Jackie's March message . . .
Contents:
Introduction
Awards
New Books
Time Table So far This Year
A Few Recipes:
Gobstoppers
Pear and ginger
Upside Down Cake
The Best and Worst
Recipes in the World (Sweet and Sour Fish Fingers and Chocolate Geranium Cake)
'An Almost
Miraculous Moisturiser (also cheap)
Home made (Jackie)
French Mustard
How to grow:
Elderberries and
elder flowers, hops, and 'wild' grapes
Would anyone like some
apples? LOTS of apples? Figs? Tamarillos? Lemons? Pears?
Okay, some are a
bit wombat chewed or bird pecked, and you might have to wrestle a black tailed
wallaby to get at the pears. She is very fond of pears, and so is her joey.
It's a very cute
joey. We get to watch it through the dining room window every breakfast. We
eat stewed pears and they eat fresh pears, mum wallaby with a pear in her hands
going munch munch munch, and baby in the pouch with a pear in it's hands too,
going nibble nibble nibble.
My son complained
the other day that we have enough fruit here to feed Somalia. Actually I don't
know why he is complaining- he'd just walked his way up through the garden
starting off with grapes down by the yurt (the vine is wandering up the bunya
nut tree) stopping to eat an apple , a few nectarines, a plum, two Golden Queen
peaches- the best in the world- a few more grapes by the Tiger Pen (We call it
that as it looks like tigers are kept in there- actually it is to keep the
wombats out of the carrots. It's the only wombat proof spot in our place-
including the bathroom.
I'm not quite sure
how come we have so much fruit this year. We are still in drought- severe
drought, and the soil is like dust. But every so often we get a shower of rain,
and it has just been enough to keep the fruit swelling, even though the trees
look pretty tatty. I think most of Australia must be flooded except us- or
maybe they just mention the flooded bits on the news, and forget about the
rest.
But at least the
wombats are fat- so stuffed on fallen fruit they're waddling about the hills.
And the fruit bats are very happy, thank you. it sounds like a mob of vampires
has come to call about 10 pm every night, great flapping wings and shrieks
from the pear tree behind our bedroom.
So far the fruit
bats are only eating Williams pears and Fuji apples- they've turned up their
noses- if fruit bats can wrinkle their noses, have never asked one to try- at
the peaches and plums and all the other varieties of apples that are ripe at
the moment, not to mention the passionfruit and odd strawberry that's ripened
in spite of dry strawberry beds, and the avocadoes and lemons and Seville
oranges and figs and...and all the other stuff I can't be bothered listing.
Next year I'll
try to remember to ask for volunteers to come and take sacks of fruit away all
January February and March- but then next year the drought may be even worse,
as it was last year, when ripe fruit was a luxury we dreamt of.
Awards
Diary
of a Wombat was given the YARA Award last week - Young Australian Reader
Awards. Kids from all over Australia vote online for their favourite book.
Which I think is about seven awards for wombat Š or is it eight? Lost count!
But it's a fabulous award to have, and thank you very very very VERY much for
everyone who voted for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was a great day
too- and enormous thanks to the kids from Palmerstone who organised it. You did
a fabulous job! (And as always Barbara Braxton too!) And I LOVED the singing,
and the wombat play! Hope no one got indigestion from the wombat droppings. (To
anyone who wasn't there- they were pretty chocolaty wombat droppings).
New Books
Flesh and Blood- is
out this month. Margaret Clarke is going to launch it at Somerset- and I'll be
launching her Bike Shorts. (Warning: explosive things can happen when Margaret
and I get together.)
Flesh and Blood is
the third and final book in the Outlands Trilogy. A plague is sweeping the
outlands. This plague kills- but then it's victims rise again, zombies with an
instinctive hatred of anything alive; and Danielle Forrester, proclaimed
virtual technician, and Neil, apple breeder and farmer, race to find it's
source.
