Contents
Intro| Books for Fires and other Horrors
Wombat News | Astrid Lindgren Award Nomination
Pete the Sheep: the Musical | Book News
Schedule for 2013 | The January Garden
Recipes for nibbly things, like tiny felafel, rocket and cashew dip, veg/gluten-free crackers, spiced chickpeas and a few other good things to eat in the summer heat
Intro
Why don’t cowboys dribble? After the punch up, I mean. Why doesn’t James Bond dribble sometimes, too? They get this whopping great punch to the face, end up with a black eye and stitches, and are still able to sweep the heroine off her feet, or at least seductively sip a martini.
I am dribbling. No, I haven’t been in a punch-up, just had a lump removed from my cheek. The result is the same: black eye, a row of stitches across my cheek and what Bryan says is the miraculous removal of all my wrinkles, though only on one side of my face where it’s swollen. (The black eye does spoil the effect a bit.)
By the time you read this the stitches will be out and the scar almost invisible: the doctor who removed the lump is so tall I need to peer up at him, and has hands like dinner plates, but does the most superb stitching. But just at the moment I look like I’ve had a heavy night down at the pub.
And happy. It seems wrong to be so happy when others are doing it so hard, but it has been a magic Christmas, the most wonderful times with family and friends-who-are-family, playing ‘fetch the green’ apple with the visiting dog, till he realised there were lots of green apples and gave me a look as though to say ‘there’s nothing special about this one. Why bother chasing it?’ and went and sat in the creek.
The history book is off to the publisher, and I hope never to write another footnote again. I’m back to fiction, the third in the Matilda series, playing with words and times and other places again, with an elephant on the road to Gundagai.
Fires and Other Horrors
It’s a cool day as I write this. Last week was the ‘catastrophic’ fire-rating day. I’ve cooked biscuits in ovens that were cooler than last Tuesday. I stumbled in after the surgery for the lump on my cheek in time to pick up the phone to hear a recorded message to evacuate. But by then all the roads we might have used were already closed because of bushfires. The call didn’t say where we should evacuate to, and as it was a recorded voice we couldn’t ask any questions. . The only places we might have gone would have been as dangerous, or probably more dangerous, as here.
But we do have an emergency fire plan for protection if a fire front comes through, plus kits that stayed packed with fire-fighting overalls, helmets, gloves etc, and I keep everything backed up onto a terabyte external hard drive. If we have to leave in a hurry I can grab the overnight bag, the photo album and my handbag and be off, with a prepared list of things to take if we have more time. But each time we face this I realise that what matters most are those I love, and the community around us, human and animal.
If anyone reading this knows any person or school where a book or books might help in the long recovery of a normal life again, please do email me at jackiefrench72@gmail. Please don’t use this address just to say ‘hi’ or ask for questions for an assignment (and especially not for ‘three examples if imagery of page 36 and what was the author’s intent in chapter 5? And the answer must be back by 7am because the assignment is due tomorrow’).
But at least the loss of small things, like a much loved book, can sometimes be replaced.
Wombat News
The wombats – and Mothball, if she is still around – come out only late at night now, long after we’ve gone to bed. Despite the heat this end of the valley is still greenish, with good grass and water in the creek. Most of the gale-force bushfire winds just fly over the top of us. We can see the trees twisting up on the ridge and hear the wind’s mutter, but down here we just get twisting gusts. The wombats can stay asleep in comfort in their cool burrows. Wombats don’t need air-conditioning. (And if I ever have to build another house, part of it will be underground.)
Pete the Sheep: the Musical
This won’t be in the theatres till next year, but it is the most wonderful fun thinking about it. The magic Monkey Baa people are coming down later next week to get inspiration from a real shearing shed and meet a Pete too, though he isn’t a sheep. (He owns the shearing shed). Theatres book their tours so far in advance, so next year it’s likely that next year Pete, Shaun, the shearers and their dogs will be singing and tap- dancing and baaing their way to a theatre near you.
Astrid Lindgren Award Nomination
A second nomination for this most wonderful international award. I’m enormously grateful and honoured.
Book News
The Girl from Snowy River is out – the sequel to A Waltz for Matilda.
The reviews of Pennies for Hitler are still coming in, and they’re good – it’s always terrifying till the first few reviews come in, especially for a book close to your heart. Later this year Diary of a Wombat will finally be released in paperback; A day to Remember: the story of Anzac day will be reprinted for March; there’ll be two novels, and two new picture books, including a new wombat one with Bruce which is possibly the funniest yet. There’ll also be the history book, a re evaluation of many of the iconic incidents in our past, for adults this time, not kids: assuming that the draft I sent to the editor actually works. (It is never easy waiting for the verdict.)
Schedule for the Year to Come
I don’t think much more can be added to this, except for a very, very few things that are impossible to refuse, and large parts of 2014 are already booked, too. This year will also contain travel for family reasons, trips to the dentist and other necessities. Mostly, it will contain time to write, which has been missing last year when I wasn’t able to say ‘no’ often enough, or firmly enough.
