Onya Magazine: The Best Vegan Eats In Melbourne

My sweatshirt really says it all ❤️ (Naarm is a word in the Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung languages of the Kulin nation which is the Traditional Place name for Melbourne).

Continuing on from my best Sydney vegan eats article earlier in the year, Onya Magazine have just published a follow up - the best vegan eats in Melbourne, the city of my heart. So if you were wondering where we ate and what our favourites were on our last few visits, here they are!

Honestly, I would walk (well, I’d also have to swim some of the way too, gulp!) back to Melbourne for some of the food we enjoyed last time we were there. The city has some incredible plant-based places that are truly exciting, indulgent and very, very delicious. Everything you want when you’re on holiday and feel like spoiling yourself!

The oyster mushroom “calamari” at the Green Man’s Arms, Carlton. Exquisite! Even Tom (who normally hates mushrooms) dug in!

Rereading the article has made me very hungry and wish we could just hop on the 86 tram and head up to Red Sparrow or Brother Bon for dinner tonight. Hopefully our next visit isn’t too far away…

this summer

The view from Wendy’s Secret Garden in Sydney, where I was a few weeks ago.

The longer I put off writing a catch-up post, the longer the draft gets! And now we’re at the end of the Australian summer. I saw autumn leaves scattered on the pavement on my walk the other day and almost groaned out loud in indignation! I love autumn but I’m really not ready for summer to be over just yet.

But that’s the thing about the seasons, you can’t stop them from turning. They have their time and then have to give way for the next one. All we can do is make the most of them.

It has been a summer of fun, hard work, adventure, sun, books, words, friends, music, planting and harvesting. A summer of being brave, of being curious, of filling the well.

Grab a drink - warm or cold, depending on what it’s like where you are - and get ready for the mother of all catchup posts!

Favourite experiences of the summer

Every visit to the beach. Lying on a towel, refreshed from the ocean, a warm breeze drying my skin, looking up at that brilliant blue sky.

Shakespeare in the Gardens. This was a wonderful evening, watching one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed in the open air, under the trees which lit up as the sun set and night came. Tom and I sat happily among a few hundred other people on picnic blankets, having a lovely time. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a Shakespeare performance so much - the language was so beautiful and poetic, and I didn’t find myself switching off like I usually do with Shakespeare because the language is usually a bit too ornate, even for me! It was such a lively and engaging performance. I hope this will become a summer tradition for us.

Sydney. My first time in the city since November 2019, and what a joyful reunion it was. I went for work and so spent most of it doing research - site visits and working at the archives. I didn’t really tell anyone I was there apart from two friends, who I was overjoyed to see again. The rest of the time I spent alone, working, reading 200 year old letters and documents, deep in thought about my project, writing until 1am, soaking up as much art and culture and history as I could. It was my first time away from Tom in over three years too, so that was very strange! But despite missing him so very much, I had the most incredible time. I have to say, being able to travel interstate freely again feels wondrous! It’s crazy to think that this time two years ago our state’s borders were still closed to most of the country. It feels surreal now. But it ensured I didn’t take a moment of being in Sydney for granted.

Elizabeth Farm in Parramatta was one of the highlights of the trip. It’s an incredible place, where time has stood still, where history is made tactile and immersive. The chairs can be sat on, the beds laid on, doors opened, objects can be touched. It was as if the Macarthurs had slipped out to tend to the sheep, and I was just wandering around, looking at their lives. The guides were amazing, particularly one who had heard of my subject! “You’re the first person I’ve encountered since 2008 who’s heard of her!” she told me. This particular lady was very lovely and generous with her time, and showed me many hidden gems that other visitors walk right past.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales remains one of my favourites: Wednesday was late opening night, so when the archives closed at 6pm, I packed up and walked right over! It was pretty busy, hence my mask. Wandering around a gallery is one of my favourite things to do, with someone or alone, so I had a lovely time. I particularly enjoyed the From Here, For Now exhibit (and took selfies with the Tracey Emins, above!), the Daniel Boyd exhibit, and the 20th Century Galleries in general, particularly 15 gunshots… by Xiao Lu. The perfect Artist Date, really. My mind was buzzing with ideas, concepts and inspiration. The Sydney Festival was also getting started but I sadly didn’t catch the Frida Kahlo immersive biography, as it was booked out (unsurprisingly)!

Instead, on my last day, as the rain poured down and I could swear I saw steam rise from the hot pavements, I immersed myself in Brett Whiteley’s Studio not far from where I was staying in Surry Hills. It was AMAZING. I didn’t know much about Whiteley at all before this trip and now I’m a bit obsessed! I also visited Wendy’s Secret Garden, the stunning natural wild garden in Lavender Bay that is owned and maintained by his widow, and that is open to the public.

