Jackie's January message . . .
Newsletter
January 2004
New Year Resolutions
Mothball News
In the Garden
Books
Awards
Schedule for this year so far
A Few Hot Weather Recipes
(Fabulous
Fruit Frappe, Watermelon Frappe, Rockmelon, Grapefruit and Gin Frappe, Sweet
and Sour Zucchini, Stuffing for zucchini)
How to Make a Fly Trap
How to Make Home Made Deodorant
How to Grow and Use Aloe Vera
New Year Resolutions
I, Jackie French, do hereby make the following new year resolutions:
1. I will stop lecturing. If someone asks me how my salad is I won't give them
a short history of the tomato, a story about lettuce growing in ancient Egypt
and a dissertation on why 'basil loves tomatoes' is a myth.
2. I will not plant any more apple trees. Bryan is right. 109 apple trees are
quite enough and we DO NOT NEED ANY MORE! (Except for the nine I ordered last
year and I haven't told Bryan about yet.)
3. Until I have lost ten more kilos I will only eat chocolate if the plane
seems in danger of crashing.
4. I will answer all the back log of mail, even the ones turning into compost
at the bottom of the pile, and even the one from that horrid woman who wants to
know the best way to get rid of wombats. (I don't say I'll write her a NICE
letter. Just that I'll answer her...)
5. I'll make a dentist's appointment. Yes, I promise, definitely, very soon.
(Just not today)
6. I will not make a pig of myself with this year's apple crop. Not much of a
pig anyway. Only two apples a day. Or three at the outside. Or maybe four, if
they are really irresistible, or five if I deserve a treat. Or six if there is
just one left in the bowl....
(Our apples start
in ripening in December and go on till late July, so we nearly always have
fresh apples. But the ones I love best mature from February 14th onwards. The
first Johnnies are just getting red now. You can hardly ever buy proper
Jonathan apples any more. They are mostly Johnareds, not the crisp old
fashioned Johnnies, and even the Jonareds have mostly vanished. But a true
Jonathan is wonderful ... or a really fresh Golden Delicious, straight from the
tree (they get floury if they have been cold stored) or a Cornish aromatic, or
Lady Williams or Sturmer Pippin, nicely wrinkled and a month or two old...but
this year I won't eat too many. Really. Definitely not.
Mothball News
Well
actually there is no Mothball news. It's been weeks since we saw Mothball. She
was nicely fat at last sighting, but since then she's wandered off somewhere,
and probably having a very Merry Christmas and New Year too.
But Hark is still
here. He is spending part of the time in the hole his mum dug under our
bedroom, but most of the time he stays in the hole behind the bathroom. He
extended it a few weeks ago: just two nights of digging , and two wheelbarrow
loads of dirt and rocks. He still has his bald patch on his bum, so I'm sure
it's him- and like his mum, he still scratches every night on the floor beam
under our bed. He's grown into a good strong looking wombat in the last year-
broad shoulders and a good round bum. A very handsome chap. And he hasn't
bashed up the garbage bin since his mum left.
There have been
other visitors of course - a giant brown snake, who thank goodness seems to
have deserted us since Christmas. We always knew when it was around- the tiny
rock warblers and ground thrushes go bananas when they see a brown snake, as
the browns snakes eat their eggs- and them. If you hear the small birds yelling
you know to watch where you put your feet.
And the black
cockatoos arrived for Christmas, as they do every year, and the wallabies are
so fat on grass they're hardly bothering to eat the roses, and the possums are
being very discrete because a powerful owl has been hunting through the garden
every night- we hear him booming down by the creek. Powerful owls mostly boom
towards the end of winter here, so I'm not quite sure why he is singing. I
hope nothing has happened to his mate.
In the Garden
At
the risk of tempting fate, it's a bit like paradise at the moment: flowers and
fruit everywhere and even though we badly need rain there is still a hint of
green. And fruit dripping off the trees... a stunning year for apricots
(apricots have to be eaten ripe from the tree- they are floury and tasteless in
the shops- not worth buying!), peaches, nectarines, late navel oranges, lemons,
a few limes, Hass avocadoes- we don't pick our Hass till Christmas- by then
they are gorgeous; strawberries, raspberries, youngberries, sylvanberries,
loganberries, blueberries, mulberries (still a few) plums, damsons, sloes,
early apples, plumcotts .. and I'm sure I've forgotten some!
There's also the
first of the corn, a few types of tomatoes, many varieties of beans, wonderful
round zucchini- the long ones are more watery and just don't have the same
zing- cucumbers, plus all the old stand byes like lettuce and beetroot and
carrots and silverbeet and chicory and leeks that we have all year round.
The trouble is, of
course, that PEOPLE DON'T EAT ENOUGH! Ask friends for breakfast and all they
can manage are a couple of measly bowls of stewed apricots before their potato
cakes, and they hardly touched the apricot jam, rhubarb jelly, blueberry and
plum jam, strawberry preserves, melon and pineapple jam, Seville marmalade.
Edward's friends
have larger appetites buy they don't linger over their breakfasts, the way you
need to if you are going to polish off half a jar of jam.
