Blue Mountain Bliss

Gypsy vegetable stew

2010-11-15T15:12:00.000+11:00

I haven't posted a recipe for quite a while, I have been busy with establishing my new enterprise, The Tailor's Apprentice, where I mentor you over 10 weeks to make the gown of your dreams. I haven't stopped my love of cooking however, I just haven't blogged about it! Since I last wrote we have planted out our summer veggie garden and got a chook, still a youngster but growing fast and hopefully we will get our own eggs soon.

Since I left my city job in April, I have been getting unfit, too much time enjoying myself in the studio and kitchen and not enough time exercising. So my friend Justine from Empowered Beginnings, is working with me to get back to my fit and healthy self, her motto is:

“Whether you’re planning on bringing a new life into the world, or improving your own – we all have a birthright to be healthy and happy!”

Justine wants everyone to be empowered to eat well, healthily and to exercise to get the best potential out of their lives. She and her partner have started Friday Night Feasts at their place where we all bring a home cooked meal made from fresh, organic ingredients and cooked from first principles and as seasonal as possible. I made Gypsy Vegetable Stew in my Dreampot Thermal Cooker, the recipe is by Suzanne Gibbs from her Pressure Cooker Recipe Book, I adapted it slightly and added organic chicken to the mix.

Gypsy Vegetable Stew

2 white or brown onions, sliced (I used whole spring onions)
2 green or red capsicums, halved, white insides and seeds removed and then sliced into thick strips (i used red and yellow)
3 zucchini, cut into chunks
2-3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped (I left them whole)
1 eggplant, cut into chunks (I didn't use this)
2 tomatoes, cut into chunks
1 x 400 g diced tomatoes or 1 punnet cherry tomatoes (I used tinned tomatoes)
1 chicken breast, cut into chunks
Salt and freshly ground black pwepper
!/3 cup olive oil
Juice of one lemon

I also used the following:
1 large handful of Pumpkin, cubed
1 large handful of Sweet potatoes, cubed
1 large handful of Potatoes, cubed

All my ingredients were organic and locally sourced, some from my garden.

1. Arrange the vegetables and chicken in separate layers, first the onions, then capsicum, zucchini, garlic, chicken, eggplant, lastly the fresh or tinned tomatoes, sprinkling each layer with pepper and salt. Pour over olive oil and lemon juice.

2. Close the lid of your pressure cooker (I used my Dreampot as a thermal cooker, see below for details *), bring the cooker to high heat, once low pressure has been reached, reduce the heat to stablise pressure and cook 5 minutes.

3. Release the pressure using the natural-release method and remove lid. Serve warm or at room temperature.

* Dreampot method:

1.Organise ingredients as for Point 1 above.

2. Place Dreampot saucepan on cooker, bring to a boil, boil gently for 15 minutes.

3. Remove Dreampot saucepan from cooker and put into Dreampot thermal container.

4. Leave for a minimum of 2 hours (mine was the full 7 hours as I made it in the morning)

This recipes is simple, healthy and delicious, not much else you can ask for in a one-pot meal really.

Salzburger Nockerl

2010-06-02T22:52:00.000+10:00

In February this year we had a a friend from Germany visiting us, we met years ago in a choral group and have remained good friends ever since, even with the world separating us. On this visit she made us this fabulous, delicious and super easy desert called Salzburger (as in Saltzburg) Nockerln (dumplings). She whipped it up without a recipe and I transcribed as she went and I meant to post it as soon as possible after her visit, but I lost the recipe and have been nagging her to send it to me and finally she has found the time, so now I am sharing it with you.

Salzburger Nockerl is a sweet dish typical of Austrian cuisine that is especially popular in Salzburg, as its name implies. Its a Soufflé omelette baked in three’s on a large dish and served hot with a sweetened strawberry (or fruit of your choice) flavoured cream or jam sauce.

How to make Salzburger Nockerln
Recipe is taken from Kochen, Die grosse Schule“ by Arnold Zabert

Ingredients:
6 large eggs (separate into 6 egg whites and 6 egg yolks)
50g fine white sugar
1 vanilla bean
40g white wheat flour
butter to grease the oven dish
2 table spoons of icing sugar to sprinkle on top

optional: fruits of your choice, like cherries, plums etc. (from a jar or tin)
Preheat the oven to 200

In a large bowl beat the egg yolks with 30g of the sugar for 5 minutes with electric beaters until they are thick and creamy.

Cut the vanilla bean open and extract the pulp with a knife, then add the pulp to the egg yolks and spoon it in.

Beat the egg whites until they are very stiff, then add the rest of the sugar.

With a spatula carefully mix the stiff egg whites and the flour, spoon by spoon, into the egg yolks. Make sure you spoon as much air into the mixture as you can to make it very fluffy.

Grease an oven dish with a bit of butter. (Don´t choose the dish too big so the Nockerln will rise and don´t just cover the base.) With the spatula place 3 long pyramid shaped bits of the mixture into the dish (“Nockerln”), one next to the other, so they fill the whole dish.

Immediately put the Nockerln into the hot oven, bake for 15 minutes and don´t open the oven door in the process. The Nockerln are ready when they get a bit golden brown on top but are still soft inside.

Sprinkle the hot Nockerln with icing sugar (use a tea streamer) and serve immediately.

You can serve the Nockerln with heated up fruits (with a bit of their own juice) from a tin.

As I said above, this is an elegant, delicious and super easy dish to make for a dinner party, give it a try!

Working for me, not the boss

2010-05-28T21:06:00.001+10:00

Two months ago I left my well paid, but extremely frustrating, full time job, to work for me and not the boss, this has been a huge change in my life and has kept me so busy that I've had no time for my personal blog. This post talks about how this huge change has affected me.

I was a NSW public servant, working in eBusiness, project managing the development of such things as websites, applications, and at the end, the move to social networking through Twitter, FaceBook, blogs, etc. I commuted from our Blue Mountain's cottage to the Sydney CBD, a three hour return journey for 9 years!

Last year, this commute, plus my growing unhappiness and lack of fulfillment in my work sent me searching for other career modes that would free me from both commute and 'working for the man'. I wanted something away from technology, I love using it, but was so tired of trying to convince managers that social networking wasn't 'risky'! A friend had become a marriage celebrant a few years earlier and so I investigated the idea and loved it, it suited me to a 'T'. So last year I returned to study and qualified as a registered Civil Marriage Celebrant and started the journey to my new business of Offbeat Ceremonies.

Being a Celebrant is such a complex and important role, I strongly believe that birth, coming of age, death, menarche, menopause, marriage and commitment ceremonies are rites of passage that need to be thoughtfully and appropriately marked for us to fully transition into the next phase of our lives. Being a Celebrant means that I work with people so they can transition between one phase of their lives to the next. A Celebrant marks these important stages, we are a gatekeeper and shaman and ritual maker. Perfect for a woman who has reached her third age.

Instead of office politics, I get to be with people who want to reconnect to community, who take time to mark and celebrate each new season of life, its a role where I can celebrate important and significant parts of people's lives.

I'd never run a business, had no idea what to do, so I went in search of a business coach who would be my guide and 'shaman' into this next phase of my working life. I found @TerriCook of SuccessZon e through Twitter and she has been helping me turn from a 'desk jockey' to a small business entrepreneur who runs Offbeat Ceremonies.

Through Terri I found my 'Purple Cow', Seth Godwin's groundbreaking idea of niche markets. Once I found it, I spent ages finding out the who, what, why and how of them, once this was locked down I could design my marketing strategy, graphics,website around my niche. This is what I've been working on rather than blogging!

All of this has been a revelation to me, I have learnt so many new skill sets and discovered strengths that I knew nothing about. I am loving my business coaching and I would highly recommend @TerriCook to anyone who wants to take the plunge and change their life around.

At Easter I left my job and took early retirement to further develop Offbeat Ceremonies. I was apprehensive and scared of this step, iis hard to move from the secure boundaries of a good fortnightly salary, not to mention holidays, long service leave and sick leave! After a holiday in Melbourne I came back and panicked, 'argh! what have I done' but @TerriCook worked me through it and while I'll be hit by these doubts again, being my own mistress and doing what I want to do is so empowering!

Since I've been working from home, my life is enriched with so many wonderful community ventures, I've started to learn belly dancing and ukulele, get more into my yoga practice, create more in my studio, currently an 1880's 'saloon girl' outfit with a lovely bustle! I am volunteering at the BM Coop and have been offered a local job for two days a week with Summit Gear, which I am enjoying immensely and gives me a weekly income as I build up the business.

I also spend time on my business, networking, reaching out, marketing and I'm running a competition at the moment:

Join my FaceBook Offbeat Ceremonies fanpage by COB on 31 May and you could win a wedding, commitment or vow renewal ceremony valued at $650!

I am loving the freedom of my new life, I love my clients who are people in love with each other, with life and the world. I love that I have more time for the things that are important to me, my beloved partner, my friends and my business.

The most exciting thing of late is the creation of two videos about Offbeat Ceremonies by @jerelmani and @Lizzzzzzigal from Who Needs a Secretary, once again I met them both through Twitter. A wonderful and creative pair and to quote them

We can handle all of your media requirements inhouse – including professionally produced corporate videos. Our video production team includes specialists in television production and interview techniques. Our team is ideal for working with media shy talent, helping bring out the best in our interview subjects. Take at look at Lorna McKenzie’s latest video, for her Blue Mountains based business, Offbeat Ceremonies.

So, as invited by Who Needs a Secretary, here's the link to my YouTube videos, go and find out about my passion for Offbeat Ceremonies

Why Offbeat
Rites of Passage

May good fortune rule over you,
Peace live in your heart,
And the stars watch over you.

Link love ~ blogs I love

2010-04-12T16:40:00.000+10:00

A page of link love, this page will grow and change, so visit often.

Australian women
Tina Gray.me Used to be Mummified Times Five, but has recently changed names. Tina and I met on Twitter and her blog is informative, amusing and down to Earth and I like that a lot.

Foodies
Inside Cuisine Rebecca Varidel & guests sharing recipes & more from Celebrity Chefs, restaurants, food producers & farmers, travellers, friends … another Twitter find @frombecca
A page of link love, these are bloggers that I admire and enjoy, the list will grow and change, so visit often.

Five minutes a day fresh bread

2010-04-02T23:14:00.001+11:00

I've been baking bread again this year, I've even set up a blog about it Bread with Elizabeth and I'm working my way through recipes I like from Elizabeth David's Bread and Yeast Cookery

All the bread recipes I read say that the bread making should work around your schedule, not that of the bread's, but starting from scratch each time can be time consuming and it can be hard to resist the temptation to 'pop out and buy some bread'

So when I came across this five minutes a day fresh bread recipe in the Mother Earth Newsletter, I was delighted. The method allows you to mix up a big batch of bread mixture, store it in the fridge and it requires NO kneading, saving time and still providing good quality bread.

Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François created the method "When you want fresh-baked crusty bread, take some dough, shape it into a loaf, let it rise for about 20 minutes, then bake. Your house will smell like a bakery, and your family and friends will love you for it."

I'm hooked and have been using this method to bake our bread throughout March as its so darn 'easy peasy'!

I'm not going to reproduce the recipe here as you can either buy their book or follow the method outlined on the Mother Earth website. Let me know how you go with it.

Making yogurt

2010-03-29T17:47:00.001+11:00

Along with bread making, I've been hunting out the perfect home yogurt recipe over the last few weeks. As with bread, I used to make my own yogurt, but then delicious organic yogurt became available and it seemed easier to buy it.

Of late, we've been looking at ways of reducing our income, I'm working less at the day job so I can spend more time doing the things that make my heart sing and therefore we need to reduce our spending. The cost of our delicious organic yogurt is quite expensive, plus the cost to the environment of every plastic pot makes me less than comfortable.

Last year we bought an EasiYo kit, sadly, the yogurt made from their packets wasn't that pleasant, not like the thick delicious yogurt that we preferred, so I abandoned making it. However, the EasiYo kit has been brought back as its the perfect environment to incubate delicious, creamy, thick, yogurt.

I asked RL, Twitter, FB friends how they made their yogurt and the consensus was the same, use good organic full cream milk, the addition of dried milk powder and a good yogurt starter to start the first batch and then go on with your own.

So, here's the mix I gleaned from everyone and after a few attempts I now get perfect thick, creamy, rich and healthy yogurt.

3 and a half cups organic unhomogenised milk
1/2 a cup of organic milk powder
2 large tablespoons of good quality yogurt culture - bring up to room temperature

Mix liquid and powdered milk together and then heat the milk till just under boiling point. Heating the milk both assists the yogurt in thickening and kills nasty bacteria that you don't want to incubate. Let it cool to around 42 - 39 C. Once cool, mix in the two tablespoons of yogurt, then pour into your container to incubate. I put it into the EasiYo plastic bottle, then pour hot water into the EasiYo incubater but only up to the bottom of the red stopper. Put your bottle in and leave for at least 6 hours (I leave overnight), then refrigerate, and once cool, enjoy.

If you don't have an EasiYo incubator you can use a wide mouth thermos for exactly the same result.

So we are saving money, enjoying the pleasure of creating something ourselves and have reduced our plastic intake.

Pickled onions

2010-01-24T22:13:00.004+11:00

We are going back to basics in our house, trying to reduce the household budget. We're baking bread and making yogurt, cooking 'two dinners for one' meals, taking our lunch, eschewing cafes and bought coffees, making our own Saturday special breakfasts, having dinner parties at each others houses rather than going to restaurants. We are 'making do and mending' and its damned enjoyable.

We made pickled onions today, they're actually not my favorite pickle, but they are the wife's, and as she came home with pickling onions on Saturday, what could a home cook do but pickle them?

We looked at a few recipes, chose the method and recipe from Food Preserving at Home p.56 by John Gross, then adapted the recipe to our memories of our mother's pickled onions and what we had available on hand.

Pickled onions a la Azure Hills
Made three 500 ml jars (1) of pickled onions

1 kg pickling onions
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup salt
500 mls white vinegar
500 mls apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup Panch phoran (a Bengali spice seed mix)
15 peppercorns
6 cardamon pods
6 cloves garlic
6 bay leaves
3 nutmeg cloves

Peel your onions, easy way to do this is put them in a bowl and cover them with boiling water, leave for 2 minutes and then transfer to a bowl of cold water. Leave the ends of the onions on as it keeps them from coming apart.

Place the peeled onions in a bowl, cover with the cup of salt, cover with cold water, leave for a minimum of 12 - 18 hours in a cool place, fridge is good. Drain onions, then rinse and drain again.

While your draining the onions, put your vinegar, sugar and Panch phoran into a saucepan, bring to a simmer, simmer for 15 minutes.

Pack your onions into hot, clean 500 ml jars (heat jars in the oven), leaving 13 ml headspace. Add 5 peppercorns, 1 garlic clove, 2 bay leaves, 2 cardamon pods, and 1 nutmeg clove to each jar. Heat pickling liquid to a boil. Pour boiling liquid over onions in bottles, make sure the Panch phoran is distributed between the jars, leaving 13 ml headspace for expansion. Remove the air bubbles from the bottles.

Remove air bubbles, wipe rims and seal jars. We had left over pickling vinegar and we will use it as a lovely flavoured vinegar for salad dressings etc., an extra bonus.

Use a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, to process the filled and sealed jars, for the safest of preserves.

Leave the pickles for a minimum of 24 hours before opening, the longer you leave them, the more the flavours will mature.

Boiling water bath
Fill a big pot, deep enough for your bottles to fit in and be covered by water 25cm deep above the lids.

Fill the pot with water, bring to the boil, when just under boiling, place jars into pot, make sure they are covered by 25cm water above the lids, then bring to the boil. Keep boiling for 10 minutes, then remove jars from hot water, place on a tea towel and let cool. The lids will 'pop' and fully seal the pickles as the bottles start to cool down. Don't leave pickles in the water bath as it will cook them and remove their crunch.

(1) Don't buy new jars, recycle old ones and buy new lids, go to Green Living Australia for more information.

Bread baking

2009-12-28T15:43:00.004+11:00

Baking bread is something I haven't done for a while, I used to do it lots as I couldn't buy the bread I liked, but the introduction of Artisan bread in Australia over the last few years has made me drop the habit. This morning however we had run out of bread and as today is a public holiday, getting decent fresh bread is not really possible, I decided to dust of my bread making skills and make us some.

I used a simple wholemeal recipe from Delia's How to Cook, Book One, Quick and easy wholemeal loaf, p. 82. If you've never made bread I recommend this recipe as it is easy and delicious.

Quick and easy wholemeal loaf
Makes 1 large or two small loaves
1 lb 4 oz (570g) 100% organically produced wholewheat flour, plus a little extra for the top of the bread (I used bread flour which has more gluten and provides a better structure)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon soft light brown sugar
2 teaspoons dried yeast
about 14 floz (400 ml) hand-hot water

You will also need a 2lb (900 g) loaf tin or two q lb (450 g) loaf tins, well buttered.

