We are not going to match the timeline of dates indicated in this blog’s title.

There. I said it. Phew! ‘But Dave!’, I hear you cry. ‘That’s kind of a misleading title then isn’t it?‘ And you would be right, dear reader.  However we have come too far to turn back now! So I ask you all to please, stay on this journey with me, despite the infrequent postings, and I prey you will go well rewarded with content and good cheer.

Now having said that, shall we turn our eyes to the letter I?

Captain Birds Eye seemed kind of appropriate here...

Quick: name as many activities that you can that start with the letter I.  <tick tock>  Not many, right? Sure, there’s Indian food, Italian food and Indonesian food annnnddd that’s about it, right?

Wrong! It stands for injustice everywhere (where’s Captain America when you need him?!). It stands for The Spanish Inquisition (nobody expected it). But perhaps most importantly, I stands for ice cream indoors! Oh sure, it wasn’t exactly the dark and stormy night that forced us to look for Inspiration Inside (with apologies to Intel), but lacking in any real motivation or finances to go anywhere, it was perfect.

Cheers!

The problem I have with ice cream is that it’s so temporary. We needed something else to do to really classify this as an official alphabet date. And all of a sudden it became clear. We wouldn’t just spend the rest of the night gazing into each others eyes while trying not to get distracted by the TV. We would illustrate each other.

Look at that poser/posture...

It’s worth mentioning at this juncture that Theresa, in high school, was quite the artiste. She had a knack, you could say, for drawing. Not that this was a competition at all, but I was behind the eight ball from the start. I mean sure, I started out on the right track, trying my best to capture the shape of her body position…

Nice lines, right?

…but as you can see, as soon as facial features come into play, I struggle a bit. (This isn’t a new thing for me; ever since my early high school days of playing Warhammer, I always had the Dwarf army with the worst eyes as I could never nail them).

I think we'll call this "Couch a la Treesy"

Like all ‘good’ artists, I reverted to some tried and tested lines when explaining my final piece. “It was hard to work in this light,” I said. “And it didn’t do the subject matter justice. Hopefully you can see my neo-classical faux-modern interpretation at work.”

Almost time for the big reveal (apologies about the nose Treesy)

She seemed to like it. But then it was her turn to exact artistic revenge of sorts.

Well, she did a good job of pretending to like it haha

I struck what I thought was a thoughtful yet distant pose. Something that said “come closer and smell what I’m wearing” but also said “not that close you perv.”

Half way through pulling my best "Bluesteel"

And can I say, I think Theresa really picked up on that. Look at that stern eye line!

Stylin'

Editors note: this date took place on September 3, 2011.

Enough clowning around, this blog hold up is over!

Whoa! AND WE ARE BACK. Apologies for the huuugggeee delay in posts dear reader.  All I can say is that life got busy, intervened, stayed over, made itself comfortable and wouldn’t leave until we withheld its entire undie collection (somewhat true story in that there were undies involved, but I digress).

But after a bit of a hold up, I can bring you up to speed with our historic H date!

I’m a bit of a fan of history, and I think I can blame that on my high school VCE history teacher Mr Chandra.  The only thing Mr Chandra loved more than his beloved Brazilian soccer team – despite the fact he hailed from Fiji – was the peaks and troughs of history.  I had the fortune of having him guide me during Year 11 through “History: Revolutions”, a thoroughly enjoyable romp through the finer points of the French and Russian revolutions.  The characters, the personality, the stories, the lessons… I was hooked!

Melbourne is certainly a place steeped in history with all of the above qualities, so I thought it was appropriate we dedicate H Date to exploring some of that.  (Editors note: this date actually took place a number of months ago, hence the wintery looking photos. Again, I humbly beg forgiveness for the hold up).

First stop on the journey, the Old Melbourne Gaol.

Is it ironic that the initials stand for OMG?!?!

Despite living just down the road, neither of us had been to the Gaol before now, a combination of a lack of time and also the overriding sense of “…it’s only a gaol.”  And although on arrival you’re confronted with the above sign featuring the rather amusing moniker of “OMG: the Crime and Justice Experience” (which sounds a little too much like a rock eisteddfod performance), things inside are handled with a lot more, shall we say, gravitas.

The hallowed halls make for an ominous experience

The stories that guide you through the compound are full on, like an ancient and slightly less cinematic Australian Story.  It’s also a haven for photographers, with lots of natural light seeping in and bouncing off the aged brickwork.

Just a light hanging...

And of course, I got to hang out (see what I did there?) with Mr Kelly, or at least some of the artifacts linked to him.

Ned was no stranger to hold ups himself

No stranger to the odd hold up, he obviously sympathised with my issues in getting this blog to you, so there you go.

