IN Spring Lamb

by Ara Jansen

We’re not quite in spring yet, but it’s time to start thinking about lighter cuts of meat to celebrate the turn in seasons.

When the weather does finally start to warm a little, it’s going to be the perfect time to consider the lighter cuts of meat to grace your table.

Karl Osterberg is a butcher and co-owner of Ryan’s Quality Meats alongside Greg Ryan, whose father started the Jandakot business in the mid-1960’s. For the last two years the retail and wholesale butcher, in conjunction with beef producers A. O’Meehan & Co and V & V Walsh (meat processors and exporters) have been the exclusive Australian stockists and suppliers of premium Amelia Park Beef. This partnership brings together some two centuries of experience in supplying premium beef and lamb to West Australians.

Karl says when it comes to meat winter is the perfect time for warming dishes made of braised beef cheeks, lamb shanks and roasts. A married father with two kids and a wife who is studying means the
Osterberg family love a tasty casserole for their winter meals as a hearty, healthy and time-smart option.

West Australians don’t need much excuse to fire up the barbecue once there are some blue skies and a touch of heat in the air. Karl says that’s the perfect time to get into spring lamb, swapping over to lamb koftas, grilled lamb French cutlets or souvlaki butterflied lamb legs.

"I think we naturally just want to eat heavier food in winter and then somehow in spring we want to lighten up in preparation for summer, when it’s always about the barbecue," Karl says.

Shows like MasterChef and the popularity of celebrity chefs have made people a lot more adventurous and willing to try dishes and cuts of meat they may not have dared experiment with before. Of course it also helps to have someone knowledgeable behind the counter to make suggestions when you want to try something new.

“You can always tell when someone like Jamie Oliver has been on television because people come in with the same recipe that they all want to try. They’ll ask about what cuts of meat to use and I’ll suggest what I think would be best or what won’t suit the dish.

“I certainly get some good ideas from MasterChef.”

The butcher says because the company cuts and packages all their own meat, rather than just removing it from a pre-packed carton, they know the best of what’s around and through their relationship with Amelia Park and other local suppliers are able source quality produce.

www.ryansqualitymeats.com.au

IN Nutcracker

by Ara Jansen

The Imperial Ice Stars have spearheaded a form of theatre which mixes sport and dance to bring timeless stories to life. They return to Perth next month with The Nutcracker on Ice.

When Tony Mercer saw the famous skating pair Torvill and Dean he was thoroughly charmed by them, but felt like he missed so much given the rink was large and he was so far away.

“They were beautiful on the ice,” remembers Tony. “But I couldn’t see enough of what they were doing. When they were three to four metres away it was great but when they skated away I lost that magical feeling.”

So when he set about establishing The Imperial Ice Stars in 1991 he made sure that the skaters worked in a smaller space and were much closer to the audience. Since then the group has made a name for itself performing classics like Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and Cinderella on ice. Their latest show is The Nutcracker on Ice, which will be in Perth next month.

Tony is the company’s artistic director and says when you really look at it, competition skaters tend to only use a small part of an ice rink and utilise the rest to gather speed for a jump. That’s why he says the Imperial Ice Stars can do everything a competition skater does and more. Not surprising though, given the cast of the Imperial Ice Stars are all former competition skaters, who both follow the rule book and throw it out to constantly wow audiences.

“People think that because of the space it’s going to be different. In a competition the magic happens in about four to six metres,” says Tony. “Ours is 15 by 15 like most theatre companies, but most use less space than that. As a choreographer I can fill that space and the skaters can still hit 25 – 30 kilometres an hour.”

Tony says this style of theatre has also seen significant changes in audience make-up and has recast how people see this sports-meets-arts entertainment. It started as mums and daughters coming to see classic stories staged on ice with dads and boyfriends dragged along. He believes the mix of sport and theatre, which the troupe spearheaded, is what keeps all ages coming back.

“We’ve changed the way people look at skating. It has become a dance genre in its own right. Early on people were staging a lot of ice shows and putting everyone in big costumes. I decided to take inspiration from sport and using the beauty of ice dance gave the characters layers to tell a story for the audience to take the journey with them.

“As with a phenomenon like Cirque du Soleil, we’ve cast something people know about in a new light. We’ve also been thrilled to see some of our moves making their way back into the sport of skating.”

The Nutcracker on Ice is at His Majesty’s Theatre from August 2 – 12. Tickets from BOCS.

IN Print

Print media still crucial to property marketing.

In recent weeks we have heard a lot about the changing face of media in Australia and the subsequent large changes going on at companies such as Fairfax and News Ltd.

We’ve been hearing about the death of print and newspapers as we know it, driven the proponents say, by falling advertising revenue and readership.

As one of Australia’s leading real estate agencies in marketing and communications (we recently took out the Real Estate Institute of Australia’s national award for Excellence in Communication) we wanted to inject our point of view into the mix relative to property marketing.

We see it as crucial in the current market to utilise multiple forms of media to deliver messages plus alert and inform tenants, buyers and sellers in the property market. And for us, print advertising and editorial is still a very necessary part of that.

Indeed, by comparison to most mass real estate portal advertising sites, print media is a important format to differentiate your property in the marketplace and make it stand out to ensure buyer-tenant engagement.

Relying solely on a single pier of marketing such as the internet will not ensure the best outcome. For property sellers and lessors, confident results will only be attained when your agent utilises the correct media mix that reaches widely and deeply into the marketplace.

That’s why at Realmark we offer our clients a strategic mix of print advertising and editorial, online advertising, including our own customised dedicated micro sites showcasing your property, and premium property magazines, such as Realmark’s IN Property, which is available in both soft and hard copy versions.

At Realmark, we believe in providing the “complete”  marketing solution. We specialise in understanding your needs and developing an integrated marketing campaign that maximises reach, frequency and layering to attract the maximum number of buyers or tenants  to your property; which is essential to ensure you do not under-sell or under-rent your property.

Print media isn’t dead; it just has a lot of new cousins.