The Eclipse, ANZAC Day and Vermeer

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THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN

Now you see it and then you don’t! Did you see the images of the eclipse of the sun on 20th April? We live in Perth, about 1 300km (808 miles) south of Exmouth, the ultimate place to view this eclipse. For a second or so the sky darkened a little in Perth as if a cloud passed the sun, but the effect was spectacular in Exmouth.

Image PIXABAY

The actual movement of the moon passing across the face of the sun takes about three hours. During this time, the sun is completely obscured (eclipsed) by the moon for about a minute.This was seen most completely in Exmouth and was witnessed by people from all over the World who traveled there to view the event.

Actually, total solar eclipses happen about every 18 months but are usually only visible at sea. This one on April 20th, was clearly visible from the coast, at Exmouth. Normally a township of about 2 800 people the population swelled by more than 20 000 visitors. Best known for fishing and the North West Cape Naval Communications Base, Exmouth is also the northern gateway to the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Park.

Beach at Cape range national park in Australia royalty free stock photos

The beach at Exmouth. Image DreamstimeANZAC DAY

Anzac Day, celebrated on the 25th of April, commemorates the Australian and New Zealand involvement in all wars and conflicts. (ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Historically we have tended to fight and drink together.) It is a public holiday in Australia. Traditionally we gathered at local memorials for a formal service of remembrance but Covid changed how we commemorate Anzac Day. These services acknowledge the bravery and sacrifices of all servicemen and women in all countries and all conflicts.

Image IStock

During Covid we were unable to attend the usual service at our local war memorial. The compromise was for people to stand at the end of their driveway with candles, listen to the Last Post being played on the radio then stand in silence for one minute. We did this along with our neighbours.

A new way of remembrance was established. Afterwards one neighbour brought out coffee, we all brought fold up chairs and sat on the verge chatting and sharing Anzac biscuits, made to celebrate on the day. The next year we met on someone’s driveway, commemorated with the Last Post and a minutes silence then shared breakfast with my husband acting as the barista. He makes the best coffee!

Image iStock

Actually, the same group of neighbours host evening get togethers every few months and they are such lovely evenings, sharing food and news. We are very lucky!

JOHANNES VERMEER (1632 -1675)

This year the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam presented the largest Vermeer exhibition ever seen. Many of the paintings were loaned to the museum from private collections and have not been seen by the general public for many years. Unable to visit this amazing exhibition, we went to the cinema to see ‘Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition’ a film showing the exhibition with the director of the Rijksmuseum and the curators involved in presenting the exhibition providing the commentary.

Image Wikimedia Commons

Vermeer was a Dutch Baroque painter known for his paintings of middle class domestic interiors. His first paintings were based on Bible stories and mythology but he soon specialized in paintings of interiors. Generally, the paintings feature light coming from a window, seen or not seen, on the left of the room and usually the subject is a female. For example ‘The Milkmaid’, ‘The Music Lesson” and many other works.

Image Wikimedia Commons

Within the close Calvinistic society of the time, it would have been difficult for Vermeer to find female models so historians assume he relied on his wife and eight daughters to sit for him .His wife was a Catholic. Unlike so many other famous artists, we know very little about Vermeer’s life as he didn’t keep a journal nor are there recorded any letters by him.

Image Wikimedia Commons

His works are significant also because there are no apparent brushstrokes. He developed a style which create smooth finishes. He is also known for using white dots to create highlights. Probably his most famous painting “Girl With The Pearl Earring” demonstrates this technique at its best.

Ninety minutes packed with information and beautiful pictures. I really enjoyed it!

We’d also gone to the cinema recently to see Living starring Bill Nighy. I’d read rave revues and the lines went out the door when we were at the cinema to see the film about the Mary Cassatt paintings. So we went one night. Neither of us enjoyed it. The acting was good, the close, intimate settings, such as a train carriage, an office, a cafe or dining room were well done, the acting convincing but the story? So predictable and tedious and obvious. Nothing was left unsaid. It has many five star reviews but not from me.

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Surprising New Packaging, Ripening Fruit and Growing Bay Trees

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REDUCING PLASTIC PACKAGING

I’m a big fan of grazing platters as there’s always something to appeal to everyone. There’s so many flavours and colours and textures. Cheese, crackers, nuts, grapes and strawberries, cold meat and of course, dips! Dips are packed with flavour but usually they are packed in plastic, too. I’ve made dip using fresh ingredients and cream cheese packaged in foil wrap, but I really like the variety of dips you can buy so easily but not the plastic packaging.

So a big surprise for me at the supermarket this morning. A good surprise, too. I found a dip called NUFFIN Chive & Onion Dip made from natural ingredients and packed in a biodegradable and compostable tub with a kraft paper label. It’s made in Australia from 99% Australian ingredients, so ticking all the boxes. Pretty keen to try it. It was really good. So good it was all gone by evening.

Just fresh ingredients.

Dip is really versatile, too. Not just on crackers but also in baked potatoes, on toast and even stirred through pasta. I’ll be looking to see if this product comes in other flavours, too.

