Lizard legs and the Melbourne Cup

Monday I had spent the previous day moving all the winter clothes to the furthest corner of the wardrobe and inspecting my summer clothes.  Spring brings new challenges to our self esteem in the realisation that our bodies are a year older.  Where did those bingo arms come from?  How did my mother’s cellulite suddenly appear on my thighs? To add to the mix, brilliant sunshine shows off the newest grey highlights kindly provided by nature and children that has been hidden under a beanie for months.

Tuesday is the day our writing group meets, also the third day in a row over 20 degrees C.  As I placed my bag on the floor II caught a glimpse of my ‘lizard leg’s and scrabbled around for a tube of hand cream to rub on. While under the table I noticed  two sets of toes flashed fresh nail polish and that everyone was wearing sandals.

Summer clothes create their own dilemmas. Nearly all my friends admit to owning black one piece bathers for  public beach displays.  What about Melbourne Cup Day?  Can you get away with wearing your orthopaedic shoes with a new dress with spaghetti straps?  In the clothes shops I find myself perusing safe flowery crimplene – I have to slap myself soundly and quickly move away before anyone I know sees me.

Wednesday, one of the painted toenails helped me with spring cleaning project. Winter had returned overnight and we were happy as bag ladies in our old, faded and grubby layers of work clothes, dashing up and down between sheds in the break between showers. Exposing the body has been avoided and thoughts of fake tans and liposuction have faded away for now and look how clean my rocks are!

Knitting with grass

Much as I love spring, I get a bit sad about the longer days as it usually marks the end of the long evenings of knitting. This year I spotted has an amazing range of bamboo and bamboo blended yarns at our fabulous local wool shop that could keep the obsession going a bit longer.

I first fell in love with bamboo fibre when I discovered bamboo t shirts. It was soft, light weight and  drapes like silk. It is highly absorbent .and hypo allergenic. Bamboo, hemp, Tencel™ and cupro are all natural plant based fibres. Bamboo in particular is of special interest.

Because bamboo is a fast growing clumping grass, it can be harvested without the need to replant every year as with cotton and hemp. It grows faster than all the other natural fibre plants and is tolerant of drought and flood, holds soils to prevent erosion from runoff and gives a huge yield per acre without the need for pesticides or fertilisers. 

Unfortunately some processors use chemicals such as caustic soda and carbon disulphide to extract the cellulose from the plant material.. This is no different from the treatments given to cotton waste and other cellulose based fibres, including the treatment of organically grown cotton.  This is changing with the lyocell processing used to make Tencel ™ which uses chemicals in a closed loop process where over 99% of the chemicals are recycled for reuse.  It is possible to process the yarn without chemicals and the garment or yarn should be labelled as such.

The bamboo currently used for yarn is Moso bamboo, a variety from China that can grow up to a metre a day as a timber source. The Chinese have recognised that bamboo has a unique agent they call ‘kun’ that has anti bacterial and antifungal qualities that prevents odour causing bacteria to grow. That’s got to make for less washing! It is the same antimicrobial agent that makes bamboo resistant to pests and diseases (though has no effect on pandas!) Better still, the fibres are more wrinkle resistant while washing and that means less ironing too. The yarn is thermal regulating – keeps you warm in winter and cool in summer. While bamboo is touted as hypo allergenic, chemical residues may cause reactions on sensitive skin but can be avoided by always washing new garments thoroughly before wearing.

This is a product I heartily endorse. The problems in processing are being addressed and I feel these problems are outweighed by its sustainability and the fact that it can be grown, chemically free without the need for large machinery or soil tillage in a range of environments. Such are the desired qualities of bamboo that nano technology is being developed that traps particles of bamboo charcoal into other fibres for use in socks and blankets. Won’t it be great when you don’t have to look outside for the boys’ dirty socks?

Meanwhile, back at the farm...I will continue to knit with my beautiful yarn.

A free pattern is available on my web site and here’s the Margaret River Wool Company.

Knit on!

Grandma's undies

My grandparents never owned a washing machine and had probably never imagined a clothes dryer. As a child I remember tea towels and nappies would be boiled (separately) in the copper and my grandfather would do the rest of the weekly wash in the bath tub.

We lived in a very damp part of the Home Counties. In summer the washing was hung on ropes with hand carved wooden pegs we bought from the gypsies who visited each year and propped with long  forked sticks. In the winter, the washing was hung on a clothes pulley above the kitchen which boasted an electric oven and an open fireplace and was the warmest room in the house. The pulley loaded with wet washing was hauled up into the air, resting near the ceiling where it dried in record time.

