this week

The ducks in the Botanical Gardens have so much personality and always make me smile!

There was snow on the mountain and ice on our windows this week, so I think winter has definitely arrived. I wore my favourite scarf in all my Zoom meetings and video chats with overseas pals. “Ah, it’s your turn to wear the woolies now,” laughed my dear friend Lisa in the UK, who’d noted my tank tops and dresses over the Australian summer with longing!

There’s been a lot of ‘not easy’ weeks in recent history. I’m learning to roll with it. In one of the podcasts I listened to this week, they quoted Eckhart Tolle who said: “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” Obviously that won’t apply to everything (it would be a bit insensitive to say it to someone who has just suffered a tragic loss, for example) but I appreciate this quote for the fact that it encourages you take back some power, particularly in situations where you feel very vulnerable and at the mercy of others. What is the lesson you can take from it? If you had intended this situation, what was it that you were trying to learn? Sometimes it can help to ask yourself that question, to make meaning out of hard times rather than wallow. As I am wont to do on occasion, admittedly!

I have drawn a lot of lessons from this recent period in my life but the overriding one is to trust myself and my instinct, always. It is very rarely wrong. This week, it was proved right once more and I will never, ever ignore it again.

Favourite experience/s of the week

Having my dear friend Isabel round for dinner! I hadn’t seen her for over three years and it was wonderful to be reunited. I cooked Pip Lincolne’s casserole again, perfect comfort food for a freezing night, and we talked for hours about writing, life, politics, and everything in between. You know how some people in your life are just balm for the soul? Iz is one of those people for me.

I also thoroughly enjoyed this month’s Hidden Nerve lecture, and discussing it with a lovely new friend who I’ve met through the course over Zoom the next day. We were both stunned that we were drinking the same tea, the same way (black, no milk or sugar), in two different parts of the country! I love life’s delightful surprises and synchronicities.

Reading

Sydney Review of Books: Critic Swallows Book by Catriona Menzies-Pike which argues that Trent Dalton, a phenomenally successful Australian author, is “the definitive novelist of Scott Morrison’s Australia” which I found very compelling and deeply thought-provoking. And let’s hope that Scott Morrison’s Australia will be a thing of the past after the election tomorrow.

I also loved Notness by Oliver Reeson who reviewed Yves Rees’ memoir of transition with great care and insight. I found Reeson’s ideas about representation, “reinforcing difference through representation, and how this relates to social power” and what this particular book said about these things really interesting, especially the way global popular culture validates certain ways of being. Reeson writes: “In fevered discussions about the importance of representation in popular culture we are forgetting how many cultures exist, quite successfully, completely outside of global popular culture [my emphasis]. In this idea that a way of being can only be taken up if it is first modeled and seen in popular culture, we are engaging in a bizarre denial of our humanity, ignoring that most of our impulses originate in our mind and bodies, rather than being taken in from an external source.”

Write or Die Tribe: Brad Listi: On Writing Autofiction, Working Through Failure, Quitting Twitter, and His New Novel, "Be Brief and Tell Them Everything" - I enjoyed this interview because it’s always validating to hear other authors talk about the process of trying and failing while you’re writing a book, experimenting with form, realising the form is wrong and starting again, or going in a completely new direction with a work.

Nathan Bransford: I’ve followed Nathan’s blog for years and this week’s post on Breaks, permission and writing was very timely and relatable!

The Wilderness Cure by Mo Wilde - this book is coming out in August, and I was lucky to get an advance Kindle copy to review. I really liked it! A compulsively readable, engaging and compelling book about a woman who decides to spend an entire year eating only wild food - what she can forage. And the challenge begins at the end of 2020 just as Scotland is heading into winter... I think a lot of us would like to think we eat seasonally and locally, but this book showed me that there's a lot more I could be doing to tread more lightly on the earth. One scene has had a profound impact on me - when Mo floats the idea of making a video to encourage people to eat organic food. She proposes making a gorgeous dinner full of organic produce, then placing it in front of people who aren't convinced of the benefits organic food, along with a shot glass of the legal amounts of pesticide and herbicide that you'd typically ingest with non-organic food, to pour over their food like you would a salad dressing. What a brilliant idea. I think such a video would almost certainly go viral and have an incredible impact. Overall, this book comes highly recommended to anyone interested in foraging, eating locally (that's an understatement!) and the natural world. Mo's passion and commitment is obvious and admirable in this very enjoyable and, I think, important book.

