Jackie's November message . . .
Intro
Mothball News
Book News
Awards
Schedule for this Year
Wombat Jokes!
Some Recipes: Wool Wash and how to wash woollens now winter is done
A Bombe (with an 'e', not an explosive one)
Ancient Roman Chicken Salad
Not King Alfred the Greats Lemon Coconut Slices
Rose and Lavender Biscuits
Some Different Tucker to Try.....rainbow chard, Warrigal spinach, yacon,
loquats.
Introduction
It's rained. And rained. And
rained.
Actually it hasn't been a lot
of rain - just three or four showers every day, and cold grey days in between.
I don't suppose much has soaked into the soil.
But it is all GREEN- and
weedy. We have the Open Garden workshops this weekend and for once will
actually have to mow the grass, instead of waiting for the wombats, wallabies,
roos etc to eat it, or no one will be able to see anything. including each
other.
The trees are all
weighed down with fruit and the avocadoes look like they have punk haircuts-
covered in the yellow spikes left from 10 zillion flowers- and the roses have a
million buds waiting for the sunlight that never comes..
It
is so different from last year that it is quite weird. This time last year the
ground was hard and the grass was brown- what there was left of it- and there
was bushfire smoke already over the hills.
The really weird thing is that
it is still drought, more or less- plenty of grass, acres of weeds, but still
no moisture deep in the soil. Two hot weeks would dry us out again.
This is a wonderful time for
eating- asparagus of course, and the first strawberries- strawberries don't
travel well, so unless you grow your own you'll never know what a scented
luxury a real strawberry can be. The ones in the shops are like juicy
cardboard.
And the first loquats, except
the fruit bats are getting most of them, and the first tamarillos, banana
passionfruit, rhubarb, and the last of the navel and blood oranges, mandarins,
grapefruit, tangelos, cumquats, calamondins and limes, and of course lemons and
avocadoes but we have them all year round.
We grow Eureka lemons that DO
bear for 12 months of the year- and are by far the most cold tolerant of the
lemons, despite what everyone says about Meyer lemons- Meyers hate the cold and
they taste too sweet and not lemony enough anyway. And if you grow about 10
varieties of avocado you can eat them all year round, though you have to race
the currawongs for the last of the big ones in January. Currawongs love
avocdaoes and as they can fly and I can't it's easier for them to get the ones
20 metres up.
And any day now there'll be
the first of the cherries and peaches, then the apricots and then the.... yes,
it is a stunningly good time for eating!
Mothball News
It sounded like a burglar with a
saw, cutting through the door to my study- about five minutes after I put out
the reading light to go to sleep. I was just about to wake Bryan - or at least
yell 'go away you dumb burglar I am trying to sleep!' when there was another
noise- the familiar grrk grrrk grrk of Mothball scratching her back on the
floor beam under my bed.
Not a burglar then. Just one
stroppy wombat eating the... actually I'm not sure WHAT she was eating. I think
it may have been the posts that hold up our bedroom, but as they are metal even
Mothball can't chew through them.
(After three decades of living
with wombats there is no way I'd have a house on wooden posts- it'd only take a
dedicated wombat a week to have you crashing down!)
I thought Mothball had
deserted us for a while- there is so much grass that the wombats are munching
the best and lushest and ignoring the shorter stuff around the house. But it
seems she is back- or else she's taught another wombat where the best
scratching post is.
Hark has moved on too- he's a
good size wombat now, very fat and healthy. I think I have worked out who his
dad is too- Totally Confused, the wombat near the front gate. Most wombats know
exactly what they are doing- make sure you never stand between a wombat and
its hole if it decides to race back to it, or it'll send you flying.
But Totally Confused can never
decide anything. If he's on the road when you drive in he'll decide to go
right- then left- then right- then left again- which means he goes round and
round in circles for twenty minutes or till you get out of the car, pick him up
and place him firmly in the wattle trees on the other side; or give him a
gentle boot in the backside...no, this is not cruel. Wombats LIKE a gentle boot
in the backside, as long as you turn it into a long booted scratch.
But to get back to Hark- he
did the 'running in circles' trick in front of my car last week, and as I have
never seen any wombat do it except for Totally Confused, I have a feeling they
must be related!
Book News
A War for Gentlemen is out at the
end of this month- it's based on a true story of an Australian who went to
fight for the south in the American civil war. I'm terrified for it- I have
been researching it so long and working at it for so many years I have come to
care very deeply for the Charles and Caroline in the story. I just desperately
hope I have done them justice!
