what's in season?

Autumn is here. The tomato vines in our vegie garden are feeling the beat of the rain falling hard on them today. I plucked the last of the cherry tomatoes yesterday and we have gone from giving away bags of them, to treasuring each of the last ones as if they’re rare and precious gems.

I stopped at the local farm this morning and filled my eco-bag with parsnips, potatoes, onions, eggs, coriander and ginger. Pete pulled a pumpkin from our garden that will be chopped up and added to a pot to meet with the ingredients from the farm (minus the eggs) and become pumpkin soup. I love chopped fresh  coriander scattered across pumpkin soup.

This morning on his way out the door Pete requested more dahl, so I’ll make a pot of that too another good match with the coriander.

And with so much silverbeet in the garden my version of quiche is on the ‘to cook’ list this afternoon. I never use cream to make a quiche it’s too rich for me, I’ll use some fetta and ricotta and post the recipe and photos here another time soon.

Back to celebrating autumn. I like to honour the change of seasons. It is one simple way to reconnect or stay connected with nature. After 5 years of being part of the Steiner community here on the Peninsula, the honouring of the seasons was something I enjoyed about the Steiner philosophy (I’m by no means a strict follower of all the Steiner ways, but taking River to Steiner playgroup and kinder was a perfect way for me to meet like minded folk).

A simple way to acknowledge the seasons is to have a nature table in your home decorated in the colours of the season and with some of nature’s treasures, the most obvious one for autumn of course being leaves in all their varying colours. And perhaps some fruits and vegetables of the season.

Autumn is the season for these fruits and vegetables...

This list is a compilation from here , here and here .

Fruit

Apples, bananas, pears, Valencia oranges, figs, grapes, melons and strawberries.

Vegetables

Beans, beetroot, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, capsicum, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chillies, corn, cucumber, eggplant, leeks, onions, parsnip, peas, potato, pumpkin, silverbeet, spinach, squash, sweet potatoes, turnips and zucchini.

On this rainy afternoon a crafty idea to do with children (or for grown-ups feeling arty) is to make a seasonal produce poster and stick on your fridge. Write or print out the list of fruit and veg in season then cut out pictures of fruit and veg from magazines or draw and colour them in.

For further seasonal produce information and inspiration visit The Melbourne Foodie, The Foodies’ Diary. The Foodies’ Diary takes over from The Seasonal Produce Diary the first one written by renowned Melbourne chefs and food writers Alan Campion and Michele Curtis.

city limits

I was in Melbourne yesterday and was reminded how if you have never known anything else but city life, you either become desensitized to noise, traffic, pollution and the quick pace of living or tolerate it (or perhaps even like it!)

I moved out of Melbourne six years ago, first to live by the Yarra River in Warrandyte and now to the ti tree lined coast on the Mornington Peninsula. My visits back to the city have become less frequent and when friends ask would you ever move back, or do you miss it? The answer is no.

There is much to love about Melbourne, yes the coffee, the bookshops, the galleries, the diversity of people. Today though I witnessed stressful city living.

After one of those quintessential Melbourne cafe bites to eat, I returned to my car parked outside a supermarket in Elsternwick with my mother-in-law ( MIL) and Sol when we heard a commotion and turned around to see a young guy around 20 years of age being wrestled to the ground by two other guys about 2 metres from where we were standing. I ushered MIL into the car, put Sol in and quickly got myself in. I looked back at the three guys and slowly realised two were plain clothes security guards. The adrenalin pumping through the three of them was high, the security guys aggressively held the young guy down for a moment and then dragged him to his feet and marched him towards an office in the supermarket. One security guard then reappeared on a mobile phone, presumably to the police. I wondered what he could have stolen or done that warranted the level of force they used to apprehend him, he didn't appear to be trying too hard to run off. MIL and I were both feeling churned up by the scene.

I drove MIL home and as I headed to the freeway back to the coast I stopped into a petrol station up the road from MIL's house, put fuel in my car and when I came out from paying, just outside the door were a well dressed man and woman arguing loudly. Their voices grew to shouting, they were waving their arms in each others faces and slamming the doors of their latest model cars.

It was time for me to get out of the city.

The longer I live outside of the city the more sensitive I become to its pace and all that goes with it. That's not to say that shop-lifting, road rage and the like don't happen outside the city too, they do but the overall pace and quality of life to my mind is better by the beach or surrounded by trees.

