Guess what I did yesterday

Yesterday involved me doing a pretty equal mix of stupid and awesome things.

The stupid kicked off with buying the wrong charging cable for my new mobile phone. I backed it up by going to the coffee shop, grabbing a strong flat white and dropping it on the floor of my apartment building’s carpark.

Coffee went EVERYWHERE. However I didn’t feel too bad about leaving it splattered on the concrete as I’d just agreed to a body corporate request to pressure wash it.

But I did feel bad about missing out on my coffee. So I jumped in the car and drove around the block and lined up for another one. The barista was startled to see me so soon. I explained what happened and he insisted on giving me a new one for free.

Thank you! Then I hooned off to be a judge at the 2024 Australian Gin Awards.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Mikey Enright, Co Founder & Director of the Barrelhouse Group, was the Chair the Australian Gin Awards and I was one of the 12 senior judges.

Mikey is such a lovely bloke. He runs venues including Hickson House Distillery, The Barber Shop and The Duke of Clarence.

I was chitter chattering with him at a whisky event a few months ago and he suggested I join the judging panel.

Who wouldn’t want to have “Australian Gin Awards judge” on their resume?

So I took a day off work and pootled to a function centre in Concord instead.

The aim of the awards is to shine a light on the excellence of local gin production. Any Australian and New Zealand gin distillery was eligible to enter their gin.

I judged the Contemporary, Liqueur and Flavoured sections of the competition, which helped me realise I am more of a classic gin girl.

The liqueurs and flavoured gins were a little too sweet for me. I didn’t even realise gin liqueurs were a thing until yesterday.

They are definitely a thing and some of them are delicious. I thought two deserved Gold medals. Stay tuned for which ones I loved after the winners are announced.

All up I judged 60 gins, which involved a lot of spittoon action.

There was also an awesome Indian lunch spread from an Indian restaurant called Manjits. Yuuuum.

And the judges were a great mob, such a warm, welcoming, inclusive group.

Things were much less glamorous when I raced home to clean up a trifecta of dog poo, wee and vomit on the living room floor. I don’t know if dodgy chicken for breakfast or separation anxiety were to blame, but blergh.

Then I had to turn around and dash into Surry Hills to meet a PR friend called Shae who is handling the launch of a new restaurant called 170 Grammi.

I threw on my jacket, slammed the front door, started running down the stairs and realised … oh … oh no … my keys …

I’d left them inside the apartment. And the only other sets of keys were with the kids in Paris.

Sob.

I called DD in a panic and we thankfully realised he had a clicker for the garage door, plus a front door key. Only problem? They were 45 minutes away.

We tossed around Uber solutions, then he offered to be a hero and drop them in my letterbox while I was off carousing.

Bless him.

I thanked him profusely and dashed to the bus stop in the rain, caught the bus, jumped off at the Queen Victoria Building, raced a few blocks in the rain to Elizabeth Street and caught another bus to the restaurant.

170 Grammi is the sister pizzeria to the famed Via Napoli and is already creating headline grabbers including carbonara pizzas.

Located on the corner of Crown and Foveaux streets in Surry Hills, 170 Grammi serves up some of the only “la tonda scrocchiarella Romana” or Roman-style, round pizzas in the city.

Made using only 170 grams of dough – and serving as the inspiration for the venue’s name – the pizzas are thinner and crunchier in comparison to the soft and puffy Verace Neapolitan style.

Second only to the pizza oven is the other hero of 170 Grammi’s intimate venue, a handmade black and white terrazzo bar, which is where I pulled up a stool with Shae for a fabulous evening filled with Rosato wine, Limoncello spritzes and yummy food.

The place was heaving with happy customers on a wet Wednesday night. The staff were amazing and so was the food.

We ordered suppli, which are skinny arancini-style antipasti, a carbonara pizza, a salad and homemade Maritozzi buns filled with slightly sweet whipped cream and a generous dusting of icing sugar. Apparently people are already lining up for them every day. I understand the obsession!

We were only supposed to spent an hour or so together but we talked up such a storm that it was almost three hours later that I made my return journey home.

Big day. huge.

I am knackered … with heartburn. And today is going to be frantic as I try and catch up on work. Better crunch a Mylanta tablet and get cracking!

Song of the day: The Beatles “Yesterday”