Author Archives: Henry Gomez

Photoshop brushart

In all honesty, I have no idea what I’m doing. That’s right, totally clueless… I downloaded a bunch of Photoshop brushes and I was testing them out, all 3500 of them and came up with some rather interestingly, obscure and enlightening artistic “postcards”. I call this brushart.

I will add postcards when I get more time, but in the interim… here are a few. If you guys want to send some postcards, I can add them to this post. Criteria is as follows: 800 x 400 pixels, 24bit png’s… Must use Photoshop brushes…

Jurassic 4 – This jungle is making me hungry.

Samurai in bamboo field.

Angry Samurai.

Autumn feel to this postcard.

Grunge black scratch.

Celestial snowflake – needs more pink unicorns.

Dum Bass – green oil on digital canvas.

Purple Haze.

I see you.

Will you marry me – Brushart postcard of veils.

The Greek Festival – Paniyiri 2013

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… If you are single, you can come pick up a guy or a girl – you don’t even need an excuse to get close and have physical contact. Just join the Zorba circle, a little Yassou! and a couple of Opa’s and Nicolopoulos is your uncle! (with a little stretch of the imagination of course)…

Once again, I found myself at West End’s Musgrave Park for the Panyiri 2013. I have religiously been going to this event for as far as I can remember.

I love coming for the food, music, dancing, the rides, the drinks, the friendly conversations, and most important of all – the honey puffs. I must admit I am addicted to them…

The usual suspects could be found this year, Nerissa the Peloponnesian Princess, the hosts (that guy from the Coffee Club and the other funny guy), Hercules and Xena, the Greek dancers (those guys and gals are just amazingly co-ordinated, flexible and fun), the buckets and buckets of marinated octopus, calamari, dolmades, haloumi, souvla etc…etc… the list goes on and on. And also the copious amounts of Mythos, Ouzo and Greek wines.

What more could you want? It’s a great day out. If you are single, you can come pick up a guy or a girl – you don’t even need an excuse to get close and have physical contact. Just join the Zorba circle a little Yassou! and a couple of Opa’s and Nicolopoulos is your uncle! (with a little stretch of the imagination).

I am sure to come to many more Panyiri’s. Thanks to all the people involved in making this event a reality – and thanks to all of the chef’s and cook’s who dedicate their entire Saturday and Sunday to feeding us hungry people.

Yassou!

Brisbane woofired pizza oven – by Papa Gomez

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Brisbane woofired pizza oven – by Papa Gomez

“…None of this thick carboard style, sausage and cheese crust filled, tasteless Frisbees they sell in franchise owned restaurants…”

So , you love pizzas, eh?

Well, what do you know?? So do I!!! As a matter of fact, pizzas are my favourite food group in the whole wide world… Not that I eat pizzas every day (I would if I wasn’t so conscious of my waistline), but I do have an enormous appreciation for a great rustic Italian pizza.

Roll the clock back to circa 1982, when my parents took me to a restaurant called “La Siesta” in Geneva. I had the Quattro Stagioni and automatically fell in love with the flavours and smell of pizzas, and more importantly those covered with anchovies and capers. I would probably get crucified in Australia for saying this (and I do apologise to my friends in advance) – I don’t believe in pizza toppings such as pineapple, sour cream, potatoes, minced meat and chicken. When it comes to pizzas, I personally believe in tradition and only vouch on Italian classics – including Margarita, Capricciosa, Napoletana, Marinara, Il Diavolo, Quattro Formaggi and of course my favourite. Thin crust with few, fresh toppings. None of this thick carboard style, sausage and cheese crust filled, tasteless Frisbees they sell in franchise owned restaurants.

Many, many years ago, I had this a idea of building my own woodfired pizza oven. I would use my hooded gas BBQ to cook pizzas (which worked much better than an electrical oven as it gave the dough a better flavour). I even bought a slab of granite and had it cut to size and polished so it would fit inside my BBQ – the granite started to show cracks after a few firings and didn’t work as well as I would have hoped. I also bought a few pizza stones. They were excellent as the porous surface absorbed the moisture from the dough and made the base crunchy. But ultimately, I knew that no other cooking implement would beat that of a traditional wood fired oven…

It was really worth all the effort building the oven!!

And that is how my mission began… (I will be adding more photos to this gallery over time as I continue and complete this project.) I should also show my gratitude and thank fornobravo.com for their oven plans and extremely helpful instructions.

Oh and I almost forgot – I could not have done this without the physical help of Fred, Vitaly, Koray and the Russians, and the motivational support of my beautiful wife Letty. Thank you so much guys!!

Trench dug, reo/steel laid and formwork ready for pouring

Other angle

Concrete poured and blocks purchased

Laying the blocks

Vitaly – thinking of better days…

Happy like a pig in mud – Yay!

Slowly laying the blocks

One course…

After course…

Overall view of first part of formwork

Form work – this will be filled with concrete and serve as work bench where magic happens.

Starter bars into the support columns for suspended slab

Clean out blocks around bench perimeter – this will be filled with soil and used as pots for a herb garden.

Pour the concrete into the form work. One painful wheelbarrow at a time.

Once the concrete has dried…

Dry concrete – suspended slab/bench

Taking shape…

More blocks…

Ray Sprake – Bobcat man

Digging holes for foundations

These holes are deep,,,

1.7 metres deep – don’t fall in!

Formwork for suspended slab/bench. This consists of 12mm d-bar, 16mm d-bar and starter bars.

