elvenpiratelady ([personal profile] elvenpiratelady) wrote2009-02-12 09:28 pm

Darwin Day

Happy Darwin's Birthday! The Melbourne Museum is having a party to celebrate and this is the menu:

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Course 1
The Precambrian Earth - No Life
Crusty arancini (representing the earth's hot, rocky surface 4.5 billion years ago) with a mushroom and goat's cheese centre and a green herb aioli.
Mini corn fritters (mimicing the coarse structural texture seen of the oldest rocks) with avocado and coriander salsa.

Course 2
Early Oceans
Shots of seafood bisque with a drizzle of spinach oil echoing the earth's early oceans 3.6 billion years ago.

Course 3
Origins Of Early Life In The Seas
Grilled scallops in the shell topped with dill sauce, peeled prawns in urns of ice with citrus wedges, oysters on seaweed salad topped with a tomato and dashi jelly represent the diverse invertebrate life in the seas 540 million years ago.

Course 4
The First Fishes
A mild blini topped with pearls of caviar and crispy white bait, shoe string fries and tartare sauce served in a paper cone pay tribute to the evolution of fish about 480 million years ago.

Course 5
Life Invades Land
Crocodile skewers served with a native finger lime and sweet chilli glaze mark the transition of life from sea to land 360 million years ago.

Course 6
Dinosaurs
Mini 'dinosaur drummettes' (barbequed chicken drummettes with a Cajun seasoning) represent the arrival of the largest life forms to evolve on land.

Course 7
First Mammals
Herb and parmesan crusted lamb cutlets with a tomato and olive tapenade, assorted barbecu skewers (satay beef, Teriyaki chicken, Middle Eastern lamb skewers) and lamb korma with basmati rice and a drizzle of yoghurt raita accompanied by grilled naan bread mark the arrival of mammals some 220 million years ago.

Course 8
The Rise Of Plants And Greens
Jungle curry - Malaysian vegetable curry and mint icecream in mini cones with mint represent the plant kingdom which evolved much the same time as animals some 2 billion years ago.

Course 9
The Killer Asteroid
Chocolate fountain with bowls of bits to dip (strawberries, dinosaur shaped meringue, Turkish delight, star fruit, melon, bananas, marshmallows), meteorites with churros with a lava centre and chocolate truffles with coco dust are the killer asteroid which wiped out animal and plant life some 65 million years ago.

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Mmm, the taste of geekiness... Happy 200th Birthday, Darwin, even if you did call my country 'very dull and uninteresting'. XD

[identity profile] coppertone.livejournal.com 2009-02-12 12:32 pm (UTC)(link)
That is INSANELY COOL, omd. *flails at it*

[identity profile] elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com 2009-02-13 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
Isn't it? XD

[identity profile] morethmusing.livejournal.com 2009-02-12 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Hah! 'Life Invades Land' looks very tasty :D (Never eaten crocodile...)

Great fun! Do you get to go?

[identity profile] elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com 2009-02-13 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
I tried crocodile once - it's very, very greasy. And no, unfortunately I don't get to go. D:

[identity profile] bubonicwoodchuk.livejournal.com 2009-02-12 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, man. Science has never looked so delicious.

[identity profile] elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com 2009-02-13 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
Hell yes. Kudos to whoever thought all of these up!

[identity profile] sedri.livejournal.com 2009-02-12 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)
THAT is NEAT! Why did I move away from Melbourne? *sniffle*

[identity profile] elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com 2009-02-13 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
Where do you live now? *curious*

(If it's any consolation, the article said it's been sold out for months.)

[identity profile] sedri.livejournal.com 2009-02-13 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
Dunedin. Lovely and cold, and apparently the citizens have voted it the best city in New Zealand. I love it here.

(That is consoling, yes.)

[identity profile] cat-empress.livejournal.com 2009-02-12 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)
That looks awesome and I would love to do it. I didn't realise it was today. But unfortunately I have other stuff on. That other stuff would be helping the Royal Society of Victoria to catalogue their archives. How appropriate.

[identity profile] elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com 2009-02-13 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
Sounds cool, though. What are you cataloguing?

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/-whatzername/ 2009-02-13 05:18 am (UTC)(link)
Haha, that may be one of the funniest things I've ever read! That needs to happen everywhere.

I heard they caught a couple of guys who may have been responsible for some of the fires, but the American news coverage is embarrassingly minimal. Do you know any more details? How is it all going?

[identity profile] elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com 2009-02-13 09:18 am (UTC)(link)
The fires are slowly coming under control, I think. I've been checking The Age's (http://www.theage.com.au/) (Victorian newspaper) website for updates.

Right now, the figures are: 181 dead, 20 fires out of control, more than 1800 homes lost and 7000 homeless. Police have at least made progress on the arsonists and have arrested one person (who also turned out to have a child pornography stash. How charming.)

On a more positive note, donations have topped $100 million, and emergency payouts from the government are due to start in the next couple of days.

[identity profile] dracoena.livejournal.com 2009-02-14 08:40 am (UTC)(link)
Could I get the dessert?

(The rest REALLY sounds weird...:P)

But... chicken dinosaurs? That´s cheating! REALLY cheating! A turkey, at the very least...

[identity profile] elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com 2009-02-14 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
It sounds really awesome (especially dinosaur-shaped meringues *squee*)... unfortunately, I have no recipes, only the menu.

But turkey tastes icky. And Velociraptor was meant to be the dinosaur version of a chicken.