Working in the archives in Sydney was incredible, as expected. Having been prevented from visiting them in person for years because of the pandemic and all the interstate travel restrictions that existed for the longest time, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get there again before my thesis was due. I was deeply grateful to be there. The staff were kind and helpful, and I saw everything I wanted to see. There’s a lot of boxes of “documents relating to the settlement of Tasmania” in the Mitchell Library, which aren’t very specific so one has to sift through so much stuff in case there’s a hidden treasure in there. And I did find some! The whole trip was so fruitful for my work and I returned to Hobart absolutely itching to start putting everything together.

Mona Foma! It was fantastic. We watched lots of great musical acts, drank fabulous wine, and really let our hair down for the first time in what has felt like years. Well, it has been years! I didn’t wear a mask once. It felt so wonderful to be out again, properly, seeing live music for the first time since January 2020, to mingle with fellow humans and seeing everyone happy and buzzing (it was a great crowd, no dramas or weirdos, and no insurmountable queues). It felt like a return to old times, but with everyone more mindful, more conscious that being able to do this - go to a festival, see live music, dance in a throng of people under the stars - was something we really used to take for granted. We now know how easily those joys and privileges can be taken away.

Reading

I wrote a separate post about Rebecca May Johnson’s Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen which is one of my books of the year so far - it’s just so brilliant and intriguing. I wish I could write about food and life in the way Johnson does, taking the everyday act of cooking and following a recipe and linking it to classic literature, psychology, histories of oppression, philosophy, the self, and what the food we cook says about all of that, and us.

I got some wonderful cookbooks for Christmas and have been steadily cooking my way through them for most of the summer - see the Eating section for more!

I am a huge fan of the Sydney Review of Books and so when I saw their latest anthology of essays, I knew I would love it - and I did. Open Secrets, Essays on the Writing Life is a collection from a wide variety of writers - some known to me, some not - about various aspects of their writing lives. Some are about one memorable turning point, others about the contents of their days and brains as they navigate the ups and downs of writing. As a writer, you cannot help but feel seen and understood reading a collection like this. Most of them were pandemic-tinged, unsurprisingly, which still made for fascinating reading. Standouts for me were the essays by Lauren Carroll Harris (boy, did I relate hard to that one), Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Fiona Kelly McGregor and Eda Gunaydin, but I particularly loved Oliver Mol’s essay, “La Vida”, which was an odyssey-like journey from Sydney to Barcelona, where Oliver is trying desperately to write a book he’s been thinking about for years, now he has the freedom to do so, and finds he cannot. And yet, around every corner, are coincidences and signs that he is being encouraged and supported, that he is a writer, even if the actual writing is proving temporarily elusive. I wiped away tears and felt viscerally in my body the self harm Oliver does to himself in a fit of helplessness and confusion at his perceived inability to cope, as my younger self had similar moments. And I rejoiced in his eventual realisation that “our only objective is firmly, and with great attention, to continue; to kindly, sincerely, try” (p.121) and how he learns to write without pressure, without expectation of outcome, meaning or purpose. Highly recommended!

Speaking of Sydney, I had a wonderful time walking through the bookshops there. So many favourites! Elizabeth’s in Newtown welcomed me back like we’d never been apart and, predictably, I spent hours there combing their packed shelves for treasures. During my trip I read Fiona McGregor’s A Novel Idea, which is the photographic documentation of McGregor writing her novel Indelible Ink over several years, which was fascinating; Between Us, a Women of Letters book that I didn’t have in my collection; and The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear which covered a lot of familiar ground but was still a good read, I think I’m just addicted to books about writing, really.

The Guardian: Why one woman is drumming for 100 hours over 10 days - we caught Chloe Kim’s final hour of her performance on Sunday at Mona Foma and she was quite extraordinary. This is a great article about endurance in art and music performance.

I am a huge Fawlty Towers fan but I think remaking it is a truly terrible idea - and I’m not the only one.

I’m enjoying Jessie Tu’s modern analysis of classic 1990s films for Women’s Agenda - she’s done Sister Act and Mrs Doubtfire so far.

This New Yorker article was….bizarre.

Vanity Fair: Monica Lewinsky shared 25 life lessons on the 25th anniversary of her name, and life, becoming one of the most scrutinised/villified of the late twentieth century (and all the years afterwards). Monica would be one of my dream dinner party guests; she seems like an incredibly grounded person who is empathetic, intelligent and a lot of fun. I loved all her tips but particularly #22.

The Conversation: ‘Something that happens in fiction’: romance writer Susan Meachen’s ‘fake death’ reminds us that the author is a construct by Ika Willis - OMG, Bad Art Friend, hold my beer. The romance writer who faked her own death and came back to Facebook as if nothing had happened is next-level twisted. I enjoyed Ika Willis’ literary studies take on it!

Also on The Conversation: an interesting analysis of the potato shortage that plagued Australia for much of the summer and Melanie Saward’s favourite fictional character is Queenie.

The Spectator: What a voice Plath had – stern yet somehow musical, long-vowelled, bear-like: Radio 4’s My Sylvia Plath - on 11 February it was 60 years since Plath’s death, so I also spent some time on the wonderful Gail Crowther’s website, especially Sylvia Plath, Safe Spaces, and the Violation of Women.