Rinsed out the tub the dip came when it was empty and poked holes in the base using a skewer. Why? Instant seed planter.

Filled it with potting mix. added stock seeds, covered the seeds with more soil then watered them in.

Added a label using a recycled bamboo fork. Eventually the tub will end up in the compost.

RIPENING ORANGES

A few weeks ago I tried ripening not quite ripe lemons by putting them in a bowl next to a window so they got the morning sun. The lemons with yellow on them ripened, the two which were mostly green didn’t change at all. So I picked two nearly ripe oranges and put them in a bowl in the sun, too. I picked them because a cyclone was forecast and the orange skins split in heavy rain. We had massively heavy rain!

After two weeks both oranges looked ripe, so I made an orange cake. Like the window ripened lemons, I felt there was less juice, but enough to make the cake and icing. I also grated peel to add to both.

The peel felt quite thin when I was trying to grate it to put on the top of the cake so I grated leftover Crunchie solid Easter eggs and scattered that on the icing. I only thought to take an ‘after’ photo of the cake when I was cutting it! It tasted very good.

Lovely orange cake with orange flavoured icing and grated leftover Crunchie Easter eggs.

PROPAGATING BAY TREES

My son wants a bay tree so when a friend mentioned she grown one for her son I decided to try it, too. I snapped five small branches from a tree. I prepared them by stripping off all but three or four leaves, cut the ends and squashed them before putting them into rooting powder.

Then I poked them into well drained soil, watered them and covered them in a little greenhouse. Actually, the greenhouse is a thick plastic bag held up on recycled chopsticks which needed further tethering when the cyclone came down the coast. No signs of growth but the cuttings are still green and healthy.

Bay leaves feature in so many recipes from all over the world. To dry them, pick leaves in summer and discard any with holes in them. Choose the best then wash them in running water. I dry them on baking trays lined with paper towel left somewhere well ventilated for about seven days then turned over and repeat the process. When they are dry the colour will be faded and the leaves feel brittle.

The leaves can also be dried in the oven. Place them in a single layer on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and put in a slow oven. Turn them over after about 20 minutes and check again after 20 minutes. They may take longer, just keep checking until they are brittle and fragrant.

Although I have only ever air dried bay leaves they can also be dried in a microwave oven. Place them in a single layer and cook for two minutes, then turn them over and cook again in 30 second bursts until they are brittle. Store the dried leaves in an airtight jar.

In other gardening news, the gardenias are beautiful. I have several gardenia bushes and they are covered in blooms. What’s blooming in your garden?

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The Happiest Countries in the World and Easter

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THE HAPPIEST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD

The WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT for 2023 has been published. Again, the Finns are the happiest people in the world. They top the list for the sixth consecutive year in a row. Participants self report on six key factors. The key factors are social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption. Interestingly, despite the world wide pandemic, global life satisfaction remained at the same level as pre – pandemic years.

The Finnish list nature, lifestyle, food and sustainability as major satisfaction factors. The first ten countries on the list are 1.Finland, 2.Denmark, 3.Iceland, 4.Israel, 5.The Netherlands, 6.Sweden, 7.Norway, 8.Switzerland, 9.Luxembourg and 10.New Zealand.

Both Finnish images Pixabay.

Australia ranks 12th, America 15th and The United Kingdom comes in at 19th. More information HERE.

PANCAKES

While so many other people who celebrate Easter sat down to fish on Good Friday our family had pancakes. I looked for a recipe to use the sourdough ‘discard’ as I made bread today, too. The recipe is not included as they didn’t turn out like traditional, thin pancakes. These were thick and fluffy. Instead of eating three or four, two of these were enough. We decided they were more like pikelets. Luckily, the sourdough bread was very good.

Also on the topic of food, which has been foremost in our minds all weekend, autumn vegetables are beginning to appear at the F&V shop, so Easter Sunday’s roast was accompanied by potatoes, butternut pumpkin, carrots and onions, all roasted in duck fat, plus some peas. All this roasting resulted in very good gravy.

Australia enjoys foods from many countries so we’ve eaten sushi, a traditional roast and vegetables, several Indian curries and cold meat and potato salad during the Easter season. Obviously, we also enjoyed a mountain of chocolate and hot cross buns!

A favourite Australian food has just turned 100! I’m talking about Vegemite. First made after WW1 to replace Marmite which was in short supply, Vegemite is manufactured from brewer’s yeast. Invented by Dr Cyril P.Callister in 1923 it was not an immediate favourite but over time Vegemite became a standard spread on toast at breakfast and in school lunch boxes. Strongly flavoured, we like to offer it to visitors from overseas who seldom react enthusiastically! The trick with Vegemite is to spread it thinly. Rich in B vitamins and stable over time it is a pantry staple in Australia.

To celebrate the 100th birthday of this richly flavoured favourite, the Royal Australian Mint will release a one dollar coin featuring a jar of Vegemite.

Toast and Vegemite…..delicious.

Many Australians immediately recognise the Vegemite jingle referring to Australian children as Happy Little Vegemites. Some call the jingle a second national anthem.

