Autumn Occupations

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autumn occupations

It’s mid April and our daily temperatures are still around 30ºC (86º F). Often Easter time here is wet and windy but not this year. Despite no rain for us, last week some of the northern suburbs had a storm resulting in flooding and partially submerged cars. Quite unusual for Perth.

It was a bit cooler in the evening and this inspired me to make pasties. I set up a production line of meat sauce, pastry and prepared oven trays. While the filling cooked I cut out rounds of pastry. Made the pasties then cooked lots of them at once. Now they’re stored in the freezer. My husband eats them steadily until they’re all gone. Then I might make more. Depends on the weather!

Now days I buy the pastry and use a saucer to cut to size.

Pasties originate from Cornwall. They traditionally had a savoury half and a sweet half, marked with a S. They were easy for miners to take for their lunch. The crimped edge was a handle which could be discarded when the rest of the pastie was eaten.

I make them with a mix of mince flavoured with onions and Worcestershire Sauce, plus diced mixed vegetables and then a little thickening with flour. So, not really traditional but well received, anyway! And we eat the crimped ‘handle’, too.

reading

I’ve just finished Rachel Johns’ book The Other Bridget Jones. An easy and fun read, this is the story of a librarian who has a special skill for matching readers to books. Not only did I know many of the books featured but I knew the library, the pubs, the beaches and the streets, the markets. The book is set in Fremantle. I go to Fremantle every week to my yoga class. It’s not often I know the environment featured in fiction but I really enjoyed knowing the places described in this romantic comedy.

A smart, funny book, probably intended for a younger audience but I identified with the author’s respect for the power of books and the clever, if slightly predictable way the plot revealed itself. Johns, originally an English Teacher, is considered Australia’s leading author writing about modern womens’ issues. A good read, even though I’ve been married forty years and don’t share most of the issues!

The other book I’ve read this week is Dr Kate Luckins’ Live More With Less. Again, I think this book was intended for a younger audience. Although she believes she is presenting ‘a practical and optimistic guide to balancing planet friendly habits’ I found many of the beliefs this book is based on just didn’t resonate.

I kept reading because there are sustainable changes I want to make to create less landfill and avoid plastics where ever possible. I’m just not sure about the whole climate change belief this book is based on. The book does have some good ideas about how we can buy less of everything and still live well.

The most interesting chapter for me was about buying fewer clothes, swapping them, sharing and renting them and building a capsule wardrobe. I’d been talking to a friend earlier that day about building a capsule wardrobe. I realised so many of the examples of capsule wardrobes I’d seen involved way too many formal or work clothes and too few casual clothes for my retired lifestyle. So, as much as I love the French samples I was following, I actually don’t need ‘smart’ work separates. I need casual and gardening clothes and a couple of more dressy things.

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The next problem was one I face every morning at the moment. I have been wearing summer clothes since last September. The maximum temperatures have been in the 30ºCs and 40ºCs for the past eight months. No matter how cleverly I arrange the tops and trousers I have, plus a couple of dresses, I am wearing the same things frequently and I’m sick of them! Ditto my sandals.

So, although I found Luckins’ wardrobe advice well thought out, it doesn’t work in my part of Western Australia at the moment. And I bought a new summer shirt because I am so tired of the ones I’ve been wearing for months and months. I’ll be wearing for a while, yet, according to the weather forecasts.

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Reading, Chopping and Pickles

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reading

Have you read Trent Dalton’s Lola In The Mirror? This follows his chart busting book Boy Swallows Universe and is equally disturbing and intriguing. It is the story of a girl with no name, because when you’re homeless it’s best not to have a history. This book has it all; it’s funny, it’s sad, it’s violent and at the same time, quite beautiful. It focuses on homelessness,friendship, optimism and lucky breaks. It highlights the important role drop-in centres play in the lives of the dispossessed, the kindness of strangers and the cruelty of friends. Not really an easy read but certainly a good read. The story is based in Brisbane like Dalton’s other books.

The second book I’ve been reading is John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies. He also wrote The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. When I finished reading Claire Keegen’s book, Small Things Like These, a story based on Irish Catholic nuns, I was determined not to read another book about the church and it’s impact on people. The cruelty was too much for me. The church doesn’t shine in this book, either.

The The Heart’s Invisible Furies begins ‘ Long before we discovered he had fathered two children by two different women,….Father James Monroe stood at the altar of the Church of Our Lady, ……and denounced my mother as a whore.’ I kept reading. This book was also hard to read at times. It covers 70 odd years of the main protagonist’s life and the many changes within the Catholic Church and the Irish people. There’s a happy ending 727 pages later but the Church would not agree!

