May 2022 – MakeCookGrow.com

Housekeeping, Exercise Week and Other Things

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housekeeping

Why am I admitting to the jumble in this utensil drawer under the hotplate? The drawer is actually longer than shown in the photo but a glimpse is enough, I’m sure. At first I only planned to remove all the plastic utensils but that led me to pieces I never use, such as a butter curler, to pieces that were duplicated and a few favourites that need replacing. I have ordered silicone tipped tongs and some silicone utensils and they’re on their way, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying the easy access I now have to everything.

Researching plastics and reading how they harm the environment led me to articles about plastics, such as utensils, leaching harmful chemicals into food when they are heated, contaminating the food. So, egg flips, plastic tipped tongs and some slotted spoons are out and so are a number of replicated utensils. Interestingly, during this purge I realised nearly all of our wooden spoons came from my grandmother and are still used frequently.

Drawer sorting turned out to be extremely cathartic. I have since sorted three more large drawers. We had a drawer full of airline kit bags. Totally useless! I have kept some of the bags. For years when we lived overseas we flew with an airline with pretty drawstring tartan kit bags. They’re perfect for storing all sorts of things and I kept the rest of them. Harvested all the socks, lip balms, hand creams, eye masks, perfumes, toothbrush/paste sets, some combs and hairbrushes and have put them in a box, along with some of the bigger toilet /wash bag sized bags to go to the Salvos. I hope they can use them.

In another drawer I found this box with my original Fitbit, a gift in 2013 . I don’t think my husband had any idea about the role Fitbit would play in our lives! Initially I did 10 000 steps a day as this was the recommended number, then went to 11 00 and so on up to about 15 00 but now aim for around 13 000 steps every day, done in all sorts of situations, but mostly around the house and walking outside, but also walking miles in airports, shopping centres and hotel rooms. I think I’m a bit obsessive! (Hear! Hear! – the Husband.)

My current devise is even more enticing as it allows me to check my heart rate, calories burnt ( I don’t think this is very reliable or I’d be stick thin ) and when I’m ‘in the zone’ for fat burning and cardio. I try to resist checking my sleep score as I’m a poor sleeper and keep reading that poor sleep is linked to dementia. I like to reach specific heart beat goals every week and always check my weekly feedback from Fitbit!

Really enjoyed a wander around the garden gathering some herbs to make a Tussie Mussie Posey for friends. A Tussie Mussie is a bunch of flowers or herbs, popular in Victorian times, intended to protect the wearer from noxious odours. This bunch smells wonderful. I think my dear neighbours will use this in their cooking!

exercise right week 23 -29 may

The focus of EXERCISE RIGHT WEEK is the idea that exercise should not be seen as punishment but should be fun. The benefits promoted by exercise are listed as move your mood, heal your heart, brace your body, boost your brain, gather your group and spoil yourself!

Apart from walking, I enjoy Pilates and yoga but have been unable to do either activity for a month so I sought the advise of a Sports Physiologist. After an assessment to determine my existing abilities she designed a safe and effective exercise program for me. Exercise Scientists and Sport Scientists can also create programs to meet your own goals.

The next term of yoga starts the first week of July and I am already enrolled. I have missed it enormously, not just the wonderful workout but our teacher and the lovely people in our group. I have been doing tai chi online for a month. When we lived in China I used to watch the elderly people in the flats across the road doing tai chi on the roof top. Their movements were choreographed and elegant, unlike mine. The local park was popular with groups doing tai chi in the morning and ballroom dancing in the late afternoon.

More information about EXERCISE RIGHT WEEK here

world bee day

yellow flower with bee during daytime

Image Unsplash

Did you miss World Bee Day 20th of May? If you’d like to encourage more bees onto your balcony or into your garden, plant lavender, foxgloves, sunflowers, poppies or cornflowers.

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Grand Designs and Debussy

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Grand designs

Kevin McCloud - Hay Festival - Hay Player Audio & Video

Image Hay Festival

Are you a fan of the British designer Kevin McCloud and his television program called Grand Designs? He follows adventuresome home builders in the UK from the design stage through to when the owners are living in their finished house. He reports on the design, the weather impacting progress, the money running out ( a bit gleefully, sometimes) and takes us around the finished house. One house is built on each program with McCloud providing the commentary.

