Holiday Lessons

Yes, we totally dropped off the radar.

Sorry, dear readers.

It actually all started when my computer broke down the week before Christmas. I was horrified at first, and then sunk into the lack of technology like a pig in mud. There is a lot to be said for taking a break from life for a few weeks – Dave and I played long treasure hunting games with the kids, swam, ate and ate, and had random afternoon naps; the kids rode their bikes for hours, we went on long drives, dug up the gardens, cooked the most delicious food, and watched lots of kiddie movies.

It really was heavenly.

And I actually managed to learn a few things while on our long, lazy holiday:

1. Yes, it is possible to go back to sleep in the morning if you close your eyes long enough (and if there’s a pillow over your head to muffle the outside noise).
2. Holidays = messy house, frequently empty fridge. It also means that no one really has the motivation to do anything about it, which makes it a lot easier to turn a blind eye and indulge in fantastic takeaway.
3. You can never have too many swims in one day. And lazy after-the-kids-are-asleep swims are the perfect way to wind down.
4. Holiday breakfasts may just be the best kind of breakfast: there’s very little guilt involved, you’re able to take your time (perhaps even read the paper or pour another mug of coffee), and can then crawl into bed or onto the couch for slow digestion.
5. Having a little girl that loves pretend tea parties is really the most delightful thing. Thinking that we’d always have a tomboy, the emergence of the very girly Lou really is a thing to marvel at; and all those endless cups of pretend tea and cake, the tucking and re-tucking of dolls into makeshift beds, and a sudden obsession with pretty skirts and beads, adds a lovely (sometimes sparkly) shine to the house. 

Even though it may feel like an age ago, did you have a holiday over Christmas? What did you do?

Nat

Ps. I’ve been writing. A lot. And isn’t it a novel thing, to write with a pen on paper? I think it took me two weeks to write without an aching hand!

Image from here.

The times they are a changin’

Lots of things change within a year.

I’ve been thinking about this all week – how we ever-so-slowly change and grow, and how nothing really ever stays the same. And today - because it’s my birthday, and a gal can do what she likes on her birthday (within reason, of course) – I thought I’d write a post on a few of the random things that have changed over the last year, like….

1. I now like leeks, spinach, and kiwi fruit. I’ve also been able to drink full cream milk for the first time in nearly ten years, and am experimenting with the after-effects of eggs, after not eating them since my late teens. So far, so good. And how good are eggs?!
2. My feet are no longer made for heels.
3. My new ultimate favourite homemade dessert is lemon tart. It wins hands down over chocolate every time. I also had my first ever macaron about six months ago. Oh goodness.
4. I never used to wear jewellery – but over the last year, I’ve slowly been buying handmade beads and brooches and things, and it’s so lovely. Easiest way to add a bit of brightness to a well worn outfit.
5. I haven’t written in a journal for a whole year today, and it’s the first year in more than twenty that I haven’t.
6. I’ve learnt to really trust my creative instincts over the last year. The things that I have a great ‘gut feeling’ about are the things that others love just as much as we do.
7. I had my first filling and first tooth extraction this year.
8. I used to be totally fine with drinking instant coffee, until we found a stove-top coffee percolator in the cupboard, left behind by the previous owner. Oh, how good it is - the smell of brewing coffee first thing in the morning, the real jolt of caffeine, and perfectly frothed milk. I admit it: I’ve definitely become a coffee snob.
9. Since our house seems to be a shining beacon for all things beastie, I’m delighted to discover that I’m no longer afraid of crazy long snakes or big-as-your-hand spiders. It was proven this week, when a carpet python curled up at our front door, and we had our first mega huntsman for the warmer months appear in the bedroom. I took photos of them both.

10. Somewhere along the line this year, I realised I was happy – like really happy, for the first time, ever. You know that wallowing-the-goodness-of-life kind of happy? Where you live in a technicolour bubble and life is full, beautiful, brimming with possibility. It’s put a soft, rosy glow on the year that has been, which is the best way to step into the year that’s ahead.  

Thank you for indulging me, dear readers!

Do you have any random things that have changed over the last year? Tell me!  

Nat

Lyra-Lou is turning Two!

A little lady is having a birthday in our house soon.

