Haiku Friday

bent back and bent knees,
sand digging, looking for these.
clink, clink, clink, clink, clink

Salad of greens with mango chutney dressing

This in one of my all time favourite  salads! What greens you use are almost irrelevant. I have used coz, iceberg, rocket, english spinach, mache. Whatever you have to hand and is in season. If I'm using a head of lettuce like coz or iceberg, I prefer to quarter it and quarter again, like and orange, and lay the segments in a bowl to serve so that its easy to get both tender heart and outer leaves to a serve. I also vary the cheese used, but its always a soft, creamy style; goat curd, feta. Sometimes I layer the lettuce segments with avocado and top with a heap of fresh chopped herbs from the garden, whatever is available.
Ingredients:
garden greens
roasted slivered almonds or whole roasted, chopped.
cheese - feta, goat curd.
Dressing:
1 -2 tabs Mango Chutney (I always use Sharwoods Green label)
2-3 tabs good red wine or other dark grape vinegar
3 tabs olive oil

Mix dressing ingredients well in a shaker. Place greens in bowl, top with other ingredients. Pour over salad. Gently agitate dressing in.
Eat.
Enjoy.

Christmas menu planning

One of my most favourite meal times is Christmas. I love everything about the preparation; the reading of blogs, magazines and recipe books to find something that suits my fancy for the day and the dedication of a day or two to preparation and shopping. I like cooking anyway but it always feels much more special, probably due to the more extraordinary ingredients or volume involved.

My family have never done the roast and veg at Christmas lunch. My mum was a vegetarian when I was growing up  and so we had our own version of the roast; her marvelous Nut Loaf with Pimiento Sauce. Its stuffed with sage and onion and has a fantastic texture. To be found in the womens weekly vego cookbook.  It's now an institution as we all love it. So Christmas is always a nut loaf or two (coz we all like leftovers) and a bonanza of seafood, fish and fresh salads.

But this year I'm thinking of contributing a gingerbread spice glazed local happy ham with fresh cherry relish (coz we had a stupendous one at our wedding and I haven't had any since!), a baked ricotta with a sticky tomato balsamic glaze, spinach, persian feta and roast almond salad with a mango chutney dressing and mince tart ice-cream with brandy snap and a load of fresh raspberries. And bubbles.
Christmas Eve, I plan on eating macarons.

What are you all planning for Christmas lunch?

before shots

Just a few cachoux missing at this stage. A few empty welts in the icing testament to the prior presence of small, shiny edible balls; just  a little surreptitious crunching through the day kinda gave him away.

At some stage today, the Bean began getting a bit more adventurous with his help yourself.
Tonight , this is how they're going...

Just a few points missing...

and a whole mouthful.

Who can blame him? Temptation in a decoration! Don't know what his older sister was thinking when she thought making these would be a good idea!

winding down

I'm finally learning how to incorporate this new hectic life into my slow ideals. Embrace it!
I'm reminded that I can be busy as but mindful and present, letting go of the need to control most aspects of our life has really helped. Recognizing my need to control these things is a bit of a revelation. Its really OK if the kid doesn't get a bath or have a sleep some days, even two days in a row! Enjoying life is the important bit. Letting go of some rigidity in structure really helps this. I try not to freak out about the expenditure on my new business, the ethicurean, too much, and its plodding along nicely but i really must get into some marketing next year if I am to recoup any investment in the future! lol

The girls are happy happy happy and its so lovely to have them on holidays and home! The bean loves it too, more people to play with! and more often! B2 has finished up at her Montessori primary school and is heading off to high school next year and  B1 starts her final year of school. Its a holiday to enjoy this one! The house is a noisy mess and I'm loving it. It helps that the girls have finally moved into that lovely 'adult' phase where they do dishes and washing and tidy up without being asked. this is most likely the primary reason  for my loosening of the reigns!

The Bloke is now a Councillor and is out OFTEN. He's enjoying the challenges that have already arisen (Inverbrackie - the site for the new refugee centre is in our council ward) and is beating off the rednecks who have emerged from the woodwork in force. The new council is very Green and we have a very Green new mayor. I'm looking  forward to lots of great new and exciting local initiatives in the next four years with the appointments of arts and sustainability officers for the Hills region.

Work is winding down (well except for the three new grant applications Im trying to get ready for early in the new year)  and I love  the languid sense that work gets in the last few weeks of the year with people starting to chill and the weather changing and Xmas functions aplenty. We are all looking forward to what may well be our last complete ( all 5 of us) family holiday in the New Year.

