Intro | Books for Kids in Need | Mine News
Recent Awards | New Books
Schedule for 2012 and December 2011
The December garden
A Few Extra Easy Holiday Recipes, including Sweet Potato Christmas cake, Lemon Cordial, Grandma’s Peach Chutney, and mascapone puddings with raspberry sauce
Christmas is coming, the wombats are getting fat.
And fatter. And fatter…
This is a good summer for wombats. The grass is green, the creek is flowing. Mothball has been annoyed a few times that we’ve dared to have visitors here, especially the Open Garden workshops and the afternoon tea for the Lions Club last Sunday.
Mothball doesn’t like having the scent of too many humans around. (I think she only tolerates me because I bring carrots.) When Mothball is annoyed she bites my ankle. Actually she bites my jeans or my ugg boots. I learnt long ago not to talk to Mothball unless my ankles were protected.
Mothball is an old wombat now. When she was small she was round and brown but now her back is flat enough to rest a coffee mug on (if I dared). Wombats’ backs seem to get flatter as they get old, a bit like human spines become hunched. Mothball is grey with black threads now, too, and sometimes she even dozes off in the middle of attacking the front door. But she is still the stroppiest wombat around.
Christmas this year is going to be a time to take a breath and spend it with friends and family and wombats. I’m making the cake this week – still have a pudding in the freezer from last year (as well as last season’s plums, apples and apricots. Which reminds me – must head up to the top orchard to see how the apricots are ripening). We start posting Christmas presents tomorrow.
This year, for the first Christmas of my life, I don’t think we’ll have a classic Christmas tree. Partly because there’ll be no kids with us for Christmas this year, but mostly because the valley is so beautiful I want to gaze out, not in, to see the parrots in the pomegranate blossom and the lyrebirds strut across the grass.
Instead of a special tree I’ll hang baubles on the pot-bellied fig that sits on the coffee table by the living room windows. There’ll be mistletoe on the front door, cake in the tin, Christmas biscuits in the cupboard, for anyone who doesn’t like Christmas cake or wants a change, and home-made lemon cordial in the fridge.
P.S. For anyone reading this who hates Christmas cake: if the only Christmas cake you’ve eaten is dry, crumbly and tastes vaguely of old boots then you haven’t really eaten Christmas cake. I put out 63 slices of Christmas cake for 22 people yesterday and they ate 58 slices of it, as well as 27 pikelets with strawberry jam, 38 chocolate slices, 41 ginger biscuits and a plate of Christmas biscotti (red and green cherries and crystallised pineapple as well as pistachio nuts) so they weren’t eating it because they were starving.
A good Christmas cake lasts for years but rarely does, is the best comfort and survival rations I know on a cold and mountainous bushwalk or when you’re trapped in an aircraft with only a ‘friand’ and a cup of burnt coffee to sustain you. (A ‘friand’ is now aeroplane speak for something that would be kicked out of the room by any self-respecting cake, biscuit or cookie.)
A Christmas cake also needs to be made by someone who knows how to make a Christmas cake i.e. long and slowly, well padded at the bottom and sides of the tin so it’s doesn’t get overcooked in sensitive spots and stays gloriously moist. See recipes below.
And Merry Christmas. May the rain fall every night and the mornings be sunny, may the breezes blow cool across the beaches and the holidays be free of bushfire smoke and cyclones stay well out to sea.
May the brown snakes get fat on rats and mice (especially mice) and be too fat to get grumpy over the holidays. May politicians stop wasting time scoring points over their adversaries and lead us to carefully weighed decisions, may every book be the perfect one that you want to read right now and may 2012 bring peace and plenty and great happiness to us all.
Especially wombats.
Christmas Books
This has been a hard year in parts for us (though much has been wonderful too, and even the bad bits have been filled with friends and kindness). But with floods, fires, cyclones and many personal tragedies too some kids are doing it very hard indeed.
If there is any child you know of who has faced natural disaster this year and might be cheered by a book, could you let me know on jackiefrench72@gmail.com. The supply of books may be depleted if there are a lot of replies, but I’ll do what I can. (Please don’t keep the email address though – I can’t quite keep up with email questions as it is).