Begin by warming the flour slightly in the oven for about 10 mins, turn oven off for now.

Next, tip the warm flour into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle the salt, sugar, yeast into it and mix together.

Make a well in the centre of your mixed flour and add the water. Mix this in with a wooden spoon until it forms a dough; the exact amount of water you need depends on the flour. Finish off by mixing with your hands until you have a smooth dough that leaves the bowl clean - there should be no bits of flour or dough remaining on the sides of the bowl and unlike pastry, its better to have too much water than too little. (NB: I use my Kenword dough mixing hook for this but hand mixing is just as good and more authentic).

Transfer your dough to a flat surface (your clean kitchen table is fine) stretch the dough into an oblong, then fold one edge into the centre and the other over that. Now fit the dough into the tin, pressing it firmly all round the edges, so that the top will be slightly rounded. Next, sprinkle the surface with a generous dusting of flour, then cover with a damp, clean tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 - 40 minutes or at room temperature for about an hour. If your making two loaves, divide the dough in half before following the steps above and folding it into two tins.

Meanwhile, pre-eat the oven to 200oC. When the dough is risen to the top of your tin/s, bake the bread for 40 minutes for the 2 lb or 30 mins for the two 1 lb loaves. When the bread is cooked, turn it out of its tin/s, turn it out on a cloth to protect your hands - it will sound hollow when wrapped underneath with your knuckles. Then return the bread, out of its tin/s, upside-down to the oven for a further5 - 10 minutes to crisp the base and sides.

Cool the bread on a wire rack, and never put it away or freeze it until its absolutely cold!

Summer Solstice - the end of a busy year

2009-12-22T13:21:00.005+11:00

This year we celebrated Summer Solstice, or Litha, before the 21st December, last Saturday in fact, with our friends, a lovely BBQ under the oak tree, until it rained! That's the Blue Mountains and Climate Change for you LOL. I must admit that the rain pleases me, living so close to the Blue Mountains World Heritage National Park, hot summers make me twitchy about bush fire.

Summer Solstice signals the end of the year in Australia, school has finished, so has uni, nervous students are awaiting the results of their end of year exams on the beach while their parents madly scrabble to organise Christmas or Chanukah (Hanukkah). We all go to end of year parties, catch up with people we haven't seen all year because our lives are stupidly busy; and say good bye to another year with the hope that the next one will be different than the last.

Everyone is gearing up for some sort of summer break, though much less than in the past as Australians work far more than they should, its depressing that so many let the summer slide by without paying it any attention.

I'm looking forward to our two week holiday as this has been a huge year for us. We sold our house, bought a new one, packed, moved, both of us studied part-time and our work places were incredibly busy and not that fun to be in. I became a registered Civil Marriage Celebrant and got a business coach, Terri Cook of SuccessZone, to help me get the business up and running.

We hope to spend our summer holiday in the garden destroying the jasmine that the former owners let take over the garden. We have cleared at least half, but as our garden is big, there's still loads to do. We hope to create a small pond and build our own small stone henge from rocks taken from our former garden. Not sure if we'll achieve all of this as I also hope to get back into the studio to continue my Saloon Girl outfit. Really need three months, not two weeks!

I wish everyone a fabulous end of year festivity, whatever you may be celebrating, I hope the new year brings the joy, success, prosperity and happiness that you are looking for.

Something old, new, borrowed and blue - A marriage registry cover

2009-12-14T11:03:00.008+11:00

I'm working with a business coach for the next year to help establish Blue Mountains Celebrations, I'm using Terri Cook (@TerriCook on Twitter) of SuccessZone and she is brilliant, I am learning lots and gaining confidence as I go. Terri sets me many tasks each week, all based around getting me into the Blue Mountains Celebrations business mode. Some of them are extremely practical but others are creative projects.

Terri set me the task to create something for my business using the creative skills I use for quilting and costuming. I thought about an item of clothing, but it didn't excite me and then at a GTG yum cha with my celebrant group Janette mentioned that she'd like a Marriage Registry cover, both to protect it and to make it special. My heart said, 'that's it' and I went on to create it.

For those of you who don't know, the Marriage Register is where your marriage details are entered and kept for posterity, once full, its returned to Birth Deaths and Marriages and kept for ever. If you have ever done family history searches, you may have used one in your search. The Register will out live me and all my couples, so it needs to be protected and kept clean and safe.

I went to my fabric stash and had a hunt for suitable fabrics, I have lots of fabric, laces, ribbons, braids, left over from my mother's wedding and ball gown couturier business, amongst them I found some perfect fabric and trims. As I'm a quilter, I decided to use these skills to make the cover. As this is my first cover I chose a traditional theme 'Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue'. I also made a book mark/place holder from a lovely blue woven braid and tassels.

It was a great project and gave me much pleasure. I know a business plan is more practical, but making this cover made my heart sing and let me see how my creativity could be used to enhance the business.

The positive thing from this is that Janette has commissioned me to make one, which is a bonus, and I will investigate interest and maybe there is a handmade product for Etsy so 'watch this space'!

Tipsy Christmas cake

2009-12-01T18:45:00.005+11:00

I missed Stir-Up Sunday this year but I did get my Christmas cake made before December. I use my mother's recipe and I have blogged about it on Edna's Recipe's, the blog I have set up for my mum's recipes.

I love this recipe, I stray from it occasionally but always return, as it is such a delicious and no fuss recipe. Try it, you will enjoy it.

Saloon Girl outfit

2009-11-25T16:12:00.004+11:00

With the renaissance gown completed, well almost, certainly my part is done, M is finishing off the trimming and embroidery, I'm now moving onto the Victorian era and am making up Laughing Moon's Saloon Girl outfit as a precursor to making a bustle gown. I'm making it for an event next year, but also to get a feel of the fitted style of the time in an easy manner.

Women entertainers, Hurdy Girls, Soiled Doves and other Ladies of the Evening were mostly making their way in the oldest profession open to women with no money, prostitution. With my outfit I am aiming for entertainer, actress and professional beauty (read courtesan). To quote Shooting Star History

"These women could move amongst the "proper women" in town. They would dress everyday or on the street, much as a well-to-do lady "back east" would dress. On stage however, they had some rather "racy" costumes for the time. These were often featured on "tobacco cards" found in cigarettes in the 1880-early 1900's."

So I'm making a 'racy' costume for the stage and will attempt not to lower my moral stance as I do so.

Italian renaiisance gown update - hemming metres of fabric

2009-11-24T22:48:00.003+11:00

The project is coming to an end, on Sunday, in the 41oC heat, we sat and hemmed the under gown, the over gown and the lining, over 15 metres of hemming. It was a lovely day, doing a task that women have done for over a thousand years, hand stitching a gown to wear, dreaming of completion, looking forward to a new gown and the pleasure of wearing it.

Earlier posts on the creation of this gown at underpinnings, bodice, sleeves and under gown, cartridge pleats.

Here a few pictures we took on the day:

There will be one more post on the gown, with photos of its presentation at the event it has been created for.....

Cartridge pleats for the Italian Renaisance gown

2009-11-23T20:30:00.005+11:00

We are on the final leg of making this gown, we are onto the outer skirt, creating the cartridge pleats and attaching it to the bodice. For those of you who have arrived via google you can find the rest of the posts on the gown creation at underpinnings, bodice, sleeves and under gown.

I hadn't made cartridge pleats before, my gowns so far have been much earlier in the period and only box pleats were required, so I went hunting for a good tutorials and found a number of them, but two stand out, Elizabethan Costume and Reconstructing History . I found them really easy to do, in fact, its the way I was taught to gather by my mum, two rows of gathering, three if you want a really good finish. The difference with cartridge pleats is that the gathering stitches are much wider, the width of my thumb.

To stitch the skirt to the bodice I used a waxed linen thread that I found amongst my mother's old sewing notions, it's brand name is Barbour's, the packet says they have been making linen thread since 1784. I went and googled it and you can still buy it today, pretty amazing, that's 225 years of linen thread making for hand stitching.

Italian renaissance gown: the sleeves and under gown

2009-11-04T20:10:00.008+11:00

The next installment in M's renaissance gown has been the creation of the sleeves and the under gown/skirt over winter. Both of us have been extremely busy and so its taken us a while to find time to work on our project.

For the creation of the underpinnings and bodice just use the links.

The sleeves were based on a set of mine that I had drafted and constructed last year for a gown of my own, you can see the 'how to' in Sleeves for the Gown. These sleeves are still a work in progress, more beading and embroidery will be added by M who is a first class embroiderer.

The under gown has been created from a lovely piece of silk gold damask, the top skirt will be split to expose this lovely fabric. We didn't have enough to make the whole skirt so we used a lovely yellow linen found in a second hand shop, it had just the right hand for the tiny pleating at the back and the heavy damask took the box pleating well. We had enough damask to put around the back so if the top skirt lifts, the gold will show, not the yellow linen. The gown has side plackets and fabric ties for fastening. The skirt has a lovely structure over the farthingale. You can see these details in the following images.

Onto the cartridge pleats post --->

Beltane NOT halloween

2009-10-30T21:02:00.004+11:00

Tomorrow is the 31st October and many Australians are preparing for Halloween, preparing to dress ghoulishly and to go 'trick or treating' but in Australia the great wheel of the seasons has turned to spring, the start of summer and the season of heat, light and fire and Saturday is Beltane - the festival of fire - summer, fertility and renewal, not that of autumn and endings.

The loss of understanding of seasonal festivities to commercialism is sad and depressing. If we lose our understanding of the seasons and the great turning of the wheel of the year, we lose our sense of the natural world in which we live.

So tomorrow, we will be celebrating Beltane, with fire, candles and champagne cocktails and a house warming - we will celebrate the god and goddess's great marriage, welcoming new growth, fertility, love and light into our house and our lives.

Why not do the same?

National Ride to Work Day

2009-10-14T14:57:00.003+11:00

'I rode my bike, I'm free today', to misquote Old Man Luedecke.

Today is National Ride to Work Day, a day to celebrate sustainability and getting to work under your own steam by bike. I ride my bike a lot, particularly for any distance under 5 kilometres because that's the distance we most drive in our cars and its also the distance easiest to cycle in the same amount of time, well almost.

I don't work on Wednesday, well not at my day job, Wednesday is for study, my celebrant business, Blue Mountains Celebrations, and breaking up the commuting week into Sydney. So I caught the train up to Katoomba, met a twitter friend for brunch, did some food shopping and cycled home, through sleet, rain, fierce winds and finally sunshine. It was a terrific ride, I was well protected by my rain gear and it was blissful riding in the elements as opposed to out of them in a car.

You know your alive when the wind whips your face and you breath comes hard as you climb a hill. Cycling is as close to heaven as it gets for me, yes, I curse the hills at times and the weather, but to get someplace with your legs and bike wheels, its a perfect human/machine interface.

So, get on your bike, discover the joys of riding someplace under your own steam, when you get there you can feast on cake and hot chocolate because you've earned it.

Moving house

2009-09-26T15:07:00.006+10:00

Spring has sprung and the weather is windy and changeable and full of the scent of wild flowers and all the garden flowers coming into bud and I have been absent from Blue Mountain Bliss while we moved house.

We have moved further 'up the hill' to a small two bedroom cottage, we wanted to reduce our household footprint and we have done just that, however, deciding what to bring, what to sell and what to give away, has taken a considerable amount of decision making. Then packing everything up that remained, packing, packing, packing until we were heartily sick of it all! Finally the moving day and the excitement of unpacking everything and putting everything in its new place in the new space.

Thankfully we had two weeks of leave to do it all and it has meant that apart from our books, which need a wall bookcase made for them (we have over 100 book boxes), everything is unpacked (well mostly) and we are nicely settled in our new home.

The new house is a 1950's fibro cottage, it was originally built as a company holiday home, which is probably why it feels so joyful and happy. The cottage has a lovely sun room that is perfect for cold winter days, a good sized lounge room with a slow combustion fire, an original 1950's kitchen that we love, two reasonably sized bedrooms and a bathroom. The laundry is outside, functional, with old fashioned cement tubs, great for dyeing fabric, plus there is a small 'bloke's shed' and outbuildings for the bikes. Even better, we have retained our studio space as there is a large two room studio at the back of the block for all our arts and crafts and for the occasional guest to come for a visit. Perfect!

The cats settled in immediately, helped by the fact that we were here everyday in the first two weeks I think. We are extremely happy, we are much closer to our friends and the mid-mountains suits us much better.

Italian renaissance gown update - The bodice

2009-08-24T20:07:00.014+10:00

Onto the gown construction, you can see the underpinnings in the earlier blog post.

We were inspired by La Signora Onorata Katerin da Brescia's post on making a similar outfit, however, we morphed into a later period as we went along, more 1560's, something like Laurie Tavan's gown on the Realm of Venus. As this outfit isn't for the SCA or other re-creation event, rather its for a history demonstration and English lesson, so we're happy to create a generic gown of the time, using the painting and others as a style guideline.

We chose a lovely dark green cotton velvet for the outer gown with a lighter cotton for lining. M is an embroiderer and is working on all the trims for the gown and underpinnings. Haven't any photos of these decorative articles as yet.

We used the Corset generator to create the bodice.

Fitting of the toile:

The bodice was made up of three layers, outer fashion fabric, lining and denim to reinforce the bodice. I also boned the bodice using cable ties, we were aiming for smooth, flat front of the late Renaissance period.

Front of the completed bodice

Back of bodice, note the back V point, this is typical of Venetian gowns of the period

Close up of spiral back side lacing, we used the Zen of spiral lacing tutorial to get it right, we also used this for the corset.

Draping of fabric to get an idea of the skirt, the pins look like a jeweled girdle

Onto the sleeves and undergown ---->

Italian renaissance gown update - Underpinnings

2009-08-24T18:56:00.012+10:00

Over the winter M and I have been creating her Italian renaissance gown, I posted the start of the project in May under 16th century corset and cheese toasties but haven't done an update since then. We made all the underpinnings first, camica, corset and farthingale:

We used Festive Attyre's Italian camica pattern (the corset M has on in the piccie is mine).

We used the Elizabethan Costume corset generator and rope for boning technique as suggested on the site, it gives a softer line than cable ties.

We made the farthingale using the Renaissance Tailor instructions and interpretation of Juan Alcega's Tailors Pattern Book

Haven't got a picture of the bum roll but you can get the sense of it under the farthingale in this photo:

Onto the making of the Bodice .....>

Hot and spicy Mexican Bean Mix for nachos

2009-08-15T16:30:00.004+10:00

Mexican tex mex nachos are a staple in our house and the 'wife' makes a fabulous one, so she is starring in today's blog post. You can contact her @cyclewitch on Twitter. We had the one pictured with Beez Neez honey beer - perfick! (to quote Sid Larkin from The darling buds of May) which we often do in this house.

J-L’s hot and spicy Mexican Bean Mix for nachos

Ingredients:

For the chilli beans:

one onion - finely chopped
fresh coriander root, minced or finely chopped
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
1 fresh birdseye chilli, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ‘Italian herbs’ (or a mix of parsley, sage and tarragon)
1 teaspoon of ground coriander powder
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of vinegar
1-2 tablespoons good quality oil (Preferably olive oil)
Two tins (400gms) chopped tomatoes
1 tin (40 gms) red kidney beans or pinto beans (or around 1 and ½ cups of soaked, pre-cooked kidney beans) – drain and rinse tinned beans before use
1 tin of re-fried bean mix (‘Amy’s’ make a lovely organic one which I use)
Tobasco sauce to tastes
1 to 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese

Salsa’s

1 to 2 ripe avocadoes
2 medium fresh tomatoes
½ red onion – finely chopped
1 to 2 cloves garlic
White wine vinegar
Juice of ½ a lemon
Pinch of salt and pick of pepper
Handful of fresh coriander leaves – finely chopped

Sour cream or light sour cream

Method:

Bean Mix:
Heat the oil in a large saucepan or deep dish frypan, then add chilli flakes, dry herbs, coriander powder and pepper. Fry these dry ingredients for a couple of minutes to get the aromatics going, then add onions, fresh coriander root and fresh chilli and vinegar. Add the salt at this time as well to keep the onions ‘clear’.

Keep frying the mix on medium heat until onions are soft but still clear, not browned, then add refried beans and rinsed beans.

If you like the ‘whole bean’ look, keep the beans whole and mix refried beans into mix first. If you like a smoother, less lumpy mix, crush the whole beans a bit on your hand as you add them.

Mix the beans in and let them heat and fry just a little, then add the tomatoes and mix thoroughly. Taste and decide wether you want more chilli and if so, use tobasco sauce to augment. Adjust the heat up or down to maintain the mix at a simmer until it is the thickness you prefer.

This mix will serve at least 4 people.

Salsas:
Tomato and onion Salsa:
Mix onions, and coriander in a serving bowl and add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Let the onion mix pickle for a few minutes while you make the guacamole and chop the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes and mix them in just before serving.

