potato, pea and silverbeet curry

This is such a warming bowl of comfort. It can be made with any manner of vegetables you might have lying around, but I think a combination of one root vegetable, one cruciferous or legume, and one leafy green works very well. I grow silverbeet so am always looking for any excuse to cook with it, but you can just as easily use spinach, chard or kale.

I usually plan to make a curry on a day I’ve made a spicy condiment - such as a tomato kasundi - so I can use the same pan I’ve made the chutney in to cook the curry, to use up every skerrick of juice and spiciness. Perhaps it’s pure laziness, but only having to wash one pot and getting two things out of it is a winning formula in my book! It also adds a great depth of flavour.

You can, of course, use a more mild chilli powder than my favourite Kashmiri, or just use two teaspoons of curry powder instead, if you prefer something less fiery. Fellow chilli fiends, know this curry is even better with the addition of more fresh finely chopped green chilli at the end!

Potato, pea and silverbeet curry

Serves 2 hungry people and leftovers for one

Coconut or vegetable oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 green chilli, finely chopped
5-6 large stalks silverbeet, stalks and leaves, chopped (use spinach, chard, spring greens, whatever greens you have)
500 g washed small/baby potatoes, halved OR leftover cooked potatoes (that rarely happens to me!)
2 cups frozen peas
2 heaped teaspoons garam masala
1 heaped teaspoon curry powder
1 heaped teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder (or other hot chilli powder)
1 x 400ml can coconut milk
Water
Salt, to taste
Lemon juice, to taste
Nigella seeds
Basmati rice, to serve
Yoghurt, to serve

In a large stockpot, melt the coconut oil then saute the onion, garlic, ginger, chilli and silverbeet stalks (reserve the leaves for later) until starting to soften. Add the potatoes, peas, spices, and a little water, stir everything so the potatoes are well coated in the spices, and allow to cook and release the aromas for a minute or two. Don’t let the spices burn, add water if it’s getting a bit dry.

Add the coconut milk, then rinse out the can with a little more water and add that too. Stir, ensure there is sufficient liquid to cook the potatoes in, then bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for around 20 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked. You might prefer them just tender, I like to cook them until you can break them easily with the spoon.

When the potatoes are cooked to your liking, add the silverbeet leaves, and cook for a few more minutes until wilted. Add salt and lemon juice to taste, and then scatter the dish with nigella seeds.

Serve in deep bowls with basmati rice and a dollop of yoghurt on the top. Maybe even extra chilli!

letters of our lives: to a lost friend

This is my first letter in the Letters of our Lives project. Isabel’s first letter is here.

My dear Nischa,

Thirteen years ago, we spent a glorious day gallivanting around Manhattan, sipping Cosmopolitans, flirting with handsome bartenders, lining up for Magnolia Bakery goodies, sitting on Carrie Bradshaw’s stoop together and then later on a bench in Central Park, swapping life stories, eating cupcakes and banana pudding. You had been reading my blog for years and your kind heart and warmth had oozed through every comment and, later, emails, where you shared your own stories with me. It turned out we were very similar. You too wanted to write, see the world and have adventures. You too were wanting to embrace life, find your confidence and shine.

That June day in 2007 was the first time we met in person, after a year or so of getting to know each other online (which was considered a dodgy thing back then!). Though I know I was technically a stranger, it never felt that way. It was as if we had known each other for a very long time.

The idea that 10 years later you would be gone would have struck both of us as ridiculous. Laughable. Unthinkable.

We would only see each other one more time in person after that day, though we of course kept in touch and it was a joy to witness your life take off from afar. Your gorgeous wedding pictures where your face shone with happiness. Your move out of NYC and back to Texas. Your career soaring, literally! In every photo, every message, you were so vibrant, gorgeous and happy.

I still can’t believe you’re gone.

As I started writing this, I logged into Facebook for the first time in months, just to quickly check your page. Just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. I so hoped I had. Perhaps it had all been a horrible mistake and you were actually still alive and well in Texas with your husband, living your vibrant beautiful life as you so deserved to.

But no, I hadn’t imagined it and yet it still doesn’t feel real. It’s been nearly four years now.