The Mine
Next February the NSW Land and Environment Court will hear a challenge to the Dargues Reef gold mine, planned for four kilometres upstream of us, with 800,000 cubic metres of tailings dam. The challenge is to try to have safer conditions for mining and processing the ore, including all the conditions that the Department of Water initially wanted.
This land is the home of Mothball wombat, of Diary of a Wombat. It is also the land I have walked and loved and written about for nearly forty years.
If you can help, either to donate money to the organisations fighting the court case or with expert help, it would mean a lot.
This is just one of so many similar cases around Australia. But if we can win stricter conditions – including independent monitoring and the necessity for baseline studies before development begins – it will be an important precedent that may help others who fight these battles too.
Donations should be made to Araluen Valley Producers and Protectors of the Ecosystems Coalition (AVPPEC) Inc.
Mail: PO Box 63, Braidwood, NSW, 2622
Or direct deposit to: Bendigo Bank BSB: 633000 Acct No: 144327145 (for bank transfers)
Recent Awards
Hazel Edwards and I are among the 184 candidates from 60 countries nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Award. The Award is given for an author’s body of work and contribution to children’s literature generally, not for one specific book. It is an honour and privilege to be among the nominees.
Book News
Christmas Wombat is in the stores. I even read it to Mothball and she didn’t try to eat it. She didn’t pay much attention either, but I thought that the fact she didn’t bite the cover was a good sign.
Christmas Wombat, gloriously illustrated by Bruce Whatley, is what happens on Christmas Eve when the wombat meets Santa’s reindeer in a battle for the carrots across the world. I think my favourite part is when the wombat meets the polar bear… but there’s no way I can describe that. You’ll need to see it for yourself.
Nanberry: Black Brother White – the story of four extraordinary people in the early NSW colony: Surgeon White, who hated Australia, loved a convict girl, a loyal father not just to his white son but to the black one he adopted; Rachel, who escaped the gallows to become the richest, most loved woman in NSW; Andrew, their son, who became a hero of the Battle of Waterloo, finally coming back to Australia; and Nanberry, orphaned by the smallpox, who would stride between the white world and the black, as a sailor in the merchant navy and a Cadigal warrior and leader of his people.
It’s as accurate as I can make it, two hundred years after it all happened. But it did. They were heroes, incredible and they need to be remembered.
Other books: A Waltz for Matilda (perhaps my favourite book) came out last year, as did A Year in the Valley, a book (for adults) about life here with the wombats and the trees and garden and friends. Queen Victoria’s Underpants is the (almost) true story of how Her Majesty’s underpants led to freedom for women.
The revised Chook Book is in the shops too now – twice as big as the original edition and much changed and updated. It’s all you ever wanted to know (and probably a bit more) about how to keep chooks in your backyard or at school.
Schedule for the Year to Come
This is what the calendar has so far, but there are already another half dozen trips pencilled in, as well as many other commitments. There are always last minute things I have to do, too. It’s unlikely I can add in more school, library or community talks in 2012, unless they are near to somewhere I’ll be already. I’ll also be the ACT Library Ambassador for the 2012 Year of Reading.
December 9, 10, 11: Talks and book signings at book-shops in Melbourne.
Friday, Dec 9, 11-12 am. Conversation Hour with Jon Faine, ABC radio Melbourne
12.15-2.00 pm. The Avenue Bookshop, 127 Dundas Place, Albert Park
2.00-3.00 pm. The Little Bookroom, 759 Nicholson Street, Carlton North
3.00-4.00 pm. Readings, 309 Lygon Street, Carlton
Saturday Dec 10, 10.00-10.30 am. Top Titles, Dendy Plaza, 26-34 Church St, Brighton.
11.00-11.30 am. Dymocks Southland, 3067/8 Southland Shopping Centre, 1239 Nepean Hwy, Cheltenham where I will read Christmas Wombat and answer questions about wombats and possibly) do a wombat song and dance.
2.30-3.30 pm. Dymocks Glen Waverley, 235 Springvale Rd, Glen Waverley.
4.00-4.30 pm. Dymocks Doncaster, Shop 1055, Westfield Shopping Centre, Doncaster.