To anyone dreaming of making a sea or tree change, I say start looking into making your dream a reality. It may mean being more creative about how you live and earn money, it may mean down sizing, it may mean changing your priorities.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Start spending more weekends outside of the city
Read the towns local papers and notice boards to get a sense of the community
Go to local markets
Research job opportunities and schools in the area you like
If you decide to make the move, renting a house before buying can be a better option until you settle in, particularly if you are planning to move and commute to the city for work (commuting not ideal in my opinion).

My top of the list reasons for moving out of the city, that I wouldn't trade for any amount of great coffee, art or fashion:

Clean air
No traffic
Slower pace
Clean air
Reduced cost of living
Living closer to nature is better for your health
Clean air
Smaller schools
Endless beach days
Watching my boys leaping the waves then rolling in the sand
Did I mention clean air?

our generation

My husband Pete works closely with Indigenous Elders and communities around Australia, in Pete's words he "celebrates culture" through his work such as his books Elders: Wisdom from Australian Indigenous Leaders, Yolgnu Mali - Aboriginal Spirit and My People's Dreaming.


It is through Pete that my insight into culture has grown and sparked within me a fire to create and take every opportunity to be part of solving the inherent ignorance and discrimination in Australian government policy and attitudes generally towards Indigenous people.  And for those insights I am grateful.

Pete brought this DVD home and I recommend seeking out a copy and watching it.

It is excellent in its balanced, honest documentation of Indigenous people's lives both in the past and today.

Of the many things that stood out to me in the film was a shot of a poster from the 1950's promoting assimilation, seeing that poster reinforced in my mind that Australian government policy is still one of assimilation, that Aboriginal people are expected to live like white people is still the dominant way of thinking.

I dream that the attitudes and policies change to one of genuine respect for the knowledge and wisdom of Aboriginal people, with a willingness to recognise and value their land, culture and traditions.

The eloquence of the speakers in the film brings clarity to what at times seems like such a complex situation that the answer is out of reach. After watching the film I see the answer is close at hand and is simple, it is living the answer that seems to be the complex part. If you're interested in living the answer check out these ways to Take Action on the Our Generation website:

Speak Up
Get Involved
Find out more
Spread the Word

Everyone can do something.

time to cook dahl

My man and boys are a bit fragile this week with coughs, fevers and sneezes. And er, almost a broken nose and knocked out teeth. River was tearing through the house boy-style at 7.30am yesterday and ran smack into the brick wall, yes there was blood from both nostrils, blood lip, blood gums, blood, blood, blood. No screaming or panicking from River – that was for me to do internally while getting wet facewasher and ice. Is there nothing a wet facewasher can’t fix? Fortunately I can continue to answer that with a wet facewasher fixes everything. Once I mopped up the blood and placed the ice on his rapidly swelling lips I assessed that all teeth were firmly in place and nose was not broken.

Two sick and one injured male in the house means my nerves are freyed.

Time to cook dahl.  

There’s something comforting and soothing about dahl, the cooking and the eating. I lugged four kilos of red lentils plus kilos of other dry goods home from our bulk buy group yesterday. The sack of lentils was staring at me from the bench all day and the thought of finding jars and space for it in the cupboard was too much. Cracking it open to make dahl and soothe the household was way more appealing. (In case you’re wondering dahl can be spelt dhal, daal, dahl or dal).

I’ve only ever made dahl with lentils but it can be made with other pulses.

I cook it with a different combination of spices each time. I’d be happy to eat it as is, however I think it is the accompaniments that make it special. Yes some rice, a simple dollop of beautiful natural yoghurt (sugar free of course) pappadams sometimes but always some sort of pickle.

The recipe below is for the dahl I made yesterday. Increase or decrease the garlic and vary spices depending on the flavours you like.

Speaking of flavour you can try my sister-in-law Davini’s finishing touch that elevates her dahl to heavenly heights. Davini has a fantastic feel for cooking beautiful wholesome food and the secret to her recipe is once you have the dahl simmering add the juice of one lemon and then place half a lemon, rind and flesh into the pot and leave until done. I love the edge the lemon juice gives to the flavours.

