The Bucket Babe: Juliet Downes

As said in our last Bucket Babe, we will be featuring some dancers from Kick Dance Productions and today we have the beautiful and sexy Juliet Downes. A few years back South Africa played host to the IPL and I witnessed Juliet as one of the cheerleaders at Kingsmead for the games. Not only does she have the moves to match the gorgeous looks but as you'll learn shortly she is also a proffesional make up artist. Now enough from me, heres more from her!

My name is Juliet Downes. I have been dancing professionally for 4 years. I have been involved in lots of shows in and around Durban, South African and traveled over sea's with my dancing. I am a sharkette for the Natal Sharks rugby team. When the IPL cricket comes to town i am part of the dancing squad that dances durning the games. There is always lots going on in the dancing world. It is always exciting and I love every minute of my dancing. I have done a International contract to Djbouti. I did this for 3 months. Was great to travel and work at the same time. I have also danced in the Seychelles. This was a great experience and I would go back any day.

Durban has alot going on and getting involved in professional dancing was the best thing i have ever did. I dance for different companies in Durban like Kick dance productions . This gives me the opportunity to get involved in different contracts in Durban as well as around South Africa. This intales contract and corporates through out the year. Sun coast Casino, Sibaya Casino, Golden Horse Casino, ICC, Durban July along with many company Corporates shows and shows durning the year are just some of the things we get involved in.

As well as being a Professional dancer and I am also a professional makeup artist. I manage to fit in both professions. I am very passionate about what I do. I live a very busy life. Getting involved as much as I can.

Recipe: The fried Chicken

Haven't done a recipe blog in a while and in the interim I have been messing up the kitchen, i.e cooking. So as the name of the blog is synonymous with the fried chicken, today's recipe is exactly for that! I tried many methods and recipes but after watching that Texan heavy weight Paula on the food network I figured out why mine kept getting messed up.

Fried Chicken burger with onion rings, crumbed mushrooms and chips

NB: This recipe I just used skinless chicken fillets as I was making them for burgers but you can used chicken pieces, with or without skin. 

Ingredients:

400g Chicken Fillets
1 tbsp oil
Crushed garlic
Minced green chilli
Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cups bread flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp mustard powder
2 tsp chill powder
2 eggs

There is quite a bit of prep needed for this so make sure you have adequite time.

Prep

After washing and draining your chicken, add it to a bowl with the oil, chilli, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and 1 tsp  each of the salt, black pepper, mustard powder and chilli powder. Mix all the ingredients well into the chicken. Allow it to marinate for 15-20 minutes in the fridge.

Chicken left for marination

While the chicken is marinating, crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them till they are a smooth texture. In another bowl add your flour and the rest of the salt, black pepper, mustard powder and chilli powder. Use a spoon to mix the flour. Have a tray handy to place the coated pieces as well, lightly sprinkle flour onto the tray to avoid sticking.

egg wash

Once the chicken is done marinating, we can start the coating process. First take the chicken, dip it into the egg. Make sure it get soaked all round since we want the flour to coat it evenly. There after allow it to drain the excess egg then roll it in the flour mixture.

After coating all your chicken pieces with the flour, comes the part I learnt from Paula. "We gonna dip it and coat it a second time yall!" Yes you read right, take the already coated chicken and repeat the process of dipping it in the egg and flour. This gives the chicken a nice thick coating and prevents it from braking while frying.

Once you've coated all your chicken, its time to fry these suckers. Make sure you have a small belly pot with a lid. Not alot of oil is needed as we will be frying one piece at a time but make sure there is enough to cover the chicken. I say use a pot with a lid as the chicken does tend to splatter the oil when frying so this would help minimize the mess also it helps steam the chicken and not make it chewy.

Fry until golden brown and then place on a sheet of grease proof paper as this helps drain out the excess oil. As I said, I made burgers so it was served in a bun with mayo, lettuce, cheese and a slice of tomato. If you chose to use pieces, you can have them with sauce, gravy or what ever you desire. There maybe left over egg and flour from the coating, I normally slice up some onion rings and mushrooms to use it up as shown in the first picture.

Enjoy!

Red Bull Manny Mania

Skateboarding, I probably know as much about it as Julius Malema knows about woodwork. So I know a bit but not enough to pass an exam on it, let alone get on a board and bust a move. Then again I'm Indian so I suppose I can be excused as I'd probably do better at selling you one than skating, we Indians tend to go for the sports that cause the least amount of bodily harm ....like chess. The most I've ever done with a skateboard was sit on it and roll down the road then avoid crashing into tree's and on coming cars, I tried standing a few times but it ended badly on many occasions so I just stuck to sitting on them and leave the cool stuff to the professionals.


Red Bull as many of you know is the energy drink that gives you wings and they are also associated with many a cool extreme sporting event, from the famous box cart race to the cliff diving that takes place at red locations around the world and of course one cannot forget their recent dominance in the world Formula One. They also proudly host the global Manny Mania contest that takes place in 34 countries. South Africa being one of the participating countries is currently holding its national battle with events taking place around the country in June. So far Cape Town and J Bay hosted the Manny Mania events and the next stop is Durban, this Saturday the 18th of June at the Wave house in Gateway theatre of shopping.