Finally, Room on the Broom, many times over, with our darling niece - we got it for her for Christmas and she is OBSESSED. It’s a wondrous thing to have a child in your life who loves to read as much as you do. I think it needs to be encouraged at all costs!

Listening to

At the start of the year, I decided to mix things up a bit with my writing music, which was almost completely dominated by my beloved Ludovico Einaudi and Nils Frahm. Every month, my most played artist on Tidal was Ludovico, by a mile! Nothing wrong with that of course, but when January 1 clicked over, I was suddenly seized by a desire for new and different, to shake up my creative practice a bit. If I listen to the same things, watch the same things, absorb the same things, I won’t be changed. My work won’t expand in the ways it needs to.

So I made a new writing playlist for myself - nouveau pour l’écriture - full of new piano discoveries, mostly by women composers and performers. Sophie Hutchings, Grace Ferguson, Alice Baldwin, Poppy Ackroyd, Olivia Belli, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, and more! It’s been wonderful to surround myself with the sounds I love but with new melodies and energies. I highly recommend all of them.

I also made a Sydney playlist - something I love to do when I travel is make a playlist of songs I hear while I’m there. In a cafe or bar, in a shop, on the street, in the hotel lobby. Shazam on the iPhone is a godsend! These songs will always make me think of this trip!

As for podcasts…..there have been a few.

The First Time: Summer Series - A beginning & Claire G Coleman and Summer Series: Helen Garner

Books and Travel: Solo Walking the Camino De Santiago Portuguese Coastal Route with J.F Penn, Thoughts From the Pilgrims’ Way

The Creative Penn: Writing Tips: How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr (Will Storr’s work was recommended by my PhD supervisor)

The Art of Work: Classicist and bestselling writer Dame Mary Beard on what she has learnt about power - this was an excellent interview with a woman I very much admire. She said something that has stayed with me in the weeks since I listened to it: that resilience is a very underrated/undervalued virtue these days, that life is tough and of course it would be great if the world only had nice, supportive people in it but the reality is, it doesn’t. You’ve got to carry on regardless.

The Imperfects: Santa Claus - A Special Vulnerability House - this was hilarious. Glenn Robbins playing Santa Claus, getting worried phone calls from Rudolph because the sleigh is in a no standing zone…genius!

James and Ashley Stay At Home: Digging into shame with Hayley Scrivenor and all the mini-episodes about Ashley’s new novel Dark Mode, which I can’t wait to read!

Writer’s Book Club Podcast: This kept me company while I was in Sydney. The Kate Forsyth episode was the standout one for me - I will be listening to it again, with a notebook alongside. I also very much enjoyed the Hannah Kent and Nigel Featherstone interviews.

The Rich Roll Podcast: my friend Mary, who I was lucky enough to see while I was in Sydney, got me on to this! I loved the Seth Godin, Mel Robbins and Rick Rubin episodes.

Akimbo: Once I heard the Rich Roll interview with Seth, I needed more so I listened to his own podcast, particularly enjoying the Genius, It’s not about the chocolate and Blogs and Platforms and Permission episodes.

All The Small Things: Natasha Lunn on love and friendship and Is wellness just another fashion trend? with Rina Raphael

The Guilty Feminist: Phoebe Waller-Bridge at the Royal Festival Hall

Daisy is Insatiable: Shahroo Izadi - I’ve been really captivated by Shahroo and her work, but I’m not going to list all the interviews with her I’ve listened to over the summer because I’ll probably look like a bit of a stalker, haha! But this one was probably the best.

Wellness with Ella (formerly the Deliciously Ella podcast): I’ve got back into this in a big way! Really enjoyed all the episodes I’ve caught up on, especially Happiness, Change and Emotional Resilience, Jay Shetty: the untold journey, Ella on finding purpose and putting mental health first and Jake Humphrey: the power of optimism.

Eating

The cinnamon scroll from the all-vegan Sydney patisserie, Miss Sina. Run, don’t walk!

Obviously, the food in Sydney was AMAZING. I’ve written all about my favourite Sydney vegan eats for Onya magazine - as I ate my way around the city and slowly amassed a list of must-trys, places I definitely wanted to return to with Tom on our next trip, I thought that surely this information would be useful for others too. Once a journo, always a journo - I pitched the idea to Sandi at Onya, she said yes almost immediately, so now there’s a whole vegan series in the works. Melbourne, unsurprisingly, is next!

But here’s what else I’ve been cooking and eating at home over the summer:

• For Christmas treats, I made vegan gingerbread truffles, Nigella’s sticky vegan gingerbread and the now famous Oreo brownies

• Tomato orzo one-pan bake (from The Green Roasting Tin with a few amends)

• Spicy tempeh sushi and a vegan cheese platter for Christmas Eve Eve (sushi recipe from Veganomicon, which I picked up in NYC in 2015)

• Rick’s pasta for Christmas Eve dinner - we were inspired by The Holiday and how Miles and Iris eat “Christmas Eve fettuccine” - like them, we ate pasta, popped some bubbly and celebrated being young and being alive!