Sunday, 11 December, 10.00-11.00 am. Dymocks, 234 Collins Street. I’ll read Christmas Wombat, answer wombat questions, find out if there are any secret wombats hidden in the room and maybe do a wombat song and dance unless someone stops me first. Wombat dances are… interesting. And loud.)
Schedule for 2012: February 1-15 – Appeal against the Dargues Reef Mine in the NSW Land and Environment Court
February 2, keynote speaker and workshops at the annual conference of the SA SOSE Council (SOSE – Studies of Society and Environment) teachers.
March, Saturday 17: Talk and opening of the Harvest Festival. Moruya, NSW.
March, Sunday 25: Talk at Old Parliament House, ACT.
April: Various talks to launch ‘A Day to Remember’ with Mark Wilson. Contact Lara Wallace at Harper Collins for details. Lara.Wallace@harpercollins.com.au
May 7, 8, 9, 10: Talks in Brisbane. Contact Helen Bain at Speaker’s Ink for bookings. Helen Bain helen@speakers-ink.com.au
May 16: Workshop at Marymead, ACT.
June 5: Talks at the Australian Jewish Museum, Sydney.
July, somewhere around the 8th: Talk at the Australian Literacy Educators Association Conference, Sydney.
July 22-25: Curtis Coast Literary Carnivale, Gladstone, Queensland.
August 12: In Perth/Fremantle for the West Australian Association of Teacher Assistants Conference and possibly doing a few other talks once I’ve gone that far.
August 22, 23 (Book Week): Talks in Brisbane. Contact Helen Bain at Speaker’s Ink for bookings.
September 3, 4, 5: Three days’ talk in Melbourne. For details or bookings contact: Simon O'Carrigan - Booked Out simon@bookedout.com.au
October 24: Children’s Day, ACT.
October 25-27: Fremantle WA for the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre’s Celebrate Reading Conference and possibly doing a few other talks.
November: Possibly four Open Garden workshops here – will decide in a couple of months if they’ll go ahead.
The December Garden
I have just been weeding the carrots. I never weed the garden… except this year I have to, because unlike the last twenty years it keeps on raining, which means the weeds keep growing. Normally by now weeds like vetch (we call it ‘sticky weed’) would have been burnt off by the first blistering summer day, but there haven’t been any blisters yet. Not that I’m complaining. But it does mean that I’m bending down hauling out weeds.
Bryan helped, but accidentally pulled out all the asparagus thinking it was gone-to-seed fennel. Bryan is in charge of infrastructuire here – fences, tanks, leaking rooves. I do the plants and animals.
Later this week I’ll be planting more carrots, corn, beans, mitsuba and mizuma. The carrots will be purple ones and red-skinned ones and yellow ones, hopefully enough to see us though to next summer. It’s been a strange season here – an early hot spring, so the tomatoes that have survived are already bearing, but most got zapped by the late frosts, as did many of the beans and I think some of the carrot seed rotted. The pumpkin seed is only just beginning to germinate, but the first zucchini are ready, and the Irish peach apples look weeks away from maturity – last year we were eating them by the end of November.
But there’ll be home picked veg for Christmas, which is a sort of harvest festival for us as well as many other kinds of festival. New beans and tiny zucchini and ripe tomatoes and the first pick of the basil, as well as apricots, peaches, apples, cherries, apricots, and still more apricots, because home-ripened apricot is irresistible and the season is so short, as we are too cold for the early-maturing varieties.
And if the grass grows too fast for the wombats and wallabies to eat it, I’ll mow it – partly to make it clear to the snakes that we live here too, and if the veg seedlings wilt I’ll water them. But apart from that, garden duties this month will be gentle mooching, picking veg and fruit and flowers, including several hundred bright red and yellow old-fashioned gladioli that spring up wild in one of our paddocks, and are shoved into vases all around the house for Christmas Day.
And may your garden be green and fruitful for the year to come.
A Super Simple Solar Dryer
This can be left outside if it rains or overnight. You need:
a styrofoam box
alfoil
sheet of glass about twice as big as the top of the box
scissors
Blu-tak
cake rack
tomatoes
Cut away one of the long sides of the box, then cut the two ends on either side of the cut side in a diagonal from top to bottom.