It's a book for adults, of
course, not kids. The latest one for kids is the sixth Phaery named Phredde
adventure- Phredde and the Purple Pyramid, suitably hilarious for Christmas! Am
just about to start work on the next Phredde book, for next Christmas...
Will Bruce finally decide that
the time has come to stop being a frog and turn back into a phaery prince? Can
Snow White and the seven quite short computer software engineers solve the
problem with the school computers? Will Pru train Cuddles, her ancient Demon
Duck of Doom, to stop eating the footballs, not to mention the goal posts and
the referee? And isn't there something ....strange...fangwise about the other
team?
I think I am going to have fun
with this one.
Awards
Two more awards for Diary of a
Wombat this month- the Koala Award (kid's choice in NSW) and YARA Award- Young
Adult Readers Award. It was so wonderful to get them- and a million thanks to
all of you who voted!!!!!
Bruce Whatley and I spent the
afternoon after the Koala awards with Lisa Berryman from Harper Collins going
through Pete the Sheep again- the sequel to Diary of a Wombat except it's not a
diary and it's not about wombats, but we are having so much fun with it- even
more I think than with Diary of a Wombat. It's about a sheep, and a shearer,
and being different Š and that sounds incredibly boring but I can't see a
single page of Pete the Sheep without giggling, it's the sort of book you just
want to gaze at and gaze again. A loveable book.
Anyway Diary of a Wombat is
happily galloping around the world- has been reprinted three times in the US in
the past month!
Schedule for the rest of the Year
(I'm not even
going to think about next year yet, but it's filling up pretty quickly,
especially as I only like to go away from home once a month, for a maximum of
three nights- just get too homesick otherwise, and wonder what on earth I am
doing away from Bryan and the wombats and why!)
9 November Open Garden at our place to raise funds for the new Braidwood
Hospital garden- two 3 hour workshops on how to grow just about everything in
your back yard, even if your backyard freezes regularly, and how to grow herbs
and make your own perfume, deodorant etc. plus morning or afternoon tea.
Contact the Open Garden Scheme to book- numbers are strictly limited,
especially as most people from last year have booked again!
There are also another two
workshops for the same cause on Sunday 28th of March- but again I'd book now as
I think they are just about booked out already.
12, 13 November: at the Dubbo Zoo talking about wombats! Contact the Dubbo Zoo
for more information
19 November talk at Canberra Girls' Grammar Primary School
24 November Inverell library, 2 day sessions and one evening session
25 November Glen Innes library 2 day sessions and one evening session
26 November Armidale library 1 day session
4 December (not 6th as I said last month). . Book launch of A War for
Gentlemen, plus talk and dinner at the Grapevine Cafe Braidwood. Everyone welcome
but you do need to book- contact The Grapevine Cafe in Braidwood or Winchbooks,
Canberra. A War for Gentlemen will be on sale plus lots of the other books.
Wombat Jokes!
I'm not sure who
this one is from!
Why did the wombat cross the road?
He didn't want to dig a tunnel.
From Hannah!
Q: What goes down but never comes up?
A: A wombat hole.
Q: Why did the rolled oats follow the carrots across the road?
A: Because Mothball was hungry.
Q: What do you call Mothball mixed with a cockatoo?
A: Mothball wanna cracker!?!
Q: Why did the wombat stop training humans to feed him?
A: Because his wife was a famous cook and she was coming to stay.
Q: Why did the wombat run across the road in terror?
A: Because his aunty lipstick-kiss had just arrived!
Q. Why do all wombats dig holes?
A: Because they know what is good for them when the relatives are coming!
Some Recipes
Not King Alfred's
Lemon Caramel Coconut Slices
For all blokes who can't bake biscuits!
About the only thing anyone
remembers about poor old King Alfred is that he burnt the cakes- he was hiding
from the Viking invaders in a marsh and asked for shelter in a cottage. The
lady of the house asked him to watch her biscuits but he was dreaming of viking
raiders etc and let them burn.
Actually he seems to have been
a decent king in quite a few respects, setting up a basic legal system and a
few other kingly niceties. Anyway, it was 'King Alfred's day' a few weeks ago
so I thought of him and then these...impossible to burn as you don't bake them!
They are very, very easy to make.
Ingredients
half cup sweetened condensed milk
125g butter or margarine
1 cup coconut
1 tb grated lemon rind
250 gm crushed milk arrowroot or other plain biscuits
Place condensed milk and
butter and lemon rind in a pan; bubble till butter is melted. Stir in coconut
and crushed biscuits. Press fairly thinly- about as thick as your finger- into
a tray. Place in the fridge for an hour.