While we’re thinking about books, I found these interesting comments about reading and the connection to better mental health and physical health in the March edition of The Australian Women’s Weekly. The author of the article, Eva-Maria Bobbert lists five advantages of reading.

MENTAL HEALTH Research shows a good book can lower stress faster than any other relaxation methods.

EMOTIONAL HEALTH Apparently reading can help with everything from grief, heartbreak, loneliness and poor self confidence. Stories about overcoming adversity can be inspirational.

HEART HEALTH and LONGEVITY Want to lower your blood pressure, psychological distress and lower heart rate? Read a good book. A twelve year study of more than 3000 adults found regular readers live about two years longer than non readers. Apparently, reading for more than 3.5 hours a week results in a 25% reduction in mortality.

SLEEP HYGIENE Reading a good book before you go to sleep can distract distressing thoughts making unwinding, slowing down and falling asleep easier.

COGNITIVE BENEFITS Do you remember Dr Seuss saying, ‘The more you read, the more things you will know?’ MRI scans indicate reading resulted in increased brain connectivity for several days afterwards. The more engaged you are with a book, the more areas of the brain that are stimulated and may result in greater intelligence.

So there’s five good reasons to enjoy a good book!

food preparation

Until I had eye surgery on my eyes last year I always wore contact lenses. So nothing prepared me for the pain of dicing onions without the protection of contact lenses! Ouch. I tried sunglasses, safety glasses even goggles but nothing was really working. Research recommended putting onions in the fridge 60 minutes before preparation, which actually works, but I kept forgetting. Needed another solution or we’d have to give up using onions.

Found a solution. It’s a multi cutting device called a 4 IN 1 Chopper Plus. It has two dicing blades of different sizes and 2 spiralizing blades, too. All the chopping happens under the lid, so no onion juice in my eyes. It’s really fast to totally dice an onion. Then I just empty the base into the frying pan. No tears. Such a relief. Spiralizing carrots is fun, too, and the springy curls look so pretty in a salad. It’s easy to almost instantly turn four really big potatoes into chips. So I’m really pleased with this new device! Bought online.

Fast, tear free diced onions and an easy cleanup, too.

Chipped potatoes in about a minute, added rosemary and sea salt, into the oven. Result = great, evenly cooked chips. A bit of a treat for us!

No dicing required, but I needed more freezer room over Easter, so out came the two ham bones from the Christmas hams. After my son sawed them to fit in the slow cooker, I added half a packet of split yellow peas, covered the bones with water and let it cook for 8 hours. Smelt good, tasted great. We ate Pea and Ham soup for four days. It was very good.

What to do with a surplus of red onions? I find they don’t keep well in this never ending hot weather, so used this Martha Stewart recipe to pickle them (here). Four ingredients, only a few minutes to pickle and delicious on just about everything. Apart for the sensible suggestions on the recipe site I really like these pickles on a thin slither of percorino romano cheese.

Four ingredients, red onions, salt, sugar and vinegar.

Let the pickles cool. Bottle and keep in the fridge. Try not to eat them all at once.

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Blue Zones and Fashion Trends

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blue zones

The Blue Zone Myth.

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Blue Zone regions are areas where people are claimed to live to a very old age. They have been studied and written about for years. What they eat, how active they are, whether they belong to a religious group and how well they connect within their community have all been documented. A lot of the data is based on government documents.

According to recent analysis, these pockets of extreme longevity seem to occur in areas with greater poverty, higher illiteracy, higher crime rates, and worse population health than the norm. They are found in Sardinia, Okinawa, the Greek island of Ikaria, Loma Linda in California, and Nicoya, a poor province of Costa Rica. The longevity of the “Supercentenarians” is attributed to the consumption of a variety of certain tubers, wholegrains, and fermented foods. A whole “Superfoods and Lifestyle” and publishing industry has grown up around these claims with much capital and employment invested in it.

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A well researched investigation conducted by Oxford University’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science tells a different story. Working with the Greek Labour Ministry they found that most of the country’s 9,000 centenarians were actually dead. A similar investigation conducted in Japan discovered that 238,000 people listed as aged 100 or more were unaccounted for. Some had died in the Second World War! The centenarians of Okinawa allegedly living on seaweed and the purple sweet potato, a superfood rich in anthocyanins and phenols, were found to have consumed less sweet potatoes than the rest of the country, less fruit and seafood, and more processed food. Japan has kept nutritional data as far back as the 1970s. It shows that Okinawa had the worst obesity problem even then. What all these regions have in common is dependency on pensions/social security. It’s worth keeping your family member on the books!

