AlannaCA

Every time I read this to my daughter, I laugh:

"So if you have a lot of ink...."

Day before yesterday I had a weird urge to make a curry from scratch. I had a lot of time on my hands and I figured that seeing as I had the day off I might as well spend some time cooking a proper dinner for my other half, seeing as its usual me that benefits from her culinary skills (and rarely the other way around).
Anyway, I used a Jamie Oliver recipe. I find him increasingly annoying and implausible as a human being, but for some reason his recipes make sense to me whereas when I crack open practically every other cookbook I see something that baffles me.
Anyway -
'Peter's lamb curry'
(This is supposed to serve 8 according to the instructions. Perhaps 8 midgets or small children, but at any rate... I think more like 4-6 people. We froze the surplus)
GENERAL INGREDIENTS
2 tbs butter
2 14oz cans of chopped tomatoes
1 cup stock or water
3 1/2lb of lamb, diced
1 handful of chopped mint and cilantro/coriander
1 cup plain yogurt
salt and freshly ground pepper
lime juice to taste
FOR THE CURRY PASTE
2 inches fresh ginger, peeled
2 tennis-ball sized red onions, peeled
10 cloves garlic, peeled
2 fresh chillies, with seeds
1 bunch cilantro/coriander
FOR THE 'HOT AND FRAGRANT' SPICE RUB
2 tbs fennel seeds
2 tbs cummin seeds
2 tbs coriander seeds
1/2 tbs fenugreek seeds
1/2 tbs black peppercorns
1 clove
2 cardamom pods
1/2 a cinnamon stick
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lightly toast all the ingredients for the rub in a pan over a gentle heat for the rub. Then I put it in a ziplock bag and smashed the hell out of it with a rolling pin to crush it up real fine. There may be a more intelligent way to do this, but I enjoyed the violence of it.
Preheat oven to 170 degrees (not sure what that is in farenheit). Chop the paste ingredients and add the rub powder. The recipe calls for adding the rub and paste ingredients to a food processor and making a puree. To be honest I just mashed it up a little following a fine chopping and chanced my arm with that, adding some oil and heating gently. Then 'In a large casserole dish, fry the curry paste mixture with the butter until golden, stirring regularly. Add tomatoes, stock or water and bring to the boil. Cover with foil and place in the oven for 1 1/2 hours to let the flavors intensify. This is the basic curry sauce'.
When the time has elapsed, the lamb is fried in olive oil and then basically you put that in with the curry sauce, mix, and allow it to simmer on a hot plate until the lamb is tender (an hour+ probably). Then to serve you mix a portion with the yoghurt, squeeze in some lime, chuck some coriander/cilantro and mint on top and serve with rice or naan bread.
Slow, but relatively painless.
Anyone got any other indian / curry recipes?

Warrior Dash for any Norcal people.
Oct 29/30th in Hollister. 3.5 miles with 8 obstacles.
Warrior Dash | Home

Today I got the other half of my back outlined and some shading.
Next session *possibly* next month.
The guy being tattooed next to me got a rad Buddha head on his neck from Hua.
(The pic I've linked to was taken by Hua and is part of set on their open Facebook page. Some good shots of Belfast in general in there, murals etc)
Relieved to be done for the week.

thanks everyone I owe alot to everyone here. I am still a noob but I feel like I appreciate art so much more and willing to go outside my percieved comfort zone because of the education I am receiving here.
There is one huge downside, There was literally no pain so I fear that I will be spending lots of time and money getting alot more work at a frenetic pace.

Rose on my foot, done about four days ago by Jaime at Black and Blue Tattoo, San Francisco.

Hot stuff on my foot by Manee Friday in Portland.

I fuckin' love squash!

