Gourmet Farmer...

Our Friday night date at the moment is with the Food channel. Each week we head home to Tasmania for a delightful half hour with the Gourmet Farmer.

Matthew Evans was the food critic for the Sydney Morning Herald  - surely one of the best jobs in journalism? Apparently not. He has chucked it all in and bought a small farm south of Hobart - my hometown - with the aim of getting closer to the food he eats.

The program which you might have seen already in Australia on SBS, is a fantastic introduction to all the interesting people who've moved to Tasmania to grow unusual foods, go organic, make cheese, raise dairy cows or live off the power grid. Not to say that everyone in Tassie is living an alternative life... but certainly many do live a very good food life. 

We knew we'd found a new favourite program when Matthew pointed out that he was finding potatoes are often the star of each meal. Couldn't agree with him more. There's nothing better in the world than a Tasmanian potato (I have looked). The best is the Pink Eye, steamed until the skins pop open and served with a bit of butter.

Matthew has set himself up with pigs, chooks, turkeys (not so successfully) a dairy cow and a whole load of lovely vegetables. He has a blog too... and a new book.

He spends a bit of time with mates on Bruny Island and lives in the Huon Valley.

We sit there on the couch sighing at the scenery and remembering camping and sailing trips with scallops, salmon, abalone and even blue eye tuna. We caught a beauty last June while away with friends on the Tasman Peninsula.

I was in raptures. They were a bit casual about it... sometimes I think you need to leave to realise just how special Tasmania is. We might never live there again but we both still call it home.

(Second image from the Gourmet Farmer's blog)

Couch potato...

Now that's a sign of a good weekend.... his grandmother to stay, soccer with his brother, Lego and Thomas trains, Toy Story 2 on the TV, a BBQ dinner in the rain. Running, jumping, kicking and laughing and a big boy's four year old party to top it all off.

At two, he thinks he's ready to drop his lunchtime sleep. I'm not so sure.

Simple suppers...

Butternut squash was sold at my local Waitrose supermarket in London - it came with a large sticker with the cooking suggestion, "CUT INTO CHUNKS AND BOIL."  Good heavens, please don't. Anything but that. Unless you're seven months old.

It should have said "cut into chunks and ROAST." There is nothing better than roasting any pumpkin with a whole head of garlic, pepper and a generous drizzling of olive oil. Flakes of dried chilli are good too.

If you're feeling lazy then soup is a lovely option, cook off some garlic and leek, add chunks of roasted sweet butternut and vegetable stock, a smidge of curry powder - cook until soft and then whizz.

A great midweek meal is cheat's risotto.  Baked not stirred.  I do love making a traditional stirred risotto just not on a Thursday night after wrestling two children to bed.

This is fabulously easy and tastes good. Very good. You just have to give it a very hard stir for two minutes or so at the end to get that oozy risotto texture.

For 2 people...

• Small butternut squash 
• 1 cup of arborio rice
• 2 1/2 cups hot vegetable/chicken stock
• 40g butter
• 2/3 cup parmesan cheese

First roast squash with half a head of garlic, olive oil and pepper.
Put it in an ovenproof dish that seals well with a lid along with the rice and hot stock and butter. Squeeze out the roasted garlic and add it too.
Cook at 200 °C  for about 25 minutes until the rice is soft but still wet.
Add about a third of a cup of grated parmesan and stir madly for a minute or two. The pumpkin will mash together and the risotto will become thick and creamy.

Really rather easy and really rather good. Sometimes my passion for cooking has to come second to a need for a simple midweek dinner.

Hang it...

I think after years living with stacks of pictures waiting for walls I'm becoming a little obsessive about different ways to frame photos, prints and paintings.

While strolling down Brunswick Street on Saturday we came across Panel Pop. It's a company making a a groovy new stone surface that artists can paint or draw or print straight on to. I'm no artist but we have a lot of photographs and they too can be printed on the panel.

Even the poor quality seventies snapshots looked fabulous. It's all recycled material and you can choose to have them edged in reclaimed timber if you like that look. I do of course.

They deliver overseas and all over Australia and have a great website - even the answers to your FAQs are rather witty.

I think really now I just need to become a little more focused on getting the framed pictures we have from the stack to the wall. Next year's resolution maybe?

A taste of Melbourne...