I remember being very cross when Vegemite replaced the iconic yellow metal screw cap in the early 90’s with a plastic lid. The jar remains an attractive jar for storing food stuffs or whatever you like after you’ve scraped it clean.( Lots of people swish hot water in the almost empty jar and pour the resulting Vegemite flavoured stock into soups or casseroles).

LITTLE JOBS

I made a barrier from cut up school rulers to protect a mosaic from constant wash during rain or when the reticulation was running. The mosaic is precious as I used chips of blue and white china found where there had once been a rubbish tip on the farm where I grew up. I collected the chips over many years as wear and tear and the weather revealed more pieces and eventually I had quite a few. I used some to make this piece. I was worried the constant water running over it would damage it.

The white barrier, made from old school rulers, works really well.

Using old plastic school rulers, indicating our son’s progress through primary and secondary school ( I knew they’d be useful one day!) I chose two which were very similar in height, my son cut them to length and I glued them together to create a slightly raised barrier. When the glue was dry I pushed them in and packed sand behind the barrier to keep them securely in place. A few hours later we had very heavy rain and the barrier did its job!

Some time ago I restored a rusty, chipped and faded panel to hang on our fence. When I was working on it I realised it had once been a gate. The hinges had been cut off. I intend to grow plants against this panel. I used brackets to attach it to the wall.

To begin, I taped over the parts of the brackets which would be screwed on the wall, knowing it would be better to paint them in situ, covering the screw heads. Sprayed the raised centre of each bracket black which would be on the panel using black spray paint inside and out.

These little grow pots and soil ‘circles’ which become potting mix when wet, came from one of the supermarkets who offered plants, soil and grow pots as a reward for spending a set amount of money.

After the panel was attached to the wall I planted hollyhock seeds in little grow pots and began removing tree roots from the soil. An apricot tree had been previously espaliered to the wall. Unfortunately, the wildlife wouldn’t share the fruit with us, so, sadly, the tree was removed. I’ll plant the hollyhocks when they are ready.

Hollyhock seeds can take ages to germinate.

I hope your Easter break was calm and enjoyable. I hope you found Easter a time to do things you like with the company you like, too.

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April All Sorts

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APRIL FOOLS DAY

Pixabay

Were you caught in any silly pranks on April Fools Day? Interestingly, the food loving French celebrate April 1st differently. Called “Poisson d’Avril (April Fish) the reasons are lost in history. Two suggestions are this date marks the end of Lent or this reflects the anger of the French in 1564, when King Charles IX (1550-1574) changed the date marking the beginning of the year. The citizens didn’t like him meddling with their calendar, but the reasons for paper fish celebrating April 1st as Paper Fish Day have been lost in time.

Nowadays, French children stick coloured paper fish on as many backs as they can manage and run off laughing and calling out “Poisson d’Avril! To celebrate this special day, the shops are full of beautifully wrapped chocolate fish.

So when I saw a report claiming the Eiffel Tower (330m high) had a baby and saw photos of the two side by side, I assumed it was a prank. The media worldwide enjoy publishing trick reports on April the first and I assumed this was a prank. Further research actually revealed the second, much smaller tower ( 30m high) came from Vendée and was ‘visiting’ Paris until 10th April for repairs. The miniature is next to the original Eiffel Tower on the Champs-de-Mars in the centre of Paris.

THE BREAD KNIFE

Do you have a favourite object that does a great job, but not as intended? Ours is the bread knife, which was sold as a watermelon knife evident from the colour and images on it! Actually, it is about 8 years old and the best bread knife we have ever used. We eat a lot of home made sourdough or bought artisan loaves so a good knife is imperative. And it’s easy to locate in the drawer.

VINEGAR

There’s a noticeable resurgence of sites online promoting white vinegar as a good cleaning product. This might reflect the rate of inflation and the squeeze on household budgets or a move away from highly aromatic, manufactured and expensive cleaning products. Vinegar is very economical, effective and the smell disappears quickly after use.

Vinegar is made by a process of fermentation, resulting in acetic acid. Vinegar is a blend of water, acetic acid and small amounts of minerals and vitamins. Most commercial products are also made of water with added harsh chemicals. Vinegar is edible and biodegradable and will not kill the good bacteria in septic tanks.

Despite all those good things, acetic acid will etch natural stone surfaces (granite, marble, limestone* as counters or floor coverings) and will eventually damage rubber, such as washing machine door seals, dishwasher seals and oven door seals. It will also damage the teflon surface on irons and the finishes on smart phones and computer screens. Don’t use vinegar on timber floors, either, as it will remove the protective finish and the exposed wood will be easily stained and damaged. Vinegar is great for cleaning glass shower doors, diluted and put in a spray bottle (try 1:1 vinegar /water mix) Otherwise, apply diluted vinegar with a microfibre cloth.

* The best cleaner for natural stone finishes is hot, soapy water and a microfibre cloth. Most natural stone sold for domestic use have been sealed with special finishes.

