Books, writings & media

Welcome to my blog/journal/whatever

This is the real guts of this website. The old website and its archived posts is still available at its old url. Newcomers might like to dip into it every now and then.

Welcome to you all. Amazingly I still don't seem to be running out of ideas on what to write - well occasionally - but I have my writer's block strategies to turn to - see the text on the right. Check this page for the latest posts and if something interests you just click on it. It's easy to leave a comment and I love to read them. And now you can subscribe to the blog and get emailed notifications of new posts. And sorry I just don't understand Facebook.

"We are not here for long. So let's at least make ourselves something good to eat."

Nigel Slater

"I was born hungry, not a cook."

Julia Child

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well"

Virginia Woolf

Writer's block

Every now and then I can't think of a suitable topic and so I have devised a few strategies to get around this.

Lucky dip

The first strategy I devised is to go to one of my three cook book bookshelves, close my eyes and pick a book. Close my eyes again and pick a page. It's really quite an enlightening method of getting over writer's block.

'A word from'

My second strategy is to devote a post to the thoughts of one of my favourite cooks. Hopefully it will introduce them to you

Or

I shall choose a picture I have come across and extemporise on that.

A second kind of lucky dip

I have been thinking about first recipes in cook books - so I shall choose a book not quite randomly and then look at the first recipe for inspiration.

Comments I love reading your comments. Just add a name - any name - it needn't be yours, add an email, ditto, type in your comment and hit the Comment button. Done. Wix sends me an email to tell me what you said, so I can respond if needed. Mostly I just read and enjoy. If you would like to subscribe to this blog and get notifications of new posts then click here. It's free - just a way of knowing what I wrote about today.

enjoy

to subscribe to the blog click here

Letters to Nigel Slater - a blog

"If you accept what IS, then you can simply relax and appreciate it for its specialness" Hilary Chambers I haven't written about other bloggers for a while now, so it's time, and the next one is one I have been sort of looking forward to for a while - Letters to Nigel Slater . I mean how could I resist? Having now read a few posts it leaves me a little sad and with lots of questions. It's a very plain and unfancy looking website which began back in November 2011 and eded w

Nov 19

Ixta Belfrage excites again

"Not seasoning food is against my religion" Ixta Belfrage Well it's time I did a kind of overview of this exciting cookbook. It's been sitting on my desk for a while, with a dozen or so yellow post-it stickers poking out of it, saying, cook me, cook me. So today is the day. I just worry that then I will find it a place on my shelves and it will never see the light of day again. Although I see I have already made one thing from it - a passion fruit and white chocolate mou

Nov 12

Tasty little things that make a difference

"all the added extras that dress up a meal, making an already good dish deliciously better." Tara Wigley?/Extra Good Things After my minor meltdown the other day I have indeed been trying to spend time doing a few other things, one of which is working on that cookbook for the grandchildren. Although I seriously do wonder whether it's worth it. After all they have the internet to help with everything via their phones. Nevertheless I persevere and this brings me to flavour

Nov 9

Economics, food, the curriculum

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery" Charles Dickens Economics is actually the third in the PPE trilogy of high class degrees - Philosophy, Politics and Economics, but because it was the turn of Economics on Friday, in this year's VCE exams I'm skipping Politics for now. The three are inextricably linked of course, as are food an

Nov 5

Indian cookbooks - then and now

"Books, even cookbooks, are written for a diversity of reasons and it is often more profitable to enquire why they have been written than analyse their contents in an uncritical manner. " Shylashri Shankar/The Peepul Tree I guess this particular post stems from one of those books on my desk - The Food of India - a large beautiful book which I picked up from the op shop for a song. Like it's companions in this series from the Murdoch stable on various world cuisines, it feat

Nov 4

Recipe problems - they still exist

"If you learn a recipe, you can cook the recipe. If you learn the technique, you can cook anything." Michael Symon That cookbook I was planning for the grandchildren - well I'm still working on it, although having been treated to dinner cooked by one of them last night - butter chicken, pumpkin masala, naan - I sometimes wonder why I'm bothering. I also wonder what is the best approach. I think I am aiming, in a less grandiose way, to do what Michael Symon says in his open

Nov 3

Old-fashioned canapés - first recipe

"If you don't have the time to prepare something good then just serve some olives or nuts." Beverley Sutherland Smith Well you would perhaps wouldn't you? - or just open a bag of crisps because canapés - the retro kind - often take a lot of work. This is a photograph of some of Beverley Sutherland Smith's canapés, styled in a very old-fashioned way on a silver platter with the bottle of champagne in a silver bucket. The kind of thing you would get served at a fancy cocktai

Oct 30

Beautiful words, beautiful food - Nigel

"Early spring, Kamakura, and a small basket appears at my table and a tiny dish of salt. In it, a single whisp of new season's bracken in tempura batter, the fern caught in the process of slowly unfurling." Nigel Slater Looking for inspiration again - it's an everyday thing. I couldn't get excited about the cuisine of El Salvador or smoked fish canapés (my next first recipe - maybe tomorrow), and so I decided to have another look at Nigel Slater's beautiful book of small w

Oct 29

Disappointing

"Disappointments are inevitable; discouragement is a choice . " Charles Stanley I like to have on my desk, a desk calendar - one of those things that stands on your desk waiting for you to tear off each day as it passes. I also have a diary - yes I use a paper diary. My excuse is age. Normally I have an art based one. I like to see paintings I don't know, discover beautiful pictures and new artists, even occasional blog inspiration. However, last year as the possibilitie

Oct 26

Food for celebrities - a book

"Staying in really is the new going out." Nisha Parmar The pile of books on my desk is not getting any smaller because I keep on adding to it. It's becoming a bit of an addiction which is a somewhat worrying thought. So today I decided to tackle yet one more - a birthday gift from my son and his ex, so it dates back to June. I did look at it pretty much straightaway, but then it ended up in the dreaded pile. So a quick summary - a beautiful cover - well done designers. Go

Oct 16