floating world

charming

So, somewhat ironically considering all my rants about nasty plastic toys, the current favourite thing around here is a pink plastic dolls house.

Every day now Ali wants to "play dollies".

The dollies act out all sorts of adventures such as going to the supermarket and the beach, and I love watching Ali recreate things we have done together. Last week, after we visited the Tatzu Nishi installation at the Art Gallery the dollies were very surprised to find a horse on their bed. And much time is spent lining up the little animal vehicles in the garage at the back.

The Charmkin house was mine when I was little, my grandmother gave it to me for Christmas when I was 6. I wasn't particularly into dolls as a little girl, but I loved this house because of the clever way it folded open and closed, and so mum kept it for me. It makes me very happy to see it being enjoyed again, after 20-odd years in a cupboard.

Does anyone else remember Charmkins? They weren't as popular as Care Bears and Cabbage Patch Dolls and Rainbow Brite, but I think quite a few of my friends had them in the 80s. I had lots of different ones, so they must have been easy to find.

summer food

It is seriously hot today. The car thermometer said 40 degrees C the whole way home.  Perfect weather for eating jelly with strawberries.

And also iceblocks. When it's really hot I like to put Ali's baby bath on the balcony in the shade, fill it up from the hose and plonk some bath toys in it. He sits in it and splashes away and I stick my feet in, and we eat iceblocks and watch the rainbow lorikeets. It's my favourite way of cooling off (we don't have aircon or a sprinkler).

It's hard to find iceblocks without heaps of lurid colouring and flavouring, and I've never been well organised enough to make my own, so I was very excited to find a new (to me) brand, Smooze, at the shop yesterday. They're made from coconut milk and fruit puree, so dairy free & really tasty. I found coconut + pink guava and coconut + pineapple flavours, so we're well supplied for the heat. So far I've tried the pink guava one and it was delicious. Highly recommended. Although I am still keen to try making my own with moulds - does anyone have tips?

new teatowels

New tea towels from Pata Pri. I ordered these because all my old ones were looking manky, and the $A has recovered enough for me to think about buying things on Etsy again. But now they've arrived they seem almost too pretty to use.

mixtape preorder

There's a new issue of Mixtape coming out soon, and it looks like it's going to be a good one! I'm extra excited to see this one because it's been redesigned and it is full colour and SQUARE. And there's going to be a little piece in there that I wrote on how to make coin quilts (like this one and this one).

I have every issue of Mixtape from when it first started, and I love flicking back through them... Justine does a wonderful job. It's so great to read something that's full of interesting articles and creativity, and NOT full of airbrushed models and advertorial. It makes me very happy.

This one's a limited edition, but you can pre-order here - check it out.

bounty from the markets

Golden kangaroo paw. And nubbly hemp fabric, handwoven in Laos. I'm thinking placemats and Christmas decorations.

purple haze

For a couple of weeks each spring Sydney is sprinkled with luminous purple  when the jacaranda trees flower. It's the closest we have to cherry blossom. The trees go from looking like dead sticks over winter to gorgeous purple clouds, and then just as quickly the flowers drop and turn into hazardous brown sludge.

Sydney University has a jacaranda in the quadrangle, and although it wasn't quite in full bloom* yet it was very pretty when we walked past last weekend. Ali always enjoys roaming around the uni - there is lots of open space, and a mixture of old and new buildings. And it can be combined with a trip to feed the ducks in Victoria Park.

He calls this one "the castle".

And has discovered the joys of lying on a cold stone floor on a hot day.

   

--

*Writing this reminds me of the Japanese news bulletins during cherry blossom season, where they would report what percentage of flowers were in peak bloom (満開 ) in each region. And there were elaborate maps showing the "cherry blossom front" moving up the country.

(It's amazing the random Japanese words I remember... but can I remember useful ones? No)

donna hay store & muffins

Ali and I visited the Donna Hay General Store in Woollahra yesterday. It's full of gorgeous things, styled with the kind of minimal elegance that you'd expect from Donna Hay, and in a beautiful old building to boot so it's definitely worth a look if you're in Sydney.

I went there in search of muffin papers. I was spoilt in Japan, because they do packaging and wrapping so well, but the patty cases in the supermarkets here are really flimsy and average. The shop had all sorts of styles and designs, including some very pretty Cath Kidston-esque polka dots, but the little person was restless so I just picked some cream pleated ones and then escaped before anything expensive was smashed. The girls behind the counter gave me some oatmeal and cranberry cookie mix as a freebie, which was a nice bonus. I plan to go back soon, alone.

