1st July 2010
Last night’s Masterchef was all about the Country Women’s Association and their classic baking recipes – lamingtons, scones, neopolitan cake, fruit cake, and a jam. The contestants struggled mightily (which I have to admit, I found enormously encouraging as I struggle with anything I bake, and have more failures than successes). I don’t actually own a CWA cookbook – but I will be nicking out to get one before we leave. How can I be without? I feel it could be my last patriotic act before heading North.
Instead, I do have this doozey of a book from 1930 (from what I can gather from a little research, but it’s not actually dated), which I rescued from my late Grandma’s house last year. A Calendar of Puddings? How good is that? Do you dare me to do a Julie and Julia and cook each pudding for an entire year? I don’t think so. We would roll like little pudding people down the side of our new mountain home, and then bob about in the lake below.
I like that this probably hung in the kitchen in my Great Grandmother’s house – there are pencil ticks against the ones she was interested in (someone in the family must have liked chocolate), there are food splats across the pages where she’s obviously given something a go. Each recipe has been submitted by a New Sout Wales CWA member, and I have flicked through to find the recipes submitted from the town where my family lived (and many still live!). There’s a Mrs Arthur’s Fruit Flummery – and that’s it. So disappointing. I was hoping to see a Reid or a Rogerson but no such luck. Maybe there’s some genetic lean away from baking in my family. I have determined that Junee must have been an epicentre of baking back in 1930 as they are strongly represented – perhaps one of the calendar co-ordinators was a local.
Anyway – I am off to make a one pot pasta wonder, while I dream of steamed pud. Or Apple Snowballs. Or Honolulu Delicious. Or even Raspberry Tapioca. Can I tempt you with a Washing Day pud from October 26th? It’s so easy when you’ve been washing all day; Grate a pineapple, pour over whisky and stir in 1 dozen bananas. Done!
So, to start a tradition, here’s the recipe from July 1st to leave you with:
July 1 – Drought Plum Pudding
3 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 3/4 lb. raisins (340g), 1 lb. currants (450g), 2 cups of hot water, 2 tsp. carb soda, 1 scant teasp. salt, candied peel and spices if approved. Mix the dry ingredients well together. Put dripping (the amount of dripping is not actually specified) into 1 cup of hot water and dissolve the soda in the other. Pour intogether and mix well. Boil for 4 hours and serve with sauce.
Mrs Gallen, Nandewar Branch.
28th June 2010
My dad has just finished building a treehouse right down the back of my parent’s garden. My dad is a meticulous planner, and a brilliant problem solver and he has put in a grand, last-ditch effort to get this finished so that the girls could enjoy it before we leave for Canada. We are all so impressed with this little beauty which he built from scratch and from his own design and is now perched amongst the boughs of a tree. When you are standing inside, and then peer up through the plastic roof you can see the nose of a possum hiding in his little wooden possum box, high up above. The magpies and the noisy miners loiter about up there too. All that is needed now is a family of small marsupials or rodents of some kind to make a home underneath, nestling around the tree trunk and the uprights and it would be an entire apartment block of cheerful but quite noisy creatures.
21st June 2010
By Amelia, aged 7
By Lily, aged 4 (just!)
Both girls took this spontaneous portrait drawing session very seriously. I explained that when drawing from life it’s important to spend as much time (or more) with your eyes on your subject than down on your paper. They loved the idea that it would help to look at me as a bunch of lines and shapes and not just as a mum. I loved how they looked at me with intense concentration. I loved that they snapped at me not to move. I love that from Lily’s point of view (low down) I would in fact have a very piggy looking nose with enormous nostrils. I love that despite the fact that I modelled with a mad, crazy smile Amelia somehow translated that into a vague and slightly despondent gaze.
I drew them too, but they very politely informed me that my drawings were “I’m sorry to say this mum, but kind of ugly” (Amelia) and “not really very good” (Lily) and they were quite right.
16th June 2010
Oh – hello! It’s been quiet here, I know. But I promise you, my mind has been alive with thoughts and fantasies and true adventures.
You see, we have been busy concocting a plan… a wild and wondrous plan. It goes a little like this:
Pack up our house.
Pack up our family.
Fly across the ocean.
Get on board a boat.
Travel to an island.
Find a house by the ocean/in a forest/in a big garden.
Set up our house.
Grow plants, children and adventure.
So it sounds bonkers. BONKERS, I know, and like a total dream.
But quite unbelievably, it’s all about to come true.
It’s amazing for me to think that just eight weeks ago it wasn’t even in our minds. I was going about washing the spuds, stretching my legs in pilates, clicking and dragging in photoshop or checking my email thinking “here is my life, this is what I do, and these are the familiar steps we will follow into the future – plod plod plod”.
Don’t get me wrong, plodding is very nice most of the time – I do like to plod. I am a dreamer, but I am also a “change? What? change NOW? Are you crazy? No way! Screeeech!” kind of girl. I like plodding about in my ugg boots, making bread, illustrating a bit here and there, tucking my kids into bed with a kiss on the nose, but I also spend ridiculous amounts of time (as regular readers of loobylu might have noticed) thinking that there is some other kind of life for us out there. One that I would have plotted out as a fourteen year old, or even a seventeen year old – or even a 23 year old. One filled with wonder and surprise.