Based on an article by Dr Saul Newman The Oxford University Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science

The release of these findings coincides with a extensive British campaign to promote a plant based diet. This is also being pushed by the EU to try to influence climate change. The British model encourages children to eat from the ‘rainbow’ of foods. They’re told to eat 30 plant based foods a week. Four spices equal one plant based food, otherwise it’s fruit and vegetables, plus flour and oatmeal and other plant products and legumes. So, no eggs, meat, fish or chicken. Only plant based oils are acceptable. No butter. Only plant based milks and yoghurts and other non-diary products are allowed. Are plant based milks actually milks?

The UN is also pushing for a shift to a plant based diet, claiming this will reduce the ecological footprint of food production. Interestingly, the UN includes eggs in their list of acceptable foods. Don’t they come from birds?

One of the two major supermarket chains in Australia is also promoting a similar program of eating from the rainbow. Children can collect a chart from the supermarket to record how many plant based foods they eat in a seven day period. They write them in a colour coded column. The chart also features a box where an agreed award is listed if they meet their goal for the week. I’m assuming it’s not a visit to McDonalds.

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The whole issue of Blue Zones obviously needs more research. Some of the concepts attributed to the very old in these regions make nutritional sense, except the research suggests the younger generation eat differently, anyway. So, back to the Mediterranean Diet, which is a great way to eat with easily sourced foods.

clothes, decorating and fashion

When I read about the impact fashion posts on Instagram have, I do wonder about the age of the viewer to actually care or be influenced. Apparently millions of followers on Instagram and Tiktok do care and follow their idols’ examples of clothing and accessories closely, often checking several times a day.

When I think of fashion icons I think of Coco Chanel, who believed in restraint and advised women to take off one thing as they went out the door and the amazing Iris Apfel, who recently died, aged 102. Ms Apfel had no time for beige or the less is more dictate, she preferred a kaleidoscopic approach to dressing. This meant second hand pieces with couture, layers of clanking priceless jewels on her wrists and around her neck mixed with thrift shops pieces and always huge, colourful owl-like glasses. Joyful and expressive. So, I think we should suit ourselves, buy what we really like and keep it for as long as possible. Disposable clothing equals landfill.

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International taste in interiors has taken an about turn in the last 18 months judging by the magazines I read. Gone is white everything. Now the focus is on patterns and colours, open bookshelves displaying your treasures and lots of texture. Adding inherited pieces or second hand finds is essential and there’s colour everywhere. This looks nice and cosy in a European climate, but those intense colours and metres of curtains and ruffles might bring you out in hives on a hot summer’s day here. We are still having 30ºC (86ºF) days in Perth. Just remember, you can’t actually get personal taste wrong!

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Salsa Verde and Junk Food

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salsa verde

Do you still have an abundance of herbs? Me too. Last week we were enjoying PESTO made from fresh herbs and garlic plus extra virgin olive oil. This week I’m making SALSA VERDE. You’ll need flat leaf parsley, mint, and basil plus capers, anchovies, garlic, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. You’ll end up with a versatile, delicious, classic sauce.

Gather some basil, mint and parsley, add garlic, extra virgin olive oil, some capers, a lemon and some anchovies. (Don’t worry if you don’t like anchovies, the flavour is not strong once they have been amalgamated with the other ingredients.) I used curly parsley as that is what I had but I prefer flat leaf parsley for this sauce.

To make salsa verde, called green sauce by the English and sauce verte au pain ( because it was originally a bread sauce) by the French, you need 4 tbspn flat leaf parsley, 1 tbspn chopped mint, 2 tbspn chopped basil, 2 tbspn chopped capers, 2 drained anchovies, 1 peeled garlic clove, 1 tbspn Dijon mustard, juice of half a lemon and 1oo ml extra virgin olive oil. Also 25ml extra virgin olive oil if you plan on keeping it for a few days.

I mix the first six ingredients in a food processor until they’re roughly chopped then add the rest and mix until combined.

Purists and sensible people, who obviously refrain from eating all their salsa verde in a few days, store it in the fridge in a jar with a slick of olive oil (the extra olive oil in the ingredients list) We never keep it very long!

I have both pesto and sasla verde in the fridge so I planned a ‘make your own’ pasta dinner for tonight. I prefer both served close to room temperature so I put them out to warm an little. I cooked the pasta while I was setting a selection of tomato salsa, salsa verde, pesto, leftover bolognese sauce plus mozzarella di bufala and sheeps pecorino. Quick and easy and used up things I already had in the fridge.

