A few months ago (remember I told you how behind I am) I had the pleasure of being on Chris Holland's podcast Kids Love Balloons.
Chris is a huge Eurovision fan and was the standby jury member for Australia in 2015. He has also had Julia Zemiro and Nina (Carbon 2011) on the podcast so you can imagine just how excited I was to be amongst that level of Eurovision royalty. (I keep wondering who cancelled??)
The focus of the podcast is a simple question "what makes you happy?" and the conversation goes from there.
Chris has a great way of just letting you talk/ramble that all the talking points you'd thought of in the car just go out the window.
The second part of the podcast has each guest discusing three songs that make them happy and to Chris' disappointment I didn't add any Eurovision! Madness I know!
The ever growing playlist of joy is a total joy and will have you going "oh yes I love that song" more than once as guests adds their songs.
My contributions were Italian pop, 80's girl power and the perfect inspiration for any dance audition!
The day we recorded this interview was also the first day my mate Carly Findlay and I recorded the first episode of Refreshments Provided so it was great to see how Chris worked.
In the episode I did give Chris the scoop that there was going to be a Chow Down to Junior Eurovision and I was hoping to be in Malta, well sometimes life just gets in the way. The good news is I may have started Chow Down to Eurovision 2017....243 countries what am I thinking?
Please check out Kids Love Balloons, my favourite episodes are Julia Zemiro and Nina (obviously), as well as Lelia Gurruwiwi and Osamah Sami. The latest episode with Joan Korblith gave a great insight into the workings of radio in the USA in the 70's.
Being the obsessed baker I am I made some biscuits to take to the recording, you should never go anywhere empty handed.
Blood orange and almond biscuits (makes about 40)
Ingredients
- 2 blood oranges
- 200g unsalted butter
- 200g caster sugar
- 75g slivered almonds lightly toasted and chopped
- 450g self raising flour
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1 cup icing sugar
Method
- Zest the 2 oranges
- Cream butter, sugar and zest together
- Add almonds, flour and milk
- Mix together
- Turn onto the bench and knead lightly for a minute till it comes together smoothly
- Shape into a square log
- Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
- Preheat oven to 200°C
- Slice into 1cm thick slices and place on a lined baking tray
- Bake for 12 minutes (10 if you like a softer biscuit)
- Allow to cool on a wire rack
- Make icing by beating icing sugar with a knob of butter and the juice of 1 blood orange (a tbsp at a time)
- Pipe into whatever designs make you happy!