I also just read Caitlin Moran’s More Than A Woman and found it very enjoyable too, but more of a memoir this time and less a gritty, full-of-fight manifesto than its predecessor, her massively successful How To Be A Woman, was. Of course one can only write what one knows, but it’s then important to note that this isn’t a book all women will relate to, as the stories are told through a white, cis and educated lens. The parts about her daughter’s illness, however, were beautifully written and very moving.

Listening to

TIDAL inner autumn, yoga, running and writing beats playlists

I’ve also just discovered the Kronos Quartet - wow! Do you know of them? I’m quite blown away.

Best Friend Therapy: Endings - Are they a bad thing? What’s the difference between loss and change? How do we make meaning? I don’t know how they manage it, but the themes of this podcast always seem to be incredibly timely for me. Lots of useful stuff in this episode.

Eating

I had to think about this and try to recall from memory because, since being off social media, I don’t really take photos of my food all the time any more, nor that many selfies, which I find very interesting. I sometimes go through my phone looking for photos to accompany my This Week post and there’s very little, in comparison to how many photos I used to take.

We had the aforementioned Pip casserole for several lunches and dinners, either thinned out with stock as a soup, or with reheated with rice. I also made this wonderful West African Peanut Stew which I’ve made many times since discovering Rachel Ama and her wonderful books over the summer. If you love peanut butter it’s a must-try, and also a great way to clean out all the peanut butter jars sitting in my pantry with a teaspoon or two left stuck to the bottom! I also turned leftovers of this into a soup by thinning out with stock. Gorgeous!

We also discovered, thanks to a kind hostess gift from Iz, these morsels of heaven:

I don’t think I’ll ever eat any kind of chocolate again! They are seriously incredible.

Picking

I’ve been picking ruby chard, celery and kale - there’s still plenty to be had out there. I planted garlic last weekend and to my delight the soil was soft, crumbly and dark, like coffee grounds, and writhing with healthy worms. Bodes well for spring planting!

Watching

The football (by which I mean AFL) with my sister and her husband - I don’t know any of the players any more! I only recognise the commentators….who were players when I last followed the AFL with any seriousness, which was about 15 years ago. My lack of knowledge is a source of great hilarity to the family, as you can imagine.

Long Way Up (Apple TV) - the Long Way series, where Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman attempt epic motorbike journeys across the world, are our very favourites. No matter our mood, we can put an episode or two of any of the series on and it’s guaranteed to make us smile and ignite that spark of adventure in us. Long Way Up is the latest in the series, filmed 2019 and released in 2020, where Ewan, Charley and their loveable crew ride electric motorcycles and electric vehicles from the bottom of Argentina to Los Angeles, California - 13,000 miles in 100 days. It’s quite the adventure! I love that Ewan and Charley did the whole thing with such mindfulness of the environmental impact and wanting to show that these kind of epic, off-road trips are possible to do with electric vehicles.

Rick Stein’s Secret France (DVD) - I don’t know what it is about cooking shows, but they are the TV equivalent of a foot massage. I find watching them deeply relaxing, nothing makes me switch off as instantly as seeing Rick, Nigella, Jamie or even John and Gregg on the screen. I particularly enjoy Rick’s shows because they combine travel and cooking. Long Weekends is probably my favourite but this one, which takes him all over the less-visited parts of France where there is plenty of good food and wine to be found, is also fabulous. I do wish he’d get another dog sometimes. That Chalky was quite a character!

Quote of the week

“I must choose between despair and energy - I choose the latter.” - John Keats

I’m going to take a few weeks off from my weekly posting, as I need to focus on some other projects, but I will be back with a vengeance in June. Until then, my friends, stay safe and well and know I am cheering you on, whatever it is you’re striving for or working through.

And as always, if you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything, with me, then please do! Thank you for reading xx

this week

How is it Friday already? And how is it May on Sunday?

“I feel like it’s still March,” I remarked to Tom this morning.

“I feel like it’s still some time in 2020,” he replied.

Favourite experience/s of the week

There have been a few.

Digging up my first potatoes on a warm, blue-skied day, which was so joyful and fun, like digging for treasure…and finding it! Many of them were knobbly and oddly-shaped but there was one giant one, which I baked for a late lunch. Split in half; butter, pepper and salt gently mashed into its fluffy insides. Tom and I shared it at the kitchen table, the warm breeze wafting in, and we were quite speechless by its utter deliciousness. Funny how the simplest things can feel like the most luxurious.

There was also a memorable misty morning walk, when the air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke, the pavements were carpeted in yellow leaves, and boughs heavy with red apples and buttery quinces hung lazily over fences, the occasional musk lorikeet pecking away at some of the fruit. It felt like autumn had truly arrived.