I actually think that this is more exciting for me as a parent, than it is for Lou; because at almost two, the concept of a birthday is lots of fun, but something that seems to happen to everyone else. And even though I’ve been telling her that it’s her very own birthday soon - which means balloons, and cake, and hugs and presents - she looks at me with a ‘So what, mum?’ kind of face, and wanders off, leaving me to explain to Judah exactly why he can’t have a birthday and a cake of his own (on the same day, with hundreds of colourful balloons to-boot), and why we only have one birthday a year and not as many as we want (thank goodness for that).

So, I was keen to make as many of her presents as I could, and because our Lou loves to pretend, cook and force-feed her dolls, this week I started making her some felt food to play with.

Think: A sunshiny pretend-picnic, with lovely salad sandwiches, some delicious doughnuts and cakes, a couple of sweet red apples, fruit salad, and a cheerful red and white cherry-print sheet to sit on. Who wouldn’t want to join in?

Nat

Ps. It’s totally fun sewing something new!

Point and Shoot: Our Weekend that Was

We’re joining in with lovely Lou’s meme tonight – Point and Shoot. It’s been a while since I’ve taken photos with a P&S purpose, but we’ve just had the loveliest, loveliest weekend – wanna see?

It all started with a lemon tart - my first lemon tart making experience - and it just happened to be so, so good that I made it twice in two days. The first was shared with dear friends after a seafood feast; the second was horded and eaten sparingly, in a savouring-the-refreshing-sweetness-of-it-all kind of way…

The kids were handed oversized gardening gloves on our sunny Sunday morning, and put to work tidying up the sorely neglected vegetable garden. And underneath all those prickly cobblers pegs and spiky, suffocating weeds, were these vibrant beauties…

We turned the soil, all rich and loamy after a few days of rain; we hunted through the strawberry leaves to see if any new berries were forming, rubbed fresh picked lavender between our hands to release its heady scent, and worked up a sweat in the gorgeously warm spring-time sunshine.

There was a long, lazy afternoon of sewing – piecing, pinning and pulling together the six cheerful citrus blocks from my beginners sampler quilt (I didn’t think it was possible, but it seems to be even brighter now that it’s edged with the chocolate brown sashings!)...

…and a big, hearty tart filled with slow roasted winter vegetables and melt-in-the-mouth Danish feta for Sunday dinner (I meant to take a photo of this too, but it was cut up and tucked into too quickly).

Some weekends are just meant for family and pottering, aren’t they? 

Nat

Ps. Got some wonderful photos from your weekend that was too? Join in! Visit Sunny + Scout here to link up with Lou’s P&S post. And check out her beautiful, candid photography while you’re there – it’s heartwarming, honest and utterly delightful x

B is for Barossa

In nearly seven weeks, we’re going on a girly family holiday (kids included, of course) to South Australia. It’s the first time that Mum, Kim and I will have taken a holiday together, the first time the kids will brave a plane flight, and the first time visiting our beautiful southern cousins for a wedding in the iconic Barossa Valley.

We’ve been talking about what we can do when we’re there – and first on the list (aside from spending lots of time with our family), is a visit to Maggie Beer’s Farm shop in the Barossa Valley. I’m already mentally writing a long list of purchases, including fig and spiced pear paste, some amazing ice cream (burnt fig, caramel and honeycomb!), and some delish pheasant pate. I can’t wait to bring them home to share!

But we’re looking for suggestions – what else should we check out while we’re there? Is there anything, aside from all the lovely wineries, that is too deliciously good to pass up?

Nat

Image from here.

Grateful #18 – What are you thankful for today?

I would, you know; I'm just that kinda girl. Image from here.

Anyone that knows us, knows that Kim and I are food lovin’ gals. We talk about food a lot, bake weekly, try out and share new recipes, dream about banoffie pies, mellow pear filled tarts, and heart-starting curries. Our beautiful extended family are foodies too, thank goodness! – and they share our love of delicious things, and talk, bake and swap recipes just as enthusiastically.

And have you noticed? There’s a joy that comes with cooking and sharing food with people you love – it wraps the whole experience up in warmth and togetherness.

