Jackie's December message . . .
Intro
- The queens have arrived!
Mothball News
Book News
Awards
Schedule for next Year
Wombat Jokes!
Some Recipes (including a home made weed killer plus others that won't poison
you)
Last minute Christmas presents- including what to give blokes
Home Made Christmas Crackers
In the Garden
.Two Hour Garden
Makeover for Christmas
.How to Mow the Lawn
Barbecue Alternatives
(ie when you can't face another dry charred sausage all oozing fat and crave
some veg)
Intro
We
have just had a visit from royalty! Three queens arrived last Sunday. We felt
like blowing trombones and laying our red carpet, except we don't have any
trombones or red carpet apart from the mat in the living room, and anyway the
queens probably wouldn't have noticed, as they were bees. Have a feeling queen
bees would rather have a bowl of royal jelly, which we didn't have either.
The
bees were for the hives in the paddock near the asparagus. There are only three
hives left now. There were six, but the neighbour's cattle pushed over three
of them. We keep the paddock gate shut, but sometimes it's left open by cattle
searchers. The next major project is a cattle grid at the front gate, so if our
front gate is left open the cattle wandering up the road can't get in!
The
remaining hives badly needed new queens- the old ones weren't laying many eggs,
and anyway these are super gorgeous queens that should have super stunning
offspring who'll collect super amounts of honey. We hope.
Local
honey is good stuff. Honey tastes of what the bees have been feeding on.
Spring honey here tastes of orange blossom and grevilleas, but later the
various eucalypts bloom, or the angophora floribunda - angophora honey is my
favourite, a pale gold honey but with a subtle taste.
Other
news? Wars in the loquat tree. The fruit bats are fighting over the last of the
loquats. (I picked a few branches full for loquat jam- lovely stuff.) Fruit
bats have cat size bodies and big leathery wings like the vampires from hell.
Two of them were tearing and biting at each other the night before last, wings
flapping so furiously they crashed into the living room window, 20cm from where
we were watching a video, which was a bit of a shock, peering out at these two
furious furry faces and even more furious wings. If we'd believed in vampires
we'd have wet ourselves.
Anyway
they lurched off again, crashed into the bird table, then flew back into the
trees still tearing at each other, till I took the torch out and shone it at
them and yelled at them, and they finally flapped away, in opposite directions,
and haven't been back since; or if they have they've been quiet about it.
There's
plenty of fruit and blossom for the fruit bats this year. It's been a wonderful
season so far- almost normal rainfall ie about 75 mm a month. We haven't quite
got that but everything is lush and flowers everywhere and so much fruit it'll
be a problem giving it away. Or maybe not. It's amazing how cases of lemons
disappear.
Anyway,
Merry Christmas to everyone, and wishes for a green and happy, peaceful 2004.
(Well, we can dream, can't we?). We're having Christmas at home with friends,
as we always do- Christmas is at the height of bushfire season here and a bad
time to be away, though some years it's been cold enough to light the fire and
the fog has been misting the trees. The last two Christmases it's been smoke,
not fog, and the creek's been dry and the garden baking.
This
year we might even go swimming, now the swimming hole is full again. It is
magic swimming there in summer- once you get used to the shock of freezing
water on your skin. You float through the reflections of sky and casuarina, or
sit on the submerged rock in the middle of the pool, possibly with a white
peach or two, and feel the water flow over you.
Sometimes
tiny fish nibble your knees, or black snakes slide down to swim as well, then
change their minds. Well, there have always been snakes in paradise....
Mothball Wombat
Mothball
is busy eating. And eating. And scratching, mostly at 2.00 am under our
bedroom. But just about all we see of her is her droppings on the biggest of
the zucchini plants. She's fond of that zucchini for some reason. Don't suppose
it does the plant any harm. Good fertiliser. This is a wonderful season for
wombats- the softest, most succulent grass to eat.
Book News
'A
War for Gentlemen' has just been launched. It's based on a true story of an
Australian who went to fight for freedom in the American Civil war- on the side
of the south. He eventually married one of his cousin's slaves- though her skin
was as white as his. It's my first historical novel for adults- and I am
desperately anxious for it. The more I researched the Charles and Caroline in
the book, the more I longed to do their story justice.
The
first book for next year will be 'Flesh and Blood'- the final in the Outlands
trilogy. It's coming out in February, I think, followed by 'Thomas Appleby,
Convict boy' and then a book about the story of Honeysuckle Creek and the first
human landing on the moon. And no, the first images of Neil Armstrong as he
stepped onto the moon weren't down loaded from Parkes- the movie lied! This
book puts the record straight- and the true story is even more thrilling.