The wedding of a dear friend on Saturday afternoon - the weather was glorious, my friend was a beautiful beaming bride, the wine at the reception was fantastic (rare) and our fellow guests were a fascinating creative and intellectual bunch. How I have missed mingling and meeting new people!

Finally, afternoon tea with another dear friend I haven’t seen all year, and her two children who are sweet, intelligent and lively little creatures who made me smile a lot.

Reading

I’ve just started Breadsong by Kitty and Al Tait, a father and daughter, which was released in the UK this week and is just astonishing. A young girl whose life was derailed by depression and anxiety finds hope, and her passion, in bread making and baking. Her parents were willing to do anything to support her, including turning their kitchen into a bakery! Kitty and her dad Al are now professional bakers and run the Orange Bakery in a small town in England. They have become widely known not just for their very heartwarming story (which I’m sure will give so much hope to all young people struggling with their mental health) but for their excellent bread too! There’s a great Guardian article about them here.

Wonderground: “Other-Motherhood” by Georgina Reid. This article almost had me in tears of recognition at the first line - “There are few things lonelier than being a childfree woman in a house full of mothers.”

Continuing The Writer Laid Bare by Lee Kofman - I’m finding it very relatable and insightful.

Stray by Stephanie Danler - when I used to be on Instagram, Stephanie Danler was one of my favourite people to follow. She gave great insights into the writing life and craft, and recommended some fabulous books. I like her as a person, and enjoy her online persona, but I’ve not been as taken with her actual work, but perhaps that’s because both her books have featured a lot of drug and alcohol abuse, which is something thankfully I don’t know a great deal about. And I’m always reluctant to say anything less than glowing about a memoir, because I’ve written and published one myself. I know how much courage it takes to put it out there, and how it stings when people who weren’t your intended audience are careless or indifferent in their assessment of it. And Stray is a courageous memoir indeed, unflinching in its portrayal of all its characters, including the author/narrator herself. There’s a lot I enjoyed about the writing and imagery, and Stray is certainly an interesting journey but I don’t think it was a journey I personally needed to take. But that’s OK. I’m glad I couldn’t relate to a lot of it, because some of the things Danler writes about are truly horrific. There is no doubt that being raised by addicts has lasting, damaging effects on children well into their adulthood. But Danler certainly intrigues me, as a person and a writer, so I’ll happily read whatever she writes next.

How to End a Story - The third and final instalment of Helen Garner’s diaries. I read it in a day. As usual, I find it astonishing that people annotate library books (albeit in pencil) but what they choose to asterisk is always very revealing. I’ve read all the volumes of Garner’s diaries that Text has put out over the past few years, and this was by far the most compelling one. Completely immersive, in fact.

Listening to

My inner winter playlist on TIDAL

In the evenings, gentle jazz

The First Time : Masters Series with Bernadette Brennan - I really enjoyed this one, particularly Brennan’s discussion about archives. I felt very reassured that my own note-taking system is perhaps not as haphazard as I thought.

The Creative Penn: From Big Idea to Book with Jessie Kwak

How to Own The Room: Julia Samuel

The Shift: Christina Patterson on how to deal with the blows life throws at you

Eating

We’ve had potatoes a lot this week, unsurprisingly! I made Pip Lincolne’s Casserole again (as mentioned Last Week) with extra potatoes and carrots instead of pumpkin. The leftovers made a lovely soup thinned out with stock.

I also made a divine potato and cauliflower curry, generously spiced with mustard seeds and curry leaves. It was even better the second night, as curries tend to be.

I made apple butter a few weeks ago with the giant bag Dad brought round, and we’ve been enjoying that on porridge in the mornings.

My sourdough bread dough didn’t rise very well, so I made pizzas with the dough rather than put it in the compost. They turned out brilliantly, and I was very happy there was no waste. Our favourite topping at the moment is basil pesto, mushrooms and green olives. Divine!

Shepard avocados - I have no idea why nearly everyone in Australia moans about them! I think they’re wonderful. Once ripe they last significantly longer in the fruit bowl than Hass tend to. You cut one open and it’s nearly always perfect and blemish free, none of the yucky brown bits. The flesh is buttery and wonderful for toast and guacamole. Honestly, I think they’re brilliant. No complaints here. Shepard forever!