Guacamole:
Mix avocado and crushed garlic and salt and pepper with a fork to form a rough paste, then mix in lemon juice. You can keep mixing and crushing with the fork until you have a nice, smooth paste if you prefer. Note that this method only works if your avocado is nice and soft and ripe.

To Serve:
Put a tablespoon or two of the mix in individual shallow bowls (eg: pasta bowls) to just coat the surface, and cover with corn chips (please – not the flavoured ones!). Top with grated cheese and grill until cheese is just turning brown and crispy.

Cover the middle of the cheese coated corn chips with hot bean mix ready to top with Salsas and sour cream.

The same principals can be used for tachos, fajita’s, and enchiladas, or you can serve the bean mix with melted cheese and sour cream as a pre-dinner or cocktail accompanied dip.

Enjoy!

Hip Pocket Sustainability

2009-07-18T20:08:00.003+10:00

We have spent the last eight years tweeking our 40 year old suburban house from an non-sustainable one, to a house that helps to save both the planet and our hip pocket through economic and environmental sustainability measures.

We have decided to move on however, as this house has too big a foot print for two people and so we have bought a much smaller cottage further up the mountain.

We wanted to tell potential buyers what we had done to the house and I thought I'd share these tips on Blue Mountain Bliss so others may be inspired to do the same. We are looking forward to doing it all again (and more) at out new (old) cottage.

Hip pocket sustainability

Solar Power generation system of 1Kilowatt per hour – enough to power the whole house and all modern appliances during the day and sometimes put power back into the grid, so you only pay for power for part of the night.

Solar Powered Hot Water System, with Gas booster – hot water on tap all the time, heated by the sun, and boosted by efficient natural gas for those rainy days or a relaxing spa bath after work.

10,000 Litre Rainwater Tanks – Sparkling fresh rain water, filtered three times before the tank to prevent contaminants like leaves etc. Linked to the mains so you never run out of water, but only pay for it when the tanks run dry. Flushes the loos, washes your clothes, and wets the dishes all for free, and good enough to drink through the chemical-free-filtered kitchen tap. Powered by a small pump to ensure the rainwater gets upstairs with no hassles.

Full insulation in ceiling and underfloor – makes sure the heat you generate in winter stays inside to keep you warm in winter and in summer stops heat from entering from outside.

Whirly gig in roof – spins to extract hot air from your roof space if summer heat does start to creep in.

Silicone strengthened external bagging – the bagging itself tends to protect brickwork but the improvement of adding silicone to the mix ensures it repels heat from the outside and stops heat from leaching though the bricks from inside in winter. When we had this done a couple of years ago, the summer temperature inside the house dropped by about 3-4 degrees.

Natural Gas upstairs and down and gas cooking in the kitchen – Using natural gas has been reported to be more economical, more fuel efficient, and less costly to the environment than electricity, so if there’s been too little sun to make excess power with the solar panels, and you don’t have time to build up the slow combustion fire, you can heat the house cheaply with natural gas.

All these measures mean that living in our house costs considerably less than living in a conventional 3 bedroom house of this size. We have outlaid the cost of fitting these systems. The purchaser will get all the benefits of them.

Black pepper cookies

2009-07-13T20:36:00.004+10:00

Another lot of baking to lure potential buyers to make an offer on our house, these spice biscuits certainly provided the right enticing scent for the open house.

These cookies and I go back a long way, back to my student days when I was experimenting with so many different choices and lifestyle ideas, especially vegetarianism, politics and feminism, not necessarily in that order.

I bought The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook in a second hand bookshop, as you do when your a student (and still do) and to quote its introduction Here is a cookery book full of imaginative ideas for well-balanced meals without meat!

It was a great book for a young cook, with easy and different bread recipes such as wholemeal bread, stollen, soda bread, muffins, crumpets to name but a few and flipping through the pages I can be reminded of a former 'me' who made comments like 'scrummy', 'good for a dinner party', 'nice supper dish' (who was that young woman I wonder?) and on top of Black Pepper Cookies 'superb' which indeed they are. To quote the book again This is an American recipe and these excitingly spiced chocolate cookies, with their sophisticated flavour and just a hint of pepper are ideal to serve for afternoon tea or after-dinner coffee

I think they are like Dutch Speculaa cookies, perhaps they were adapted from them by an newly arrived Dutch immigrant to the USA, replacing pepper for ginger and adding chocolate?

Preparation and cooking time: 1 hour
Makes about 36 cookies ( I made about 42 this time)
Preheat oven to fairly hot 190oC.
Lightly grease your baking sheet/s with butter and set aside.

Ingredients
3/4 cup butter
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar (I've always used raw sugar)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cocoa

In your mixing bowl, cream butter with the pepper, cinnamon, cloves and vanilla together with wooden spoon until the mixture is soft. Beat in the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Sift the flour and cocoa into the bowl and blend the dry ingredients thoroughly with the butter and sugar mixture until a firm dough is formed. The mixture really needs a bit of effort as there's not much liquid, best to use your hands at this point to get the dough mixed.

Roll spoonfuls of the dough into balls about 1" in diameter. Place the balls onto your baking sheet, leaving about 1 1/2" between them, though these biscuits don't spread that much. With the heel of your hand, or a fork to give a nice decoration, gently flatten the dough balls to about 1/4" thick.

Place baking sheet in the centre of the oven and bake for 12 minutes.

Remove from baking sheet, cool on a wire rack.

Try not to eat them all at once, but trust me, that's a hard call!

Porridge for winter

2009-07-08T20:02:00.007+10:00

Its cold, I seem to be cycling through one winter bug to the next one, hence my silence of late and lack of blog entries since Winter Magic, but the thing that keeps me going on the cold, dark mornings is sitting down to a large steaming bowl of hot and creamy porridge.

Porridge is such a lovely breakfast cereal for winter, in summer I make my own toasted muesli, but in winter its porridge. I make it the way my mum taught me and she learnt from my Scottish grandparents, so its traditional but still surprisingly quick and easy even on a work weekday morning. The family trick is to soak your rolled oats overnight in the pot with water, this softens the oats so they cook quickly and go delightfully creamy and smooth.

Porridge is best with organic old style oats, don't waste time on packet mixes or 'quick oats', get real oats or as @tomatom says on his Tomato blog 'I buy the cheapest home brand rolled oats. And I cook them slowly, which is the key.' here our methods differ as mine is relatively quick, however his method is a good one, so check it out.

Porridge like my Scottish grandmother made
1 cup rolled oats (I use organic and she probably did too in pre WWII Oz)
2 cups water
Salt - a good pinch

Put the oats, salt and water into your pot, a good heavy bottomed one is best. Leave overnight to soak on the stove. In the morning, put a slow flame underneath it, stir occasionally, the porridge is ready when its thick, creamy and making slow plopping sounds, this takes about 15 minutes and then you have two large bowls of creamy, smooth porridge to serve up and eat.

My family's traditional way of serving porridge is a lovely way to eat it, put a large dob of real butter in the bottom of your bowl, pour your cooked porridge over this, sprinkle on brown sugar and then pour in some cream, eat and enjoy!

I vary the above method at times by adding dried fruit to soak overnight, but if I do this, I don't add sugar or butter when I serve it, but add yogurt instead and maybe some milk. I also add add some nuts and seeds at times, but mostly its butter, brown sugar and cream. Perfect!

Then there's savory porridge but that's a post for another time.

Winter Magic 2009

2009-06-21T17:25:00.010+10:00

This weekend is Winter Magic in the Blue Mountains and we joined in as always and enjoyed celebrating winter solstice with the mountains community and visitors from Sydney and elsewhere. The festival is always magically and this year was no different, great bands, great events, the parade was fantastic and so many of us were dressed up and sharing in the spirit of the day.

The 'wife' and I were inspired by the Victorian Farm that has been running on BBC Knowledge and we went as Scottish middle class farmers, sadly I took no photos, but many others did of us, but no-one we know so nothing for the blog but I took some great shots of the day.

Edna's peanut cookies

2009-06-08T20:51:00.011+10:00

Our Queen's birthday long weekend was busy and delightful, its so nice to have a long weekend to spend more time with friends and in the studio and although we were out and about quite a lot, I also got to spend time in the kitchen and to do some baking. Also, as we have our house on the market, I thought the smell of baked biscuits might be a good touch to push a prospective buyer towards a sale, it what all the 'how to sell your house' stuff says at least.

I decided to use my mum's peanut cookie recipe Edna's Recipes. Raw, unsalted peanuts are an essential ingredient in these biscuits and give them their unique taste. I don't know where she got the recipe from, it feels like an American recipe, its certainly pre-WWII. The smell of those biscuits cooking transported me right back to my childhood and the pleasure of stealing the raw mixture from the bowl and being in the kitchen with mum while she cooked.

I won't rewrite the recipe here as you can get it on Edna's Recipes blog, but I'll go through the method with some photos.

The mixture in the bowl after all the ingredients are mixed together

Roll the pastry into balls that are golf ball size and then flatten them, the mixture doesn't spread that much, so flatten them well.

The smell of baking biscuits did indeed float through the house and did indeed tempt a buyer, so fingers crossed, they may have done their tick, thanks mum!

World environment day 2009

2009-06-03T19:27:00.002+10:00

Renew

Reuse

Recycle

Remember we only have ONE planet, let's not destroy it.

16th century corset making & cheese toasties

2009-05-31T16:22:00.011+10:00

M and I are working on her Florentine outfit based loosely around Vincenzo Catena's Portrait of the Unknown Lady.

We were inspired by La Signora Onorata Katerin da Brescia's post on making a similar outfit. We aren't going to follow the painting's gown exactly, rather we'll use it as a model for the style as this outfit isn't for the SCA or other re-creation event, so we're happy to create a generic gown of the time, using the painting as a style guideline.

So far we have made her camica using Festive Attyre's excellent instructions. This happened last year, but in-between work, a long trip to France, summer holidays and then work once again intervened and so we have just commenced on her corset.

We used the online corset generator on Elizabethan Costume to draft our pattern, another fabulous resource for costume and recreation dress makers. To bone the corset we are going back to Festive Attyre to use the Boning with hemp cord instructions. I have already made myself a camica and corset using the above methods, so it was all pretty smooth sailing the second time through and I have a photo of them as my Twitter background.

So here it is ready to be threaded with twine, can't get hemp rope so we are using a natural twine, its a tad hairy but it worked fine in mine. . We have used four layers, two inner layers of moleskin for stability and the outer layers are a lovely golden tapestry and a black moleskin so it can be reversible. When she's finished threading it, I'll put a piccie up.

To see the rest of the gown's development visit this blog entry for the next installment.

We finished our winter avo of sewing with cheese toasties, no-one probably needs a recipe for these, but just in case, here's our vegetarian version:

To make one cheese toastie:

2 slices organic bread, we used sourdough spelt and rye
Thin slices of a good tasty cheese, enough to fill your sandwich
Thin slices of organic red onion, as above
Thin slices of organic tomatoes (straight from your garden is the best)

I don't use butter, the cheese has enough fat, but use if you like it. Make the sandwich, put into your sandwich grill and cook until cheese is melted and bread is toasted brown. Serve hot, we serve it with home made dill pickles and fefferoni. Scrumptious!

We ate them so quickly, I didn't get a chance to take a photo, corset making is exhausting work !

Not buying it birthday presents

2009-05-26T19:54:00.007+10:00

It was my birthday over the weekend and I was really pleased that my friends worked in the spirit of our not buying it year with their presents.

K & S gave me the most wonderful green silk scarf from their own stash of scarves, D & S a present of 12 bottles of home made cider, which is as good as the organic home brewed cider we had in Brittany last year, their kids made me fabulous birthday cards with stickers and glitter, and my friend in Germany made me a recipe book that she entitled German Cooking.

In her card she says 'Since you are "not buying it" this year I would like to present you with a home made gift. I collected ten German recipes that are very cheap to make ... they derive from times when Germans had to make ends meet and use whatever they had including yesterday's leftovers. I hope they will add a new flavour to your cooking".

The book is full of fabulous recipes such as Elderberry Soup, Nudelauflauf, Poor Knights, et al and over this year I shall make each and everyone and blog about them. For those of you that have been reading Edna's Recipes, my blog about my mother's cooking, you'll know my heritage is German.

I am extremely pleased to have been given such creative, thoughtful, hand made and recycled presents.

Live local challenge

2009-05-20T19:18:00.006+10:00

Blue Mountain Bliss is dedicated to the Think Global Act Local philosophy and the newly launched live local challenge, is a fabulous local initiative running in Sydney this week.

The challenge has been created to highlight the importance of living locally to ensure a sustainable Sydney into the future and to challenge us all to reduce, reuse and recycle, grow our own food and make our local community a part of our lives, rather than be separate from it.

The challenge was launched last night at Table 20 in Surry Hills and you can read about the fabulous locally sourced food and drink that was enjoyed on the blog.

The first two participants, Rebecca Varidel (yes, the Rebecca of the ANZAC biscuits post) and Kate Carruthers, are challenged to:

meet their neighbours and the people who work in their community
eat delicious food grown as close to where they live as possible
minimise the use of fossil fuels, especially for transport*

* This will be the hardest one for a lot of people. Walking, bicycles and public transit are good ways to reduce (and to keep you closer to your own neighbourhood!). But this challenge is about experimenting and being creative, not about absolutes. ( Live Local blog).

Both will Twitter @frombecca and @kcarruthers and blog their experiences during the seven days of the challenge, Rebecca at livelocalchallenge.blogspot.com and Kate at katecarruthers.com/blog .

Each of them will tackle it in their own way and I recommend you follow them on Twitter, read their blog posts and give them heaps of encouragement and pointers to useful resources if you can.

You can join the challenge this week as well, just send an email to info AT livelocal DOT org DOT au and tell them when you're starting or post a comment on their blog.

The Live Local challenge has similarities to Get Up's Climate Action Now initiative that we participated in back in 2007.

Edna's recipes

2009-05-13T20:16:00.004+10:00

Its turning into a beautiful autumn in the Blue Mountains, the European trees are changing to their brilliant autumnal browns, yellows and oranges, fragrant wood smoke from slow combustion stoves scents the air and the mists are filling the valleys. I love the seasonal nature of where I live.

I have been away from Blue Mountain Bliss blog for a week as I've been busy with study, work, and house hunting, all time consuming occupations taking me away from the blog sphere and my kitchen and studio.

However, I haven't stopped writing and I have been creating another blog, a blog in remembrance of my mother and her cooking, I've called it Edna's Recipes as its a cyber record of my mother's hand written recipes between the 1930's to the 1970's. So why not go and visit it and read about the 'make do and mend' generation and how her cooking reflected her love for me, my father and my siblings. Happy mother's day.

Celebrating the Celtic New Year with apples and pumpkin

2009-05-03T10:57:00.009+10:00

Last night we celebrated the Celtic new year, Samhain, with mulled wine, good food and great friends. The 'wife' carved out a pumpkin lantern for our entry hall and we surrounded it with locally grown apples, nuts and pomegranates, all the bounty of the autumn harvest.

The 'wife' also made a delicious mulled red wine, based on Ypocras , a middle ages recipe, where red wine is simmered with fruit, honey and spices. Her version was cinnamon, Whisk and Pin dried fruit compote (made in the Blue Mountains), allspice powder, fresh ginger, fresh orange slices, brown sugar, sherry, and a little bit of rose, it was rich and aromatic, perfect to toast in the new year.

We set the table with golden colours and candles and had red and yellow candles lit throughout the sitting room.

Our feast started with nuts, pecamole made by me, cheeses brought by K & S and champagne by J1 & J2.

Our dinner was a Moroccan styled apple and pumpkin dish that I sourced on the inter web and I won't re-post. I made two versions, one with chicken and one with white beans for our vegetarian, both worked with the spices, apple and pumpkin. It was a very old world dish with no potatoes or tomatoes, but the new world was represented by paprika, and I added a fresh red chili and a large glug of Riesling. It was served with cous cous mixed with mint, green peas and pomegranate seeds and a green salad. I didn't take a photo of either sadly, but the cous cous looked bejeweled, I should have used some edible gold leaf as well.

Desert was up-side-down ginger and pear cake, I did take a belated picture after we had eaten half of it!

Now the making if this cake has a tale. Earlier in the day we went to Two Front Doors for breakfast, they make the best coffee and food in the mid-mountains. Dave Clarke, the chef and owner, has recipe books to flip through, I found this recipe and copied it out and tucked it in my pocket, but later when I went to find it, I'd lost it! I was saved, of course, by the inter-web, and found a good recipe on Epicurious.com . The original, but lost, recipe suggests serving it with creme fraiche and this was an excellent foil to the very sweet but flavoursome, pudding like cake.

Happy New Year all, may the new year bring you joy, delight and happiness - merry met all!