Apparently he is also involved in other programs in the UK, including Grand Design Indoors, Grand Design Abroad, Kevin McCloud’s Rough Guide to the Future and Kevin McCloud’s Man Made Home, a four part series about him building a cabin in the woods emphasizing sustainable techniques. He is also the roving contributor to a publication called Grand Design magazine. Finally, this busy man hosts an annual Grand Designs Live exhibition in London and Birmingham.

This highly acclaimed designer was recently interviewed by Country Living online. He talks about sustainable, well designed purchases. He mentions the joy well designed and constructed pieces of furniture, from IKEA to one off pieces, bring him. He says every piece of furniture he owns reminds him of someone special or an event. Some pieces come from a skip, some he bought then had restored or repaired, some he inherited and some he bought new.

McCloud says you immediately know a lot about people from the books on bookshelves, their records or DVD collections, their choice of kitchen and their furniture. He says, “If all you do is reproduce the window of a furniture shop in making your home, then you have failed.”

He talks about how he mixes up age and styles, past and present. Active on Instagram McCloud doesn’t share photos of his home, saying sharing would be like ” showing the contents of my underwear drawer.” Design should be personal. He recommends meeting the makers/craft people and knowing the origin and development of the furniture you buy.

I actually think McCloud is a bit harsh. Some people are comfortable accepting someone else’s design choices or like living in ‘vanilla’ houses furnished like a shop display. Why else do shops design those ‘shop window’ designs. They hope someone will want to buy everything on display! Some people just don’t care about their living environment. Some people try and replicate a hotel room they admired. Hard to believe, I know! Some of us agree with Kevin McCloud and want to carefully curate our homes to reflect our personal styles but some people don’t care. The underlying message is that money doesn’t dictate good design; a skip rescue piece, repainted or recovered is great furniture if you love it and it’s more sustainable than chipboard furniture! I think we should all choose our decorative style to suit how we want to live.

claude debussy

Claude Debussy was a famous French composer born in 1862. His family were poor and he began life in impoverished circumstances. As a young man he was sponsored by a wealthy Russian woman and his life suddenly included every luxury imaginable. In 1884, at the age of 22, he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome, the opportunity to study in Rome for two years. The winners were housed in the beautiful Villa Medici.

The idea was that the exquisite surroundings, the company of other gifted composers and freedom to focus on composing new works would result in brilliant Music. Unfortunately, Debussy shunned the company of the other men, loathed Italian food, writing that it tasted of ‘a mixture of sour cream and gasoline.’ and preferred to wander the lane ways and shops selling Japanese objects, woodblock prints and and Japanese trinkets generally. As the Japanese aesthetic became more popular, so did his desire to represent ‘Japisme’ musically.

Debussy was considered an Impressionist composer, a title he didn’t like, but he did go on to produce music reflecting the elements of this style. He was very moved by Japanese woodblock artist, Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa’ created in 1831 and went on to write ‘Le Mer’ based on this print. This piece inspired by Hokusai and featuring the woodblock print on the music’s cover, was composed between 1903 -1905, premiering in Paris to poor reviews. This didn’t dampen his passion for all things Japanese.

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, Tokyo (Edo) 1760–1849 Tokyo (Edo)), Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, Japan

Image Museum of Modern Art

Japanese woodblock prints from this era influenced all aspects of art and culture in Western Society.

WORLD WHISKY DAY

Saturday, 21st of May is WORLD WHISKY DAY, so that’s easy to celebrate, isn’t it?

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Planting, Reading and Cooking

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planting

I like growing food. I have lots of herbs in pots and also spring onions. (They add colour and flavour to many things and grow well in pots.) I have a passionfruit vine and two blueberries and a lime tree. Now I have planted snow peas. We like them raw, steamed and in stir fries. The problem is the river rats like them, too, so I grow them in cages. Not the ideal look for a small garden but necessary to make sure we get some to eat, too.