Perhaps the most humbling exhibit in the entire place, Mr Kelly's "deathmask"

Sadly we didn’t get a chance to take part in the interactive, actor-driven court experiences next door, but I am a caged bird and longed to be free lunch called, and we still had to make another stop over on our history tour of Melbourne.  Where else, but the war memorial.

Solid brickwork seems to go hand in hand with history

I last went to the memorial as part of a school excursion in year 7 (yes, as you may have picked up, I was one of the few people who actually enjoyed my schooling. Go figure. Square).  But in the intervening years, it’s undergone quite the overhaul, with a much improved entry featuring an amazing collection of medals, each one acting as a sign post in Australia’s history of involvement in armed conflict.

More medals than a Brisbane premiership team

Before we had a chance to delve further into the crypt, we had our first “history in real life” experience, when we bumped into this guy:

Cpt Alan Stebbing, the original Military MasterChef judge. No lame George Colombaris puns here!

Captain Alan Stebbing was, you could say, the original military ‘MasterChef‘ judge, playing the role of Chief Instructor of the army’s 3rd Division Catering Training Centre based in Richmond.  That’s him overseeing the baking of a cake in the photo.  He was at the memorial as part of an event to celebrate the foyer exhibition which focused on ”women in the army’.  From the plaque:

The 3rd Division Training Centre was one of the great success stories as far as relations between male and female soldiers together.  The Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps was well represented at the centre and many worked and trained there as cooks, stewards and administration. The atmosphere was friendly and relaxed (editors note: completely unlike MasterChef, just ask Ellie).

So if it wasn’t for Captain Stebbing (don’t go there, internet trolls), men and women in the military would probably hate each other, most likely due to a poorly baked CWA imitation sponge.  Fun anecdote of the day: Stebbing told us that the recipe book that each chef was provided with was countered as ‘classified’ as the army didn’t want vital ingredients to be contaminated by the enemy (so, completely unlike MasterChef, where the contestants get to contaminate the ingredients all by themselves!)

The thing I’ve always loved about the war memorial is the view, and right on cue, Melbourne turned on the sun.

What a view

Taking advantage of the fickle Melbourne weather is something us locals have had practice in – a colleague at work once likened it to a “bad relationship; you endure all the hard times because the good times are so awesome!” – we wandered into the botanical gardens.  And that, dear reader, is when we come across surprise stop three on our H Date, the DVD extras as it were, to our feature presentation.

Not those kinds of herbs, maaaan

One can only speculate what kind of seeds, plant matter and, yes, ‘erbs, are housed in the National Herbarium of Australia.  Needless to say, the structure is huge.

It was about this time I totally spilled coffee all over myself, causing much hilarity, which is perhaps as good a note as any to finish on.  Apologies again dear reader for the hold up, we hope that Date I will be with you much sooner than this!

There ain't nothing like it, apparently

For the most part, they were right; there is nothing quite like a ‘g’ something, and we proved that yet again with our latest round of the alphabet date series.  While Dre, Snoop (and Warren G) may have been rapping about gangsters, g-strings and ganja, Theresa lined us up with something far less risque, but no less MTV worthy, with board games, gardens and Greek food on the menu.  And gee, wasn’t it good?!

Growing up in the country, it is widely accepted that as a youth, there is very little to do. This usually lends itself to a number of predictable outcomes for country kids:

- they study a lot
- they play football/netball a lot
- they commit petty theft and other popular juvenile crimes

While the gangster in me, wanting nothing more than to find yet another link between Dre and myself, wills me to say I fell into the latter camp, I cannot in good conscience agree.  So it was that I became the local anomaly (for a while), turning to the arms of that other well known vice that swept the nation many moons ago, a scourge that kept our kids indoors when they should have been mucking around in the dirt.

Board games.

Scrabble, Barricade, Headache, Uno, Boggle and Pass the Pigs all got a guernsey in this young Gippslander’s social calendar during high school, well before the 486 came along with its sexy graphics and blew us all away.   Heady days indeed, so imagine my delight when it came to pass that fair Theresa had also been bitten by the board game bug as a child herself. What could be more perfect for a date of G’s than games in the gardens?

Well, nothing really, we decided.  So it was that on Grand Prix weekend in Melbourne (how appropriate) that we made our way to the Royal Botanical Gardens, the same spot where almost 10 months previous your deviously romantic author sowed the seeds for this blog by proposing.

Trees-a-green? #lame

There had been changes; our previous picnic spot was now the site for some major lawn revitalisation project, and our lily lake was overtaken by protective netting for freshly installed water plants.  Oh yes, and the Grand Prix wasn’t buzzing around in the background last time either. What a mood killer that would have been:

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Still, it was good to be back.