Christmas prep with the brother is working well, just received an email as he is trying to plan  the lunch menu! How good is that! Bit different to last years family fiasco! I'm really looking forward to some glazed happy ham that i intend to take. Anyone got a perfect glazed ham recipe? I love food prep for Christmas! its so...festive!

I hope your end of year is slowing down and you are looking forward to a wee break!

My that pile of crusts in the pic waiting to become breadcrumbs really needs addressing...it looks a little precarious! lol

Haiku Friday

...on a Saturday.

Freshly picked, trimmed and sauteed, 

with garlic butter.

Biodynamic day

This was the very Adelaide view that greeted us on our arrival  for a communal compost making fest. Ngeringa winery is a small boutique Adelaide hills winery owned by Erinn and Janet Klein, both avid sustainability champions and community minded couple and is sited on the old Jurlique herb farm ( a biodynamic farm for 30 years owned by Erinns parents, the founders of Jurlique). Our quest for the afternoon was to get a good start on the new seasons biodynamic compost pile, one that would be shared between both the winery for their vines and the newly established Adelaide Hills Community Garden; a part of the Transition Towns initiative. The land you can see behind the cellar door is pegged for development, 30,000 new homes to be built on this prime Ag land. needless to say, Erinn and Janet are part of the Stop Urban Sprawl movement , trying to conslidate growth into infill in the well serviced city areas and not cover this prime farming land in concrete foundations and asphalt roads.

A key component of biodynamic farming are the manuring processes and above you can see the tank which is full of biodynamic cow shit and water which has been nicely fermenting and fresh from Paris Creek biodynamic dairy and on the tray of the ute is a box full of BD cow pats from the dairy as well.

First task for us all was to mark the area with a layer of hay that Erinn and Janet grow for the purpose which had been sitting and drying a while. The area marked was 20m x 2m. Very thin layers are then built up to make a biodynamic compost pile. old hat, cow pat slurry (which we mixed like bakers in the box), newly cut hay from the big wheel above in the pic, a spray of slurry from the tank, a layer of old compost and then start all over gian. it took 8 adults five solid hours to get the pile just one meter high. The cows in the background are grown for meat, horns and their poo and are Scottish Higlanders, the most gorgeous cows I've ever seen!

Old compost being dumped from last years pile to be incorporated into the new.

Erinn sprays the cow shit slurry from the tank over the very small pile.

Spreading the old compost over the growing pile.

You can see why biodynamic farming produces such awesome results with such intense nutrition being nurtured in the soil stock and why biodynamic produce costs  more!

All five kids had an absolutely grand day. Our little bloke didn't skip a beat despite missing his normal two  hour midday sleep, declaring upon leaving in a blurry, somewhat battered state at 10pm that  'Jasper had a great day Mumma'

I haven't earnt a meal like that in ages. The wood oven pizzas were fantastic, especially as I wasn't in charge of this one!, isn't it a beauty?  and the wine, well , it was quite mindblowing, the voigner/chardonnay blend, well, Im in! And the view on sunset was quite spectacular. It was great to be a part of such a community minded afternoon and evening with new friends, a hard days work behind us and feeling like we are moving toward creating a healthier future and consolidated community.

Pics taken on my phone- so 'scuse the quality!

pizza

oven on, dough rising, chilled white wine in hand. Perfect

renovations

please excuse me as I test out some changes to the blog.

Haiku Friday

Sourdough burgers.
Mmmm. Salad, cheese, patty, sauce
 with home made pickles!

Haiku Friday

the sweetness of sun.
a winters weight unbridled,
ready for the crowd.

all I want for Christmas is...

one of these!

A life saver for the wood oven owner. No more problem pizza in that fiery inferno! No more undercooked disappointments and underwhelmed guests and no more wasting wood.
Point, shoot and get an infrared temperature reading from deep in the recess of the pit. Brilliant. Thank you Michael Pollan for this awesome suggestion.

kissing tonsils

The kid's got 'kissing tonsils'. I'd never heard of 'kissing tonsils' until today. Poor mite. If you've never seen 'kissing tonsils', they take your breath away. Never, ever seen anything like'em. I had chronic tonsilitis as a kid, off and on every other week for four years but I never had my tonsils out. Progressive doctor who believed in the inherent value of them. I took penicillin tablets every day for years and have very vivid childhood memories of  a constant very sore throat. Haven't had tonsillitis since. But, they NEVER looked like his.
He looked up and shouted at me in just the right light a month or so back and I nearly died. Bloody hell. What is that in there???
His tonsils. apparently.
This is exactly what they look like. Golf balls. Killer strawberries. No space. Not an epiglottis or uvula in sight. No wonder he's not eating and snores like an alpha male. Here's a pic of him feeling rather poorly  and eating quince jam on toast.
Poor kid. But what to do? Three rounds of antibiotics to treat the ear infection thats gone with it and Zip! Naught. Nothin'. Still huge. Anyone had any experience with these monsters? I'm loathe to take a surgical option if I can help it.

