this week and last week

The last strawberries!

Well, this week has turned into last week and last week turned into the week before last in the blink of an eye!

Sorry everyone. I have constant deadlines at the moment, as well as a few other stressful things happening behind the scenes which I don’t feel at liberty to discuss publicly so yes, needless to say, life has been and probably will continue to be hectic. But I’m trying to hold on to this space I’ve carved out for myself, to record the small details of life as I’m living it now. One day this will be the past and I’ll be glad I took the time to put it all down. One year can turn into five so quickly.

A few days ago we lit the fire in the house for the first time since December. It’s quite cold now in the evenings and the mornings - whenever the sun isn’t out, basically. I think I’ve picked the last strawberries. The autumnal air is still slightly tinged with the last breath of summer, but soon it will be woodsmoke, piles of leaves, earth being turned over.

This is an in-between time, I’ve come to realise - much like September is in the northern hemisphere, so is March in the south. Summer is definitely over, but we’re not quite in full-blown autumn yet. I’m still drinking crisp and cold white wine but craving the warmth and sweetness of a fruit crumble. Soaking up the sun, and even still sporting a tan in places, but also savouring the coziness of a favourite jumper, which is now always within easy reach.

highlights

Handing in 20,000 words to my supervisors, on time! I looked at the “Properties” of the Word document I submitted…7,076 minutes have been spent on the document, which translates to nearly 118 hours. It didn’t feel like it! And yet when my head hits the pillow every night, I sleep the sleep of the truly spent.

Writing and sipping tea in a colonial house merely metres away from where my character would have sipped tea too, two hundred years ago.

A catchup with a dear friend of 37 years over proper chai and vegan peanut butter cookies the size of our heads. I am godmother to her son, who will be 18 this year. It doesn’t feel that long ago that we were celebrating our own 18ths!

Figs I grew featured on the cheese platter! They were delicious with a piece of aged cashew cheese on top.

A much-loved aunt and uncle visiting from interstate, whom I hadn’t seen since 2019, coming round for drinks and nibbles. Like Tom and I, they have had to weather the tempests of other people’s opinions and judgements for taking unconventional paths in life, so it was really wonderful to spend a few hours catching up. I so enjoyed seeing them and feel very lucky to have them in my life. I think we’ll be a lot like this aunt and uncle in 30 years time…well, I hope so.

The open garden scheme run by Home Harvest last weekend, where we got to see five local backyard gardens and what the clever inhabitants had managed to achieve with them. I loved seeing pear and apple trees laden with fruit, beans climbing up frames, abundant patches of kale, silverbeet, beetroot, tomatoes and snow peas. I was so inspired. And reassured to see that many other Hobart gardeners have rogue pumpkins and potatoes too!

Reading

Just a few books I’ve devoured when I’ve not been chained to my desk…

I want to make particular note of Alison Croggon’s Monsters which might be my favourite book I’ve read this year. I devoured it in a day, could barely tear myself away from it. It was so poetically and cleverly written - taking the personal (a painful estrangement from her sister) and placing it within a wider global and cultural context, exploring how the “monsters” of racism, colonialism, privilege, white supremacy, and patriarchy have played out in the family history and in the eventual broken and dysfunctional dynamic Alison found herself in and how these attitudes have shaped her. She writes about how life for most white people who have grown up in the structures of colonialism and patriarchy becomes a series of convenient fictions, because we can’t find it in ourselves to truly acknowledge what horrific systems we are a part of - this is true of dysfunctional families as well. Alison thoughtfully and unflinchingly considers the “monsters” of her own life and psyche, her family and colonial Britain, which of course includes Australia, and, naturally, there are no neat endings or easy answers. It’s fascinating. I highly, highly recommend it.

I’ve also been enjoying Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal which was mentioned in Diem Tran’s excellent newsletter a few weeks back. It’s all about cooking with economy and grace, with so many ideas for making the most of ingredients. I am loving it! Perfect bedtime reading.

The Guardian: Seven tips for eating well on a solo budget and yet another stolen generation.

Women’s Agenda: Michelle Yeoh’s epic win and call to women and girls (don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re past your prime!)

The Weekend Australian: A profile of one of my favourite novelists, who has a memoir coming out, and it sounds fascinating.

Listening to

I have been really enjoying Sarah Cahill’s The Future is Female, a three-volume series which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. It’s all piano music too, which I love! Wonderful writing music.

My inner autumn playlist, which naturally then went into winter, and now spring! But because the weather is so autumnal, I’m leaning back on the autumn playlist. I may or may not have mentioned but Tom and I use TIDAL, which is to our minds the most ethical of the current music streaming services, in that it does pay the artists.

PICKING

What the garden gave me one Thursday afternoon…..

The garden has been surprisingly prolific! The fig tree has been full of ripe fruit. I have given two bags away to a neighbour and a friend, and still have managed to have one or two each day sliced on pancakes, into a smoothie or just enjoyed on its own. Yesterday I picked another bowl:

Which I then roasted with white wine, brown sugar, cinnamon and star anise. They turned out beautifully and are so delicious. They’re now being stored in the fridge for this week’s breakfasts. I’ll be eating them with coconut yoghurt and granola, or on top of porridge. Yum!

I was also happy to see some of my own tomatoes in the garden finally turning red!

Picked quite a few zucchini too, which I’ve used in my cooking throughout the week. There are at least three more budding on the plant in the garden.

And then I woke up this morning to find a bag of vegetables - kale, silverbeet, more zucchini and more tomatoes - from my parents on the doorstep. They must have come past at an hour they knew we’d still be in bed! Kale and silverbeet are going in a soup tonight and the tomatoes might get made into a kasundi….

