Feast

I'm so behind on the blogging of this trip that I don't even know where to start. In the last few days since I posted we left Jerusalem, we visited Beit Guvrin and did an archaeological dig and found 2,500 year old ceramics. We stayed and played at Kibbutz Ein Gedi, we watched the sunrise at Masada after waking up at 4.20am and climbing two km and 350m in altitude in the dark. We experienced a hamsin/dust storm in the Negev desert, we floated in the lowest and saltiest sea on earth, the Dead Sea. We walked Nachal David and swam in its desert waterfalls. We stopped by the side of the road and collected multi coloured sand to layer in our bottles and then we drove down to Mitzpe Ramon and checked into the most magnificent hotel on earth right on the edge of the crater. Since we've been here we've visited a soap factory, swam in the pool, eaten waaaaaay too much, and been on a jeep tour of Makhtesh Ramon.

So how on earth do I catch up? I guess I take my own advice and tell one story. Well that's what I told my girls who are behind in their journals too.

So this story is about a meal. Aren't most stories about meals when you're traveling?!

This story starts just after we left the archaeological dig last Sunday. We were hot and dusty and hungry and we were preparing for a big, long drive down south. Our tour guide and driver had a few suggestions for lunch stops along the way, but Bren's sister and family had other ideas. They wanted to go back to a small place they had eaten at once before and loved.

Somehow we wound our way through the narrow streets to Abu Gosh, an Arab town 10km outside Jerusalem. Somehow Bren's sister and family looked at all the other restaurants and cafes we passed by and found their way back to the right one. And somehow they convinced our tour guide and driver that it was OK for us all to eat there even though they were wary as they had never eaten there before.

And as we walked in the owner recognised them from their last visit. He recalled what they had eaten and where they had sat. And then he took our order and brought us back so many plates that they didn't all fit on the table at once.

So this is a story of big plates of hummus. Of pita and tahini and labena and felafel's and schug. This is a story of salads and pickles and olives and chips. This is a story of schnitzel and kebabs. And this is a story of limonana, the most delicious icy lemon, mint drink I have ever drunk.

This is the story of one of those meals that etches itself in your mind. This is a story that will become a memory that has smells and sounds and tastes attached. This is a story of meal shared with family. Of laughter and chatter and full bellies. This very meal may have been the conception of farmer Bren's humus baby.

This is a story of a place filled with hookahs/water pipes. Where the waiters bring sweet smelling tobacco to your table and light you up.

This is a story where the soundtrack is loud Arabic music and conversations in Hebrew and Arabic.

This was a wonderful story. A Middle Eastern Feast story. A story of stepping off the tourist trail for a while and finding a gem. This was a story where we were too full to even contemplate desert but the owner sent us off with a packet of baklava for later.

All journeys are filled with stories, but particularly these stories of life and culture on the other side of the planet feel important. Important for us to experience and to record. What a gift to be able to see these things for ourselves. The architecture, the language, the customs, the music, the clothing, the currency, the politics, the way of life and of course the food.

We're going on a camel ride this afternoon and then we're heading North for our last few days in the morning. It's all flying by so fast. I've been trying to convince my farmer boy to stay on here for another month. I'm so not ready to go home to the cold and the routine.

If you want to fill in some of the unblogged gaps in our trip you could check me out on instagram at foxslane. Otherwise hopefully I'll get to them here at some stage. Hopefully.

I think I might go for a walk now and take some photos of this amazing place in the middle of the desert. Or maybe I'll find my boy and get him to make me a Turkish coffee. Decisions, decisions...

I hope you guys are making happy memories and wonderful stories too.

Big love.

And shalom x

in Israel

Very late last Friday night I finally put the last of the bottled tomatoes up on the shelf and the last of the stewed apples away in the freezer and went to my bedroom to pack for Israel. To pack clothes and toiletries and craft supplies for three spring weeks on the other side of the planet in a country I hadn't visited for 20 years. A country I hadn't visited for 20 years but had at different times in my life called home.

And as I slowly started gathering and packing it occurred to me how little I had really thought about this trip. With the craziness of finishing my book, the autumn picking and preserving and the mothering, I hadn't really thought beyond the where we'll go and what we'll see. I hadn't really imagined how I would feel visiting a place that once upon a time I knew so well.

