The Australian Bucket List (1) - Tasmania

I was trying to explain the concept of bucket list to my French teacher the other day. She was confused, she said the closest thing was La liste des dernières volontés - the list of last wishes - but I'm not dying! Just moving to Canada for a year... 

Have you ever tried making a bucket list? If you close your eyes and imagine that you won't get to visit somewhere ever again, where would you want to go? Most of the things on my list are nature spots or food things... 

So the first stop on my Great Australian Bucket List is Tasmania. Mainly because I've been wanting to go to MONA since it opened. I recruited my neurologist friend to come along for our 5 day trip. 

Hobart

Autumn colours at King Edward Park on the way to Salamanca markets 

Wonderful berries from the Westerway berry farm. These were small, sweet and intensely strawberry. Nothing like the supermarkets!

On the ferry to MONA (Museum of Old & New Art) - actually a very rich guy's private art collection. 

I adore the autumn colours 

The art at MONA was actually pretty bizarre, but an impressive collection nonetheless. This gallery had thousands of the same motif done in different colours, and it was cool they had live music in several corners. 

View from MONA, a beautiful peaceful day

Hobart waterfront at sunset

A beautiful autumn leaf, near our accommodation in Sandy Bay 

On the way to Bruny Island we stopped at Willie Smith's apple museum, where we had this extraordinary apple pie. The shortcrust pastry was really solid and satisfying, the pie was utterly stuffed with cinnamony apple and the scoop of vanilla bean icecream was a perfect accompaniment. 

 

The Apple Museum!

Bruny Island

The best, freshest, plumpest oysters I've ever had at Get Shucked on Bruny Island

A beautiful double rainbow as we arrived at our accommodation - Bruny Island Bungalow, one of the nicest airbnbs I've ever stayed in. 

Sunrise from the Bungalow - this is literally the view from bed!

The Bruny Island Baker who drops off sourdough in these old school fridges everyday 

As a sourdough baker, I appreciate other people's excellent sourdoughs. This was a dark dark loaf (maybe 20% rye?) studded with sultanas. 

We went for a hike on Bruny Island to the Fluted Cape. Here the rocks are vertically oriented like the flutes of an organ - quite an extraordinary walk, though a little challenging for us city-dwellers who are not used to walking!  

Hello little one!

This was our reward for the hike, a wonderful ploughman's platter from the Bruny Island Cheese company. The three cheeses were ODO (One Day Old) bottom left, a soft young cheese in a herby olive oil; Tom top right, a friendly cheese that's like a half-matured cheddar; and a mature stinky-as French cheese bottom right. The woodfired bread here was also excellent. 

We went up to the Neck lookout for the view of the narrow passage way between North & South Bruny Island. What a view!

Sunset from the Neck 

Our last sunrise from the Bungalow 

Does anybody know why time goes faster on holidays? Felt like we were away for just an instant but it was a really fun- food- and friendship- filled long weekend to Tasmania. The nature of Australia is stunning, everywhere we turned were just so many gum trees typical of the bush here. We also saw heaps of kangaroos and possums, sadly some of which were dead... that's also very Australian!

In My Kitchen: May 2022

Time is passing so quickly! April was a difficult month as my father went into lockdown in Shanghai. The lockdown there has been insane - all shops closed, no food delivery and a huge uncertainty over how they would feed themselves. I slept very badly during April and haven't been cooking as much. But let's take a look at what happened.. 

It was the season of hot cross buns... 

This was the first batch of the season - sourdough vegan hot cross buns with a maple syrup glaze. The first batch was for the nurses on a weekend shift. 

Once I realised how good this recipe was, I tested it out again with chocolate chips - a winner! I took these to a lunch with some friends. 

In normal times I may have tried a different recipe, but I just didn't have the energy so I stuck with the same recipe a third time for when my high school friends came to visit. It was really fun making these together, even if we miscounted the number of buns! 

Also in my kitchen...

I think when I feel stressed I always want to make things with my hands. So I made this huge batch of wontons stuffed with homegrown chives and vegetarian mince. 

I also made this torta pasqualina - a traditional Italian Easter pie with spinach & ricotta. I wanted to make a pastiera but no shops were open on Easter Sunday and I didn't have eggs! I did manage to make ricotta from 2L milk I bought from the servos.. 

One of the nurses gave me this giant sweet potato! I was carrying it around on the ward round so another nurse swaddled it for me like my newborn - what a good size! 

Onto the food and music series...

Well there hasn't been much music since my string quartet disbanded - the other violinist is worried about Covid and is not doing any social events, and the violist has moved back to the UK. She came back to visit for a few weeks though and we finally got to catch up along with the cellist.. just the three of us so we played string trios.

We had a loaf of my sourdough, just like the "Good Old Days" and enjoyed it with the Beethoven string trio Op 9 No. 3 in C minor (I think that's the best one), the Op 3 string trio as well as some of the Bach's 3 part inventions to keep us grounded. 

My friend from the Gold Coast was visiting Newcastle and we had a dinner together, probably our last musical evening before I leave for Canada. We played the Mozart D major violin concerto and the first movement of the Beethoven Kreutzer sonata... It was pretty messy :) but a lot of fun! Here was the Battenburg cake I made to commemorate the occasion. 

The curveball... 

Well I have two curveballs this month - hope it's allowed Sherry! The first is the amazing bread "shop" on Bruny Island by the Bruny Island baker. He makes sourdough every morning and drops it off in these two ancient fridges. It's an honesty system - $10 for a sourdough loaf and 2 anzac biccies. What a spectacular location! I've been making a little "Australia bucket list" for my last month in Australia and Tasmania / MONA / Bruny Island was on top of the list. 

