KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

I have a crush on New Zealand footwear designer Kathryn Wilson's entire shoe range. Not only are they strong and empowering, they're also very feminine. Yay grrl power! The best part for me is KW shoes fit so well that even I, the teetering tower of tip-over, can comfortably walk in them. No weird camel loping or penguin sway - it's a miracle!

I spent quite some time in the office one day (yes, lucky me, it's my job to look at, talk about, write about and wear awesome shoes). I settled on three pairs - the Sydney Wedge in Turquoise as seen hugging my feet, a Miss Wilson (her diffusion line) Courtney Wedge I posted about last week and a the Julia Heel in black & gold that I'll blog about next week. The Sydney Wedge makes me feel like the prettiest girl in the room! In this instance, the room was empty except for Captain Catman who watched me like a hawk because I was posing near his food bowl but you know what I mean.

For many years I never wore necklaces because they tangled in my hair and it hurt to yank them out. Then as fortune would have it I tortured my hair for over a year (bleach, perms, dyes - you name it, I did it) until it decided to quit my head. After that I promised myself I'd take better care of my hair when it grew back. And so 12 months later, once I had hair again, I bought a hairbrush and brushed my hair for the first time in a decade. Lo and behold I discovered one can wear necklaces without pain when one brushes one's hair regularly.

That's when I bought this murano glass red heart necklace on eBay around the time I got my cougar necklace! It comes on a red leather cord and is oh so '90s. I lurrrve it.

For the first few weeks after Mum Pham passed away I could only listen to Bjork's All Is Full Of Love because everything else in my 50GB of iTunes music was too depressing. Then a switch flicked and now I crave songs that make me want to cry.

I think this is a good thing because I feel the opposite to the music I listen to. Fast and loud music makes me calm, slow sappy acoustic crap makes me agitated and angry. Fleetwood Mac is about as mellow as the office music can get before my eye starts twitching.



If anyone has suggestions for really sad songs, please send 'em my way. I'm in the mood for sad songs 'cause I'm more cheerful now.

Let's see... I'm pigeon-toed, uncoordinated and sometimes tip over just standing on a slightly inclined surface. When I am sober. Understandably, heels and I are aren't the best of friends. Our relationship is one of mutual admiration from afar. I admire their beautiful, elegant and sexy designs, and they admire me for keeping my oafish feet the Hell away from them.
Lately after looking through photo albums full of well dressed Pham women from the '60s and '70s, I've had the urge to dress more like a girl. A girly girl, one that doesn't wear sneakers all the time and with everything. The stars must have heard me because along came a pair of New Zealand designer Kathryn Wilson's Miss Wilson Summer 2011 'Courtney Wedge' in Red Check.
Ladies, you won't believe how comfortable these shoes are to walk in. They aren't so heely that I'll tip over yet ultra girly and nice too. I was going to take a close up  photo of the Miss Wilson wedge on my feet but then I noticed what I thought was my sickly Melbourne complexion in much need of a tan. It turned out to be my toes turning blue from the cold. Think I got a few more weeks before I can strut around Melbourne in these babies but summertime here I come!

This photo is evidence that Little Sissy Pham learned to walk just so she could run away from me, the crying gives her away:
This photo is of Little Sissy Pham resigning to a miserable life of my hugs:
Can't see the tightly controlled terror in her face? Here's a close up:

If you couldn't tell from my blog name, I love my Phamly to bits. Sadly, love can't keep your loved ones alive in the flesh forever. Mum Pham's passing has been the most heart breaking experience of my life. Fortunately for me, she raised us kiddies to be strong, grounded and to be there for The Phamly.

Right now I'm being completely emo and mopey to my beloved friends but I won't tell you about that 'cause it's private. Lucky for you, they get my snot and tears while you get some of my favourite photos of Mum Pham.

This is Mumma Pham and Daddy Pham on their wedding day. I pretty much have Mum Pham's face so this will be me in 8 years. Hopefully I won't be marrying my own father but maybe I'll tell a fart joke and we'll both laugh like it's the best day ever.


At some point, kids happened and Mum Pham got a bit chubby. She hated being in photos in her later years so I won't share them with the Internet. Instead here is one of Mum Pham's favourite photos of me with Big Brother Pham.


It makes me happy to know I'll be a cute little old Asian lady like Mum Pham one day. Thanks for sharing your beautiful genes and BIG love, Mummy Pham. I'll live the best life I can to honour your gifts.

If you know me and you probably don’t because if you did you wouldn’t waste your precious time on this Earth reading my stupid blog. You'd also know that I am always doing something even when I’m doing nothing. Be it word games, puzzles, typing on my macbook, writing in an actual notebook, drawing, jotting, plotting, planning… The one and only time I can sit still is when I do my nails.

The power of vanity never ceases to amaze me. Women endure so much pain and discomfort to make themselves feel pampered and babin’. There’s plucking, waxing, shaving, regrowth, lasers, in-growns and soooo many painful tangles at the hairdressers; none of this makes me bat a well-lined, mascaraed and shadowed eyelid yet painting my nails has me squirming like a kid busting for the toilet while Dad’s taking an epic poo.