We ended up with two very different games as our days entertainment: chocolate Monopoly and Words with Friends. We started with the former, a simple and supposedly more delicious version of the classic real estate trader (to be fair the pewter battleship was never meant to be chewed on), where the mechanism of dice and counter movement was replaced with a colour spin wheel…

Not your standard Monopoly control mechanism

…and the property tiles were replaced by chocolate ‘of the Finest Belgian Grade’ (or so we were promised. Quick capsule review? It was not Belgian, at least not when we played, though that may have had to do with the fact that it was an outstanding Christmas present from more than a year ago. Hmmm…)

<sings> Take a chance, takeachance takeatakeatakeachance...

While the promise of chocolate was appealing, it required a radical shift in tactical planning.  In short, it did our head in for a little bit.

Instructions never looked so...tasty?

It was no longer a matter of selective buying of property, more of a mad dash race to collect coloured chocolate squares before the other player.  Needless to say, I lost.

Nom nom nom I WIN!

Thankfully, my revenge would be swift.  Words with Friends, for those who haven’t played it, is a popular Scrabble derivative for the iPhone that ramps up scoring and makes your lack of a dictionary-esque personality a public disgrace.  It is also mildly addictive.

It is here where I feel I get brownie points for embarking on a strategy that involved sending my playing partner into a chocolate-induced stupor right before kick off…

The chocolate equivalent of a brain freeze

This, sadly, didn’t help as much as I had hoped, with the game remaining a tight affair despite my attempted gamesmanship.  That was until I busted (out) a gut (literally) to get my nose across the line first.

Messy but effective

Our games afternoon ended 1-1, and in true Olympic spirit, we promptly demanded a performance enhancing drug test and slandered the other party we decided that a draw was the only fair result, shaking hands and praising each others mental aptitude. Hey, it’s a date alright?!  It wasn’t supposed to end in tears.  (Theresa may debate that last point, particularly with the seriousness in which she has approached games of Risk before, but I digress…)

No date would be complete without the promise of food and in G, Theresa had landed the perfect opportunity to find a place that provided a taste of home.  This was to be the Greek-Cypriot stylings of Philhellene in Moonee Ponds.

Sometimes you should totally judge a book by its cover

Dined like Greek gods, we did, on some of the nicest, most lovingly cooked meals we’ve ever eaten out in Melbourne, made even better by the fact that the menu mirrored the recipes of Theresa’s Dad.  Oh, there was also mythical beer which gave me superpowers* (*superpowers may or may not have lasted til now).

Mythos beer: does it actually exist?!

Fun fact of the day: Philip Vakos, formerly known for his valiant efforts at trying to teach Jimmy how to cook something other than curry in season 2 of Master Chef, is the cousin of one of the head honcho’s at Philhellene, and also one of the chefs.

Thankfully there was none of the George Colombaris “dining experience” here; no fancy ingredients or creative uses for halloumi.  Just pure home-cooked love on a plate, with a story you could taste and not one that needed explaining by the wait staff.  In keeping with the theme, Theresa tried the baby goat (melt in your mouth, literally!), and the char-grilled octopus was exceptional:

You can almost smell the grill from here

But the real highlight of the night were the sheftalias, almost as good as Andreas and Virginia’s, right Theresa?!

The humble sheftalia

With friendly staff, a homey atmosphere and delicious food, you’d be forgiven for thinking the night was perfect. Not quite. Sadly, we were so chockers from all the delicious Greek goodies, we didn’t leave enough room for dessert: galaktoboureko! (pronounced Gah-lack-toh-boo-ree-ko, or as the girls at work once said to me, ‘late night booty call’.)  But don’t worry, we’ll be back, if only so we can hang out with this guy again.

The Greek version of Gene Simmons?

It was clear G date delivered the goods across the board, but the question remains: if there isn’t anything like a ‘G’ thing, then what in the hell am I going to come up with for H?!

I seriously have no idea what this is.

But, finally. We are here.  Read on for the wrap up.

Nothing says “F” more than the French, home of the friand, French champagne and…these guys.

The French, kind regards, Monty Python

With a new diet on the horizon, a night of decadent French cuisine was deemed a little too risky by the controlling parties, however I thought I had harked upon a suitable solution: French inspired dessert!  So it was that we ventured out one Thursday evening to a four course dessert degaustation at Cafe Rosamond, based in Fitzroy no less, courtesy of Pierre Roelofs.  Too bad our friend Pierre is actually Swiss, but I would not be deterred.  Hell, if Napoleon can claim Switzerland for close to five years, I can claim French inspired dessert for a few hours.