Politzer Prize

This competition is such a nice idea. An little bit of an equalizer. A chance to see another side of our politicians; to see a little into their hearts and minds. Some of these pics are astonishing. Vote now for your favourite pollie pic.
Don't forget to browse the 2010 winners while you're there. You may, as I did, get a little surprise to put the print to the name.

Haiku Friday

Which way out, this way?

Should I go up or go down?

Need to think some more.

the ethicurean French gauze produce bag special

If you're not a fan on facebook of the ethicurean, hop on over for a squiz on our early Christmas special! Buy any ethicurean set and get 2 French gauze bags free. Buy two sets and get 4 free...etc. Perfect pressies for the hard to buy for or the eco-conscious. Special ends midnight tonight. Plastic free, practical stocking stuffers anyone?

The Container challenge

Remember this post from last year (or was it the year before?). And this? The challenge still stands.
I've been really fascinated going through my blog posts- a retrospective of my own- and in looking where I have been on our journey to minimise consumption, I am so encouraged by the number of people I see and hear about around the place who seem to be really interested in reducing packaging and consuming unnecessary plastics.  This post last year was one of the most popular and I have really noticed an increase in the number of people using these toothbrushes which is just fantastic.

My latest 'Stretch It' success has been the introduction of paper wrapped local biodynamic bulk butter from the Central Market here in Adelaide into our weekly shop.  Next on the list for Chez Pan is getting organised about bulk fresh rice noodle and tofu from the Asian shop in the market. These plastic packages keep appearing!

Haiku Friday

is Google involved?
medieval meets modern
qrcode? dunno.

crazy busy

life is that and I have been banging on about it for a while. It probably has been for the last 12 months ( or more) just ...crazy busy! No time to stop and smell the roses. Not cool for someone who believes in 'slow'. I even had to remove my blog tag line as a felt such a fraud. A Slow family? pffft! Since we fully embraced  'green', as a family approach, we have never been busier , as individuals and as a family. For The Bloke its been not only looking after an ecological house and two acres of woodland and forest and running for political positions at both State and local level and numerous community ventures plus being a stay home dad, and for me being a worker and involved in two 'green' start ups,  work , a PhD to finish as well as volunteering and both of us running a home with three kids and doing everything that we can from scratch..well... slow it aint!

However, blogland takes care of itself and not having much energy to be creative on this front, it has interested me to see seasonal changes in visiting patterns to this here wee blog. It's been the second year I have noticed it and I love seeing what I write have some meaning for others.
My top hits on this blog right now are driven by Northern Hemisphere visitors who are having seasonal issues with certain produce; my crabapple verjus post, making tea from camellia japonica (top ever hit post) , spiced pear paste post, rhubarb champagne post, mushroom duxelle post (yummo) and Jaspers birth story ( not seasonal I know!) and tomato tee pees (local and seasonal and my only follow up advice is to make the teepee height higher than you think is necessary) and onion weed pasta sauce ( yeah, this was never going to be a high end food blog) .
Go figure.

bio-char

I found this lovely vision at the bottom of our garden. It was the last day of the school holidays for B2; she's still in her PJ's. Relaxed. The Bloke is stoking up the bio-char pit. Our little green valley was full of smoke and the Bean was endearingly hugging his Big Sis. Both watching the bio-char process with interest. I love how they are leaning into each other. I stood a while, just watching. Our thoughts on an addition to the family bringing our two sides together in living proof in red gumboots..

A small selection of the sticks and twigs that The Bloke collects through the year and piles neatly were ready by the end of the day, burnt down into porous, chalky pieces. This days burn has  been incorporated into the vege patches, ready to rejuvenate and open up the heavy clay. The difference is noticeable already.

Haiku Friday

It draws like a gun.
Point.Shoot. The moment is caught,
for all to witness.

Haiku Friday

sitting, my bum aches
working solid, my mind aches
time for a Haiku!

