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Whisky and Cheese Tasting

Stamford Plaza Circular Quay

Sydney, Australia

April 25, 2018

Wine and cheese.

Sure.

Natural companions whose strengths of flavors cross-pollinate and complement each other.

Now, sommeliers might recoil but pairing Whisky and food pairing is on the up.

A contradiction per se?

Au contraire.

A recent Whisky & Cheese Tasting organized by the heads behind Alchemist Events proved quite the opposite.

The evening started off with a bit of education on cheese at large by international cheese expert Claudia Bowman, who framed the evening by giving an overview about the nature of the dairy product.

An MC extraordinaire, Claudia has mastered the art of engaging the participants in an entertaining yet sophisticated manner with more than superficial fun facts without getting too technical.

The myriad of ways to describe, organize and classify cheese were shed light on, including texture, milk type, place of origin, standards of identify, milk production / treatment and source, methods of coagulation and ripening.

Made from pasteurized goat’s milk, the soft, artisan Meredith Ash Goat Cheese from Victoria opened the proceedings.

What hit the palate was an ash-coated chevre that not only looked great on the plate, but also knew to convince with a mélange of crisp and creamy flavours.

Holy Goat from Castlemaine followed, a handmade one based on the traditional French soft curd style using slow lactic acid fermentation, which upped the flavour game.

Enter David Ligoff.

A man that oozes passion for all things whisky.

Founder of World of Whisky, the man owns the only specialist whisky store in Australia, as well as the curator of The Whisky Show, which in just three years has become the largest whisky show down under.

Unpretentious, knowledgeable and witty are the adjectives that come to mind if one had to describe how David, the conferencier, delved into covering the key aspects of whisky educations: The history of whisky, how whisky is made including the subtleties of production and maturation, pointing out the differences between various types, the effect of different casks and techniques for creating and enhancing flavour, and giving advice on how to best to appreciate the water of life as well as why wood and time are vitally important.

His elaborations allowed access to his insight and knowledge on how to explore whisky at a foundational level.  

After David’s introduction on whisky, we looked across the Indian Ocean with Amrut being the first drop that was introduced.

With its nose of nuts, honeycomb, fruit and oak, I found it to be a great companion for the more firm textured cheeses of the evening, e.g. Ptengana Cloth Bound Cheddar from Tasmania, with its aromas of herbs and honey.

A 12-year-old oak and sherry cask matured Aberlour, with a body that balanced hints of sweet raisings and cherry, found its cheese equivalent in the creamy Camembert AOC, from the Normandie and the melt-in-the-mouth Stilton from Shropshire in the UK with the trademark pale yellow interior and blue-green veins, cultivated by the addition of the penicilium rogueforti.

Now, I for one love a peaty whisky and having a decade old Laphroaig is never not a joyful occasion. Needless to say that it lends itself perfectly well to go alongside a smokey cheese as it brings an added edge.

However, after adding a couple of droplets of water via employing the services of a pipette, and thereby activate more flavours, I found it to go well with most of the cheesy bits on offer.

An educational and inspiring evening that offered something for both – connoisseurs as well as the uninitiated, which the before and after chatter with confirmed as feedback indicated that no one left the soiree without having discovered something – be in it liquid or dairy form – they would like to try more of in the future.

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Photos by @k.a.vv

Portugal. The Man

Enmore Theatre

Sydney, Australia

May 1, 2018

Portugal. The Man

Psychedelic glam rock.

Bombastic self-indulgent EDM brats?

One hit wonder?

Could a band care less about your futile attempt at labeling?

Going by Portugal. The Man’s live incarnation at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre, the band seems to be clearly know where it stands, embraces what fame brought them without diluting the DNA that forms the core of why they set out to play music in the first place.

Yup, they are commercially successful via a hybrid of Pharrell’s patented pop hymn and a more than obvious homage to the Marvelettes, i.e. “Feel it still”, and decidedly went on to fry bigger fishes than the alternative rock crowd, yet has retained an edge.

What makes a band like PTM interesting is that they seem to have an intrinsically instilled sense of resistance pervading every note, which they somehow marry adequately to the need to partay, no matter how much their defiance of boundaries is being defied by the mainstream.

In a live environment, Portugal. The Man is one hell of a tight band that is both musically adept and fun to watch.

A myriad of references, homages and cover versions are weaved into the set, which demonstrates not only a band that has its tongue firmly placed in cheek, but also shows awareness of their roots and an astute sense of localizing their place in the canon of rock music.

The set flows along a stream-of-consciousness, seamlessly transitioning between heavier tunes and groovy crowd pleasers as well as what seems to be improvised parts and delivering the goods to the willing masses.

A band that is firmly in touch with who they are, and more importantly what they despise and do not want to be.