• Caesar salad with crispy chickpea croutons from Moby’s Little Pine cookbook, one of my Christmas presents

• Asparagus and romesco aioli pizza, made on the barbecue - a variation on a recipe also in Moby’s Little Pine cookbook

• Jerk lentil burgers (from Natural Flava)

• Pickled avocado - OMG, life changing! Great to put on burgers (from Cooking from the Spirit by Tabitha Brown)

• Sweet potato curry with jollof rice (from Natural Flava)

• Potato and broad bean quesadillas - broad beans grown by me!

• Silken tofu summer breakfast bowls - these are so wonderful! If you want a refreshing and delicious summer breakfast, you have to try them.

• Mexican rice bowls with black beans, guac, corn, salad, etc - these have been a staple meal all summer ever since I had a delicious similar meal at Bad Hombres in Sydney. So filling, so healthy, so delicious!

• Callaloo pesto pasta (from Natural Flava)

• Roast carrot and sweet potato rice paper rolls with homemade satay sauce

• Mango coleslaw (from Natural Flava)

• Tempeh “shwarma”, something I just made up and it was delicious!

• Butterscotch pudding from Moby’s Little Pine cookbook (really nice!)

• Muesli tahini flapjacks/breakfast bars

• Deliciously Ella’s orzo (risoni) recipes from the app - we tried a mushroom miso one and a red pepper tahini one, both amazing!

• Chargrilled broccolini with pesto linguine

• An EPIC quinoa salad I made up, featuring green beans from the garden, roasted pumpkin, and tofu ‘feta’ which was amazing. I made it for my friend Anne who came round for dinner one baking hot night. Served with an Imago sourdough baguette alongside, it was quite the feast.

I also made apricot and vanilla jam and dried apricots (on the dehydrate function on my air fryer) with the four or so kilograms I got from a farm across the river. No fruit on the family trees this year! Most jars of the jam have been given as gifts, I have one left for me. And the dried apricots were the best ones I’ve ever had, and made my garage (where the air fryer lives) smell like my grandparents’ house did.

Drinking

A Red Corvette cocktail at Wrest Point’s Birdcage Bar, which I hadn’t been to or had since perhaps 2003. It tasted just the same as I remembered and went down all too easily!

I got hooked on bubble tea while I was in Sydney - I know, why did it take me so long to try it? Gong Cha was my favourite place to get one and I was delighted to find out they have a branch in Hobart too. QQ Passionfruit is my favourite flavour, followed by Lychee Oolong.

Above, me with an Aperol Spritz at Mona Foma! A bright drink to go with my bright outfit, haha! They always make me think of trips to Berlin.

Finally, pandan soy milk at Han Phuc Vegan in Sydney - surprisingly good! Sweet, creamy and refreshing.

PICKING

Over the summer I’ve harvested strawberries, potatoes, garlic, peas, green beans, broad beans, zucchini, and silverbeet on the regular. The caterpillars got my kale, boo. We also have random pumpkins taking over the entire garden! Beetroots are starting to look good and soon we’ll have even more potatoes. The fig tree’s branches are heavy with fruit that’s slowly going from green to purple. The tomatoes are plentiful but still green on the vine. Never mind, I have a great green tomato pickle recipe if they don’t end up being coaxed into their fullest, reddest expression.

Watching

The Crown (BluRay and Netflix) - we decided to watch the entire series again before embarking on Season 5, so we went right back to the wonderful Claire Foy and Matt Smith beginning. Seasons 1 and 2 really are the best, in my opinion!

We had a bit of an Edgar Wright season and watched Baby Driver (Amazon Prime) and Last Night in Soho (Amazon Prime) back to back. Enjoyed both very much, but I preferred Baby Driver out of the two.

I’ve got back into Call the Midwife (ABC iview and Binge) in a big way, as it’s a bit of a comfort watch for me - well, I say that, every episode is hard-hitting in its own way. Every episode makes me cry, even if it’s just a routine birth where nothing goes wrong! It’s an emotional release of sorts, I think.

Wearing

I’ve been wearing this running top I got in Sydney non-stop - it even kind of works with my Kemi Telford skirts!

I’ve also been wearing this beautiful perfume that Tom got for Christmas and it’s been my scent of the summer, though I can see it working well for winter too, with its smoky and leathery notes of oud and amber. I also love Goldfield and Banks’ Sunset Hour which smells of peach, mandarin, raspberry and ginger - absolutely stunning scent for warm weather. Confession, I have nearly all of the Goldfield and Banks range! They make incredible perfumes. Seven years ago, the perfume tray on my dressing table was nearly all Jo Malone bottles and now I’m well and truly in my Goldfield and Banks era! I am happy to skimp on makeup but on scent, never.