Now spread on icing and leave
till set, then cut into squares and keep in a sealed container.
Lemon Icing
2 cups icing sugar
3-4 tb lemon juice
optional: 2 tb extra coconut to sprinkle on top
Stir lemon juice into the
icing sugar and stir till smooth. Use 3 tb lemon juice to begin with then add
another few drops if it is too dry to spread. Don't add too much lemon juice at
once- you need a surprisingly small amount to make icing! Use a knife to
spread the icing over the slice then sprinkle on the coconut.
Ancient Roman
Chicken Salad
(the recipe is ancient, not the chicken salad. At least it is almost the same
as the ancient one- I've made a few substitutions )
ingredients
6 dancing virgins in a pie crust
24 nightingales in cages to sing to you
24 long haired slave girls (to wipe messy fingers on)
golden finger bowls filled with rosewater
You will also need:
1 chook
2 star anise (or 1tb anise seeds)
4 tb white wine vinegar
Water
Put chook in saucepan; cover
with water and add vinegar and star anise. Cook till tender- about 1 hour. Cool
in liquid then chop up.
Lay chicken in dish.
Add salad ingredients:
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 stems celery, finely chipped
1 tb sultanas
1 tb pine nuts
2 tb chopped onion
1 tsp chopped mint (I leave out the mint)
1 tsp chopped ginger
Mix dressing:
quarter cup white wine vinegar (I use lemon or lime juice)
3 tb honey (I use brown sugar )
quarter cup kid's sweetbreads pounded with cheese (I use quarter cup olive oil
instead)
Pour over salad. Mix. Serve
within two hours, otherwise the cucumber goes gooey.
Ps It actually is a quite delicious recipe!!!
Mash o' Nine Sorts
This is one of the traditional
Halloween foods (For anyone who didn't notice it was Halloween this month.)
Actually the garlic isn't traditional, and turnips were, but the swap makes it
far more appealing! And anyway it's the 'nine things to mash' that is the
really important bit- the three times three charm was supposed to protect you
from ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties, and the things that go
bump in the night.
Ingredients:
3 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
1 small piece pumpkin, peeled and chopped- about the same size as one of the
spuds
1 small hunk sweet potato- again about the same size as a spud, peeled and
chopped
6 tb butter or marg or olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1-10 peeled chopped cloves garlic
1 - 12 tb parsley, peeled and chopped, or 1 cup cabbage, peeled and chopped,
or 1 cup peas
optional: a little cream or milk
Bung butter etc in pan; add onion garlic and green stuff; stir on lowish heat
till onion is soft. Turn off heat.
Boil other ingredients. Drain. mash well. Add the butter and buttery stuff and
mix well. Add extra cream or milk if it looks too dry- shouldn't be.
Pile it all into an ovenproof dish and bake at 200C till the top is brownish,
or just serve it as it is. Great with large juicy hunks of meat- no other veg
needed. Also good by itself, especially with extra peas and cabbage in it to
give it body and well browned in the oven so it's top is crisp and crusty.
It's even better heated up
again the next day.
A Lemon Bombe
This is bombe with an 'e', not
the bombe that expolodes. (I promise this one is NOT explosive).
It sounds a lot of work, but
isn't- and is wonderfully spectacular, a bit like a cheesecake without the
boring crust.
Bombe with an 'e' comes from
the word bomb that explodes, because they look much the same- except if your
bombe has a fuzzy wick coming out of its end throw it out because it's probably
some horrible fungus living in your fridge.
And bomb without an e is one
of our oldest words...it SOUNDS like an explosion...... Boooommmmbbbbbb.... and
so ancient Latin gave us 'bombus.'
Back to the bombe you can
eat....and it is a very good one.
500 gm ricotta cheese
half cup caster sugar
1 tb Cointreau
half cup cream
half cup lemon juice
optional: 1 tb grated lemon zest
Mix with a fork. Spoon onto a
CLEAN cloth. Tie up edges and hang in a cool place (I hang ours over a tap in
the bathroom) overnight or for at least four. (It can be left for 48 hours if
the room is cool.)
Unwrap and place on a plate
it will be spectacularly bombe shaped, and taste like cheesecake without the
boring crust!
Keep leftovers in a sealed
container in the fridge.
Rose and Lavender Biscuits
Okay, these taste a bit odd
till you get used to them. They are very delicate and good BUT your tongue will
not be used to rose or lavender flavours! But once you stop being startled you
realise they are good.