Had a good sort through the seed tin and left out the snow pea seeds to plant. Soaked the seeds overnight in water to soften the outer skin. Then I planted them about 2cm deep in well prepared soil. I grow them in a small raise bed to slow down exploring rats. Covered the raised bed with a cage.

Snow peas (mange-tout) germinate after about ten days. They take between 8-12 weeks from planting to picking and are ready when the pods are still flat with no apparent development of the pea. They are ready to pick about 10 days after flowering. Snow peas can be grown in Western Australia all year but don’t like temperatures over 30°C. They also enrich the soil with nitrogen.

reading

The Islands By Emily Brugman

I am reading a lot at the moment and enjoyed three books this week. The first was Emily Brugman’s The Islands, a fictional account of Finnish immigrants to Australia in the 60’s who end up as cray (lobster) fishermen on Little Rat Island, part of the Abrolhos archipelago off the West Australian coast. The Islands are most famous for more than 60 ship wrecks, the best known being the Batavia (1629) and The Zeewijk (1727). Brugman touches on the ongoing exploration of the wreck sites and the relics retrieved.

Brugman’s story refers to the wrecks and ghostly sightings, but also the isolation, aridity and sun bleached coral environment, the plentiful crayfish and the clear, blue waters. References throughout to their assimilation within Australian culture are based on the author’s family. This is Brugman’s first novel. It is well written, interesting and engaging.

The second book was Julie Mayhew’s Little Nothings, a novel about four women, their families and their friendships. Competition, envy, money and alcohol are the constants in this story but it is well written. This is about the power of group dynamics and how hard it can be for some women to break free from those confines. I think Mayhew is a keen observer of human behaviour!

Japanese Woodblock Prints By Andreas Marks

The third book I am really, really enjoying is published by Taschen, called Japanese Woodblock Prints. This book covers the evolution of this art form from 1680 to 1938 and is richly illustrated. I really like Japanese woodblock prints and the influence this style had on European artists. Although I have read books before about woodblock printing and even done a course and made and printed my own blocks, reading about the history and the complexity of becoming a woodblock artist is fascinating. This style is uniquely Japanese.

Library of Congress image.

When exports from Japan began arriving in Europe in 1880 after a 200 year trade block, Europeans were introduced to this unique style of representation. Called ukiyo-e (the pleasures of life) a word derived from the Buddhist word ukiyo, meaning floating world, it refers to art produced in Japan between the 16th and 19th centuries. Although most of the Impressionists admitted to being influenced to some degree by this style, Manat and Van Gogh were both keen followers. Van Gogh particularly admired the use of simple, well chosen lines to tell an entire story. Degas was a keen collector of Japanese ukiyo-e prints and acknowledge their influence on his work. Toulouse Lautrec was also a great admirer and the influence of the Japanese style is evident in his famous posters.

Library of Congress image

Woodblock prints typically represent a fantasized view of Japanese culture over three centuries. Landscapes, fantastical demons and other torments, kabuki actors, sumi wrestlers, courtesans and animals all feature along with a surprising amount of erotica. This book has all the well known artists, such as Hokusai, Hiroshige, Kunisada and Yoshitoshi along with many lesser known artists. Rich with beautifully reproduced prints and information I’ll be returning to it for some time.

Library of Congress image

cooking

Citrus season has begun in Western Australia. Citrus are a versatile fruit which can be generally eaten raw or cooked, in savoury and sweet dishes, juiced, grated and sliced and also used as decoration. Citrus looks good, smells good and tastes good! The fruit is packed with vitamins and minerals and is high in fibre. Citrus, in its many forms, is evident in the cuisine of most countries.

I have a lime tree and generous neighbours, who happily share their fruit. I was given some oranges and had access to kumquats so knew it was time to make an Orange Cake With Candied Kumquat.

This week we celebrate our 38th Wedding Anniversary. We’re not going out unless it’s necessary since the border between WA and the rest of Australia opened and CV exploded here. So, a roast dinner, coffee and cake to celebrate!