After that Tom Appleby, Convict
Boy will be released in early April, then My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome and
My Dad the Dragon, the next in the Wacky family books, illustrated by Stephen
Michael King, then Read it Right- how to help with kid's- and adult's -reading
problems, then Phredde and the Vampire Football Team and...finally...PETE the
SHEEP, which is a sort of sequel to Diary of a Wombat, except this time it's a
sheep, not a wombat, but again it is wonderfully gloriously funny. (I can't
wait every time I go to our mail box in case there is another finished page
from Bruce.)
Schedule for this year so far:
April 3 Lanyon Garden Festival, Canberra ..talks on chooks, drought proofing,
how to grow just about everything and a question and anaswer session. Bring
along any garden questions or topic you want covered! (The festival looks
fabulous too)
April 15 11.30-1.00 How to Write your own Bushranger Story Workshop (For
anyone 8 and above!) National Museum, Canberra. Contact National Museum for
more details.
April 15 2.00 - 3.30 Free Story Clinic at Belconnen Library Canberra
Bring along
anything you've written- it can be two sentences, a poem or even your 198 page
novel. There'll be a shadow puppet performance of Diary of a Wombat first,
then I'll talk for about ten minutes on how to make your stories better, and a
few ways to get them published, and then look at everyone's work in turn and
give you some help with it. Bring a book to read in case you have to wait
while I look at other work... hey, what am I saying. Duh. We'll be in a
library...just go browse. It would be great if you book, so we know how many
will be there, but if you haven't booked come anyway!
Release of Tom Appleby: Convict Boy
April 24/24 Falling Leaves Festival Tumut NSW
May 28/29 Charter's Towers All Souls Literary Festival, QLD.
June:
release of My Dad
the Dragon and My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome- the third and fourth Wacky Family
books
release of To the
Moon and Back with Bryan Sullivan - the story of Honeysuckle Creek and the
journey to the moon.
July 2,3,4: Shoalhaven Literary Festival. No details yet!
July 8 : free Club Cool talk at Dickson Library, Canberra
August 16,127, 18 Book Week talks in Sydney. Contact Lateral Learning for
details.
Release of Raising Readers - how to fast track your kids to success(or
whatever its name will be!) - the book on reading difficulties and how to get
all kids reading!
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.
October: release of Pete the Sheep with Bruce Whatley, a picture book about,
well Pete the Sheep!
Late
October: Bolinda School comes to visit!
November 11-14 Ourimbah Campus Children's Literature Festival, Ourimbah NSW
Release of Phredde and the Vampire Footie Team
November 21. Open Garden Workshops in our garden. Bookings essential. Details
and subjects still to be confirmed.
A Few Recipes
Gobstoppers
I used to love
these when I as a kid on holidays at Bribie Island- one gobstopper would stop
our gobs for an entire afternoon, with breaks to poke out tongues out to see
what colour the gobstopper had turned.
This is a more
luxurious sort of 'stopper' ... but it still stops your gob.
Layer 1: piece of date, crystallised cherry, candied ginger, candied apricot,
or slice of red chilli if you like it HOT.
Level 2: wrap in marzipan or the insides of a macaroon- will soak up that
lovely rum
level 3: roll in melted dark chocolate
Level 4: roll in melted white chocolate
Level 5: roll in crunched honeycomb from Crunchie or other choc bar
Level 6: more dark chocolate
Levels 7-1,300.... keep rolling in all the different layers; honeycomb, chopped
cherry, ginger, chilli etc, more chocolate, more marzipan or macaroon until you
are sick of it and the gobstopper is big enough to stop your gob.
Then eat.
Alternatively
store in a sealed container in a cool place for up to a week. Note: the chilli
gobstopper won't last as long as the others, as it is fresh and the others
preserved. A candied ginger or date gob stopper may last for months. But is
unlikely to.
Upside Down Pear and Ginger Cake
2 tbs butter or margarine
2 tbs brown sugar
juice of a lemon
4 pears, peeled cored and sliced
Place butter and
sugar in a pan; heat and stir on a low heat for a minute or two till thick. Add
pears and lemon juice and cook for about three minutes, stirring all the time.
Turn off the heat.
Place pears at the
bottom of a well buttered and floured cake tin, or a non stick one.