Maggie Beer Seville Orange Marmalade - Vegemite will always be my go-to toast spread for comfort, but a well-made orange marmalade is a close second. A perfect start to the day for me is a steaming hot coffee and thick toast made from Pigeon Whole’s malt and linseed sourdough bread, spread liberally with butter and marmalade. I got a taste for it living in the UK and it still makes me think of weekend winter mornings there. Once, I remember the toast was so hot I could hear the butter sizzling on it while it waited on the plate.

Picking

I dug up the first potatoes, as mentioned, and my joy in doing so was unconfined. Totally worth being sore the next day, as I planted them in the ground this time rather than growing them in gro-bags as I have done for the past five years. That is a low-fuss way to grow them, but I can’t deny the specimens I unearthed at the weekend are bigger and taste better.

Our lovely neighbour came over with a bowl of green tomatoes. “Would you like these? I only eat the red ones!” she smiled. It inspired me to pick all the remaining tomatoes in my garden and make my great grandmother’s recipe for green tomato pickle. It was fun to see her wonderful familiar (though sometimes unreadable) handwriting and work out the metric measurements for all the quarts, pints, pounds and ounces. How I might have managed that task prior to digital scales and Google I have no idea.

We were also given a giant bag of cucumbers as our neighbour grew so many of them this year and didn’t want them to go to waste. Two we ate raw, dipped into hummus, but most of them were washed, cut into batons and put straight into waiting brine in the fridge. Pickled this way the cucumbers are ready to eat within a few days and keep for absolute yonks. We particularly enjoy them with a veggie burger, both in the bun or alongside.

Watching

The Walking Dead (Binge) - we’ve started on Season 11 at last, the final season. Tom was a fan of this show for years and years, and towards the end of 2019 he finally convinced me to give it a go, appreciating it wasn’t my kind of thing (zombies, violence, etc) but, in light of my PhD work, I’d probably get something out of it because he thought colonial and post-apocalyptic societies have many similarities. He was right.

I also think watching The Walking Dead prepared me a little for the events of 2020, as strange as that sounds. While I was still frightened and outraged by the selfish, dangerous and downright bizarre behaviour we saw playing out all over the world as lockdowns were imposed, businesses were closed, and everyday goods became scarce, it didn’t take me by surprise. The Walking Dead is a deeply accurate meditation on how human beings behave in a crisis, when the scaffolding holding society up falls apart and then, further down the line, is re-established. The show forces you to think about your own morality, about what you might become, or be reduced to, in a similar set of circumstances. On the surface, it’s a zombie show taking place in an imagined future. Buried underneath the gore is a fascinating portrait of our world as it already is.

Yesterday (on BluRay) - we discovered this film during the 2020 lockdown and it’s become one of our favourites. I won’t spoil some of the best, tear-jerking moments of it in case you haven’t seen it, but if you are a Beatles fan and have not watched it yet, do so NOW.

Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent)(Netflix) - the final episodes, and they were manifique. Oh how I’ll miss it! “We have to start it again, from the beginning!” I cried as the last credits rolled. Tom looked aghast. “When we’ve got so much Walking Dead to watch?!” Ahem.

Thinking about

Some big things, and negotiating the trepidation I feel in daring to make some big plans, knowing how easily they might fall away. How risky it all still feels.

But also some small, insigificant things but that give my brain a welcome respite from the big things. Such as how I will make sourdough now my house is too cold to prove dough in overnight? How is it possible that Tom and I got the same score in Wordle and guessed exactly the same letters and words, independently of each other?! Spooky!

Looking forward to

Our robo-vac arriving! I’ve been promised it will change our lives. We’ve already decided to name it after a character in Julia. I’ll let you guess which one.

Quote of the week

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” - Bob Marley

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! Otherwise, stay tuned for another exciting instalment next week xx

seeds of spring

It is officially spring here now, which means it’s time to start planting my garden again!

Over the last 18 months I’ve had to relearn Tasmanian seasons, soils and planting calendars - it shouldn’t have surprised me that crops I had great success with in London were not as good here but, equally, things that failed miserably in London grow beautifully here! In London with only a little garden, I found I didn’t have to be as methodical or organised. Here, I have to study the sun, prepare soil and get things in the ground within a certain window of time if they’re going to reach their full potential.

Growing things has become a great passion of mine. Books take years to come to fruition, but gardening can give you gratifying results from your efforts in mere months. Though, of course, you have to play the long game with gardening as well. The very act reminds me that if I plant seeds and tend them with care, the end result can be something to be very proud of.

But equally, sometimes things won’t go to plan, despite all your careful planning and reading and tending. Perhaps the weather will be bad or the caterpillars will swarm in biblical proportions over your kale and cabbages, and there won’t be much you can do about it but learn from it and try again.