Baked veggie soup for Samhain

2009-05-01T17:45:00.006+10:00

Its Samhain, all hallows eve, or halloween, in the southern hemisphere tonight, a time to reflect and to remember our ancestors.

Its also cold, I have a cold and I want soup and soup is a perfect autumn meal for tonight.

Commercial ventures have us celebrating halloween at the same time as the northern hemisphere, but the 31st October is Beltane in the southern hemisphere, a time for lovers and weddings, not a time for remembering our ancestors.

We're having our celebratory Samhain feast tomorrow night with friends, so tonight's soup is a bowl of soul food to warm us on this night of remembrance. Traditional foods for Samhain include beetroot, turnips, squash, apples, corn, nuts, gingerbread, cider, pomegranates, mulled wines and pumpkin dishes.

I have a dish of left-over baked veg begging to be used and good, home made chicken stock in the freezer. These veggies are a combination of onions, carrots, potatoes and pumpkin, perfect for tonight. It helps me remember my parents, Edna and Don, who came from the 'make do and mend' generation.

To make 'left-over' soup, I don't use a recipe, but there is a basic method to it, if you want something more precise, my friend Cath's recipe on The Canberra Cook for her Leftover Roast Something Soup will hold you in good stead.

For tonight's soup I used half a litre of my home made chicken stock and combined it with the baked veggies in a saucepan.

Depending on the number of leftover veggies, you may need to use more stock, it also depends how thick, or thin, you like your soup.

I then added half a glass of white wine. I didn't season until the end as the veg were baked in organic olive oil, sea salt, ground pepper, rosemary from the garden and lemon juice. You can add extra herbs, more garlic and onion (chopped finely and gently sauteed first), some ginger is nice or chili.

I brought the stock and veg to the boil, dropped to a slow simmer, cooked gently for about 30 minutes, or until the flavours combine.

I let it cool, checked for seasoning and then whizzed the whole thing in the blender, when ready to serve, I gently reheat.

You can add a dollop of yogurt or sour cream to each soup bowl and serve with organic sourdough toast smothered in organic butter - perfect.

Every time I make this soup its slightly different, it depends on the veggies used and the colour will vary. Tonight's a beautiful orange colour and very flavourful, perfect for Samhain.

Merry met all!

Fairisle vest completed

2009-04-28T21:08:00.005+10:00

I am struck down with a nasty cold lurgy and not up to much, so this is a short and brief post on the 'wife's' fabulous fairisle vest that she recently completed. She designed the pattern herself and it is knitted from wool leftover from other jumpers, so a real 'not buying it' delight.

She started it back in February and the sox I started at the same time have gone nowhere, but I have completed a quilt, more on that later.

Baking ANZAC biscuits

2009-04-20T17:39:00.008+10:00

It's the last day of my holiday and a wet and dismal one at that, so to cheer myself up, and avoid the back-to-work ironing pile, I decided to make some seasonal ANZAC biscuits.

I don't have a sacred family recipe handed down from nanna, to mum, to me, so I used the recipe from Becca's Bakery blog, it's her family recipe, pretty typical of all ANZAC biscuit recipes out there on the inter-web and easy-peasy to whip up a batch. They turned out well and are delicious.

If your looking for something 'authoritative', here's a link to the ANZAC recipe on the Australian War Memorial site.

What with easter buns and eggs, home made spiced buns, sweeties bought at the royal easter show and now ANZAC biscuits, its been worse than christmas! I will have to exercise non-stop and count calories madly over the next few weeks.

Update on biscuits - 24 April
I took them into work today and my colleagues gobbled them up with glee and high praise 'best ones I've ever had' said one - quite chuffed really, especially as one of them exhibits at the Royal Easter Show and is a very fine baker herself.

Too many zucchinis

2009-04-19T16:14:00.013+10:00

When I went shopping at the Co-Op last week I bought a pile of locally grown zucchinis as they looked so gloriously green and plump. What to do with too many zucchinis then?

I dislike zucchini bread and cake but I remembered a moussaka in Elizabeth David's Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen that used zucchinis in place of eggplant. I'd seen it when I was hunting out easter bun recipes last week. It required a pound of zucchini so I blissfully thought this would use up my pile - sadly not, not even by half.

Then on Twitter through links frombecca I found Zπατάτες με κολοκυθάκια or Patates meh Kololythakia sto Fourno: Baked Zucchini & Potatoes with Feta Cheese which easily used up the rest and I set to on this wet Sunday to bake both of them.

While these were baking I hunted out more great zucchini recipes on Epicurean.com.

I altered ED's recipe quite a bit as I already had an organic beef mince ragu and I used this instead of her method for preparing the mince. I didn't add the eggs to the mince either and I added a top layer béchamel sauce with 1/4 cup parmesian and an egg. This was how I was taught to make moussaka by my Greek neighbour when I was a girl.

Courgette musaka [sic] by Elizabeth David
As ED says, the more commonly known version of this dish uses aubergines (eggplants), but sometimes courgettes or potatoes are used instead. She also says that the layers of pale green courgettes in between red and brown of the meat and tomatoes makes this a beautiful looking dish.

Ingredients
1 lb of small courgettes, 1 lb of finely chopped or minced meat which can be lamb or beef, cooked or uncooked,1 1/2 lb tomatoes, a large onion, a glove of garlic, 2 eggs, 4 tablespoons of olive oil, salt, pepper, a teaspoon of finely ground allspice and dried fresh mint, 2 or 3 tablespoons each of stock or bread crumbs

Wash the courgettes but don't peel them. Cut each lengthways into slices about one-eight of an inch thick. Salt them slightly and leave them to drain for an hour or so. Shake them dry in a tea towel, fry them gently in olive oil until they are tender. When all are done, put more oil in the pan and in this fry the finely sliced or chopped onion until it is pale yellow. Put in the meat. If already cooked just stir it around until it is amalgamated with the onion. If it is raw meat let it cook gently for about 10 minutes until it is nicely browned. Add seasonings and herbs and, off the fire, stir in the beaten eggs.

In a separate pan put in the skinned and chopped tomatoes and the crushed garlic clove and simmer until most of the moisture has evaporated. Season with salt and pepper.

Now coat a 2 to 2 1/2 square or round and not too deep cake tine lightly with oil. Put in a layer of courgettes, then one of met, one of tomatoes and so on until all the ingredients are used up, finishing with a rather thick layer of tomatoes. On top sprinkle bread crumbs and then moisten with the stock. Cover the tin and with a piece of foil, with the tin standing on a a baking sheet, in a low oven 330oF, for an hour, but at half-time remove the foil,. If the musaka looks dry add a little stock.

Lynne's quilt - celebrating 25 years of vegan living and our friendship

2009-04-17T16:37:00.009+10:00

My Blogger's Quilt Festival entry, an attic window quilt that celebrates 25 years of vegan living. You can see more photos of it on Flickr.

While I was making the quilt, Lynne was diagnosed with breast cancer, which turned out to be a secondary to a stronger and nastier one in her lower spine and the quilt took on greater significance to both of us, this virulent cancer caused her death, and I am so grateful that I was able to visit her before she died and also that she was able to wrap herself in my quilt as she slowly declined. It went to the hospice with her and the last I heard of it was that it was being exhibited in Scotland by her local friends to promote vegan and animal rights, but sadly I've lost touch with it now.

Lynne Mitchell was a wonderfully strong woman whose life and friendship was extremely influential in my life and to celebrate her 25 years of vegan living I created her a quilt that tried to commemorate her actions and activities over the years. Lynne was a woman who acted on her beliefs and she fought long and hard to get fox hunting declared illegal in Scotland and fought against animal cruelty and promoted their rights to live free of harm from humans. She was also proud that Scotland finally regained its independence from England and had its own parliament and was able to see the new Scottish celtic renaissance.

We met when I lived in England in the '80's and we both influenced each others lives and when I returned to Australia we kept our friendship alive by daily emails and two return visits by me to Scotland. Each attic window in the quilt represents some element of her life, the pink cancer ribbon, the rainbow flag, animals living free from harm, letters to the editor and parliamentarians about fox hunting, logos of the clubs and organisations she belonged to, images of mountains and wilderness as she was a great walker and climber of munros in the Scottish highlands and there are also pictures of her family, friends and beloved cats. The colours of blue and yellow where chosen to match the new colour scheme in her bedroom.

I designed and pieced the quilt and it was quilted by a commercial quilter.

Park City Girl: Calling All Quilters!

2009-04-17T16:14:00.000+10:00

Park City Girl: Calling All Quilters! Amy is creating an online bloggers quilt festival and I intend to participate with one of my quilts, but which one I wonder?

Spiced buns

2009-04-14T19:51:00.006+10:00

Having missed my Easter baking due to our our wet but very enjoyable weekend of camping and cycling in Mudgee, I decided to mix up a batch of spiced buns after the fact.

Now I have to admit that the spiced buns I have made over the years bear no relation to bakery made ones, which makes me wonder if I am a bad bun maker or whether mine are actually more true to the recipe and the bakery ones more bread with spice and dried fruit added to them, mine usually turn out more cakey than bun like, more like german simnel cake or a good quality rock cake.

I wanted an old recipe and had heard about the Albans buns that were having a resurgence, supposedly they have been made for over 1000 years but died out last century, sadly googling failed me, I could find many references to the buns but not to a recipe. According to the BBC, the Alban bun recipe includes "grains of paradise" - cardamom seeds which the BBC says, are credited with giving the bun its "special spicy, medieval taste".

Google having failed me, I turned to Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery, 1977 and used her spiced bun recipe on p.475 and as she firmly says that 'there is no need to restrict the baking of these delicacies to Easter time' I felt that it didn't matter that Easter had passed me by. Also, the formula for the spice blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and white peppercorns sounded suitably 15th century to my mind. She also recommends the addition of cumin to give a 'wonderful warm and attractive flavor, unothodox but well worth trying" Here's her recipe...

To make twenty to twenty-four buns:
1lb to 1lb 20z plain flour, preferably strong (I used wholemeal, biodynamic stone ground flour)
1 oz yeast
4 oz currants (I used the BM co-op mixed fruit mix and also their lemon and orange peel)
A level teaspoon of salt
Approximately 1/2 pint of milk
2 oz of soft light-brown sugar (I used raw caster sugar)
2 oz butter
2 teaspoons of mixed sweet spice (usually ground allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, I used her other spice blend mentioned above, plus I added ground cardamon to simulate the alban bun)
2 whole eggs

For glazing the buns:
2 tablespoons of milk taken from the 1/2 pint above and 2 tablespoons of caster sugar

For preparing the bun trays
Unless they are non-stick a little extra butter and flour are needed

Method:
First warm the milk to blood heat and use a little of it for creaming the yeast.

Warm the flour in a big bowl. Add salt, sugar, spices. Make a well in the centre, pour in creamed yeast, then add the softened butter, the whole eggs, one at a time, and the rest of the milk, or as much as can be absorbed by the dough, which should be soft but not too liquid. Stir or mix by hand until all the ingredients are well amalgamated. Finally add your dried fruit and mix them carefully so they are well and evenly distributed through the dough.

Cover bowl, leave in a warm place for the dough to rise for about 2 hours or until it is doubled in volume and light and fluffy.

Now break the dough down, knead it briefly and break off pieces into twenty or twenty-four balls of similar size. ED says to use bun molds, I don't have these so used a lightly buttered baking sheet (cooks note: I also only managed to get 16 pieces which I placed onto the tray with space in-between so they could rise again and double in volume), leave in a warm place - a steamy atmosphere is good for buns - until once more grown and doubled in volume. When they are ready they should feel soft and light to the touch.

Bake the buns in the centre of a fairly hot oven 375oF to 400oF for 15 to 20 minutes.

To make the glaze:
Just before the buns come out of the oven, boil the milk and sugar glaze until it is bubbly and syrupy. Brush buns with this glaze while they are still hot, giving them two successive coatings. According to EB provided the dough was well matured and baked at the right moment, the crusts will e fine and soft, and the glaze will not turn tacky or sticky but will form a fine shinning mirror-like finish to the buns.

Here's one of mine, buttered and waiting to be gobbled up....

Mudgee Bike Muster 2009

2009-04-13T19:26:00.020+10:00

We spent the Easter weekend at the Mudgee Bike Muster with a gaggle of friends and cyclists from many parts of NSW and further afield. The weather was rather inclement for either camping or cycling I'm sad to say with torrential rain, drizzle and mists, but our enthusiasm failed to be dampened and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Even four rear tyre flats on Saturday didn't stop the pleasure, well, perhaps temporarily. Thankfully the weather cleared on Sunday and we had a splendid and dry day in the saddle.

Mudgee is fabulous for cycling, good roads, both dirt and bitumen, beautiful country side, wineries everywhere to rest the weary legs and taste the fruits of the vine, small historic villages with good pubs and cafes to lunch at, gold mining history, great artisans and crafts, farmers markets, very good coffee, lovely local cheeses, olives, hazelnuts, oh and did I mention wine at all?

The Australian Rural Education Centre who organised the Muster for the second year in a row ensured that the weekend was very reasonably priced. They also ensured that the Muster was extremely well organised by enthusiastic, friendly, helpful staff and volunteers and the AREC grounds were a great camping area, the camp ground was good, nice and flat, with powered sites, good drainage (the torrential rain proved that) and plenty of toilets but there was a lack of showers, only seven in all and only three for women but the organisers are onto this and promised to rectify it for next year.

The day rides were paced for all level of riders from mums and dads and their kids, to those wanting to extend themselves and climb a few hills or two and then things for the middle of the roaders like the 'wife' and I. There was also a fun trivia hunt on Sunday afternoon that ensured we got to know the town of Mudgee, including the hard slog up to flirtation hill to count the logs in the protective barriers, we felt extremely pleased with ourselves for coming third in the competition.

We were a bit disappointed by the food provided, especially the dinner option which was an add-on to the cost, none of our group enjoyed it and as Mudgee is a cornucopia of good food and wine we cannot begin to comprehend it at all. Next year we will self-cater.

That aside, the weekend was fabulous, extremely well organised by AREC staff and volunteers, with great rides and like minded cyclist keen to enjoy ourselves regardless of the weather.

Baked beans

2009-04-09T21:44:00.003+10:00

I have to admit to liking tinned baked beans, Heinz or a good organic brand, preferably in tomato sauce. I love them heated and then served over good sourdough toast that has been smothered in organic butter, its a great comfort food and also a relatively healthy and a quick fast food for a busy week night or weekend breakkie.

However, in our 'not buying it' mode, tinned baked beans are an unnecessary expense, especially when home made baked beans are easy to make and are in another category entirely, they are slow food of the best kind, tasty and highly nutritious to boot. So last weekend I made a large batch in the slow cooker and the result is much more flavorsome than tinned beans and also the beans tend to have a bit of an al dente bite to them, rather than being soft and mushy.

I made up my recipe, its evolved over many attempts at making a tomato based, vegetarian, baked beans and its never the same, this version was:

One cup each of navy and black eyed beans as this is what was in the pantry - soaked overnight in plenty of water
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon Soy sauce
700 gms tin tomatoes - chopped finely
1/2 cup maple syrup, organic
Large splash of white wine
Large splash of water
Bay leaf
Pepper to taste
English mustard to taste - i used a teaspoon
Salt to taste - but not till the end of the cooking process

Strain your beans, rinse and put into the slow cooker and add ingredients except salt and pepper, cook until your beans are soft, I usually do this on the lowest setting and cook all day. When your beans are soft and your tomato sauce mixture thick, you can add your salt and pepper.

Sadly I forgot to take a piccie, perhaps when I next take a packet out of the freezer I'll take a snap, its great to have them nicely packed up in two person serves, our own convenience food.

Borsch

2009-04-07T21:40:00.006+10:00

As my last post noted, we had an extremely busy weekend, but thanks to the slow cooker I was able to put together a borsch and a pot of baked beans.

The borsch has come out more orange than deep purple red, partly due to the long cooking time, it bleaches the colour out of the beetroot, and partly because carrots are part of the recipe.

Said recipe comes from my Russian Cookery by Nina Petrovia, a Penguin Handbook, 1968 that I found in a second hand shop many moons ago. As Nina notes, there are many varieties of borsch and its especially popular in south Russia. The main ingredient of borsch is, of course, beetroot, and also more often than not, cabbage. Borsch is often served with pirog which are a form of dumpling or kasha, a buckwheat porridge. I made neither of these and I managed to find the only borsch recipe that didn't have cabbage either.

Clear beetroot borsch
(serves 5)
2 1/2 pts beef stock or water (I used homemade chicken stock)
1/2 pound mixed root veggies (carrot, turnip, parsnip - I used potato, parsnip and carrot)
3/4 lb raw beetroot (I used one bunch of five medium sized beetroot)
1 onion
2 dried mushrooms (optional and I left them out)
2 peppercorns
1 clove garlic
1 bayleaf
juice 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon sugar
salt to taste
1/3 pint sour cream

If you use the dried mushrooms, soak in a little water for several hours before making the soup. The water they have been soaked in can be added to the stock. Peel and wash the veggies and cut them into fine strips (I skipped this step as I intended to blend my soup). Put all veggies, except beetroot and dried mushrooms, into a saucepan with the stock or water (I added a large slosh of white wine as well). Add peppercorns, garlic and bay leaf. Cover and boil for 10 - 15 minutes. Add the beetroot and dried mushrooms and simmer a further 20 - 30 minutes. Salt to taste. Add sugar and lemon juice. Strain and serve with one tab of sour cream per bowl.