Eating

The last few weeks’ cooking and eating has been centred around making the most of the seasonal produce! I roasted a big tray of vegetables, which we enjoyed with pan-fried gnocchi; sautéed zucchini into buttery softness which becomes a wonderful pasta sauce; made bruschetta which is my favourite way to enjoy a glut of fresh tomatoes, from my garden or someone else’s; turned leftover porridge into pancakes which I topped with tahini, maple syrup, coconut yoghurt and fresh figs from the tree; a tofu scramble which was divine; a butter bean curry from Natural Flava which was delicious but so hot (1 tablespoon of curry powder next time rather than two, I think!)

I also did some baking with my zucchini and fig glut this weekend - chocolate courgette/zucchini cake from The Vegan Baking Bible with a lovely chocolate ganache icing on top, the usual banana bread with grated zucchini added, and the aforementioned roasted figs with spices and a pinot gris we didn’t like enough to drink but seems to be OK to cook with. In the banana bread and the figs, I used my favourite spice which was sent as a surprise from a kind friend in Melbourne. It arrived on a day I really needed cheering up and while she could not possibly have known that, she also somehow did in the way that kindred spirits always do.

And, of course, there were a few nights were we were too exhausted to do anything other than cook frozen dumplings or heat up leftover pasta and fall into a TV stupor! No need for photos of that. But know that it happens!

Drinking

Chai. Proper chai. It’s all I want to drink in autumn.

Watching

We got Binge in anticipation of the new season of Succession so not only have we rewatched season 3 so we remember what’s happened (!) but we finally caught up on the 2022 season of Masterchef UK, which has been one of my favourite shows for years. It was superb! Really loved seeing John and Gregg again, how well they nurture talent, and how inclusive this series was - it made me very happy to see a Deaf woman in the heats (it would have made my grandmother very happy too). It made me a little homesick for the UK too - or maybe nostalgic is the better word. Seeing familiar brands of foodstuffs I used to buy (though they always blur out the logos?!), remembering dishes I used to cook and the kinds of wonderful and different ingredients you could get. Great fun!

Likewise, have used getting Binge as an excuse to catch up on Call the Midwife, which is as wonderful and comforting and heart-wrenching as ever. One of my favourites!

As for films, I adored Maggie’s Plan, which Tom surprised me with - wonderfully written and acted, and really thought provoking. I love films set in New York City with quirky characters who are writers and academics, so this film was me to a tee.

It was a nice antidote to In Bruges, which we both watched for the first time the night before. I remember posters for it being all over the tube in London in 2008 when it first came out, but we never saw it until now. It was a bit too violent for me and hadn’t aged well - very homophobic with lots of ableist and fatphobic slurs that are just simply unacceptable, even if you’re trying to illustrate how repugnant a character is. Apparently, it’s supposed to symbolise purgatory - a setting that has always fascinated me, ever since I read T.S Eliot’s The Wasteland way back when. So even though The Banshees of Inisherin has won a lot of acclaim and I’m intrigued, as it’s the same team, I’m not sure it will be my cup of tea! But we’ll see.

We also watched Ford vs Ferrari which I surprisingly enjoyed. The race was a nail biter!

Wearing/ USING

I’ve been writing with my new metallic lilac Lamy fountain pen, which I treated myself to with some of my Van Diemen History Prize prize money. Every time I write with it, I try and remind myself I am an award-winning writer. It quiets the inner critic who has certainly not disappeared. I’m determined to keep it at bay and allow gratitude, humility and hope to be my guiding stars.

It keeps dawning on me - I am in what is likely my final year of my PhD. I am really trying to enjoy it because I have actually been working towards this my entire life. I want to remember as much and soak up as much as I can, and not be robbed of my pleasure and joy by fear, anxiety and self doubt, as I have been for so many years. I have let those things keep me small for long enough. I have also let the judgment of insecure people in the cheap seats keep me small for long enough. Now, the idea of playing small is more painful than the vulnerability of putting my hand up, of saying things out loud. It’s more painful than the risk that I’ll give it everything and it still won’t be enough. I don’t care about that anymore. I do not want to look back on this time with regrets. I want to make the most of every opportunity. People have said “if you don’t believe in yourself, you can’t expect anyone else to” to me for years but I finally understand how very, very true that is. And let’s face it, self doubt just gets very fucking boring after a while!

Grateful for

Everything. Like I said above, I’m trying to make gratitude my default position, even in the face of painful or inconvenient happenings. It really helps.

Quote of the week

“Half of life is lost in charming others. The other half is lost in going through anxieties caused by others. Leave this play. You’ve played enough.” - Rumi

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do! I hope you’re enjoying it getting warmer where you are, or finding things to savour about autumn as it gets cooler, like me! See you soon xx

Please note: this blog post has affiliate links with retailers such as Booktopia which means I may receive a commission for a sale that I refer, at no extra cost to you.

this week

Autumn has most definitely arrived in Tasmania. We woke up to snow on the mountain on Wednesday, and while I sipped this glass of Chardonnay, as it was a warm afternoon, yellow and rust-coloured leaves danced on the pavement outside in the breeze.

Favourite experience/s of the week

I’m an unofficial writer in residence at an old building in the city - the same building my main character lived and worked in in the 1820s - and spent a happy afternoon there working on my book. Afterwards, I met a friend for a wine and long overdue in-person catchup. We met at a media launch in 2019 and might have had every reason to lose touch because of the pandemic, but regardless of everything she’s had going on, she’s made time for me regularly over the last few years and that warms my heart no end.