Framed by an animated backdrop of psychedelic projections, strobe lights and a kaleidoscopic mélange of colours, the band also created a visually appealing aesthetic that enhanced their musical emissions.

Yes, this is a recommendation to go see them live whenever they come near your neck of the woods.

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Photos by @k.a.vv

Hit The Road

Vans, Nomads and Roadside Adventures

Gestalten Verlag

Wanderlust.

Getaways. Roadtrips.

Traveling.

Everyday can be a journey.

Your own.

No nomadic traits needed.

Trails, streets, roads and the vehicles that traverse them along – from sports cars via 4x4s and campervans to Bullis - with portraits of their proud navigators are featured in this beautifully illustrated coffee table book.

A romantic ode to the life on the road and an advocacy for pursuing the path off the beaten track in book form.

The motivation and stories behind the nomads that are portrayed are what makes Hit the Road: How they planned their trips, the detours and complications hat lead them to discoveries, how they prepped their vehicles culminating in detailed depictions of the stops and destinations.

Opulent photography frames the stories and sets them in scene, geographically as a diverse as it can get, i.e. from the South of Europe to the deserts of Africa to the plateaus of Mongolia and everything in between.

Anyone with a bit of love for distant and uncharted places would not want to do without this beauty and for the ones not infatuated with travel yet, can find the necessary inspiration: The quintessential of Hit the Road is that at the end of the day, all you need is the plan, a map and the courage to press on to your destination and enjoy the ride and everything that comes with it.

Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait 

Michael Peppiatt

YUP

Francis Bacon was one hell of a complex artist.

Contradictions.

Enigmas.

Affairs.

Debauchery.

The works.

Then there was his art.

Grand.

Deep.

Evocative.

Studies for a Portrait was penned by the man who not only was responsible for Bacon’s biography, but one that could call himself both, an art connoisseur and close associate of Bacon’s. Given the access the author Michael Peppiatt enjoyed, the book offers intimate and at times entertaining insights on the inner sanctum of Bacon’s oeuvre.

What Peppiatt accomplishes is that he takes a holistic approach and does not merely focus on specific singular facts of Francis Bacon’s emissions. He paints a portrait with subtle lines that strikes the balance between intricacy and clarity.

You could say that I am a Bacon aficionado and own quite a few books on the man. However, this tome with its collection of interviews and essays spanning from 1963 until long after Bacon shuffled off this mortal coil, offers new angles: Be it Bacon’s affliction with some painters, his techniques, approach to painting, his views on the art world, religious beliefs and his relationships.

The array of Bacon-centric elaborations is peppered with at times amusing anecdotes and little known facts about the trials and tribulations and most importantly the personality of one of the greats.

A must-have for anyone who would like to gain another level of access to the intriguing art of Francis Bacon. 

Real Bodies Exhibition

Byron Hall

Sydney, Australia

April 22, 2018

I bumped into Gunter von Hagens with his dog Bella, the pioneer of the technique of plastination that forms the basis of the Real Bodies Exhibition, in early 2012 on the top of the Emipre State Building in New York City of all places. An affable polite and soft-spoken chap - the man that impregnated corpses with plastic solution so individual body parts could be dissembled and put on show had earned himself the moniker of “Dr Death” and his endeavors, i.e. to make what was previously the realm of mortuaries and medical museums, have never been not uncontroversial – au contraire.

His exhibitions, which he sees following his primary goal of preventive healthcare, became a worldwide phenomenon that effectively had an impact on the perception of the dead with millions of visitors.

While press coverage implied something sinister and macabre, the exhibitions themselves exhibit immaculately prepared bodies that offered a view on the inner workings of humans.

A view made possible by removing all the fat and water out of the tissue and replacing it with a plastic polymer, whether that is a silicone, polyester resins or epoxy resins, i.e. plastination.

The Real Bodies exhibition follows von Hagens’ lead with the focus being on plastinated mortal remains.

The exhibition offers the opportunity to explore ten galleries of anatomical artifacts and twenty human plastinates alongside a bit of philosophy re: what it means to be homo sapiens aimed at aiding to explain how humans breathe, eat, think, grow more humans and ultimately die by displaying human cadavers in various forms of dissection to show respiratory, circulatory, digestive and reproductive functions of the body.

Controversy in the context of the Real Bodies exhibition evolved because questions were raised about the provenance of the bodies and if they belonged to Falun Gong prisoners and “body factories” in China, which motivated protesters gathering outside the exhibition to alert visitors, which illustrate the interdependencies between respiratory and circulatory systems, muscles, bone and skin.

The CEO of Imagine Exhibitions, the operators behind Real Bodies, deny any foul play and insist that the bodies were donated, however, there seem to be gaps when it comes to meticulous authentification of the sources, which leaves a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

An interesting exhibition that does not lack an artistic approach yet is mainly focused on education without unnecessary theatrics.

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Photo from Real Bodies Exhibition official website