Dahl to soothe the day

1 large onion chopped

8 cloves of garlic crushed

1 generous teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon whole coriander seeds (as well as the flavour I like the crunch they add. Mustard seeds are good too)

1-2 teaspoon ground tumeric

5cm ginger root peeled and grated finely

3 cups split red lentils

25g butter or ghee

2.5 litres of water

Melt butter in large heavy based pot and fry onion until soft.

Add spices, ginger and garlic and fry for a further couple of minutes.

Pour in the lentils and water bring to boil then gently simmer for about 30 minutes. The dahl will be quite thick at this stage. If you prefer it a bit more soupier add some more water. We have recently switched from using sea salt to using Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (similar taste to tamari you can but it from health food stores) so I add Bragg’s to season the dahl towards the end of the cooking.

Pete’s tomato accompaniment

With a seemingly endless supply of tomatoes this year from our garden there is a new recipe involving tomatoes being created daily in our kitchen. Pete threw this together, he loves chilli and I don’t put chilli in the dahl to keep it child friendly but adding chilli to an accompaniment is the perfect way to keep everyone’s tastebuds and tummies happy.

1 large onion sliced into rings

3-4 medium tomatoes chopped roughly

1 small chilli sliced finely

a generous splash of Bragg’s seasoning

a knob of butter

Melt butter and gently fry onion til soft add tomatoes and chilli put a lid on and simmer for an hour. If it there is too much liquid leave the lid off and simmer to reduce.

The Hungry Girls’ eggplant pickle

Thanks to the Hungry Girls’ for permission to share this recipe from their second volume in The Hungry Girls’ Cookbook series. These clever, creative ladies  have recently released volume 3 check it out here .

I didn’t make eggplant pickle this time with the dahl but the recipe is excellent so wanted to add it.

Rachel Pitts is the recipe writer in the Hungry Girls trio, Rachel’s recipes are

my kind of good food, always nourishing, uncomplicated but with an interesting flavour twist.

2 eggplants

1 Spanish onion

2 lemons

1 small bunch coriander, roots removed, chopped

1 small bunch mint, leaves picked and chopped

¾ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons olive oil

Trim the tops off the eggplants and cut them in half lengthwise.

Place on a tray facing up and cover with foil.

Roast in a 200 C oven for around 40 minutes, until soft when pierced with a fork and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, slice the Spanish onion wafer-thin and place in a mixing bowl.

Add the juice of the lemons and stir.

Leave for around 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the acid of the lemon has softened the onion and turned it iridescent pink.

Dice the eggplant and add it to the onion along with the coriander, mint, salt, sugar and oil.

Stir well and taste, adding extra salt or sugar if needed.

Happy cooking! And if you feel like it please share your dahl recipes.

no comment

Hi Folks,
To those of you lovely readers eager to leave a comment who have emailed to say you can't work out how to leave comments no it is not that you are technologically incompetent, it is more that I have just this moment discovered I didn't have the correct settings on my comments section to make it easy for you just leave your name rather than sign in using weird things I've never heard of either such as OpenID?!
So there you go I still have much to learn about this blogging thing too.
I've changed the settings and now when you click on comments a box will pop up and you can write your comment and to leave your name and or URL without any signing in bizzo.
Look forward to reading your words.
Nikki

book talk: Playground compiled by Nadia Wheatley

I'm doing my small part for Culture today sharing this fantastic book compiled by Nadia Wheatley.

Playground is so beautifully put together, the artwork by leading Indigenous artists, photographs, and stories sit alongside each other in such a way that readers from age 2 to 102 will be touched by the truth and wisdom of Aboriginal culture.

In contrast to my post yesterday about modern living and the allure of television, the opening paragraph of Playground sums up how times have changed.

"In traditional time, kids didn't have to set off from home in the morning in order to go to school. The whole country was a vast outdoor classroom, which contained everything that the First Children needed to know. The land was also their playground." p.6

There are 18 chapters covering almost every aspect of traditional life. 'Playing in the water', 'Cubbies and toys', and 'Going fishing' are among my boys favorites. 

In the chapter ‘Playing in the water’ there’s a photograph of 7 young boys at a waterhole near Ramingining, Northern Territory, climbing out to the end of a tree branch to take it in turns to jump into the water. My boys love to look at this photo and hear the stories about how big kids looked after the little kids near the water and how the children were told scary stories of mythical creatures such as the  bunyip waiting in the water as way of keeping them close, preventing them from wandering too far and getting into danger.

