Hello Mr. Strawberry Pot!

A little while ago I accompanied my mother and auntie to the nursery to buy some herbs and such for the garden. Whilst I was there, a happy little green-leafed strawberry plant caught my eye.

I bought a white strawberry pot to go with him, and potted him as soon as I got home.

Hey little guy!

I talked to him most days...

And lo - !

A couple of delicious little gems for me to eat right up!

Birthday Season

It's Birthday Season at my place! My mother, brother and sister's birthdays all fall within a month of each other, and I spend the entire month being over-stuffed with excellent birthday cakes. Here are some highlights from Caketime!

On Fruit and Happiness

A big part of what I've been trying to do in bettering my existence is to do with food. As an eating disorder sufferer, I've always had a difficult relationship with food, especially since I've regained a healthy weight, and choosing and eating food can be incredibly stressful for me.

Part of this stress is striking a balance between eating healthy and eating at all. A diet that involves lots of fresh fruit and vegetables is great, but it can be a bit of a slippery slope. The great thing about this time of year (summer!) is that there is so much beautiful fruit and veg to eat, I eat enough to be healthy without feeling the kind of debilitating guilt that comes with the kinds of rich, starchy things we generally reach for in the winter.

This has turned out to be a bit of a negative post, and I'm sorry about that. I do genuinely love food, and cooking, and eating, and that's why it's quite difficult to talk about these things, because whilst my "episode" is more than five years in the past, it is impossible to get rid of the feelings and thoughts entirely. The best way of dealing with it is to really enjoy your food and lead as active a lifestyle as you can.

.. and you really can't be grumpy when there are fresh figs in the house, can you?

Mission Lifestyle Rearrangement: Day Two

Last night I stayed up too late. Bad start to my Brand New Girl push, perhaps, but the point is that I woke up at eight thirty this morning and felt truly rested.

I hardly ever feel rested, so that was very exciting. I put it down to drinking lots of water.

I then hopped in the car with my family (including my brother, who was Not Happy about being woken... he's seventeen, which pretty much explains that) and drove to to beautiful Clovelly, where I had my first swim of the summer!

If there was ever something that deserved bold-ing, it is that. The water was perfect, the fish were swimming happily around my ankles, and although the blue groper eluded me, I saw a fish that I thought was a parrot fish and ended up being just a very clever regular fish carrying a stone in its mouth.

Getting physically active - tick!

I also enjoyed some pretty wonderful food, which I'd like to share in my slightly crazy, point-form way:

• tabouli in pita bread pockets with baba ganouj
• a big old strawberry milkshake
• door-stop sized slices of a wonderful chewy sourdough bread we bought from a woman selling loaves over her garden gate in Clovelly, with olive butter
• Fresh strawberries and grain crisps

Documenting food and exercise may be very boring for any readers I may still have, but is wonderfully helpful to me. I hope I can keep going like this for at least another little while...

Twenty Eight!

Oh my goodness, dolphins and porpoises, it's going to be twenty eight degrees on Sunday!

I know it's only August, but summer is really on its way, the breeze has been so wonderfully zephyric and balmy and I'm starting to turn into Summer Kenny (a fundamentally unsound oceanid with a desire to jump into water from dizzying heights) already.

So, just to get me more excited, twenty eight glorious things Sydney summer is bringing to me: -

1. Icy Poles

2. Clovelly

3. Twilight Picnics (mosquitos and all)

4. Strawberries

5. Raspberries

6. Blackberries

7. Eurydice

8. Making a Dent in My Reading List

9. Getting Oil Paints all over my Hands and Clothes

10. Sleeping with the Windows Open

11. The Clovelly Groper and his Lady Gropers

12. Late Nights at the Duck & Swan

13. White Sandals

14. Sun dresses

15. Home-Made Lemonade

16. Summer Projects

17. Sewing Bags and Dresses

18. Early Sunrises

19. Late Sunsets

20. Late Nights with Good Friends

21. The Mystery of Edwin Drood

22. Colourful Flowers Everywhere

23. Straw Hats

24. Sleeping Nude

25. Swimming in the Ocean Every Day

26. Wandering Through Markets

27. Living in Bare Feet

28. Spending a Third Summer Kissing That Man of Mine

Tea for Two

Hello Strangers,

I was just recalling an anecdote my darling boy once told me.