However, no inner city romantic evening would be complete without a parking fine…

A not so fine fine for F date

This, coupled with the shady state of my beliefs of Swiss-French cultural boundaries, was not an auspicious start.  (Editors Note: I seem to have a knack for being punished by the law, unraveled by the fuzz, impeached by the State, when I am doing romantic niceness with the lady.  Day we got engaged? Parking fine. F date? Parking fine.  ATTENTION CITY OF MELBOURNE & SURROUNDING COUNCILS: give a guy a break, hey? kthxbai)

Luckily, the dessert was worth the fine and then some.  Golden syrup and vanilla bean dumpling flavoured tubes? Yes please.  Raspberries, violet, strawberries, banana’s, lemon and other delights creatively re-imagined to make me forget my debt to the City of Yarra council? Too easy.

Is that a dessert tube in your tumbler...?

Nom nom nom delicious dessert

Perhaps smarting from my lack of French awareness, or even the weight of the fine, it was to be many weeks before I felt game enough to tackle part deux of our F date.  Tackle being the appropriate word here, as one cold, wet Sunday morning we struck out for the ocean to do a spot of fishing!  The Warmies, at the foot of the Newport Power Station, was to be our moist home for an hour or so.

Not so warm at the Warmies...

It has to be said I am not the most natural of fishermen.  Not being gifted with particularly dexterous fingers, nor an innate love of slippery creatures, renders me somewhat of a rank amateur in the fishing game.  Luckily, a phone call to Fish Genius Mark, a quick read of this book…

Step 1: Catch Fish. Step 2: pose!

…and a simple $6 fee later, and I had a license to fish.  Apparently, this is actually more than you need, given that the book is not mandatory reading by the Department of Primary Industries, and that Mark is also not on the payroll.  I don’t know that I was expecting more resistance, but certainly, given the propensity I have to do damage to myself with sharp objects (see: fish hooks, scaling knives, etc), I don’t know whether I was exactly a safe option for the DPI here.

Licensed to Fish!

But hey, if you can’t be the part, look the part, right?  You want gear?  OH WE GOT GEAR!

Every man needs tools

The good news is (for you, the reader, at least), that Theresa is a natural fisherwoman, someone with an affinity to the ocean, able to summon tasty morsels from the sea at the flick of her slender wrist.  Proof?  Exactly 5.5 minutes in, while Amateur Hour here was still baiting his hook, the Lady In Blue had snared a whopper!

Not quite Deadliest Catch...

The really sad thing is that TV has spoiled us.  If it wasn’t for Rex Hunt or Deadliest Catch, maybe, just maybe, with some good PR I could have made this fish a champion.  Instead we have this picture.  Needless to say our mini snack size snapper (we think) went back in, and the rest of the time was spent donating pilchard, pippie and squid to the bottom feeders.  We got nibbles, we reeled in, we casted, we waited and talked.  All in all, the perfect fishing adventure, despite the lack of evidence otherwise.

You could be forgiven for thinking that like the traditional hunter-gatherers, we went hungry this day, unable to support our lifestyle from the bounty of nature.  You would be wrong.

Teach a man to (buy) fish...

Fish and chips, the way only a corner store with a few deep fryers can make.  Nothing against the original hunter-gatherers, but I do like my methods just as much. Crunchy on the outside, mushy and lovely on the inside.  Sadly, our personal favourite corner store ‘Theo’s’ on Melville & Albion was shut for the day, but our substitute special of the equally Greek-inspired Joe’s made do quite comfortably.

And I can bet your bottom dollar Original Man didn’t have the fine dining entertainment I laid on for the lady this wintery afternoon.

A match made in F date heaven!

If I can only convince you of one thing and one thing only this update, it’s this: watch Fringe.  Then watch it again.  The show will make your brain hurt a little bit, but you’ll be drawn in again and again, if only to see Pacey play a role that isn’t Dawson’s Creek or Mighty Ducks.  If anything, season two of Fringe brought us full circle: lead actor Joshua Jackson is famous for playing your typical love-struck teen in an ongoing soap based near a creek/water source, which was no doubt full of fish and, well, you can see where I’m going.

In the aftermath of date F we realised just how far behind we’d become with this here alphabet dating series: only 36 more Saturdays to go, and close to 20 odd dates still to fulfill.  We may have to improvise a bit here folks so stay tuned!

iFish, the latest must have app!

And to think I avoided eggs for so long...