And
after that the next two Whacky families! (I thought Stephen Michael King's illustrations
were wonderful in the first two books, but what he's done with these books is
hilariously stunning!)
Awards
Another
award for Wombat this month- I think that makes five for Diary of a Wombat this
year, or is it six? This one is the Cool Award, for best picture book, voted by
the kids of the ACT. And thank you thank you thank you!!!!!! to everyone who
voted for Wombat, in each of the awards! (Mothball would thank you too
..actually, no she wouldn't. Wombats don't do grateful.)
Diary
of a wombat has also just been listed as number two on the 'Best 20 picture
books for 2003' in the USA, plus Magpies magazine has just listed Too many
Pears and Valley of Gold among their 'best reads' for 2003 too.
With
luck I may be able to put one of the first completed pics from Pete the Sheep
in the newsletter next month. Pete is the next book Bruce Whately and I are
doing together. It's even funnier and more lovable than Wombat- or maybe I just
forget how much I laughed at Wombat when I first saw what he'd done for it!
Schedule for 2004
January 15
11.30- 12.30 at Erindale library ACT . Free workshop for anyone from 8-180 on
How to Grow Your Own Spaceship and other Adventures with Plants! Contact
Erindale library for more details.
February 6/7
National Museum. Conference on outlaws as part of their Outlaw! exhibition.
Contact the National Museum in Canberra for more details
March 17-21
Somerset Literary Festival, Gold Coast, QLD
April 28
Tumut NSW Festival of the Falling Leaves
May 28, 29, 30
Charter's Towers QLD Literary Festival
May 31
Gladstone Eco Fest
July 3-4
Shoalhaven (NSW) book festival, mainly in Ulladulla,
with perhaps some activities in Milton or Mollymook/Narrawallee.
August 17.18. 19
Book Week talks in Sydney (contact lateral learning
(bookings@laterallearning.com) for more details)
August 24, 25, 26
Book Week talks in Melbourne (Contact Booked Out (bookings@bookedout.com.au)
for more details
September 14. 15. 16. 17
Ipswich QLD, West Moreton' School's literary festival
A Wombat Joke!
This is from Claire!
Q. What do you call a wombat in the snowfields?
A. Lost
(PS Some wombats toboggan in the snow- they tuck their legs underneath them and
sliiiiidddeee! I have seen one wombat do that on a muddy slope too- zoom down
it then trot back up for another go).
Some Recipes
Rhubarb ( or apple, apricot, cherry or peach ) Streusel cake
This is possibly the best cake in the world- wonderfully moist and gorgeous
texture.
180 gm butter
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2 cups SR flour
half cup plain flour
half cup cream, sour cream, or milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cooked rhubarb, or apple, apricots, cherries or peaches
Turn oven on to 200C. Cream butter and sugar; mix in eggs one by one then
other ingredients except rhubarb. . Pour into a greased and floured cake tin.
Spread over rhubarb, or swirl it into the cake mixture. Fruit on top means
soggy topping, which I love. Fruit swirled into the cake means crunchy topping.
Sprinkle on the topping.
Bake cake at 200C for 40 minutes or till sides shrink away from the cake tin.
Cool in tin for five minutes before turning out, to let the topping crisp up a
bit. Keep in a sealed container.
Topping
three quarters of a cup plain flour
3 tsp ground cinnamon
60 gm butter
third of a cup brown sugar.
Mix together till
crumbly.
Weed Salad Dressing
THIS IS NOT TO
EAT!!!!!!! It
kills weeds!
2 cups artificial fertiliser granules
1 cup water, or least amount possible to dissolve the granules
1 tb eucalyptus oil- optional
Pour into sprayer.
Shake till mixed. Strain if it still looks lumpy. Spray A LITTLE on leaves you
wish to kill- they must be dry. Don't water for at least 48 hours.
The fertiliser
will kill the leaves- and the weeds-of soft spring weeds, no use on big rooted
clumps of blackberries. When it rains the 'herbicide' will feed the other
plants. Good on grass around established trees, but be careful it doesn't burn
off young plants.
Rhubarb and Rose Petal Jam
50 grams rhubarb
the juice of three lemons
500 grms sugar
3 handfuls deep red rose petals
small knob butter
Place the chopped rhubarb in a pottery bowl with the sugar, water and lemon
juice. Leave overnight. Next add the chopped petals, simmer very gently till
the sugar has dissolved, then boil till a little sets in cold water. Take off
the heat and stir in the butter, bottle and seal. This is a wonderfully
coloured deep ruby if red rhubarb is used.