Cruel irony

I was taking some pics for another 'favourite things' post today. I 'shot' this and on review couldn't believe I had missed the awful irony.

Haiku Friday

breathe. take it all in
sometimes it's chaos
life is a highway

the ethicurean winners are...

Gee, try stopping at just three...I ended up deciding to pick a winner from each State and Territory that entered.  No one entered from my home state which really surprised me! ???
Well, first I should say that all names were randomly drawn by my daughter in a very sophisticated system of write 'em down, turn 'em over and and pick one from each group.
So who got lucky?

Well, Sarah from the ACT did- she was the only entrant and so the winner there- see you gotta be in it to win it- you just never know!
Bee from Victoria
Hannah from Brisbane
Darren from NSW
Catroina from Tassie
Ruth from WA

Email me your postal addies and I will send out tomorrow your requested set. I hope you all enjoy them.
Thanks to everyone for entering! It's been nice to 'meet' some new people and see some old faces.And thank you for letting me know why you were interested in a produce bag, it helps me understand what people are looking for, and why.
P.S. If you have changed your mind on a selected set- let me know in the email what you would like.

'the ethicurean' produce bag giveaway

So, my business is finally up and running and I wanna give some bags away. They are so excellent. Really. Truly. What to do? I think a few winners would be good, from around Oz, don't you? Spread the word around about the dudliness of plastic. It's inability to break down in a zillion years. Its lack of sustainability. It's lack of  tactility; the feel good factor that we all 'know' but find hard to articulate. Once you use these cotton bags you will fall in love! And realise how many of those 'rip n chuck' plastic fruit and veg bags you used to use or how juggling all those pieces without any bag really was a bit cumbersome.
So, rules are. You have to tell me what State of Oz you live in and why you want some bags. Simple really. Oh and tell me what you want. Some of  these, or these ?? Or maybe you would like one of these or these? They also make excellent gifts for the person that has everything!  So c'mon!  Even if you have never visited or commented on 'taurus rising' before, its OK. Gotta be in it to win it.Winners announced Monday.
Friend the ethicurean on facebook.

new spring salad

In contrast to yesterdays stodgy (but very delicious)  food post, here's something a little fresher. An early spring, late winter salad. I couldn't resist taking a picture as it was just too beautiful. I didn't really design this salad, it was just what I had in the fridge and the garden, so it really constructed itself. Its a kale, swiss chard and baby beet leaf salad with pomegranate, orange segments and chive, served with a light balsamic, orange and garlic glaze and garnished with violets. A trick i learnt from Kale for Sale: hand rub the raw kale with salt to bruise the leaves, it tenderises the kale , making it sweeter and softer to consume it raw. It really works.

silky soft

Not quite the title you'd expect for a cabbage and sausage stew post, right? I have a wee small addiction to this right now. Its the perfect seasonal meal. Cabbage, fennel and some kale if you like it, all cooked down to a silky smooth, sweet redux . Perfect, delicious comfort food. We're still needing it here in the cold 'NO, IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE SPRING YET'! Adelaide Hills. So good that I ate the leftovers for breakfast and lunch. I'm not sure exactly what makes this dish so good. The thick sweet and salty stock? The smooth hit of cabbage and pancetta or the just perfect fennel and pork and chilli combo? Dunno- but it's certainly on my repertoire radar right now. Lucky we have a local that stocks chilli, fennel and pork biodynamic snags! My homemade chicken stock is working a treat here. I'm  making at least one big batch a week to cope with all the excess bits.

Verzada ( Italian cabbage and sausage stew)
Serves 4
1/2 cabbage - roughly chopped
2 onions - sliced
1 fennel bulb - sliced
5 Italian pork, fennel and chilli sausages - sliced diagonally
pancetta - roughly chopped ( I used 5 slices)

1/2 cup white wine

2 cups chicken stock

salt n pepper
olive oil for frying
good quality red wine vinegar

greens if you like- roughly chopped
small pasta if desired ( I used  acini di pepe 'peppercorns')

Add onion, sausage, pancetta and fennel to heated oil and cook until onions and fennel turn and meat is slightly caramelised. Add cabbage and stir until coated with oil. Add wine. Stir through to remove bits from bottom of pan. Add stock and some water if you like a more soupy style. Cook until cabbage is translucent and liquid has reduced a little, around 40 minutes. Add pasta and greens now if using. Season. Continue on low /med heat until pasta is cooked. Serve hot with a good splash of vinegar on top. Crusty bread to mop. A chilled white to cut ( i omitted this at breakfast , and lunch...)

