On Easter Sunday, at 11am on the dot, I was sitting in the back of my parents’ car watching my Dad and brother pore over a street map.
“Wait,” I said. “So what you’re saying is that not only are we picking up an obscure relative we’ve never met before, but that all you know is she’s waiting somewhere on an unknown street within the vast ANU campus?”
There was a pause.
“Yes,” Dad replied.
And so it came to pass that Dad, E.TeacherLord, and I found ourselves cruisin’ around ANU on a day that is holy to many people, trying to find an eighteen-year-old girl we could convince to get in the car with us.
Let’s be honest; this could have ended badly. Firstly, the girl who hopped in our car when we called out “Charlotte?” near the Street Theatre could have been a hitchhiker wily enough to pretend to be my second cousin when the opportunity arose. Secondly, even if this lass with the plate of chocolate cupcakes in her hands truly was our relation, we still had a forty-five minute drive ahead of us in which we were all obligated to make polite conversation and hopefully like each other.
Let’s be honest again; there was no polite conversation. At least, there wasn’t after the first, oh, eight minutes. Instead, we four started bantering, laughing, and exuberatering (shhh, spellcheck, I hereby proclaim that to be a word) in such a splendiferous manner that all my nervousness disappeared, and I knew this second-cousin-from-the-street was destined for a place in my heart.
So, it looks a bit like I’m grasping my jewellery out of fear the floating waiter arm will steal it. I promise this was not the case; I’m just a necklace-fiddler.
My family’s Easter tradition is to drive out into the country for a fancy feast, and this year our restaurant of choice was Grazing at Gundaroo. The food was unfailingly delicious, but alas! I only have a handful of food photos to show you.
My brother started with the “pickled Wagyu tongue, hand-picked garden greens, black pudding, soft poached quail egg and celery seed dressing”, from which Charlotte and I both stole tiny bites of black pudding. Turns out Charlotte is a food lover too, so bonus magic proof points of related-ness! Hurrah!
I started with the “steamed fresh yabbies with parsley and hazelnut ‘picada’, crisp caramelised onion tuile and garden tomato salad” and, after a bit of a princess-whine about how I didn’t want to get my fingers dirty with the yabbies, I mightily enjoyed this dish. The picada was the highlight, full of salty nutty toasted flavours that worked perfectly with the sweet yabbies and the heirloom tomato salad from Grazing’s own garden.
It was around this point that the glass of rosé I’d ordered began to take hold.
Yes, one glass. I drank one glass of wine. (Domaine Rougha Crois Saignee Rosé 2009, to be specific, and it was crisp and dry and lovely.)
In my defense, it was a glorified bucket of wine; Grazing is nothing if not generous with its pours. Everyone at the table admitted our glasses were more like two standard drinks.
That said, nothing alleviates the embarrassment of being 24 at a table of family members ranging in age from 18 to 91, all of whom are completely unaffected by their drinks, while you sit there stroking your own eyebrows and talking about how you’ll run down the main street of Gundaroo with your stilettos over your ears, before interrupting yourself to exclaim “I have eyebrows!”
And then you do your best “dinosaur-crossed-with-a-bird” impression with your head.
Curse you, lightweight self! Curse you!
However, you’ll have to wait for Part Two to hear about the dessert that instigated the dinobird mimicking. In other words: To Be Continued.
P.S. I was mildly hungover the next day. For crying out loud.
Yay for new found family/friends and holiday dino… oooh, I spy home-made marshmallows!
That’s the funny thing; I thought they’d be homemade marshmallows but I’m not sure they were – they were indescribably light and dissolved so easily, I’m quite perplexed!
LOL at “trying to find an eighteen-year-old girl we could convince to get in the car with us.”
The girl was holding chocolate cupcakes, how could she not be related to you!
*laughs* My thoughts exactly
Ha, I’m the same way now after 10 months of bun-cooking, breastfeeding etc… mega light weight now – one glass wonder… or one pot screamer, whatever
*high five* Hey, at least we’re cheap dates? Except, of course, you’re past that stressful part of life…
Love the dessert featuring sugary mushrooms at the top and whatever you’re about to eat, T-Rex style, at the bottom, but I’ll let ETeacherLord enjoy the pickled wagyu tongue…..
Mushroom marshmallows FTW! All shall be revealed
hehe you are too adorable!!!
Oh that last picture is making me laugh
I’m looking forward to finding out what it is! It sounds like a lovely day, and finding a new family member has to be a good thing.
I like hearing your lightweight drinking stories too. In part because it has now been about 8 years (!) since I had a full alcoholic drink and I was fairly lightweight myself before that. I have this sense that if I ever drink again, the consequences may be dire.
When I saw that photo after my brother took it, my first thought was “Well, THAT’S never going on the blog”.