So because food plays such an important part of our lives, this week I’m very grateful for:

A full fridge. Pretty simple, I know; but how lucky are we to always have a full fridge, stuffed with lots of fresh food? It’s something I take for granted a lot – being able to buy what I need, to feed my children, to cook whatever I like for my family – but it’s given me a reason to pause this week and appreciate the fact that we have everything we need. So very grateful.

Family recipes. We have a small collection of recipes, handwritten by my Grandma, who was the most amazing cook. I can still remember the curry-spice smell of her small kitchen, the way that she would hum made-up songs while cooking, and the instinctive way that she added ingredients to her cooking. She cooked with love and with a generous heart.

Kim and I decoded* her recipes a couple of years ago and incorporated them into a family recipe book, along with nearly one hundred of the best-loved and most delicious recipes from all the girls (and some of the cooking lads) in our family. It’s a lovely treasury – filled with deliciously good and patiently tried and tested recipes, some passed down over generations, others picked up along the way and turned into family favourites. Because I cook from this recipe book a lot, it reminds me often of what a legacy cooking can sometimes be; flavours and tastes transcending time and country, recipes followed to the letter decades before, now passed down to a new generation of family cooks, eager to taste the life that their great aunts and grandparents lived before. Our recipe book is an eclectic mix of traditional Indian and modern day everything; and this week I’m trying out my Aunty Jean’s lamb garam masala, because I’m craving a wee bit of spice in my life.

The loveliness of eating good food with loved friends. I made an Italian beef ragu and invited some of our dear friends around during the week to try it out. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best dish I’d ever made, and could have done with another couple of hours in the slow cooker, but the company was lovely, wine glasses and bottles littered the table (on a school night!), the beef tender, and saucy plates were mopped up with good garlicky bread. The kids stayed up until they were delirious with sleeplessness, and we laughed, chatted and ate in front of a roaring fire. I love the way that food draws people together, don’t you?

What are you thankful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Grateful’s are being hosted this week by the lovely Beth at BabyMac – you should join in too! Link your list to her Grateful post here, or write your Grateful list in the comments section below.

* If you’ve got recipes that have been passed down to you, you may know what I mean. Spidery handwriting, abbreviations, measurements like, ‘a dash,’ or ‘a vis’ and sometimes no measurements at all, trusting that the reader will know by heart how much to add in.

Grateful #12 – What are you thankful for today?

Welcome to winter, Brisbane!

This week has been frosty, and it’s all anyone can talk about. I’m so sure that every winter is the same, but I seem to have winter amnesia every year, and never remember the teeth-chattering, frosty breath, scarf wearing cold until it actually really is.

The good thing about real winter weather is that it brings lots of sweet snuggly cuddles, steaming mugs of sweet milky tea, and comforting layers of blankets, doonas and warm flannelette sheets. This year, we’ve also become a family of porridge eaters; we even ate it for dinner tonight because it’s so deliciously nourishing.

So, aside from winter weather and honey-laden porridge, this week I’m grateful for:

Friends who love food, cooking, eating, and sharing just as much as I do. This weekend, we have lots of lovely friends coming over for a wintery afternoon BBQ to welcome a pair of sorely-missed nomadic travellers home.

I’ve been seriously dreaming about this feast for nearly two weeks, and this is why -

Imagine: A big open bonfire outside, fireplace lit and roaring inside; marshmallows for toasting on found twigs, a wild boar roasting deliciously on a spit, lovely spiced mulled wine, cheese wheels for nibbling, rich gravies and warm bread, lots of hearty winter salads, baked potatoes roasted on the bonfire coals and topped with lashings of sour cream and bacon, decadent self-saucing puddings, and sweet syrupy cakes.

It’s absolutely my idea of foodie heaven. And that we get to share it with the people we love most in the world – well, it makes it all the more delicious.

Young Flaubert, looking dapper and important. Image from here.

Madame Bovary, and French writer/wonder, Gustave Flaubert. I’ve had a rollicking good time re-reading my absolute favourite book this week. Beautiful Madame Bovary (Emma) is spoilt, absolutely self-centred and self-absorbed, in love with the idea of love, and bored to distraction with her neat little life, married to a bumbling doctor in a small country town. She’s the perfect 19^th century anti-heroine, who cures boredom and emptiness with obsessive, suffocating affairs, smothering her lovers with a careful mix of helpless heroine in need of rescuing, and a va-va-va-vooom! bombshell act which leaves them coming back for more (well, for a while anyway). There’s also a very long drawn out (and quite amusing) death scene right at the end - it's wonderful.