250 gm butter
5 tb icing sugar, flavoured with flowers- see below
OR 1 drop rose or lavender essential oil NB MUST be suitable for
consumption-and say so on the bottle- avoid rose or lavender scented oils!!!!!
OR 2 tsp vanilla essence (which also comes from flowers- the vanilla orchid)
1 cup cornflour
1 cup plain flour
Mix all together with your fingers. Roll into very small shapes; bake at 200C
for about ten minutes, or till just turning gold at the edges. Leave to cool
on the tray- they are very fragile till cool. Store in a sealed container.
Scented sugar
Dry 3 cups scented rose petals till leathery, not crisp OR 3 cups jasmine
flowers ( the spring blooming pink and white J officinalis, others can be very
very toxic!!!!)
To use: shake out the sugar and use in cooking. If you want to store longer
just store the scented sugar- the petals may absorb moisture and rot.
Layer with 1 cup castor sugar for two days to two weeks. Throw out if petals
start rotting or go mouldy or look or smell odd!.
or Mix 3 cups English lavender flowers with 3 cups castor sugar. There is no
need to dry the lavender first. Keep for up to two weeks then remove flowers;
use sugar at once or store for a few months. Throw out if mouldy, fermented or
looks odd!
Eucalyptus Wool Wash
(Also good for greasy
overalls, fur rugs and stains)
Ingredients:
4 cups Lux soap flakes or grated yellow soap
1 cup methylated spirits
1 tablespoon eucalyptus oil
Mix soap flakes or grated pure
soap with the methylated spirits and eucalyptus oil in a jar. Put the lid on
and shake well. Store till needed.
Shake again before use. Add
one tablespoon for every ten litres, or small bucket, of water. Dissolve the
mixture in a little hot water first.
How to wash wool
Use Wool Mix (see above), use
lukewarm water and WASH gently - vigorous washing turns wool into felt;. you
can't turn an omlette back into eggs - and you can't turn felt back into wool.
The quicker woollens are dried
the less they shrink - only wash them on warm sunny days. Try to wash them
often - very dirty woollens need more scrubbing and too much rubbing spoils the
texture.
Only use lukewarm water.
Lather the warm water with a
little soap - make sure it's quite dissolved. Add a little borax to soften the
water for white woollens. Knead the clothes very gently - don't rub them as it
will spoil the shape and the texture.
Turn inside out and repeat.
Rinse in two lots of lukewarm
water to remove all soap (if the woollens are coloured add two tablespoons of
salt and two of vinegar to the last rinsing water to help set the colours).
Roll in a towel to squeeze out the final moisture. Shake well and hang in a
breezy place to dry. Shake them just before they are dry and just after to
raise the pile. Press on the wrong side with a moderately hot iron.
Shrunken Woollens
If wool shrinks try soaking in
one cup of Epsom salts and one bucket of warm water for ten minutes. Don't
rinse. Lay out on a towel in light shade and gently pull into shape - don't
stretch too much. If necessary repeat this several times - if you pull too much
at once the whole thing will go floppy and ridiculous.
If wool has thickened and
felted however there isn't anything you can do about it - it's like trying to
turn that omelette back into eggs.
Prickly Wool
If you find wool too prickly
for your skin, rinse woollen shirts or underwear in one part vinegar to ten
parts water.
Yellowed Woollens
Soak for one hour in one part
hydrogen peroxide to ten parts water and three drops of cloudy ammonia. Rinse
well, adding a little washing blue ( from the supermarket) to the water. (if
you can't get washing blue, use this recipe anyway) Turn inside out and always
dry in the shade.
Some Different Tucker to Try.
Coloured chard and Warrigal spinach
These
are both green veg- the sort that survive drought, frost, heatwaves, dust
storms, plagues of grasshoppers, and probably meteor strikes.
Coloured chard is a stunning
looking silver beet with vivid coloured stems, but a rather nicer leafed one,
as ordinary silver beet can be a bit coarse, like cattle food for not very
discriminating cows. All silver beets are really beetroots- some beets have big
bums and they are beetroot, others have small bums and are silverbeet or chard.
And all are very very drought tolerant- once they are a few weeks old they'll
tolerate almost any amount of heat and drying out, and will give you tucker for
the next 12-14 months.
Plant seeds or seedlings now;
feed well- the more you pick the more you need to feed, but a good plant will
give you a bunch a week in summer if it can get some water too.