More blocks laid, more formwork and more suspended concrete

Concrete poured into foundation holes – SHS and 16mm D-bars in place

Ready to start on the woodfired oven…

Still taking shape…

Old Grafton Kiln

Destroying Grafton Kiln

A piece of Australian history in every slice of pizza…

Kiln arch

Destroyed Kiln arch

Tapered refractory bricks

More tapered bricks

Drive out to Grafton, NSW to pick up refractory bricks taken from the old Kiln.

Got the bricks home, time for a quick presentation

Bricks and 7mm plywood template.

Lay bricks on ground as a trial.

Render blocks while waiting for weather to improve

More rendering.

Split faced blocks will be used to finish off the project…

Checking the base template for size and fit.

Cut and Lay surrounding blocks – serves as formwork for vermiculite

Time to use vermiculite for the base.

I did not use these tools. Instead I mixed 5 parts vermiculite to 1 part cement in the wheelbarrow. Mix dry first and add water slowly.

Make sure the surface is level

Seriously – really make sure! This will be the level of the sacred surface…

Vermicrete – Vermiculite and cement hardens like the running ground at your athletic’s field.

Present bricks for the landing

Mix fire mortar… Dry first, then add water. 3 sand : 1 cement : 1 hydrated lime : 1 fire clay – little plasticiser.

Lay the bricks and put some weight on them

Close up

Sacred surface is now laid and level

Present bricks and template

Time for a quick taste test…

6 bricks laid – oh yeah!

First course nearly completed

Ratchet, hinged elbow socket, saddle clamps and 1/2″ drive extension

Home made “Indispensable tool” – aluminium u-channel and pop rivets.

Second course and home made “indispensable tool”

2 courses laid – 44 half tapered bricks per course

2 courses

Two courses and entrance laid.

3rd and 4th courses and first arch laid

Closeup of first arch – not a pretty site.

Overall view

First arch

Close up of 4th course with keystone

Entrance to oven

5th and 6 courses laid

7th and 8th courses laid

Closer view of 8th course

Getting close!!

Overall view

More mortar – grimace

Bricks stacked on top of sand in sand bag

Close up of top of dome

Ready for closing the dome – car jack, melamine circle, rubbish bag filled with sand in dome shape…

Overall view

Applying mortar to the underside of the top of dome

Second (outer) arch complete – note this arch is lower than first arch to stop smoke from coming out.

Time for first firing!

First baby fire…

First dish ever prepared in oven!!

Peruvian roast chicken…

Insulation blanket and chicken wire

Few blocks laid…

Few more blocks laid… cement stains will have to be cleaned with acid when finished.

So we had our first pizza day…

It was really worth all the effort building the oven!!

Rocklea Reds

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In Brisbane, there are two types of flowering trees that stand out from the rest – they are Poinciana‘s and Jacaranda‘s. During my time as a student at UQ (Saint Lucia campus) and a footballer at New Farm Park, I used to have a great appreciation for Jacaranda trees. I loved the subtle and relaxed feeling of the purple flowers – they give you a sense of zen.

Then I moved to the suburb of Rocklea.

The firey red – sign of passion.

Flamboyant Poiciana bokeh - pardon the pun

Shot on Canon FL 55mm f/1.2 lens

There is a tree down the street where I live that was flowering late last year. Since I got myself a new (old) Canon FL 55mm f/1.2 lens, I just had to go down and take some photos. That tree, in its flamboyant greatness, screams fire and passion. I took one of the pods I found on the ground and planted 3 seeds, all of which have since sprouted and are now growing. I will be planting one in my front yard to carry on the legend of the Rocklea Reds.

As a side note and worth mentioning here, the exhaust towers for the Clem 7 tunnel were covered in colours representing Jacaranda’s and Poinciana. The tower at The Gabba is covered in purple panels, and the one at Bowen Hills, is covered in red panels. In this article, local residents of the Gabba complained about the “monstrosity” that had been built there. I personally could not have thought of a better way to cover a tunnel exhaust and the idea of the Jacaranda and Poinciana colours is quite cool – IMHO.

Poinciana boken.

Machu Picchu

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…I found myself staring at one of the most beautiful man made things ever built. A tribute to mankind… a human masterpiece. A melange of nature and natural structures altered and assembled by Inca’s…

I was most definitely shocked and in awe, goose bumped and gob smacked when the sun’s gentle yet persuading rays kindly ushered away the thick and extremely stubborn fog that had taken a strong stranglehold over the Inca Temple of Machu Picchu. Tears of joy slowly streamed down my cheeks. I found myself staring at one of the most beautiful man made monuments. A tribute to mankind… a human masterpiece. A melange of nature and natural materials altered and assembled by Inca’s into timeless structures.

Letty and I had an early start that day. W woke up at 4:00am to get our passes and catch the bus ups to the mountain top.

I must admit that leading up to this grandiose event, an overwhelming sense of bitter disappointment had come over me. We had travelled over 15,000 klms to see this timeless monument, and at 6:00am we could barely see past the tips of my shoes.

When the clouds dissipated into thin air at 8:30am and what lay beyond became visible, I asked myself – what were they thinking? What could possibly drive this far advanced Civil Engineering civilization to such extreme? I take my hat of to you, O Incas! Words can not describe how I felt that day, and I still feel the same now.

These few photos do not depict Machu Picchu in all its grandiosity. But will hopefully motivate you to make your way to Cuzco, and up the mountain side to Ollantaytambo, Aguas Calientes and Machu/Huayna Picchu.