And yet, here we are. Where on earth did I leave my dignity?
I’m not a complete teetotaller, but tend to save alcohol for celebrations at nice restaurants
Ah, commiserations from a fellow light-weight.
And dessert! Dessert! Tell me about that dessert!
Let’s clink our half-filled glasses together in support!
Teehee, dessert will be in part two! Tomorrow, I think
I think anyone holding cupcakes should be offered a lift!
And I love Grazing! The food there is scrumdiddyumptious! 
Oh yes, you got swept off to Grazing, didn’t you!
Hmm, could she really be related to you though, since the cupcakes were chocolate??
Just kidding. I’m only jealous because I don’t have any mystery relatives to stalk. I think I had a mystery relative at my high school, actually! But there were like 2200 people there, so he was just one of many faces in a sea of angsty youngsters.
*laughs* The rest of the family loves chocolate creations, so we must remember that she’s related to everyone, not just me
HOLY BUCKET. 2,200 in your high school?! There were 90 in my primary school, and 12 in Grade 6 with me, so that just blew my mind.
Oh yay, Grazing! I really liked that restaurant the last time I was in Canberra! So I know what you mean about their glasses of wine being MASSIVE. It was all their fault, not yours!
xox
Yay!! Sarah, I so deeply love that you support Canberra and don’t just go for the ‘make fun of it without ever coming and eating here’ behaviour that so many people choose! Woot!
After one glass?! I want to see you after 2!
I think there’s much dancing and singing and hysterical giggling at that point.
oh you tease with those tantalising desserts! Has your mysterious second cousin been living in Canberra all this time or has she just moved into town? I like all the intrigue about meeting her – and of course that she arrived bearing cupcakes!
Teehee, don’t worry, part two will be the next post; I’m not stringing it out too long! She recently moved here for uni
Only mildly hungover – why, what went wrong? Sorry to hear that, you need to try a lot harder next time:)
No thanks; part of the reason I don’t drink is that I cannot stand feeling unwell the next day! I value feeling sparky too much
Yabbies. This is a brand new word for me and I feel like I’ve just tripped over a dusty artifact poking out of the dirt and unearthed glorious treasure. I’m going to be saying it to myself all day until it loses all meaning and becomes a delightfully mood-altering onomatopoeia. Yabbies.
Also, congrats on finding a kindred (literally) spirit in the wild! And on your newfound eyebrows! It’s a day of discovery for all of us!
Oh, Alayna, I do love you rather a lot sometimes. I believe that yabbies are not only a new word for you, but indeed a new species of shellfish unique to Australia. But even with that said, I too have been mumbling “yabbiesyabbiesyabbies” to myself whilst writing this response.
It’s very easy to forget I have eyebrows, in truth. They’re so darn faint and flimsy.
Those yabbies look so lovely!! Not sure that one glass (or even two!) would leave me excited to discover my own eyebrows, but I have been known to touch the tip of my nose over and over when I’ve had too many drinks. Apparently, my nose goes numb and I have to repeatedly check that it’s still there.
But of course! I’ve heard many a time of people who’ve become so discombombulated as a result of drinking that they’ve accidentally left noses and ears behind at restaurants.
I know that protective jewelry-grasping move all too well. It’s kind of a habit for me anytime a strange man’s hand or arm floats anywhere near my chest.
My goodness, Ms. Low-Tolerance! That’s ok. As long as I can drink by the time you come, you can have 1 out of 4 glasses in every bottle, and I’ll have the other 3.
Alas, it is a very rare event for strange men’s hands to float near my chest. (I just deleted two more sentences about that for, while they amused me greatly, I must remember that this is a very public forum.
)
Deal! I bet it will take me the same amount of time to drink the one glass too *rolls eyes at self* That said, a fellow once had great success at getting me to drink more by convincing me to take a shot; the rest followed more easily after that.
The picada sounds amazing. As for being hyper aware of the existence of your eyebrows, I can only assure you that everyone else at the table was secretly thinking “I’ll have what she’s having!”.
What I love most about your comment is that I can take it as everyone wanting my wine OR (and I like this version better) as everyone wanting my eyebrows. AND WHO WOULDN’T?
Oh Hannah, you always make me so happy reading your blog. I too am a lightweight when it comes to alcohol! I say drink and be merry, even if it is only a 1/2 a glass like me
Leah!! Thank you
I always get nervous about longer me-centric posts like this 
Teehee, I often ask for half a glass if it a bottle for the table being shared, but ah well. I wasn’t *too* hung-over…
Dear Hannah,
This is quite hilarious and it sounds like your dad has the patience of a saint compared to my dad. I would have kept Charlotte even if she wasn’t my second cousin with looks like that!