Warrigal spinach is a native
Australian green, though some insist it's a native New Zealand green that came
ashore on a floating log, bird's feet etc the odd millenia ago. But it was
definitely growing here when Sir Joseph Banks discovered it.
It grows like a weed- our
biggest plant is about 2 square metres growing from a crack in the paving-
extreme heat and no water at all for over six months last year, and we still
had to hack it back to be able to walk around the side of the house ie very very
drought tolerant. I mean seriously, this stuff is really extraordinary. One
good plant will feed a family of four every night.
Eat the leaves and stems like
spinach- makes good soup or quiche especially, but boil it in two lots of water
ie boil for 2 minutes, change the water and boil again, if you eat it often, as
it's high in oxalic acid ). So is spinach and so is silver beet, so don't feel
too nervous about Warrigal spinach).
If you make a lot of 'spinach'
quiches, or cheese and 'spinach' pastries or 'spinach' soup you'll find
Warrigal spinach one of the best things in your garden. It's good in cheese
sauce too- cook both separately then add the chopped cooked spinach to the
sauce and brown in the oven.
Yacon
Yacon
are big fat tubers, from plants that grow about waist high- or maybe larger in
milder climates than ours! You bake the roots and they taste like crunchy sweet
potatoes.
Some people love yacons- I
find the flavour good but my mouth just won't accept crunch where there should
be melting softness! I grow yacon just for their bright yellow flowers in late
summer.
Like Jerusalem artichokes
yacon are easy as weeds to grow, except unlike Jerusalem artichokes they don't
take over. Plant a tuber in full sun to quite deep shade, then leave them
alone for the next few decades, except to dig up a tuber or three in winter,
when the tops die down, to shoot again next spring.
Our yacon are grown in the
shade of an avocado tree- one of the few plants that tolerate such deep shade.
We only get small tubers- plants grown in the sun can give massive ones, the
size of a fat sweet potato, or even larger- but as I rarely cook them this
doesn't matter!
Loquats
Our loquats are ripening now,
both the Japanese loquats with big seeds (Supposed to be edible when well
cooked, but I have never dared in case they kill us) and the English loquats
with smaller seeds and juicier fruit. (Do NOT eat their seeds!!!!)
Why grow them?
€ they're possibly the easiest fruit in the world to grow
€creamy flowers in winter- fragrant too, but usually so high up you don't
notice
€ one of the first fruits to ripen after winter (different varieties ripen at
different times)
€ no pruning, feeding or tending needed - just make sure you pick them all -
or encourage the birds or fruit bats to finish the job - so you don't have a
heap of festering fruit to attract fruit fly.
€ possums love loquat trees- they'll leave your other plants alone and spend
most of their time up in the branches eating the flowers fruit and young leaves
Loquats are no longer common
in Australian gardens, mostly because loquats don't travel well or store, so
you never see them in shops, and also because older varieties were all seed and
little fruit - modern grafted varieties are fatter and juicier, and a good ripe
loquat is a treat.
Where to grow: Loquats are evergreen, frost,
heat and drought tolerant. They'll grow from Hobart to well north of Brisbane,
preferring a rich soil but still growing in almost any conditions. They flower
fragrantly in early winter and grow easily from seed, but may take 15 years to
bear fruit - a grafted variety should fruit in four years.
I grow ours in a small grove-
two trees close together, or maybe there are three of them- I can't remember!
They make a lovely multi- stemmed grove, anyway- usually full of possums.
Eating:
Fresh
Cut or bite off the top; peel
down the skin; gobble the fruit and spit out the seeds - or cut them in half;
peel and seed, then gobble. Small kids happily sit up the tree eating them
skins and all for hours, while spitting the stones down on passers by.
Loquat jam
This is most excellent
1 kg loquats, seeds removed but not peeled
200 ml water
finely grated rind and juice of 2 lemons
1 kg sugar
Simmer fruit in water till
soft. mash well or put it through the blender. add juice and rind and sugar;
boil rapidly till a little sets on a cold saucer. Bottle and seal.
Loquat chutney
2 kg peeled and seeded loquats
6 cloves garlic, chopped
350 gms sugar
300ml white wine vinegar
1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1 small chilli, chopped
2 teaspoons allspice
Simmer till thick; stir well
and often. Bottle in sterilised containers. Good with curry, or Christmas ham,
or turkey instead of cranberry jelly, or place a splodge in mushrooms and bake
till soft. Also very very good mixed with an equal amount of natural yoghurt-
use to marinate chicken before barbequing.