Day To Day: Calm Conversations with a Friend

#10 Skincare and Lorikeets

• Jacquie Joy • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Episode 10 begins with a light discussion about our disappointing dining experiences! On the skincare front, Jacquie opens the snail mucin cream (finally) and discusses her initial thoughts on her experience of applying it. Tilly gives Jacquie a taste test of her home style choc chip cookies which were inspired by the incredibly popular local bake house 'Brookies Bakery'.  Jacquie shares some of Tilly's handy cookie cooking tips.   Then, she chats about her recent trip to Yamba, where the vibrant wildlife and serene beach atmosphere blend with a rich surf culture history. This episode promises a blend of personal stories, practical tips, and a touch of nostalgia.  

Jacquie:

Welcome to the Day-to-Day Podcast, calm Conversations with a Friend, by Jacquie Joy, and you are listening to Episode 10. You decide to check your messages. One new voicemail it's from one of your friends. You decide it's time to sit down, make yourself comfortable and have a listen. Hey! So nice to hear your latest message, but it wasn't good to hear about your most recent restaurant experience. That sounds super disappointing for what you would have expected for somewhere like that. I mean, you would have definitely been expecting this place to go above and beyond as far as the customer service and the food and even the surroundings of the restaurant. So how disappointing. Again. It's a shame you left a bit hungry, but it sounds like you had a lot of laughs with your friend and it's certainly going to be a night that you'll never forget. And next time you'll be choosing a lot more carefully and checking out all of the reviews, I imagine, even if the restaurant has been there for so many years and has an incredible reputation for great food and service. And, funnily enough, you know how.

Jacquie:

We planned to go to that special restaurant on the weekend, the one I had sent you the degustation menu for. Well, we didn't end up eating any of the food, because we had a similar, very poor customer experience and we were finally seated after about 15-20 minutes and by that time we just decided to leave. The problem certainly wasn't the restaurant itself as you can see from the photo, it was set in a gorgeous, lush surrounding of gardens but the problem was the main servile, the maitre d' I think the person that is supposed to welcome you into the restaurant. Well, he wasn't very welcoming at all. We actually had to wait 20 minutes for our table, which was fine. We had arrived two minutes early apparently, which he didn't seem to like. There was a lovely waitress there who we did speak to before we left and just let her know that we were disappointed we couldn't stay as she seemed really nice. So we left and we had a few laughs. So we left and we had a few laughs and, interestingly, that lovely waitress we spoke to had spoken to the manager who called me yesterday and was very apologetic and even offered us a complimentary experience at the restaurant unlimited food and drinks. I was a little hesitant, but she said that that lovely waitress had offered to serve us and host us when we come back and host us when we come back. It was not the best experience because of one person, but the restaurant really did redeem themselves and we're looking forward to booking that up again and returning and hopefully eating the degustation menu next time. So I'll let you know when that happens.

Jacquie:

In response to your question, no, I still haven't tried the snail mucin cream, so I think I'll have a look at it. Right now I've got it in my hand. It's a 100ml bottle and you can see by turning it upside down, it looks fairly viscous, hopefully not too sticky. I can't smell anything at the moment, so it mustn't have a strong fragrance. And, okay, I'm going to test it now on the back of my hand. A few squeezes, yeah, okay. Well, it doesn't seem to have any smell, so that's a good start and it feels a little bit like. Well, it's very clear and it feels like the after sun gel that I use that has aloe vera in it, so it's actually quite pleasant to put on, okay, and it goes a long way. So I've got the trial patch on the back of one of my hands, so we'll see if there's a difference. Make sure that there's no skin reaction. And, look, I might try it on my neck next time. I'll just wait 24 hours first. It's actually mostly absorbed into my skin now, so it's so far, so good and it definitely doesn't feel as slimy as I thought it would at all, even though apparently it's 96% snail mucin and I definitely don't want to even begin to think about what is in the mucin and how they collect the mucin. But people do seem to rate it and love it.

Jacquie:

Also, while we're talking about skin products, one of my other friends many months ago recommended me something called Serum of Plenty. She recommended it highly because it made her skin feel very hydrated after using it. It made her skin feel very hydrated after using it. Apparently it has very high quality vitamin C in the formula. It's actually well. It says it contains 15% vitamin C, so apparently that's supposed to help with a variety of things like any spots on your face, any dryness, any wrinkles, any redness. So I've ordered up some of that too, now that it's back in stock. If you're interested in seeing that, I will send you a link, but I'll let you know how that goes.

Jacquie:

I've never really been into skincare. I've always been very lucky to have good skin but I'm finding these products just make me feel really hydrated and feel good and glowing, which I love. I mean, your skin is amazing too. It always seems very radiant. But it's nice to know about these things. As I'm getting older, the main area I notice that is dry is my neck. That's probably where I'll try and use that, or maybe the snail mucin will do the trick. Obviously, the cheapest form of skincare is drinking a lot of water, so I got out the old bottle a friend gave me last year and cleaned it up, filled it up and have been using that twice a day. It has some special markings on it with the times of day, so it gives you a good idea of how much you should be drinking throughout the day, and I just keep it on my desk as a reminder, and I've found that that has really helped as well. Interestingly, the extra water in my system seems to have got rid of any bloating feeling I have, so that's an unexpected surprise, so I thought I'd let you know about that.