Topping:
one and half cups Sr flour
125 GM butter or margarine
2 eggs
a third of a cup of brown sugar
2 tsp powdered ginger OR 3 tbs chopped crystallised ginger
juice of a lemon
any juice from above
a little water if too dry
Beat butter and
sugar; add eggs one by one; fold in other ingredients, including any juice
leftover from the pears.
Bake at 200C for
about an hour, or until brown on top and the top springs back when pressed
lightly.
Take from the
oven. Run a knife around the edge of the pan.
Place a plate on
top of the pan; turn the whole thing upside down and hope the cake comes out
whole, with the pears dripping over the top. If not, doesn't matter, as the
pears will hide any structural repairs as you push it back together.
Eat hot, with
cream and ice cream, or cold, with cream and ice cream, or by itself. Keep in
a sealed container in the fridge for up to a week.
The Best and Worst Recipes in the World
(If you think you
have an even worse recipe, let me know! Must be a genuine one ie one that
someone somewhere has actually thought might be good to eat!)
Just about the worst: Sweet and Sour Fish fingers
Place in a pan:
1 cup canned pineapple pieces, with juice
half cup vinegar
2 tbs sugar
half teaspoon red food colouring
1 chopped onion
10 fish fingers
1 tbs cornflour mixed with a little of the liquid
Boil ten minutes.
Serve with gluggy rice. (the gluggy bit wasn't in the recipe- but the rest is
absolutely true.)
One of the best
Chocolate
Peppermint Geranium Cake....except the peppermint geranium is really a
pelargonium!
Line your cake tin
with peppermint pelargonium leaves. If you don't have any, make this cake
anyway, as it's still good. Turn your oven on so it will be good and hot when
you put the cake in. Cakes don't rise as well if you put them in a cool oven.
Now beat 185 gm
butter or margarine with 2 cups of brown sugar; add 3 eggs one by one, one
and half cups self raising flour and half cup plain flour, two thirds of a cup
of cocoa, 1 cup cream, 1 teaspoon peppermint essence but if you don't have the
peppermint pelargonium leaves, add two teaspoons....you do need to add extra
peppermint because the leaves will only flavour the outside of the cake.
Pour in the pan;
bake for 45 minutes at 200C; ice it when cool if you like icing.
Almost Magic Moisturiser
First of all you need about 10 tablespoons of sorbolene. Sorbolene is cheap-
especially if you buy larger bottles, and it's basically just paraffin wax and
water. I use it as a base for the really good stuff.
Now add 1
tablespoon of avocado oil, or virgin olive oil. Virgin olive oil really does
help counteract the effects of sun on the skin...it's not, repeat NOT a
substitute for sun screen, but possibly because it's high in antioxidants it
can help repair a little bit of the damage sun does to your skin. Avocado oil
is also rich in antioxidants, though I don't know of any studies about its
effects on the skin. I prefer it to virgin olive oil.
Now add 1 teaspoon
rose or lavender oil. Keep it all in a small jar; shake before you use it each
time in case it separates. it's cheap- and very very good.
.
(Jackie) French Mustard
Blend:
a 35 gm packet of mustard seed
9 tbs of virgin olive oil
3 tbs of really good wine vinegar
2 cloves of garlic
a bunch of fresh herbs like tarragon,
a dash of tabasco if you like a fiery mustard
a teaspoon of salt
3 teaspoons of honey, because without sweetener mustard is really bitter
Keep in a sealed
jar in the fridge.
If you're going to
store your mustard for more than a few days it's best to use garlic salt and
dried herbs instead of fresh stuff, just in case you breed a nice food
poisoning organism.
How to Grow.....
Elder flowers and Elderberries (Sambucus nigra)
Why bother?
* If you've ever sniffed and snorted your way through spring hayfever or
sinus, elder flower syrup might just help.
* they bloom all year long - which is a cheering sort of thing in any garden.
* elderberries are small but full of flavour- make a great cordial and also
good stewed with apples for extra colour and flavour
* they are reputed to keep your house safe from witches.