In the 1920's, the conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Nikolai Malko, bet the composer Dmitri Shostakovich one hundred roubles that he couldn't completely arrange and re-orchestrate the Vincent Youmans standard Tea For Two in an hour.

Shostakovich, of course, did it. From memory. In forty five minutes.

If you're interested, the arrangement is called the Tahiti Trot, and after first being performed in Moscow in 1928, has been performed ever since.

Anyway, that's a fun little story that actually has nothing to do with what I want to talk about. Well, very little.

In the winter months (fuck you, Northern Hemisphere readers, your balmy weather reports are not welcome here) I am a tea fiend, especially when I'm staying up ridiculously late for no good reason.

So, today I bring you a post-hibernation reflection on tea. Mmm, deep.

Five Amazing Cups of Tea:

1. Russian Caravan, home-brewed by Dad, with a big splash of milk and a heaped teaspoon of sugar in a purple flower mug.

2. Chai tea with steamed soy milk from the Frisky Goat at Wynyard Station, drunk half-asleep on the bus to uni.

3. English Breakfast with a dash of milk in a Boleslawiec blue mug at Roman's house on a Sunday morning with a good British fry-up.

4. Jasmine tea in a latte glass at Toby's Estate, served with good conversation with a dear friend.

5. Hot lemon and manuka honey tea with a drop of liquid echinacea, the perfect healing potion when one is ailing.

Finally, I'd just like to share an image I have, an image of what I want my life to look like in the indeterminable future - it involves mugs!

Just to have a little house with some mis-matched furniture and a cat or two, a big bed with a nice quilt, and perhaps a blue-eyed man napping in it... and mugs. I can't wait to have a mug that's mine in my own cupboard in my own home.

It'll be special because of the hundreds of times I'll raise it to my lips. Whilst reading a good book. Whilst skritching a cat behind the ears. Over a fierce debate, over comfortable silence, over a murmured "I love you".

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

This little birdy is grateful to weheartit for the beautiful photos whilst I am devoid of camera.

Random Thought Friday!

The concept of seasonal produce hurts my brain.

This, friends, is not because I am retarded or somehow incapable of associating fruit with weather, but because I live on that funny little island down the bottom of the world.

Raspberries and strawberries in summer, in England, makes sense. Because berries happen in summer, in England.

Berries are not from Australia.

So what are the poor little strawberry brains supposed to do - keep bearing fruit in June, or skip forward six months because it's too chilly out?

Think about it.

And then there's the whole issue of how strawberries got over here in the first place... Were there garden boxes on the First Fleet? I like that idea...

Sunday in Pictures

Good morning, beautiful flowers from a beautiful boy. Good morning fresh fruit! Good morning beautiful Sunday morning!

A feast of thick crunchy toast, antipasto and other delicious things I found in the fridge.

And of course my mum's fantastic (yumyumyumyumyum) Greek Salad.

And here comes the darling flower-bearer's requisite appearance in Sunday, doing his newspaper crossword... I must say I find there to be something so wonderfully intimate and endearing in that image.

I decided to go swimming at the beach... I can't go for a week without being with the ocean, it's so silly. So we packed our beach bags and waited impatiently to get there.

A sweet little fabric flower wrapped around my belt-loop made my day (and my outfit... heh).

Finally we got to the beach. I look like I've been swimming in this picture but it is in fact because my sister poured a bottle of water over my head. Still, it was so wonderful to be on the sand again. I was so so very excited to go swimming with my goggles and look at all the amazing fish that live in Clovelly (there are a family of Blue Groper that are like big beautiful puppy dogs under the sea).

Alas, it was not to be... as I first stepped out into the water I noticed something bobbing on top of the water. It was a bluebottle.

FUCK. That is so annoying.

For anyone who is unfamiliar, bluebottles are fucking horrible little stinging (for lack of a better word) jellyfish that sit on the surface of the water waiting to sting the shit out of people who are dumb or unlucky enough to swim through their path. My mum tells horror stories about big dirty long ones that wrapped themselves around her leg when she was young. They're not life-threatening but they are incredibly painful. And there's never just one - if you see one you can bet your life there are a thousand more blobbing towards you.

Basically, when you see one, you get out of the water. So there goes that great beach adventure. Poo.