When I first moved here, I was delighted with the fact that my Raeburn wood stove in the kitchen and high ceilings meant I could have a pulley of my own. It was cheaply constructed from timber off cuts of 630cm of 40mm x 20mm timber salvaged from old garden chairs and 7 x 180mm lengths of 10mm dowel. A chain was attached with screws at each end and used to hang the builders twine that was then threaded through two small pulleys attached to the ceiling. The cord is knotted to prevent it from coming away and is hitched onto a firmly secured hook set into solid timber.

Please take care that the cord and all other cords are kept out of reach of children. I recently found our ancient poodle with it round his neck, walking around in very confused circle. If he had managed to pull the cord off the hook, the weight of the washing would have strangled him. 

I can put a full load from my washing machine up in the rafters in the evening and most of it is totally dry by morning. My visitors, the ones that notice it, are hugely entertained by it but most people don’t notice it. I do try to remove the underwear from it each morning and to not load it up when I am cooking anything with a strong smell. The dogs may love me smelling of lamb roast but it’s not a great perfume for supposedly clean clothes!

This simple solution to clothes drying uses the heat from the stove, which also heats our hot water (and the house) and there is no tripping over clothes horses or rushing in and out as the rain comes and goes. Spread with a towel, it dries my felting. In summer it can dry herbs and chillies in bunches or lay on fly wire. When not full of washing, it airs the bathroom towels. My ten year old grandson insists he’d like to sleep on it!

Can your clothes dryer do all that and not cost you an extra cent on your power bill?

http://www.nirala-naturally.com/

Return of the hubble bubble

You may remember that a while ago I set up a little trial to see if I could brew a natural citrus enzyme cleaner. Its been three months and a couple of days through the hottest summer on record and I reckon if anything is going to be fermented, it would have done so by now. There have been no signs of anything happening in the jar for a while now so I suspect it has gobbled up all its sugar and settled down. Time to open it up... I put it into a muslin lined sieve over a bottle to strain. The lemon chunks turned to lovely slime when I poked them with my finger. After it sat in the sieve for a while, there was almost nothing left except every vinegar fly in town had come to see what was happening! The smell is pleasant, fresh, lemony, slightly alcoholic and slightly drying to your skin. It looked cloudy at first but settled to a lovely clear liquid.

I set off with a little undiluted brew and some paper towel and tested it on glass, enamel, ceramic tiles, plastic, stainless steel and laminate flooring. It was brilliant on the stainless steel stove hood, cutting through the grease and a weeks dust easily and polishing up nicely with a dry piece of towel. Magic on the bathroom mirror too - no smears. Best of all was the dreaded shower screen where with a little extra elbow grease it cut through the build up of soap scum. The tiles and the laminate floor dried nicely, I was afraid that any remaining sugar residue may leave a sticky residue but it didn't.

I imagine that if you dilute the brew with hot water for greasy areas, you wouldn't have to rub quite so hard. For floor surfaces it is would be great used with a microfibre mop. I am going to add 1% of lemon scented gum essential oil to the bottle to add disinfectant and antibacterial propertiesto it and use it as an all purpose cleaner. It is certainly environmentally friendly and cheap and easy to make. I have another brew due next month that I have made with even less expensive white sugar.

You are not going to see before and after photos - I need to mop the other half of the kitchen floor; explain why one light switch is cleaner than the rest; why there is a nice clean circle of glass in the middle of the shower screen; why only the front of the stove and the handle of the refrigerator are clean. Who am I kidding? I'm the only one who will notice and I can ignore it for days if need be. I'm going to put on another brew to use up the last squishy lemons that would otherwise end up in the compost.

May your cleaning be painless,

nirala

Not so scrappy after all

Behind my armchair I have a mountain of bags and boxes that are no longer hidden. They threaten to topple over the back and I fear that this would be the end of my yarn buying for a while. They contain various yarns for projects in progress, leftovers from projects past and for projects not yet imagined. I am a compulsive collector hoarder of craft materials and shiny things.