Elders are small trees or largish shrubs, with large heads of bright white
flowers that turn cream then yellow as they age, followed by small black
berries. Elderberries should never be confused with the berries of red
berried elder (S racemosa) or dwarf elder (S ebulius) - these are both red,
instead of the black of common elderberry and are poisonous.
Elders are
extraordinarily useful and should be one of the backbones of a herbal garden
Where to grow: Elder is incredibly tolerant and will grow from Tasmania to
North Queensland. It is drought and frost hardy, wind tolerant and accepts
almost any soil, no matter how poor. It prefers full sun but will grow in warm
semi-shade. It can also be grown as a hedge.
How to keep it alive: Elders will grow from seed, but are usually grown from
cuttings or suckers. Slip any 'snappable' cutting into semi-shaded, moist soil
at any temperate time of the year. Nearly all cuttings take if kept moist.
Warning- elders sucker happily, so don't plant them if you don't want a
suckered clump.
Harvest: Elder flowers should
be picked when just opening, before they turn deep cream. As they age the have
a distinct smell of cat's urine but young flowers are sweet and fragrant.
Elder fruit should be picked when soft and black, but not every bush will set
fruit. As elders have been selected for their ornamental qualities not their
fruiting ability, you may need to search for a cultivar that fruits well and
take a cutting from it.
Eating:
Elder berries.
The berries from
the elder tree are edible and very high in vitamin C - use them to make jams or
jellies.
Elderberry jelly.
Take a cup of
elderberries, stew till tender in a cup of water. Strain through a sieve. Add
a cup of sugar and the juice of two lemons. Simmer till a drop sets in a
saucer of cold water. Bottle and seal.
Elder flowers.
Eat them raw in
salads; fry them in fritters; add them to peach, apple or apricot jam for an
elusive flavour. Scatter elder flowers on cold drinks.
Elderberry tea.
This is made from
the fresh or dried flowers. It used to be taken as a remedy for flu. Use 1 tbs
dried or 2 tbs fresh flowers to 1 cup boiling water.
Elder flower Syrup
This
is a traditional hayfever cure and, interestingly, it now appears that it may
be more than folklore. Take two tablespoons twice a day for about 6 - 8 weeks
before the hayfever season.
Ingredients:
8 cups elder flowers (young white ones - the older cream ones smell terrible
and taste even worse)
1 cup sugar
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup water
Boil the sugar,
water and lemon juice for ten minutes, stirring well till the sugar is
dissolved. Pour the syrup onto the flowers. Cover with a clean tea towel.
Leave overnight. Strain. Bring liquid to the boil once more. Take off the
heat at once and bottle immediately. Keep in the fridge till needed.
The syrup should
last for several months in the fridge, but if it begins to bubble, ferment,
smell odd or grow strange moulds, throw it out at once.
Hay fever tea
This helps reduce
inflammation a little - a good tea to substitute for other hot drinks while
symptoms persist.
Ingredients:
1 part lemon verbena leaves
1 part elder flowers
1 part chamomile flowers
1 part peppermint leaves
boiling water
Drink hot and
strong; if possible sip during the day.
How to grow:
Hops
(Humulus lupus)
Why bother?
* if you want beer, you need hops.
* the scent of hop flowers is literally euphoric - if you feel down, just have
a few dozen sniffs and giggle.
* hop flower tea can be used for insomnia and other medical uses
* Warning - any use of hops should be avoided if you are prone to depression.
This includes beer and pot pourri. Hops also contain oestrogen; high doses can
lead to loss of male libido (too much beer = not much sex).
What do hop vines look like?
The hop vine is a
vigorous, deciduous, climber with tough tendrils. The female plants produce
soft cone-like panicles of pale green flowers, while the males produce smaller
open sprays.
Where to plant: Hops do best in rich, fertile soil with full sun, though
they'll happily twine into semi-shade.
How to keep it alive: Hops are traditionally cut down to soil level after
flowering in late summer, but our vine is simply ignored - it fends for itself
and we pick the flower heads and that's all. We grow our hops over an old
dunny and let them wander up orange and lime trees, though it is more usual to
trellis them or let them grow up poles. Hops also happily trail along the
ground.
