Essential Edibles Food Swap October 2010

Today I joined in the second Essential Edibles food swap.  

Organised by Sustainable Communities SA, the idea of the food swap is that people bring along home-grown produce, preserves, seeds and seedlings and swap them.  No money changes hands and nothing is measured; you simply take away what you need and benefit from the expertise of other local growers.

I contributed lavender, some sweet orange jam (recipe here) made from home-grown oranges, Italian parsley, rosemary and cos lettuces.

Although it is still fairly early in the growing season, an impressive range of produce was on display.  There were home-grown macadamias (I didn't know macadamias even grew this far south!), lettuces, kale, silverbeet, lemons, grapefruit, herbs, bay leaves, snow peas, and lots of vegetable and flower seedlings.  I came home filled with inspiration and happy with the things I had received, which included some slivers of Jerusalem artichoke which I have planted although I have never eaten them in my life!

The Essential Edibles food swap takes place on the first Sunday of each month from 8.30 am at the Joslin Reserve, 3rd Avenue, Joslin in Adelaide.

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Celebrate good times come on!

Olá! Espero que estejam a ter um óptimo Sábado. Hoje aproveitei para tirar umas fotos de algumas peças que estou a juntar para o meu aniversário. Ainda falta definir muita coisa e tenho andado com pouca motivação... Será o cair da folha do Outono ou são mesmo os 40 anos a aproximarem-se? :-)

Os cachos de uva no prato em forma de morango são torrões de açúcar, achei uma delícia!

Como sempre, gostaria de ouvir as vossas ideias e sugestões. Desejo-vos um resto de fim-de-semana fantástico! E se for prolongado, ainda melhor!

Hi everyone! Hope you are having a wonderful Saturday! Today I'm showing you some pictures of the things I have been gathering for my birthday party. There's still a long way to go and I haven't been feeling really motivated... maybe it's because of the arrival of Autumn or maybe it's just because I'm turning 40! :-)

The grapes and leaves are sugar cubes. I find them lovely!

Well, I look forward to hearing your suggestions and I wish you all an excellent weekend!

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Purple Flowers

Over the past couple of days, I have been given purple flowers:

freesias,

and a lavender posy,

and striking irises.

Thank you everyone!

(It's my birthday today, and even though I decided last year that I had had quite enough birthdays, this one came hurtling along, anyway.)

And thank you Lisa, Sarah, Chris, Carly, Lindy, Kim and Jill (and all your children), for sharing morning tea with me yesterday!

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Green Dining Room Tour

Given that my favourite colour is green, it was very kind of the previous owners of our house to paint the dining room green, don't you think?

I really love this room, with its two-way fireplace and French doors leading to the front porch.

The china cabinet came from my husband's grandparents, as did the dining room table...

...which is being used as a desk, as the dining room is currently doubling as our home office. 

This dining room tour is part of Show Us Your Life Friday: Dining Rooms at Kelly's Korner.

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Dancing on the ceiling

A Ashley Meaders faz coisas mesmo lindas! Designer, stylist e crafter, esta organizadora de casamentos da Georgia tem um site giríssimo e faz coisas lindas de morrer para festas de casamento. Não, não me vou casar outra vez!! Mas, como adoro decorações de tecto, quis mostrar-vos esta, que chamou a minha atenção (e, já agora, que gostava de ter) - e acho que pode utilizar-se noutras festas que não apenas casamentos.

Quem me quer fazer umas florzinhas destas? Não conheço quem faça disto por cá, e eu gostava de ter destas mãos de oiro!... :-)

Credits: Ashley Meaders

Ashley Meaders makes beautiful things. This designer, stylist, crafter and event planner from Georgia does really amazing wedding stuff that you can see on her wonderful site. No, I'm not getting married again!!It's just that I love ceiling decorations and these flowers caught my eye, so I wanted to share it with you.  I also think that we can have a centerpiece like this in other parties besides weddings. 

I wish I had fairy hands and do such beautiful things... Does anyone know how to do it? :-) 

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Spring Greens

The green of early spring is the greenest, most vivid, most emerald green there is, isn't it?

Unfortunately, early spring is not a great time in the vegetable garden.  None of the fun, showstopper crops like tomatoes or eggplants are producing.  We don't even have peas or broadbeans yet, although they are growing like crazy.

What we do have is lots of greens, which makes for great salads and stir fries (and looks of despair from some of my children who think I am trying to poison them, green being their least favourite colour in the food world).

Yesterday's harvest for a chicken stir fry, shown above, was fenugreek greens, silverbeet, garlic scapes, green onions and coriander.  Yum!

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A Very Special Housewarming Gift

When my father-in-law came to visit a few weeks ago he brought a very special housewarming gift - a map of Asia drawn by his grandfather when he was a schoolboy in 1889.

Old and faded and watermarked, this map is nonetheless a treasure.  Its elegant, spidery writing draws us back to an era when the British Empire ruled, when Iran was Persia and Thailand was Siam; an era when beautiful handwriting was a skill to be developed and admired.

The map doesn't have a permanent home yet.  At present it's on our sitting room mantelpiece.  However, it is the kind of treasure that we want to keep forever.

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