As we walk out of Cambodia’s Siem Reap Airport, having been whisked through customs by the Amansara staff and ushered over to their beautifully restored black 1965 Mercedes Benz limousine, there was an instant feeling that this hotel stay is going to be far from the norm, with an overwhelming sense of reassuring calm and cool that sets the mood of highly-personalized and amenable service. Read More >
The Wandering Palate is delighted to share this brilliant caricature of ‘Marsh Mellow” drawn by the hugely talented and humorous cartoonist and artist, George Aldridge. I am sure you will agree that Aldridge has captured the essence of my obsession and patriotism in this vivid drawing although has kindly managed to lose one of my chins.
You can view more of Aldridge’s work on Philip White’s blog, Drinkster, http://drinkster.blogspot.com/ in this writers opinion the best wine scribe in Australia and an awesome combination of talent and hilarity.
I have quoted the ABC – Nexus programme at the bottom of this post to give you some background on George Alderidge.
Cheers! The Wandering Palate
George Aldridge is a bushie, artist, cartoonist, publican and loves to tell a yarn. We went to his studio to talk to him about his life and work.
“Hello, I’m George Aldridge. I’m artist, cartoonist, illustrator. And I’m currently sitting up in my favourite workplace – my loft in Gawler.
Firstly, it was from high school to a men’s clothing store, and fortunately I had a dear friend who saw me spending most of my time ticket-writing those days, and dressing dummies, and got an application for the South Australian School of Art, so I was fortunate enough to get in. So I spent a four-year course, coming out with a diploma in fine art painting. I think I’d learnt the skills and techniques in painting and drawing, but really, it was certainly a different sort of social scene. It was a grand gathering of the sort of ’70s and ’80s bohemians which I was never aware of until then. That took me to interesting places…and headspaces.
Yeah, I took up the museum work in the early ’80s as a designer-illustrator. You had to be a bit of everything in the museum. It was also called the ‘Dead Zoo’, because we worked with a lot of dead animals. It was a fascinating place. It still is. I think it’s one of the great cultural institutions in Adelaide. There was a chance then also to try some different… ..work in some different areas of scientific illustration and taxidermy… ..which I found just absolutely fascinating, and still do. I still go off on digs. It’s one of my great loves.
I’m very much an… And I don’t like the term ‘outback’. I’m really a landscape painter. Well, it really goes back to high school. We travelled through the Flinders. It was just one of those breathtaking landscapes that I just immediately fell in love with, and I went back. It was sort of really a yearly sort of pilgrimage, and have ever since then. And then, having moved to the Flinders in the early ’90s, full-time, it allowed me to virtually paint full-time. I just find the landscape just overwhelming, breathtaking, colourful. I love the texture of it. It’s something that will never leave me, I don’t think. It’s stunning stuff.
This is my sanctuary. This is my hidey-hole. I could be up here fairly early. I will work…often work right through the day… ..into the night… ..and just do that over and over and over again. That’s really the way I get through the work. There’s really some days where I actually can’t draw. Actually, I was trying to figure out the other day… I couldn’t lift a pencil. There’s just days when it just doesn’t happen. So I then… I don’t know. I just go walkabout then.
My wife Kate runs a little restaurant out of Gawler, which is actually housed in the oldest building in Gawler. It’s the Wheatsheaf Inn, which was the… It’s a grand, grand little place. It’s the old inn. It’s haunted. I spent bits of time up there working, helping her out in the bar and serving behind the bar, and serving tables occasionally . I can do it for a limited amount of time, but then, when I get a bit grumpy, Kate sends me… sends me north.
The cartooning for me was really… I was just an insatiable scribbler as a kid, and much to the annoyance of, I think, probably school teachers, and my history at schools, I never really got any bloody work done – I was too busy scribbling. And as I sort of progressed into the working world, the cartoon became a way of me really stating what I thought needed to be stated, and antagonise management in the public service and antagonise politicians, and really to, as I’ve said before, get this shit off my liver about certain things that concern me.
And I just…I sit and draw. I draw as I… That just happens naturally. I never just… Well, sometimes, I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit, but the drawing is something I will do as a way of just getting me motivated, getting me moving. So I don’t necessarily look for a theme. Sometimes, I work on images that somehow develop into a theme, or find their way into one other aspect of my thinking. I’m a bushie, I love my music… I love the medium, I love painting, I love being a creative person. I can’t see that I would be anything else. I love that headspace, and it’s not a complex place for me to be. It’s just a… It’s a very safe and comfortable place to be.”