I have used a lot of herbs from the garden recently as they are near the end of their season. Both the parsley and basil are going to seed, the mint needed tidying up, the spring onions needed sorting out and the chives are going to seed, too. Normally I snip the flowers off the basil to promote a longer picking season, but they’re getting a bit leggy, so I let the flowers dry out then rub them between my hands. Tiny black seeds fall out. It’s hard to really separate the tiny seeds from the broken up bits of dried flowers so I remove what I can and leave the rest. The seeds are put in an envelope, labeled and replanted later in the year. I keep the seeds I collect in recycled envelopes or paper bags in the garage where it is dry and cool.

the problem with junk food

A recent article on ABC online (here) outlines the problems with junk food consumption. It defines junk food as a broad range of ready to eat products, such as packaged baked goods, chips, lollies, instant noodles, some ready meals, soft drinks, sweetened cereals and packaged snacks. Junk food is food that has undergone significant chemical modification to enhance texture, taste, appearance and longevity.

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Recently, junk foods were reviewed by Australian and international institutions. They considered 45 previous studies published during the last three years. Nearly 10 million participants were monitored in these studies. Analyzing this data revealed strong evidence that consuming ultra processed food can result in 32 different health problems. Junk food consumers are at a higher risk of both physical and mental poor health and death.

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The risks listed from consuming junk food included cancer, major heart and lung conditions, mental health disorders and early death. The article doesn’t include specific cause and effect data, but the advice continues to recommend we avoid these foods. We all knew ultra processed foods aren’t good for us. There is probably a hint in the name ‘junk food.’

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Pesto, Foreign Exchange and Food Waste

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classic pesto

I grow a lot of basil. It’s an easy herb to grow, smells and tastes wonderful and is easy to maintain. I add it to so many summer dishes. You can grow basil in a pot or garden bed where it will get good sunlight and regular water. To keep your basil growing, remove the flowers when they appear, before they turn to seed. I leave the seeds on the soil in the pot and some will germinate again next year.

Pesto, traditionally made from basil, can be used as a dip, a spread, a sauce stirred through pasta or stirred into soups or casseroles. Using only basil leaves, extra virgin olive oil, pine nuts, garlic and a strong cheese, this is a quick and delicious spread. I use a sheeps’ pecorino from the Italian deli for its strong and delicious flavour. Also, too much cows’ milk doesn’t really sit well with me.

Gather the ingredients and a blender. Purists insist on pounding the ingredients by hand in a mortar and pestle but I can’t taste the difference between pounded or blended pesto. You choose! Make sure you have a clean, sterilised jar and lid ready for bottling the pesto. I use recycled jam jars. The ingredients I’ve listed make about one jam jar of pesto and sufficient to stir through pasta that night.

Ingredients;

50 gm of fresh pine nuts

80 gm basil leaves, no stems

50 gm of parmesan or other strong cheese of your choice, grated roughly

2 garlic cloves or 2 teaspoons of minced garlic

75 ml extra virgin olive oil

Rinse the basil leaves and pat dry. Then heat a small frying pan over low heat and gently toss the pine nuts in a little extra oil until they are golden. Be careful not to let them burn as they will taste bitter.You can substitute almonds, pistachios or walnuts if you don’t have pine nuts

Tip the pine nuts, basil leaves, garlic and grated cheese into the blender and blitz until they are roughly chopped. Run the motor and slowly pour in the oil. When it is well mixed but still has shape use a spatula to transfer the pesto into a jar. I used a 370gm recycled jam jars with a tight fitting lids. The pesto will keep for about 10 days in the fridge, if you can leave it alone for that long!

The traditional recipe for pesto uses basil, but there’s many variations depending on what is growing in your garden or what herbs you have on hand to use up. You can add mint or parsley, too. Wonderful stirred through pasta or gnocchi, under a poached egg on toast, on a pizza, stirred into soup or drizzled on a tomato salad.

foreign money

Once we used to go to the bank and organise some foreign currency to take overseas. Then that changed and we have to go into the city to specific branches of the bank to get money. We’d have to order it then wait a few days before we could make the trek into the city and collect the money. Now there is only one branch where we could collect foreign currency.

Searched online for an easier alternative and found one, an online currency exchanger. We ordered the currency and denominations we wanted and made a bank transfer to pay. Two days later the money arrived at our local post office. It was in a plastic pouch in a cardboard box. This entire transaction cost us AU$14, a better exchange rate compared to the bank. It was very easy to complete.

The money was the denominations we selected wrapped with a receipt showing the value and the number of each bank note. It took minutes to order and was easy to pick up later. So much easier than dealing with the bank. When you try and organise this with the bank they would prefer to supply a foreign currency credit card which is very profitable for them. Their deal also includes a charge incorporated in the exchange rate to pay for their time.

food waste

I don’t like wasting food! I see frightening figures quoting the amount of food first World countries send to landfill. Sometimes it takes a lot of work and planning to use everything we’ve bought. Bread is a big problem in this house. I make sourdough for myself and eat it all. Two days before the whole loaf is gone I feed the starter and 12 hours later I mix the dough and leave it for another twelve hours. Then I bake it. It’s a routine I’m used to and not difficult. Besides, the bread is wonderful!