Coming up with ideas for things to do for ‘E’ is not as easy as one may think.  Sure, there’s eggs (something we were keen to avoid, for personal gas and cholesterol issues) but after that?  Well, it’s just concepts and ideas, a nebulous existence (ha! Unintentional e pun).  Excellence.  Experience.  Everything.  Luckily, the future bride of this blog was up to such a challenge!
The words ‘epic’ and ‘extreme’ are generally reserved for things of a more grandiose nature: tropical cyclones, Blake Griffin’s mad hops and the Planet X games are all good examples.  Exercise?  Eh.  Probably not up there in the scheme of things.  But we made it so.

Phase one of Theresa’s extremis exerciseis plan involved a leisurely ride into the city (read: a mad cap seat of your pants through inner suburbs traffic in 30 degree heat).  At least at the start we looked pretty schmick!

Pretty fly for a ride guy (laaaammmmeee)

Panting, but not broken, we made it to the office, our makeshift bike haus for the day.  Of course, that was just the end of part one.  Theresa quickly escalated us to DEFCON 4 with a 1km jog into the city.  Again, sweat featured prominently, an exudation of liquid cooling our brows and preparing us for phase three of the extreme exercise trio of events: indoor rock climbing!

Those rocks are shocking!

I don’t have much of a history with rock climbing.  Sure, I was exposed to my fair share of school camp moments – ah Angelsea, how I miss thee – but it’s been a long time between drinks.  Indeed our most recent memory of rock climbing was 18 months ago, an occasion that saw us scale beginners walls (and not much else) before waking up the next day with our arms feeling like they were encased in cement, a mental projection of the classic Italian swimsuit.

Still we were optimistic that the Hardrock Climbing Company would provide more expansive and less painful memories than the last time. Certainly we had warmed up more than our previous experience.

Naturally, Theresa took to the walls like a duck to water, rushing up varying faces with not even a knee strap slowing her down.

Strap yourselves in...

As for me?  Let’s just say that I don’t quite fit the image of a rock climber.  I won’t be featuring on any Hardrock promotional tapes anytime soon…

Not a pretty picture

I kind of liken myself to a Tyrannosaurus Rex in this situation: sure, I’ve got powerful hindquarters, but my lack of any bulk in the upper arm/gun region makes tasks like this troublesome.   Thus I was pretty pleased when I conquered one of the moderate walls.

Hanging Tough, New Kids on the Block style!

And if nothing else my safety checks were KICK ASS.

The best part was, neither of us woke up with sore limbs – tres miracles!

(And yes before you ask, we did still jog back to the bikes and then ride home. This was an E Date of EXTREME EXERCISE after all).

We had certainly worked up an appetite with a day of needling our physical extremities, so what better way to placate growling stomachs but with some fine dining (some would say expensive – we would, if only to keep with the E Date theme) at Ezard on Flinders Lane.  Side stepping a new bride and her photographic entourage, we entered an immaculately kept long room of green details, friendly staff and the smell of Parmesan infused olive oil.

There are some quite spot on reviews out there about Ezard – try here and here for starters – so I won’t repeat what’s out there.  To quickly add my two cents though : the morsels of food we had as the six part degustation were all exceptionally presented and enticing, the service was engaging (the first strangers we ever told about the alphabet date and this here blog!) and the tastes exquisite.  Suffice to say it ticked a lot of E aligned boxes.

But don’t just take my word for it – just check out the dessert sampler:

Platters: the best kind of dessert

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that we’ve fallen into the habit of doing alphabet things in groups of three, and E Date was no different.  Again with a bit of thinking outside the box, we ended up at the Atrium Bar at the Sofitel, Melbourne.  Why?  Because of the elevator ride up 35 floors of course, not to mention the expansive views of the city from such an elevation!

Through the Looking Glass, Sofitel style

And that, dear reader, was that.  Another alphabet themed date in the can and perhaps the hardest one to coordinate so far given the lack of clear E date activities.

Coming up soon, things to do with F (get your minds out of the gutter RIGHT NOW).

So let’s run with that and dive head first into the social morass that is beginners salsa dancing classes, which makes up part deux of our trilogy of D dates.  If we were Star Wars, THIS would be our Empire Strikes Back, albeit with much less swamps, snow and, erm, tauntauns.

They may smell bad, but tauntaun's are clinically proven to keep you warm

Let’s clear up our dancing backgrounds right from the get go shall we?!  Theresa is a seasoned pro, someone with an inbuilt rhythm, nay, ability to synthesize dance moves through her eyeballs, like some sort of weird flower-human-dance hybrid.  Hence the reason she looked so pumped about the opportunity.

Yes ladies & gentlemen, this young lady is pumped!

The highlight of my dancing career thus far has been a number of repeat performances as one of the token guys back in my Year 8 dance class.  We rocked out our school, then our neighbouring school, THEN THE LOCAL PRIMARY SCHOOLS AND RETIREMENT HOMES!  We were huge.  Granted, we probably owed Danny Elfman plenty of money royalties, given our routine was entirely on the Mission Impossible theme.  But these were heady days, pre-Napster days, a moment in time untouched by digitally spread copyright infringement.  But I digress.