I also loved being on campus this week for International Women’s Day where our school had an afternoon tea for staff and HDRs and it felt so wonderful to see people in the flesh again after so long. The campus feels alive again, in a way I haven’t witnessed for three years now…almost to the day.

I had a pretty good run on Thursday too, the morning after overnight rain. The smell of wet gum leaves was quite incredible, not to mention mind clearing.

Another of the week’s highlights was going round to spend an evening with my sister and her family. Her daughter, who is three, utterly adorable and heavily into Frozen, sang us most of the soundtrack. I held back tears watching her sing (and take a bow at the end as we applauded!) - not just because she’s so sweet and expressive, but her innocence, the complete innocence of all young children, just undoes me.

Reading

I adored Minnie Darke’s latest contemporary romance With Love From Wish & Co - as she’s a Tasmanian writer, the setting always feels quite Hobart (and therefore very cosy) to me. This was a delightful escapist read - Marnie is a young entrepreneur desperate to buy back her grandfather’s old store, currently in the hands of her cold and distant uncle with a grudge against her deceased father. She makes a career-ruining mistake with one of her best clients, throwing his 40-year marriage into jeopardy. He offers to help her try to buy back the family store, if she will work her magic and help him win his wife back. It’s whimsical and full of heart, and I just loved it.

A wonderful interview on Kate Forsyth’s website with the writer Alison Croggon, whom I always knew as the blogger behind theatre notes, a popular and acclaimed Australian theatre blog in the 2000s. I loved it when I lived in Melbourne and I loved it when I lived abroad, it helped me keep a somewhat steady finger on my country’s cultural pulse. I am so intrigued now to read her latest book, a hybrid memoir called Monsters. A lot of what Alison said in the interview I can really relate to. I think a book similar to hers might be in my writing future!

Lit Hub: Clare Pooley on Writerly Perseverance and Knowing When To Give Up and I’m also a subscriber to LitHub’s wonderful newsletter The Craft of Writing which this week featured one of my favourite writers, Xiaolu Guo on translating the self. I adore anything Guo writes and was intrigued to hear that this was an excerpt from a forthcoming anthology, Letters to a Writer of Color edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro. Having looked at the contents and contributor list, I am so curious to read this once it’s out!

I absolutely devoured Julietta Singh’s No Archive Will Restore You in barely a day. One of my supervisors got me on to a fascinating hybrid genre of thought experiments centred around the theme of the archives - works that blend memoir, poetry, historiography and essay. This book is one of them and is so personal yet also embedded in the literature and theory of the body, subjectivity, and identity. Singh considers her body, aware of it “as both archive and archivist” (p.32), and poetically catalogues its legacies of pain, sexuality and desire, the “feral moan of childbirth” (p.70), identity and race, and finally, the unconscious, the “the most evasive archive of all” (p.97). It reminded me that our bodies hold historical traces of everything that has happened to them, everything that has gone in and come out. We are everything we have experienced. I found it absolutely fascinating and quite unputdownable. And I love the sound of the publisher, punctum books, too, for their tagline is spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion.

A favourite poem.

The Thesis Whisperer: Preparing for a binge-writing session (this will be me very soon) - I highly recommend this website to all PhD candidates. I subscribed to it perhaps in my very first week back in 2019 and Inger’s generous wisdom has been very reassuring over the years!

Sydney Review of Books: Jessie Cole on Art as Love

Finally - OMG, I cannot wait for this book! And this one!

Listening to

My nouveau pour l’écriture playlist

Katie Wighton’s new single Narcissist - absolute banger of a track and great official video too!

Tom and I have been working with our friend and indie Melbourne musician Mezz Coleman on her forthcoming album release - the first single has dropped and it’s amazing! We’re pretty proud of the artwork, I took the photo and Tom did the rest!

How to Fail: Rick Astley - really enjoyed this interview with an icon of 1980s music who would have every reason in the world to have a big head but he really doesn’t. Also Margaret Atwood on wisdom, witchcraft and womanhood - any interview with Margaret is bound to be wonderful, I listened to this one on my run and felt her strength push me on, up the inclines.

Best Friend Therapy - Inside the therapy room - what it’s like to be a therapist, how to find a good one and lots more.

Picking

Our neighbour texted me to say come round, pick whatever I wanted - I didn’t need to be asked twice! I came round with a small bowl, which she took one look at and replied, “go home and get a bigger bowl!” She very kindly gave me some 4kg of tomatoes, some zucchini and cucumbers, as well as a bag of rocket and dill.

I picked some of my own zucchini (the only one left that the possums hadn’t got at! Well, I hope it’s possums. The other possibility is too ghastly to contemplate), silverbeet, rhubarb and strawberries. The wind picked a lemon for me! And I picked all the ripe figs on my tree and left them on my neighbour’s doorstep. A few days later, more have ripened.

Eating

Rather than preserve all the tomatoes my neighbour gave me, I’m trying to cook with them all instead. Hence, our diets will be quite high in lycopene for the forseeable!

I made this Nigel Slater tomato pasta recipe but I found it a bit…grassy. I think that was my olive oil! The grassiness was remedied by plenty of nutritional yeast.

I also made Nigel’s tomatoes and couscous recipe from his A Cook’s Book which I ended up making with rice instead of couscous because I didn’t have enough….and only checked this once I had embarked upon the roasting of the tomatoes. I will never learn. But the citrus spiced rice from Elly Pear’s Green was a lovely accompaniment - and the citrus was my lemon from my own tree. Though I’m not sure how the recipe is meant to serve 6-10. It served me and Tom, with no leftovers!