This was on my mind one quiet evening, while I sat at my computer in my ugg boots, and Google presented me with an alternative reality.
Phil had just returned from a work trip feeling good having been out walking in the world. We had one of those conversations that we have from time to time while washing the dishes after the kids are in bed – you know the one: “We could be anywhere – so why are we here? Life’s so short. Why aren’t we living in Byron Bay? Why aren’t we living on a mountain top? Why aren’t we building that eco-house in the woods? Why aren’t we doing any of the things we thought we might one day, because you know, we’d better hurry up with that, time might run out – because ‘one day’ is sort of right now…”.
And quietly we acknowledged that it simply came down to that big burly, bugger of a word – “fear”. Fear of making a mistake, of taking a risk, of missing my parents, of losing our friends, of screwing up the kids, of losing all our money and any prospect of making any more, of it being less than what we hoped, of being too idealistic and not grown up enough.
Huh.
Eventually we were going to have to come to the conclusion that all of those totally fabricated concerns are kind of a lame reason not to do something new. Maybe it is a risk. Maybe all of those things might happen. Maybe maybe maybe. I don’t want to be 80 and wish I had done something and think “well, I was too scared and I missed that totally bonkers adventure – and it might have been awesome.”
Luckily we are at stage in our lives when things are flexible enough with work and children that we can consider such a big upheaval. In so many ways it would be a shame not to take advantage of our opportunities. The idea to be closer to Phil’s work, closer to Phil’s family, and the idea that we should have an enormous adventure started to develop.
So as I said, I sat down at my computer in my ugg boots. All I did was google a very simple fantasy, adventure scenario and it (plus so much more) was presented to me: a tiny island in British Columbia full of artists, hippies, ocean, forests, organic farms, markets… The more I looked and explored, the more amazing and right it all seemed. Everyone I emailed or spoke to who knew anything about this place said “it’s a fabulous spot.” Everything I could think of that we might need seemed to be right there. Sensible things: Hospitals? Check. Choice of schools? Check. Not too cold? Check! No drought? Check. High speed internet connection? Check. And the indulgent, extra things: Beautiful scenery? Abundant! Interesting, like-minded people? Check. Interesting houses? Check. Close enough to big cities for big-city adventures and big-city friends? Not too far at all. Right down to the little things: Fresh french macarons? Check. Sushi? Fresh daily. Quilt/yarn shop? Check. Good soil for vegies? Check. This has to be an adventure with comforts after all! Everything I have read about it makes it seem as though it’s The Land of Delights at the top of the Faraway Tree.
Last week (because the universe has obviously decided to help us out with our mad plan) we set out on a reconnaissance mission – boarded several planes and a boat and found ourselves right in the middle of this Land of Delights – and it was almost completely as I had hoped.
We found a house in a forest on a mountain with a view of a lake and the sea and the mountains beyond, (and the sparkling lights of distant North Vancouver at night). We enrolled AJ in a school, and we met internet friends and made new ones (small island = enthusiastically friendly people) and now we have come home to pack up our house and organise ourselves and then we head off again in August.
There will be much to miss about Australia – friends and family being the biggest things for me – but I keep telling myself that we still need to try this, as I have always imagined that this is the stuff of which life is made. Right?
PS. The illustration? Yes! Bears! They might be one of the very few drawbacks. I know googling bears is just like someone moving to Australia googling poisonous spiders, snakes and sharks. I know that I am being silly, but seriously – when you read a website from the local area where you are looking which says “if attacked by a Grizzly bear, protect your head and play dead” I do get just a little nervous. Fortunately it seems grizzly bears are not the bears which turn up on our magical island – mostly it seems to be the very occasional black bear and “black bears are more afraid of you than you are afraid of them” is a very comforting statement. Somewhere in a forest right now, a bear is reading Loobylu and seeing that we are coming to stay and it’s sweating bullets.
14th April 2010
There is nothing nicer than something bubbling away on top of the stove on a Sunday evening. When I was small, Sunday evenings were the pits. I would watch the Donnie and Marie Show and then cry, every single Sunday of the term. Donnie and Marie meant that Monday morning – and school – was nigh. The horror! But now I like Sunday evenings. Is it because Monday morning and school is nigh? Possibly! But I also like the nesting feeling; the last moments of quiet and calm before the busy week begins, the turning on of the lamps, the kitchen radio playing, the kids are well rested and usually involved in some game, or drawing or watching a beloved movie on the couch, finally without screeching at one another. And so the cheerful burble and the delicious smells of something in the big pot fits into all of that.