Other favourite wearables this summer have been our ally-friendly Always Was Always Will Be shirts from Clothing the Gaps, replacement running shoes (I just bought exactly the same ones!) and this jumpsuit from Tassie designers Keshet, very much a head turner like the one I bought this time last year! As seen on me in the pics at Mona Foma 💚

Grateful for

A fun start to what I think is going to be an interesting year.

Quote of the SUMMER

“Seek joy” has really been my quote of the summer, as it was the attitude I decided to go into this year with. But this quote really spoke to me when I came across it in the pages of a book that I now can’t recall the name of.

I’ve been thinking about this concept of belonging to yourself a lot, particularly as 2022 ended and the new year began. It’s now been over a year since I stepped away from personal social media and I can see how much I’ve changed. How much kinder I am to myself, how much stronger I feel, how unafraid I am to set boundaries. Stronger in the broken places too - some difficult things that happened now belong to “last year”, or even the year before. Time has given me the gift of perspective, and perspective has given me strength.

So, that has been the start to my 2023. Working hard but also taking every chance I can to enjoy life.

If you’d like to hit the button below and let me know what you think, or what you’ve been up to in 2023 so far, please do - I would love to hear from you.

I hope you’ve had a fun, relaxing and memorable summer, or a restorative winter, depending on where you are in the world. Stay safe and well, until next week, when normal programming will resume! 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.

these past few weeks

Where do I begin? As I tell myself when I sit down at my desk each day - begin somewhere. Anywhere.

As you might have been able to guess from the above photos, I’ve just got back from nearly four weeks in the UK - my former home, the site of so many important and happy years of my life. This visit was not for happy reasons, however, and given that we’ve been in the grip of a global pandemic for the past two years (and with still around 300 deaths a week in Australia this month alone, I do not believe it’s over yet), I personally wouldn’t have chosen to make this trip at this point in time. But we did, and we made the best of it. More importantly, we survived everything that needed to be faced, and are safely home.

Having not left Tasmania since January 2020, it was a very welcome change of scene, despite there being a lot of stressful things to negotiate and our time being limited. However, we definitely tried to make the most of being there. I saw sites related to my PhD which I had long made my peace with never seeing in person while writing this book, so that was incredible. We made pilgrimages to literary sites I had always wanted to see but never made the time to go to when we lived here, which I’d since very much regretted. We drove over 1,000 miles all over the country. We saw some dear friends, as many of them as we could, and even made some new ones. We spent a lot of time in cemeteries. We even got to enjoy the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, which was lovely - no country does pageantry quite like the UK, am I right?

I love the UK, and always will. There are many things I miss about life there, my friends especially. But this trip confirmed for both of us that Hobart is definitely our home and moving back here four years ago was 100% the right decision. In many ways, this trip was like returning to an old life for a few weeks and while that was great fun in some respects, it was also a reminder of what we had outgrown or grown tired of. We felt very homesick for Australia while we were gone; a longing that on my part felt marrow deep. When we were finally on our flight back to Perth, I’m not embarrassed to admit my lip was trembling when the Qantas theme started playing!

I’ve spent the last week waking up at 3:30am (!), ploughing straight back into work including a conference and giving a paper on four hours sleep, and making food that requires long, slow cooking because that is my mode at the moment - go slow. To have gone from a heatwave in London and tanned forearms to an icy, dark winter and flannelette sheets on the bed has been a bit of a mind-bend, in more ways than one. But we’re deeply relieved to be back. It was nice to have an adventure, but even nicer to come home.

I’ll do my best to share the trip with you via my usual This Week headings!

Favourite experience/s

Our first tube ride, fresh off the plane. We have, of course, done that journey a thousand times - the Piccadilly line from Heathrow out to Southgate, almost at the other end of the line, which takes about 75 minutes. Our Oysters still had a little credit on them! From the moment we touched in to riding the escalator to alight at Southgate, we were both overwhelmed by how nice it was to see it all again - how nostalgic we were as the train passed through all the familiar stations that used to signal the end of the working day. The comforting familiarity of it all, how innately we knew the system, exactly where to go and what to do, as if no time had passed at all. At the same time, we were seeing it with fresh, new eyes and it felt kind of wondrous.

Surprising our old neighbours with an impromptu visit! I love surprises - both planning them for others and being on the receiving end of one - so I got a real thrill out of seeing how blown away our old friends were at finding us on their doorstep! We sat and chatted in their living room as the sun went down that first night, next door to our old flat, and it felt just like old times, like we had never been gone.

A morning run around my old neighbourhood park, and brunch afterwards at our old favourite cafe. It was nice to see how many local businesses had survived the lockdowns (and also sad to see how many hadn’t).

Experiencing the new Elizabeth line! We arrived on the day it opened and I was stunned at both the transformation in the stations that I had grown used to being building sites (cough, Moorgate, cough!) and in the efficiency of the line. You can be in Liverpool Street in two stops from Tottenham Court Road now. Mind. Blown.