Two more recipes from Elly Pear’s Green cookbook for seasonal produce - Piedmont peppers (red capsicums stuffed with tomatoes and garlic, and roasted) and zucchini agrodolce. Both eaten with rocket salad and bread for lunch.

My zucchini and butter bean soup, the perfect vehicle for the giant, more marrow-like zucchini and all the lovely soft herbs from my neighbour’s garden. The green chilli I used was from a bag in the freezer of chillies my lovely beautician Lisa gave me last autumn!

Some lovely Deliciously Ella recipes including a sweet potato and lentil stew and a tofu chickpea korma.

An epic lasagna made from ragu I had in the freezer from last year, and we made the pasta dough fresh using this recipe. This fed us for three dinners and reminded me of how delicious and comforting lasagna is - I must make it again very soon!

A three-fruit crumble made with rhubarb and strawberries from my garden, and apples from my aunt’s garden. Eating it reminded me that there are many consolations of it getting colder and darker.

The Full Vegan of course made an appearance at the weekend, with sausages, and I managed to have one of my favourite silken tofu bowls on a less cold morning!

Lots of plans for the rest of the tomatoes in the coming week - including a tomato and cashew pilaf which I’ve cooked before and really enjoyed. Though, after reading quite a bit of Nigel Slater, I am now of course craving potatoes and wishing those were ready in my garden right now. I suspect I will have to wait a few more weeks at least.

Drinking

Quite a bit of Chardonnay.

I also had the most incredible cold drink at Hobart institution (and all vegan, I was surprised to learn!) Bury Me Standing - the Grandma Barb, which is iced coffee with vanilla. It sounds simple but it was like drinking a (I want to say warm, but it was iced!) hug. Tom tasted it and immediately regretted not getting one too!

Source

Watching

We decided to go with an absurdist theme for our weekend viewing, and started with Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise (Netflix). Personally I can never resist a Greta and Noah film, regardless of who’s directing or acting - I know it will make me think and laugh. I studied White Noise as an undergrad and was surprised by how much I loved it (a rare thing for assigned texts, I found). Having not read the book since I was 18, I was intrigued to see how much of it I’d remember.

Set in 1984, White Noise centres around Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler Studies (a field of study he invented, his colleague wants to do the same with Elvis Presley) at a small college, who lives with his wife Babette and their blended family - it’s the fourth marriage for both. Almost immediately, the film’s themes of consumerist domination of our culture and fear of death are apparent - the supermarket is a central setting for many key scenes, bright and dazzling and confusing, urging people to buy now, buy more. Jack and Babette (played brilliantly by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig) have their idiosyncrasies and quirks, but mostly their life with their startlingly mature and insightful children is quite idyllic. This is shattered by an “air-borne toxic event” - a train collision with an oil tanker releases toxic chemicals into the air near their town (scarily quite similar to the Ohio train derailment which happened just last month) and they must evacuate their home. Almost instantly, we see the children remaining calm and more knowledgeable about what is going on while the adults panic, finding they can no longer contain their deep fears about death and struggle to cope with the impending doom. It turns out much has been going on for Jack and Babette without the other knowing.

It’s (unsurprisingly) noisy, hard to follow at times, funny, moving, well acted and terrifyingly prescient in some respects. Most of all, it’s about how we try to keep the chaos of life, and our fears of death, large-scale ruin and destruction, at bay by filling our lives with, you guessed it, white noise. And shopping.

“Well, if you liked that, you will have no trouble following tomorrow’s film,” Tom remarked as the end credits rolled!

Source

Everything Everywhere All At Once (4K BluRay) was one of the most creative, mind-bending films I’ve possibly ever seen. It’s weird, daring, fantastical, and very funny but its beating heart is the universal search for love, belonging and meaning. I absolutely loved it.

Evelyn Quan Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) is a middle-aged immigrant whose life is both mundane and spinning out of control. She runs a laundromat with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) who feels increasingly lonely and disconnected from his wife, even going so far as to prepare divorce papers. Two decades prior, they were full of hope and passion, for life and each other, when they eloped to the United States where their daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), was born. Life in the US has entailed a lot of hard work and sacrifice for them both, and now they are being audited by the IRS - something that would give anyone anxiety and sleepless nights. To top it off, Evelyn’s father (James Hong) is visiting for the first time in years which is also putting the family on edge.

Not quite the setting for an epic kung-fu adventure in the multiverse, right? WRONG.

From hotdog fingers, to googly-eyed rocks, the everything Bagel and some impressive martial arts, this is a film that is not only visually stunning and imaginative, but it embraces its wackiness and takes the audience along for the ride. You can tell that every member of the cast had a ball being involved. It’s worth watching for Jamie Lee Curtis alone, who is almost unrecognisable and incredibly funny. We’ve all known a Deirdre. And even she is humanised!

Everything is put together with care and passion, and the performances, particularly Michelle Yeoh’s, are just stunning. Underneath all the dazzling visuals and kooky-ness of the parallel universes is a simple story of a family struggling to connect with each other. It’s about living with regrets, unmet needs, dreams you didn’t dare to have. It’s about how love and kindness are so very healing.

Ann Lee at The Guardian has discussed why it deserves Best Picture at the Oscars and I also enjoyed seeing a therapist decode and react to the film. UPDATE: It cleaned up at the Oscars, and most deservedly so!

What else have we watched - we finished Season 5 of The Crown (Netflix), which was gripping and addictive, particularly as we’re now in the era we remember. I wasn’t convinced by all of the cast changes but Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Elizabeth Debicki as Diana were very convincing. We’re also re-watching the last season of Succession (Binge) so we’re ready for when the final season drops in a few weeks!