And now we're here, far, far away from our little farm in Daylesford, I realise that I could never have imagined the tiny details that are leading me tripping down my memory lane. Even if I'd had a second to think about it.

Those tiny milk bar type shops dotted all over the place that sell nuts and seeds and cigarettes and newspapers and lollies.

The feel of a warm paper bag full of sunflower seeds in my hand. The crack of the salty shell and the taste of the fresh nut in my mouth.

The street food; the pita stuffed full of felafel, salads, humous, tahini and pickles and the cheese borekkas.

The air-conditioners hanging out from every window and the hot water units on every roof.

The Hebrew language, written and spoken, that once felt so natural and comfortable and now feels sticky and foreign but still so familiar and somehow comforting.

The geography, the names of the streets, the look of the streets and how it feels to be walking down those same streets again after all this time.

The culture. The fire drums in the street on the day before Passover for people to dispose of their bread products before the festival.

The memory I have of the best watermelon icy-pole ever that keeps me searching the freezers of every shop we pass just in case we can find it again.

The relief that comes with finding a wool shop, just in case. To be truthful I packed enough wool to knit for months, but that's not the point now is it.

The feeling I get when I watch my family, our family, our kids, running through the streets that we once ran through. Watching them slowly learning bits of the language and experimenting with the food. Seeing this world through their eyes. Introducing them to places and people and memories from our pasts. Feeling like this is a big trip, an important trip.

Looking forward to watching where our adventure takes us next and the memories it evokes.

Remembering where I have come from and who I was back then.

Enjoying being led on this journey. Being in the moment. Smelling and tasting and seeing and hearing.

Being aware that I may not be able to take a zillion photos and write a blog a day like I had hoped. Right now experience seems more important than capture and document.

Traveling.


Have you done this? Have you visited a place you once called home?
Do you know that familiarly different feeling?
Do you ever feel home when you're far far away?

Happy days friends,
Shalom. xx

Lotsa stuff.

Hello! How are you?

I'm good. Very excited that it's almost the weekend and although my house is a bit of a mess, I feel like I've got lots of little projects bubbling away that are keeping me excited. Lots to share and some to keep secret for a little while longer. Eeeeep!

So I cast off my latest knit, Tikki's latest test pattern, Griffin. It is cute! A little sleeveless vest with a hood and a kangaroo pocket. Miss Pepper is busting to carry a baby chicken around in that pocket. Maybe I'll have to line it.

I'll show you some more pics once I've blocked it.
I've raveled it here.

Nextly (?), I wrote a post for Just B about home and my reflections about going away for six months and then coming home. You can read it over here if you like.

One of our farmer boys, Pierre, just returned from a month in France with his family. When he got back he bought each of us a knife. How gorgeous is that! I've never had my own knife before.

I posted a photo of them on instagram yesterday and people left me the most wonderful comments. It seems so many people have an Opinel and an Opinel story in their lives. Do you?

I had to answer an interview question the other day about children who grow up on farms. I've been looking at my three with a bit more interest and wonder since then. 

I got a copy of Ro's new book in the mail the other day and he got the beanie he's been asking for for the last few months. Its a really gorgeous book. Beautifully photographed and designed filled with heaps of interesting info too. I'm certain our copy will become very well thumbed, very often referred to, very quickly.

The WholeLarderLove beanie is raveled here.

A lovely blog reader wrote to me a few months ago asking my permission to paint Miss Pepper. I said yes and she did, and then this week I received a copy of her painting in the mail.

Wow Coral!! Its amazing. And thanks so much for the copy.

The original photo is here if you want to compare.

Even though its icy outside, the garden and the foods we've stored, are showing us that the season's are changing. So we're cleaning out our stores and our garden beds to make room for what comes next.

We've been eating just starting to sprout potatoes, spinach, broccoli, rocket and leafy greens. And planting onions and peas and beans and tomatoes and herbs so far.

I'm starting to get excited about this exhibitions of local Daylesford Instgrammers. Its on from the 20th October until the 20th November at St Mel's cyclery and cafe. I so hope you can come. I think there will even be an opening soiree. I'll let you know.

And finally, I'm off to my first craft camp tonight. I'm super excited and a bit stressed about leaving farmer Bren with the farm and the girls and all their activities too. And what to take?? Oh my goodness, what to take?