Teehee, thank you! Believe you me, Dad demonstrated even *more* patience on the drive home, factoring in the alcohol exuberance… And oh yes, she’s gorgeous!
Aah, I get shit from Brad all the time for being a lightweight too! What a lovely tradition you guys have though, food looks nommy!
Teehee, I swear it’s my family more than my friends who pressure me into drinking
I love that place and their tasting plates. The pigs ears and lambs tongue is amazing. I love your blog.
Aw, thank you Gary! That’s really lovely
And yes, it’s often the mark of a good restaurant to be able to make wonderful dishes out of less common ingredients!
Oh dear, another way that we are (unfortunately) similar. It takes NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, to get me utterly drunk. A single glass of champagne has seen me falling down a flight of stairs on more than one occasion…
Let’s embrace it! High five for flushed-and-breathless-giggling before even finishing a glass! We shall have to split a glass in NYC… or just go to Lulu’s instead
Love your family traditions and om nom nom food
Your posts are always so entertaining
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Aw!! Thank you so much; I was a bit nervous about this post, so thank you!
Oh Hannah, you are hysterical, but it was great to introduce you to your second cousin, whom we’d only met once before for a couple of hours, and see you all, us all, get on so well. Ain’t family grand?
The granderest of all! And hey, you’d met her before, but I hadn’t. Don’t you go makin’ me look like a liar; my nose is big enough as it is
Aaah… I like how your dad thinks… picking up random relatives in random places, lol! Your life is so full of colour, and I don’t know where you were heading with the dinobird thread of thought, but it made me laugh.
Oh gosh, that’s a lovely thing to read; I’ll remember it on the days where my heart feels grey and shadowy and lost xoxo Teehee, my head is so weirdly-shaped in that photo; I’m totally from the prehistoric age
When you started this post by saying you were in a car in Canberra with a street map I wasn’t at all surprised. I can’t get around Canberra without my very special street map. It definitely has to be the easiest city to find yourself lost. And that’s quite an achievement that you were able to find Charlotte. I’ve driven around ANU and it’s huge – like a small city in itself. Amazing you found her in time to get to the restaurant before the end of service xx
*laughs* Oh, I so appreciate this comment! It is, perhaps, slightly generous considering that my father and I are born-and-bred Canberrans (my brother was born overseas), so should know our way around by now
I’ll never forget when I first started driving and was trying to get from one place to another in what should have been a very straight-forward manner, and yet found myself calling my mother in tears wailing “I don’t know how I got here but I’m in the private parking of Old Parliament House and I don’t know how to get out!”
I’m sure wine is more alcoholic than other beverages, I always ‘feel’ it after one glass of sugary rich wine, where as I can drink an awful lot of vodka, clear clean lovely vodka, and not feel remarkably different. Hoorah for your second-cousin being a keeper, and a food lover to boot!
Holy smokes, one shot of hard liquor/spirits (like vodka) is enough to make me transition from bouncing around to sobbing on the couch. It’s interesting how alcohol affects us all so differently! Though I s’pose a lot of it is due to building up tolerance, which I’ve never had the courage to do
hahaha I would never do that! honestly that’s something scary but I’m glad everything went okay and by the way those mushrooms are the best thing!
Oh my gosh, I’m so confused! What’s the scary thing you would never do? I feel a bit stupid right now
Hahaha! “I have eyebrows!” What’s sad is that I get like that when I’m really tired. You know, that point when you are past the point of exhaustion? Instead of collapsing I suddenly get hyper and talk nonsense. It’s great……. haha!
Teehee, I remember those moments from sleepovers as a kid! It normally hit around 4am… our poor parents
Hee hee, love the story. You and my Mum would get on well in the drinking stakes. Thank goodness I’m my father’s daughter.
I’m yet to get out to Grazing, it seems so far away, which is such a Canberra thing because it really isn’t. Plus we know the people who own the pub – I know it is shameful I haven’t been there. Maybe one day soon.
Then it sounds like you would get along very well with my entire family (not that they’re drunkards, of course; they just have one-or-two when I normally have none
)
Bahaha! It’s only about forty minutes from the city which, when you think about it, is actually less than it can take to get from one side of Canberra to the other! But I know what you mean, as I was very happy not to have to drive it myself.
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hahaha oh Hannah! Stroking your eyebrows. And you were totally guarding your necklace weren’t you
It’s ok, i’d do the same. Wine makes you terribly protective of your jewels. You’re awesome.
Heidi xo
Well, the necklace is a little diamond pendant that one of my dear friends gave me for my 18th birthday, so totally justified
(I’m really not joking.)
Aw, squish! You know, I’d drink wine with you. And seriously – that’s an honour.
xoxo
That’s so cool lol “trying to find an eighteen-year-old girl we could convince to get in the car with us.” new found family members hehe ~
When I meet new people, I like to do it with panache