Wearing/using

LUSH’s latest shower gel Sticky Dates which smells like toffee and vanilla. Perfect for autumn, I love it!

Jeans, for the first time all year.

Quote of the week

Courtesy of some hard rubbish that was on our street! It felt poignant and poetic, and like a sign from the Universe.

All we have is now.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do!

I hope you’re also finding things in your world to savour, that give you joy, that make you think and smile.

Please note: this blog post has affiliate links with retailers such as Booktopia which means I may receive a commission for a sale that I refer, at no extra cost to you.

this week, and the ones before

Hello friends! This will be quite the catch-up post, as last week’s was, so do get a cup of tea and make yourself comfortable.

I can’t believe it’s December and in a matter of weeks, another year will be over. I don’t think I’m alone in eagerly anticipating the fresh start that the first of January promises (but admittedly doesn’t always deliver) as this year has been harder than most. I am ending it a different person than I was at its beginning. I think I’m tougher, wiser, more resilient, and less afraid and naive. Those are very good things and I’m grateful for the hard-won lessons, but I’m still looking forward to seeing 2022 in the rearview mirror nonetheless!

This post is going to be a mash-up of the highlights of the past few weeks since we returned from Melbourne, and then on Friday we’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming….she says hopefully.

Favourite experience/s

Probably this amazing news, sharing it and celebrating it with some delicious Bream Creek vintage sparkling wine, as pictured above! This year I’ve really tried to push myself with my writing, put myself out there and really back myself. This has been incredibly hard to do at times, in the face of everything that Tom and I have had to deal with this year. But I also did not want another year lost to imposter syndrome, where I believed my critics (both inner and outer) over the quiet but fierce inner wisdom, encouragement and truth in my own heart. Perhaps I needed reminding that I’m on the right path. To have achieved this incredible feat, and several others, in spite of everything has been so wonderful, so needed and so encouraging.

I’ve also enjoyed hanging out with my nieces and nephews - one I took to a kids session at Frida’s Sip and Paint where we painted this Eastern Rosella together:

And I also enjoyed getting a much-needed haircut!

Reading

To be honest, I’ve been writing more than I’ve been reading - which is probably a good thing. I had a fantastic workshop with my fellow Creative Writing PhDs last Friday, so spent some time reading their work and prepping for that.

I’ve been rereading an old favourite, Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which is still great fun and I enjoyed noticing its subtle influence on The Latte Years, as I originally read it around the same time. It was such an inspiration for me in how to write about the harder, darker things with humour. I’m enjoying revisiting it, especially as we’re now rewatching 30 Rock, probably the greatest TV show ever made.

For our last Hidden Nerve session, Nigel read us a poem by Claire G. Coleman, “Forever, Flag”, which I saved to read again later - it’s quite astonishing and powerful.

Sophie Cunningham was another Hidden Nerve presenter and I borrowed her book Melbourne from the library as I’m very interested in the work she’s done in the psychogeographic space. Loving it so far!

I’m nearly finished with Olivia Yallop’s Break the Internet, which I’ve enjoyed more and more the deeper I’ve got into it, and am now into Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus, recommended to me by many readers and friends. I’m coming up to almost a year since I spontaneously decided to step away from social media. I’m now managing an Instagram account for a client, so I’m just using theirs, not my personal one which I haven’t even glanced at. But it was interesting to observe in myself the familiar itch that resurfaced almost immediately - the itch to check, scroll, see. It is very helpful to just be using it for work and have a hard boundary. Johann Hari’s book is making the excellent point that the problem with attention, focus and our ability to think deeply goes beyond social media and into the Internet itself and all its trappings - email, smartphones, screens.

I will write more in depth about this in due course but having been off social media (with my personal accounts at least) for nearly a year now, I can say with absolute certainty that it’s done something to my brain. I have my brain back, perhaps. I am a more productive (dare I say a better?) writer without it. I have achieved more and feel more balanced without it. I have observed that I still seek (and desire) external validation at times and feel a bit sad/deprived when I don’t get it, but it is so much easier to spot when I’m in that frame of mind now, rather than it simply being my default position because I felt constantly in a state of comparison with others. It’s been a very, very interesting experiment.

Listening to

I discovered the Stella Anning Trio while we were in Melbourne - I love gentle jazz and their album Stat is a wonderful moody soundtrack when sipping your herbal tea (or something stronger) in the hour or so before bed.

How to Fail: Rob Delaney on the death of his beloved son Henry - listen to this if you need a good cry but also to marvel at how bloody resilient people can be in the face of the unthinkable.

Best Friend Therapy: is back for another season, so every Monday when I walk to or from uni I have a new episode, hooray! This week’s episode on how to work with friends was very relevant and gave me a lot to think about.

The First Time: Masters Series with Heather Rose - her new book is on my Christmas Wishlist!

Writes 4 Women: Writing the Second Novel with Holly Ringland - yay Holly! Loved this candid and inspiring interview with a wonderful writer who happens to be a friend too.

Mummafication: Another interview with a good friend of mine, this time parent educator Katie Parker which had me grinning with pride as I listened. Relevant even if you’re not a parent, FYI.

Happy Place: Dawn O’Porter and Tim Minchin - enjoyed both but I especially liked Tim’s, as he really delved into the harder parts of the creative life, and convincing yourself that you are worthy even when you aren’t getting attention. He is so unapologetically himself but it has taken quite a while to get to such a comfortable place. Worth a listen!

You and Me Both with Hilary Clinton: Hilary interviews Hannah Gadsby - loved it. I especially enjoyed hearing them talk about Tasmania (Hilary has apparently never been) and nodding furiously along as Hannah described how Tassie used to be and how it’s changed for the better. I am proud that Tasmania now has some of the strongest human rights protection laws in the country, quite a contrast to how things used to be for the queer community. Hannah is always a delight to listen to and the banter with Hilary is just wonderful.