Last Minute Christmas Presents
Bowl of Perfumed Rocks
Step 1. Find a good looking bowl
Step 2. Find your rocks. Most garden centres sell great looking rocks, from
white quartz pebbles to smooth grey river stones, as well as bowls to put them
in.
You can of course
hunt your own 'wild' rocks, but the average garden stone, even when washed and
polished with a little floor polish or oil and beeswax- which really does
bring up rocks a treat- may still not look like your average pedigree rock from
the garden centre. But, hey, your wild rocks may be better looking than ours.
Step 3. Sprinkle essential oil or scented oil- or a combination of oils- on the
rocks. Don't use an alcohol based perfume- it will evaporate too fast. I like a
mix of rose geranium oil and orange or mint oil, but choose whatever smells
good to you.
Step 4. (optional) Polish the rocks with floor or wood polish, as long as it
is scentless, or with a mix of 1tb beeswax, melted, combined with 1 tb bland
scentless oil like safflower. This makes the rocks shiny; it also seals the
perfume in to some extent, so you get a gentle whiff for months or even a year
or two instead of a great blast of perfume for a few weeks.
Variations
Glass Jar of Rocks
Fill a great
looking jar with good looking rocks. Sprinkle with either essential oil or
scented oil. Either put the lid on the jar or a cork in it. Whenever you want
the house to smell subtly wonderful, take the lid off about an hour before so
the scent can waft around.
Lemon Gunge
This is a great
hand cleaner to give to gardeners or any bloke who services their own car or
other grotty jobs
Ingredients
6 cups lemon peel, with as little white as possible
(but you can also use orange, grapefruit or mandarin peel- save the old orange
peels out of the kid's lunch box. It doesn't matter if the peel's a bit dry-
just as long as it hasn't gone off)
3 cups water
1 cup sugar (doesn't matter what sort- even honey will do)
a small squirt of detergent
a small squirt of sorbolene cream
Simmer the peel
with the water in a saucepan for half an hour WITH THE LID ON. (If the lid
isn't on a lot of the lovely lemon oil will evaporate. )
Add more water
only if it looks like you'll burn the pan.
Take the pan off
the heat. Cool. Fish out the peel and add the sugar to the liquid. Put the lid
on again and simmer for ten minutes. Take off the heat. Cool till tepid.
Now pour the
stuff in the saucepan into a jar, and add a squirt of detergent and a tiny bit
of sorbolene cream. Put the lid on the jar and shake like mad - and you've got
your Lemon Gunge.
Keep it by the
wash basin. Every time you wash your hands tip a little bit into your palm and
rub in WELL, then wash or even wipe off.
Sizzling bath bazookas
These fizz
wonderfully
Ingredients
1 cup tartaric acid
1 cup bicarbonate of soda
half a cup powdered starch
2 teaspoons fragrant oil
extra sesame, apricot kernel or almond oil
Mix into small
balls- use only as much oil as is needed to bind them together; leave to set;
drop two or three into a hot bath.
An Empty Pot
Never give an avid
gardener a plant for Christmas....unless you know for absolutely sure they want
it! Most people with totally gorgeous gardens have very firm ideas what they
want to put in . . . and your pretty gift may not fit in at all!
You can't go wrong
with a nice pot...it's a bit like a lucky dip in reverse...you get to dream of
what you're going to put in it. ANY gardener will love an empty pot, so they
can have an excuse to wander down to the nursery and pick out a new plant.
What to Give blokes
I have finally learnt never to give Bryan anything mechanical...he'd much
rather mooch round and buy it himself!
If your bloke is
longing for a chainsaw, new mower, whipper snipper or one of those doodads that
take paint off old furniture, cut out a picture of one from a magazine or
catalogue, paste it on a card...and tell him it's a gift certificate.
You'll
do the paying . . . and he can have a lovely time bonding with the blokes in
the shop.
Home Made Christmas Crackers
I've always thought that Christmas
crackers are one of the great disappointments of Christmas.
Every year you
think somehow it's going to be different...there'll be a really great giftie
inside, or at least a joke you haven't heard before. But there never is.
I've tried every
sort of Christmas cracker, from the cheapest of the cheap to ludicrously
expensive ones. And none of them do what a Christmas cracker is supposed to do-
start the dinner with a bang and a giggle.
So try home made
ones.