The appeal of sharing Playground with young children is that you can dip in and out of the chapters. The personal accounts in each chapter are short and evocative. It is a book rich with insights for children and adults.

'Playground - listening to stories from country and from inside the heart' compiled by Nadia Wheatley, published by Allen & Unwin. RRP $39.99

TV:opiate for the masses?

There’s a new rule in our house: TV only on the weekend. Before River started school, each day around noon I would put Sol in bed for a nap and River was allowed to watch ‘a show’. A show was either a DVD or programs on ABC2 (a commercial free station dedicated to programs for preschool aged children).

Depending on the length of Sol’s nap, River spent between one and two hours a day in front of the screen. Multiply that by 7 days and he was watching around 14 hours of television per week. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with this but it was the only block of time during the day I had to work, make phonecalls, return emails etc; The part I felt ok with was that the content he was watching was not commercial or violent or aggressive. The part I didn’t feel ok with is that I felt too lazy to change a pattern we had fallen into.

I have a few friends who don’t have a television in their house and their children spend their time being creative or playing outside. Because there isn’t television in the house there isn’t the option to watch it. For those of us living with a television, limiting the viewing time is the task.

I didn’t announce to River the change in viewing hours I just made the decision, confirmed it with Pete that was our new plan. When River came home from school and asked ‘Can I watch a show?’ I said, ‘No. You can watch a show on the weekend but not during the week.’ He asked why and I explained there are plenty of other things to do besides watch TV. River didn’t protest (phew!); he just got on with playing.

Even for us adults turning on the teev and zoning out can be relaxing, but overall I think watching television makes people lazy - body, mind and soul!

What do you think? Do you have a TV? How much does your family watch?

Read what one work-at-home-mum writes about TV as babysitter, and for some research findings on how much is too much? read here .

Saba's story

Saba Button's story was on the front page of The Australian newspaper today. The story moved me deeply. I spent the time I would have been writing this post earlier today writing to the letters page of The Australian. My heart goes out to Saba's parents Kirsten and Mick Button, people I have never met but as a parent I have immense empathy for what has happened to their little girl and the ripple effect it has on their family.

As reported in The Australian today, Saba Button received the Fluvax influenza vaccination in 2010 and as a direct result of suffering febrile convulsions caused by the vaccination she is now brain damaged. Saba was in perfect health when she received the vaccination at 11 months. Now almost three Saba has epilepsy and has to be fed through a tube. Fluvax has since been banned for use in children under five. It has though been selected for Australia's flu immunisation program this year.

The photographs below show Saba and her mum and Professor Peter Collignon the photos are taken from a story published in The Australian in May last year titled Virus in the system written by Natasha Bita. It is an excellent feature article about the influenza vaccine and it is a must read for anyone considering flu vaccine or for that matter vaccination of any kind. Natasha Bita's reporting of this issue is exceptionally well balanced, unlike nearly every other piece written in mainstream media on the topic of vaccination.

Professor Peter Collignon (left) says last year's flu vaccine might have caused more harm than good in otherwise healthy children; Kirsten Button (centre) with baby Saba, 2, who has brain damage (picture: Frances Andrijich); and Saba when she was a "perfectly happy and healthy baby". Source: The Australian


Reading the report in The Australian this morning I wondered why children so young were being vaccinated for the flu? how many children get the flu each year? do any die? So I did a search and came up with this information (which I included in my letter to the editor) taken from Department of Health and Ageing Australian influenza report 2011 (No.14 - 30 September 2011), in it I read "In 2011, 14 influenza associated deaths have been notified to the NNDSS, with a median age of 47 years." 


And this "The Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit (APSU) conducts seasonal surveillance of children aged 15 years and under who are hospitalised with severe complications of influenza. Between 1 July and 18 October 2011, there have been 46 hospitalisations associated with severe influenza complications in children, including 20 ICU admissions. Of the 32 hospitalisations with completed questionnaires, around half of these hospitalisations were associated with pandemic (H1N1) 2009 infection, and 13 were noted as having underlying chronic medical conditions." 


The report did not state how many of these children were vaccinated. 

As of June 2010 the Australian Bureau of Statistics (report 3235.0) showed the population of children under 15 was 4.23 million. 

46 children hospitalised with severe influenza complications out of some 4.23 million, to me suggests that the risk of contracting a severe bout of influenza under the age of 15 is low.