The funny thing about bluebottles is that they have no choice in who they sting - they have no muscles or motor skills, they are just a pouch of air that floats on the water's surface and a tangle of blue tentacles that stretch out below. They don't attack, they just float where the sea takes them. Tomorrow morning the beach will be covered with them - they'll wash up on the beach and die, turning dark as they dry up in the sun. Wouldn't it be horrible to have that little control? One thing's for sure, when you're at the very bottom of the Buddhist cycle of reincarnation, you're a fucking bluebottle. Poor bastards. Still, get the hell away from me.

After our failed swimming expedition we returned home where I cooked my weekly meal. This week it was Emily's delicious Cherry Pilaf, with lovely firm grape tomatoes and beans.

Followed by DESERT PIZZA. Banana/Apple with caramel sauce. Oh my goodness. Death and heaven all in one.

Have happy weeks ahead, my loves!

Deliciousness

I succumb ridiculously easily to illness.

It's a pain in the... yeah. So anyway. It has been Cold City here in sunny Sydney for the last couple of days (hence the lack of posting... I have light-sensitive eyes when I get sick and the computer screen, she kills me...) so my usually robust diet has been limited.

Let me share with you my Cold & Flu Diet. It's very very simple.

1. Sweet Elixir Of Life (Lemon Honey Drink)

Half boiling water half tap water, the juice of half a lemon and a big teaspoon of delicious and nutritious manuka honey.

2. Solids.
Good toast dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It's about all I can handle and it's just perfect on a weak stomach and stuffy head.

I hope this little diet soothes you my dears when you are feeling sick in the future.

Sunday in Potter

In the aftermath of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows depression overcame a lot of Harry Potter fans.

As many people know, the best way to overcome bouts of depression is through thereputic baking... ta da!

Harry Potter Peanut Butter Cookies!


And what better way to spend a day than to curl up with a good book and cookies between rounds of Harry Potter Cluedo...


Any comments on my crazed fangirlishness will be responded to only with scorn.

Christmas Highlights

Ten Highlights of Christmas...

1. Lemon Barley Water to keep us cool.

2. Bouncy cousins and sisters getting pink cheeks from the trampoline.3. Juicy purple cherries.

4. My grandmother's amazing tuna dip with mini-breads!

5. Fruity pink champagne and drunk relatives (he he he).

6. Sourdough, salad, and beautiful blue blossoms.

7. Hilarious puppies with whole sausages in their mouths.

8. Silly sisters.

9. Siblings and gangly Christmas trees.

10. Charlie the Cactus, Roman's Christmas present.

Merry Christmas, bunnies!

Breakfast

My father's just pointed out to me (rather rudely, ahem) that food is a recurring theme in my blog. So, just to spite him, here's my breakfast!

It was very satisfying.

Sunday in Pictures

How nice was today? I don't think I've ever experienced a more blissfully calm Sunday. I cannot remember the last time I had a whole day with nothing on my schedule.
It's been a while, hasn't it? I hope you're enjoying a little pocket of stillness in your own lives.

Breakfast was scrumptious. There's nothing like getting up late and eating a lot of sweet delicious breakfasty things in a big pile. In addition to the croissant and pancakes I had strawberries and bananas with yoghurt, cheese and pickles, loads of toast, four glasses of orange juice and a cup of tea.
Roman and I went for a walk through the glorious streets of Northbridge. We played hide-and-seek. I won.

We visited my pet Woolworth's trolley, Stevie. He got lost one day and now lives outside our house. He's friendly. Say hi, Stevie!
I climbed a tree. It had nice hard, smooth wood and accomodating branches.

... Roman may have had to help me out of it.

We found real treasure!

and I rediscovered a treasure of my own from when I was young. It has sequins!

When the shadows grew long in the garden, I started to make dinner for my family and my brother's lady-friend.

Starting with an entree of garlic pizza...
And greek salad, the dressing of which is made from mixing sliced red onion with white vinegar and caster sugar.
I always thing it looks a little bit like a bowl of jewels. Rubies, emeralds, long shards of amethyst crystal and pearls...

Beef, beans, peas, garlic mash, and the aforementioned greek salad.

Followed by fried bananas and ice cream. Looks foul, tastes mind-blowingly delicious.

Now I'm just sitting on the couch, curled up in blogland, enjoying my 11th episode of the West Wing in twenty four hours.
Have a lovely week, all.