Many, many apologies for all I have refused, or will refuse. Last year was wonderful, but far too full. Every day brings new invitations, mail and emails to answer, and new requests to review books, or help a worthwhile cause. If I could clone myself I’d do them all, but there really is a limit on what I can do, or even what I can answer. I have a feeling that a box of last year’s mail is still hiding somewhere in the library- if I haven’t answered please forgive me, and remind me if it still needs an answer. But towards the end of last year so much arrived that it took two people ten hour days seven days a week to get through it.
March 2, talk at the Coastwatcher’s Meeting, South Coast NSW
March 12-16: Somerset Literary Festival, Queensland.
March 21-24: Children’s Book Festival, State Library of Victoria.
Late March onwards: Hitler’s Daughter: the Play, by the wonderful Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People tours the USA and Canada. At this stage I don’t know which openings we may go to.
May 20-24: School days at the Sydney Writer’s Festival.
July 23-25: Talks in Brisbane. Contact Helen at Speaker’s Ink for bookings and details.
August 18: Talks at the Australian Jewish Museum, Sydney.
August 19, 20, 21: Talks at Sydney schools (already booked).
9-11 September: Ipswich Festival, Queensland.
13-14 September: Celebrate Reading National Conference (Picture Books), Literature Centre, Fremantle, WA.
October: Children’s Day, Canberra.
November 9, 10: Open Garden Workshops here. Contact the Open Garden, who organise it, for bookings.
The January Garden
Congratulations to any dedicated soul who is actually gardening. Our garden is wilting and so am I. Bryan and I duck out in the early morning, say hello to the world, then come back inside to the cool.
How to Keep Your Cool
. Summer shade helps keep your garden green for longer! Make a memo to plant shade trees next winter; put up shade sails or stretch shade-cloth over pergolas.
. Fight hot ‘concrete’ soil with at least 40 cm of coarse mulch like tanbark or sugar cane mulch … but only after it rains, not before!
. Give hot pots a couple of ice cubes a day! The melting water will soak right in, instead of washing off down the sides.
. Think about moving your pots out of the hottest positions into some shade until autumn to keep summer annuals flowering freely – especially if you have bought trendy dark glazed pots. (Unglazed terracotta loses some moisture through the clay, which helps the pots stay slightly cooler.)
. Poke a few holes around thirsty shrubs. Fill with water-retaining crystals. Water those, not your plant. The moisture will slowly seep to the roots over the next few days.
. Never spray a hose full force on your garden – the pressure will create mud and it’ll turn into concrete when it dries. Gentle sprinkles – like rain – help keep soil soft. Use ground covers as a ‘living mulch’ to keep your soil cool and moist.
. Soak pots every week in a bucket of water and repot every year or two with fresh soil/potting mix, before it turns into concrete. Mulch each year with coconut fibre and use moisture-retaining crystals and slow release fertiliser.
. remember bigger pots don’t dry out as fast as small ones.
. Don’t plant anything unless the weather forecast says it’s going to rain! (And none of that ‘chance of showers about the ranges’ stuff either.) But if a storm is lurking – get planting!
Seedlings to plant:
Flowers: alyssum, ageratum, coleus, gypsophila, Iceland poppy, larkspur, linaria, lupin, mignonette, pansy, portulaca, stock, salvias and sunflowers.
Veg: beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, corn, lettuce (not if the temperature is over 30ºC – they may not germinate), parsnip, pumpkins – fast-maturing bush ones, radish, silverbeet, sweet potatoes (hot areas only) and zucchini. In hot humid areas avoid melons, pumpkin and zucchini.
The best use for a glass of milk
One of the worst benevelonces ever perpetrated on a generation of children was free milk ... especially in Queensland where I grew up.
All morning we watched the milk getting hotter and hotter under what had been the shade of a tree at 7 that morning.
… then at 11 o'clock we were herded out to drink it – and while a sun-warmed peach is thing of delight the memory of a sun-warmed small bottle of milk still makes me retch. To make matters worse we had to drink them next to the pigs’ bins where all the crusts and unwanted lunchtime apples were thrown. The bins were emptied on Fridays and by Wednesdays they were going glolump, glolump, glolump as they gently fermented. I imagine a whole generation of alcoholic pigs mourned the day that feeding scraps to pigs was banned.
Since those days I have never willingly drunk a glass of milk, except straight from someone's cow, which doesn't count. But there are two extremely good things you can do with a glass of milk ... the first one is to use it as a spray for downy and powdery mildew, and the second is as a preventative for black spot.
The downy and powdery mildew recipe is simple – 1 cup milk and 5 cups water, sprayed at the first sign of any symptoms then every three days.
The second recipe is a bit more complicated ... 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda mixed into your glass of milk, and THEN mixed with three cups of water. Spray every four days for two weeks, and then once a week.
Actually if you have black spot on your roses there's another great little organic recipe that the Rose Society of the USA recommends, using the same principle of oil and bicarb – you mix 3 teaspoons bicarb with 2.5 tbsps of Pestoil, then mix into 4.5 litres of water. Again spray every four days for two weeks, then once a week.