All PhD related site visits - some in London, some in other parts of England, but all made the world of my characters (I say that for ease, they were real people, but I’m writing fiction) so much more alive and vivid for me. Being able to smell the air, to hear the sound of the wind in the trees, to see what flowers grow wild there in the summer, to see buildings that were already a hundred or so years old when they were living there or to feel the energy of a place where the buildings are long gone….it was beyond anything I could have imagined.

Reunions with wonderful people I love. I wish we could have seen everyone, but sadly it was a very jam-packed schedule and it wasn’t always possible to give people enough of a heads up. I worried too that in between jet lag and all the stress of the reasons why we were there, people weren’t exactly seeing us at our best either. But I needn’t have worried - everyone was very kind, understanding and accommodating, for which my gratitude is boundless. And while I’m also deeply grateful for the modern wonders that are FaceTime and Zoom, nothing quite beats seeing friends in person.

Norwich - a fabulous city we unexpectedly spent quite a bit of time in! I love it there. Wonderful places to eat, great pubs, decent coffee, a branch of my favourite UK clothing brand (Seasalt Cornwall), charity shops full of hidden treasures, an awesome bookshop, and so much history! We saw the cathedral, which dates back to 1145, and a pub that’s been open in the same spot since 1249. The mind boggles.

Seeing Sylvia Plath’s grave. This was deeply moving - sad and strange yet beautiful. I was expecting a bit of a throng of fellow Plath fans and having to wait my turn, but Tom and I found ourselves in a deserted, quiet cemetery on a bright summer afternoon. The grave is overgrown with blue forget-me-nots and I was enchanted by the number of bees buzzing around merrily in the flowers. I think she might have quite liked being a haven for bees who “taste the spring”. It was quiet and peaceful, but not quite what one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century deserves, in my opinion.

Haworth Parsonage - what a wondrous morning we spent here! I could have spent the entire day there happily. It was a real pinch myself moment; the building and its contents have been beautifully preserved by the Brontë society and there are some truly fascinating artefacts inside. My girlhood passion for the Brontës has been well and truly reignited; this visit reminded me of why I had been so fascinated by them.

Meeting lots of lovely dogs - I had forgotten how dog-friendly everything is in the UK! Every pub we went to had a dog in it, to my delight. And they usually made a bee-line for me, much to Tom’s amusement. “Every time! I don’t know what it is,” he laughed.

Anything food-related - see further!

Reading

On reflection, I should have bought all of these books too.

I have to admit, I barely read at all while we were away - apart from the news and anything work-related, because I was still working intermittently throughout the trip. So, this section will be devoted to the wonder that is UK bookshops! I hit all the big ones in London - Hatchards, Waterstones Piccadilly, Foyles on Charing Cross Road, the Brick Lane Bookshop - as well as The Book Hive in Norwich, several Oxfams and we also made a stop at Hay-on-Wye, famous for being one of the UK’s most bookish destinations with no less than 25 bookshops in the tiny village.

I had deliberately packed light so I had plenty of room to bring books back with me. I think it would be safe to say that over half of my suitcase’s final going-home weight was in books. I make no apologies - I am who I am!

Persephone has moved from London to Bath in the years since we’ve been gone, which was not on our itinerary, but thankfully there were plenty of places to procure Persephones about the place. I snaffled a grand total of six. I will be set for Persephones for some time - I do enjoy having a stockpile of them to work my way through!

We also managed to get a SIGNED copy of Jarvis Cocker’s new book which was released on my birthday (an omen). Procured from my old favourite Brick Lane Bookshop, who were as obliging and friendly as ever.

I also loved being able to pick up a copy of Waitrose magazine again - for May and June! Oh, Waitrose - how I’d missed you!

Listening to

The theme tune of our road trip was this song. Quite the ear worm, apologies in advance!

My husband would also like to inform readers of this blog that he procured some vinyl and CDs that are nigh on impossible to get in Australia and enjoyed that aspect of the trip immensely.

Eating

Chips with beer in a pub. Need I say more?

Before this trip, I could count the number of times I have eaten a meal out over the past two years on one hand. I had forgotten what a treat it is, and how exciting it is to try new things and get new ideas for your own cooking. We had some lovely and memorable meals out, interspersed with the wonderful home cooking of friends and family, and we also sampled some of our favourite treats from our old life - Fox’s Chocolate Rounds and M&S hummus (me), Skips and M&S Dutch Shortcakes (Tom), Monster Munch (both). Some lived up to our nostalgic memories and others didn’t! It is funny how your palate sometimes changes as you get older.

Mildred’s - an old favourite in King’s Cross which didn’t disappoint. We started with artichokes with panelle (fried chickpea batter), followed by a “chicken” kebab with kachumber, and a sweet potato and green bean curry with pea-flecked turmeric rice. All so very delicious. And a much needed injection of veg after a day of eating mostly pastries!