You need:
Paper hats (see below)
The cardboard
innards of rolls of alfoil, baking paper or plastic wrap, cut into lengths
about 30cm long. (Christmas gift wrapping has extra long cardboard rolls inside
it too. Each roll should make three or four crackers. If you leave your
cracker making till after you've wrapped up your Christmas presents, you
should have plenty)
scissors
crepe paper or pretty wrapping paper- I like to use gold or silver, or
traditional red or green
ribbon (I like to use two or three colours of narrow ribbon together- it looks
especially good)
a few pretty stars or other stick ons (you can get them at any newsagents)
sticky tape (easiest) or glue
a few funny jokes...just write your own on bits of paper - and this time you
can really suit the jokes to the company!
'bangers'- the things that go pop when you pull them.(Optional)
You can buy these
at craft stores, but I find that most people don't really care if their
crackers go pop when you pull them or not- it's what's inside that counts
trinkets to stuff in the crackers, which is the best part of it, a sort of
Christmas lucky dip.
The trinkets can
be as silly as you like, or useful ones like tweezers...no one ever has enough
tweezers.
This year I've
decided that the money I'm saving on commercial crackers is going to go into
really good gifties to put inside my homemade ones...a couple of nice lipsticks
(yes, I will make sure my stepson in law doesn't get to pull the cracker with
them inside), a pair of underpants with redback spiders on them, an
irresistible sheep finger puppet, five glow in the dark plastic spiders, a pair
of shark earrings, pliers...you get the general idea.
If you don't want
to go to too much expense, a few chocolate wombats, musk sticks or liqueur
chocolates are always acceptable. You can even make an 'adults only' version,
if you're that way inclined- or bung in a few diamond rings and the keys to a
new Porche if you're feeling flush. Just make sure when you buy the gifties
that they will fit into the cardboard roll.
To assemble
Step 1. Stuff a folded hat, joke and prezzie into each cardboard segment.
Step 2. Cut pieces of paper about three times as long as each piece of cardboard,
and wide enough to roll them completely in the paper with a bit left over. It's
easiest just to use the pieces of cardboard to do the measuring, as they'll
vary in width.
Step 3. Place the cardboard with the thingummies inside in the centre of the paper.
There should be a good length of paper on either side.
Step 4. If you are using bangers, sticky tape them on to the outside of the
cardboard now.
The middle of the
banger should be in the middle of the cardboard, so a bit pokes out each end to
grasp.
Step 5. Roll the whole lot up carefully.
Step 6. Tape down the edge.
Step 7. Now even more carefully tie ribbon on either side of the tube of
wrapped cardboard. You have to do this very gently, as if you tie too tightly
the paper might tear.
Step 8. Paste on a few stars or other stick ons, or even sprinkle on glitter or
paste on pressed flowers- decoration is up to you.
Christmas hats
You need:
crepe paper
scissors
glue or sticky tape
a few stars or other decorations from the newsagent
Step 1. Cut pieces of crepe paper about 60cmx15 cm.
Step 2. Stick the ends together.
Step 3. Cut the top into a zig zag (remember how you used to roll up paper and
cut out paper dolls or other shapes in kindergarten?).
Step 4. Stick on a few stars or other stick ons, or get the kids to draw on
original never to be repeated Christmas specials
......and you have
a hat.
In the Garden
Two Hour Garden Makeover for Christmas
(or how to stop green thumbed Aunt Maude making helpful suggestions about how
your garden could be really nice if only you'd....)
1. Mow the lawn. Water it. (Damp freshly mown grass smells heavenly)
2. Buy two bales of hay or compressed mulch. Scatter over weeds or bare spots.
3. Buy two pots or hanging baskets of bloomers for either side of the front
door.
4. Put a home made lemon cordial in her hand as soon as she arrives and ask her
to help mix the dip, and hope after that she's too relaxed to bother looking
closely out the window
How to Mow the Lawn
Only a third of the green tips of your grass should be mown at any one mowing.
If you mow your grass too far down the stem it'll be less healthy, less
vigorous and more weed and pest prone.
Even if your grass
is so long it threatened to choke the house, set the mower on the highest
setting for the first mow, then mow again a little lower a week later.
Mow in straight lines or a circle if you can- it'll look neater. But don't mow
in exactly the same pattern every time, or you may leave permanent tyre marks
in your grass.
Don't push your
mower too hard if you run into a thick patch. You'll tear the grass rather than
mow it, and it'll look shaggy. Go slowly and steadily.
Barbecue Alternatives
(ie when you can't face another dry charred sausage all oozing fat and crave
something INTERESTING!)
Bread and Cheese Kebabs
Ingredients: very good bread and excellent cheese. You can also add marinated
mushrooms, hunks of red capsicum or chunks of good red tomatoes.