We tried out the cases today with the foolproof banana muffin recipe, and they held up really well, and looked much cuter than the Woolies ones. 

 

Although I'm probably crazy to fuss about the cases, since they are always demolished in hours, anyway.

thinking about food

These vintage recipe cards were a present from my brother-in-law, Chuck. They're from 1973 and were still sealed in the envelope when he found them in a shop in Seattle. I love the super saturated photography and random recipes. To show my gratitude I plan to cook Broccoli with Deviled Eggs and Peppermint Pie next time he comes to stay.

After 3 weeks off from cooking and grocery shopping while we were away, I'm full of enthusiasm for menu planning again. And I've been doing some (very easy) baking with Ali too - he loves to make pikelets, and I love it too because I remember making them, from the same recipe, with my grandmother when I was little. The stirring is a bit messy, but he is very good at sitting up and watching me cook them, keeping up a running commentary of "Oooh, don't touch, very hot, bit dangerous" and "More piket?"

For weeknight dinners I like to make things that are healthy, quick, and work with separate sittings - Ali usually eats around 5.30, but Mark and I don't sit down til 8ish. I always have some portions of bolognese sauce and chicken soup in the freezer for nights when Ali's too hungry to wait for me to cook anything else, or if I don't think he'll like what we're having. I aim for about 50% vegetarian, lots of vegetables, and not too much pasta (because that's my fall back, and otherwise we'd end up eating pasta 5 nights a week). And I want to try and make one Japanese meal a week, because we love Japanese food and I don't cook as much of it as I used to.

This week the plan is to eat:

Pasta with peas, pancetta, mint and parsley
Meatballs with rice and flat beans
Barbequed chicken with cauliflower tabouli
Grilled haloumi, tomato and rocket sandwiches
Chickpea tagine with couscous
Oyako Donburi with snowpeas
Baked eggs with asparagus and spinach

What is your favourite easy weeknight dinner?

--

Thanks for all the anniversary wishes! And the compliments on my wedding dress. I loved it too. It wasn't a "proper" wedding dress, but a champagne-coloured evening gown that I bought from Temperley in London. I tried looking in wedding dress shops but kept seeing big puffy dresses that didn't suit me at all. As soon as I spotted that one I knew it was the right one. My mum was visiting London at the time, and so we bought it in my lunch break, she took it back to Sydney with her the next day, and I didn't see it again until right before we were married. No fittings or anything, very easy. It was bias cut with lots of give in it, so it probably still fits. Not that I'm likely to have any occasion to wear a floor length sparkly formal dress any time soon.

half decade

Friday was Mark and my 5th wedding anniversary. When we were married my mother's cousin gave us three bottles of wine. Champagne for our first anniversary, white wine for our 5th anniversary, and a red for our 10th anniversary. I remember thinking at the time that it would be so long until we opened any of them, but five years have passed in a flash. They have been so happy, and full of adventures.

To celebrate Ali had a sleepover with my parents and Mark and I went to a Jens Lekman gig in a backyard in Five Dock. It was slightly surreal, because it was literally a suburban backyard, complete with a middle-aged dad on the barbeque and mum on the ticket desk. There was also an innovative DIY urinal down the side of the house, according to the boys. Everyone sat around on the lawn on picnic blankets drinking beer and eating sausages in bread, and Jens leapt around with a tambourine. Definitely one of the most memorable shows I have been too, and the total antithesis of those over-produced stadium shows where you might as well be watching TV. Afterwards we went out to dinner at our favourite French bistro, which was fantastic. And this morning I slept in for the first time in two years and read the paper in bed. Bliss!

--

(Photos by Camilla Quiddington)

last stop: sonoma

Our last stop was in Sonoma, a beautiful little town near the Napa Valley north of San Francisco. The three days of festivities started with a wine tasting tour, followed by a bridal shower and rehearsal dinner and then the wedding itself. It was a really beautiful, happy day, and lovely to have all the family together.

Ali was a ring bearer, which I was slightly worried about, as there are no end of ways that a two year old could potentially disrupt a wedding ceremony, and at the only other wedding he's attended he noisily filled his nappy during the vows*. During the rehearsal he ran around like a maniac, which made me even more nervous, as I didn't want a manic toddler disrupting the bride and groom's big moment. Luckily on the day he totally rose to the occasion and walked down the aisle very solemnly, holding his big cousin's hand. Very cute! He probably won't remember it, but I'm sure he'll enjoy looking at the photos when he's older.

--

*To be fair I should mention he was only 2 months old.