Eating

As usual, there’s quite a bit to catch you up on here - I’ve made and eaten some very delicious things!

When it was very warm a few weeks ago (the promise of summer that promptly vanished within 48 hours and was replaced with a fortnight of rain and 3 degree nights!), I made this incredible Bún Chả Giò Chay (Vietnamese rice noodle bowl with spring rolls) and I want you to try it so much I wrote out the recipe! It’s the perfect dinner on a hot day.

I highly recommend getting the Fix and Fogg Smoke and Fire Peanut Butter for the sauce if you can find it. Not only was it magnificent in the noodles, I have also had some with avocado on toast which was quite sensational. A must for the chilli lovers. If you’re not in Oz or NZ, looks like the folks at Fix and Fogg ship worldwide! (and their recipe section is pretty epic and everything sounds amazing!)

We had a friend round for dinner and I made a new recipe from a favourite cookbook The Green Roasting Tin - the crispy gnocchi with mushrooms, squash and sage (p.68). I didn’t make the basil dressing but instead thinned down a bought vegan pesto with lemon juice and olive oil, which worked just as well. It was so very delicious! I have bought more gnocchi this week with the intention of making it again.

My new favourite bought dip is the signature Tahini Neri - a friend served it to me in Melbourne and I was delighted to find it in my local Hill Street Grocer when I got home (we often don’t get everything the mainland gets!). It’s so unctuous and savoury. Almost better than hummus, but not quite.

Speaking of hummus, I finally made hummus with dried chickpeas rather than tinned. I know, how can I possibly call myself a foodie? Every cookery writer I love and revere has waxed lyrical over the years of the incredible difference it makes using dried chickpeas to make hummus but being lazy and short on time I had never bothered. That will never happen again. I am here to tell you that the rumours are true. DRIED CHICKPEAS FOR THE WIN.

It was the best hummus I have ever had. The Tom of hummus, you could say! 😉

I used the OTK cookbook recipe which had very detailed instructions which included adding ice cubes to the food processor. I used an organic Woolworth’s tahini. It was simply magnificent. I will always make it this way from now on and urge you, if you are hummus lover, to set aside some time and make it with dried chickpeas. It will change your life!

I soaked a whole packet of dried chickpeas because, in addition to hummus, I also made felafel from scratch for the first time that week. I made the spicy felafel recipe in Deliciously Ella’s Quick and Easy. While they were absolutely scrumptious, I am not a fan of frying things in oil - mostly because the house stinks afterwards. They were absolutely worth the effort, almost as good as Pilpel’s in London, but I might try them in the air fryer or oven next time.

By the way, chickpeas start to stink when they’re soaking! I didn’t know this and freaked out, worried that they’d gone off because it was quite hot that week. Don’t panic, apparently it’s normal. I had them at room temperature for the first two days but then put them in the fridge until I was ready to make the recipes. All was well, everything was delicious and both Tom and I are still alive, with perfectly working digestive systems!

We ate in restaurants every day while we were in Melbourne, which was wonderful but it’s definitely more a treat than a regular thing for us. I’m keen to see what delights Hobart has to offer us this summer, as we definitely curtailed our eating out once the borders opened this time last year. A firm favourite so far is The Salty Dog on Kingston Beach, where we had a delicious lunch a few weeks ago. We had tempura cauliflower, enoki mushroom and black rice bowls (and a side of chips), sitting in the sun with cold beers while the salty ocean air drifted towards us on the light breeze. Heavenly!

I don’t make sweet breakfasts very often but we had some leftover porridge from Friday’s breakfast, so that Sunday I made leftover porridge pancakes, which I served with coconut yoghurt, maple syrup and slices of fresh pear. Yum!

My oven runs very hot - I should have taken this out five minutes earlier….still delicious though!

I bought Celebrate: Plant-Based Recipes for Every Occasion while we were in Melbourne, and have already made the summer greens filo pie twice (the benefits of having spinach and silverbeet going wild in the garden). It’s absolutely delicious! The first time I made it as written, the second time I left the broccoli whole and upped the spices a little more. I think it will be a staple for us over the summer now we have so many greens that need using and eating!

Now that it’s warming up, our favourite meal of last summer, the Nacho Average Nachos from Charity Morgan’s amazing book Unbelievably Vegan, is back on the menu. Regular readers will be familiar with these by now! Always amazing.

I helped Dad prune his broad beans and he gave me some - mine are still a month or so away from being ready - which I cooked separately, skinned and then cooked with cavolo nero, lemon zest, garlic, chilli and herbs, which we enjoyed with spaghetti, topped with toasted breadcrumbs.

Finally, I started road-testing some recipes for my Christmas baking and came up with these incredible vegan Oreo brownies. I’ve already published the recipe, that’s how good they are! Seriously, if you love a good brownie, you need these in your life. With a batch or two of these and Nigella’s vegan gingerbread, that’s my festive season sorted!

Picking

The garden was overgrown with greens - rainbow chard, silverbeet, spinach, celery and garlic scapes - when we returned from Melbourne. I’ve now given it a major haircut so the sun might actually reach the poor zucchini seedlings.

I’ve also made a tower out of discarded motorcycle tyres (thanks to a local dealership who let me help myself) to grow potatoes in, and the first green shoots are starting to poke through. I read a book over the winter that suggested growing potatoes this way can yield a harvest of up to 50kg….we shall see!