READING

Just finished Claire Keegan’s masterpiece,‘Small Things Like These’ Not a word is wasted in this novella about family life in an Irish town during the depression of the 1980’s. This story is about the Magdalene Laundries, run by Catholic nuns, the last of which was closed down in 1996. Now recognised for using girls and women as unpaid labour; these baby farms and laundries used the incarcerated women as slave labour. Records have been destroyed or concealed so the number of women and babies who died in these ghastly institutions is unknown, but the deaths are in the thousands.

Sorry about the terrible photo!

The activities of the convent become evident to a father of four daughters delivering coal and fire wood. Brought up by a single mother himself and treated kindly by his mother’s employer and other staff he is shaken when making a delivery to find a young girl locked in the coal shed, distraught because she is not allowed to see or feed her baby. The convent run by the Catholic Church is powerful, prestigious and prosperous and he is warned not to interfere.

Eventually, on Christmas Eve, he returns to the coal shed and rescues the girl, despite dire warnings from other people in the town. He takes her to his family. The title ‘Small Things Like These’ suggests small things can make a difference. This is a haunting but powerful account of an awful event in recent history.

EASTER

Easter seems to have arrived very quickly this year! Our son will be here and we will spend a day with my Mother. Limited decorations this year! Do you decorate and make special foods for Easter? I think it is different if you have small children involved who love the decorations and egg hunts, but mostly the chocolate.

Wishing you a lovely EASTER

however you like to celebrate!

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Gardening on a Small Plot

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garden things

Autumn has arrived so I’ve added bentonite and water crystals and new soil to all the pots and most of the garden beds. We live near the coast and our soil is grey beach sand. It is not plant friendly! Unfortunately, the dreaded chili thrip has reappeared so I’ll have to spray the roses, something I’ve avoided but finally resorted to doing to prevent the roses from dying.

One of the problems with chili thrip is everyone with roses in the neighbourhood need to treat them to prevent further outbreaks. I have friends who have given up on eliminating chili thrip and have taken out their roses. I want to avoid that as I really like cut roses in the house! Some of my bushes are very old, too.

In other gardening news, an end of season roundup.

LEMONS

Two weeks ago I wrote about bringing unripe lemons in to see if they would ripen on the end of the table where they got the morning sun. Some branches had to be removed to allow room for the new umbrella so I cut off the lemons before disposing of the branches. The lemons with a touch of yellow ripened, those which were green didn’t ripen at all. I think they also had less juice than usual but this may also reflect the seasonal changes.

Day One

Day Eight

CITRIC ACID

I’m a big fan of citric acid as it leaves the toilets really clean without using perfumed products. I buy a kilo at at time (it’s very economical) and keep it in a large screw cap jar.

To use as a flower preservative, add half a teaspoon of citric acid to a litre of water. Stir to dissolve.

I tried using it to preserve the freshness of cut flowers and the water they were in. It worked really well! The water stayed clean for four days, then I changed it and added more citric acid and the roses looked fresh for ages. These are bought roses, a lovely gift, which are now bred to last and last. They don’t fully bloom like a garden grown rose.

BLOOD LILIES (haemanthus coccineus)

Belonging to the Amarylidacaea family and originating in Southern Africa, these bright orange lilies appear towards the end of March every year. The bright orange colours really pops! Later, when the blooms are spent, a pair long, thick strap like leaves will appear.

CANNAS

I don’t know what these cannas are called! I dug them up years ago from under a kitchen window at the farm. The flowers can be yellow with red speckles through to entirely red. My son has a pot of them in Kalgoorlie where they thrive and bloom for a much longer period than here in Perth.

HYDRANGEAS

The hydrangea hedge is still blooming. Hydrangeas look beautiful all summer and are so easy to propagate. Big fan of them as cut flowers, too, as they last for ages and ages. The leaves are beginning to look a bit sunburnt.

OLIVES

There were about 150 olives trees growing on the farm where I grew up. They were very old. Italians from Brunswick, a nearby town, used to come laden with fruit and vegetables for us, then they would pick the olives and shoot some birds. The olive trees were two different types, one sort had complex branches cris-crossing one another and narrow leaves. The other type had branches that grew out and wider leaves.

I propagated one of each and potted them up. After about ten years of repotting them in bigger and bigger pots, I planted them big ceramic pots and kept them closely clipped, almost like a bonsai, to keep them compact and neatly shaped. About six months ago I dug out a wedge of the soil in each pot. It was hard work as the soil was full of thread like roots. I refilled the holes with new potting mix and fed both trees. I also cut out the dry, grey twiggy dead bits. This one must have liked the attention: it has grown an olive! Just the one!

DID YOU KNOW?

Before Australia was settled, about 55 to 65 000 years ago, Australia had mega flora, three metre high kangaroos, horse-sized ducks and seven metre long goannas.

Much later, the kangaroo and emu featured on the Australian Coat of Arms. Not only are they animals peculiar to Australia, but neither can walk backwards, one of the reasons they were chosen!

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Cut Flowers and International Women’s Day

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cut flowers

Do you always have cut flowers in the house? My mother and both Grandmothers, all three keen gardeners, always had fresh flowers in the house. My mother still does and so do I, so I’m always interested in ways to keep them fresh.