My husband like artisan loaves he buys from two preferred bakeries. He never finishes a loaf. I can make bread and butter puddings but not in the middle of summer. I can make panzanella salads. But mostly I make breadcrumbs. I simply cut the remnant bread to fit easily in the processer and blitz the chunks until they are fine bread crumbs. I use them mostly to make meatballs, chicken balls and sometimes coated chicken. No waste.

Chop into small pieces.

Blitz.

Using a high tech funnel store the breadcrumbs in a jar.

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Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Food and the Garden

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gong xi fa ci

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Happy Chinese New Year to you! It’s the year of the Wood Dragon. Although we no longer exchange red envelopes with friends’ children, I still remember the specialties we ate to celebrate the event and the lion dancers. Probably the most memorable part of living in China and celebrating Chinese New Year were the fireworks and the constant crackers exploding all night! Lots of drums and lots of fireworks.

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Dragons are charismatic, ambitious and successful. May the Year of the Dragon bring you courage, success and prosperity!

valentine’s day

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We’ve been a bit overwhelmed by advertisements for Valentine’s Day gifts and treats. Lingerie, perfume, jewellery and clothing feature for women and it seems men fancy alcohol, new clothes and camping gear. Frightening inflation hasn’t resulted in lower cost gifts, though, as some of the advertised suggestions are very expensive. And a flash dinner out seems de rigueur, too.

Normally I make a card for the occasion and bake a heart shaped cake. My mother in law gave me the heart shaped cake tin and I traditionally make a chocolate cake. We can’t eat a cake in a few days so it becomes dessert with icecream.

Searched through Michael Greger’s excerpt, referred to below, looking for the paragraph about how good chocolate is for your well being and there’s nothing!

One slice of this chocolate cake is enough!

and other food

Also made a pot of dahl after reading an excerpt from Michael Greger’s book,’ How Not To Age: The Scientific Approach to Get Healthier As you Get Older.’ Science shows that every 20% increase in intake of legumes will reduce your risk of death by about 8%. I really want to be healthy and mobile, so made dahl. We enjoyed it and I’ll make it again.

He also states that nut consumption is associated with a lower risk of dying from heart attack, stroke, respiratory disease, infections, diabetes, even cancer. All you need is around 15-20gm of walnuts, cashews, almonds a day, but says walnuts are probably the best. He says eating a small amount of these nuts every day is the equivalent in longevity terms of jogging for four hours. Easy health tip!

Really delicious but next time I’ll up the garam marsala for a bit more punch.

Luckily, coffee is good for you as are many spices but salt isn’t, and alcohol gets a bad wrap! Greger refers to the latest science from over 700 data sources, which…’unambiguously concluded “The safest alcohol level of drinking is none.”‘ Drinking chamomile tea gets a big tick. Research indicates people who drank a small cup of chamomile after their meals for a few months showed a significant improvement in long term blood sugar control. The other effect of chamomile tea mentioned is improved mood and sleep. I’ll start drinking chamomile after dinner tonight. Keen on good sleep.

Also made a jar of Easy Fruit and Nut Bliss Ball mix, a lovely Christmas present. The label says, ‘Roll me. Mix Me. Eat Me.’ So we did as we were told!

Emptied the jar into the mixer, added some oil and mixed. Rolled into ball shapes and put in the fridge to firm up. Tasty little treats.

Little treats made of almonds, walnuts, dried apricots, pistachio, coconut and dried goji berries. Easy to make and very easy to eat!

A week ago, I cooked a huge number of chicken balls and froze most of them. They have been a life saver when we have arrived back from Bunbury keen on dinner but not really keen on cooking. I leave a bowl full in the fridge to thaw while we are away. Tonight we ate eating some with a Teriyaki sauce and noodles. So good, so easy.

Made teriyaki sauce while the noodles boiled and the thawed chicken balls heated.

Also eating tomatoes still warm from the garden, with finely chopped red onion drizzled with balsamic vinegar and then a scattering of basil. Perfect.

garden things

I pick about seven tomatoes a day. They are not cherry sized nor usual sized tomatoes but somewhere in between. They taste so good. The scorching sun burns some of them as they get morning and afternoon sun and the daily temperatures are 40ºC ( 104º F ) and more. The soil bakes during the day and the mulch breaks down quickly. I have made three trugs of horse manure, potting mix and bentonite clay ( for water retention) all mixed together and will begin top dressing the entire garden in the cool of the evening.