Simon Stipcich - Photograph by Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull

 What is Manny Mania?

Being its 4th year of running, it all started off with a guy called Joey Brezinski and the basic trick performed by skateboarders, "the manual" which is a trick where the skater balances him/herself on either the back 2 or front 2 wheels of the board, there after performing various tricks from it such as rotations, flips, grinds and riding switches. I have it on good authority that only the best can do all of these consistently so in essence Manny Mania is an event made for those who have mastered these tricks and not for those who like me consider skating standing up a good enough trick. Joey felt that with the various skating competitions, none of the contestants focused on the manual and what tricks that could be worked from it, hence the inception of Manny Mania.

Joey Brezinski

The first Manny Mania event was held in 2007 at Venice beach in California, the event was rather small with some Pro's featuring in it, the format was an instant hit and when it moved onto New York that year the response was massive. 2008 saw the contest grow even more bigger with it attracting more pro's and even bigger crowds. In 2009 Manny Mania expanded from the shores of the USA to host the event in the UK where locals skaters embraced the contest with open arms thus prompting the organisers to expand the contest even further in 2010 with 7 countries notched in the calender including South Africa where the event was held at the Wave house in Durban. The winner of the SA leg last year was Simon Stipcich, who's prize included a trip to New York City to compete against fellow qualifiers from around the world for the single coveted spot in the pro invitational.

2011 see's 34 countries hosting qualifiers and South Africa having 4 qualifying events and then the finals that's hosted in Joburg.

Dates for the SA Events:

•  June 4: Son Skate Park - Stellenbosch
•  June 11: Element Skate Park - Jeffreys Bay
•  June 18: Wave House Skate Park, Gateway Theatre of Shopping, Durban
•  June 25: Revolution Skate Park, Festival Mall, Kempton Park, Jhb
•  June 26: Finals, Revolution Skate Park, Kempton Park, Jhb

How to enter?

Be aged 14 (as of August 21, 2010) or older. Be a resident of the country in which the event is being held and are an amateur athlete.

If you match the above, grab your board and get your ass down to any of the events or send an email in advance to RSA-register@redbullmannymania.com with the following info:

1. Full given name
2. Date of birth
3. Email address
4. Contact numbers
5. City of event want to participate in.

Who to look out for?

Khule Nia - Photograph by Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull

Apart from last years winner Simon Pitcich, Khule Nia (pictured above, doing a nose manual at the Hilton) is among the favourites to scoop the Durban leg. Oh! and the hot Red Bull girls, I hear they might be on patrol this weekend, hence my services are needed...

If you're looking at taking part then its best you head the advice of Jean-Marc Johannes (a Red Bull sponsored skater from Cape Town)  and that is "PRACTICE"

If you cant make it to any of the events then you can follow all the live action on twitter by following @RedBullZA with the official event hashtag being #MannyMania.

Or for a complete list of global contests and updates, visit http://www.redbullmannymania.com/

The Bucket Babe

Todays 'Bucket Babe' feature is a bit different to normal. Like I said we will be scouting around for the countries hidden talent but it seems we've stumbled upon a school of talent right here in sunny Durban. Kick Dance production specializes in the supply of entertainers and promoters for any event or function, infact some of you might recognise some of them from local sporting events where some partake as the Sharkettes and some of as the cheer leaders from the Pro20 series. So keeping with the 'local is lekker' theme, nothing is more local than in my home town and with Kick Dance, they have a wide array of beauties which the Bucket will be featuring a host of them in this segment in the months to come but just to wet your appetite for now, here some pictures of the girls on offer.

website: http://www.kickdance.co.za/

TBD 2011

The 4th of June came and went, and so with it the national Twitter Blanket Drive. As per my previous blog post #TBD the event was held on Saturday, June 4th with venues around the country. Durban making use of the great winter weather held the event for most part of the day, starting off with the I Heart Market in Greyville, there after at Luna Rossa at Gateway and ending off the day at Livingstons Pub in Glenashley.

The day itself was one for giving and to test the powers of social media by sending the message out to millions who use the network and for them to give a little something back. The response country wide was phenomenal with national radio station 5fm helping us spread the word. At the morning market alone we collected over 50 blankets and looked like getting even more at our 2nd event at Gateway. The weather was perfect as a summers day and slowly but surely twitter uses came by to drop off their blanket, share a drink and conversation with fellow tweeters.

I unfortunately couldn't make the last venue due to health reasons but I heard the turn out was great with many coming in with a blanket and to watch the rugby game between the Cheetah's and the Sharks on the big screens. Over all KZN collected an estimated 540 blankets and 70 t-shirts to donate to the Izulu Orphans Project in Northern KZN.

In only its 2nd year running it was good to see the #TBD get such great support from around the country and I cant only see it getting bigger and better as the years go by. Already looking forward to next years one!