The other curveball is here - I've been wanting to share some music with you, as many of you have left such lovely encouraging comments. Here is S and I playing the first movement of a Mozart violin sonata. We had only played through it once before making the recording, so there are lots of mistakes, but I think it's obvious how much talent he has as a violinist and how much positive energy we have as a couple. It is quite extraordinary, if I may say so myself! 

Sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen event - thanks for hosting Sherry!

In My Kitchen: April 2022

S was visiting Australia for most of March, and so it flew by even faster than February! I have just 10 weeks left in Australia before I move to Toronto in June to pursue my life/career change - I have been working in Intensive Care for 12 years and the sea change will be to palliative care... 

In my garden...

The chillies are going crazy! We have been eating chillies almost every meal.

This pink oyster mushroom kit was a Christmas present, which I didn't open for ages - even though it was past its "best grow" date they sprouted quickly in the recent warm humid weather. I cooked them in a light braise with silken tofu flavoured with ginger and shallots. 

The second compost pumpkin I've grown, a Queensland blue. Last year's one was 4.2kg and this bubba was even bigger at 5.9kg! We had a quarter of him as a giant pumpkin soup with lovely fresh sourdough straight out of the oven, and another quarter turned into a pumpkin chickpea curry.

Only because S is Italian, the pumpkin was christened Alfonso... this strawberry couple was kinda creepy, a funny gag present from S. 

Some fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden for a simple pasta sauce. 

In the kitchen.. 

We went to Melbourne for a quick overnight trip when S was invited to give a lecture at the University of Melbourne. I had no idea he was such a superstar mathematician. Meanwhile I headed to Lune for one of their amazing croissants, here the almond croissant is like a work of art - all the gently toasted almonds fixed by almond paste to form the porcupine shape. 

This stir fry was made from a few things from my dad's garden - snake beans, capsicums and bitter melon. Together with carrot and tofu, it's really a wonderful combination 

We've been having a lot of "healthy meals"! Here it was soba, a stir fry of carrot, tofu and wombok (and a lot of chilli!), with the greens blanched separately. 

We also went up to the Gold Coast for a long weekend, staying at my friend's place while she was overseas. We utilised her gorgeous Moroccan plate to showcase this simple but delicious roast sweet potato and chickpea salad. Sometimes the simplest things in life are the best. 

The curveball... 

The picture on the left was when S just arrived - how extraordinarily pale his foot was coming from the Parisian winter! 3 weeks later he'd developed a nice tan but unfortunately  was also having the true Australian experience of sunburn from the beach! 

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen series. Thanks Sherry for the monthly opportunity to write and review my photos! 

In My Kitchen: March 2022

February felt like a quick one! 

We had our own little celebration before I left Paris, it wasn't quite Valentine's day but the Patisserie Cyril Lignac had already started doing their St Valentin special - a light vanilla bourbon flavoured cream in the shape of a heart with a heart of salted caramel and crispy biscuit base of speculoos.  And yes - it was as delicious as the description sounds! 

Our last dinner together in Paris - whole roasted fish, brussel sprouts, some random navet - red bean curry with rice. 

I arrived home to Newcastle and found this beautiful Indigenous art design cake plate from my friend. It had arrived a couple of weeks earlier and was waiting for me on my back porch (thanks Oz post for keeping it safe). Here it is with the last little briochette from our local Eric Kayser that I picked up on my way to the airport. 

While I was in France, the pumpkin plant had gone wild in my backyard, and it was trying to break into my house by attaching itself to the screen door! 

My first job at work was to clear out the office - I was the supervisor of training for the trainees the past 3 years but in preparation for the move to Canada, I had to hand over and move out! Here are all the bottles of wine that were hiding in my office, mostly from previous trainees. (I can never bring myself to drink them... it's like they mark certain achievements!) 

I felt very fatigued with rather a poor appetite after I got back from Paris. So I had many "ploughman's" lunch plates like this with just some sourdough that I made (even my starter was sluggish in February), some salad veggies and cheese. Here I had it with my own lettuce and cucumber. 

I got lots of cherry tomatoes from my dad 

And a lot of chives - these turned into dumplings that were absolutely delicious.  

For Valentine's day I made this Slovenian style bread - I found it on Google when I googled "heart shaped bread" - it's a brioche dough that's braided like a challah, and then formed into a heart shape. Isn't it adorable? 

It was really nice to see the cellist in my quartet again - we had a simple dinner of roast veggie salad and some sourdough I made. Our string quartet has disbanded - the violist has moved to the UK and the other violinist is dealing with covid-related paranoia. So it's just me and the cellist now! Still, we played some Bach 2-part inventions (for the violin/cello we just read the left/right hand parts) and the Beethoven string duets which are transcribed from an original work for clarinet & bassoon.   

Finally towards the end of February I started to get my mojo back. These were some delicious sourdough hot cross buns... 

And la piece de resistance - the galette des rois that I saw everywhere in Paris! I recreated it at home from store bought puff pastry and a simple frangipane filling. The patterns can be really elaborate in Paris, I think mine wasn't bad for a first attempt! It's always made with a treasure and I put inside the little cow that I brought back from Paris, which has now gone home to live with my friend who was lucky enough to eat the piece with him in it!

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Kitchens who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen event. Thanks Sherry!