Really look
"The silent chat between the cook and the cooked." Thom Eagle This quote from Rachel Roddy was my starting point today: “I have been reminded of the second-most important advice in cooking (and life): just look, really look.” I chose this painting, because this lady is not really looking is she? Now I'm sure she knows what she is doing and the flames are completely under control - indeed required - but nevertheless it highlights the dangers of not looking at what you are doi
1 day ago
Nice - a word and a place
"By 1926, nice was said to be "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness." [Fowler]/Etymonline I have no idea now where my inspiration for this post came from, but I think it began with the word rather than the place - very different things - and yet, maybe that quote is indeed apt. for both of them. We shall see. Above is my very last sight of la belle France,
2 days ago
Getting going
"The morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness." William Shakespeare The quote and the painting were featured on my art desk calendar this morning, which sort of coincided with the thoughts I had been previously been having about the routines we go through in the morning, so I thought I would begin with it. The painting is by Charles-François Daubigny and it's called Morning by the Lake painted in 1858. I am dimly aware of the artist's name, but do not know this p
May 21
Travel
"Travel is the story you tell yourself about yourself." David Prior Once a year the Australian Financial Review puts out a seriously glossy Fin! Travel magazine - inserted into their AFR Weekend edition. This weekend is that weekend. Normally I flick through it in about five minutes - even less sometimes - and discard because it's full of ads for expensive watches, cruises and hotels with articles about holiday experiences which are - well - just decadent and out of my reac
May 17
Chasing culinary white whales
"It’s not until you come to make it yourself that you see what’s not written down.” Felicity Cloake This is my culinary white whale - and I apologise for it not being one of my mother's dishes. Which is not to say that I don't make things that my mother did, and that I don't remember those dishes with all those warm and cuddly feelings the cooking world would like us to have when we think of mum's cooking - or even better - grandma's cooking. And I will come to mum and gra
May 4
Memory rambles over lunch
"Nostalgia - the vice of the aged." Angela Carter Same old, same old. Another ramble about memory and nostalgia. I know, so apologies, but I couldn't really let our wonderful Friday lunch with our regular lunch friends go unacknowledged. I mean look at it - in spite of my awful photography. Not my cooking this time. In the last few years we have fallen into a pattern with two old friends, of entertaining each other - turn and turn about - with an invitation to lunch. Bo
May 3
A farewell with finger sandwiches and dainty teacups
Two days ago I went to a funeral of this lovely lady here. Her name is Shell and she was a member of my 'old ladies book group'. I hope they do not mind the name but we are indeed all old. Shell was one of the oldest - she was I think 94 when she died. This is her on her ninetieth birthday I believe. This is the book group I joined, maybe a year after we arrived in Australia, maybe 1970 - before children for us all. Of course the members have changed over the years. She
Apr 29
Making a mark
I have a folder on my computer desktop supposedly full of ideas for blog posts, which I look at occasionally. Uninspired again - today is one of those days - I opened the folder marked 'moments in time' and found this - a patch of cacti, somewhere near St. Tropez I seem to recall, on which people have engraved their names or initials, mostly representing a moment of love. Whether those moments endured into the future of their making is, of course, unknown. It reminded me of
Apr 26
The sounds of silence
"a clear, definitive sound connected to your past can bring back details you might never have remembered again." Danny Wallace/The Guardian Yes I know - this painting by Giorgio de Chirico has absolutely nothing to do with kitchens and sounds. But it started me out on this particular post, and introduced me to a series of paintings by an artist I knew little about. And honestly I don't really like his paintings, but they are arresting. I really felt I should say something
Apr 15
Does it matter how good the food is?
"Hell, it's only food. Just enjoy it." Jill Dupleix This is my family - well most of them - on holiday four years ago, I have no idea what we were eating - probably some kind of barbecued meat and I'm sure it was at least good if not absolutely delicious. But really it wasn't what we are eating that was important, no matter how much thought and skill went into it. It was the pleasure of eating it together, chatting about this and that. Although, of course, that can some
Apr 14
Favouritism, preference, bias ...