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Politics, Planting, Painting and Eating

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politics

Australians will be voting in a Federal election shortly. Both major parties are promising all sorts of unachievable changes, such as more doctors and nurses and aged care staff. These are going to be created out of nowhere! Political magic. One party is promising more workers for rural areas. More magic. We have the lowest unemployment rate since 2014 and anyone still unemployed, especially in Western Australia, has probably made a choice not to work.

Of course, I’d like to hear about importers, manufacturers and consumers held responsible for their use of plastics! This is not a hot topic with either major party, but it should be up there with national security, food security, education, health and housing costs. Instead, both parties promote green washing, fake change to make people feel better.

Tiny changes, such as refusing plastic cutlery and using your own bamboo implements which can be washed and reused, taking your own reusable straws and your own reusable cup are easy and would make a difference. Single use plastic bags are now banned in Western Australia. Look for products in glass containers as glass is infinitely recyclable. Use the paper bags intended for mushrooms if you don’t have fabric vegetable and fruit bags when you’re shopping. Little changes.

eating

It is so much cooler now in Western Australia and we have had very welcome rain, too. My thoughts turned to warming foods. I’ve made vegetable soup and also fritters. These are corn fritters. For a pop of colour and flavour I added finely chopped spring onion. Served with chili dipping sauce.

When I’m making cupcakes, muffins and fritters I use an old fashioned icecream scoop. This is an easy way to regulate the amount of batter used and the contents fall smoothly into the hot pan or paper cup. Easy to wash too and no spillage to clean up afterwards.

planting

The cooler weather means it’s time to plant tulips. In the past I have ordered tulips for my Mother and myself from a famous tulip grower in the east but we were both disappointed with how poorly they performed recently. This year we’ve bought the bulbs from a local shop. This was far more economical as we have to pay a quarantine fee to bring bulbs from the east to Western Australia to prevent the spread of disease.

red tulips in close up photography

I’ve planted Ed Rem Darwin tulips. The flowers are described as being intense orange – red with a yellow edge to the petal. A Darwin tulip is a cross between a single, late tulip and an early emperor tulip. I didn’t know that!

I have also planted out the cuttings I took from a pink pelargonia. I struck them in water until threadlike roots appeared on the stems then planted them in soil. They look healthy. The creeping fig and lucky bamboo I propagated are doing well, too. I enjoy creating new plants from cuttings.

COMPOST WEEK is from the 1st -7th May. I don’t make compost having created a few evil smelling piles of horrible mess in the past but I do make weed tea. I have plenty of weeds and like the idea of them adding nutrients to the garden. I use a plastic pot which has inbuilt drainage holes and a little metal bucket. I put the pot in the bucket (it goes about half way down) fill it with weeds then add water to the bucket until it is full. For a few days after I push the now dying weeds down until all the foliage is in the water and leave it for about 10 days. Then I throw the mushy weeds into a big pot which holds my exhausted potting mix and pour the ( slightly stinky) weed tea concentrate into a bucket. I dilute this about 1:3 so I can see the bottom of the bucket. Today I poured it on food plants such as the passion fruit, blueberries and all my pots of herbs and spring onions.

Put weeds into a pot with drainage holes.

Insert the weeds into a bucket filled with water.

After about 10 days remove the weeds and pour the tea into a bigger bucket.

Dilute the tea about 1:3 with water and pour around plants.

The soggy dead weeds I put in the exhausted potting mix will become part of the soil improvement plan.

painting

We celebrate Mother’s Day in Australia on Sunday 8th of May. My Mother really likes and grows many carnations. She takes a slip off any existing plant and grows her own from it. So I have painted a carnation on the front of her Mother’s Day card. Every year we renew her subscription for her favourite gardening magazine as her Mother’s day gift. She is such an avid gardener!

Painted a few other flowers, too. I read blogs where the writers commit to doing a painting a day. I once followed a group doing a painting every day for one hundred days and made the time to complete that task but have never been able to consistently paint every day since. I paint in fits and starts. I mostly flowers.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Queensland, is the largest ecosystem in the world. Made up of nearly 3000 individual reefs, it can been seen from space.

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