I felt a bit of resistance when the theme was chosen for this letter - because I didn’t want to write a letter full of darkness to one of the friends I’ve lost in other ways (though they feel equally as final). So then I considered the friends (mercifully only a few) I have lost, as Virginia Woolf put it, to death rather than an inability to cross the street. Someone I truly have lost forever. And that too was something I resisted.

But you deserve to be remembered and celebrated. Not just because your time on this earth was so cruelly cut short but because you were a beautiful, brave woman with everything to live for, who inspires me still.

These are lovely pictures, aren’t they? Both of us so full of joyful energy and wide-eyed wonder, promise and excitement about our futures.

It was one of those days where I really had to pinch myself because everything felt like something out of a movie, or an episode of Sex and the City (which was appropriate because we did The Sex and The City Tour!)

I remember how we giggled like schoolgirls on that gold bus that was crammed full as it purred past landmarks and iconic locations that we recognised from the show. We suddenly had the intimacy of a decades-long friendship when the bus made one of its first stops and we found ourselves inside The Pleasure Chest looking at vibrators! I remember how much you laughed.

I remember how after the tour was over we sat in the summer sunshine on a bench in Central Park, spooning up that divinely decadent banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery that we’d queued for, so fudgy and creamy, barely speaking while we ate it with the reverence it deserved.

I remember how we had coupons for free drinks in “some obscure bar in Little Italy” (according to my journal) where we had bitter but perfectly drinkable espresso martinis. Over dinner, we talked about our lives, our secret fears, our big dreams, our future plans.

From what I could gather of your life after that day, you went from strength to strength.

You worked hard. You loved hard. You embraced life. You saw the world. It was hard to believe you were ever, even for a moment, afraid of anything.

The last time I heard from you was in 2016 when The Latte Years came out and you posted a lovely photo of you reading it, with a coffee. That meant the world to me. I’m so happy you got to read it.

I didn’t know you were ill. At that point, I don’t think you did either. I didn’t hear from you again. I would have reached out, had I known. I’m so very sorry.

The next time I saw your face in my Facebook feed, some time later, it was a tribute from a pilot you had flown with. The way it was worded, it sounded like maybe you had just left your job and moved on to something else. Curious, I went to your profile. And there was the news, that you were gone. Colon cancer. Age 37.

What a strange, cruel world this can be.

Your passing was a devastating reminder that all our lives are so fragile, able to be snatched away very quickly. However much we are loved. However much potential we have.

Thank you Nischa, for being a light in my life, and one of my true friends and supporters. I miss you. I hope you knew how much you meant to me.

Because of you, to cherish your memory, I try not to take anything for granted. I soak up, embrace and enjoy all the little things in life. I try to live as joyfully as I dare. I dance when I water my vegetable garden. I take every chance I can to do something that scares me. I try to tell the truth. I try to be as gracious and compassionate with others as you were. To always welcome strangers, as you welcomed me.

Grammarly is telling me my tone of this letter is joyful. How interesting. That’s exactly the word I’d use to describe you, my beautiful friend.

I hope I get to eat banana pudding in NYC again one day…. but it will never be the same without you.

All my love,

Phil xxx

Nischa Janssen
1979-2017

letters of our lives

I have some exciting news! For the rest of 2020, my friend and fellow writer Isabel Robinson and I will be collaborating on a project called Letters of our Lives.

Our Story

Phil and Iz met through the blogging community in 2015. Back then, Iz was studying in China and Phil was living and working in London. Both are writers – Phil published her memoir The Latte Years in 2016, the year after Iz began her first blog, Nanjing Nian chronicling her adventures in China. Internet tag followed; a blog comment here, an email there, and in 2017 Phil and Iz became proper penpals, writing long letters about their lives to one another from opposite ends of the world. Phil moved home to Hobart in 2018, and though only Bass Strait now divides them, the correspondence has continued.

They have met twice in person – that’s it!

Letters of our Lives is Phil and Iz’s first creative collaboration.

Our Project – Letters of our Lives

Inspired by the Women of Letters project begun by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire in 2010 to ‘revive the lost art of correspondence’ and ‘showcase brilliant female minds’, Iz (here) and Phil (here) will write a letter each month on a shared theme for the rest of 2020.

