the disabled. I don't know if that has been remedied as yet.

According to their website, "the museum is not yet open to the public".

[Blackduck59]

So we decided to do a bit of a retro New Year's day dinner,

Does anyone remember this?

 

Lynn won a bottle of Veuve du Vernay at a cruise center event in the fall of 2019 and we just now got around to drinking it, quite a nice sparkling Rose from France

[NSWP]

21 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

So we decided to do a bit of a retro New Year's day dinner,

Does anyone remember this?

 

Lynn won a bottle of Veuve du Vernay at a cruise center event in the fall of 2019 and we just now got around to drinking it, quite a nice sparkling Rose from France

Ah, good one Lyle, Ye Olde FONDUE, dip the bread in the big bowl, what is in there?  Some Cheesy stuff?  Fondue parties were big here in the 70's and 80's. Then they died. Been to and hosted several over the decades. Lubbly Jubbly.

Edited January 2, 2021 by NSWP

[Blackduck59]

The big one is cheese, we bought a "ready to heat" fondue and then added some cave aged Gruyere and Emmental cheese. The small one is a nice milk chocolate and of course we have some strawberries to dip in that, also pineapple, marshmallows and banana.

A little nostalgia to start the year. Lynn bought me a stone grill and raclette for Christmas. I was going to try that out as well but it seemed too much food for just us. We'll break that out another time.

[ilikeanswers]

35 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

So we decided to do a bit of a retro New Year's day dinner,

Does anyone remember this?

 

Lynn won a bottle of Veuve du Vernay at a cruise center event in the fall of 2019 and we just now got around to drinking it, quite a nice sparkling Rose from France

 

I do love a fondue. Melted cheese and bread what could be better😋? I've never done the ready to heat fondue I'm old school using roux instead of cornflour but I do like to experiment with the cheeses and I've done a few with pear or apple cider which is apparently an old school Northern Italian style of fondue and makes for a much lighter fondue. 

Edited January 2, 2021 by ilikeanswers

[NSWP]

3 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I do love a fondue. Melted cheese and bread what could be better😋? What cheese did you use? 

Lyle said Gruyere and Emmenthal.

[Blackduck59]

18 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I do love a fondue. Melted cheese and bread what could be better😋? What cheese did you use? 

There is a premade fondue ready to heat it comes from Switzerland then added some caved aged gruyere and emmental. quite a simple process. That fondue pot is quite special it has a crockery liner that sits in a water bath so the alcohol burner does not overheat the cheese.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Blackduck59

[getting older slowly]

Interest  this  "Fondue"".... personally prefer putting Cheese on Cracker... as you can increase the cheese, cracker ratio... a nice number is 10 to 1    ( or simply reuse the cracker for the transportation of the cheese...)

 

Having said that, Lyle's spread does look good.....   Don

[Blackduck59]

Don it is truly amazing just how much of that ooey gooey cheese sauce you can trirl on a cube of rustic bread (very course lots of cheese pockets) also many other things can be used as a transport vessel from pot to mouth 😎.

[MMDown Under]

2 hours ago, Blackduck59 said:

So we decided to do a bit of a retro New Year's day dinner,

Does anyone remember this?

 

Lynn won a bottle of Veuve du Vernay at a cruise center event in the fall of 2019 and we just now got around to drinking it, quite a nice sparkling Rose from France

Your presentations always look so attractive.  Do you wear party hats at New Year?  I used to have guests for a fondue but not cheese.  Mine were oil.  Everyone enjoyed cooking their own food. 

[getting older slowly]

One day i will have to try it.... ( for a moment i thought of a straw... but realised bad idea )

 

I was wondering   what beverage would be best served   with chessy gastronomical medium.

 

Don 

[Blackduck59]

1 minute ago, MMDown Under said:

Your presentations always look so attractive.  Do you wear party hats at New Year?  I used to have guests for a fondue but not cheese.  Mine were oil.  Everyone enjoyed cooking their own food. 

