Where food comes from

The book 'Animal, vegetable and miracle" I am reading now is very interesting and informative. I learned a lot about the food industry, food history and certain farm animals and plants as well as being entertained as one would expect while reading a book in her leisure time. I learned sadly about how the majority of fruit and vegetables travel hundreds of kilometers to get to the supermarkets and how thousands of plants species and many animal species are extinct because farmers only grow food that travels well or yeilds well because that's what the big supermarkets buy.

As the author of the book suggested, I now take more notice of where the fresh food comes from. For example, I can't find garlic from Australia a month ago (Harris Farm signs showed all garlics were from China or Peru). I tried not to use much garlic but ended up buying a small bulb from Peru. I also know there is no Australian grapes at the moment. I saw grapes in the local vegetable shop last week, hoping the new season's started, I asked the owner wherer it was from. He confirmed grapes are not in season and his grapes came from USA by air - transport time around 5 days. He further addded those grapes that cost less than $6 all came via the sea (took 2 months to come) and he thought they shouldn't be eaten by humans. I totally agree and do not want to eat anything that sits in a refrigerated container for that long and still looks good!

As a general rule, I try to buy ingredients coming from NSW, otherwise Australia. I order organic vegetables from time to time, and I know which state and farm they are from, but not all shops list where their food is from. I also try to buy seasonal produce then find recipes to use them rather than choose a recipe first then unable to find the ingredients or the ingredients not in season, therefore very expensive. Of course, I still buy lots of packet and canned stuff and I don't have time to read each label. But I feel that I'm taking a small first step towards having more control over what we put in our mouths.

Snaps around the house (2)

There are many very tall (and probably very old) trees in our garden. The three tall ones in the front garden are our favorite. Lara calls this "Totoro tree" - it looks similar to the tree where Totoro lives (from the movie 'My neighbour Totoro').


I like the branches of this nameless tree. These lovely trees make the front garden very serene and provoide great shade to the outdoor area where we spend most of our weekend.


This is a magnolia tree (I love magnolia flowers!) It has quite a few low-hanging branches and it is great for kids to climb. Lara often hangs off it like a koala. Jenny warned me not to trim this tree too much - 'flowering tree represents love' she told me.


We had lots of help from family, especially parents-in-law who come over, over an hour drive each way, every weekend and help with many things that need doing in this house (FIL is wokring on the pergola at the moment and MIL and I are going to recover the dinning chairs). Lara enjoyed joining in with the sweeping in this picture.


The front garden is tidier and a better place to play in, backyard is a little messy at the moment. Lara and her cousins played with the golf set outside before they moved on to the trike and scooter. They happily did a golf-pose for us when the cameras were out.

Blue oh blue

Some time ago, I said to Lara "I love you very very much", and Lara said "five very much". We started playing the "number very much" game after that. Lara insisted that I love her "ten very much" now, but she usually loves me only "six very much" or sometimes "seven very much", never "ten very much". I was curious as to what else could be more important to a 2-year-old than her Mummy so I asked Lara what she liked "ten very much" one day. She only thought for a brief second before replying "I love blue ten very much". I have no unrealistic expectation about what my place is in the future, I already lost to 'blue'!

Lara's family day care closed in July. Now if I need respite on a Monday for work or other reasons, Lara goes to Gilda's house. Gilda only looks after a little boy Robbie on Mondays so she's happy that Lara is there to keep Robbie company from time to time. Gilda told me how Lara loves blue and she wants everyting in blue. And how she found it funny that Robbie is a great fan of 'pink' and he wants everything in pink (his mum's not very impressed with that!). Gilda makes sure she has blue and pink stuff (blue for Lara and pink for Robbie) to make them both happy. Two-year-olds do not know pink is for girls and blue for boys!

Lara's favorites

Hairy Maclary Hat tricks by Lynn Todd
A library book. I read it to Lara many times. Every time I asked Lara to choose a book for me to read, she seemed always go for this one. Other Hairy Maclary books don't hold as much facination as this book does.