When I was a child I never used to understand why my parents were such keen gardeners but I do now. It’s meditative, it’s physical (so important when you spend so much time in your head and/or sitting down), it’s rewarding, and you’re creating something beautiful.

Most of all, gardening has taught me so much about life. That it’s better when you work in harmony with nature. That you can plan and invest time, money and energy in having a garden that makes you proud and happy, and should luck be on your side, fantastic. But ultimately, you have to relinquish control and let things be what they are.

When the Stay At Home order was in full force here in March, April and May, it was deeply comforting to be able to walk a few metres outside to my garden and pick vegetables for our meals rather than have to face the supermarket. COVID or no COVID, there’s nothing better than creating a meal where all the ingredients have been grown by your own hand.

I am looking forward to an abundant spring, summer and autumn, regardless of what’s going on outside of my own backyard!

zucchini flatbread

In a bid to waste nothing and make the most of my zucchini bounty, I came up with this dish at the weekend, faced with a lone multigrain wrap and a zucchini I had accidentally mandolined rather than grated in the food processor (I’d put the blade on the wrong way!).

It was so delicious! Tom and I shared this one but I will definitely make us one each next time. The recipe is easily doubled, tripled or quadrupled depending on how many flatbreads you have to use.

Zucchini flatbread

Makes one, for two to (reluctantly) share

1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced or mandolined
1 wrap or large pitta bread
2-3 tablespoons ricotta, pesto, cottage cheese or thick Greek yoghurt (I used ricotta)
1 small red chilli, finely chopped or a pinch of dried chilli flakes
A handful of fresh thyme leaves
A handful of grated cheese of your choice (I used ready-grated Parmesan)

Spread the ricotta across the base of the wrap. Layer the zucchini slices on top in concentric circles. Scatter with thyme, chilli and cheese. If you have a zucchini flower from the garden, put that in the middle too for that cheffy touch. Grind some black pepper over the top, if you like.

Prior to going into the oven! I thought it looked rather beautiful.

Bake for 5-8 minutes in a hot oven (check after 5, depending on the thickness of the wrap or pitta bread) until golden and bubbling. Allow to cool slightly, then cut into wedges as you would a pizza, and devour.

zucchini slice

The humble zucchini slice - one of Australia’s favourite dishes. No doubt we “borrowed” it from another nation! Zucchini slice appeared regularly on my family dinner table when I was a child and I was always dismayed when it did because I thought it was “boring”. But with the glut of zucchini in my vegetable garden at the moment, I thought I’d “Phil-ify” this family favourite and lo and behold, it’s delicious! And with the addition of fresh and dried herbs, including an Australian Bush Herbs mix I picked up from one of my favourite shops on the mainland, it’s anything but boring.

This dish is the perfect vehicle to use up a glut of zucchini, and any other vegetables you might have lying around that need using. You can also throw in any cheese you want to use up. It’s the ideal dish for these strange times when we’re all trying to make the most of what we’ve got.

If you’ve got a food processor, I highly recommend fitting the grater attachment and grating the onion, zucchini and cheese all together. An absolute breeze and takes about 20 seconds from start to finish. Just watch your fingers!

Zucchini slice

Serves 6

6 large, preferably organic, eggs
1 1/2 - 2 cups grated cheese of your choice (I used parmesan and cheddar)
3 large zucchini (about 1kg), grated
1 large onion, grated
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
2 teaspoons Australian Bush Herbs mix (optional)
1 teaspoon dried basil
4 spring onions, finely chopped
Large handful of fresh mint, parsley and thyme (or another preferred combo of fresh herbs), finely chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Grease a large baking pan or lamington pan (I use a baking pan I’d normally make lasagna in).

Whisk the eggs in a large mixing bowl with a bit of salt and pepper, then add all the rest of the ingredients. I tend to do this in stages - add the grated zucchini and onion, mix it in a bit, then the cheese and flour, then the seasonings, fresh herbs, etc. You want it all mixed nicely together with no lumps of flour.

Once thoroughly combined, scrape the mixture into your greased tin and spread out evenly. You can top with more cheese if you like but I tend not to.

Bake in the hot oven for around 35 minutes or until risen and golden on top. Put a knife or a skewer in, as if you’re testing a cake, and if it comes out clean, you’re good to go!

Allow the slice to sit for about 10-15 minutes before cutting into generous pieces. You can serve it as is, or with any accompaniment you like - salad, green beans, broccoli - but as the slice contains green veg already, my favourite way to serve this is with homemade potato wedges and a big dollop of homemade chutney.