Hops will grow
from seed - you need a male and female vine to get fertile seed - but seedlings
are slow to grow initially. Softwood cuttings will take but it's easiest to
dig up a bit of root. Hop roots spread steadily year by year.
Harvest: Hop flowers are harvested then dried when fully opened in mid to late
summer.
Eating:
Hop shoots can be harvested - and are delicious, if slightly bitter - in early
spring. Use the first shoots to appear and keep harvesting for about two
weeks.
Hop Shoot Risotto
Ingredients:
1 onion
2 cups white Arborio (for traditional moist risotto) or Basmati(for a drier
result) rice
7 cups chicken stock
1 cup hop shoots, chopped (these must be young early spring hop shots - older
shoots are too bitter)
4 tablespoons olive oil
Place the oil in a
frying pan with the chopped onion, cook slowly till transparent and add the
rice. Stir till all the oil is absorbed then add the stock and hop shoots.
Simmer till the liquid is nearly absorbed (don't stir), then cover with a plate
and turn off the heat. Leave for ten minutes. If you use Aborio rice it will be
soft, wet and somewhat sticky; Basmati will be dry and fluffy, and piquantly
flavoured by the young hop shoots.
Beer
You need the
sweetness of malted barley as well as the bitterness of hops for good beer- not
to mention time and experimentation. This is just a basic beer - I won't go
into how to extract malt here, or obtain a good brewing yeast - mainly because
I haven't done either of them (you'd also need a whole book on beer to really
explain it).
80 GM hop flowers
500 GM flaked barley
2 kg dried malt extract
500 GM glucose
1 sachet lager yeast
also: sterilised bottle, fermenter with airlock
Note: if everything isn't sterile the beer can get very, very bitter.
Yeast starter
1 tbs malt
Quarter teaspoon citric acid,
1 tbs sugar
water
cotton wool
Mix 1 tbs malt,
quarter tsp citric acid, 1 tbs sugar, 500 mls water; boil 5 mins. When temp
falls to 24 C add yeast; mix well; pour into sterilised bottle and top with a
plug of cotton wool. Leave in an even temperature for 12 hours.
Making the beer
Simmer hops and grains
in 4.5 litres water for 35 mins. Strain through cheesecloth or other cloth into
a sterile container; now pour 18 litres of. hot water through the grain and
hops. Add glucose; cool to 24 C. Add yeast starter; pour into a fermenter with
an airlock; leave to ferment at 21-24C. (An electric blanket can be used. I
wrap ours in a blanket by the solar hot water tank). Leave to brew 5 - 7 days.
Use a hydrometer to check that the specific gravity is 1005. Siphon beer into
sterilised bottles; add a tsp sugar to each 750 mls bottle. Seal. Leave in a
warm place for two weeks, then a cool place for 2 -10 weeks
How to grow:
'Wild' Grapes
'Wild'
Grapes
Grapes need to
climb, but not necessarily on a trellis. Try letting them grow up trees- dense
trees like junipers are ideal, as they clamber up the outside, but they'll
happily grow up most trees.
Step 1. plant grape just outside the drip line of the tree ie where the drips
of rain fall off the outer leaves.
Step 2. Feed mulch and water well for the first three years. Provide a stake to
guide the grape vine up to the lowest branches.
Step 3. Use a rake to haul down the bunches of grapes- or even just cut the
whole vine and haul it down. It will regrow and fruit the next year.
Other grapey matters:
(excerpt from 'The Best of Jackie French)
* tiny young grape leaves are great in salads.
* older grape leaves are good stuffed and simmered - I'd grow the vines for
their leaves, even if I never ate a grape.
* a covering of grape leaves looks most elegant under a plate of cheese and
bickies or fruit.
* wine - which I won't go into here (sorry).
* your health - drinking red wine or eating the black grapes with skins
appears to lower the incidence of heart disease and possibly the incidence or a
least the progression of Alzheimer's disease (a most wonderful excuse for
pigging out on grapes).
NB Grapes and grape juice are as good medicinally as red wine - without its
side effects, both bad and delightful.
Where to grow: There is a grape variety for ANYWHERE in Australia - but you
MUST have good advice.
