Top Five Tuesday: Christmas movies

Love Actually - this movie just makes me feel joy and makes me homesick for the time I lived in London.

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - this reminds me of Christmas with my family in my teens and 20's.  My Dad doing the lights, the way we used to poke fun at him doing so (though we loved it!) and sitting down as a family and watching the movie on either Christmas Eve or boxing day.

It's a wonderful life - I actually hadn't seen this until the Christmas before last - My hubby, my Nan and myself watched it after Christmas lunch and all the kids were sleeping.  Nan and I were bawling at the end!  It's like John Lennon says, life happens when you're busy making other plans.

Meet me in St Louis - I just love the music, and well up whenever I hear 'Have yourself a Merry little Christmas' .


Muppets Christmas Carol - well anything Muppets was top notch when I was a kid - this came out when I was 11.  Loved it back then, will probably get it out for the kids this Christmas for the first time.

What about you?  Any of these you love/don't?  Any to add?

Top Five Tuesday: Things I like to do with water...

What do you like to do with this precious resource?

Me...?

1.  Have a hot shower in it
2.  Boil/poach in it (food that is!)
3.  Drink derivatives of it
4.  Lie in a bath of it
5.  Swim in it

Top Five Tuesday: Fruit

It's that time of the year just about any type of fruit is available... prices are coming down and variety on our plates are going up!  I made a pavlova on the weekend and was able to adorn it with fresh strawberries, kiwis, banana and passionfruit.. bliss.  I have stone fruit in the fridge.. I love this time of year for fruit!

My top five:

1. Banana - since I was a kid, never been able to shake it.  Even when bananas were $15 a kilo just over three years ago, I was still buying them on a small budget - I had three toddlers!
2. Raspberries - unfortunately these are nearly always expensive.  We should grow them....but it's probably too hot here?
3. Strawberries - fresh ones. Sunriped ones.. Strawberries with cream at Wimbledon (just once!)
4. Passionfruit - in cakes, in icecream, just on its own. Yum.  We have 7 vines about to go up here.  This time next year we should have loads of them!
5. Pineapple - the sweet ones, fresh cut off the fruit, frozen on a hot day, juiced with watermelon..mmmm!

Tell me yours!  Mangoes in the bath?  (I"m allergic!)  Durian perhaps?

Top Five Tuesday: Tearjerkers

There are just times you need one of these and others where you avoid them at all costs!

Here are mine (60% of them someone dies! Part of the formula I guess...!!)

1. Steel Magnolias
2. Terms of Endearment
3. The Way we were
4. North Country
5. Love Story

What are some of yours?  If you need some inspiration try these links:
http://www.thevine.com.au/entertainment/articles/top-tearjerkers.aspx
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/hollywoods-top-tearjerkers-1806156.html

Top Five Tuesday: Beverages

Well this would be no mystery to anyone who knows me, but Diet Coke is my poison!!  But I love some others too!  Hot drinks, cool drinks, cocktails, beers.. no really a wine fan, love champagne but it I'm pretty fussy.   Had a lovely Pink Rose Champagne last Friday by Brown Brothers.. That's going on my list for the next bottle shop run!

1. Diet Coke, no question.
2. Hot Milo - with a peppermint marshmallow (I make these now with this recipe and sub peppermint essence for the vanilla essence)
3. Fruit Tingle Cocktail
4. Watermelon juice with a splash of pineapple juice and a squeeze of lime
5. Ice cold Boddingtons mmmm

So what's yours? Comfort, fun, memories...?

Top Five Tuesday: Places to go within 10km radius - play along!

This may take a little bit of thinking but it doesn't have to be somewhere exotic, it can be in your house!

Here's mine:
1. In my garden  or my kitchen on a spring day just relaxing
2. In bed watching a movie.. or reading.. without interruptions
3. Bayview with the kids in summer - we go swmming, it's a kid-friendly inland beach

4. Church Point- great little RSL, catch the ferry, laid-back - love it.. oh to live there!

5. Bonds Nursery - good for lazy sunday breakfast - it's got a playground attached so the kids can play and we can talk!  Gardening inspiration, great little homewares section..  You could walk around for hours, it's enormous.

Top Five Tuesday: Packet Biscuits

Was talking to Kir yesterday about packet biscuits and her love the good 'ol Arnotts Kingston and got me thinking... what is my favourite?  I don't buy many these days as I generally bake... but here's my fave:

1. Gaiety - Lovely wafers, honey chocolate.mmm
2. Chocolate Hob-Nobs - got onto these when I lived in the UK.
3. Honey Jumbles - a fave of mine as a child, never grew out of it.
4. 100's and 1,000's  - again, a childhood favourite
5.  Mint Slice - Frozen.mmmm

TopFiveTuesday: Sandwiches

If you've already had your lunch, sorry.  I might make you feel hungry again.  If not, I might inspire you to make tomorrows' lunch a bit early.  Sandwiches are such a lunchtime institution here in Australia and I'm not talking about what we call a burger (still think that's weird in the UK they call burgers in restaurant sandwiches!?) I'm talking about bread, and fillings.