Letters of our Lives is also the title of a novel Phil wrote when she was 14. The story followed the lives of two teenage girls, one living in country Tasmania and the other in chic, cosmopolitan Sydney. While that’s not their exact situation (and the story had a tragic ending!), they love the reference to childhood and the value of a carefully composed letter in a world of texts and tweets.

[sidenote from Phil: I found the original Letters of our LIves the other day! Here’s the hand-drawn title!]

These letters are a response to our lives, inner and outer, past, present and future.

We hope you enjoy our project.

If you’re a writer and would like to join in, we’d be open to it. Please contact either one of us via the contact forms on our blogs.

Yours in correspondence,

Iz and Phil x 

fennel and butter bean stew

It might be spring during the day here, but it’s still winter at night! With a fat bulb of fennel in one hand and a can of butter beans in the other, I concocted this stew yesterday evening as the temperature dropped and rain lashed at the windows. I was craving warmth, flavour and comfort. A lot to ask from one bowl of food, you might think, but this dish delivered on all fronts! It’s also full of fibre, which is a great bonus.

It’s perfect bowl food in front of the TV but I think it would be snazzy enough to serve to guests too, especially with a lovely glass of wine alongside.

If you think you don’t like fennel, I would urge you to give this a try. It becomes mellow, sweet and juicy and soaks up the nutty and buttery flavours of the sauce beautifully.

Mash is the obvious accompaniment - I made mine with a handful of grated Parmesan in, to give a little extra salty richness, which rounded off everything nicely. You could also serve it with couscous, gnocchi or lightly toasted thick slices of sourdough. Either way, you’ll want something to soak up all that delicious sauce, trust me!

Fennel and butter bean stew with capers

Serves 4

Olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 large celery stick (including leaves if you like), finely chopped
1 large fennel bulb, chopped into bite-size pieces (save the fronds for garnish)
4-5 large pieces of silverbeet or chard (chop the stems and leaves, then separate and use the stems in the early part of the cooking and save the leaves for adding last)
8-10 sundried tomato halves, plus a little of their oil
1 x 420 g can butter beans, drained
2 bay leaves, preferably fresh
Needles from 1 large sprig fresh rosemary
50 g unsalted butter
A large splash of sherry (the kind you’d drink in Seville with tapas!), or white or red wine, even red wine vinegar would be OK
2-3 cups stock (I use the vegan Massel ‘chicken’ stock)
2 tablespoons capers
Salt and pepper

Fill your kettle and put it on to boil.

Get a large casserole or saute pan - I use my Le Creuset casserole dish - and add a splash of olive oil and place over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, celery, fennel pieces and chopped silverbeet stalks and cook until they start to soften.

Add the sundried tomatoes halves plus a little drizzle of their oil, the drained butter beans, bay leaves and rosemary needles, and turn the heat up slightly, stirring everything to combine. Add the butter, turn the heat up a little more. Make your stock from the boiling water from the kettle.

Once the butter is melting/melted and the pan is very hot, add a generous splash or two of sherry or whatever alcohol you have to hand. It should sizzle most satisfyingly! Stir quickly to coat everything and make sure nothing is sticking or starting to get too brown - turn the heat down if so.

Otherwise, add your stock, stir everything well and allow the pot to come to the boil, then reduce right down to a simmer. Add salt and pepper if you like (I often do it here and at the end). Stir one more time to ensure nothing is caught at the bottom and then put the lid on and set your timer for 20 minutes.

Make your mash while the stew is cooking.

After 20 minutes, add the capers and chopped silverbeet/chard leaves, and stir well to wilt the leaves. Allow to simmer another minute or two, taste for seasoning and then get your ladle out, ready to serve!

Serve alongside mash or whatever sponge for the delicious sauce you’ve decided on. Prepare to be wowed!

i want to convince you

Image via

"Nobody really knows what the arts are for... Once you deal with the difficult problems, like earning a living and getting planes to fly and trains to run on time, then you can have a bit of art, sort of like the ice cream at the end of the meal. What I want to convince you of is that that isn't the way it works at all...

That the only way that we can continue to cooperate and work together as a human society, and as the community that we are, is with lots and lots and lots of culture and art. I want to convince you that it is the most important thing you can do." - Brian Eno