Doesn’t look so appetizing but I think the garden will love it! Horse manure, bentonite and potting

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Making, Cooking and Growing

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making

Some time ago I made covers for some of the tissue boxes around the house. I made the covers from delivery boxes (here) then covered them to suit the area where they would be placed. The tissue box in the kitchen is in constant use and was showing a lot of grubby marks! The stains could not be removed using a wet cloth so time to recover.

The original cover was black and white zebra print paper. I was unable to remove the unidentified stains.

The black and white pattern suited where the tissues sit so I stayed with the black and white theme. I had to cover one side and the top, then the second side as I wanted the print to be the right way up. Then I cut two rectangles for either end.

I cut a cross into the piece covering the oval hole in the top. Then I trimmed it and snipped the little edges. Glued each one pressing the edge to create a perfect oval shape.

The previous zebra print cover had been sealed with Mod Podge but this certainly didn’t prevent staining. This time I used diluted PVA glue applied with a foam brush. Time will tell how effective that has been.

I chose black and white gift wrap for the new cover as this fits well with the other items nearby and I already had it. It is an Emma Bridgewater design called Black Toast. I have collected a lot of crockery in this design over the years and am making a point of using it regularly.

cooking

Poached Eggs Arriving back in Perth late in the evening after a few days visiting my Mother more than two hours away I looked in the fridge. I was hoping for something quick and easy for dinner but no such luck. Decided poached eggs on toast would have to do this time. This is how I poach eggs. Take two large mugs and half fill them with boiling water from the kettle. Add a splash of vinegar. Gently crack an egg into each mug then microwave on full for 90 seconds. Meanwhile, make two pieces of toast. (I spread pesto on mine!) Place the toast on a plate and gently remove the cooked eggs from the mugs using a slotted spoon. Slide onto the toast. Grind of pepper and some salt. A couple of tomatoes from the garden. Delicious.

Sourdough Bread. Articles about sourdough bread always show gorgeous rustic boules, but I like fairly regular slices. For years I have baked my bread in a parchment lined, rectangular glass Pyrex dish. Then I bought a double walled metal bread baking tin. Cooked at the usual temperature and for the same time, the loaf from the tin was more golden all over and beautifully cooked. So now I will use the tin to cook my bread.

KNIVES I have a rack of kitchen knives and like to keep them very sharp. One of my jobs was to soak the whet stone and then sharpen and wash the knives. Also bought a new bread knife but it has been a huge disappointment so I’m back using the semi-blunt one. Seeking a new knife. Any recommendations?

growing

I regularly apply Epsom Salts (magnesium sulphate) to my gardenia bushes. They are healthy and well established. They are covered in blooms twice a year. I mention their health and generous blooms because I just read on the packet the Epsom Salt came in that it should be diluted in 4 litres of water then poured around the base of the bushes. For about thirteen years I have scattered the salt around stems, then watered them, so not the recommended way to use Epsom Salts but no damage so far!

Other uses listed on the packet include relieving sore or tired muscles, soothe aching joints, fabric softener and general plant nutrient. For tomatoes, citrus and lettuce the recommended dose is 25 tablespoons of salt dissolved in 4 litres of water then sprayed on the plants when it is cool. If you’re applying Epsom Salt to remedy magnesium deficiency in the soil, dissolve 2 tablespoons in 4 litres of water. Make sure the salt is dissolved. Magnesium Sulphate is also used in flotation tanks instead of sodium chloride.

The gardenias have thrived on wrongly applied Epsom Salt.

A quick review of the common uses of Epsom Salt just before I posted revealed many more uses, such as a warm bath with added Epsom Salts just before bed aids sleep, it reduces the swelling of sprains and bruises and helps reduce swollen feet and draw out splinters. The list continues with using diluted ES to treat insect bites and bee stings and spray it on sunburn. Interestingly, 1 tablespoon of ES diluted in 1 litre of water poured around the base of tomato bushes results in more fruit. Have I missed anything?

Regular readers know I am growing a tomato forest. These mid-sized fruit taste so good and we often eat them before they get inside. For years I read about people who weigh every tomato and calculate their harvest at the end of the season but I’m just keeping a tally of how many tomatoes we pick.

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Post Christmas Occupations

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post christmas

The longest ever Christmas celebrations end today. Family parties, here and at my Mother’s, Christmas lunch with wonderful friends, a Boxing Day party with our lovely neighbours and some visiting in between. Enormous amounts of food prepared and eaten, thoughtful gifts and treats shared and slowly things are returning to normal. The fridge wouldn’t agree, but we’re working on it!