I remember
breakfasts with Grandma. Grandma spent a good hour and half over breakfast,
which is the way people SHOULD breakfast, stewed fruit then a hot dish and many
pieces of toast with many jams and many cups of tea as well- a decent breakfast
for a solid day ahead, the sort of breakfast Bryan still has every day.
But even Bryan
can't eat the crop of six apricot trees.
Books
Nil,
none, zero in January. The last ones were War for Gentlemen, out last December,
and Phredde and the Purple Pyramid, out last November. I'm just about to start
writing the next Phredde book, Phredde and the Vampire Footie Team, but that
won't be out till November later this year.
The next books
will be Flesh and Blood, the third (and final) book in the Outlands trilogy,
out at the end of March, then Tom Appleby, Convict Boy, in April, then the next
two Wacky family books, My Dad the Dragon and My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome.
The covers have already been finished for those- they look hilarious, but
Stephen Michael King hasn't finished the illustrations yet. Not that I really
keep checking the mail box in case they're ready. Not often, at any rate.
Awards
Diary
of a Wombat won something or was listed for something good in the USA, I think-
I'm just not sure what it is! But whatever it was meant that the New York
Times gave it a great review, and Time magazine listed it as one of the best
books to give kids for Christmas. They described a wombat as a sort of
Australian bear. Not sure if Mothball would like being called an Australian
bear. On the other hand, Mothball's response to any magazine would be to chew
it up.
Schedule for this year so far:
January 15 Erindale Library Canberra 11.30-12.30. Free Club Cool workshop on
'how to grow your own space ship and other adventures with plants. Contact the
library to book.
February 6/7 'Representing Outlaws' Conference, National Museum of Australia.
Contact the National Museum for more details.
Feb 18/19 Somerset Literary Festival, Somerset college, Gold Coast, QLD.
February 28. Open Garden Workshop in our garden- how to grow every thing except
chocolate in your garden. (We have about 260 types of fruit growing here,
including avocadoes, custard apples , cinnamon, coffee, tea and macadamias,
even though our climate ranges from minus 9 to 49C). Bookings essential as
places are limited. Contact the Open Garden Scheme for more details and
bookings.
March 26th Children's Services Resource & Advisory Program Conference,
National Press Club Canberra
April 14 How to Write your own Bushranger Story Workshop (For anyone 8 and
above!) National Museum, Canberra. Contact National Museum for more details.
April 24/24 Falling leaves Festival Tumut NSW
May 28/29 Charter's Towers All Souls Literary Festival, QLD.
July 2,3,4: Shoalhaven Literary Festival. No details yet!
August 16,127, 18 Book Week talks in Sydney. Contact Lateral Learning for
details.
August 23, 24, 25. Book Week talks in Melbourne. Contact Booked Out for
details.
September 14,15,16 West Moreton Anglican College Festival of Literature,
Karrabin, QLD. Contact Megan Daley, West Moreton Anglican College for more
details.
November 11-14 Ourimbah Campus Children's Literature Festival, Ourimbah NSW
November 21. Open Garden Workshops in our garden. Bookings essential. Details
and subjects still to be confirmed.
A Few Hot Weather Recipes
Fabulous Fruit Frappe!!
(no
blender needed)
3 cups pineapple juice
half a large banana
pulp of 6 -12 passionfruit
2 cup orange juice (not from navel oranges- it turns bitter)
juice of 1 lemon
Optional: 1 tsp chopped mint
Mash banana with half a cup of juice. Combine all ingredients in a wide mouthed
plastic bottle. Freeze till slushy, stir and serve. or freeze till solid them
let thaw for half an hour before stirring and serving.
Note: eat the first lot with a spoon, then slurp up the rest through a straw
Watermelon Frappe
(You need a blender for this one)
6 cups watermelon chunks
juice of 1 lemon
quarter cup of sugar boiled for three minutes with half a cup water
Blend. Freeze and
guzzle as above.
Gin, Grapefruit and Rockmelon Frappe
This is not suitable for children! Make sure no one mistakes it for a non
alcoholic version when it's in the freezer!
1 peeled, seeded rockmelon
2 grapefruit, peeled and seeded
half cup sugar boiled for 3 minutes with half cup water
3 tbs gin
Blend; freeze as
above.
Sweet and Sour Zucchini
Ingredients: 10 small zucchini, 1 bulb garlic, peeled, 1 large onion, 4 tbsp
olive oil, 4 tbsp wine vinegar, 3 tbsp water, 1 tbsp pine nuts, 1 tbsp
sultanas.
Saute chopped
onion and garlic in the oil till the onion is soft. Add the finely sliced
zucchini and stir for three minutes, add other ingredients except for the pine
nuts and simmer for ten minutes. Add the pine nuts and serve hot.
Stuffing for zucchini
Mix: half a cup veal and pork mince, 2 tbsp breadcrumbs, 1 teaspoon tomato
paste, 1 small egg, 1 tsp chopped parsley, a little chopped sage, and a fair
bit more chopped fresh thyme or oregano (you can cheat here by using stuffing
mix instead of the herbs and breadcrumbs - but it won't taste as good), 4
cloves finely chopped or crushed garlic.