Cut cheese in
chunks. Tear bread likewise, thread on skewers. Add other stuff if you like.
Toast above the coals until the edges of the bread are toasted, and the cheese
runnyish, but not dripping into the fire.
If you choose to
have great whacking hunks of bread and cheese they'll still be cool inside
(this can actually be quite good). Smaller bits of bread will turn quite
crunchy and different breads take longer to toast and different cheeses take
longer to melt. You'll need to experiment.
I like a good
soapy young mozzarella cheese (bocconcini); but a small hunk of youngish
parmesan isn't bad and even rat trap tastes better roasted over a fire. A
possible variation is to skewer the odd anchovy in between the chunks of bread
and cheese.
Lemon and Garlic Butter Corn Cobs
Melt half a cup of
butter with four crushed cloves of garlic. Take off the heat. Add a good
grating of black pepper and the juice of a lemon. Soak eight cobs of corn,
papery wrapping and all, in water for twenty minutes. Then unwrap them
carefully - don't tear the wrapping. Pour a little of the slightly cooled and
thickened melted butter mix onto each cob. Rub in well with your fingers or a
pastry brush.
Grill until cooked
through - at least twenty minutes or half an hour, turning several times.
You can also try
this with alfoil instead of the natural corn packaging; but it's not nearly as
good.
NB Don't buy corn wrapped in plastic. It tastes like plastic.
Veg Kebabs
Ingredients: 1 large sliced eggplant (salt and drain for half an hour to remove
bitterness but see below) , 2 red onions, 25 button mushrooms, a red capsicum,
half a cup of olive oil, 3 cloves garlic, a dash of tabasco sauce (optional),
artichoke hearts (optional), hunks of red tomato (optional) hunks of boiled
but firm potato (optional)thyme, juice of 1 lemon.
Cut the eggplant,
red capsicum and the onions (peeled) into chunks about the size of the button
mushrooms. Mix the other ingredients. Marinate for at least an hour or
overnight.
Thread all the veg
onto skewers. Grill till softish and slightly charred,.
Grilled Mushrooms
Choose great big
flattish ones, as dark and fragrant as possible.
Mix lots of garlic
and black pepper and chopped parsley into melted butter or margarine (or even
olive oil). Pour a generous amount into the cap of each mushroom. Grill the
mushrooms top downwards until the stems look cooked or until the mushrooms look
like they might soon collapse or burn. Eat hot.
Char grilling
You need a hot
plate for this, though builder's mesh also works as long as the veg are
sufficiently basted in oil.
Good foods to char
include thin slices of eggplant (supposed to be salted for an hour first to let
the acrid juices escape, but I don't bother - modern cultivars aren't as bitter
as old-fashioned ones), capsicum (strip the blackened skin off before you serve
it), shelled green prawns, fresh very ripe and fragrant pineapple, strips of
zucchini brushed with olive oil and dusted with oregano and black pepper,
small, sweet onions sliced in half, par-boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes and
pumpkin, baby octopus marinated for a couple of hours beforehand.
Stuffed potatoes or tomatoes or capsicum roasted in the fire
Hollow out the
veg. In the case of tomatoes and capsicum this is easy; use a sharp teaspoon
for the spuds.
Spud Filling
Any mixture of: sour cream, light sour cream, chives, grated cheese, chopped
mushrooms, chopped parsley, very finely chopped capsicum, plus the grated
potato residue.
Tomato stuffing: ricotta cheese with chopped chives, crushed garlic and pine
nuts
Capsicum stuffing: cooked rice mixed with curry spices and onion browned and
softened in olive oil.
Wrap veg in
alfoil; bake in the coals for at least 40 minutes. Unwrap carefully so you can
wrap again if they're not cooked.
Barbecued garlic bread, grilled over the coals
Do not wrap the
stuff in alfoil! You lose all the flavour of roasting, toasting bread.
Cut some decent
bread into thick slices. Brush each one with olive oil on both sides with a
little (or a lot) of crushed garlic added to the oil (you can also tear in a
few thyme or rosemary leaves).
Thread each slice
on a skewer and grill over the coals till the outside is crisp and brown and
garlicky and the inside soft.
This is by far the best garlic bread I have ever eaten.
Fruit Kebabs
Thread fresh
pineapple, firm yellow peaches, banana, apples, nectarines, apricots on
skewers. Grill them as they are (fast before they turn brown, sprinkle with
lemon juice if they are to be left more than twenty minutes) or brush with a
mixture of half a cup of brown sugar melted with a quarter of a cup of butter;
add a tablespoon of rum at the end if you feel like it.