Lately, that big pot is filled with bolognese sauce on a Sunday, which we serve up for dinner and then freeze the rest. It’s so easy and so delish! Until early this year my bol sauce consisted of meat + a jar of Paul Newman’s. Not very posh really. Wanting a change, I had done a little research (well, I opened Stephanie’s encyclopedia of cooking) and felt that inward lazy sigh when I looked at the list of ingredients… it looked very good but I wanted something quick – a step up from the meat + Paul’s, but quick just the same. While we were holidaying up in Sydney in January my Sister-in-Law defrosted two tubs of her bolognese sauce and it was so good. So good! And she assured me that it was very easy and exceptionally freeze-able. I copied out the recipe pronto – it’s a Ragu recipe from Delicious magazine — and I can’t find a copy of it online and I didn’t note down which issue it was from … but I have fiddled with it now anyway. Here’s what I do:
Sunday Night Spag Bol
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove (or more) of garlic, minced
500 g beef mince (ground beef)
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
3/4 cups (180 ml) beef stock (or half red wine)
2 x 400 g cans diced (crushed or even chopped up after opening) tomatoes
1 dessert spoon of dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon tomato sauce (use my Mum’s if you can get your hands on it! It’s as rare as hens teeth).
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat oil in a large nonstick fry pan over high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until softened.
Add the mince and brown well for 10 mins – making sure to break up any big lumps with a wooden spoon.
Add tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.
Add stock and stir until the stock has almost evaporated.
Add canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for a further 5 minutes. At this point I cover it again and let it bubble away for another fifteen minutes or so. I don’t know why – I seem to think that it makes it taste better, but I have never tried *not* doing it so I have nothing to compare it to, so let it bubble away for another 15 to 20 mins, stirring every so often so that it doesn’t stick on the bottom, and making sure it doesn’t dry out too much.
Serve on pasta with parmesan cheese and a green salad – or in lasagna. It’s pretty good in lasagna actually.
Serves 4
I usually double the batch and then divide it up into small containers and freeze it. My Sister-in-Law also suggests added grated veg to it to get the extra goodies into veg-phobic kids.
By the way – did you see the Gruffalo on the ABC a few weeks ago? We taped it and play it so much! It’s our favourite Sunday evening viewing.
2nd April 2010
We’ve been fairly knocked over by Nanny McPhee these holidays. The first one has been on high rotation on the dvd player and we bustled along to the Rivoli on Wednesday to fully enjoy Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. I love the art direction of both movies so much. Beautiful colours and textiles and painted wood.
To add a little of all that to our home, I am making my own Nanny McPhee crochet blanket (screenshot from the film above, top). I thought it might look nice on our bed – but to cover a queen size bed will require 1024 squares! That’s an awful lot of hooking. In the last three days I have managed 9. 1015 to go. I need to get quicker or it might end up on the sofa as a far smaller throw. Or maybe a doll blanket.
30th March 2010
Bonjour bonjour ! J’ai composé ce poteau entier dans le babelfish – ainsi mon Français peut être peu un bizarre. J’avais regardé beaucoup de blogs français récemment – tant de jolies choses et de femmes douées. It’ ; genre de s de disparition gentille à un monde d’imagination complet pendant un moment où vous autrefois vous can’ ; t même a lu ce qu’être la réalité pourrait. Joignez-ainsi moi dans certaines de mes trouvailles françaises récentes.
Hello hello! I have composed this entire post in babel fish – so my French may be a little bizarre. I have been gazing at a lot of french blogs lately – so many pretty things and talented women. It’s kind of nice disappearing into a complete fantasy world for a while where sometimes you can’t even read what the reality might be. So join me in some of my recent French finds.
Les Zigouis – which also has a sound track of rolling french songs, so crank up the volume and immerse yourself.
Like a Butterfly in Your House – which hasn’t been updated since last October but look at that beautiful quilt!
L’e dans l’a
Lili Scratchy
Happy Doll & Happy to See You
Gini Helie
Lilie Mélo
Particules
Do you have any French favourites?
28th March 2010
This little illustration is something I have done for the latest Cloudy Collection – Volume II, Edition I. The theme was “Who Are the People in Your Neighbourhood” and I chose a mother and daughter who I see walking around the streets all the time. I think they were the first people I noticed when we first moved into the area 5 years ago. I have never actually seen them look so cheerful – in fact sometimes they make me feel down-right sad because they look as though they are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. I decided to give them a break and illustrate a moment in a possible good day.
The letterpress collection comes in a limited edition of 100 and it’s only USD $35 for all 7 prints in the set.
Apart from mine, there is art by Bob Flynn, Dustin Harbin, David Huyck, Scott MacDonald, Laura Park, and Dave Taylor.
I was so blown away to be asked to contribute – I have loved the Cloudy Collection ever since I fell for Vera Brosgol’s little knitting girl in a blanket-cubby in Vol. I, Edition II. The quality of the prints is beautiful… yay! Thank you David.
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Speaking of art and buying it – Andrew from Mumblier is trying to raise money to buy himself an iPad when they finally come to Australia. He’s selling original iPad themed art as a fund raiser. You can order an existing piece, or custom order a drawing or comic strip. I bought one for Phil, sight unseen, to hang above his desk as he bangs away at his own iPhone development and it really is the best little thing. Andrew’s sense of humour, line work and colouring is delightful. Give the guy a hand!
15th March 2010
Scooter – freshly purchased from the gorgeous Meet Me at Mikes and crocheted by Jess! So happy to have little Scooter hanging about the house.