Our son had ordered a large ham and a turkey roast from his butcher then found he had to go away for a fortnight, only flying back late Christmas night. I’d cooked a smaller ham and turkey breast already, plus all the usual trays of star biscuits and shortbread to share and then the ham and chicken breast rolls he’d brought. So food, food, every where food, or so it seems.

The second ham, almost ready to go into the oven.

Christmas also brought each of us a haul of books, our favourite sort of present. My Christmas stocking included two luxe magazine as well (goodie). So, eating mostly out of the fridge and reading in between socialising and gardening. It has been dreadfully hot and the now rather large tomatoes need regular watering and staking.

When I planted the tomatoes in these troughs I thought I’d be able to protect them from the river rats by putting the cover over the frame but the tomatoes are way too big now.

marbling

Even as a child I really liked the marbled pages lining the front and back pages of books. They’re called endpapers. I especially liked the marbled lining papers in the family atlas despite the evidence of silverfish activity. Years ago I did some marbling using enameled paints but the paint was slow to dry, messy and awkward to clean up afterwards.

A newly covered journal with a marbled back end paper.

Then I discovered Japanese inks. The Japanese traditionally used calligraphy inks for marbling, but modern inks are easy to obtain and use. The Japanese embrace the concept of things not being perfect or unpredictable outcomes and developed techniques of floating the ink, or ‘suminagashi’ which involves dropping the inks on water. The inks naturally disperse but can also be manipulated by blowing on the water’s surface.

Recently I was reading about a professional marbler in the UK, Nat Maks. (natmaks.com Her works on her site are beautiful!) She marbles on sheets of paper 3m in length. These sheets are used as wall hangings and wall art. She has designed and had a 3m x 1.5m bath built to print these large sheets. Inspired by her beautiful papers, I assembled Japanese inks, gloves and paper.

I have always marbled on recycled A4 paper but this time I decided to print on some lithograph paper I found when I tidied the laundry cupboards. Bought when I was designing this house and doing lots of plans and drawings for the draughtsman, the large, once flat sheets had been rolled, then at some later date, squashed on a shelf in the laundry. I cut the paper to the size needed to line the front and back pages of my journals, then ironed the rectangles as the paper wasn’t flat. I experimented inking the rough and smooth sides of the paper and settled on printing the smooth side. I really like the soft, gentle colours created.

Don’t normally iron paper before I print but I cut these rectangles from large sheets of lithograph paper which had been squashed in a cupboard.

While I was ironing I gathered all the grosgrain ribbons I use year after year on our gifts. I really like large, generous bows. I bought a 50 metre spool of this ribbon years ago and recycled ever since it.

While the sheets were drying I covered some new journals. I have bought these black books with a red spine for more than 20 years but they are getting harder to find. I write every day. Sometimes I draw, too, or glue in photos or tickets or other ephemera from our travels. I list daily and long term TO DO lists and enjoy ticking jobs off as they are done. After I’d covered the journals I glued the marbled papers as front and back covers. Added a calendar. That’s my journals sorted for about a year!

I trim then smooth the photocopied images front and back, fold them in, glue then down then cover the end pages with a sheet of marbled paper.

VERY BEST WISHES FOR A

HAPPY and HEALTHY

NEW YEAR!

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Christmas Countdown and Prawn Stock

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christmas countdown

The cakes are cooked, the cards are sent, most of the gift shopping and wrapping is done but despite my determination to be super organised this year, I still have a TO DO list. We’ll be having two Christmas Dinners, the first when our son arrives late Christmas Day and the second when we go and spend a day with my Mother. Tidied up the fridge and freezer to accommodate the Christmas food and drinks.

The whole TO DO list thing is a bit controversial. Some people feel writing down their tasks to be done is really efficient. They tick off the jobs as they are completed and focus on the next one. Other people say they don’t remember to look at the lists, struggle to make lists to cover everything that needs to be done or the length of the lists makes them anxious. I lived by lists when I was working, running the house, walking the dog, establishing the garden, doing the shopping and cooking and trying to maintain friendships. Then life relaxed a bit and so did the list. Lots of things slipped by so I went back to making lists, especially for shopping. Works for me.

In the middle of the Christmas preparations and fuss, I discovered one of the downsides of having very good eyesight again. I noticed most of the door frames have chips in them! I pondered on this for a while and finally realised, looking at the height of the chips, most of them are probably from mopping and vacuuming.

It’s a very hot day and I knew I’d need to do two coats to restore the frames. I started by sanding them back, then wiping the dust off and working out which paint ( I have lots of tins of white paint) matched the best. The best match turned out to be a spray paint, so I used a piece of cardboard to protect the walls and got spraying. Two coats did a good job. Then I washed and wiped all the doors. I noticed a chip in the plaster near the front door but that will be a job for after Christmas!