I just love this book; and I'm so grateful for a great bedtime read.

Independence. I stopped dragging my feet, and began toilet training my nearly-three-year-old this week – and it’s all gone so smoothly that I’m left with very little mop-ups and a very proud heart. I love Judah’s new found toileting independence, and I love watching him strut around post-toilet, pleased as punch, knowing he’s doing such a good job. I've even overheard him telling his little sister, 'I did it all by myself!' which is just the loveliest thing to hear.

What are you grateful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Linking up with the lovely Maxabella – and you can too! Link your grateful post up with hers here, or write your grateful list in the comments section below x

Grateful #11 – What are you thankful for today?

And look! We’re in June already! This week has been a blur of things and stuff and to-do’s being ticked off, but in amidst of all the chaos, this week I was grateful for:

The loveliness of cooking something brand new. I often get into a little rut regarding cooking, and tend to make the same easy things over and over again when I’m short on time. But lately, I’ve been making an effort to try a new recipe a week, and it’s been quite nice making simple, hearty dishes into new family favourites.

This week we tried a delish roasted pumpkin, green bean and feta salad with lovely marinated lamb steaks, and a chicken and spinach potato bake, with a creamy bacon and mushroom sauce. And while it’s nothing fancy, it’s a tasty change from the usual suspects.

Pigtails and Plaits. One sunny, summer afternoon a long, long time ago, my very patient Grandmother taught me how to braid my dolls hair, as we sat together on her bed, silent but enjoying being together. It’s been such a long time since I thought about that memory; but it was the first thing that came to mind as I plaited my little daughter’s hair for the first time this week. It made me grateful for the simple skills that are passed down from generation to generation, and the sweetness of the memories associated with their learning.

What are you grateful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Join in! Link your Grateful post back to the lovely Maxabella Loves, or write your grateful list in the comment section below x

Image from here.

What Winter Means...

For as long as I can remember, my favourite season has been summer.

But lately, I’ve been thinking more about what the cooler months mean to me, and I think it just might be giving summer a run for its money.

The reason?

Summer is all about being carefree, independent; sleeping spread-out on beds with fans moving the hot air around, playing outside until just before dinner and maybe even afterwards (if the mozzies aren’t out in force), and bright balmy mornings that see us greeting the day with enthusiasm and eagerness.

But winter is all about being warm, loving – it speaks to me of family, of being together; of slowing down, spending time, and making time. 

Image from here.

The idea of winter makes me want to create cosy corners, with a comfortable chair, a reading lamp and a place to rest a hot cup of tea. It’s about 1000 piece puzzles under warm light, spread out on kitchen tables, and weeks of patient trying.

It makes me want to transform my kitchen into a beating heart; winter equals porridge with drizzled honey for breakfast, and big mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows.

The cooler mornings have turned my thoughts to firewood collection, and the memory of watching hypnotic fires every night with the children. I love the morning fireplace smell, and still warm daybreak coals.

It reminds me of lazy afternoons in the garden, following the sun like a cat; of closing the house up mid-afternoon to retain the day’s heat; of clear, icy winter nights with the sky brimming with stars.

The idea of winter makes me think of handmade patchwork quilts, Sunday lie-ins with the kids, all warmly close and comfortable under the heavy winter blankets; of hugs that last for minutes rather than seconds, and of cold noses and warm cheeks.

I definitely think winter may be my new favourite season.

What does winter mean to you?

Nat

Ps. Confession: I’ve never seen snow. And even though winter in Brisbane is mild and quite pleasant, this year, I’m buying mittens…

Cool, calm and collected in the kitchen

Every time I look at these cards, it makes me feel like baking.
In my imagination, my fake self is baking ridiculously beautiful cakes and tarts, wearing a sweet frilled apron and high heels, and has perfectly coiffed hair. The kitchen is gleaming, the children are clean and sweet as sugar, I'm multi-tasking like a professional, and even manage to sit down (daintily) for a cup of real tea in a china tea cup.
You can see it too, right?

Available in our Etsy shop now!

Nat