As I said above, I used the slow cooker and flung everything in together and it cooked all day and so even when I added the lemon juice at the end it was hard to get the red jewel like colour to return. I also blended my soup and I forgot the sugar.

An art show, a festival and BBQ as well

2009-04-05T17:11:00.006+10:00

Well its been a busy weekend here in my hometown of the Blue Mountains (to misquote Garrison Keillor).

The art show was on Friday night, the BMCC Waste to Art competition awards night and the art works were really amazing as can be seen by the winning entry of the yellow dragon, made, I think, from an old leather couch.

My particular favorite was the Lapstone Primary School's bottle lid mandala, the kids collected all the lids, created the installation during recess and lunch, took photos for the exhibition, pulled it apart and then all the lids were distributed to classrooms for different things like mathematics et al.

The food at the event was excellent, catered for by Luscious, it was vegetarian feast of spinach pies, veggie bake, rice balls, dolmadas, spring rolls, plus a range of great dips and other nibbles.

Saturday it was the Springwood Foundation Day Festival. This is an annual event that celebrates, obviously, the foundation of the village of Springwood, its not as much fun as Winter Magic in Katoomba, but still much fun can be had if you give it a chance. There are lots of stalls run by local community organisations selling homemade jams, cakes, woodwork et al., a parade, stages where local artists perform and a small fun fair for the kiddies with jumping castles et al. I entered the wood turners raffle and won a lovely plate and mug, very pleased with them.

Today we were at a friend's housewarming further up the mountain and she prepared a Caribbean feast of dirty rice, BBQ chicken and fish and salads, it was a fine feast and the deserts of flour-less chocolate cake and mixed berries with a home made carmel yogurt were equally delicious, I must get the recipe.

While we were frolicking, the slow cooker was busy making baked beans on Saturday and borscht today, but more of that in my next post.

Greek influences

2009-04-03T12:32:00.004+11:00

I grew up in the inner west of Sydney, a working class area, and our neighbors were a combination of so-called 'new' Australians, mostly Greek, but also Italian and Lebanese, along side the anglo Australians whose parents immigrated a couple of generations earlier and felt this made them slightly superior to the newer ones. Bigotry was rife amongst my parents generation, but to me, these European neighbours were a delight and an education to a world of delicious food, music and parties where children should be seen and heard and men danced with hankies. I was immediately in love with the culture and their difference and longed to be something other than the 'white-bread' anglo that I thought I was, even though my immigrant past was also German and French, two world wars had ensured these facts were lost to the Scottish influence.

My neighbours welcomed me into their homes and taught me to cook this delicious food, baklava, galactoboureko, pastitsio, bbq lamb cooked with lemon and rosemary. These women made their filo pastry from scratch, pounded their walnuts in mortar and pestles, grew their own herbs and veggies. They opened my eyes to the world of different foods and different tastes and I was swooning with adoration for these culinary delights. They took me to the the smelly but fascinating Greek delis filled with olives, salamis, herbs, spices, meats, olive oil, fruit pastes, fresh made cheeses, un-sliced bread, a world away from Franklins and the milk bar deli that my mum shopped at. I am the woman I am today because of these kind and friendly women, whose English was minimal but their ability to share their culture and love for food wasn't.

Whenever I cook a greek influenced meal I remember them and I thank the goddess that I had such a delightful childhood and yesterday was no different when I decided to use the organic chicken in the freezer to make a chicken casserole. I hunted through my Introduction to Greek Cookery from the Adelaide Hellenic Lions Club, hand typed recipes, on foolscap, the pages now yellowing and brown with age, no pictures, but the recipes are authentic, written up by women who learnt to cook in Greece. Sadly nothing for chicken, too expensive a meat for the early '70's I suppose, there was a nice rabbit dish and I thought about adapting it but continued my hunt. My Greek Meze Cooking by Sarah Maxwell from the early '90's (not a very Greek name really) had a chicken and tomato casserole - Kotopoulo Kokkinisto which I have prepared before and knew would be good, so I went with that. Sarah notes that Kokkinisto is the name generally given to any meat which is casseroled in a rich tomato sauce.

I adapted the basic recipe of course, and I'll point them out as I go.

50 ml olive oil
1.6 kg chicken, cut into portions (I used an organic, free-range chook)
flour, for dredging
2 large red oinons, sliced
2 x 400g tins tomatoes (I used a 700g tin)
3 garlic cloves
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
85 ml boiling water (replaced this with white wine)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
chooped fresh parsely for garnish
I also added fresh green beans and organic kalamata olives, de-seeded

Preheat oven to 190oC (I used my slow cooker). Dredge your chicken pieces with the flour. Heat oil in a large, flameproof casserole and cook chook pieces until nice and brown, don't overcrowd your pan, do it in batches. Set the chook pieces aside. Add the onion to the casserole and cook till soft. Return chicken to the casserole, add chopped tomatoes, garlic and season with salt and pepper. Add boiling water (or wine), green beans if using, cover and cook for 45-55 minutes or until chicken is tender and the sauce is thickened.

In the last five minutes of cooking time, stir in the red wine vinegar, olives and a little extra boiling water if you think it is too thick. Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley. If you've used the slow cooker there will be much more juice and you can choose to take out the chicken and reduce your sauce on the stove, but I don't bother with this, we just serve it in soup bowls.

We served ours with mashed potato and carrots, but you could equally use rice or polenta. Our unexpected guests declared it delicious and I have to agree with them. All thanks to the Greek women from my earlier life - efharisto!

The Vegetarian Hundred

2009-04-01T10:22:00.005+11:00

I was browsing through the Food for Thought blog recently as he had made a nice comment about my ukulele post so I was curious to see what his blog was about and surprisingly there wasn't a ukulele in sight! Despite the lack of a uke, Food For Thought post's are enjoyable, with interesting recipes and views about being a Londoner, I particularly found it fascinating as I used to live in London in another life. His latest post on Empanadas has convinced me to have a go at making them.

While there, I came across his response to the Very Good Taste blog's The Omnivore’s Hundred , a list of 100 things that the writer thinks every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life and I thought I'd give it a go but as I was trawling to the original site I came across The Vegetarian Hundred list on the Tigers & Strawberries blog which I preferred as a meme, particularly as it seemed more appropriate for Earth Hour week.

So, here's my response to the The Vegetarian Hundred blog meme.

The rules: copy the list, including the instructions, and bold any items you have eaten and strike out any you would never eat, and then post it to your blog. If you want, you can leave a comment on Tigers & Strawberries, linking to your results, or you can link back to this post so I can try and keep tabs on what folks have eaten and not eaten.

1. Real macaroni and cheese, made from scratch and baked - the only kind to have, this is a firm comfort food favorite in our house
2. Tabouleh
3. Freshly baked bread, straight from the oven (preferably with homemade strawberry jam)
4. Fresh figs
5. Fresh pomegranate
6. Indian dal of any sort
7. Imam bayildi
8. Pressed spiced Chinese tofu
9. Freshly made hummus
10. Tahini
11. Kimchi
12. Miso
13. Falafel
14. Potato and pea filled samosas
15. Homemade yogurt
16. Muhammara - looked this up, its a hot red pepper dip, originally from Aleppo in Syria, which I shall now try
17. Brie en croute
18. Spanikopita
19. Fresh, vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes
20. Insalata caprese
21. Stir-fried greens (gai lan, bok choi, pea shoots, kale, chard or collards)
22. Freshly made salsa
23. Freshly made guacamole
24. Creme brulee
25. Fava beans
26. Chinese cold sesame peanut noodles
27. Fattoush
28. New potatoes
29. Coleslaw
30. Ratatouille
31. Baba ganoush
32. Winter squash
33. Roasted beets
34. Baked sweet potatoes
35. Plantains
36. Chocolate truffles
37. Garlic mashed potatoes
38. Fresh water chestnuts
39. Steel cut oats
40. Quinoa
41. Grilled portabello mushrooms
42. Chipotle en adobo - had to look this up, this is a Latin American chilli pickle
43. Stone ground whole grain cornmeal
44. Freshly made corn or wheat tortillas
45. Frittata
46. Basil pesto
47. Roasted garlic
48. Raita of any type
49. Mango lassi
50. Jasmine rice (white or brown)
51. Thai vegetarian coconut milk curry
52. Pumpkin in any form other than pie
53. Fresh apple pear or plum gallette
54. Quince in any form
55. Escarole, endive or arugula
56. Sprouts other than mung bean
57. Naturally brewed soy sauce
58. Dried shiitake mushrooms
59. Unusually colored vegetables (purple cauliflower, blue potatoes, chocolate bell peppers…)
60. Fresh peach ice cream
61. Chevre
62. Medjool dates
63. Kheer - I had to jog my memory, this is an Indian rice pudding and I have cooked it, just needed to be reminded, some say that is the original of the English rice pudding
64. Flourless chocolate cake
65. Grilled corn on the cob
66. Black bean (or any other bean) vegetarian chili
67. Tempeh
68. Seitan or wheat gluten
69. Gorgonzola or any other blue veined cheese
70. Sweet potato fries
71. Homemade au gratin potatoes
72. Cream of asparagus soup
73. Artichoke-Parmesan dip
74. Mushroom risotto
75. Fermented black beans
76. Garlic scapes I had to look this up, but once I saw it, I realised what it was, but I never knew the name, I get mine from Paddy's Market , its a milder flavour than garlic.
77. Fresh new baby peas
78. Kalamata olives
79. Preserved lemons
80. Fried green tomatoes
81. Chinese scallion pancakes
82. Cheese souffle
83. Fried apples
84. Homemade frijoles refritos
85. Pasta fagiole
86. Macadamia nuts in any form
87. Paw paw in any form
88. Grilled cheese sandwich of any kind
89. Paneer cheese
90. Ma Po Tofu (vegetarian style–no pork!)
91. Fresh pasta in any form
92. Grilled leeks, scallions or ramps
93. Green papaya salad
94. Baked grain and vegetable stuffed tomatoes
95. Pickled ginger
96. Methi greens
97. Aloo paratha
98. Kedgeree (the original Indian version without the smoked fish, not the British version with fish)
99. Okra
100. Roasted brussels sprouts

Not much of a surprise that I have scored 98 from the possible 100, I love food, I especially love vegetarian food and have been eating good food for a long time.

Yoga, scrappy meals and the Ori Cafe

2009-03-29T12:54:00.017+11:00

We've spent our weekend at an Iyengar yoga intensive. Its the last one to be held by our teacher as he is moving on to another state. I shall really miss him, he is a skilled and caring teacher, who teaches from his heart. He shall be missed by his students and now we all have to get used to a new teacher, and she to us. Interesting times.

With most of the weekend taken up with yoga there's not been much time for anything except scrap meals of hot cross buns from Bakehouse on Wentworth (the Springwood shop), toast and sandwiches as we dashed in and out from yoga.

We've also eaten out at the Ori Cafe in Springwood, dinner last night and breakfast today, feel a bit guilty about purchasing food in our 'not buying it' mode, but we never took restaurants or cafes off our list. The nice thing about the Ori is that the restaurant is separated out from the main drinking bar with its pokies and there is a lovely outside courtyard for summer and in winter, with its open fire, it can be charming and atmospheric.

The Ori's dinner menu has a large range of good quality pub food such as steaks, pasta, fish, and a decent choice of vegetarian options, plus they have a Specials board which changes frequently. We shared our dinner at the Ori with J1 and J2, it wasn't a late night as we had a pre-dawn start this morning, but our meals were good and the company better. We shared some brusectta and garlic bread, the bread was rather dull but the toppings were tasty. For mains, I had a flavorsome but a too large serving of gnocchi with roast tomatoes, baked ricotta and mixed veggies. The others chose from the Specials board, a pork chop with mash and veg and the fish of the day. Once again, delicious but rather large servings. Dinner prices range between $12 to $29 ish, pretty standard for pub food these days. Deserts are the standard cafe cakes and tarts that you'd expect. I had a scoop of ice cream, pretty dull with its swirl of bottled chocolate topping, my companions had the sticky date pud and a citron tart which they enjoyed- but once again the serves were too large I felt.

The Ori does good coffee, a very hard commodity to find in the lower Blue Mountains as well as a decent breakfast fry-up. For our breakfast this morning we both had the vegetarian poached eggs, on a corn pancake and field mushroom stack, very delicious, though the presentation was a tad 'try-hard' what with the stacking and swizzles of some sort of vinaigrette dressing to make a pattern on the large white plate.

The Ori is a great local place, its wait staff are pleasant and professional, meals arrive quickly and the food is what you'd expect, good quality pub food at pub prices. Its also very popular with locals so you'll need to book.

Earth Hour - think global act local

2009-03-28T10:12:00.004+11:00

Its Earth Hour today and we will all (hopefully) be turning off our lights for one hour from 8.30 p.m. to show our concern for the earth's global warming crisis. So its an ideal opportunity to chat about the sustainability measures we've implemented in our community over the last couple of years.

It all started with Get Up's Climate Action Now initiative in 2007 to get online activists to meet in their local area. A group of us took up this challenge, met in a strangers home, got to know each other, formed a local action group and chose our target; we would sign the Kyoto Protocol declaration because the then Howard government wouldn't.

Our aim was to follow the protocol and reduce our carbon emissions by 30% over twelve months and to advertise what we were doing as much as possible within the community. We promoted our efforts in the Blue Mountains Gazette and through hosting community events such as a 'bring your own plate' supper where the Blue Mountains chapter of Ecopella sang to entertain all the brave souls who came to meet like minded strangers in their neighborhood. We found out about the Council's Sustainability Street initiatives and met the local's involved. We ran a couple of stalls to hand out tips and tricks on reducing your carbon footprint at our local shopping centre. We investigated setting up a lower mountains food cooperative, but didn't get it off the ground. All very local and low key, using the Think Globally, Act Locally principle.

What were our personal initiatives? Well we started big with the installation of water tanks to get us off the water grid as much as possible and we replaced our electric hot water system with a solar one, the picture shows the tanks and hotwater set-up and our proud green plumber. Nic changed from a non-sustainable plumbing business to a sustainable one and we were one of his first clients in his new incarnation.

We also implemented less expensive things such as riding our bikes as much as possible and combining the bikes with public transport for longer jaunts, putting water saving devices on all our taps, not using the house's air conditioning or the clothes dryer, shopping locally, buying local produce, consuming less, ensuring the things we bought were Fair trade and noting the 'travel miles'.

Our Climate Action Group has fizzled out sadly, busy people, busy lives, and we never got to evaluate whether any of us reached the 30% goal of reduced carbon emission, but we did raise the profile of sustainability issues within our community, met strangers who became friends and implemented green initiatives in our home, this year we've installed a one kilowatt photovoltaic electricity system and are making our own electricity to contribute to the grid, so a good outcome all round.

I would encourage you to think about how you can think globally but act locally in your own neighborhood to reduce your carbon footprint and make the world a more sustainable place.

Wonderful semolina

2009-03-26T22:15:00.014+11:00

Our 'not buying it' philosophy is still tracking well, and when we ran out of pasta last week, I reached for the semolina to make gnocchi alla romana to go with the tomato sauce from the freezer rather than fetch more from the shop. I seldom make this dish, but when I do there's always the, 'yes, this is so good, why don't we make it more often?' feeling. Its not hard to do, but its a tad time consuming on a 'school night'.

I used the simple and easy recipe from my trusty Women's Weekly Italian Cooking Class Cookbook

Ingredients
3 cups milk
2/3 cup fine semolina (the better the semolina, the better the gnocchi, I use organic from the Co-Op)
11/2 teaspoons salt
pinch nutmeg
1 egg (organic and free range is best)
125 g parmeesan cheese (once again, it is the parmesan that gives this dish the flavour, so use a good one)
60 g butter (organic)

Step 1
In a large, heavy based saucepan, bring the milk, salt and nutmeg to boil, reduce heat. Add semolina gradually (if you don't do this you'll have to beat like hell to get out the lumps), stir constantly with a wooden spoon (why? I have no idea, but who am I too quibble with the Women's Weekly)

Continue cooking, uncovered, stirring often so it doesn't stick to the bottom of your saucepan, 10 to 15 minutes, until the spoon can stand unsupported in the semolina mine usually takes way less, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Step 2
Combine the lightly beaten egg and one cup of the grated parmesan, add to semolina mixture. Stir well till everything is combined. Spread mixture into a well-oiled oven tray, smooth with wet spatula until about 5 mm thick. Refrigerate one hour or until semolina is firm.