Thank you, we did have the hats from the crackers, we don't usually do New Years favours. We have done large fondues with a bunch of people, one Cheese pot and 2 oil but that was a few years ago. Lynn got me a table top stone grill for Christmas so that will take the place of the oil. It just feels safer than a pot of hot oils sitting on an alcohol burner on the table. Besides that would be a new experience, I've never cooked on a hot rock before. Prawns, scallops, thin sliced beef the list goes on.

[OzKiwiJJ]

11 minutes ago, getting older slowly said:

One day i will have to try it.... ( for a moment i thought of a straw... but realised bad idea )

 

I was wondering   what beverage would be best served   with chessy gastronomical medium.

 

Don 

According to the Swiss neighbours we had many years ago, who hosted a fondue party for us, you have to drink lots of Kirsch with fondue to cut through the cheese. We tried ...

[OzKiwiJJ]

4 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

Thank you, we did have the hats from the crackers, we don't usually do New Years favours. We have done large fondues with a bunch of people, one Cheese pot and 2 oil but that was a few years ago. Lynn got me a table top stone grill for Christmas so that will take the place of the oil. It just feels safer than a pot of hot oils sitting on an alcohol burner on the table. Besides that would be a new experience, I've never cooked on a hot rock before. Prawns, scallops, thin sliced beef the list goes on.

There used to be lots of hot rock restaurants around in the 90's. They work really well as long as you can keep the rock hot. Does your grill actually heat the rock at the table or do you preheat it elsewhere. If it's the latter you need spare rocks so that if the first cools off before you've finished cooking you can change it for a hot one.

[GUT2407]

God haven’t had. Fondue in about a zillion years I seem to recall Mrs G and her Cousin barring them after me and the cousins husband set fire to the tablecloth playing with serviettes and the burner,

 

yep I know spoilsports the pair of them.

[Blackduck59]

9 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

There used to be lots of hot rock restaurants around in the 90's. They work really well as long as you can keep the rock hot. Does your grill actually heat the rock at the table or do you preheat it elsewhere. If it's the latter you need spare rocks so that if the first cools off before you've finished cooking you can change it for a hot one.

 

You pre-heat the rock and then there are burners that keep it warm at the table and it has the raclette trays under the rock.

[OzKiwiJJ]

6 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

 

You pre-heat the rock and then there are burners that keep it warm at the table and it has the raclette trays under the rock.

Did it come with spare rocks?

[Blackduck59]

31 minutes ago, getting older slowly said:

One day i will have to try it.... ( for a moment i thought of a straw... but realised bad idea )

 

I was wondering   what beverage would be best served   with chessy gastronomical medium.

 

Don 

 

Many of the fondue recipes I have seen start with a goodly quantity of dry white wine (none seem to mention variety) We had a bottle of sparkling rose and that was quite nice.

Make it a contest with yourself just how much of that cheesy goodness can you twirl onto your chunk of bread😉

I guess Kirsch would pair well but I can see a quick route to smashed with that firewater.

[Blackduck59]

2 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Did it come with spare rocks?

only one rock, the burners are supposed to keep it hot. I really haven't investigated the set yet, that is a whole different adventure.

[OzKiwiJJ]

16 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

 

I guess Kirsch would pair well but I can see a quick route to smashed with that firewater.

Exactly! 🤣

 

I think we did have some wine with it but our neighbours insisted on us drinking Kirsch at the end to "aid digestion".

[ilikeanswers]

Just now, OzKiwiJJ said:

Exactly! 🤣

 

I think we did have some wine with it but our neighbours insisted on us drinking Kirsch at the end to "aid digestion".

 

I have made a traditional Swiss Fondue with Kirsch. It certainly adds a different dimension to the flavour 😁

[Blackduck59]

I'm watching a film about the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival (I would have been 8 years old then). Wow there are an awful lot of folks on stage and i the crowd who are obviously enjoying recreational pharmaceuticals. And there were some that were glaringly out of place I have to think "under cover cops"

Listening to this, and many of them are "Iconic" acts, I can honestly say the quality of the performance would go up in direct proportion to how stoned the listener was.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Blackduck59