Mix well with your
fingers till smooth.
Cut zucchini in
half and stuff in mixture. Top with a little parmesan cheese.
Place in an oiled
baking dish and bake 40 min in a moderate oven (200 C). Serve hot by
themselves or with tomato puree.
Hot zucchini salad
Fry thinly sliced
zucchini FAST in very hot olive oil till lightly browned. Dress at once with
1 part lemon juice, 3 parts olive oil, salt, pepper with a little chopped
garlic and chopped mint added. Serve at once before the zucchini softens or
leave to marinate (and soften) and serve cold.
How to Make a Fly Trap
You
can buy fly traps, and very effective they are too- we have them hanging up in
the wood shed, by the chook house and one by the house- and they do make an
enormous difference to the number of flies about the house. But you can also
make one from an old soft drink bottle- and make your own bait too.
Cut a soft drink
bottle off at the shoulders, so it looks like a funnel. Take off the bottle
top, and invert the top into the rest of the bottle. Thread string through the
top so you can hang it up.
Place in the
bottom of the bottle either proprietary fly trap mix- quite cheap and very
effective- or
6 prawn heads or 1 small cat fish based cat food (prawn heads are better)
1 raw egg, lightly beaten
half cup water
Hang fly trap HIGH
so that the pong goes up and stays up. It will take about four hot days to be
really stinky. They are best hung under eaves so they don't fill with water
when it rains, though you can make a roof from another soft drink bottle-cut
out the base with four attached long strips, and tape those to the other
bottle, leaving a good air gap so the pong can emerge.
This is all much
easier with a diagram!!!!!!!
The trap should
work for a few months; depends on how soon it fills up with flies. You should
not be able to smell it at ground level. If you can, move it to a new spot. It
may also need emptying if it fills with water, or a little more moisture added
in very dry times. But mostly it will be trouble free.
Bryan has made a
perch on either side of one of ours for the birds to get 'take away'- they sit
and guzzle as the flies approach.
How to Make Home Made Deodorant
This
stops the pong (which is caused by the bacteria breeding and dying in your
sweat- your sweat itself doesn't pong at all...or only nicely). It also smells
better than any other deodorant I've tried.
4 tbs almond oil
1 tbs beeswax
1 tsp lavender oil
1 tsp rosemary oil
1 tsp lemon grass oil
Heat oil and wax
till wax is melted. take off the heat. Add other ingredients. store in a wide
mouthed jar. Wipe on a TINY bit each morning. Note: this should last you at
least a year...only the lightest smear possible is needed.
How to Grow and Use Aloe Vera
I burnt myself a
few weeks ago- dumb, I was frying without an apron and hot oil bubbled up and-
trust me, you don't want details! (And I have been good and worn an apron ever
since. Well, no, not all the time, just when I'm cooking.)
But it reminded me
yet again what great stuff aloe vera is. I keep a couple of hanging baskets of
aloe vera just outside the kitchen, for emergencies, and it was magic- the
worst burn is entirely healed now, with hardly a mark, while the tiny ones I
didn't bother putting the gel on are still healing.
Anyone who has
never used aloe vera is always amazed as the gel oozes out of the leaf, clear
and ready for use. It looks like a processed ointment that should be oozing
from a tube.
Just remember that
aloe vera gel isn't sterile, so don't put it on broken skin- and do get medical
help for if the skin is broken. But it's great for sunburn too, and a good
moisturiser- and one leaf will give you enough for a week's use- it just keeps
oozing!
What does it look
like: Aloe vera is a thick leafed succulent, up to 60 cm tall, with tapering,
green-grey, serrated leaves and yellow tubular flowers about 3 cm long. Look
for the yellow flowers to identify true aloe vera- though I admit this isn't
much use if the plant isn't flowering when you buy it, which it probably won't
be! I discovered that one of my aloe plants wasn't 'vera' at all last year- it
finally flowered with tall orange flowers! So do beware that many so called
'vera' plants sold in nurseries may not be the real thing.
Where to grow: Aloe vera needs dry, well drained soil - it will soon
die in wet soil. It won't tolerate severe frost or severe heat - in tropical
areas it is best grown in semi-shade. It can be grown in a pot - which will
have to get progressively larger - but probably won't flower in a confined
space. I grow ours in a hanging basket over sun reflecting paving and it
survives winter okay - not happy, but at least alive.
How to keep it alive: Do not over water in the garden. Remember anything
in a pot or hanging basket requires both water and fertiliser provided by you.
Healing:
Cut a leaf and squeeze the jelly on dry skin, eczema, minor burns and rashes.
The pain will be immediately relieved and the gel will speed up healing. But do
remember too that it isn't sterile so don't put on broken skin! And avoid if
you get a rash- allergies are possible even to kind plants like aloe vera.
Travelleršs Aloe vera gel
I wrap a leaf in
plastic wrap and keep it in my make up bag, just in case. But you might also
try:
Ingredients:
2 aloe vera leaves
6 vitamin E capsules
a small opaque jar
Mix the gel with
the contents of the capsules. Keep in a dark, cool place ie your handbag - or
better still, the fridge - till needed.