beautiful blooms

I'm marvelling at God's commitment to aesthetics :)

medical melbourne

One of the things I love about living in Melbourne is the after hours medical care. Most of the general practices seem to be linked up with a medical deputising service, which just means that you phone your medical practice and after hours it gets patched through to a deputising service and a gp will come to your house. And it's bulk billed!!!!!!!
You still need to wait for a couple of hours for a Dr to come, but at least you can wait in the comfort of your own home. Something we've had to do quite a bit as our kids' ear infections always seem to manifest on a Friday or Saturday evening.

There is also a super clinic about 15mins away which also has a 24hour pharmacy. Great for when you drop your baby panadol bottle on the tiles at 1am.

louisa and julia

I had intended to start this blog 22 months ago when we moved interstate. I wanted to be thoughtful about living in a new city and make the most of this new phase of life. But of course life was more hectic than I expected and harder than I cared to admit.

Part of the inspiration for this was having read My Life in France by Julia Child.
I find reading autobiographies a bit strange, but I guess whatever you read has its own biases. Although at least this book draws heavily on many letters written at the time (and obviously not intended for publication). Anyway I was happy to go with the flow and it seemed as though Child was pretty open about some hard times. It focuses on her time living in Paris (1948-1956) and how it radically changed her life.

But what I really loved was how Julia Child really embraced her move to a new city. She really tried to live like a local. She worked hard at learning the language and the customs. It changed how she cooked, how she shopped and how she entertained and made friends. And obviously she built an enormously successful career out of this immersion.

Now, I’ll admit there are a few differences between us and our life circumstances but as I’ve been settling in to life in Melbourne I’ve really tried to emulate this attitude. It has been made much easier by having wonderful family here as well as a new church family. But I can't help feeling a bit torn. The struggle continues to be how to be conscious daily of my true home, my heavenly home while enjoying the blessings of life in such a wonderful city.

Anyway, I hope to post some reflections on life in a new city over the next little while. 

w.i.p. wednesday

This is a crafting phenomenon which refers to 'work in progress' wednesday... where I can give you a sneak peak at how some of my knitting projects are progressing. Some will have to be more obscure than others...

First, here are some socks I'm working on for myself at the moment:

They’re called ‘on-your-toes socks’ by Ann Budd. It's a free pattern available here. They’re a pretty simple rib pattern that won’t get lost in the beautiful colour scheme of the yarn. They’re also an opportunity to try out some new techniques like starting your socks at the toe (most sock patterns start at the cuff) and also a short-row heel (rather than a heel flap). 

Here's the cool toe.                          And the short row heel.

They're on hold at the moment while I work on some more pressing projects, but I've almost finished the first sock. :)

sushi deconstruction

So I think this will be the last gourmet post for the week, back to some plain fare for the next few days. Tonight's taste sensation was sushi for the kids and sushi de-constructed for the adults.

recipe: sushi rice salad
source: delicious. November 2011

outer suburbia mods: swapped
- sesame seeds for nigella seeds (!?!?!)
- freshly podded peas for edamame beans
- smoked salmon and prawns for sashimi grade salmon

the kid's sushi was quickly de-constructed too :-)

verdict: I prefer sushi but this is heaps less fiddly. Plus it might be more interesting if I had all the right ingredients....

PS what am I going to do with the rest of my bunch of radishes????

addicted to sock knitting

I've been knitting for a while now. Mainly children's jumpers (they're quick and you can be sure they'll fit them at some stage), and accessories such as scarves and hats. But to tell you the truth I was intimidated by socks plus I didn't much see the point (I don't wear socks that often and you can just buy them quite cheaply). Well obviously that's all changed.

This is because
- they're easy to transport around
- they don't take that long to make
- they make a good gift for the person who has everything
- you can try out a new technique without committing to a large project
- I was nervous about using DPNs
- of the sense of achievement in facing your fears

So my not so secret project is to knit socks for some of the significant people in my life. I'll post a picture once they've been gifted. And you can wait with bated breath to see if there's one on the way for you :)

Here's a picture of the first pair of socks that I ever knitted. I've ravelled them here. I'm really very happy with them.

I currently have four pairs on the go which I think is a little excessive. I'm looking forward to completing some of them soon.

the big pizza cook-off: authentico vs delicious.

We've been making our own pizzas for awhile now. But we just keep coming back to a pizza with a basic napolitana sauce, salami, ham, mushrooms, capsicum, olives and pizza cheese. So it's stiff competition but the following pizza looked so yummy I thought we'd try something new.

Here's old faithful which Giggi and Badger were happy to eat.

The challenger:
recipe: John Wilson's taleggio & thyme pizza
source: delicious., November 2011

mods: way too much oil and cheese in the recipe, although I did tear the cheese too small. Also I couldn't find any taleggio so I went with another soft washed-rind cheese

verdict: we all preferred the original... although I do think I should give it another go with bigger chunks of the cheese...

BTW still going strong with the Norved's dough recipe. And we're loving the pizza stone for extra crispy pizza.