Step 3
Cut semolina into circles, using 4cm pastry cutter (as if, I use a glass!). Arrange in overlapping circles in your baking dish, pour over melted butter and sprinkle remining grted parmesan. Bake in a moderate oven 15 to 20 minutespr until crisp and golden.

Serves 4 to 6.

Here's the final result... doesn't look that appetising, but it is really quite scrumptious

Ukulele lady

2009-03-23T16:51:00.008+11:00

I went to a Beginners Ukulele workshop on Sunday and I am in love with my new found ukulele skills, it is such an easy instrument to learn. I had a ball at the course, my musical background is vocal (choral and folk) rather than instrumental and I was very pleased to be able to pick up the uke and play songs almost immediately, in fact, the one day workshop with the ukulele had me far more proficent than a whole year of adult piano lessons, almost instant gratification, can't ask better than that.

I know many people think its a toy instrument, but that's just musical snobbery I think and perhaps, given its history less than PC? Hmmm, something to think about and of course Tiny Tim didn't do it any favours and the desire of the post war baby boomers to chuck away all that was old for the bright and shiny new things didn't help its popularity. However, the uke is having a revivial again and I have joined the band wagon.

The ukulele is used in the Canadian education system to teach music and its very successful, far more than the dismal recorder that we have in Australia, as its easier to learn than guitar, flute, lute or piano, an excellent beginners instrument and great to get across musical therory and harmony et al.

Ah well, back to my strumming practice.......

A curate's egg

2009-03-22T18:15:00.004+11:00

Had friends over for dinner last night, which was delightful, but I was less than pleased with my cooking outcomes for the evening, in fact the whole thing was a bit of a curate's egg meal, only good in parts.

The nibble starters went over well, a good double brie from Tasmania, pistachios, vegie chips and Peacamole , a delicious pea mole, adapted by Chocolate & Zucchini from ELLE à table, I found the recipe through a link on The Canberra Cook . Peacamole is what I call a 'cupboard recipe' because I usually have all the ingredients in the fridge or pantry and its quickly whizzed together. I adapted the recipe a bit by adding a squeeze of lemon juice, some lemon zest and used an organic mixed nut butter rather than an almond one.

The main meal was an organic pork roast with baked veggies, but I misread the clock, started roasting an hour earlier than I should have and didn't realise it until half way through. So everything was ready way too early and had to sit and wait, by the time it was all served up, everything had a bain marie taste and feel, like it had been sitting in the pub waiting for the lunch time crowd. I also burnt the gravy, one disaster follows another I find when the cooking starts to fall over, but thankfully the apple sauce was delicious, the recipe came from Gastronomy Domine's blog, and while the pork was almost cold, it was lovely meat. Our valiant guests ploughed through this disaster and were kind enough to make pleasant noises, but still and all, not my best meal ever.

I was hoping the desert would rescue the meal, wishful thinking sadly. I made a new dish, a black sticky rice pudding , it all seemed easy enough, time consuming because you have to soak the black sticky rice overnight, cook it for two or more hours until soft and then bake it like a normal English rice pudding. The result for all this effort was sadly very bland and pretty tasteless. I had tweaked it slightly, I used palm sugar instead of the brown specified, but I should have also included some spices to add zest and next time I will, cardomon, allspice, ginger, star anise and perhaps some lime peel to spice it up.

After this disaster of a meal, we settled down to a few games of 500 and nibbled organic fruitcake from Hominy Bakery in Katoomba with our tea, which was, as always, very good indeed.

Take your heart's candle and re-light it

2009-03-16T11:39:00.005+11:00

Have spent the weekend at the Blue Mountains Folk Music Festival in Katoomba and am recovering today at home. After a weekend spent with people creating music, I am aching to create in another way my self, so will spend part of it in the studio working on my current project.

The festival was fabulous, its great to have such talent arrive in your home town and to share it with so many of your friends as well.

My festival music highlights, there was much, much more, but these are the ones that are still singing in my head:

Nano Stern - Chilean acoustic guitar, young, passionate, political and extremely musical - played many different South American styles and his heart was truly immersed in his playing. If he comes your way, make the effort to see him.

April Verch Band - Canadian fiddle player, various styles from many transplanted celtic traditions from across north america and she step dances and fiddles at the same time, sounds gimmicy I know, but if you are familiar with the French Canadian band Genticorum, you'll understand how the step dance works like percussion rhythm and is integral to the music. Also their bodhran player was amazing, never seen it played quite this way before, plus he also played a variety of spoons. Also a 'make the effort to see them if they come your way'.

Old Man Luedecke - also Canadian, west coast, banjo plucking of excellent calibre and lyrics that are original and heart touching. The title of this blog comes from his song I quit my job, I'm free today, you know how something just grabs you and stays in your head, well this is the one that did it for me this festival, perhaps because I want to and can't - well I don't want to but life at work is not happy and so this song had huge resonance for me.

Scorba - Local Blue Mountains band, maltese/greek/north african mix, most of it composed by the band members using traditional instruments. The presentation was a tad weird as they had a slide show of Malta happening as they played, I found it fascinating but distracting as it took my focus away from the excellent vocals and instrument playing.

My festival food highlights were:

Katoomba Primary School food stalls - they sold a variety of fresh and tasty food, soups, sandwiches, fresh sliced watermelon, home made hamburgers (I always have one of these every year and they never disappoint). Run by the P&C and all volunteers who are always happy and helpful.

Rotary Bacon and Egg sandwich stall - the perfect breakfast food, crispy bacon, slightly gooey egg on a fresh bun with all proceeds going to the Katoomba Primary School, so good food for a good cause, plus the blokes had excellent banter.

Govinda's Hari Krishna Pure Vegetarian - my favorite festival food, its cheap, well prepared, tasty and comes with the love of Krishna, so its real soul food and I love their soy chai, it is soo hot with ginger and pepper.

Budda Soul Food - local Tibetan buddhist fund raising group, so eating there contributed funds to the Free Tibet cause, the steamed momo dumplings were excellent, as was the fragrant vegetarian curry and rice and the soy and cow chai were good but a tad sweet for me. The volunteers were always happy and pleasant, even at the busiest of times and in torrential rain.

Mexican stall - no idea who they are or whether thay are local but their bean nachos and burritos were fresh, home made and delicious.

Was disappointed that the Aunt Trudy's old fashioned spicy organic ginger syrup stall wasn't there providing hot and cold toddys of this delicious cordial, its a festival favorite of ours and we were also unable to replenish, and as our bottle is almost finished, will have to wait for Winter Magic or order online.

An omelet and a glass of wine....

2009-03-11T14:11:00.018+11:00

Elizabeth David is a hero of mine, and of many others I know, I first found her Omelet and a glass of wine in a second hand book shop many moons ago and fell totally in love with her writing style, I was swept away to the Mediterranean, to delicious food that was a world away from my mother's grilled chops and three veg. Sadly that first edition copy has long since left my life - *sigh* - I have a newer edition now. Still and all, from Elizabeth David, I learnt that with a few good ingredients a good meal can be yours.

Wednesday night my beloved goes to her yoga class, I go on Tuesday's as I am a tad more advanced in the practice than she, so this means I have a night to myself and tonight I made an omelet because the pantry and fridge are still pretty empty. I had eggs, sadly not eggs from the Lawson chook lady, but still free range, organic and vegan, some aging tasty cheese, the fruit bowl supplied a tomato and I picked up some fresh mushrooms on the way home to supplement the filling. I love fried mushies in an omelet.

Omelets are considered technically difficult to make, but I've never found them so. If you have all your ingredients ready and a hot pan, you'll be eating a filling and scrumptious meal in a very short space of time.

So, here's what I did to make tonight's omelet. I popped three eggs in a small bowl and beat them till they were nice and yellow, I added some fresh ground salt and pepper, then grated my hard heel of cheese, sliced my tomato and mushrooms. Ingredients done.

Next I heated a heavy based fry pan (I used non stick tonight as I wanted as little fat as possible) and melted a knob of good organic butter (be careful not to burn your butter) under a medium flame and cooked the mushrooms until they were nice and brown. I set these aside in a bowl.

Onto making the omelet. I added another knob of butter, heated the pan on a high flame, poured in my eggs, moved the mixture around to ensure that the base didn't firm too quickly, then when its still unset on top, like so:

I added the mushrooms, tomato and cheese on one half of the omelet

and then flipped the other half of the omelet over the topping

and slide it onto my dinner plate.

It was delicious, the inside was soft and still a bit gooey (which is how I like it to be, I like scrambled eggs like that as well) and the fresh tomato is a good foil for the lightly melted cheese (the heat of the omelet does this) and the cooked mushies.

Oh, and yes, the glass of wine, I had a bottle already opened in the fridge, a Braided River Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, 2008, went perfectly with my omelet.

International Women's Day

2009-03-09T21:13:00.003+11:00

My place of work organised a presentation and morning tea to celebrate IWD once again this year. Our speaker was Dr. Rae Cooper from Sydney University and her topic was Women, education and economic independence.

Its not a pleasant picture and we still haven't achieved our 'room of one's own and 500 pounds a year' as described by Virginia Woolf in her series of lectures given at Newnham and Girton Colleges at Cambridge University in 1928.

Here's my dot points from Dr. Coopers talk and when I get a link to the presentation I'll post it.

Girls are more more likely to go to Y12 than boys and while there is a lot of noise about boys underachieving, boys still do better once they get onto workforce - Rae displayed this rather salient cartoon 'ok guys we fall behind now but get to run the whole world later'

Girls who leave before completing their HSC are less likely to get work than boys, and if they do get work, it will be for less pay

Higher eduction participation is very gendered and young women choose teaching , social work, nursing, social studies, all the lower paid professions.

Once in their fields of work, men still hold the jobs of power, e.g. more men are principals and head teachers, even though they are far less men represented in either primary (34%) or secondary (43%) teaching.

Universities also mirror this gender inequality, more men are ASPROs or Professors than women

Women's research topics are less well funded than men's

45% of the Australian employed population are women, yet the gender pay gap has not changed since 1992, that's 25 years of no change

More women are found in the lowest payed, least secure jobs and they have poorer job prospects in these areas

Family responsibilities mean more women work part time and in casual jobs and are therefore less secure and have less chance of advancement as part-time and casual work is usually fairly low down in the work hierarchy scale. Also these jobs tend to have bad working conditions, ill-treatment and are often un-unionised

Work and family market - Harvester 'in frugal comfort' is failing as both partners must work to survive but this isn't acknowledge by the law makers

Many women are the working poor

Gender entitlements gap - gap between men's wages is better

Women in governance and management - is actually going backwards and last year Australia fell backwards behind the first world

Where women are given high profile jobs they are more often than not 'Behind the glass cliff', i.e. women get given jobs that have a high level of risk attached to them and have high failure rates

The cupboard is mostly bare

2009-03-08T18:20:00.018+11:00

We have been very busy lately and haven't done a good Co-Op shop for over a month and the pantry cupboard is pretty bare, so when trying to decide what to cook today there was pretty limited choice. Some jasmin rice, lentils (chana and red), self-raising flour, potatoes from Kathleen's garden, two onions, a tin of tomatoes and of course we always have spices available. The fridge wasn't much better, manky dead veggies only good for the compost bin, so nothing of any use there. What to make, the dal and potatoes had possibilities and Indian was an obvious choice and I pulled out my favorite indian cookbook, Madhur Jaffrey's 'An invitation to indian cooking', the 1976 edition.

I learnt to cook seriously good indian food from this unexciting looking book when I was a student in Canberra and its never left my side all my peripatetic life. It hasn't a single colour photo, only some black and white line sketches at the beginning of each section and the writing is small and dense, but the recipes are pure gold. In here I found Hot Chana Dal with Potatoes (p.273) which was perfect for the ingredients I had available. Madhur gives two recipes, one for cold and one for hot chana dal with potatoes and I used the hot version, here's the recipe.

3 oz chana dal, cleaned and washed
1 tsp salt
4 tbs vegetable oil
1/4 tsp black mustard seeds
1/4 tsp whole cumin seeds
10 fenugreek seeds
2 fresh green chillies ( I used one and you can use an 1/8 - 1/4 cayenne pepper)
1 medium size onion, peeled and chopped
a piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated ( we had none so I used ginger powder)
4 new potaotoes, boiled (I steamed mine) and diced into cubes
1/8 freshly ground pepper
2 tbs lemon juice, or 3 tbs tamarind paste (I used lemon)

Put the dal to boil with 1 1/4 pints of water and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Cover, lower heat, and simmer gently for 1 hour. Drain and set aside.

In a 10" fry pan (I used a wok), heat the oil over a medium high flame. When hot, put in the mustard, cumin and fenugreek seeds. In a few seconds , as soon as the cumin and fenugreek seeds darken and the mustard seeds pop, add the green chillies. Turn them over once, only takes a second, then put in the chopped onion and grated ginger. Stir and fry onions until soft. Now put in the remaining ingredients, i.e. the boiled dal and diced potatoes. !/2 tsp salt, the pepper, cayenne and lemon juice or tamarind paste. Mix well and cook over a medium flame for 5 minutes, stirring frequently but gently.

Madhur suggests serving this with chapatis, bhaturas or parathas and a yogurt relish. We had it with her Rice with Whole Spices (p.240)

While I was doing this, 'the wife' was whipping up a batch of scones for her work breakfasts next week. She used her usual basic scone recipe taken from her 'The Australian and New Zealand Complete Book of Cookery', 1970's edition, an Australian classic and excellent for all the basics, we much prefer it to the 'Common Sense Cookery Book'. She added maple syrup and figs as she likes a sweet scone as a breakfast meal, me, my scones need to be plain and then I can lather them in good jam and cream.

These turned out to be seriously good, but very sweet, I reckon she should have left out one of the sweet things, but I don't have a big sweet tooth. They also turned out more like an American 'biscuit' scone, with a hard outer crust, but the insides are soft and scone like, perhaps the extra sugar did this? Not sure how many will last for her to take to work tomorrow though as she's munching through them at a rate of knots. Here's her recipe:

Heat oven to 225oC
I cup self-raising flour
2 tlbs butter
1 tlb raw caster sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tlbs maple syrup
2 dried figs, finely chopped
1/2 cup combined milk and soda water

Rub butter through the flour, mix in sugar and salt and chopped figs, add a little of soda water and milk to get the dough going, then add the maple syrup, mix in thoroughly, then add small amounts of milk and soda water mix till dough is firm but not sticky or dry. If it does get too sticky, just add a bit more flour. Cut into scone shapes, place onto a greased tray and glaze the tops with milk if desired and then bake in the hot oven for about 10 minutes or until risen and golden.

Out and proud - my 'lapstone hill' rant

2009-03-06T19:18:00.005+11:00

I was shocked by a friend today, someone who I thought respected me for what, and who, I am. It was all sparked by a discussion about facebook and privacy and my keenness to post photos on the web. My friend doesn't use facebook or post photos to the web, as who knows who sees your information, and that's a very valid point, but the example given hit me for six.

If she is seen in a photo with a lesbian, people may think she is one also and this has ramifications that she can't control and may cause problems in her life. But why does an intelligent woman who believes in justice, equality, anti-discrimination, la. la. la, fear being labeled a lesbian and why is it a problem to be thought a lesbian in 2009, in the first world? Who cares, people often think I'm straight but that doesn't bother me.

I was (and still am, hence this rant) extremely upset and of course I cried and there were heartfelt apologies and expressions of love and care, but how can this be true when my very presence in a photo could be an issue?

Where does this leave me, it leaves me realising yet again that who I am, my essential lesbian me, is still really too different for most people, the bit that non-lesbians would prefer I hide or try to forget and that I am a liability in some cases. I can be accepted as long as I conform or be a tame 'gay lady', but there is really limited acceptance for what I am, except in my queer ghetto.

I am a dyke, not a 'gay lady' mind, but a dyke, and once, admitting that would have meant my death or being locked in a mental institution to be re-educated or forced into a loveless marriage and, in many parts of our world, these things still happen and, even as I type this, right here in Australia, men and women are being convinced that being queer is against their 'invisible friend's' laws and they could become normal if they just tried hard and prayed still harder.

I may have red hair, amusing conversation and a clever brain but that's just my surface, I am a dyke.

I'm out and proud and I'm not going back into my closet for anyone, that way lies pink triangles and death in a concentration camp.

Luscious rhubarb

2009-03-04T19:29:00.005+11:00

Its rhubarb season and I am enjoying making stewed rhubarb with apple, or pears, to have with my home made muesli for breakfast or as a desert with homemade yogurt, in a rhubarb and apple pie or a crumble. I feel that its lovely rich ruby colour makes such a festive dish to serve to friends. Its so autumnal to me even though its not an autumn fruit.