A sheet of cardboard to protect the walls, a can of spray paint and some sand paper, too, and the job was done. Really pleased with the outcome.

prawn risotto

We get wonderful prawns from along the coast of Western Australia. Many people associate prawns with summer eating and particularly at Christmas time. I had a pile of them to peel to make a stock for a Prawn Risotto. My traditional way of peeling prawns seemed to be taking so long! I usually cut the body from the head, slit down the underside and peel off the shells with the legs, then a small cut along the back to remove the digestive tract. This method was taking so long!

Wondered how restaurants dealt with shelling prawns. They’d need a faster system than mine. So I looked up Gordon Ramsay’s method but it almost what I was already doing and after looking at a few more entries, finally accepted I’d be shelling prawns for quite a while, get on with it. Then all the shells went into a pot to make stock with water, tomato paste, sweated onions and garlic. ( Someone told me later that many restaurants buy prawns which have already been mechanically peeled.)

Asked my husband to help but that wasn’t a success. He doesn’t really eat prawns or crabs. When we talked about it he said he never ate them as a child. I grew up at the head of an estuary and ate a lot of crabs as a child and still eat then whenever possible. Some years ago, when I returned from Milan with a broken wrist, we were at a crab party and he was preparing crabs and handing them to me. I’d eaten quite a few and suddenly realised he wasn’t eating any. ( Lucky me)

Made the prawn risotto. Forgot to photograph it. I’m not a big fan of rice (which was awkward living in China for a few years and visiting frequently for many years) but the packet of Arborio Risotto Rice was in a gift pack and I don’t like wasting food.

Back to Christmas preparations, about to check Spotify for some old fashioned carols to add a bit singing and dancing to the kitchen routine as there’s many jobs on the TO DO list!

WISHING YOU A MERRY

CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY

NEW YEAR!

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Cherries and Other Christmas Things

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TECHNOLOGY and ME

I have no idea what kept going wrong with last week’s blog, nor why it published itself (obviously not, but I’m accepting no responsibility). I eventually just gave up! Pondered giving up entirely, but decided to try once more. Fingers crossed this week’s blog is a success.

CHERRIES

The countdown to Christmas no longer features Advent Calendars in our house, although I’ve seen some very lush adult calendars online. Instead, it starts with cherries. As soon as I know cherries are available, I want some! Just before my first eye surgery I bought an art and craft materials Advent Calendar and every so often open a window and enjoy using the paint, clay, pencils and pens and other little treats. So not a countdown to Christmas calendar, more a move towards being able to do the things I used to do before my eyesight deteriorated.

This bowl of cherries didn’t last long!

The fountain in the portico is decorated.

So is the front door. Since added more baubles to jazz the laurel up a bit!

This dear little Christmas cake, a gift, arrived in a clear bauble and was delicious!

RUMBALLS

For years I’ve used the same recipe to make rumballs. They can be made a week before Christmas and are very popular. Our son was here on the weekend and wanted me to wait until he was back before I made this year’s rumballs ‘ because you don’t add enough rum.’ Well, some of the consumers of our rumballs then have drive home, so I think I’ll be sticking to the usual amount of rum in this year’s mix!

Every year at Christmas time I cook multiple trays of shortbread biscuits and give them as gifts. No fancy homemade boxes this year but I have decorated each gift with a heart and added a bauble, too.

Shortbread biscuits in cellophane bags with air dried hearts and baubles decorated using paper napkins/serviettes. (here)

TOMATOES

These tomatoes all germinated from two tiny cherry tomatoes from my Mother’s plant. I squeezed the seeds from the tomatoes onto a paper towel, spread them out and let them dry. Cut the towel into six squares and planted each square in a small pot. I planted them about six weeks ago. About 50 plants germinated.

I planted them out at different times to have a good supply of tomatoes throughout summer.

I have given away about fifteen plants as we’ll have enough for the two of us and these are delicious little tomatoes.

This lot are in a raised bed, sharing with the chive forest.

The last lot to be planted out. I’ll transfer them to bigger pots in a week or so.

MENDING

These light woven baskets with a drawstring lining are ideal for so many jobs. I have several.

When the handle stitching came undone I repaired it using linen thread and a big blunt needle.

I share all this with you because it is SO exciting to be able to thread the needle myself! I have also threaded and used the sewing machine. So exciting, so satisfying. Up there with being able to drive again and read easily.

SQUEEZING LEMONS

My husband, the preferred citrus squeezer in this household, saw Jamie Oliver using one of these citrus squeezers on a cooking program and wanted one. Two days later we saw one in an Italian food shop and we bought it.

He is very pleased with it.

BEFORE, the old way.

NOW, the new way!

I hope all your plans for the holiday season are going well.

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