My daughter recently gave birth to our fourth grandchild. I have always welcomed the new babies with a handmade cot blanket. Never knowing the sex in advance, they have always been patchwork, multicoloured and bright. With a recurring family allergy to wool, they are usually made from cotton and bamboo or ramie blends of yarn. I can’t throw away the smallest pieces, the colours are so lovely, and these balls are a great way to recycle scraps. They are soft to touch and lightweight and they wipe clean with a damp cloth. The youngest children have either a ball or a cot toy made from off cuts and others have gone to jugglers and other peoples cats.

This is what you’ll need:

Newspaper

5 ply wool or knitting cotton scraps

A ball of scrap wool and a bodkin

Method:

1. Scrunch up the newspaper into tight balls. One double spread of The Australian is enough to create a large ball, a quarter of a sheet, the smallest.

2. Take the scrap ball of wool and begin to wind it around the newspaper ball, taking care to keep the ball as round as possible until the newspaper has disappeared under an even layer of wool. Tuck in the end securely. You should now have something that looks like a ball of wool.

3. Using the bodkin and a 5 ply thread, begin to chain stitch around the ball, fixing the stitches into the wool. When you come to the end of a piece of thread, finish it by threading a few running stitches across the winds of wool.

4.If you find that the wool is slipping as you embroider it, you can run some lines of running stitches over them at any time to help keep them in place.

5. Continue to embroider close rows of chain stitch to cover the ball. If you want to hang the finished ball, leave the ends of three rows as loose thread in the same spot and plait them together when the ball is finished. Trim any loose ends.

6. The balls are easily reshaped by rolling in your hand as you are working, so don’t worry too much if they don’t seem completely round.

During the last few difficult weeks, the process of making these little balls, their soothing roundness and the comforting repetition of the simple task of embroidery have allowed me a place of calm, of softness and quiet normalcy. They now fill a bowl on the table, their bright colours a happy focus in a time of sadness.

nirala

Self publishing or blowing your own trumpet!

What is it that makes time accelerate at this time of year? I nearly fainted when I saw a sign saying 'two weeks till Christmas.'I think that should have been until or 'til, but these signs are meant to annoy us.

The arrival of the tempeh book has sent me into an extra mad flurry of activity. Self publishing is a wonderful way to explore your creativity. For a reasonable sum, anyone can publish whatever they want providing they are prepared to learn some publishing basics. Free from the restrictions of publishers, editors and designers, Your creativity can be given free reign without the restrictions of publishers, editors, designers and deadlines.There is no one telling you what to do. What you don't get is a dedicated team of professionals who will keep you in line, check your spelling, keep the book within budget and most importantly promote it for you. There is a price for all that creative freedom.

Here I am, packing little bundles to present to retailers, posting emails to all my friends, negotiating web servers, links and other technical stuff I usually avoid.

Christmas panic lurks over my left shoulder and boxes of books over my right. The printers tell us that if you can break even on your first print run (get your money back), that is the sign of a successful self published book. I have let myself be a little proud of my first solo effort - here it is...

'Tempeh' gives you an overview of the history, nutritional value and the use of tempeh as well as recipes for every meal. Here is an Indonesian style recipe from the book that is quick and easy to prepare.

Sticky Tempeh

Halve this recipe if you intend to serve it as a side dish.

600g tempeh, cut into thin strips
2 Tbsp + 2 Tbsp oil
2 brown shallots or 1 brown onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 red chillies, sliced
2 tsp fresh ginger, chopped finely
Pinch of shrimp paste (optional)
80gms palm sugar, chopped
3 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp tamarind pulp
Salt

Fry the tempeh using the first 2 Tbsp of oil, until brown and set aside.
Add the rest of the oil to the fry pan and sauté the garlic, chillies, ginger and shallots with the shrimp paste if used for 2 minutes.
Add the sugar, water and tamarind and continue to stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Return the tempeh to the pan and continue to cook, stirring gently until the sauce has reduced and caramelised.
Season with salt to taste.
Garnish with fresh chillies and serve with rice or as a side dish with ‘wet’ curries.

Eat well,


nirala

I'd rather clean the pantry!