Jacquie:

Thanks for asking how Tilly is going. I did see her yesterday, so I passed on your hello and she said a big hi back and hoped you had a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. When I went over there she asked me to taste test one of her brookie cookies, which was actually a very decent size homestyle chop chip cookie with a few walnuts added in there, and it looked like the type of cookie that your grandma would bake. It was super delicious and I had to slow myself down when eating it. I could have eaten two quite easily. This particular cookie was inspired by a biscuit she purchased from a place called the Brookie Bakehouse which is based here in Brisbane. You may have heard of it because it's been a hugely successful venture for Brook the owner and it's sort of turned into a cult phenomenon. And now apparently they also deliver the cookie dough to the US. And now apparently they also deliver the cookie dough to the US. They also can fly the cookies around the world, so I'm not sure how that works. She has become so popular after she started up some TikTok videos, which was about a day in the life of her as a baker. She has millions of followers now and if you actually go to the store in person you have to line up for at least half an hour to even get inside the door.

Jacquie:

Tilly has learnt a few secrets about her cookies after reading a bit more about them on Brookie's website. Apparently these include doubling the usual amount of choc chips for these particular cookies and using mostly dark chocolate instead of the milk chocolate. Apparently, using cold butter also reduces the amount of air incorporated into the dough, which helps slow down the baking process and apparently that allows the inside of the cookie to cook properly. So, interestingly, she recommends chilling the biscuit dough before cooking so they hold their shape. Another tip was to not overmix the cookie dough, which I do all the time. Tilly said another secret was to measure out each cookie ball or cookie exactly, so they would all take the same amount of time to cook, which makes sense. And I know when I've cooked cookies previously that I don't measure each one out and, as a result, some cookies are very overcooked and some are just right and some are very undercooked. So there are a few helpful tips, are a few helpful tips.

Jacquie:

So here's some ambience to set the scene for a yamber trip which I haven't spoken to you about yet. We spent about a week there and what you can hear there was the lapping of the waves in the lake, a few rosellas or lorikeets squawking away there in the background and also a little bit of wind. So we stay in a house on the foreshore and in the backyard between the house and the foreshore, and in the backyard between the house and the foreshore, there are maybe 50 plus gum trees or eucalypt trees which are native to Australia, and it seems as though these rainbow lorikeets have made themselves at home in these trees. I took a recording of the birds one morning to show you. So here it is. They are so loud and there are I mean it sounds like hundreds of them, and each morning around 5, 6am they'd start up and welcome us into the new day.

Jacquie:

I don't know if you've seen a rainbow lorikeet. You would have had to have seen it while you were in Australia on one of your vacations here. They are native to Australia and they are certainly loved by tourists. There was a place called the Corumban Bird Sanctuary. I'm wondering if it's still open, but that was incredibly popular over the years and tourists would visit and these lorikeets would almost swarm the visitors sitting on their head and shoulders. And they're very, very friendly birds and they're great in photos because they are so brightly coloured. They have usually blue colouring on their head, their beaks are red, green wings and underbody is often a mixture of different colours. They look like rainbows, hence the name. Needless to say, it took us a few days to acclimatise to this and to be able to sleep through all of the loud noise.

Jacquie:

So Yamba is a small but getting more popular beach town. It's about an hour south of Byron Bay, which you would have most definitely probably heard of, I think Byron has its own TV series now and it certainly did become very popular with some of the big Hollywood stars very popular with some of the big Hollywood stars. Anyway, Yamba is definitely a popular but not so crazy busy tourist attraction. It actually initially became very popular for surf riders or surfboarders. Here. I discovered a park near the beach, so I'll read a little bit out to you, and it's entitled Yamber's First Surfboard Rider.

Jacquie:

Tommy Walker is recognized as a surfing pioneer, pioneer and legend, being the first Australian to ride waves at Manly Beach, Sydney and Main Beach, Yamba.

Jacquie:

At age 18, Tommy became a seaman on the Sydney Wharves. He visited Hawaii in in 1908 and had a 14-foot Hawaiian redwood surfboard custom-built for him by the father of modern surfing, Duke Kahana moku. It was during the summer of 1911 to 1912 that McLean photographer and Yamba Surf Club member, Osric Notley, captured Tommy in a stand-up position riding a wave. It is now established that Tommy was, in fact, the very first surfboard rider in Australia, so that's an interesting fact of this place, and the plaque also contains an interesting black and white photo, of course, of Tommy riding his surfboard, but he seems to be doing a handstand on it. So he was obviously one talented surfer dude, and it seems that the main beach at Yamba was one of his choice surfing destinations. I'll tell you a little bit more about the Yamba trip next message, but in the meantime, don't work too hard, and I hope you have a great rest of the week and we'll chat soon. Take care and bye for now.