Probably the most important thing is getting flowers into clean, cool water as soon as possible after cutting. Before you put them in the vase, trim the end of each stem. Make sure your vase is clean as the bacteria in a dirty vase will hasten the decay of the flowers. Strip the leaves from the stem so none are submerged in the the water.

Little sachets of preservative work well. (I buy boxes of them from EBay but am trying to find a way of buying a jar full of the preservative or a big paper sack.) Apparently, half a teaspoon of citric acid per litre of water works well, too. I will try this soon. Don’t add sugar, it feeds bacteria. Ethylene, a gas produced by ripening fruit, will affect your flowers, too. Keep them apart. Try to keep vases of flowers out of direct sunlight and change the water regularly. Roses last longer than many other flowers.

If you’re buying flowers, ask where they’ve come from as many flowers for sale in Australia are flown here from overseas. They have probably been dipped in glyphosate or been fumigated. The Australian climate means not enough flowers to can be produced here to meet the market demand. If you’re picking them yourself, go out early in the morning or late afternoon and place them in a bucket of water until you’re ready to arrange them. I often put them in the sink as there’s plenty of work space.*

Traditionally, stems were cut at angle (still a good idea) then singed on a hot stove. This is not necessary to prolong the longevity of your blooms.

I use vases I have inherited, been gifted or, in the case of very long stemmed roses, a vase I found at an op shop (thrift store) It is just the right size! Another favourite is an old, lidless, Willow Pattern teapot. I remember my Grandmother using a metal hedgehog type of fitting, a ‘frog’ to support stems in arrangements but I resort to scrunched up chicken wire, a crisscrossed pattern of rubber bands or sometimes sticky tape arranged to make a grid.

* I was motivated to write about cut flowers after reading Helen Young’s column “GARDENS Cut Above’ in the Weekend Australian magazine, March 4-5th, 2023

international women’s day

In the 70’s as young women in an all girls school we were encouraged to believe we could do anything and go anywhere. Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch had been widely read and we though change was in the air! We did have more options when we left school as we were well educated and exposed to an array of possibilities rather than just nursing, teaching or secretarial work. (Male teachers were paid more than females at this time.) Sadly it seems the barriers preventing women worldwide from participating in all levels of society and employment are still in place in every country.

It was very sobering to read the goals and data behind International Women’s Day. The three obstacles preventing women worldwide from participating fully in the economy, as defined by the World Bank are:

1. Nearly one in three women globally have experienced violence, with intimate violence impacting women in every country.

2. During the last three decades the gap in opportunities between male and female participants in the economy has not narrowed.

3. More than one in five women around the world have been child brides, limiting their life long participation in paid work.

Women are still frequently paid less than men for the same work, are passed over for promotion and retire with significantly less superannuation in Australia. When will it ever change?

Adobe Series of USA stamps featuring Mary Cassatt’s images

Woman with a Fan (1878-1879) by Mary Cassatt.

Women With A Fan Rawpexel

To commemorate International Women’s Day we went to the cinema to see Mary Cassatt:Painting The Modern Woman. American by birth, Cassatt (1844-1926) decided at a young age she was going to be a painter. Unable to join the more important schools of art in America which didn’t accept females student she headed to Paris. Well traveled as a young girl she identified the opportunities to develop as an artist in Europe. She studied at a minor school of art in Paris before joining the Impressionists.

Mother’s Kiss illustration by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). Original from Library of Congress. Digitally enhanced by…

Mother’s Kiss

Her style of painting was also influenced by her European travels. Financially secure and very determined, she was initially trained in the style of the classics but soon joined the radical group, the Impressionists. She was particularly friendly with Edgar Degas who was also fascinated by women going about their daily business. Cassatt’s artworks, including pastels, prints and paintings, featured light colours and loose brushwork. She painted women involved in everyday occupations. She wanted to present the woman’s perspective.

The Child’s Bath

Leaving France at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war she returned to America. She is best known for her paintings and prints of the social and private lives of women. She never married or seemed to have any romantic attachments but is famous for her paintings of women and children. Her style of painting continued to evolve for the rest of her life.

There was a funny account in our local paper, written by a woman, describing how she was left to ‘mind’ the office while all the men went out to celebrate International Women’s Day. They didn’t return to work that day.

I’m not laughing.

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Making, Cooking, Growing

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making

Last week I made a new sourdough starter. It took seven days to develop and is now ready to use. I followed a ‘no knead’ recipe from (here) to make the first loaf of sourdough. The loaf had very little rye flour in it as I will increase the amount slowly. I’d sprinkled the top of the boule (round ball) with fennel seeds and caraway seeds and really like the burst of flavour when you bite into it. I have fed the starter to make another loaf in the morning as we couldn’t stop eating it so it only lasted two days. This is good bread!

Also made more bruschetta. After trying several recipes, our favourite is on bbc good food site (here). The only change is that I drain the chopped tomatoes before adding them to the other ingredients.