Twenty years ago, my teenage children pooled their resources to buy a Commodore 64 computer and we became a high tech family. We attached the lead to the control, plugged it in and turned it on. They were totally hooked from the first moment: eyes glazed, hands glued to the joystick, screeching at the screen and each other as the games got more exciting. One short session playing ‘tennis’ with its irritating electronic ‘pock, pock’, and I was over it - I have never been much of a sportsperson.
It was five years later I was dragged kicking and screaming to buy my first computer after Nerys, as always at least ten steps ahead of me as far as new technology was concerned, convinced me that I couldn’t live without one.
The new machine was delivered and the man from the shop drove seventy kilometers to show us how to set it up and drive it. It was all part of the service. This first computer was my friend and helper for seven years. We knew and liked each other and I didn't mind having my early morning coffees at the internet café.
With plans to go travelling, I finally decided to upgrade to a wireless enabled laptop. It was pushy, always wanting more: a decent keyboard, a hand held mouse, a wireless modem for the house, extra memory, a carry bag and someone stronger than me to carry it. We were never friends, maybe it was because I bought it from overseas and it didn’t understand English. Within two years everyone close to me, fed up with my computer dramas, was urging me to get rid of it.
I spotted an advertisement for a ‘future-proofed’ computer with a memory that number one son gently informed me was not called a tetra bite but a terra byte. (We were probably out of milk at the time!) This computer had it all, the shop was within walking distance and the credit card to hand.
That was three weeks ago, since then I have had: an unbelievably unhelpful dialog with the shop; a near divorce; gallons of Rescue Remedy; a trip to the city with the computer; sessions with a patient friend and his bottle of Bombay Sapphire, and another with my genius son. I have purchased blank DVD’s for back up, power boards and updated programs after being bullied by Microsoft. Today I have the internet working, the home network upgraded, the security is on, my files have been transferred, the printer and the camera have been installed and for the last two days I have been avoiding the office and cleaning out the pantry instead.
Now, with fingers crossed, shelves cleaned, I am ready to blog again. This machine has cost me a similar amount in dollars as my first; the cost to my sanity has been much higher. While I can appreciate all that it will (eventually) do, I want to know whatever happened to the simple life and that lovely man from the computer shop?
Nirala

This is why we were doing this!

Well, we did it! I've had the books for over a week but have been travelling and Nirala hasn't even seen them yet as they are up in Perth and she's down South however, she should get them in the next few days and I'm sure will be adding a blog entry of her own.


These photos (and there are thirty two) give you some idea of what to expect inside the book.

Between Nirala and me we have nearly twenty years experience traveling and more than fifty years in various aspects of the food industry.
Together (think 'blood, sweat and tears!) we have produced this neat little book crammed with delicious recipes that combine fresh produce with the best of ‘instant’ foods.

There is a wealth of information contained within the cover including:

* Easy and delicious recipes from breakfasts to dinner
* Cooking with one or two pots only
* Tips for shopping and stocking the pantry
* How to cook in your doona
* Making yoghurt and growing sprouts
* Creating quick gourmet treats for the Happy Hour

Imagine how thrilled I was to read this unsolicited testimonial:

***********************
'Your book will be a hit! Why? because I have the E-book and my kids eat everything I have cooked out of it !!! Now that is truly an amazing thing! A lot of the time my kids don't eat what they are given; not out of your book though, eaten everything and even asked for seconds!

Delicious recipes and I don't need to use every single pot and pan in my house to cook one meal!

This will appeal to everyone, not just the traveller!

Lindsay Cheesewright
http://faeriemajikk.com/
*****************

I think the book is looking good...it's printed on glossy white paper and perfect bound with a hardwearing glossy laminated cover making it robust enough for use in the kitchen!

At the moment we have it for sale for AUD 18.00 in my Etsy shop http://neryspurchon.etsy.com/ and our website http://www.potionstopesto.com/ and have decided to restrict it to Australian sales only as it's postage free to buyers in Oz.

Looking forward to hearing your comments!

Good Gourd Again!

The only limits to what you can make with gourds are set by your imagination. Over the years I have made rain sticks, lamps and lampshades, dolls and dolls houses, boxes, bird houses, peg baskets, bowls, earrings, bracelets and even a suit of armour! Here are some practical things you need to know to get you started.

Prepare:
First you need to clean your gourds. Fill a large sink or bowl with hot soapy water and soak for twenty minutes or more. if you have time it makes the process easier. Using a large copper dish scourer, begin to rub the gourd. The outer layer of skin should begin to slough away. This is messy job but it is exciting to watch the patterns appear. If your gourd has no mould, the epidermis layer may become hard and waxy. If you are planning to paint your gourd later, you will need to scrape this off in the same way.

Design:
Draw your cutting lines on your gourd once you have decided what you are making – the gourds will usually tell you what they want to be! A slice cut from a gourd I was planning to make into a thumb piano looked like part of the famous Madonna bra and set me off on my female suit of armour – the half made thumb piano is still in the shed!

