Weekend Reading and Home

Hello everyone!  It's Saturday morning here, I've just come back from doing a small top-up grocery shop, and now I'm here at the screen with the fan on. It's a big football weekend here and I noticed a lot of men at the supermarket, with their children, shopping for BBQ and snack foods. Lots of steaks, sausages, salads, crackers, cheese, soft drinks, lollies and whatever else to fill bellies when they have their long awaited football grand final parties later today.  I hope the mums were still in bed having a sleep in but I'm guessing they were up getting the house ready for guests.

I closed the gate behind me when I came home and I'm looking forward to a quiet day with Hanno and Gracie. If there is any excitement here today it might be a movie later this afternoon but it could also be just pottering around in the garden watching the birds.

I'm getting used to the warmer temperatures and even though I know just how hot and humid it will be in a few months, at the moment it feels good to be warming up. So, what have I done this week?  Well, apart from the regular cooking, cleaning and gardening, I cleaned some kitchen drawers, got rid of some  drinking glasses but I still need to reorganise my tea towel and dishcloth drawer. I'll do that next week.

Assorted bowls and lids. I use old crockery lids and silicone lids for the many bowls I use.

I changed the face of the blog using the photo above from the lounge room. I'm currently working on adding an emailing service to the blog for those who wish to subscribe via email. Google stopped the last one we had in July. That will be up soon.

We ate lots of delicious local strawberries, I used up some dried apricots in the cupboard by making a custard and apricot slice and made a cinnamon tea cake when Sunny and Jamie came over for morning tea. During the week our meals have been mushroom omelettes, spinach ravioli in vegetable broth, corned beef, cabbage and potatoes and yesterday, corned beef hash. Today's lunch will be roast chicken with coleslaw and green salad with apricot and custard slice for dessert.

I hope you and your family are well and staying safe. When I'm out in the garden I often think about the regulars who come here and I wonder what you're doing. I know many countries are still struggling with Covid, as are we in parts of Australia.  Wherever you are, I send love and hope that things will improve soon as more people are vaccinated.

Weekend Reading

• ‘Like nothing in my lifetime’: researchers race to unravel the mystery of Australia’s dying frogs
• ‘I don’t think many people know they exist’: how mistaken identity threatens the Baudin’s cockatoo
• Claudia Roden: ‘What do I want from life now? Having people around my table’
• Food, faith and family: how we feed our son his rich mixed heritage
• Washing fruit under water is not the correct way to clean produce
• 8 frugal cooking tips we can learn from the Great Depression
• Fit for purpose: how to save clothes that no longer suit your shape or lifestyle
• Research suggests a diet rich in dairy fat may lower the risk of heart disease
• Insects are vanishing from our planet at an alarming rate. But there are ways to help them
• Grandmas dancing and making traditional food
• Kyushoku: The Making of a Japanese School Lunch