The point is that despite salsa being my idea, my dancing is weak to say the least.  But!  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Without a shadow of a doubt it was, by far, the most enjoyable dancing experience I’ve had post-Danny Elfman.  Salsa, I learned, is relatively easy to pick up, provided you’re happy to ignore/do away with numbers 4 and 8 in your eight step count.  (I found out later this was because beats 4 and 8 are pauses, dramatic, pregnant or otherwise…)  It is very hard to master of course, as doing even the most basic of steps to anything resembling proper dancing music is fraught with difficulties.

Salsa Step 1 or the collection of socks on our bedroom floor? You decide!

I thought I was doing ok at this too, despite Theresa’s giggling assertion that I looked like a martial arts robot trying to boogie (there’s a mental image I bet you weren’t expecting.  Imagine, Clue from Tron, dancing to “Kung Fu Fighting”…)  Even at speed I was doing ok, and the ever changing partners forced you to concentrate on what you were doing.  I mean, it’s ok for me to step on Theresa’s feet, but the poor little Asian girl opposite me probably wanted to keep her toes.

I quickly got used to the basic (up and back as above),the cucaracha (yes, like the cockroach, side to side), the on-the-spot walk, the egg hold arms (we don’t want unsightly, stiff elbows on sides!  You want a slight bend at the elbows, hands curled over as if lightly grasping two eggs.  And now, shuffle!), and the ‘pizza’ turn (man steps forward, left hand up flat as if holding up a slice of pizza and now…turn!).  Hell, even the ‘body-roll’ – a kind of vertical worm wiggle hip to hip – didn’t throw me off my game, though our teachers were quick to assert that excess pelvic thrusting wasn’t necessary or tolerated.  (Makes you – well, me at least – wonder whether anyone has received a restraining order from a beginners salsa class yet?)

But like true teachers (Mum, Dad, you can relate to this I’m sure), our perpetually smiling assassins of dance reasserted their dominance in the jungle of rhythm and hot footwork, just to “…show us what it can look like, sometimes, you know?”

Yes, well, now I do know, and I know I have much work to do!  Note Theresa’s stunned look of concentration in the background.

The good news is we were more inspired than disheartened.  We’ve already practices our basic moves, spins and faux partner-changes at the 55 tram stop, the soft drink aisle of Woolworths and the lounge room at home.  Salsa is in us now, bursting to get out, so  stay tuned potential wedding invitee, you may see us cutting up a rug salsa-style come November!

Massive props to the guys and gals of the Salsa Foundation.  They run free beginners (Level 1) classes every Wednesday and Thursday at Stella Maris, and I can confirm that if they can make this robotic ex-Tae Kwon Do dude feel like a dancer, then they can make anyone feel like twinkle toes.  It’s definitely worth checking out.

Thanks too, to the rotating group of partners we both danced with on the night.  We sincerely hope we didn’t crush your toes, grip your hands too tight or pelvic thrust you out of the building.

The final installment aka Return of the Jedi for Date D will be held in early February.  Dessert is on the cards people, and it WILL be epic.  Theresa in the meantime will be scheming up things for E date so stay tuned!

Remember these guys?

So in a rather revolutionary step, we have decided to make date ‘D’ progressive, nay, delayed gratification across more than just the single night.  Some would say that we’re unorganised but I would merely point to the days on the calendar flying by and suggest that at Christmas, having alone time is difficult.   So trust me when I say there is more to come to round off D date in the early weeks of 2011.  <cue Pay TV announcer voice> “STILL TO COME, ON D DATE! DAVE DECIDES ON DESSERT!  DANCING IS DONE!” </end bold announcer style voice>

But why in such a hurry to look forward! You just got here!  Hello, welcome, thanks for stopping by, please, sit down and have a cup of tea while I talk to you about dumplings, and NOT about the Mighty Ducks.

No D date in Melbourne would be complete without dumplings somewhere on the menu, given the ridiculous amount of decent Asian food available in the CBD and beyond.  In the past we’ve been traditionalists, walking that well worn path up Little Bourke to Tattersalls Lane and into Camy’s, a somewhat grotty, always overcrowded, permanently satisfying little place.

This time though we thought we were due to try something new.  That ‘new’ lead us (via Twitter @euniceseow)  to HuTong Dumpling Bar.

Inside the HuTong Dumpling Bar

Besides an immaculately set table and well appointed menu, the thing that struck me the most was the Dumpling Eating Tutorial, almost an FAQ to dumplings, that took centre stage.