Rhubarb originally came from Asia and its a vegetable, not a fruit and its been a medicine for over 5000 years and a very tart and astringent one when unsweetened, so it wasn't always a lovely desert dish. Rhubarb only became popular as food with the introduction of sugar to Europe in the 17th century. Some clever woman pottering in her kitchen or still room probably decided to sweeten a child's rhubarb medicine posset with sugar and produced a marriage made in heaven.

Stewed rhubarb is such a beautiful colour, a pink ruby colour, beautiful and shiny and so delicious to eat. Nigella nearly swoons over it in her How to Cook and she has a great recipe for slow baked rhubarb.

Home stewed fruit is so simple to prepare, my work colleagues are amazed that I make my own for my work breakfast, they think its easier to buy those little plastic pots of fruit and its one of the reasons that I get labeled as 'healthy' - but if I make it myself I have control over the ingredients, bought stewed fruit is always too sweet for my taste and I'm saving resources and money.

In fact I have some rhubarb and apples bubbling on the stove as I write and it prompted this post. It took me all of 10 minutes to get it there. I peeled, cored and cut up three granny smith apples, chopped a bunch of rhubarb into small pieces, grated about an inch of fresh ginger, put all of this into a pot and then grated in some nutmeg, added a cinnamon stick, a couple of cloves and three cardomon pods and half a cup of water. I then let it come to a gentle simmer and forget about it for about 15 minutes or until the fruit is soft. I will let it cool a bit and then add a couple of large tablespoons of honey, you could use sugar, I once used palm sugar as that's all there was in the pantry and it worked really well, gave a distinctly Asian flavour to such an English dish and sometimes I add raisins to bring their sweetness into the mix. I will cool it well, pack it up into portions and take some to work and pop the rest in the freezer for 'ron.

Tons of tomatoes and lashings of ginger beer

2009-03-01T12:47:00.015+11:00

We haven't been camping for ages, our lives have been too busy with other things and so we thought we'd grab an opportunity to go for an overnight camp in our local area which just happens to be the world heritage listed Blue Mountains National Park . We were inspired by friends Sarah and Dean who take themselves and their kids to a local spot close to home, enjoy an overnight camp and then return to their super busy lives.

We planned the escape with Kathleen and Susan. Just like the famous five we made sure we had tons of tomatoes, lashings of ginger beer and Cook's best fruit cake, I think we could have fed the entire camp ground with the provisions we took for just one night!

We went to Murphys Glen just up the hill from where we live, about a 30 minute drive. It felt a bit like having a sleep over in a friends back yard but way more beautiful of course as we are surrounded by some of the most lovely bush in NSW (Australia even). We anticipated a fairly quite camp site, probably no one there except us and the wild life, that was not to be.

Unfortunately for us, and a scout troupe from Leichhardt, who were excellent neighbours, there was a large group of the 'huntin', shootin' and fishin' campers well established by the time we arrived who had trail bikes and chain saws and used them all bloody afternoon and early evening, so the blissful peace in the bush we were anticipating was not experienced until night fall sadly - very, very annoying. They broke all the rules, had a huge fire in a total fire ban, used chain saws to cut their wood and got totally pissed in the evening. We felt a tad intimidated by them I must admit so were cowardly and stayed out of their ambit. All in all there must have been around 50 or more people in the camp ground, goodness knows what its like in the school holidays! People were still arriving after night fall, we supposed it was people heading off on longer trips and this was their first bush camp after escaping from Sydney.

Our short camping trip was really pleasurable though despite the yobs, Susan and Kathleen cooked a superb dinner and then we sat around the trangia in lieu of a fire while Kathleen strummed her uke and we sang along as the star strewn sky wheeled above us between the tree canopy. I succumbed to tiredness but these three hardy ones managed a few hands of euchre before calling it a night. Noisy and bolshy cockatoos woke us in the morning, rather than chain saws or trail bikes thankfully, we think our noisy lot were too hung over to do much more than pack up and leave as we did after a stroll along Bedford Creek.

Green peas with ham

2009-02-24T15:04:00.004+11:00

Scrabbling in the back of the fridge for a lost chutney last week I came upon the last of the forgotten Christmas ham, well not really forgotten, but certainly not in the front of my mind. As it was organic, properly smoked, wrapped in its cotton bag and kept at the same cool temperature as a northern hemisphere cellar, it was still perfectly fine to eat, if a tad salty and hard. Not good for sandwiches but perfect for a pea and ham soup.

I love pea and ham soup, its easy to make, virtually cooks on its own once its underway, is filling and tasty to eat, stores well in the freezer and it often uses up leftovers, all good things.

I don't have a recipe as such, I usually make it up as I go along, for this soup I put the ham bone in the soup pot, added an onion studded with a clove, two carrots, four cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, fresh marjoram from the herb pots, 500 gms of dried green peas, pepper, no salt as the ham was very salty, plus salt makes dried beans go hard, then covered the whole lot with our filtered tank water.

This mixture was brought to a slow simmer, cooked for about two hours, basically until the ham fell off the bone and the peas were mushy and soft. I let it cool for a bit, pulled out the ham and the big bits of herbs and cloves from the onion, then blended the rest in batches, it went a lovely pea green colour. Next I chopped up the ham from the bone and added it to the broth. Easy peasy!

This yummy soup is now packed up in two person batches in the freezer, ready for the cool weather to return again.

Shopping spree

2009-02-23T16:40:00.005+11:00

Continuing the theme of not buying it I have a hunger for new work clothes. My current ones are getting tatty, particularly the back of the jackets where my backpack rubs against them and its getting harder and harder to make my shirts look good and get those pesky lunch dribble stains out.

So I have being sorely tempted by the siren call of the designer suit collections - buy, buy, buy...... and I could not resist, I wandered dazed through David Jones, seeing 25% off every item, thinking this is so good, its even on sale. I tried a Sportscraft suit on, it looked elegant, but it was wool so I hesitated as its really too hot for an airconditioned office and took it back to the racks. I wandered more dazedly up and down and found the Table Eights sale, but they had nothing in my size so I was scuppered again. I tried a Sportscraft shirt on and while I was musing on it, J-L bought it for me, and that was the end of the spending spree.

Today at lunch I popped into Broadway Vinnies and for an outlay of $8 bought an 'as new' Portmans light charcoal gray jacket and a pearl gray silk dress shirt (designer label). The shirt and jacket go beautifully together and both will go with a pair of dark charcoal pants I already possess, an instant suit.

My shopping urge has been satiated and I am saved until the siren call beckons me again.....

Home made pizza

2009-02-22T10:36:00.006+11:00

We are currently in a 'not buying it' mode, inspired by the Judith Levine's book and blog Not buying it: my year without shopping that we read just after Christmas. We aren't being as strict, we still go out for meals and wine is an essential food, as are books essential brain food and things for creativity in the studio, still and all we have reduced our spending and we think about everything before we put our hand into our wallets to bring out the plastic, either EFTPOS or credit.

This has changed our Friday night 'tracky dack and slippers' nights', i.e. an easy social evening with friends, telly or cards or board games and conversation with easy food options, before 'not buying it' we often organised take-away - indian, chinese, pizza, hamburgers (from the real take-away shop not a burger chain). We now make these meals at home and of course the food we make ourselves is far more interesting than the fairly standard ethnic fare available in the Blue Mountains, which is sadly very 'white bread' dumbed down to be almost unrecognisable as ethnic food at all.

This Friday we made pizza and then 'home delivered it' as the evening was spent with Kathleen and Susan at their place and they provided a desert of a scrumptious home made ginger cake and ice cream. Hopefully Kathleen will put the recipe up on her blog so I can link to it.

Pizza made with proper yeast dough is something that your head tells you is too time consuming for a work night but in fact is as easy as a roast dinner, 15 minutes to knead the dough and then it just sits there quietly rising while you cut up the bits and bobs for the topping and simmer a simple sauce, all the while chatting with your good friends with a glass of wine, enjoying the fact that you are nurturing your friends, putting love and care into a meal for them. This is actually pleasurable and relaxing and a great way to wind down from the busy and, lately for me, emotionally fraught working week.

I use a variety of recipes for my pizza dough, a basic dough from my ancient but excellent 'Women's Weekly Italian Cooking Class Cookbook', Nigella's Pizza Pasareccia from her 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' (this is nice and quick and homely) but the one I used for this pizza was Stephanie's pizza alla Romana adaptation from her 'The Cook's Companion', p.29-31:

This recipe makes enough for two large pizzas, so make another one at the same time and freeze it for 'ron.
1 tablespoon instant dried yeast
1 teaspoon salt
400g plain flour (bread flour is better I've found as the gluten is stronger)
olive oil
1 cup lukewarm water

Heat your oven to 250oC, grease your pizza tray (Stephanie says 2 x 26 cm but I use old square trays that I have had for years), sprinkle trays with polenta (this stops it sticking),

Mix yeast and salt and flour. Mix 1 tablespoon olive oil with water and beat into dry ingredients, Stephanie recommends an electric mixer with dough hook, but I prefer to use a knife and then my hands. Kneed mixture until its smooth and elastic, around 15 minutes by hand and 8 by machine. Grease a clean bowl with olive oil. Transfer your dough to this bowl, cover with plastic (I reuse old plastic bags) or a clean tea towel and allow to rise in a warm draft-free place until doubled in size (an hour at least), knock down and then let rise again for another 30 minutes. Knock down again and then spread dough out on your pizza tray, add your sauce, add your toppings, bake for 15 minutes, then lower temperature to 200oC and bake for a further 5 mins or until the pizza base is crisp. Pizza is ready when the edges are crisp and golden and they sound hollow when tapped.

My tomato sauce is really simple to make, chop one brown or red onion, gently fry in olive oil until clear, add garlic, then add four large fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped (I never skin or seed but you can if you want to), sea salt and ground pepper to taste, add fresh or dried herbs, I like fresh basil when I have it to hand, rosemary is good as well, I always seem to have that in the herb pots as the possums don't like it. Simmer this until its mushy but not too cooked as it will also cook on the pizza. You can slosh a bit of opened wine into it if you want, not too much as you want a thick mixture, I've often used beer or cider as well.

An even simpler sauce suggested by Susan is to use one of those pesto and nut dips that you can get from the grocer, I've not tried it but she assures me it tastes great. I'm going to give it a go next time but I'll use my own home made pesto from the freezer.

Toppings, well less is more, don't overcrowd it, your base will be soggy and all the flavours will compete and don't overpower it with cheese either - lightly, lightly is best. This one was topped with boccocini, tomatoes and zucchini from Kathleen's garden and fresh mushrooms. We served it with a green salad with shop and garden grown leaves, cucumber and zucchini and a simple oil and vinegar dressing.

Give it a try and save yourself some money for a book or a few balls of wool.

Knitting

2009-02-17T21:44:00.006+11:00

This cool weather has brought on knitting fever in the household.

I have commenced a new pair of bed sox in a variegated green yarn, man made fibre as I am allergic to wool directly against my skin.

I'm using a 1950's knitting pattern.

JL is doing a rather complex fair isle pattern that she has designed herself and it is looking fabulous.

As you can see, in almost the same time that I have knitted half of my ribbed band, J-L is a third of the way up the front of the vest, well she did start knitting as an infant after all!

I used to really dislike knitting, probably because I was very clumsy at it, but I have persevered over the last two winters and have improved my knitting style and can now throw my wool over the needle in true professional knitter style, its a much more efficient and easy way to knit, but it was hard to get the skill into my head and the knack of it into my hands. It is possible to teach an old dog new tricks after all and it also helps that J-L is there to fix all my 'training wheels' mistakes!

Baked dinners and the first knitting of the year

2009-02-14T18:04:00.001+11:00

I love baked dinners and it took me many, many years to get them on the table with ease in the manner of my mum, but now it all runs like clockwork and is the easiest meal to create for guests and they think I have gone to so much effort LOL!

I am roasting a chook tonight, with baked veggies of sweet potato, pumpkin, potatoes, onions and carrots that have marinated in lemon, fresh herbs, garlic and olive oil, we'll have peas cooked with mint as well. The chook has a rice stuffing as one of the guests is a coeliac and we are also having gluten free bread and butter pudding for 'afters' - yum! For a good 'how to' roast chicken and veg visit the The Canberra Cook for Cath's post on her Classic Roast Chook with Stuffing and Gravy.

J-L has the knitting out, the drop in temperature has got her fingers itching for yarn and needles and the lounge room resonates with the gentle click of her needles and her counting under her breath. I love it, I feel nurtured and full of the feeling of love and home when she knits. She's starting a fair isle vest, if I get around to it I'll take some piccies eventually.

I'm going to start some sox, I'm not really a knitter, mum never was and I learnt as an adult (well we did it at primary school, but that was a rather non-event learning skills wise). I have absorbed knitting from J-L, 12 years of watching her do it very winter has rubbed off and I have made myself two lovely jumpers using 1940's patterns and I got into sox two years ago when I slipped my disk, I taught myself from a book, J-L has never knitted sox so I feel very chuffed that I have, not that I'm competitive or anything.

Love and music

2009-02-13T10:18:00.000+11:00

I have just finished reading Sara Hardy's Love and Music, a brilliant biography about Dame Joan Hammond .

Joan was a famous Australian opera singer who has been sadly forgotten and over shadowed by the other Dame Joan, Sullivan that is, who followed her.

Sara's biography tells a brilliant tale of a woman who could have been great as a world champion golfer but instead she choose singing and her struggles to achieve vocal quality and success in a time when Australia had no opera companies and training had to be achieved overseas (though have things really changed in 2009?) makes the book a thrilling read.

Its also a fabulous tale of a long and loving friendship between three women in a time when such relationships were hidden from sight.

Sara is a personal friend of mine and I am lucky to be able to use her monologues when I go to the occassional soiree. Her dialogue has ensured that my 'party pieces' are always well received and successful.

Returned from France

2008-10-28T09:12:00.000+11:00

We have just spent six weeks in France which was fabulous and the best holiday we have had in a long while. We spent 10 days in Paris, two weeks in Central Brittany cycling out from a medieval village along canals, rail trails and quiet and peaceful country roads and two weeks in the Dordogne in a 16th century manor house feeling like the proverbial goldfish as we so often exclaimed 'what a lovely castle'!

After 21 hours of travel and a day and night in Dubai, we were finally and happily ensconced in our Paris apartment eating hand made orange chocolate from the local chocolate shop, sipping wine and buzzing with excitement that we are actually here! You really remeber how far Australia is from the northern part of this planet when it takes so many hours to get there.

Dubai was fascinating, damned hot, over 41oC and quite a shock after the wet and wild weather we left in Sydney, it gave us an interesting insight into the middle east and we are keen to visit other areas after this brief taste, next trip Petra perhaps? The gold , spice, fabric and antique souks were overwhelming in their colour, brillance and range, so much so that we couldn't decide on anything! What, not consume, what's wrong with us? Oh, except for the persian shoes that is LOL!

The evening we arrived in Paris we walked our local streets, strolled by the Louvre and cruised down the Seine viewing all the famous Parisian icons, Eiffel Tower, Conciergerie, Notre Dame and other sites on Ille de la Cite. The most fabulous thing though is the buzz of the place, on a Sunday early evening locals are out and about enjoying their city with people on bikes everywhere- Veleibs especially.

Paris is such an interesting and vibrant city, I probably wouldn't want to live there permanently, but for 10 days it was great. We stayed in a great apartment in Les Halles in the 1st arondisement (sp) an excellent central location, just minutes from the Louvre Museum, Seine River and the Ile de la Cite Island. Our street, Rue Montmartre, had morning markets on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursdays each week and we were close to one of the Parisian foodie streets Rue Montorgueil where we could enjoy excellent boulangeries, traditional cafés, wine and cheese shops and plenty of local bistro restaurants. We met up with English friends, Scarlett and Kenneth, for the first four days and because the weather was so good we just walked the fascinating Parisian streets and tried to stay outdoors as much as possible. We still managed tons of sight seeing though and went to al the 'must do' things such as Notre-Dame, Monmartre, the Marais, Ill de la City, Eiffel Tower, the Seine, the Louvre et al. From Thursday Anka joined us from Germany and we travelled further afield to Versailles with Fat Tire bike tours, plus did Parisian rag trade markets and department stores. At the Paris flea markets we successfully shopped :D, I bought the quintessential 'little black dress', a Channel scarf and some lovely hall marked silver ear rings with pink 'diamonds' and J-L found a silver nibbed pen from the 19th century and a Tin Tin watch. So we were well satisfied with our expedition. Oh to have such retro clothing shops at home, not to mention antique stores *sigh*.

The highlights - the Louvre at night, all lit up and full of Parisians, the Unicorn Tapestries, cycling the streets using the Velieb system, in peak hour with no helmets, what a rush! Attending the opening of the Paris symphony season with a Messiaen and Mahler concert, a trip to Versailles by bike and it was great to ride around the extensive gardens but the inside was too crowded, hot and OTT, 18th century isn't our style at all - give us renaissance or gothic please. Not to mention the Jeff Koons 'sculptures' in every room - whose silly idea was that I wonder, it didn't work at all and I like his work.