Sicilian lemon tart at Theo Randall’s - my birthday cake this year! The meal there was stunning, as always. And I so enjoyed drinking Italian, Spanish and French white wines on this trip, as an aside. There is a freshness about them that always makes me think of happy summers during the years I lived in such close proximity to all three countries.

Wagamama - another old favourite that has had an incredible menu overhaul, with so many delicious vegan options now. I tried the spicy “chicken” ramen (pictured left) and hoisin “duck” rice bowl (right) and both were amazing. The rice bowl even had a vegan “egg”, made from coconut. It was surprisingly realistic!

My aunt is an incredible cook - everything is delicious and wholesome, yet also indulgent. On our first night with her, she had made Nigella Lawson’s liquorice pudding for dessert, which was divine. I will be making it myself very soon!

Not a particularly ambrosial eating experience but a memorable one - we had been driving all day, some 400 miles, and were finally where we needed to be. We found a Travelodge and collapsed wearily on to the bed. Unable to face the idea of going out again, or even of other human interaction, I had had the foresight to buy some Pot Noodles so that was our dinner - boiling the hotel kettle and slurping up these noodles, which were surprisingly good. It felt like we were in our own version of Long Way Round.

We stayed a night with a dear friend in Hertfordshire (readers of my old blog might remember me referring to “my friend the GP” on occasion, this was her!) and after a happy and emotional reunion, she served us a wondrous spaghetti puttanesca which was so comforting and delicious after a day of driving. Accompanied by a chilled Spanish white wine, and with the comforting smell of her cooking in the air and the evening sun golden in the garden, I breathed a deep sigh of relief that the hardest part of the trip was over.

Some amazing Indian takeaway with our friends in south London. Indian food in the UK is really phenomenal, almost as good as being in India itself!

A birthday lunch of Pilpel felafel, which used to be my go-to whenever I would treat myself to a takeaway lunch when I worked nearby. Fresh, healthy, delicious, and the felafel remain the best I have ever had.

But the foodie highlight of the trip was a meal at Erpingham House in Norwich which, if you’re in the UK, I can only urge you to visit as soon as humanly possible, whether you’re vegan or not. You won’t fail to be impressed with the creativity, the quality of the food and its deliciousness.

FSH and smashed potatoes - heaven! It’s a battered banana blossom.

I wish we had been able to sample everything on the menu but in the end, Tom and I both had “fsh” and smashed potatoes (pictured above) and my aunt had “lamb”, and that took quite some deliberation! It’s such a treat to go somewhere and be able to order everything on the menu, not just be scanning for the V or VO options. I got so much inspiration for my cooking from this one meal here. It was simply outstanding.

And, believe it or not, the airline food was OK! I had two favourites - a paratha stuffed with coconut lentils and mushrooms that was served as a midnight snack somewhere between Indonesia and Dubai on the way over, and char kway teow style rice noodles with tofu served for lunch on the Perth to Melbourne flight. Qantas, you did good!

Watching

I discovered Mary McCartney Serves It Up by accident and ended up watching every episode I could lay my hands on - such a charming show with the elegant and charming Mary who cooks all vegan food. I particularly enjoyed Dave Grohl appearing as a guest!

Dinner Date - our old ITV favourite, a comfort watch that has lost none of the cringe factor! For those who don’t know, it’s a reality show where a single man or woman is given five menus to choose from - of those five, they pick the three they most like the sound of (or, most likely, the three the producers have decided would make the most interesting/awkward TV!) and are then subjected to three blind dates where said blind dates cook a three course meal for the guest. At the end of the trio of blind dates, the guest chooses the host they most felt a spark with and off they go, out for a meal they haven’t had to cook! The two unpicked hosts get a commiseration prize of a ready meal. It’s my favourite kind of reality TV and I so enjoyed catching up on a few episodes! I’m pretty sure there’s been an Australian version, which I’ll have to sniff out.

We were also introduced to the nature program Springwatch, which I had never seen before - it’s broadcast live from a series of cameras all over the UK, which “charts the fortunes of British wildlife during the changing of the seasons”. Some stories have a soap opera element about them, with some quite dramatic fates of certain nests of fledglings! It’s really quite relaxing to watch at the end of the day. And oddly hilarious in places, as birds really do get up to some crazy things.

We also watched the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert which opened with the Queen and Paddington Bear, which was so very sweet (Paddington 2 is an incredible film, if you’ve not seen it, FYI). We were also in the country during the vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson so naturally were glued to the BBC for the results of that…

Finally, finding Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy available to watch on the flight home after not being able to watch it in Australia was amazing! Dear Stanley, what a lovely man he is. How I would love to be friends with him and Felicity! The program is so thoughtfully and passionately put together, and some parts of it are so tender and moving. And guaranteed to make you want to eat pasta, I’d say.