Hot tips for life

I’m surprised more places don’t do this, as I often feel like a lobster with boxing gloves when trying to navigate chopsticks and not look like a total loser.  Without putting too much pressure on myself, I really do not want to bring down the vibe of the place carefully constructed by the wait staff.  That would just be rude.

So, challenge accepted.  We ordered the Shao-long Bao and proceeded to fail epically.

<cue "Final Countdown" music>

The trick is to get a good grip on the neck of the dumpling so as not to pierce the soft skin that contains all that delicious broth.  (Broth? INSIDE the dumpling?  It was a very much Ripley’s Believe It Or Not OMG HOW DOEZ THEY DO THAT moment).  Once in the patented freshwater croc-like death grip, you begin the careful dipping, nibbling, sucking and chewing process.

Dip...

Getting access to the jewels inside that translucent covering was worth the effort.

Now you know what happens when you pierce a dumpling without asking...

Theresa was a fan…

NOM!

…even if we discovered later that this pose was not uncommon in HuTong…

Argh!

No dumpling adventure, nay, quest would be complete without Money Bags!

Oh yeah kids

For me, dumplings are up there with pizza as one of those foods that can be eaten all the time, day or night, and combine well with nearly every food.  Small enough to be bite sized.  Full of flavour.  Boiled, steamed, fried, baked whatever!  Dumplings, bitch!

Fair to say we were quite full, hence the reason to postpone dessert and dancing until the New Year.

So to finish off with a quote from D1: The Mighty Ducks…

Because it’s not worth winning if you can’t win big!

Thank you HuTong.  We certainly felt like we won big.

Cravings: part of every healthy relationship

If there’s one thing that every relationship needs, it’s communication.   Actually that’s not entirely true.  You also need continuity, chocolate, cravings, class, cuddles…the list goes on.  Luckily, C date had all of these.  (And if there’s one thing you’ve noticed about my blogging trends on this platform they are anything but consistent.)

Despite my earlier assurances that C date would happen mid-week, life conspired against us, though it was no less C related (we ended up checking a work colleagues CV.  Date worthy?  Not really.  C related?  Fo’ show).  Thursday, thus, became cinema night at Highpoint.

Setting aside any issues you may have with Maribyrnong’s finest shopping establishment – the ‘KnifePoint’ nickname, the special breed of Ed Hardy and fake tan blondes that collect at the bottom of the escalators like pools of stagnant water – it’s a perfect spot for a movie, despite a gaggle of late night shoppers making parking a little more intense.  Even more so if your entertainment experience is funded by the generous birthday gift giving of a friend (Thanks Win!).

We settled on Due Date, a funny enough film featuring a rotund hairy Greek man and a guy who’s first acting credit was playing a puppy.  The movie is done by the same guys who did The Hangover (which I found much funnier) and it certainly sticks to a similar pattern of scripting.  The always on-point ‘Four Word Film Review’ had this to say:

Masturbating dog steals show

Bam.  Can’t argue with that.

The continuation of C date came on Saturday, however the seeds for what was to come were sowed on a social Friday night dinner with some friends, and for that we have Taco Bill South Melbourne to thank.  They have this thing called the Big Willie – a 2.5kg burrito.  Eat that baby in 35 mins and it’s free.  Now I’d love to sit here and say that I nailed that mince and bean combo like I was building a house, but I’m a colossal baby and that thing looked damn scary, nay, sentient.  But the idea did things to Theresa, who was sitting at home at the time.  Strange things.  She was now craving a 1KG steak, something she’d always wanted to do.

The Craving C Date was on.  Saturday was D-Day (or C-Day as it turns out).

But before we could get there, we had to battle the wonderful late-Spring Melbourne weather, which turned warmth into rain and usually calm drivers into crazy car maniacs.  Road toll aspire-es negotiated, we were parked and relatively dry at Crown Casino, a booking in hand for ‘Steakout’ and somewhat of a wait before we could sit down and consume.

So how does one concoct ways to pass the time at The City That Never Sleeps?  In our case, we tried to consume the worlds largest bag of prawn crackers.

This picture doesn't do the size of the bag justice

Known as ‘Dragons Clouds’ (Nuvole di Drago) in Italian, these salty tapioca flower based treats I am sure will be my downfall.

"This thing will be the death of me, I tells ya!"

Turns out that going through half a packet of prawn crackers is, while fun and a semi-nutritious way to pass the time, still didn’t get us to our arranged dining time.  So next stop on the C date tour of Crown Casino was…the Chocolate Box!

The Greatest Box in the World?

I’ve sampled plenty of delights from said store over the years – the dark chocolate covered raspberries are a particular office favourite – but on this night we focussed specifically on chocolates that were somehow C related.