Now cover the inside of the box with alfoil. Cut holes in the box and alfoil all around the top and remaining sides. Place a cake rack in the box and lay the tomato pieces on top.
Place the box in the sunniest hottest place you can find. Now prop the glass up against the box – it will rest on the cut sides. Use the Blu-tak at the base to keep it in place... and make sure no kids or dogs will run into it and hurt themselves!
If you are around keep turning the box to face the sun and the tomatoes should be dry in a day or two. But if you can't be bothered they will dry well as long as the box gets at least three hours a day of sun shining directly at the glass.
If moisture condenses on the glass you need more holes! And if moisture forms a puddle on the bottom of the box you REALLY need more holes.
A Few Extra Easy Holiday Recipes
Hot Mascarpone Creams with Raspberry Sauce to eat instead of – or as well as – Christmas pudding
Cream Ingredients:
250 gms mascarpone (Italian cream cheese – at a pinch you can use the Aussie stuff)
150 ml sour cream (or light sour cream)
3 dessertspoons caster sugar
2 eggs
Optional: 2 tbsps Cointreau or Kalua (and you’ll get a completely different result depending on which you choose).
Beat the whole lot till smooth. Bake in one large or several small pots (don't fill each pot any more than two thirds of the way up so you have room for the sauce on top) in a moderate oven till set (about twenty minutes). Don't let it brown though a gentle gold colour is okay.
Sauce:
Melt a carton of frozen raspberries – one of the few fruits that really freezes well. Heat gently in a saucepan and add a teacup full of Cointreau (this can be omitted if you don't have any). Mash a little with a fork, then pour it over the cooked creams to the top of the pot.
Serve at once.
Rich Sweet Potato Christmas Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup chopped red and green crystallised cherries
1 cup chopped crystallised pineapple
1 cup crystallised apricots or peaches, chopped
2 cups sultanas
1 cup candied peel
250 gm butter
1 large sweet potato, chopped and peeled
1 cup brown sugar
4 tbsps golden syrup
3 tbsps mixed spice
about 300 gms plain flour
3 eggs
water or half water and half whisky
extra whisky
Method:
Cover dried fruit and sweet potato with water or water and whisky. Boil till soft. This may take about half an hour, and you may need to add more water. Mix in butter, sugar, spice and golden syrup while hot. Cool. When quite cold beat in the eggs then gently fold in the flour. You may need a bit more or less flour – depends how liquid your fruit mix is.
Pour into a wide baking pan lined with two layers of baking paper. The cake should only come halfway up the tin, or even less – this cake shouldn’t be deep, but more like an iced ‘’slice’ when it’s cut.
Cover pan with another sheet of baking paper. This cake can scorch on top if not covered.
Bake at 150º C for about 2½ hours or till firm and smelling divine.
Sprinkle with whisky while still hot – the alcohol will(mostly) evaporate leaving the flavour.
Keep in a sealed container for weeks, or even months.
Icing
(Bryan likes his cake iced)
2 cups icing mixture
juice of 3 lemons.
Mix till smooth. Spread over the cool cake. Decorate with chopped crystallised cherries, almonds or small marzipan wombats.
Lemon Cordial
You need:
3 cups lemon juice
8 cups of sugar
3 tbsps citric acid
1 tbsps tartaric acid
8 cups water.
Boil five minutes. Bottle while hot, seal and keep in the fridge. Dilute to taste.
Grandma's Peach Chutney
Peaches are by no means an easy crop – fussy blighters which get brown rot, curly leaf, fruit fly or the birds eat them, and in dry years the fruit drops before it ripens – which at least means the trees may droop and drop their leaves early too, but the trees are unlikely to die no matter how bad the drought is. But this chutney is glorious stuff.
1 chopped onion
3 chopped cloves of garlic
1 cup vinegar
5 cups peeled peaches – either white or yellow, though each, of course, gives different results
700 grams sugar – brown gives rich chutney but you lose a lot of the peach flavour. Honey can be substituted but use a mild flavoured one.
1 dessertspoon chopped fresh or crystallised ginger
1 cup currants
Simmer gently for about four hours till thick. Fish out the ginger, bottle and seal.
This should be kept for at least six months to let the flavours mellow. If you eat it too young you taste sugar and vinegar, not peach.
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