Try and resist just one serving. If I ever need one, this may be my requested last meal.

Haiku Friday

this is my bus stop
had to drive to work today
bleugh. no face [or] books!

I cant believe its not ... scrambled egg

This is my favourite scramble, the boy beans' too. If you have a non egg-loving small person ( or big person) this really quick, vegan delight may be something for you.

Tofu scramble
1 block firm organic tofu, mashed with fork.
3 spring onions, sliced
ketchap manis (or soy sauce and some sugar if you have no ketchap manis) to taste
pinch of tumeric

Saute spring onion until lightly golden, add mashed tofu and sauce. Stir until warmed through. Serve with toast. Serves 2-3. 5 min preparation.
What more could you ask? well , some fresh local tofu perhaps?  It's dead simple but a stunner.

mellow yellow

its finally been bottled. Quite a bit of limoncello and a few bottles of creama di limoncello to extract all that vodka-ry goodness from those peels.  Glad we used so many lemons when we had the chance as the heavy rain over the last two weeks has spoiled almost half the crop still left on the tree. Damn shame. But still, couple a good nights here...not very mumsy is it making the grappa? not quite the lovely cardi, the socks or the handy-bits. Just hard core deliciousness. Pass the  beetroot chips would ya?

the boys

had a lovely time at the Royal Ag Show. The small one tickled the piglets and swapped snots, half strangled small, new fluffy avarian creatures  and watched enthralled as enormous cows tumbled out seemingly unending, huge grassy poos, like really, really very totally enthralled. He watched enraptured as huge sows puckered and did the same and cheered them on. We all watched him being supportive and enraptured. Figuring its his new capacity to go to the loo thats bringing out the interest.  He did however also enjoy heaving his small gumbooted self into huge, murky puddles and tramping through acres of spent straw. He ohhed and ahhed as we left at nightfall and the rides lit up. We had a grand, if not rather poo focussed, day.

What a wonderful world

Couldn't have stomached this rabid right wing conservative bloke as our PM. Go Julia, our first female PM. Will her boyfriend move into The Lodge? I hope so. That will give all the wowsers something to choke on.

mooching

Blogging is a really great record of time. I have really missed it over the last 6 months or so but really have not had the energy or the mental space to give any more. I've posted 63 times this year, compared with nearly 400 the year before. This avid daily blogger got blogger burnout! Juggling the pressures of work, the death throes of a PhD and a very dead beat Prof, two Directorships to manage and new businesses to grow and a family to try and spend some time with and negotiate all that two teenagers and a two year old can throw my way...well,  I've been reading blogs but not commenting or able to take any mind space and write on my own. Toss in a big home and garden and travel for work and my time has felt rather thin. I cant even take photos anymore! Thats what I realised tonight when I browsed through my blog and my Flickr account- that I'm so glad I took the time when I had it to journal in both words and pics, the daily passing of our lives. Its been lovely looking and reading over the minutiae of life over the last few years. How very glad I am that I started blogging. Maybe Im feeling the return of some emotional space and strength to start again, life has just been so so full. I'm ready to stop and smell some roses. I want creative time back in my life, hence an attempt to start with some freshness of Spring with a with a new look blog. Anyone remember these? Peanut choc and almond cupcakes with green tea icing. I found them in my archives. They were good. very very good. I've decided to remake them tomorrow (sans silver pans). The kids will love me for it. Here's the recipe if you're up for it.

Haiku Friday

pop! pop! pop! pop! pop!
my heart balloon is bursting.
can't grasp this much love

crema di limoncello

Ever wondered what to do with all the lemon zest from making limoncello? I sure as heck have. All that lovely lemony-ness imbued with vodka- what a waste to toss it! I have had all my leftover zest from making this stuff  for the past years, having blitzed it into a crumb like consistency, stored in my freezer for this very day of enlightment. It has come. Crema di limoncello. Hallelujah.

Lemons 101

Our tree is groaning. We're using them as fast as we can and as fast as is humanly possibly. We have sold them to Food Connect Adelaide (I can now add primary producer to the CV), made oh, 10 litres of limoncello, juiced them, made lemon curd, placed bowls full at work, sent friend home with them, zest them into meals, squeezed them on pasta and roasted greens. I've even taken to drinking the juice straight each day. It makes no dent in the volume. Im getting desperate. Yesterday I managed to use 10 in an Indian lemon pickle (I love Brinjal pickle with curries so I'm hoping this will work for my tastebuds too). Solar cooked for a month, this should end up a rich and thick pasty sweet sour lemon gloop.