Well, I've done 12 hours on my back in the past three days. Six the first day, then a day of rest, then six today.
I went in with the mindset that the back is one of the most painful places to get tattooed, and specifically the love handles and ass (Valerie Vargas' posts re clients automatic reactions sunk in). Probably because of this I was a lot cleaner in the run-up to this week than for anything else I've done. Very little alcohol, lots and lots of sleep all week. The end result was that the first day actually felt OK, a lot better than I expected. To me it felt like towards the end it was beginning to bite more because of the time involved than because of the location.
Today was a little harder, it started to get sore around lunchtime. I figure that whatever stock of endorphins I had built back up by resting yesterday just didn't go as far. At the four hour mark today I was feeling like throwing in the towel, but then Ching sat me up (I'd been lying on my stomach) and this totally pepped me up - it was weird, I was feeling nauseous but just the change of position made a huge difference. I actually felt like the last two hours were OK... Although then again I was also getting my upper back worked and I feel like around the shoulder blade was easier than lower down towards the love-handles / ass.
In conclusion: I'm a convert to the no-drinking-in-the-run-up approach, and I reckon as much sleep as possible is important. The only other thing I came away with is that taking the day off between the two sessions felt like a really good idea. I have no doubt that going straight into it yesterday morning would have had me wanting to tap far earlier.
My girlfriend has been watching anxiously, because she's got a pretty gruelling schedule planned for next year. Four sessions in two weeks in Japan. I think, after this week, that it is do-able. I feel like I could get tattooed next week (if I really had to).

Welcome RockelWoman!

Just saw this on the LST Reddit Account:

just to let those that don't already know, Volume II is now available through the website. get yours
Amund Dietzel

This is a thread for our pets! most of us know that our pets can be very dear to us and it is not uncommon to see portrait tattoos of ones pet. i hope that people will open up and share stories, pictures and tattoos of their loved ones, past and present. i didnt know where this topic should end up, i was debating between where it is now and Random Crap but since it has to do with pet tattoos i figured its just as relavent here!

oh yeah duh

OH STOP RUBBING IT IN YOU JERKS. ..we'll have to get a NY one going just to match you!

This seems like the best place for this--cover-up flash sheet by Josh Howard:

I love this so much! I'd get that coffee pot and not even cover anything with it.

These are not cover ups, just reworks.
This is stuff on my left arm.
I know they aren't the best tattoos in the world (Hell, I had to draw all but one of them. That's the only way you could get custom work where I grew up back then.)
Just keep in mind I grew up in western N.C., circa 1980's, but they mean a lot to me still to this day. They are a part of who I am and I would never cover 'em up.
When I got old enough to get tattooed, the only guys tattooing were bikers. I was a skinny, long haired punk kid who didn't fit in, determined to get tattooed, so I did it.
Got my first tattoo, Feb 13th 1985, (the skull with the web and spider legs) in a friggin' biker bar... "J.B. Davis' Tattoo & Tavern" (I was WAY more scared of getting my ass kicked for going in there than getting the tattoo.)

i think thats gotta be my favorite when you can put your hands together and create one design! this is beautiful!

Here's one that Cris Cleen did on Erik Jacobsen.

Cleen's wife also has one that says "Cleen" (I think), but I can't find the picture.
I always liked the idea of wedding band tattoos.

Happy Birthday ,Dari ,i'll never forget your warm and kind welcome when I first joined .Have a special day.

came across this on Facebook, done by a guy named Michael Bergfalk...

I wouldn't eat this but they look awesome! I think @Lochlan would eat a turtle or two though...

I want to punch the "sun shade" jackass

Can't remember where I found these but they are stoled from the interwebs :D


^^ THIS PLACE LOOKS AWESOME. Can anyone confirm or deny its existence?

^Good advice.

^aaaaaaaaaaaah... only if he buys me dinner first.

Here is a pic of my arm ditch tattoo done by Mario Desa on the 11th September.

All nicely healed in 12 days.
Same healing regime usual wash twice daily. Dab with paper towel and let air dry for 20 minutes before a very thin application of Aquaphor. For the first week I applied a lightwieght Tubinette tubular bandage. It's very thin and allows plenty of air to the fresh tattoo and keeps other parts of the arm and sweat away from the tattoo. All you have to remember, when changing the bandage, is to soak it for a few minutes during the the first few days. I also live with 5 cats. So its keeps cat hairs away from the fresh tattoo. Believe me cats hairs get everywhere.