I also picked the rhubarb (which I have growing in a tub) and I made a yummy crumble from that. The major crop of strawberries are starting to redden and we’ve had to put cages on top of the troughs again to keep the greedy birds away. They get their revenge by throwing dirt out of other pots, ignoring the strawberries I have deliberately left unprotected for them to help themselves to! 😜

I’m not sure how abundant this summer will be, as I didn’t have the most productive spring in the garden, due to illness and constant work! But I am hopeful. Time will tell.

Drinking

Tom, our brother-in-law and my dad have started their own brewing company and their first limited release dropped last week. It’s a really delicious, complex and refreshing pale ale, perfect for a blazing hot afternoon like the ones we’ve enjoyed this weekend! I’m very proud of the three of them for taking something that was just an idea thrown around at a family gathering a year or two ago and making it a reality! Our company designed the labels and logo too.

After we got home from Melbourne, I cleaned out the fridge and found some kombuchas I made in January…2021! I made them with a SCOBY kindly given to me by Sarah (sadly the SCOBY has long since been composted due to my neglect!). The incredible pop when I opened them was quite ferocious, as they’d been sealed and fermenting for the best part of two years. Thinking they would be undrinkable, I poured a little of each into a shot glass, sniffed and sipped - and they’re OK! Quite strong, as you’d expect, but I’ve been enjoying them in a large wine glass where I put a splash of kombucha in the bottom and then top it up with plain sparkling water. Not unlike how you’d prepare a cordial. The elderflower and ginger one has matured particularly well.

Watching

At Tom’s insistence, we watched Monty Python’s Holy Grail and Life of Brian on BluRay, which I hadn’t seen for many years, probably not since I was a teenager (and hadn’t liked them that much). This time I really got the humour - most likely a side effect from being with Tom for 15 years, haha!

We have just completed a watch of the entire series of the US version of The Office which we absolutely loved. I read an interview with Jenna Fischer who said that the fact that the “documentary” wrapped up when Pam was ready to leave Dunder Mifflin, as opposed to any other characters who came and went in the course of the series, was not lost on her. I agree, I think on this rewatch I realised that Pam is very much the central character of the show, rather than Michael Scott, as it very much follows her journey.

We’re now working our way through probably our favourite TV show of all, 30 Rock, which we’ve not watched properly for nearly two years. It’s smart, charming, well-constructed and absolutely hilarious.

Wearing

The weather has been pretty mercurial so I’ve been wearing my denim jacket (which I bought from Sainsbury’s in 2014!) almost every day. It goes well with dresses or my favourite skirts from Kemi Telford. I’ve also been loving my new strap detail cross body bag from Country Road - I was fed up to the back teeth with my giant tote where I can never find anything so treated myself while we were in Melbourne. This is a surprisingly roomy and very stylish little bag which is not a headache to lug around, in fact I barely notice it’s there. I wish I’d downsized ages ago!

Grateful for

My husband and family. Good friends. The weather finally warming up and the colds we’ve had finally being on the run.

Quote of the week

This poem by John O’Donohue was mentioned a few weeks ago in an email newsletter I subscribe to, which sounded familiar. Then I noticed in the “on this day” feature that OneDrive has that I had taken a screenshot of the poem on that same day two or three years ago. A coincidence? Maybe. But the message of the poem was obviously fitting for the time and it is certainly fitting now! If you need to hear it, may it comfort you as it has comforted me these past few weeks.

This is the time to be slow

This is the time to be slow
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

- John O’Donohue, from From To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. Penguin Random House, 2008.

I am hoping, so hoping, that the air of 2023 will be kind and blushed with beginning. For all of us.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on anything in this post, or anything else, with me, then please do! I really enjoy hearing from you. I hope you’re also finding things to enjoy, savour and ponder over your weekend xx

Please note: this blog post has affiliate links with retailers such as Booktopia which means I may receive a commission for a sale that I refer, at no extra cost to you.

lockdown meal planning

Fresh food is still plentiful. Hashtag grateful.

Life has changed a great deal for most of us over the past month.

The act of popping to the supermarket, knowing you would be able to find exactly what you need and purchase it in whatever quantity you desired, and knowing if you ran out of something you could easily replace it, feels like a long time ago.

Let’s be honest, it was a privileged and fortunate time.

We have to adapt to our new circumstances, given that the current way of things is probably how life will be for the foreseeable future.

Yet, every time I have braved the local food shop (or Woolworths or Coles), I have been comforted by the fact that there is still plenty of fresh produce available. You might not be able to get tinned tomatoes, but there are still plenty of fresh ones, as far as I can see. Friends and neighbours have been lavishing their excess produce on me, in exchange for some of what I make with it. And I’m learning to be flexible too. If I can’t get red lentils, I buy yellow split peas instead.

I don’t think we’ve had this varied and interesting a diet for some time. As a result, I’m enjoying cooking, preparing food and eating it more than ever. I can’t remember the last time I planned every meal with such care and thought, determined to make the most of what I had. It has been a welcome distraction and helped me feel focused and purposeful.

It’s also ensuring we use what we already have in, preventing any unnecessary trips to the supermarket. I was as guilty as the next person of picking up bits and pieces at least once a week, even when I had plenty already at home. Now that I plan each meal, I’m minimising waste and ensuring everything is used.

I hope this is a permanent change in my habits, whatever happens.

So, what are you cooking right now?

What other people cook, and their favourite standby pantry dinners, have always intrigued me, and never more so now. It gives me new ideas and encourages me to try different things.

So I thought I’d tell you what we’ve been eating this past week, and tomorrow I’ll post what my plan is for this coming week. Please join in!

As Tom and I are both working from home now, we’re enjoying all our meals together so I’m planning lunches as well.