Cut:
A vice or rubber mat to secure your piece while you cut can help prevent accidents. Cutting tools may include Stanley knives, hacksaws, a jigsaw, Dremel or even a band saw for larger gourds. Unless you are planning to rejoin the pieces afterwards, don’t worry if your cuts are a little rough as edges can be treated like timber and sanded smooth later.
It is recommended that you wear a dust mask while cutting, some people have an allergic reaction to gourd dust and everyone will notice it tastes bitter. You may also like to wear rubber gloves if you have very sensitive skin.

Scrape:
Now you have opened the gourd you will see the soft and spongy inner layer that holds the seeds. There is also sometimes a satiny coating on the inside of the shell you may choose to leave. Scrape the seeds and the lining away with a spoon or metal scraper until it is as clean as you would like. You can sand the inside for a finer finish.

Decorate:
I treat gourds as I would timber. After sketching designs on the gourd, I enhance them by burning the pattern into the gourd with a soldering iron. The soldering iron can also be used to burn small holes in the gourd. The designs are then filled using wood dyes which enhance reather than hide the natural patterns of the gourd. For small areas I use a paintbrush, larger ones a cloth dipped in dye to spread it easily and evenly. Acrylic and enamel paints both work well too, as do coloured inks. Remember that any stain used on the inside of the gourd will be brighter in colour. Thicker shelled gourds can also be carved like you would a lino cut, using the same tools.

Protect:
Protect your surface with varnish a wax finish, furniture polish or varnish on the outside.

The bitter taste of the gourd can be removed by repeated filling and rinsing with water with a teaspoon of bicarb added to it until the taste has gone, if you wish to drink from it. Traditionally, the gourds used for water “sweated’ through the skin which kept the water cool for those cowboys in the desert. You may prefer seal with several coats of safflower oil, letting each coat harden between applications to prevent leakage.

Construct:
Drill, cut, glue, hinge, lace, weave upon, bead, wire, cut and generally treat like a thin piece of wood.
Attach beads, driftwood, macramé, brass rings or gourd shapes for handles
To make the suit of armour I cut, shaped and decorated individual pieces of gourd then pierced them so I could thread cut “brass” curtain rings through the holes which I then soldered up to join the pieces together. You have to be rather insane to do this… it took me over a year.
If you use the round Cantina gourds for boxes the lid you cut will sit back onto the bottom if you cut carefully and don’t sand too much away.
Line gourds if you wish by gluing fabric, soft leather or fake fur inside.
Hinges can be made with soft leather or small jewelry box type hinges glued or tacked on.

If anyone has a picture of something insane they have made from gourds or a question about gourds, please post a comment and I will do my best to answer.
That would be totally gourdeuos!

nirala

Remind me, why are we doing this?

Two grown women sit transfixed in a caravan in a paddock, four hours drive from the remotest capital city in the world, watching a red line move angonisingly slowly from left to right on a computer screen.

The adventure had begun nine months ago in the same caravan hundreds of kilometres to the north. Nerys asked me if I would help her write a book of recipes and hints for travelers. On a sunny winter’s morning, it seemed like a nice little hobby activity.

The difficulties of living hundreds of kilometers apart became obvious in the size of our telephone bills and the number of emails that flew back and forth. I bought and learnt to use a new camera, updated my computer programs and ate many wonderful stone cold meals beautifully arranged for photographs. There was so much food being cooked, I had large dinner parties and sent out doggy bags to grateful friends.

Early in 2009, Easy! was launched as an E book. It wasn’t long after that Nerys decided that as not everyone traveling had access to a computer, we should look into self publishing a hard copy. Let the fun begin!

Gremlins in the system ate full stops from the ends of sentences, photographs that had been square now all needed to be redone in another format, spaces appeared where none had been before. The questions came faster than we could figure out the answers and there were more problems than there seemed to be solutions for every day. Many times we were heard to comment that we would rather burn the damn book rather than do another final final final proof read.

It's nine months since we had that original discussion and the red line was our baby winging her way through cyberspace to be printed. Our sanity was sorely tried but in our best professional manner, buoyed by endless cups of tea, liquorice allsorts, extreme silliness and Prakash's great lunches we persevered. Sanity and serenity had to take a back seat with everything and everyone else.

The message on the screen read “Your message has been sent.” One day soon the cartons will arrive and like all mother’s we’ll soon forget the labour pains.