Do you feel the supermarkets make it hard to buy tomatoes, or any fruit and vegetables, without plastic? Normally I shop at a green grocer but had to dash into one of the big supermarkets for a few more tomatoes and they were on trays sealed in cling film!

cooking

Motivated by the availability of fresh summer vegetables I made Ratatouille. Originally from the Provence region in France, Ratatouille traditionally has tomatoes, eggplant, onions, capsicum, zucchini, garlic and olive oil. I know authentic ratatouille has capsicum/peppers in it but we’re not very keen on them but I like the dash of orange in the mixture, so I added two diced oven roasted sweet potatoes. There’s no eggplant/aubergine in the ratatouille I make either, because I am the only one who will eat it regardless of how cleverly it is disguised!

This is my own take on Ratatouille and we like it! My husband and I had already shared a cob of corn, so I simply poached an egg to put in the middle the of the vegetables in each bowl. Not at all authentic either, but it tasted just right. What I hadn’t expected was how good the leftovers tasted the next day, eaten cold!

I’ve made a second loaf of sourdough bread because we’ve eaten the last loaf. I am impressed by the recipes I have used to create the new starter and for this ‘no knead’ sourdough loaf on Feasting At Home. (link above)

While I was waiting for the bread to cook I made a chocolate fudge slice, too, which went into the oven when the bread came out. We were expecting our son later in the evening after a seven hour drive from Kalgoorlie. He would have stopped somewhere for dinner but I wanted something to offer with a drink when he arrived.

growing

I don’t normally buy basil as it tends to self seed. I only realised it hadn’t when I needed some and the pot was bare. Bought three stalks with about 20 leaves on them, encased in plastic. Wont be doing that again! I quickly planted two well established basil plants to use in summer dishes.

I now have a lush pot of basil.

Prepared a few pots to plant other summer herbs. Our grey beach sand needs lots of additional products to support plants. I start with bentonite and water crystals and add compost and really good potting mix. Later I’ll add a rotted manure fertilizer. Finally, I planted coriander seeds and some sage, too. They’ll germinate in about 18 days and will need protection from the blazing heat.

our new umbrella

We’ve just bought a new outdoors umbrella to protect the potted plants and the table out in that area. The last umbrella, bought for its canvas fabric and timber frame, was so romantic and so useless. The timber warped and the canvas tore and shredded in the wind and sun. The new umbrella is made of powder coated aluminum and polyester fabric and will withstand the heat, rain and wind.

I have removed all the cording used to put the old market umbrella up and down and will harvest some of the timber, soon, too. The canvas was too shredded and worn to reuse which is disappointing.

The new umbrella is slightly larger so the lemon tree needed some branches cut back. I’ve cut off the almost ripe lemons and saved them. Some online articles say they’ll ripen if stored in a bright place, others says they wont ripen at all! I collected lemons already showing yellow, some still a bit green and a few very green ones. Time will tell (and fingers crossed they do ripen!) I’ll let you know next week.

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Artistic Occupations, Cooking and Creating A Sourdough Starter

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artistic occupations

Enjoyed two workshops this week. The first was marbling, using Japanese inks. Like other marbling, the inks are drizzled onto water, then stirred to distribute the colours and make patterns. I do this at home to make front and back inside covers for my journals. I’ll also use the pages I made at the workshop in my journals. Interesting to watch how other people created patterns. Fun afternoon!

The second workshop was making a collage. I’ve always liked Matisse’s collages in bold, bright colours and simple lines but I’ve never really tried to do it myself. Collage involves cutting shapes from coloured paper and gluing, stitching or otherwise attaching them to the backing sheet to create a picture. We were directed to pick one of artist Sally Bower’s artworks from her exhibition on display and recreate it using coloured papers.

Good exercise to make you really look at artwork. We were then instructed to used the leftover, negative pieces to create another piece. Although I probably wont do many collages, I did enjoy this evening, both for the inspiration and the company.

cooking dinner

One night we had slow cooked, slightly smoky beef for dinner and decided we wanted more slow cooked, meaty dinners. Too many salads! So my husband donned his mesh butchering glove and I began gathering the ingredients for slow cooker Beef Bourguignon (here) Should I include a trigger warning for vegetarians? Very meaty!

This is a wonderful dinner. You don’t need to use the very best beef as cooking it slowly results in fall apart, delicious meat. I made double the usual amount and cooked it in a slow cooker. It took five and a half hours.

Dinner for two nights in a row with different added vegetables and the rest went into the freezer.

Recycled food containers. They stack well in the freezer with little wasted space.

It’s actually better to label the containers using stickers, but I just wrote on the lids this time.

Fresh head of broccoli and a little leftover beef, sliced very thinly, and lovely broccoli and beef for dinner one night, too.

sourdough starter and LEFTOVER BREAD

I like to eat rye sourdough bread so I make it regularly. To save time, I started making two loaves at a time, then three loaves. The starter obviously felt neglected. Then we went away for 10 days leaving the unfed starter in the fridge. Back home and keen to make bread. The starter smelt like beer. I fed it and put it on the table where it got warmth from the sun, waiting for it to bubble. It didn’t. It was exhausted.