Inspiration for 2015 comes from John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.” Read More >
(Pronounced suh-mal-‘yAy)
In Medieval Provençal times they were saumaliers, animal pack drivers who evolved during Middle French kingdom to become court officials charged with transportation of supplies. So what does a modern day Sommelier actually do? Well, Wikipedia outlines as such, “A sommelier or wine steward is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, normally working in fine restaurants who specializes in all aspects of wine service as well as wine and food matching. The most important work of a sommelier is in the areas of wine procurement, wine storage, wine cellar rotation, and expert service to wine consumers.” Read More >
Isobel – at Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese
Picked up a big chunk of the rarest cheese on the planet for a party we throwing at our house tomorrow night, the Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese “Isobel”, a Single-Cow Cheese! Pronounced coom-glin http://www.cwmglyn.co.nz this has to be the best cheese in all New Zealand and right up there in the world stage, having just won a Super Gold Award in the Fine Food World Festival in London–out of 2600 artisan cheeses, making it in to the Top 60 for the trophy tastings–bloody awesome effort! Check out the website www.finefoodworld.co.uk/world-cheese-awards.
Its wee bit of a drive to Eketahuna to Biddy’s ‘Cheese Door’, the only place you can get it retail, although if you ask very nicely at her restaurant supplier, On Trays, http://www.ontrays.co.nz/ in Petone, you might score a piece. Otherwise, makes sure you leave room for cheese if you’re dining at Logan-Brown…yes folks, all happening in Wellington, New Zealand, Middle of Middle Earth.
Full article in the wings…
Cheers
Curtis
Chatting with my American friend yesterday on the ritual of Thanksgiving, I asked her if Goose was ever on the menu for Thanksgiving. She looked at me in bemusement, “Oh no, that’s very English, we don’t do Goose”. Curious I thought, given Thanksgiving is rooted in English tradition and Henry VIII, a man who sure knew how to celebrate – marriages and redefining the Church – would be perplexed at this denial of ancestry. Read More >
It’s the Pōhutukawa tree that does it for me… our very own Christmas Tree
Where else on the planet would there be a tree that speaks to me, and understands I have been 28 years at sea.
I thought I was destined to roam, but as it turned out I found my way home.
To Wellington, the great harbour of Tara, but also named after our past master.
A town named after a Duke that would make most Kiwi’s puke, but never mind, its a ship of line that our character is defined.
And I did my time here in my youth, and some would say I was a touch uncouth, and that’s probably the truth.
Actually, it’s the garage beer that brings me here, a beverage I would like to be near.
They call it Wellywood, but my purpose for being here is little understood.
I should really live in New York as my wife is a banker, and she’s the anchor.
But what sort of tree would I talk to in New York… I think I’d rather shake hands with an Ork.
No, it’s the Pōhutukawa tree with its stamen bright, surely the future is in sight.
You know everything is all right, when I drive around Oriental Bay in the twilight.
And when I look at my daughter, and I see her shine, I know that coming back to New Zealand was always in my mind.
Wishing you all the very best for the festive season
The Wandering Palate
(pronounced suh-mal-‘yAy)
In Medieval Provençal times they were saumaliers, animal pack drivers who evolved during Middle French kingdom to become court officials charged with transportation of supplies. So what does a modern day Sommelier actually do? Well, Wikipedia outlines as such, “A sommelier or wine steward is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, normally working in fine restaurants who specializes in all aspects of wine service as well as wine and food matching. The most important work of a sommelier is in the areas of wine procurement, wine storage, wine cellar rotation, and expert service to wine consumers.” Read More >
Back in my favourite airline lounge, Wellington Air NZ Koru Club…off to Wanaka for the Rippon vineyard 100 Years on the land, 30 vintages bash – over the long weekend…and what a weekend it will be, or as Rippon folks put it, “The coolest weekend in the last 100 years…” have to say, Jo and Nick Mills are the real deal… 30 year vertical of pinit noir, BBQ on Ruby Island…cigars and hangovers for all… all work of course, I’m only going out of professional courtesy and to write a story for Robert Parker and Wandering Palate, it will be hard work, and we take our work very seriously…even if my wife remains unconvinced!
The Wandering Palate has penned a bit on Rippon, check out http://www.thewanderingpalate.com/must-have-wines/must-have-wine-red-wine-of-the-lunar-year-dragon-rippon-mature-vines-point-noir-2009-%E2%80%93-wanaka-central-otago-new-zealand/