Sadly it is too late for Kirsten Button to weigh up the risks of not vaccinating Saba based on these figures. Saba was in perfect health, she did not have an underlying chronic medical condition. 

She now has an irreversible condition that there is no price that can be paid to compensate how this has changed Saba's life and that of her family. At the expense of Saba's well being the learning to come out of this is for all Australians is to go the extra distance in informing themselves before they put their trust in their doctors hands and agree to any and every vaccination they are offered. 

Contrary to the amount of pressure placed on parents to vaccinate their children you do have a choice. Of course no parent wants to see their child with a severe or chronic illness as I was asked by a local general practitioner when she learnt I had chosen not to vaccinate my sons. Nor does any parent want or deserve their children to be accidental test cases for vaccines. 

Please take the time to read Virus in the system I feel it is the least we can do as a community to show support for the Button family and other families who have suffered as a result of vaccines.

love your planet

Spending Valentine's Day at the Myer Mural Hall with 500 - yes 500 - frocked up, chatty and cheerful women for the Cool Australia 'Love Your Planet' lunch was a fun and informative way to celebrate the day.

I came away from the lunch being inspired by Great Women.

Debbie Cox was the keynote speaker, an Australian woman now living in the Congo working with the Jane Goodall Institute  (JGI). From her childhood Debbie dreamed of working with chimpanzees and she is living her dream and making the world a better place in doing so.

JGI was founded by primatologist Jane Goodall in 1977. Jane arrived in Tanzania in 1960 as a 26 year old to study the wild chimpanzees of the area. This began her life's work.

We are each given this life to live just once and the unrelenting dedication of Jane Goodall to continue her work saving and improving the lives of chimpanzees in the face of immense environmental degradation is truly awe inspiring. Since beginning her work over 40 years ago, Jane has extended her focus on primates to the environment and humanitarian concerns. Jane sees that animals, people and nature are part of an interdependent ecosystem.

Jane is quoted as saying "the greatest danger to our future is apathy". So true. We can all do something. It would be easy for any activist or conservationist to become overwhelmed and give up but it is their dedication and vision for a more positive future that I find inspiring and gives me the energy to act within my own community and country.

Now I've talked about some of the Great Women and their stories in the Mural Hall yesterday, depending on how you look at it there were about 6 brave or lucky men there yesterday one being photographer, Antarctic adventurer and Climate Project Presenter Jason Kimberley. Jason is also the founder of Cool Australia and is working to put sustainability firmly in the curriculum of Australian schools. Rather than teach about the environment as a subject that sits separately to maths, english, geography etc; the idea behind Cool Australia programs is that those subjects are taught through topics relevant to sustainability such as climate change, energy, forests and so on. I think that this is a fantastic concept because in my way of seeing the world the health of our natural world is paramount and is woven into every facet of being human.

What issues move you to action? In your community? Your family? Globally?

move it or lose it

My sister-in-law Davini who is a fabulous wholefoodie mama to four, asked me recently how I was feeling after doing my 12 week detox (no - sugar in any form, wheat, dairy, alcohol, caffeine or fruit). I said I felt great but I miss feeling fit like I was before I had children. Davini immediately related remembering the days when her children were under 6 years like mine, ‘It’s hard isn’t it to fit in exercise with little ones,’ she said thoughtfully and then added casually, ‘unless you’re really committed’.

The word ‘committed’ was the aha! moment for me. Davini’s right, I’ve been talking about improving my fitness for a few years now. Just hearing that word changed something inside of me. I am by no means a couch potato but I’ve been wanting to up the fitness ante for a while, I am committed so I am going to do things differently to last year and the one before that starting with working my way through this list of ways to exercise even while looking after my 2-year-old boy full time.

I’m not one for excuses.

Buy a skipping rope

Dance around the house more – sounds daggy but good cardio!

Try out local gym that offers child minding

Personal training with friends to split the cost and child minding

Buy or borrow from the library workout DVD’s

Increase playing active games with River and Sol

Commit to two yoga classes a month

If you want to improve your fitness I hope this list gives you some ideas and inspiration. Feel free share some more…

oh and if you're into Valentine's Day hope it is all you wish it to be. I'm spending today in Melbourne going to the 'Love Your Planet' lunch organised by Cool Australia and The Jane Goodall Institute. More about that tomorrow.