Ah Melbourne, how I do love catching up with you.

We've just had a short holiday staying with family and seeing old friends. My brother lives in North Fitzroy so my parents flew in too and we all stayed together for the weekend. Just lovely.

The boys love their Very Cool Uncle. Highlight for my five year old was the sleep-over at his place or perhaps more accurately the computer games on his TV.

The boys played soccer in the hallway and soccer in the park, kicked up the leaves in the street and entertained their grandparents.  The cat flap was an unexpected bonus.

Making the most of the babysitters we shopped a little, walked a lot and ate out.

We wandered down Brunswick Street, had brunch on a much-changed Gertrude Street, bought  indigenous art at the Australian Print Workshop and checked out my brother's new studio in an old Carlton mechanics' workshop.  He's still cleaning off decades of grease and painting it out but it's already  home to the sort of stuff little boys (and even their non-sewing mums) would love to have at home.

This was endlessly fascinating, almost as good as a cat flap.

As we spent Sunday morning with my cousins, my husband told me it was his turn to catch up with his family  - turns out he meant the Collingwood Football club. I think he's actually serious. Football is no laughing matter.

It was the first father/son football match for them and yes I checked, it is okay to dress like that in public in Melbourne. In fact, expected.

Design smarts...

I want one of these. Not the phone, the receiver...

It's a Yubz mobile handpiece - and they claim it even reduces your exposure to radiation...

You can buy it at Top3 by Design for $95. Australian dollars. 

When I lived in Sydney I used to often float through their Bondi store. It was started by a very clever woman, Terri Winter, who aimed to stock what she thought were the top three products in each design category.  

Great for gifts and now they sell online too. Need a new bin? These are the top three...

Terri Winter was featured in last week's Sydney Magazine - my other half brought it back to NZ along with the weekend papers and my latest Australian mags. ( I am still mentally living in Australia - it will change with time.)

Terri was asked to list her top 10 blogs and sites for design inspiration and I thought you might like a look.

• This next
• MoCo Loco
• Core 77 design magazine
• indesignlive
• The Design Files
• 2modern design talk
• Designspotter
• designboom
• Stylepark
• Dezeen design magazine

Enjoy... 

Spring cleaning - lessons learned

I think there are two types of people in the world, NEAT and NOT. I am not.

Much as I love an uncluttered home and clear bench tops what I actually have is a daily battle against myself. I wonder if the homeowner in this kitchen had my sort of frantic clean-up before the stylist arrived? I'd like to think so...

I've been spring cleaning in autumn and I did promise a progress report.

First stop Flylady.

This is a self-help plan you don't hear about until you blog. Ironically it's quite the most cluttered website you can imagine, not well explained and a little too much sweet stuff for me.

But there is a very good method in the madness.

It all starts with a clean sink and getting dressed early in the morning. I get dressed every day so I'm halfway there. The emails from other subscribers make you realise there are a lot of people who have BIG problems with their NOT neat lives. A little depressing actually.

Anyway here it is... my Flylady experience.

1. Clean sink, clean mind.
I have been working on this,  in other words, washing up a lot.   Just got to get the husband on board. He went away for three days and came back a little shocked to find his "don't worry, I'll do it in the morning" wife had left him.

2. Flylady loves a timer.
Frenzies are big in our house already but if you have a highly competitive five year old, a timer just annoys him.  We have 'putting away all the toys' and 'cleaning my room' frenzies every night and he is so caught up in winning he's quite forgotten I once mentioned a prize. 

3. Flylady recommends a Control Journal.
If I had one I'd lose it.  Lists work for me and  I love moleskin notebooks and very nice stationery from Kikki.K - the family calendar, weekly planner and shopping list. Guess I'm a sucker for an overpriced notebook and a magnet.

4. The fifteen minute rule.
Basically tackle a little not a lot. Suits me and she's right - you've always got fifteen minutes to spare and even I can face fifteen minutes of housework.

5. Declutter.
No problem at all with this.  I love a clear out and don't have attachment issues. I've been working my way through the house and clearing drawers, kids' clothes, my useful box and the dreaded spare room which doubles as a shed (not a good combination).

So what have I learnt this month from Flylady? Lots actually.
Has my life miraculously changed? I wish - like most other things it's a work in progress.

Image from here