Quote of the trip

“It’s always better to travel hopefully.” - Rick Stein

Whenever we found ourselves despairing or overcome with anxiety (which sadly but unavoidably happened quite frequently on this trip) about what lay ahead and all the things that could go wrong, one of us would say to the other “travel hopefully”, which is what Rick Stein says at the beginning of his Secret France series, admittedly in the very different context of being hopeful of finding some great food and wine on his travels. We were rewatching some comfort TV in the lead up to our departure, in a bid to keep all the anxiety at bay, and when we heard Rick say the words “travel hopefully”, it became our mantra. And it helped.

It’s hard to explain and I know a lot of people won’t understand, but we had not even gone to the mainland in all this time, so the idea of making such a big journey was very daunting and still felt incredibly risky. We had grown very used to overseas travel being government-sanctioned and off limits, so to be doing it again with very few restrictions felt so strange, almost surreal. And frightening at times, to be honest. I’m proud of how resilient we both were, how we just got on with things, and stayed positive in the face of some very challenging experiences.

And somehow, by some miracle (because our flights were full and we were definitely in the minority in terms of consistent mask wearing), we have remained Covid free! Masks and vaccinations for the win. And travelling hopefully doesn’t hurt either.

So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the recap! As always, thank you for reading and if you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, then please do. I’ll be back later in the week with my usual This Week wrap up. It’s good to be home. xx

travel: food, drink and inspiration in Berlin

When you think of Berlin, perhaps you think of the Wall, the Reichstag, or Checkpoint Charlie. Every city guide will mention those, and with good reason – they are must-sees. But Berlin is also a paradise for creatives, dotted with artisan coffee shops, funky bars and galleries, cutting-edge restaurants, eye-grabbing street art, green spaces, museums, food stands and flea markets. The spirit of reinvention and possibility permeates every corner of this city. Whether you’ve got a week or a weekend in Berlin, if you want to be inspired, you’re in the right place.

Stationery lovers will be in heaven at KaDeWe, Europe’s second largest department store after Harrods, where there is a whole floor of notebooks, cards, paper and every writing implement you can imagine with which to pen a masterpiece. We spent ages trying to pick which colour Leuchturm notebook we wanted! And foodies, make your way to the sixth and seventh floors where you’ll find the food hall to end all food halls.  

Cookies Cream leads the way in the ‘cordon vert’ trend, serving edgy and extravagant vegetarian food – expect dishes like apple gyoza served in celery, walnut and thyme broth, and yellow beetroot gnocchi with olives. What’s more, you’ll feel like you’re in a spy film trying to find the hidden entrance to the restaurant in the car park at the back of the Westin Grand Hotel! We had the set menu which was a bargain €55 for four courses and included all their signature dishes. It was a meal to remember. We still talk about it.

Even your burger comes with a side of philosophy in Berlin. We thought the best veggie burgers were at Schillerburger, full of mustard and pickles in traditional German style. They have branches dotted all over the city. We frequented the one across the street from our favourite bar! 

If you’re a cake lover, Berlin is your city. Kaffee und kuchen (coffee and cake) is a German institution and any neighbourhood café will have something freshly baked and delicious – espresso bar Café µ in Friedrichshain served a carrot cake that was even better than my grandmother’s; The Barn in Mitte is a world-renowned coffee roastery whose flat whites are strong and essential pre-shopping refreshment before you hit the arty boutiques of Schönhauser Allee; and even vegans don’t miss out, as Goodies Vegan Café has a sumptuous selection of cakes as well as excellent coffee.

Friedrichshain is my pick of the trendy neighbourhoods. The streets are lively and colourful, practically every block of flats has a mural painted on it. After a walk and browse through its many unique shops (no chain stores in sight here), unwind with a halber liter (a bit over a pint) of one of the beers or ciders at Hops and Barley, where they brew everything on the premises. Their pilsner is incredibly tasty, with a zesty citrus flavour.

Don't forget to visit a photo booth! They're great fun.

Getting around is a cinch – Berlin is a cycle-friendly city and you can hire bikes very easily to zip around on. There’s also the U and S Bahn trains, which will get you from the outer neighbourhoods of the city into the centre of things in about 15 minutes. It’s also one of the most walkable cities in Europe. Wear comfy shoes and don’t forget your Fitbit!

We liked staying at the funky Michelberger Hotel – a former factory complex, where the décor is a delightful eclectic mixture of vintage and warehouse hipster. I wouldn't recommend staying in the loft room, however - it was a rickety wire ladder to get up to the bed, which was too much like a mattress on the floor for my liking. Which was a shame, as the rest of the room was very comfortable. Worth double checking when you book that you have an actual bed! But otherwise, there’s an excellent bar and restaurant on site and the hotel is mere moments’ walk from the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall and, if you’re in town to catch an international music act, the Mercedes Benz Arena. I would stay here again quite happily.

Berlin Wall, East Side. 

One thing’s for sure, you’ll be plotting your return to Berlin before you’ve even left - however long you spend there simply won’t be enough.

Have you been to Berlin? What are your top tips for enjoying this wonderful city?