And if you don't want to spray at all – then just look for the magic words ‘black spot resistant' on the label when you buy a new rose. A surprising number of roses is resistant to black spot. Just as some varieties will get black and yellow leaves even if you hold an umbrella over their heads every time it rains.
I've been testing a few of them in the last few years. And I mean testing – long grass, semi-shade, the lot. And I promise you, no matter what sort of rose you love, there is one out there that will tickle your fancy and DOESN’T get black spot.
PS You may well be asking why then are so many black spot roses sold? Well, the answer’s simple – there are two/three types of gardener. One just loves to sniff the roses, preferably ones that are black spot free. Others LOVE spraying, weeding pruning, feeding, herbiciding and poisoning pests – of course if they just gave it all up and took up bowls instead their gardens would probably be all the better for it. But then, as my grandmother used to say, we all have our little ways of enjoying ourselves, and who am I to sling off at masochists ... The third group fall in love with a pretty picture of a flower on a label and don’t even think about black spot or downy mildew, much less the overall growth habit of the rose and whether the old flowers drop neatly off the bush or need to be removed daily with secateurs.
Recipes
Mid-summer is a time for snacking on small, spiced things, not a great plate of hot gravy.
Spiced Chickpeas
Virginia gave me some stunning Malaysian spice mix for my birthday. Bryan doesn’t like spiced food or chickpeas and I love both, so have been making these:
1 tbsp spice mix (or 1 tsp cumin, 1 ts ground coriander, dried chilli to taste)
- cup chickpeas, cooked (or canned), rinsed and shaken dry. They need to be still slightly moist.
Roll chickpeas in the spice. Bake on a non-stick oven tray with the oven on HIGH for about ten minutes. Check after five minutes – if they show any sign of blackening take them out at once.
Coriander and Cashew Dip
Blend:
1 cup roasted salted cashews
1 bunch coriander leaves
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
juice of two limes or lemons
Guacamole
Mash
1 avocado with the juice of 1 lemon
Add 1-3 chopped fresh chillies, seeds removed, or 3 tbsps sweet chilli sauce (The sauce makes it sweet – I much prefer the chillies but many much prefer the sauce)
3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
Optional:
3 tbsps mayonnaise
3 tbsps tomato purée
½ cup finely chopped coriander
Combine. Eat on thinly sliced sour dough bread or crispbread.
Rocket and Cashew Dip
Note: Only make this if you know you like rocket. Rocket is slightly bitter and a bit peppery and many don't like it. A small amount of this dip goes a long way. It's especially good on nibbles and things like spuds or baked fish.
1 bunch rocket
1 cup salted roast cashews
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Optional: ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
Vegan and Gluten-free Herb Crackers
2 cups ground almonds
1 tsp salt
2 tbsps finely minced chives
2 tbsps olive oil
A very little water
Mix.
Place the mix on a sheet of baking paper on an oven tray. Cover with another sheet. Roll the top sheet with a glass till the dough is as thin as possible without breaking. Take off the top sheet carefully – press down if any of the dough has stuck to it. Cut into squares. Bake at 200º C for 10 minutes or till golden brown. Cool before breaking into pieces. Store in a sealed container.
Tiny Felafel
Mix in a blender:
400 g can chickpeas, drained
4 spring onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
4 tbsps chopped parsley
2 tbsps chopped mint
½ tsp dried chilli or cayenne
1 tsp salt
2 tsps ground cumin
2 tsps ground coriander
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsps plain flour
Serve with:
Hummus
1 tomato, finely diced mixed with chopped mint and parsley and extra virgin olive oil
natural yoghurt
Form into small balls. You'll need to squish them with your hands. Bake on an oiled tray at 200º C till browned for about 15 minutes.
The Coolest Summer Salad
Serves 4-6
6 cooked beetroot, peeled and cubed
2 cooked sweet potatoes, ditto
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
Pulp of 2 pomegranates
4 small Lebanese cucumbers, cubed
2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon or lime
1 bunch coriander, chopped
1 Iceberg lettuce (for its crunch) shredded
Combine pomegranate, onion, oil, lemon or lime juice and cucumber. Chill for at least an hour or overnight, and chill the other ingredients until just before serving. Combine and eat.
Possibly the Perfect Choc Chip Biscuits
As these are Bryan’s favourites, I keep tinkering with the recipe. He says this is the best so far.
125 gms butter (margarine has too much water added)
¾ cup brown sugar
1 egg
¾ cup plain flour
¾ cup SR flour
1 tbsp vanilla paste
1 cup dark choc chips (the better the chocolate the better the biscuits)
1 cup roasted peanuts, salted (or other nuts in case of a peanut allergy, or just omit)
Cream butter and sugar well. Beat in egg till amalgamated. Gently combine other ingredients. Preheat oven to 180º C. Place small rolls of the mix on a non-stick baking tray. Bake for ten minutes until the edges turn light brown. Cool slightly before removing from the tray. They crisp as they cool but can be fragile straight from the oven. Store in a sealed container for up to 3 weeks.
|