Following the instructions on this blog, Feasting At Home (here) I began a new starter. Sourdough starter , called ‘wild yeast’ is a mix of flour and water plus yeast from the air. It grows and is fed, over and over until it doubles in size. It took six days and was very easy to grow. Half a cup of the starter is fed flour and water every day until at the end, it doubles in size. The leftover starter is called ‘discard’ but I didn’t want to throw out the frothy mix! I’m aiming for minimal food waste.

A quick look online revealed so many recipes based on sourdough discard. There’s recipes for scones, pancakes, tortillas, biscuits, waffles and even pretzels. I made pancakes. While they cooked my husband went out the back for fresh lemons. So, delicious pancakes, with a sprinkle of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice for a breakfast. It was good! And every time I feed the starter I will have enough ‘discard’ to make something else.

The next lot of discard became scones. I followed a recipe by someone who claims to descend from scone royalty and they did taste nice, but were a faff to make. I usually make scones by rubbing butter into flour, adding milk and a pinch of salt, kneading, cutting, baking. The recipe in this case had a few stages and also had sugar. I never put sugar in plain scones! Interestingly, this scone maker kept emphasizing the need to feed the sourdough starter every week, even if you weren’t using it. Lesson learnt!

leftover bread

What to do with leftover bread? I’m trying to avoid food waste. Bread, especially, seems to get dry before we’ve finished the loaf. The easiest thing is to dry it in the oven when your baking something else, then blitz it to make breadcrumbs. Similarly, cube the leftovers and make croutons! More a winter thing than a summer thing in Perth when the only soups eaten are cold but you can add them to a Caesar salad. There’s an Italian summer salad using dry bread, too.

To make croutons, cube stale bread, toss lightly in olive oil and seasoning with chopped up garlic and bake, spread on baking paper, until the cubes are browned and crunchy. Panzanelia Salad, a traditional Tuscan salad is a mix of stale torn up pieces of bread with chopped up tomatoes, some cucumber, red onion and lots of basil all mixed together with a generous splash of extra virgin olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. (This is optional)

Did you know modelling predicts it takes 559 years for a disposable nappy to decompose?

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Domestic Organisation.

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domestic occupations

Laughed out loud when I read the Queen of Decluttering, Marie Kondo, has relaxed her standards after the arrival of her third child. She now believes clutter is part of family life. Changing your approach to all sorts of things is part of the human condition! I think the amount of clutter you can comfortably live with is a very personal thing. Almost every decluttering article I’ve ever read has shared three or four or more really useful techniques for tidying up and instigating more effective ways of organising your home. Most are now part of our everyday routines.

Our house is comfortable, easy to clean, fairly easy to locate paperwork kept for future reference and reflects our passions and interest. There are a few cupboards best never opened by the unprepared, but we’re comfortable with that and may sort them one day. Besides, I used to wonder if Marie Kondo’s garlic press, tissue boxes and laundry pegs ‘ sparked joy?’ Her mantra was ‘only have things that spark joy.’ Nevertheless, it is important to surround yourself with things that make you comfortable.

I do have a few habits to make everything easier; I like a calm, functional, comfortable home. I try to avoid waste. A tidy, productive garden with some plants grown from shared plants is satisfying, too. I believe in maintaining, repairing if necessary and enjoying our house and its contents.

So a few things I’ve done recently in line with my philosophy.

I wandered into a home decoration shop recently, looking for sheets for my son. It was one of those shops filled with beautiful china, bed linen, gifts and some furniture. Didn’t find the sheets he wanted, but I did find other things! Initially, I picked up some William Morris print serviettes/napkins (so pretty) then a big butter dish which would hold the 500gm blocks of butter we buy. It has rounded corners and sits nicely next to our retro looking toaster.

Then I spotted a box of four blue and white patterned mugs with fine, thin rims, which I prefer to chunky rims so I added them to the pile. Two new mugs were actually on my shopping list, anyway, so now we have four new ones.

The dilemma was evident when I got to the checkout. I’d parked some distance away, two of these purchases were in big boxes and I didn’t have a shopping bag! The lovely assistant offered me a faux oilskin bag for $1.00. It is very pretty and will be added to my collection of shopping bags. Like all these cheap bags, the side seams are not well finished and often start unraveling and separating from the top edge after being used a few times.

The side binding is not finished well and will come apart easily. I could have overlocked the end of the seams but the fabric is not very sturdy and I wondered if the needle holes made stitching them would actually weaken it. I didn’t want the bag tearing. So I glued the end of each seam and when I tested the next morning each corner was strong and firm. This bag should last a long time.

While we were in Kalgoorlie I needed masses of chopped herbs for a sandwich spread I was making. I’m a big fan of chopping herbs with scissors as all the flavour becomes part of the recipe and not a green stain on the chopping board. I used herb cutting scissors, with multiple blades in this case, but usually I just use kitchen scissors. No green stain on your chopping board and all the goodness goes into the food.

