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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

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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

Roast leg of lamb - a lucky dip

"How to roast a leg of lamb to rival even your mum's" Donna Hay Magazine Yet again my heart sank when I opened a page at random in my randomly chosen cookbook - Issue 10 of the Donna Hay Magazine - now discontinued. These days I ask David to choose my lucky dip books because my choices are not really random, for even with my eyes closed I sort of know what book I'm picking. He, on the other hand, has no idea. Issue no. 10 is a winter edition I think, and so a roast is a

Oct 28

Hawaij, spice mixes and marketing

The other day I bought this expensive jar of Ottolenghi hawaij paste. It was on a special, I was just filling in time waiting for David for some reason I cannot now remember, wandering around Woolworths when I spied it. I had noticed Hawaij a lot here and there, or so I thought, and I was feeling a bit down, and so I thought 'why not?' and put it in my trolley. I feel a tiny bit cross at myself, because there are lots of recipes online for a hawaij spice mix, and it's not

Oct 23

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

Acai bros come to Eltham

“We want to be a one-stop health food café and the inter-section between health food stores and restaurants, making unbelievably...

Sep 14

A supermarket label

A comment from my sister sort of inspired this post. Well I suppose it was barely a comment, just a statement that she hated shopping in...

Sep 7

Mushrooms and Chinese costermongers

This is a first recipe post - one from Beverley Sutherland Smith in her book simply called Vegetables . In this case, however, I first...

Aug 12

Lessons from a recipe

Yesterday we celebrated my older son's birthday here with the now almost traditional and compulsory spaghetti and meatballs - and a cake...

Aug 4

Wensleydale and cranberries - why?

"It's okay to like wensleydale and cranberries" reddit - Is it? Wensleydale cheese - the pure kind, is one of my favourite cheeses, but...

Jul 29

Samples

"a small amount of something that shows you what the rest is or should be like" Cambridge Dictionary Samples is perhaps particularly...

Jul 19

Coles' new look

As with almost every topic I choose to write about on this blog, I discovered bits about today's topic that hadn't occurred to me. Even...

Jun 8

Tartiflette

"That alpine dish of tartiflette, whose layers of potatoes, onions, smoked bacon and reblochon cheese helps to thaw out skiers and...

May 19

Home brands - the controversy

"don't be too harsh on yourself if you fall for a phantom brand – you might just be getting yourself a decent product for less." Choice...

Feb 26

The fish question(s)

"When customers ask for sustainable seafood, restaurants and retailers begin to seek and demand sustainable options from their suppliers....

Jan 2

A gallimaufry

Gallimaufry: "a confused jumble or medley of things" Oxford Langauges "a meat stew called galimafrée" Merriam-Webster There's your new...

Dec 2, 2024

Free, $15, $30 or $600?

"really what the supermarket is trying to do is ensure that for every shop you're trying to go there and spend your money rather than...

Nov 9, 2024

Hospital food

"I ended up going to the canteen and getting a curry and rice for $13!" Last week my youngest grandchild was in hospital for a week, with...

Nov 7, 2024

An Italian day out in the city

It's Italian Film festival time and my friend Clare proposed going to see something with a lunch beforehand. I, of course, agreed and so...

Oct 1, 2024

Who owns our food, especially milk?

I'm probably not telling you anything you haven't read somewhere or heard on the radio or TV, but there is currently a bit of publicity...

Sep 28, 2024

The comfort of Heinz tomato soup

"I can still remember the taste of those Scottish rolls and butter and the warm, tangy tomato soup, a real childhood treat." Man Has a...

Sep 4, 2024

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ROSEMARY'S

RAMBLINGS

daily musings on food