When I worked my first job I worked next to SBS Television.  (For those not in the know it broadcasts most of the foreign non-english speaking shows) As a result, the local sandwich shop used to stock a whole lot of things and make sandwiches to order in the strangest combinations you could ever imagine.  Beetroot, salmon and mustard for example.  I've never forgotten it!

So here's my top five favourite sandwiches:

1.  Cold corned beef and tomato sauce (ketchup)
2.  Chicken Schnitzel on grain, with cream cheese and lettuce
3.  Toasted tasty cheese and tomato (I must have eaten 5 gadzillion of these when pregnant!!)
4.  Salmon, cream cheese and dill on fresh white bread
5.  Taramasalata, just on white, nothing else.

What's your favourite?  Any weird combinations you'd like to share?

Top Five Tuesday: Cookbooks

Oh, how do I choose?  These are are a ever-changing-list and a long-time obsession.  I love my cookbooks, and I've been collecting them for about 20 years now.  I would guess I have about 60 or more cookbooks (eek) and I want many, many more!  My first one was the The Australian Heritage Cookbook, and at times I still cook from it, it's got some beautiful pictures of the Australian landscape.

OK, now for my favourites:

1.  Nigella Lawson - How to Eat - this is my bible.  I love it.  It seldom is not in my top 2.
2.  Stephanie Alexander - A Cooks' companion - The bible MKII again, this and How to Eat interchange for No 1 and No 2.
3. Jamie Oliver - Jamies' dinners - it's just practical, it's good for the type of cooking I do these days.
4. Tessa Kiros - Apples for Jam - if I were to write a cookbook, this is what I would want it to be like
5.  Womens' weekly great cooking classics - We actually got this as a Wedding present, but I really like it, it has some great little short-cuts in there.

OK, so what's your favourite?  Any you'd recommend to me?

Top Five Tuesday: Animals at the Zoo..

We don't go to the zoo often enough, but in saying that,when we do it's pretty exciting! 

We all have favourites don't we... my girls just love anything monkey-like - the chimps, the monkeys the tamarins...

For me:

1. The Otters - they are SO cute.  Like little playful puppies, hyper!
2. Seals - just beautiful animals, so smart too!
3. The Hippos - they don't do much but they are just happy 'to be'.  I like that.  The baby pigmy hippo is sooo adorable at Taronga
4. Koalas - hey, I'm Australian!  They're not as cuddly as they may seem though!
5. Tigers - they are just so majestic

Top Five Tuesday: Flowers

I've always adored flowers, but I'm also a bit of a flower snob.  For example, carnations give me the willies... I really DO NOT like them. *shudder*  I'm not overly fond of natives..  I never learned so much about flowers until I got engaged, looking for my wedding flowers was extensive and intense!  I ended up going with my first (known) choice in the end.

OK - my top 5:

1.  Gardenia

2.  Freesia

3. Tea Rose (Mellow Yellow is my fave)

4  Hellebore

5.  Hyacinth (pink/white)

What's yours? post here or link back your favourites posted on your blog - I want to know!!

Top Five Tuesday: Ice Cream Flavours

mmm Icecream.

With summer approaching and Ben & Jerrys' opening soon, it's ice-cream season.. oh come on.. ANY time is a good time for icecream - I mean they give it to you in hospital! It should be an essential foodgroup!

My top five flavours:

1. Serendiptitys' chocolate fudge - it has the creamiest chocolate and chewy chunks of chocolate fudge. drool....

2. Gelatissimo Viennese Chocolate - Ferrero Rocher in a creamy gelato... hungry yet? (Ok not technically icecream but hey!)

3. Home-made Vanilla. Can't beat it as far as vanilla icecream goes - will be working on doing more of my own this summer.

4. Royal Copenhagen Choc-Mint. I have a thing for mint, and chocolate.

5. Serendipitys' Hokeypokey - loads of toffee/choc goodness has a special place in my heart.

So what are yours? even just one favourite... post comment here or link to your own blog so I can see!! If you don't like icecream... you're weird. just so you know....

Top Five Tuesday: The Beatles

Every Tuesday I'm going to get you to tell me 5 of your top somethings....

This week it's about The Beatles. I grew up with them as most people have, my Mum was an original Beatnik, wagged school to see them arrive at the airport etc etc! They are a serious part of my musical education and when I lived in the UK went to Liverpool twice and did the Magical Mystery Tour where you can go on the 'Penny Lane' Bus and visit Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, a re-created Cavern Club, birthplaces, schools etc of the Paul, John, George and Ringo.. and I must have walked through the Beatles Museum at Albert Quay about 5 times, I kid you not!

So my top 5 Beatles Songs:

• Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (musical genius)
• And I love her (pure, sentimental)
• DayTripper (love the riff in this! George Harrison seriously under-rated in the Beatles!)
• In My Life (beautiful)
• I am the Walrus (it's just super-catchy, once I hear it I'm singing it all day!)

(there are so many more!)
If you have trouble remembering which ones are your favourites, click here for the list of the 274 of them!
Comment here on yours and/or post a link where you've put it on your blog! I wanna know!