Always trying to increase the variety of fruit and vegetables we eat, so I make several different salads regularly. One of my favourites has tomatoes, celery, potato and half a red onion in it. Red onion tastes very good but has a particularly strong aroma. So when I store it in the fridge I seal it in a wide mouthed recycled jar. If the scent lingers on the lid after it’s been washed I put it out in the sun and all the smell is gone in no time.

I usually avoid round storage containers as they waste space whereas rectangular and square containers can be placed with no wasted space.The round, wide mouthed jar works well for a round onion!

My very old, tired sourdough starter. A bit sad!

We were away for ten days and in that time my sourdough mother/starter ran out of enthusiasm. It smelt strongly of yeast but didn’t react when I fed it. So I had to dispose of it after more than four years. I am on day six of growing a new one, using only flour and cooled boiled water. It is very hot during the day in Perth at the moment so the new starter is doing well. Looking forward to fresh rye sourdough!

The other thing I’ve been doing is saving all the vegetable off cuts in the freezer and adding new bits each day until I have a bag full. Then I boil them up and let them simmer on low heat for about twenty minutes. Next I strain the liquid into a jar and freeze it. Beautiful vegetable stock! Leftover bits go to the worms.

I have lots of plans for using the stock and I’m sure I’ll share them with you! Do you make stock?

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Fashion Blogging and Traveling and Other Things

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fashion blogging

Did you know blogs about women’s fashion are one of the most popular of all blogs? No, I didn’t either, but I am surprised. Fashion, in this case, is specifically about what you wear. It is considered a means of self expression. Fashion dictates what is popular and can change very quickly. Current estimates claim 80 billion pieces of clothing are in circulation. This is an increase of 400% from 2 decades ago.

Image Pixabay

Apparently one in three young women, the biggest consumers of fashion, consider a garment worn once or twice is old and is thrown out. Local figures for Australia suggest every piece of new clothing is worn seven times before it is thrown out or sent to charity shops. I don’t think this is sustainable.

Image Pixabay

The reason I was dwelling on fashion and how it impacts on our lives is simple. Planning for going away soon, I looked up the predicted temperatures at our destination and then considered what was hanging in my wardrobe. I need more light weight shirts. A while ago I narrowed and shortened the sleeves on a summer shirt I’d never worn because the sleeves were so puffy! I added a pocket from one of the cut off sleeves for keys or a phone when I go walking. Now I wear that shirt frequently.

So when I saw another shirt hanging in the wardrobe which would work well with other pieces I’d already decided to take, I took it out and put it on to work out why I hadn’t worn it. In fact, it still had the tags attached. Same problem as the other shirt, puffy sleeves. Was that a fashion last year? So, the second shirt got the same treatment; narrowed sleeves and hemmed the newly cut sleeves at elbow length. Also added a pocket using one of the cut off sleeves. Wash, iron, all sorted.

Although I immediately think of the French when I think of fashion, one theme which dominates French fashion bloggers is the concept of a capsule wardrobe. Lots of individual pieces which can be mixed with each other, so limited colour palettes and all can mix and match. The other theme common in French blogs is to buy the best quality possible and pay attention to the maintenance of each piece. The French, probably the most attractively dressed women in the world, buy few clothes, but buy quality.

Image Pexel

Obviously, with my approach to caring for clothes, mending, altering and maintaining plus buying less of everything but good quality, I will never be a fashion blogger! But perhaps the average French woman would approve.

traveling plans

So writing about planning trips leads on nicely from writing about planning and organizing the clothes I want to take when we travel next. After two years of only traveling within our own state, we are making plans for a few holidays. We have friends who have several overseas trips booked, too, probably trying to make up for lost time!

We live in Perth, the most isolated capital city in the world. Our nearest popular destination is Bali, about three and a half hours from here. Lucky us! We love Bali and have missed our annual trip very much. We are booked to go later in the year. The next closest overseas destination for us is Singapore about 5 hours travel time from Perth. It is also a favourite! Then the next closest destination overseas is probably Auckland ( 6 hours), in New Zealand, but I have never been there.

Beautiful Bali.

So getting to popular European destinations involves long haul flights for us, taking about 24 hours to get to London (18 hours non stop available again now from Perth) It takes a lot of planning and a lot of stamina to fly to Europe. We traveled extensively within Asia as we lived there and we really enjoyed exploring various countries, some geographically similar but all with distinct cultures. And we’re really looking forward to going back to Bali!

other things

Last week I wrote about using up leftover artisan bread to make bruschetta. We really liked it and looked at other recipes, particularly from Italian bloggers. Roma tomatoes were recommended, we so used them to make the next lot. Wash, chop into small cubes, put in a sieve over a bowl and leave to drip. After a while I agitated the sieve to release more liquid, then continued as before; mix tomatoes, red onion, basil, red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic and leave at room temperature for half and hour. It was a very hot day so I then put the mixture in the fridge for half an hour, too. Next I toasted thickish slices of bread I’d rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil and then spooned on the tomato mix. Splash of balsamic vinegar. Our new favourite lunch.

Fresh, ripe tomatoes with red onion, basil, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar plus a splash of balsamic vinegar and lunch is done. Delicious!

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