Plant the seeds? Yes, although cuttings re more common- any bit of hard wood
bunged into sand and kept damp and semi shaded usually takes. Seeds should be
chilled for six weeks in the fruit before planting; they may not germinate till
spring.
How to keep alive: You need somewhere for them to climb; I don't bother
pruning home vines except to keep them in check - every two years or whenever I
get around to it, I cut off all the stems back to the central stem (otherwise
the rats build nests up in the pergola).
Downy mildew. MOW THE GRASS nearby and spray with Bordeaux in winter when the
vine is leafless. You could also try spraying 1 cup milk to ten cups water
with 1 tsp bicarbonate soda at the first symptoms.
I also prune off
affected leaves, as soon as they appear - or even affected branches - and
compost them far away from the vines - the vines are so vigorous that they can
cope with this extra summer pruning, and the grapes ripen faster. But our downy
and powdery mildew symptoms appear late in summer - this may not work if the
problem appears earlier.
There are now
downy mildew resistant grape varieties.
Harvest: About two weeks after the birds start eating them or when one in a
bunch tastes sweet.
Store: An old-fashioned way of storing grapes was to keep them unbroken in
their bunch - make sure all bad ones are removed - and cover gently with bran
or sawdust, making sure that no grape touches any other. This is fiddly but
effective - grapes will stay fresh in a cool place for months.
Eating:
Vine leaves
Take a nice young grape leaf, check for resident caterpillars and brush off
beetles. Do not use leaves sprayed with pesticides or fungicides. Dip in
boiling water for ten seconds.
Now take some of
last night's left over fried rice - or any stuffing you like - and wrap it up
neatly. Put your spoonful of rice mixture in an elongated heap towards the
edge of the leaf. Now roll up in a sausage shape, tucking the ends in as you
go to keep the whole parcel neat and tight. After you have done a couple you
will develop a connoisseur's eye for the best shaped grape leaves (one without
very deep indentations and a wilted main leaf rib so that it bends rather than
breaks).
As with all of
these operations doing the first half dozen makes you feel clumsy and
incompetent and produces very strange shaped parcels (over full and bursting
or half empty and deflated looking) but after that you can start revelling in
your amazing competence and dexterity.
Place your stuffed
vine leaves in a casserole sprinkle on a little lemon juice and olive oil and
either water or chicken stock, say one lemon for every ten leaves and the same
amount of olive oil and maybe half a cup of stock; and bake for half an hour in
a moderate oven. You can also cover them with a herbed tomato mixture for a
change (and as your skill level rises and you want to do more and more you will
be looking for variations to play on the main theme).
Now you've got
dolmades. Eat them hot, or eat them cold - it makes you glad you're not a
caterpillar, poor things, they don't know what they're missing.
Grape Jelly 1 (a sweet, not a jam)
These are delicate
and incredibly good- a bit like a very rich and fruity Turkish Delight.
Take several
bunches of grapes, boil with a very little water till the grapes start to
burst. Take off the flame, press the grapes through a sieve; reduce the grape
juice by half with rapid boiling.
Weigh the result,
add the same weight of sugar and 250 grams of stwed apple for every kilo of
grape pulp. Cook the mixture till it begins to thicken and you can see the
bottom of the pan as you stir. Pour into a greased mould. Take out when set,
dust with icing sugar and store in a sealed carton wrapped in greaseproof
paper.
These jellies can
be stored, sliced or eaten whole with cream.
Grape Jelly 2 (as in jam)
Just cover grapes
with water, boil, squashing the grapes as they boil. After 20 minutes take off
the heat. Strain the juice of the grapes and syrup through a clean cloth. For
every cup of liquid add a cup of sugar. Boil again for bout twenty minutes. If
a little sets in cold water take off the heat, bottle and seal.
PS Commercial grapes may be sprayed with carbaryl (teratogenic in animal
studies; may cause stomach cancer; may reduce sperm counts) for light brown
apple moth or vine moth or weevils; maldison (may be a genetic hazard) for
bugs. They may also be treated with a range of fungicides post harvest.