I made a list of all the meals we have ingredients for and then made a plan based on what needed to be used up first (fresh vegetables, already opened dairy/tofu/pastes, leftovers). We have a small vegetable garden still producing ample silverbeet and zucchini (though I suspect the latter’s reign is coming to an end).

I am also making bread every few days. I’m not sure what we’ll do if we run out of flour! But we have plenty for now.

Phil’s No Waste Lockdown Meal Plan

Sunday 29/3
Lunch: Veggie burger
Dinner: Tomato, coconut and silverbeet dhal + rice

Monday 30/3
Lunch: Leftover dhal turned into soup + bread
Dinner: Tofu noodle stir fry 

Tuesday 31/3
Lunch: Leftovers fried rice (rice from Sunday, tofu from Monday, with greens, soy sauce, chilli)
Dinner: No Waste Buddha Bowl

Wednesday 1/4
Lunch: Silverbeet, lemon and risoni soup + bread
Dinner: Zucchini slice 

Thursday 2/4
Lunch: Leftover soup and zucchini slice
Dinner: Jacket potato, beans, spinach

Friday 3/4
Lunch: Zucchini slice
Dinner: Silverbeet and ricotta cannelloni

Saturday 4/4
Lunch: Haloumi and fried egg rolls
Dinner: Leftover cannelloni + green veg

I don’t know about you, but cooking has been something wonderful to focus on these past few weeks. It’s helped quieten and focus my mind. I waste nothing, I think before I use anything, and value my food in a completely different way than I used to. I hope that seeing what I’ve been up to inspires you to do the same.

silverbeet, ricotta and feta cannelloni

This is vegetarian winter comfort food at its finest. Silverbeet (chard in the UK) is such a nutritious winter vegetable and can be bought readily and cheaply at this time of the year. It goes in everything - pasta sauces, stir-fries, soups, stews, pies, frittatas. This is eating seasonally at its best!

And if fussy eaters in your family sometimes eschew the silverbeet stalks, I promise they’ll barely notice them in this delicious dish. You can use a bechamel sauce to top the pasta rolls instead of passata if you prefer, but I love the acidity and brightness of a tomato-based sauce with this dish. It contrasts so nicely with the creaminess of the cheese and the filling.

This dish has become my standby for winter entertaining, and everyone I’ve served it to has exclaimed with pleasure on taking their first bite. I’m sure you’ll be the same!

It partners well with a rocket salad, steamed green beans, broccoli or any green vegetable on the side - just keep it simple. This dish is the soprano in the mid-week dinner opera.

Silverbeet, ricotta and feta cannelloni

Serves 4-6 depending on appetite

1 onion, finely chopped
3 large cloves garlic, crushed
2 bunches silverbeet (or you can use cavolo nero, kale, spring greens or chard, if you’re in the UK), washed and chopped reasonably finely (stalks and leaves)
Stock or wine, just in case it sticks
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs or oregano OR a handful of fresh sage and rosemary, finely chopped
1 x 375g tub ricotta
100g (roughly 1/2 a packet) feta
Any other cheese you might have lying around you want to use up (blue cheese is especially good)
1 x 150g tub basil pesto (Coles does a good one)
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
A bit of freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of chilli flakes (optional)
1 x 375g pack fresh lasagna sheets (roughly 12 sheets)
1 x 690g jar tomato passata
1 x 220g tub cherry bocconcini (baby mozzarella balls)
A sprinkling of fresh parmesan (optional)
A little chopped fresh rosemary and oregano to sprinkle over the top
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200 C. My oven needs to be on 220 to get it to this temperature - you want a hot oven basically!

Heat some olive oil in a large, non-stick pan (which has a lid) over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion and garlic, and cook for a few minutes until starting to soften. Add the chopped silverbeet and continue to cook, stirring constantly, for a minute or so until it starts cooking. You can then reduce the heat slightly, put the lid on and leave for a few minutes for the stalks to cook and soften. Add some stock, water or wine to the pan if it starts to stick.

Once the silverbeet is cooked, turn off the heat and set the pan aside to cool slightly while you assemble the rest of the filling ingredients.

Add the herbs and ricotta, crumble in the feta, and grate or crumble in any other cheese you wish to use (I find making this is wonderful around Christmas too, when you’ve inevitably got lots of random bits of cheese in the house). The add the tub of pesto, lemon zest, nutmeg, chilli, any other herbs you might like or have lying around (parsley, thyme and basil are all good) and a good cracking of fresh black pepper and a smidge of salt (you won’t need much because of the feta). Mix everything together well.

Assemble a large baking dish (what you’d normally cook a lasagna in), buttering/oiling it if need be. Take each fresh lasagna sheet and place roughly two tablespoons (1/12th) of filling on top, spreading it slightly but keeping it mostly in the middle, then roll up loosely to enclose the filling. Place the rolled cannelloni, seam-side down, in the dish, taking care not to pack them in too tightly. Continue until all the lasagna sheets and filling are used.

Pour the jar of passata over the top, spreading the sauce out evenly. Place the cherry bocconcini evenly on top, to ensure equal cheesiness in each portion! You may not need all of them. Finally, sprinkle the top with a little fresh parmesan (if using) and the chopped fresh herbs.

Place in the hot oven and bake for around 35 minutes (if your oven is temperamental like mine, check after 25 minutes) until the dish is bubbling and the top is golden brown and looking irresistible.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before dishing out and enjoying, preferably with a glass of excellent red wine alongside. If a Barbaresco is easily available where you are, I highly recommend that. Otherwise, an Australian pinot noir or cab sav is delightful.