10 lemons, finely chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup salt
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
3 tsp tumeric

dry roast seeds and whiz/pestle to dry powder. Add tumeric and salt and sugar. Mix into lemons. Seal for 1 month. Store in sunny place.

WOW!

after all this time, over a year actually, my website and business (well most of it) is ready to rock n roll! I cant believe I have stuck it out, this small business thing. Being an academic all my life I never thought about venturing 'outside', over to the 'other side'. But being an ethical business has good karma attached and besides, this produce bag thing just kinda sucked me in, took me by surprise. I'd never, ever thought about selling anything before in my life. To be honest, I have no idea where the drive for this came from. I really was just 'taken over'.

When people tell you that starting a business is like a good relationship, that you have to be prepared to stick with it, shoulder the ups n downs and hang in there, well, they're right. It's been a life changing process, full of risk and frustration, fear and delight. I have learnt a lot, more than I had ever imagined, been stressed, anxious, stayed up late for many weeks, but i never once wavered in my desire to see these bags being used by many more people. So on the eve of this launch of my online store I am both excited and worried, but mostly rather proud that I bloody well did it. Followed through on an idea. One I really  believe in. Subsequently, I now have a whole new appreciation for small business (but not quite the reverence that the conservatives have about them, no panic required! lol).

Now begins the hard work of getting the bags in 'real' stores. I have a few shops lined up already but I am waiting on the delivery of supplies of my fair wage gauze and net bags to begin this in earnest.

Have a nosy, let me know what needs changing. Buy some bags!

waiting for Dad

Its a sad state of play. The girls haven't heard from their Dad for over two months. They are not too devastated but its confirmatory for them. He really has no idea how to be a Dad. He no doubt, wants them to call, i have suggested they do it repeatedly. But they are adamant. From their point of view, they are the abandoned, the left behind, the discarded children. They want him to keep making an effort, to feel like despite the fact that he left them, he still loves them and wants to be in their lives. But their hope is fading. Its weird. i do not understand that distance from your own children. How can you sleep at night? Is it a male- female thing? Im not sure anymore.

election day

Fuck. Not ready for another round of conservative, stupid, short sighted elitists leading again. Dismantling this nation piece by piece of its public infrastructure and handing more money to the corporates and ruling classes to determine the way of our future. Nothing clever about them.
Feel sick.

Green seas?

well no, not very. We are very conscious of eating 'within means' here at Chez Pan. Boring for most people I know, but well, we just cant help it. Meatless most days, and as for fish and other seafood, well we dont see it much. Our last vestiges of 'poor choice meat' has been canned tuna. We make a pasta meal with it about once every few months, some delicious chilli, lemon, garlic, parsley concoction but despite its rarity, it still really freaks The Bloke out. I had spied some 'sustainable' canned tuna at our local organic store , but at over $10 a small can, well I wasn't about to quite cross over!.

So when Julie posted a link on facebook to the Greenpeace 'very accessible and interpretable and 'rememberable' canned tuna listing I read it with interest and promptly let my fingers do the walking and found the Australian stockists online store. At 1/3 the price of local stores, around $3.90 per can for pole caught Slipjack tuna - yes, amazing i know, it's the most sustainable canned tuna around. I bought in bulk and saved on postage...24 cans later with the addition of some amazing canned mackrel and anchovies (really, the mackrel was goood!) the pantry is looking very blue in a non-depressed kind of way. We now have a years supply of tuna for just under $100 bucks, very reasonable for what you get; no bycatch, dolphins, shark or turtle. Its not local but I'm resting much easier here at The Pan.

Haiku Friday

Some bags have arrived!
but my website's not ready.
Ah ha! Soloution!

Indian Earth in London

One of the things I really love about blogging is the capacity to make new friends, people who you would never had a chance to meet otherwise. One of my reasons for stopping over in London on my way back from a conference in Spain was not only to have some time to do some galleries that I have always wanted to explore but to catch up with Emma who some of you may remember from Indian Earth.  Emma and her family were in London visiting family from her usual home in Goa, India where she and her partner decided to make their home and leave the madness of London behind.
We had a glorious, full day with her beautiful daughter and gorgeous new baby boy, enjoying the best of the English summer in Hyde Park. Then I spent the following days pounding the pavement around London, beating off the swarms but enjoying the sights and the fantastic offerings of galleries and museums! My feet were very happy to finally get home.