My gosh! It hurts me sooo much to sit still and do nothing. Actually, I’m doing something – I’m typing out this blog post while my nails dry but I did give ‘em a 15 minute grace period (epic length in Jade-time) and touch-typing keeps the fingers apart so one could argue it’s better for me to be typing than failing to sit still.
Maybelline New York’s ‘Mini-Colorama’ range is my fave new varnish at the moment. Not only does it come in mini-size at a mini-price so you use it all before it gets gluggy and icky, the range has a plethora of bright or chic or prissy or tough colours so there’s something for every mood! It also glides on really nicely so even primary school failures like me can colour inside the lines.

If I make you spring rolls, it means that I really like you because it’s a laborious task to make Mum Pham’s deliciously good looking and tasting spring rolls. There’s the finely chopping of everything in the mix, the delicate layered hand-rolling of every single spring roll, the frying and then washing herbs, lettuce, boiling noodle, pickling carrots, chopping cucumber and making dipping sauce.
Clearly, I don’t like you very much because I couldn’t be bothered making spring rolls just so I can take photos for my blog readers. Instead these are some photos of my spring rolls scavenged from my friends’ Facebook photos.

Ingredients:

• Cooking oil for frying
• 2 x packs of Tyj Spring Roll pastry
• 1 x large onion or 2 x small onions
• 2-3 carrots
• 1 x sweet potato
• 1 x Yuccca root – I use the frozen ones because half the Yucca is usually enough starchiness, but you can use fresh too. It’s messier though.
• 1 x packet 85g dried Viet black mushroom
• 1 x can of water chestnut
• 1 x pack pre-fried tofu (or ground pork if you’re a meat eater)
• 1 x pack glass noodle
• 2 x eggs

Making the spring roll filling: The smaller you chop filling ingredients, the better! Throw it all into a giant mixing bowl or giant pot as you:

• Finely dice the onion
• Shred the carrots, sweet potato and Yucca (you have no idea how much I LURVE my food processor for this step – it used to take me three hours to make the filling, now it takes me 1)
• Soak the dried black mushroom in water for 10mins until soft then finely chop
• Soak the glass noodles (same water is fine) just to soften it a tiny bit, which makes cutting into 2cm pieces with scissors easier. Or you can cut it while it’s hard and dry and see how much you can get in the bowl ‘cause most of it will go flying
• Chop the water chestnut into 2cm x 0.5cm long bits – it’s labourious but this delicious chestnut gives the spring roll a real crunch that makes it worth it
• Slice the pre-fried tofu into the same size bits as the water chestnut
• Crack in some black pepper
• Crack in two egg yolks on top of that - keep the egg white to seal spring roll pastry later
• Dig in with your hands and mix it all together!

Now roll the spring roll or ‘spinner roll’ as my niece likes to call it. I like to trick my friends into coming over early to be part of the Phamly fun, sitting around rolling together. Really, it’s just manual labour. This video is the closest I could find to my method of rolling - don't  forget to use the egg white to seal!
The last step is to fry the spring rolls. The oil depth should be just a little less than the depth of a spring roll so that they don’t float about in the oil and you can line them up neatly. Cook until the pastry is golden brown then take out and put on paper towel or baking rack to get rid of some of the oil.

Spring rolls can be a picnic or party snack on its own or a dinner feast served with rice vermicelli noodles, bean sprouts, pickled carrots, chopped cucumber, mixed Viet herbs and plenty of Viet lettuce for rolling. Dip in Mum Pham’s delicious fish sauce mix.

Amy Winehouse (may she and her unique flair rest in peace) and I have not much in common. I can't sing to save my life, I'm generally alcohol and drug free and I prefer to wear clothes in public. It's a good thing Amy likes to appear topless in paparazzi photos otherwise I wouldn't know that we have my fave Elle Macpherson Intimates Sheer Ribbons Contour Bra in common, as seen on Ms. Winehouse in this photo from perezhilton.com:
At first when I realised I’d accidentally published my bra collection on the interweb in my milk crate wardrobe post, the prude in me was mortified. Then I remembered I love my bras and this blog is about things I love so decided I should dedicate a whole entire post to them.
I have tiny boobs. Almost non-existent, really. I’ve struggled through many years with the most ill fitting and uncomfortable bras because of this. Then one day I was watching True Blood when Jason Stackhouse is fooling around with the trippy hippy Amy chick and I noticed her bra. It was designed for deep neckline tops so really cupped her breasts and I had an Oprah ‘aha!’ moment - I need to get me one of those! Thank you TV, you teach me everything I know.
I was already a fan of Elle McPherson Intimates because her padded bra range was such good quality so I went a-hunting in Myers – yes, people, remember the days when we used to shop in physical stores and paid cash or credit, not via paypal? Oh, the effort. But it was worth it because I discovered her amazingly comfortable Intimates Contour Bra range. I started with the black (modeled by Amy Winehouse), added a couple more blacks, added a pink/grey, added a nude, then added a pink/cream then a teal/white and I probably should stop adding to my bra collection now but I still wander through Myer’s lingerie section every few months hoping for a new colourway.

I don't have time to sit down and pretend like I know how to read these days. Good thing Acclaim Magazine is choc-full of pretty pictures to look at. I managed to get my mits on the new issue before it hits news agencies this week (file that under perks of the day job) and I've been "reading" all weekend.