"people usually see what they're already looking for, that's all.” Veronica Roth I have spent a large chunk of today and a bit of yesterday trying to decide what to cook for a lunch with our friends on Friday. (Actually on Tuesday and Wednesday - it's now Thursday. To me this is a pleasure, but it's also increasingly difficult. I mean where to begin? As you know I have masses of cookbooks, there are the supermarket magazines once a month and there is, of course, always the
Apr 2
Pretentious or sublime? - musings
“I'm tired of 'pretentious' just being used as an excuse to dismiss anything that fucking expects you to have a brain.” T.J. Kirk Please excuse the language in the above quote, but it was the one quote that I found that kind of expressed the same feeling I get occasionally - most recently and most specifically after seeing Paolo Sorrentino's latest film, La Grazia . last Thursday. I saw the film with my friend Clare in the city. There were a mere half dozen people in one o
Mar 29
Does disappointment trump joy?
"I see no point in putting pen to paper to preserve anything negative, sad or painful." Nigel Slater Well so says Nigel. To be fair he did go on to say that there was more than enough misery around, and probably in his life too. I doubt there is anyone happy all the time. He was simply saying he did not want to write about the bad things. The things that go wrong. However, I want to consider this in writing after my Sunday birthday party which was overall a joyous experi
Mar 24
Today
"it's those black clouds that make the blue skies even more beautiful." Kelly Clarkson In the spirit of yesterday's post about tiny moments of joy herewith a photograph. I was actually out in the garden trying to find something to match the above quote - it is now a blue sky day - when I saw this flower. I took the photograph not just because of its innate beauty, but because it is a small miracle attached to two tiny stories. First story - shortly after we moved into this
Mar 21
Handwritten
"a small labour in these copy-and-photograph times." Rachel Roddy She means copy and paste surely? Yesterday I was a bit uninspired and so I started looking through the Ideas pages in my little notebook of various nudges into blog posts and there at the top of the page on the right is an idea from Rachel Roddy, which I wasn't really up for yesterday, although I did check out the article, which was, as always with her, an interesting one. So today, having survived the threa
Mar 2
The last day of summer
“Summer is a state of mind." Unknown As I sat down to write this post after a somewhat dismal day, I realised that it is indeed the last day of summer. Technically that is. Of course it isn't actually. And in fact we shan't know when it is. There is not even an astronomical date for the end of summer - maybe the autumnal equinox? But then a large part of the world, doesn't even have a season that could be called summer. On the equator you could say it's summer all the ti
Feb 28
We cannot do perfection
"Natural timeless motion." Tamara Adler Every now and then I change my computer's desktop wallpaper, choosing a photograph from my own collection. This is the one I chose yesterday. It must have been taken in autumn because there are berries on the hawthorn tree outside my window. The bird sits behind my computer, behind the window and its flyscreen - hence the hatched pattern across the picture. The bird is an Eastern rosella - a small but a stunningly beautiful bird th
Feb 22
Picking apart a quote
"The reality is that the best way to become a better cook is through failure, and learning from it to tweak the dish for next time. If you are going to take chances in life, cooking at home should be one of them. There's no feeling in the world like the one that comes from making something delicious by pure instinct - like you stepped up to the podium without writing a speech and delivered the monologue of a lifetime." David Chang I confess I almost am tempted to say - "if
Feb 5
What's a holiday?
"a time when someone does not go to work or school but is free to do what they want, such as travel or relax" Cambridge Dictionary I am currently on a permanent holiday. In the sense that I no longer go to some kind of paid job. Of course, being a mother and a wife I also have - had in part - another job. And even if I wasn't any of those things I would have little jobs - washing up, cleaning, cooking and so on. The things that need to be done in order to live an orderly
Jan 28
Self soothing
"What does self-soothing look like for you when the world is on fire? What is bringing you ease in the doom and gloom?" Denai Moore Generally speaking self soothing can be accomplished for me by going for a walk, but today my walk ended with me feeling somewhat glum, because I had allowed various dismal thoughts to enter my brain. The photograph above is not taken on one of my usual walks - I think it was taken at the RACV Inverloch resort - or nearby anyway - and I am inde
Jan 22