Then we headed off to Gouarec in Central Brittany for two weeks of neolithic sites, Celtic music and Breton food and culture and best of all cycling! After all the cakes and pastries of Paris we really needed some serious exercise so we could eat even more :D! Central Brittany is a walkers and cyclists paradise, we went riding everyday in perfect autumn weather, sun shinning, cool breezes, leaves changing colour, along Breton canals and the fabulous VTT rail trai bike paths and the local winding roads, its kind of like the Cotswalds but with French food - blissful! We had a fabulous two weeks in Gouarec with Breton Bikes and it was hard to leave, we loved Brittany, it felt like Ireland or Scotland but the weather was far better, as was the food and cider- we miss the pizza from the village, the local pub, the organic cidre, the cafe at Bon Repos, the two village bakers and the galletes and crepes at St Bridget. We loved the Fest Noz's folk music and dance nights, like a bush dance in Australia, local musicians playing Breton celtic music and local folk dancing to it and drinking home brewed ciders, fabulous fun, the locals were friendly and amused by two Australians who wanted to sing, drink cidre and dance and we *loved* it! The gite was extremely comfortable and very homey. The bike tours were just the right length and had fabulous diversity in scenery and things to do and see. The BB Special bikes were fabulous, we loved the gearing and the Brooks seats were superb. We'd also like to thank David and Marion at the camp ground, they ntroduced us to worker's cafes for lunch - we went to them where ever we could find them from then on! We hope we can keep in contact with them by email now that we are home.

In the second week in Brittany we were joined by Rebecca and Margaret who had travelled from the Shetlands, down through Scotland, Wales and England and caught the ferry across to Brittany and we picked them up at Roscoff on the coast, about 2 hours from us. We then started investigating neolithic and Celtic Brittany and visited Carnac and its neolithic alignements and neolithic sites. What strange and amazing places they are, no one knows why they were built, what for or how they did it, the menhirs and henges are huge granite blocks, how did they position them, are they religious, scientific, there are many theories but no expert agrees on anything so who knows, but they are awe inspiring.

We then travelled down to the Dordogne via Poitiers for our overnight stop. We had leased a small car from Citron and had picked it up from Paris airport to go to Brittany and it had a GPS that had a very interesting view on the way it would take us, it had a habit of taking us either on goat tracks or on huge toll roads that took us 100 kms out of our way, never a dull moment with 'Ms Bossy Boo' as we nick named her. We stayed right in the centre of the city and had a fine dinner in a cafe recommended by the Lonely Planet and the next morning saw as much as was possible, particularly the romanesque cathedral which has recently been cleaned and restored and it is beautiful.

From there we headed to our final destination, Paleyrac in the Black Perigord region of Dordogne to meet with 29 other friends to celebrate Andrews 40th birthday in fine style.

Our two weeks in the Dordogne were absolutely fabulous - though we felt a bit like the goldfish in the bowl for most of it, constantly exclaiming 'oh what a lovely castle'! Highlights, staying in such a fabulous location, a 15th century manor house overlooking the Dordogne valley,canoeing down the Dordogne sliding past castles, manor houses and medieval towns, the caves of the Vezere valley (where the Lacaux, Font de Gaume and other caves are) being stunned by the drawings, carvings and paintings of our pre-historic ancestors, cycling into the village of Cadouin as the late afternoon sun flooded the stones with golden light, watching a pair of swans glide towards us, wings spread, begging for food, traveling along the roman roads, in the ways of Richard Coeur de Lion and Compestella pilgrims, discovering the strange and mysterious ways that our GPS chose to take us, celebrating Andrew's birthday in a 2 star Michelin restaurant - what glorious food that was, not to mention the markets in all the local towns and villages that have been held there for thousands of years, the produce, the handmade sausages, cheeses, breads and the final treat, a balloon trip over the valley - bliss!

After the Dordogne we returned to Paris for our final three days, our flat had no wifi this time and the internet cafes eluded us once again - by this time I was getting very strong 'withdrawal' symptoms I can tell you. Highlights, the Louvre collection, being back in the 'old' haunts of four weeks ago, the gothic chapel of Sainte Chappel on the Isle de City, Berthillon icecream
on the Isle de Louis, walking our feet off and trying to take in as much as we could.

Then a return trip that was less than perfect, with five and a half hours extension on the plane on the runway at Dubai while the pilot and Emirates maintenance crew tried to get it to fly, failed and then after long discussions with UAE administration finally organised us into us a new plane and on our way again.

We are now home, recovering from at least 48 hours of travel time and adjusting to a new time zone and life without France - we are a tad blue as you can imagine. Photos now need to be downloaded, the best selected, put onto Webshots and then forwarded to you all, so you can see what we saw, though they are never as good as the real thing sadly!

We had a blissful time, now onto planning the next adventure!

Skirt added to bodice

2008-07-24T15:29:00.000+10:00

Well this has been a right pain because I didn't believe in myself and I have pinned and re-pinned until my fingers ached! First off I cut three lengths for the gown as I wanted lots of skirt omph, but I am quite small and the skirt fabric quite bulky, especially with the lining and interlining so I pleated it up and I couldn't reduce it enough no matter what I did. JL said that its all to do with simultaneous (sp) equations and walked me through some really complicated maths that made no sense to me but made her happy (grin). Finally I used simple arithmetic to figure out how much fabric I could cram into the bodice if I used 3" pleats and had to take out one of my skirt segments. All of this took two weeks for this bear of little brain to figure out! Then I decided I wanted a split skirt to show off an undergown so had to unpick the skirts lining anf interlining and re do and create blue velvet guards and stitch all this back together, la, la, la! The next big mistake was that the bodice looked way too short to me, shorter than my true waist so I, in my foolish wisdom, decided to lengthen it. Yes, I know, stupid idea, why not just create a new bodice, but heh, who am I to not make big mistakes to learn from. I extended it, this took a stupid amount of time and was not easy with interlining, lining and fashion fabric to contend with. I then pinned the bodice onto it and tried it on, you guessed it, way, way too long, the skirt sat on my hips. So more un-pinning, more ripped fingers, lots of frog stitching later I pinned on the skirt to bodice at its original length and had perfection and here's the back view as yet unlaced and you can see my rope corset spiral lacing The skirt isn't as boofy as I wanted, but I think it works. I have found an old curtain in red and gold to turn into my under skirt.

Sleeves for the gown

2008-07-24T15:15:00.000+10:00

I spent ages trying to decide what sort of sleeves I wanted, I finally decided on split sleeves and went for five splits and the results turned out well. I used the drafting instructions from the Dress Diary of a Novice Renaissance Seamstress Venetian courtesan gown blog, yet another fabulous resource by a keen 15th - 16 century costumer. Reading her mistakes and successes ensured that my sleeves were right first time, which is particularly satisfying! Here's an image of the sleeve just after I cut it out . The next image shows the sleeve stitched to its lining and here it is pinned to my still incomplete bodice with some trim that I'm not using but was close to hand to give me a feel for what I was trying to create . At the Lawson market on Sunday I found some lion faced pretend gold metal buttons which will be perfect to attach the sleeve to the bodice - very happy camper me!

Camica and corset

2008-07-09T20:59:00.000+10:00

I have made my camica for my Italian renaissance gown using the great instructions on Festive Attyre. I am very pleased with it, I couldn't find any affordable linen so I have used raime which goes under the name of handkerchief linen in Spotlight and it is a natural fibre so it should be as comfortable as either hemp or linen I hope, it has a history as old as linen I understand. Here's some more piccies: Here's a closup of the underarm gusset,

I have also finished my rope corset, I used the excellent online corset pattern generator at the Elizabethan Costume website to create my pattern and followed the instructions on how to put it together, its a brilliant resource.

This is my first corset attempt and I decided to use rope rather than cable ties for boning as it is for an italian renaissance gown where the line is much softer than the later English and Spanish styles. I used the tutorial Everything you ever wanted to know about boning with hemp cord, but were afraid to ask! that is also found on Festive Attyre. I couldn't find hemp rope in any of our local hardware stores, not even the large one in Penrith, so I used sisal instead, I have no idea if it is as firm as hemp, but it seems to work. The sisal is quite hairy so I hope the fibres don't work through the corset fabric and prickle, I will only know with wear, but so far its very comfortable, much nicer than a bra, I'm tempted to wear it to work. .

The corset is all made from recycled resources, except for the sisal rope. The fabric is moleskin left over from dress making that was still in my stash and its very sturdy and strong, the ribbon binding came from the local second hand shop, it is petersham ribbon, very good quality and very old, looks like its from the '50's! I didn't have enough of the green so I used the white as well, so its my Suffragette corset because green, white and purple were the colours of the Women's Social and Political Union, led by Emmeline Pankhurst.

Its laced using Festive Attyre's spiral lacing method, Zen of Spiral Lacing I still have to sew over the metal eyelets.

Winter Magic 2008

2008-06-29T19:21:00.000+10:00

Belated posting about Winter Magic the Katoomba mid-winter festival this year, fabulous weather, sunny but extremely chilly. We marched in the parade with the local green group to raise climate change awareness and here's some piccies of us all in our various costumes. Margaret, Matthew, Rebecca and JL JL, Rebecca, David, Franko, Maria JL and Lorna

Farthingale attempt

2008-06-29T18:26:00.000+10:00

This my first attempt at making a farthingale using Margo Anderson's pattern and as I have been unable to locate steel boning in Sydney, I decided to try rope as recommended by a number of costumers. I particularly liked Faye's method of spiralling the rope up the farthingale but when I tried to spiral my rope I couldn't get it to work, so used the runnel method as suggested by Janet Arnold but sadly the rope can't support my farthingale's circumference.

I will replace the rope with irrigation tubing. The bum roll worked well though

Started my gown

2008-06-29T00:02:00.000+10:00

Today I have started my Italian renaissance gown using Mistress Leona Khadine d'Este and Mistress Enid d'Auliere construction methods from their aforementioned workbook. I have chosen these fabrics a light blue for the lining, dark blue velvet for the bodice and sleeves, and the light blue and yellow diamond tapestry curtaining for the skirt, all from my stash.

I fitted the toile and then cut out the fabric and got to work stitching it all together I'm pretty chuffed as I wasn't too sure whether I had the sewing skills to put it all together, but it has turned out well so far.

My last bit of work on it tonight has been to test the skirt and trim next I added some gold trim to the bodice I'm not sure if I prefer both or just the simple gold braiding which is quite elegant I think, but the both combined are nice and 'blingie' here's a full shot, I shall sleep on it and decide tomorrow.

Italian renaissance gown working bee

2008-06-28T23:29:00.000+10:00

Wednesday 22nd July 2008

We have been pootling along quite happily, my efforts are shown in other entries of my blog but I shall keep the group's all together in one place. Sarah has created her toile and is almost ready to cut out her lining and fashion fabric which is a lovely cotton velveteen maroon. Maria has cut out her camica and is in the process of stitching this up. We are all using the the How to make an easy Italian chemise from Festive Attyre and as usual the instructions are excellent. Maria's bodice toile is ready to use as her pattern for her fashion fabric which is a fabulous cloth of gold upholstery material. Here's a piccie of her stitching up her toile for a final fitting I'll get pictures of all fabrics at this Friday's GTG.

JL has been working on the caligraphed invitation and as she isn't a sewer I'm making her outfit as well as mine. I have started on her camica and I have used a white cotton damask fabric as she found the raime to be too itchy against her skin. I have also drafted her corset using the corset generator.

Here's a silly picci of JL and I with her in her 21st century lab coat that she uses to keep her clothes clean when painting and me in my 15th century underwear

Early July 2008

In a few months time it will my partners and I 10th anniversary and we intend to have a renaissance/medieval/celtic ceilidh and as part of this a group of friends are having weekly GTG to create renaissance italian gowns using these fabulous instructions by Mistress Leona Khadine d'Este and Mistress Enid d'Auliere. So far we've only taken measurements to create the bodice and I think we drank more wine and ate more pizza than actually doing any creative ROTFL!

We did however get started on the drafting of our bodices we're all new to this and so we were a tad puzzled as we did this but eventually we sorted it all out, well we hope!

Bliauts and Burgundians

2008-06-27T15:18:00.000+10:00

Well I have mussed on many things for two years and have not put one thought on this blog! As I'm heading OS in two months time I thought I would bring it to life again so I can blog away in France.

During the two years of silent musings I have moved from quilting to costuming and re-creation of renaissance and medieval clothes and I have got interested in the Society for Creative Anacronisms (SCA) but have only been to one newcomers feast so far. I have always loved 'dressing-up' and this is an extension of that.

I have tried my hand at making a 12th century bliaut using these fabulous instructions and Simple Steps to Look Great in a Veil.

As well as this I have also almost finished a Burgundian gown using some fabulous second hand shop green velvet curtains and using Matilda la Zouche's live journal for ideas and also fabulous help from the Rowany Baroness AElfled, she has been extremely kind to a newcomer to the SCA. The green velvet curtains reminded me of that scene in Gone with the Wind where Scarlet uses the green curtains to make a gown to see Rhett Butler in gaol, so I feel very chuffed at having such a similiar find!

The web is a great resource for costuming 'how-to's' and has so many fabulous resources so it is easy to re-learn forgotten skills like pattern drafting or inserting godets into dresess! I have also made an Elizabethan farthingale and bum roll, pictures also to come, using Margo Anderson's Historical Patterns.

As you can see I have hit on any period or style for myself as yet, but that will come.

Mermaids

2005-02-07T12:15:00.000+11:00

I am been musing on mermaids today because I have been creating a mask for an event I am going to. The mask is based on a mermaid and is quilted, beaded, drawn on and painted and I am very pleased with the effects I've created. I'd add a picture but I haven't wrapped my head around the Hello BloggerBot as yet and don't feel like being technical this avo. Mermaids still fascinate us and are considered dangerous, luring men (mostly) travelling in ships to their deaths on rocks and into whirlpools - you cannot resist a mermaid's siren song it would seem, some must have, or there would be no tales to tell .

I've also been thinking about singing. I love singing, it fills my soul and also makes my brain work very hard. I'm not a brilliant sight reader, never learnt music as a young child, took it up as an adult and never seriously worked to get beyond the beginner's sight reading ability, too many other things in life to be creative in and my voice is standard, nothing to write home about, but choral singing allows it to become part of a whole and that whole is fabulous! I have sung in choirs for many years - concert in small chapels, in the Sydney Opera House, with small no-name conductors and big name giants, old works, new works written for the choir, I love the challenge of late 20th and 21st century music, it is really good for the brain! My current choir has had a change of musicical director and the process of voicing and auditions begins anew. This makes me ponder, do I want to put myself through this process again, it is very hard and I may fail - I always fear that I may fail (and I have at auditions before now). Musical director are usually professional muscians and don't really understand the amateur choristor, we are a weird mob, we aren't making a living from making music, we do it for love or fun or some other motive and pay for the priviledge as well! Choristors are strange beasties.

Yesterday I spent the day with members of my online quilting group - Southern Cross Quilters http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scquilters/ - we are planning the annual GTG in real space and Sydney is hosting it this year. The mermaid mask is for this event BTW. I am constantly inspired by the creative abilities of this group of quilters! For instance, Jenny Bowker, she has moved to the middle east and is a SCQuilter and a famous quilter, it was her blog http://jennybowker.blogspot.com/ that finally pushed me to create one.

Beginnings

2005-02-04T10:24:00.000+11:00

Its taken me ages to take up a blog, weird becuase I love email and the web and have been using the internet before the web existed! I think I have resisted because a blog is like a diary and I have never been good at diaries, I loose interest after about the first month, but maybe an electronic one will be different! I intend to mull over the creative processes that give me pleasure, grief and frustration as I make quilts, dye and print fabric.

I started quilting 4 years ago, though I've been working with fabric for many years, mostly making clothes, not well though, way too impatient! I studied textile design in the early '90s and while I wasn't interested in the rag trade I did enjoy creating large pieces of printed fabric. I never wanted to cut them up so I turned them into duve covers. After college, the lack of a proper studio to print large slabs of fabric meant that it was hard to organise and full time work also made things difficult. When I discovered quilting I realised I could do things on a smaller scale, using the skills I already had, so started dyeing fabric and creating small prints to enhance the design of the quilt I was making.

Quilting is such an addictive creative past-time, it uses fabric which I love, I can create fabric as well, it uses design and age old traditions. Its technical and simple at the same time, I can use a computerised sewing machine or just a needle and thread. It envolves me completely and for someone who considers themselves innumerate I am suprised that all the maths involved doesn't phase me - shame my teachers didn't use it as a teaching resource back in school! It also links you to quilters with so many different creative skills and expertise, I never cease to be amazed at the talent and creativity and the willingness to share it with others. I really enjoy the online quilting community, if I have a problem I can just ask a question and also help another in their creative process.

That's it for my first blog entry.