Decisions, decisions

What you see here is a caramel bomb, a Christmas pudding, a coffee thingymebob, cookies and cream, cherry liqueur and champagne.  How they cram all those flavours into one small ball of deliciousness is a magical thing up there with quidditch from Harry Potter and LOLCats.

OM NOM NOM NOM

Theresa, to be expected, was WELL pleased with the fruits of our labour.

For me? You shouldn't have

Don’t worry, we didn’t eat them on the spot.  That would have been rude, and some what self defeating given we hadn’t eaten dinner and  Theresa was still craving steak at this point.  A craving that had to last a little longer, with our table not ready for us for another 10 minutes.  Hell, they may have had to reinforce it to carry the weight of such a large portion of beast, but regardless, we were left to fend for ourselves again.  The result?  Cocktails…

Little known fact: tilting your head while drinking allows you to consume more cocktail

…and of course, people watching, a sport made even more fun by the fact that Crown became the landing spot for all the spillage from Sexpo 2010.  We took this as a sign: there are many naughty things starting with C (chastity anyone?) and most of them could be found at said adult lifestyle show at the exhibition centre.  C date was officially “on”, even if we never quite made it to the card table.

Dear reader, this is not a criticism of the attendees of said show, more just a reflection of the depths Theresa and I have now gone to ensure our dates are on message. I have to confess I did imagine something much more grandiose  when I originally put this alphabet extravaganza to The Hotter Half, and while we’re not quite at champagne and caviar, I am proud of the dedication we have fostered, the shared committment we have to make this work.

But I digress.  We have reached the culmination of our adventures: the challenge, the craving of giant steak.  Warning: the following pictures may be offensive to some of my vegetarian readers. With that in mind…

1kg of T-Bone: this image may offend some of my vegetarian readers

Like the burrito, I sat this one out.  The digestion of giant food is a mental as much as physical challenge, and the long wait on tenterhooks had done nothing for my state of mind.  Theresa, as you can see, was unperturbed.

Theresa, 'pre-steak'

She did it too, by golly.

She may look sleepy, but that's actually a look of satisfaction

Theresa often asks me “Dave, why do you love me?”.  Sure, it’s her caring nature, her beautiful eyes, her generosity and lovely spirit that get me every time.  But being able to tackle slabs of meat like a NZ front rower and a willingness to watch action movies is always going to be a big hit with me.  Love you Treesy!

Ask and ye shall be pitied and such

Something I’ve noticed since being engaged for more than six months (!): people dread making small talk to me.  It’s nothing personal I understand, more a fear, a dread, a loathing to prod the elephant in the room with a giant cattle prod.

“How are the wedding plans going?”

It seems innocuous enough, up there with discussions about weather, weekend plans or football (or in the case of Victoria, all three at once).  Yet it now promotes a degree of trepidation in the social paradigm of question and answer for both parties.

The “asker” has heard it all before.  Chances are they’ve been closely involved in wedding preparations for their brother/cousin/best friend previously and are thus well versed in the rigmarole of table arrangements and flower colour schemes.  They ask out of a mild interest, out of an expectation that it’s the right thing to do.

The “askee” on the other hand feels a sense of dread, of both pressure and pride. A feeling of not wanting to shut off and ignore social convention entirely by not responding appropriately, but also of not going overboard and filling the “asker” in with mindless details about the stitching on the seven bridesmaids corsets or why Auntie Judy is now lactose intolerant.

The resulting conversation is nearly always brief and awkward, like an incomplete handshake.

“So, um, yeah how are the wedding plans going? Good?”
“Yeah, um, pretty good, just ticking things off you know? Saving madly. The usual.”
“Heh. Yeah man, I hear you.”
<pause>
“Well, not long to go now hey?  I’m sure you’ll get it all done!”

So can I just say this to all of my close friends and colleagues, dear readers all of them.  This is not a plea to stop asking.  This is me simply saying “I understand”.  I understand if you really can’t be arsed to ask.  I understand if you don’t really care, and in turn, understand that I’m not being obstructionist if I don’t give you a massive rambling answer about all the latest developments.  Know that I’m saving us from an awkward conversation neither of us have to have (though if you really want to know more, just press me – it’ll be like a secret bat-signal for “Go on, seriously, I am all ears.”)

I see (c?)

Theresa has informed me that we have an official time and place for Date C, though apparently I will receive more specific SMS instructions on Wednesday when it all goes down.

Fairly certain it’s going to involve the cinema in some shape or form, but apart from that I’m flying blind.  There’s a few things that I hope are involved, including:

- chocolate
- cuddles
- lolCats

Any other suggestions?