Hand hand fingers thumb (Dr Sesus books)
Nice pictures and easy words and rhymes. Lara likes this too.

Owl babies by Martin Waddell
This is a daycare book. Lara asks for it when I'm late to get her or sometimes when I leave in the morning. I was very surprised the other morning that Lara wanted 'owl babies' rather than her blanket. I have not read it myself except learning from Amazon reviews that this book addresses kids' fear about separating from parents. I think it gives Lara a lot of comfort to know that mummy always comes back.

Lulu by Caroline Uff
This was Lara's favorite from daycare a few months ago. I was told that Lara chased other kids away if they got this book because she thought it was her book. It was out of print when I checked it ealier this year. I heard this is a bicultural book maybe that is why Lara warms to this book.

My neighbour Totoro (dvd)
This is the first moive Lara watched and loved. She loved it so much that I had to buy it urgently after returning the dvd to library. We enjoy watching this too. The story is warm and very charming and the animation beautifully done. Lara was not well with an ear infection and a huge bruise on her face (fell out of bed) two weeks before our move. Coupled with the stress of moving, this movie offered great comfort to all of us during that difficult time.

Lara helps

Lara helps me hang clothes outside ...

Cooking day

I had last Wednesday off and had a relaxing cooking day.
Pictured from left: chocolate cookies with ginger, curry powder, almond cake with coffee icing and white bread.



The cookies were made with chocolate buttons and crystallized ginger(recipe by Louise Pickford 'Fresh Baked'). The butter & sugar were creamed first therefore they are resonably 'light'.

The curry powder was made from scratch (my first) and it was delicious (Simon didn't want to get any curry paste from any jars any more!) I improvised a Delicious magazine recipe and dry-fried coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, cardamom seeds, cinnamon and dried chillies before grinding them in a mortar and pestle (my hands were sore!) Garlic, ginger, turmeric, nutmeg and curry leaves were added before cooking. The beef chuck steak was cooked in the curry sauce for about an hour the day before. I added milk and continued the cooking process the following day. The result was a very tender and tasty dish. Even though the spices/seeds I used are very 'old' (bought them a few years ago!) but the curry dish still tasted 'fresher' than supermarket-bought packets.

I've also been making bread ... I made a bread roll loaf (with an egg), banana walnut bread, and 3 loaves of white bread. They are frozen after cooking and can be used slowly later. I now use the breadmaker to make dough only but do all my baking in the oven. I found the breadmaker often under-bake the bread. I have more control over the cooking time when baking in the oven and the bread tastes better.

ps The oven stopped working again....
It looks like we will need a new oven after all :(

After our move ...

The first weekend after we moved in, the hot water system stopped working.
Lukily we found out on a Saturday and could easily get a plumber in. The hot water system turned out to be working, only the pilot light went out. It cost $150 to light the pilot light. To his credit, the plumber did help calling Energy Australia and got what he thought was the problem,gas regulator, changed. It took Simon 5 calls and being transferred from one person to antoher in Energy Australia to get this done. Nobody knows anything about gas regulator. Finally someone requsted the plumber to call them. They organised to replace(?) the regulator after talking to our plumber. The fact is, we are not sure if everythign's working properly. The pilot light had gone out again twice since then and we still have the problem that if we have the gas heating on, the flames on the gas cooktops diminish by almost half. This is something that still needs fixing.

The second weekend after we moved in, our oven stopped working.
The oven was working fine for a week and a half and I even did 2 roasts and baked a bread in it. To cut a long story short, we nearly chucked it out but luckily double-checked-it to make sure it was not the fuse and it was the fuse! So after a week with no oven, this old oven decides to stay with us in the mean time.

And yesterday, our fridge stopped working. This fridge is over 10 years old, and I was hoping it would go soon becaue I want a bigger fridge(be careful what you wish for!!). Being moved 3 times in less than a year proved to be too much for a hard-working fridge and it decided to go silently sometime yesterday. A new fridge and washing machine are being delivered today.

Hopefully this is the last of the appliances not working!