So that's me, this Friday afternoon.
How are things with you?
Have you got exciting plans for the weekend?
Did you click on any of my many links?
Are you reading a good book?

Ciao Ciao. xx

My loving list.

Just for fun, because today is the first day of the school holidays and I feel happy and lucky and filled with love, I thought I'd make a list of some of the things that I'm loving right now. The things that are making me smile. The things that make me want to get out of bed in the morning. 

Ten things.

My loving list.

Top of the list are my gang. I heart them the most. They are my everything.

I'm loving crochet. And baskets of wool. And a blanket that is growing. And that meditative feeling that comes from having busy hands and a project you don't have to think to make.

I'm loving the autumn produce: apples and tomatoes and quinces and pears and carrots and grapes...

And I'm loving turning this into that, and that into this. It's like kitchen alchemy. It's quite magical don't you think?

I'm loving posies from my princesses and a kitchen table FULL of the gorgeous Gourmet Girlfriend's family. Great friends, beautiful food and lots of laughter is so much of what it's all about, I think.

I'm loving spotting little caravans around our town and imagining their road trips and what they've been up to.

And I'm loving the thought of Ms Frankie Blue taking us on many more adventures soon, after her time at the fixer uperer this week and next.

I'm loving knitting again. It's been quite some time between knitting projects, but it's lovely to be back. I'm using Kate's beautiful wool and knitting my first ever shawl. It's a very basic pattern but will be gorgeous to wear.

I am loving autumn's light and colours. Wow! She certainly is putting on quite a show this year.

I haven't had much time for treasure hunting lately but the little has been fun. A new to me dress and cardi, a bunch of Fowler's jars (soon to be filled with apples), some of my favourite pie crust edged Johnson Brothers crockery and a couple of pink floral cuties too.

I am loving farm life and it's variety of colours and flavours and jobs. I feel happy and proud to live here at the moment. 

And I love that my farmer boy has discovered a passion for turning a humble handful of flour into the most gorgeous loaves of bread, pies and pasta. It used to be my job but somewhere along the line he took over and I am in awe of his creativity and passion.

There's mine.
How about you?
What are you loving at the moment?
Have you got a loving list?
I'd love to know.
Let me know in the comments.
Or write a list on your blog and let us know and we can come and visit.

Happy week you guys.
I hope it's inspired and a bit silly.
xxhttp://gourmetgirl-friend.blogspot.com.au

Tomato-fest!

You could say our family are a bit obsessed with food. We grow it for love and for a living. We enjoy preparing it and eating it and talking about it and sharing it. We love simple food. Rustic food. We love food you can recognise and we love food that is good for you.

But more than anything else we love food that is grown by us or by someone locally. We love food has been grown with love, food that has been grown without the use of any nasty chemicals and food that has been grown now, this very season, with all the nutrients still inside.

Last Wednesday afternoon we drove out to visit our friend Florian at Mount Franklin Organics. We sat in the sun on his deck overlooking his orchards and gardens. We threw stones for his dogs to bring back and we discussed life, organic farming and the season that was.

And then on our way out we sorted and weighed and bought five boxes of San Marzano tomatoes. Our five boxes had been picked that day and were warm to touch. You can see Florian above with what he called his blackberry, working out how much we bought.

Yesterday our girls stayed home from school to make roasted tomato passata.

We divided up the jobs and got to work. We washed, sliced, picked and made a herby/garlicy mix, mixed it all together and laid the tomatoes out on oven trays.

Then we roasted the tomatoes in the oven. YUM! (I look forward to doing this part in the earth oven next year when it's finished.)

Then we spooned the mixture into the mouli and then into a jug which filled the jars. Then those jars boiled in the Fowlers machine for an hour and a half to sterilise and seal them.

I guess what I didn't say at the start but I'll add at the end, is that we also love food filled with memories. And I know that every time we open a jar of this summery goodness over the cooler months to come, we'll remember the fun filled day we spent together in the kitchen making it.

How about you?
Do you like to preserve the glut for leaner times?
Would you like to?
What do you preserve? And do you have a favourite method or recipe?
Can you make the stores last all winter long?
Do you have memories of preserving days from when you were a child?
Do you think it's much simpler and easier to go and buy a tin from the market?
I wonder.

I do hope you have the most fabulous weekend this weekend and get to eat something delicious.

See ya. x