life in b&w

Some garden produce: brocollini, lettuce & thyme. Not much else is growing this winter except Italian flat leaf parsley, some sage and rosemary.

The speckled light pic is of a peace lily which is in flower and I don't seem to be able to stop photographing it!

Last pic is of my boo, sunning herself yesterday in the lovely winter light.

Carving continues but is slow going as I'm distracted with thinking/planning for the trip to Arnhem Land coming up. The northern heat will be a bit of a shock coming from Melbourne winter at this time of year.

What are you drinking at the moment? I'm sipping some black Daintree tea and it's good & strong. I have to really stop myself from drinking too much hot chocolate at this time of year. But I will make Stephanie's double choc brownies later today. A rainy winter's day just screams out for them.

dash

Swirls of dashes in repeat on paper. I'm testing the repeat before I commit it to fabric.

This recent cold weather has found me cooking and eating apple, rhubarb and pear pudding with fresh cream. I'm not sure there is anything better on a cold night. Except perhaps the pea and ham soup that was eaten before it.

And speaking of foodie things I recently had the joy of eating the best eggs benedict ever at the newly opened Aquarium Cafe, 382 High St, Northcote.

Have you seen 'I am Love' (lo sono l'amore) yet? If not, do! You won't be disappointed. It's epic, it's gorgeous, it's Italian and it has Tilda. What more can you want in a film?

wet

Things to do when you've got rainy weather on your hands:

1. Make a cushion cover. This one is screen printed and sewn by me. You can't tell in my hopeless photograph but it has a black cotton back to it which gives it a nicer balance than just the all-over natural cotton look.

2. Make a pear tart. With pastry from scratch (I think it's a first for me). We used a combo of the pastry recipe from here and the pear and fragipane tart filling from here. This would be one of my last meals/things to eat on earth if I had to choose. Tons of butter but as we all know that's why it tastes so good.

the art of figgery

Some good honest figgery went on in our neighbourhood last night. What's that you say? Haven't heard of figgery before? That's because I made up the word just now.

figgery (n) - the art of pilfering ripe figs from neighbourhood trees, preferably those that hang over onto public land.

We managed a colander full but there were thousands on the tree we were figgering. No need to be greedy is there? And you have to leave some for the birds and bats.

I'm making a fig cake with these this morning. Kind of like apple cake but with fresh figs instead. It will be our second fig cake this week. It's wonderful served with cream.

With last week's figgery bounty I cut them into halves and stuff them with blue cheese, drizzled with olive oil and put them under the grill. Once cooled I tossed them with rocket, more olive oil and a little lemon juice. Wonderful, end of summer goodness.

head stories

Martha would be so proud - I bought a scone cutter the other day so I can now make round ones. I have a feeling I'll be making a lot of these over winter.

If you ever have trouble getting to sleep because you suffer from 'busy head' as I sometimes do try this: think of things that happened that day that you're grateful for. Even little things like 'I'm grateful it didn't rain while I was riding my bike to work' or 'I'm grateful the soup I made tasted ok'. I know it sounds a bit like psycho-babble (and I'm not usually much a fan of anything in that range, ask anyone I know) but you'd be amazed at what you can list. And then it has this wonderful ability to make you feel all calm and happy and peaceful. Then zap, before you know it you're asleep. Try it and tell me if it works for you.

what cool weather does to you

I'm blaming it on the autumn weather that I got all inspired and Martha Stewart-like this morning to make scones and chai. This is the first time I've made scones and haven't failed. One batch I made a few years ago turned out to be rock hard and another last year had this horrid baking powder taste. This batch tasted good thanks to Stephanie and her basic recipe. What would an Aussie kitchen be without Steph's book? Actually she scared me a little when I was reading the recipe. She says her sister swears you should be able to have a batch of scones in and out of the oven and on the table from the minute you hear your front gate squeak. She has got to be kidding. They take 12 mins in the oven so you'd have to be living on a very large block of land with a long way from the gate to your front door for this to happen.

I got to use my new green cup and saucer set (yes, from ikea). I love drinking chai on a cool, rainy day. The scones are a bit rough looking as I don't own a scone cutter. Didn't stop me from going back for more though.

the fine differences between puff and short crust

I've decided there's a good reason why I'm a printmaker and not, say, a pastry chef. And there's also probably a lot of sense in why I usually stick to cooking one pot curries and soups and don't deviate into the complications and drama of the pastry world. But last night I did, and oooooh how bad it was! I was aiming for Moroccan pasties using a Delicious Mag recipe in the effort to, you know, branch out, build up the cooking repertoire a little. Crazy, I know, but hey it's winter here and we have a need to expand on the indoor activity list. And in my head playing with pastry didn't seem that far off from from printmaking. Both involve hands and flat-ish surfaces. It does help, of course, if you read the pastry pack to see that you're using short crust pie pastry and not, as I was supposed to be, good ol' puff pastry. Misery and tantrums poured forth. M saved the day by ordering me out of the kitchen with a glass of wine while she fixed the mess. She slowly scraped all the lovely organic lamb cooked in spices out of the short crust and into neatly wrapped (how does she do that?) puff pastry parcels. And they were damn good! But I swear I'm not going into pastry land again. Ever.

And the wee print above? Tis a new giclee print from me. You'll be happy to know I'm sticking to paper from now on...