{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  Inspired by soulemama

I heart...

When I first started going plastic free, I searched high and low for stainless steel ice cube trays. And there where none to be found – zero, zip, nada…..but now you can get some here in Oz from AshnJuls. YAY :-)

Dough

When I first started making my own bread, I received Dough by Richard Bertinet as a gift. It was a really good introduction to bread making.

Bertinet is a Brittany born bread-maker, and has a few different ideas on the general breadmaking process. He kneads his bread very differently to traditional methods (more about getting air into the bread) and "knocking back" is done without pounding the dough within an inch of its life.

I moved to a breadmaker when Little B was 2, due to his constant dissatisfaction (read tantrums or unhandy fingers) with my breadmaking by hand. But I have gone back to breadmaking by hand recently after finding out all breadmakers contain teflon (read toxic poison ;-)

And it's like coming home. Gosh I love it it - there's something so satisfying about getting your fingers all grubby!! Also I find the method in Dough really quick to produce a pliable dough.

Bertinet also believes that even young-ish children can make bread. This meshes with the advice given by a Greek friend who was learning at her grandmother's knee from the age of 4. So now I get Little B involved in the process. He's become a dab hand at kneading. I give him his own small section of dough to knead, rest, knock back and prove. He's actually very gentle with the process.

The other thing is he enjoys it immensely and it's become an easy part of our morning routines on the days when we require bread. I hope as he gets older and older, I can get him to make larger portions on his own.

We are slowly moving our way through different recipes in Dough.   We've been making pain de mie and next up is fougasse.

** I love taking pics for this blog but I always seem to forget the end result. The rolls were lovely and tasty and are now residing in the freezer - all without a pic taken - whoops!! **

Starvation in his lifetime…OMG!!

Dick Smith with Barry Mangelsdorf, watching the burning of Barry’s citrus trees at his farm near Loxton in South Australia

The other night I saw the end of Dick Smith’s documentary - The Population Puzzle. Gavin gives a great snapshot / intro over here.

A friend rang and told me I had to turn on the tv, so I only managed to catch the last 15 minutes. But the thing that will stay with me is the statistic that there is a 30% chance that Little B will see starvation in his lifetime.

I’m a girl of visuals and that gives me such a strong visual. And while it inspires horror in me, it also makes my inner mama lion roar and I feel strong and angry and passionate. I will do everything I can to prevent this happening to my baby, and makes me hold fast to our move to a more simple, sustainable and community-based lifestyle.

I’m also glad that we have started teaching him fundamental life skills – like growing veggies, cooking food from scratch, and fixing things. And there will be more to come as he gets older as he gets old enough to expand on the things we want him to know how to do. For example, he’s gagging to learn to knit but we’ve decided that he will get his knitting bag and things for his fourth birthday.

I know that some people will be in denial about this documentary, and some will find it too depressing but I hope that it inspires people to make change, do better, to build community, to be inspired to fight for our future and our well being.

Lazy Sundays

Artwork by Art Harrison

Cooked

- Minestrone Primavera
- Pear Betty
- Home-made roast chicken and gravy rolls (for Mr B who is hard at work building solar trackers for work)

Reading
- The language of secrets by Dianne Dixon (this is a really interesting debut novel)

Knitting
- I'm back working on my jumper. I tell myself that I will finish it one day LOL. But it feels monotonous some days, so I launch into other mini knitting projects.

Project
- Making a mood board to visualise our ideas for our back deck / courtyard. It is a horror to look at, so we are hoping a succulents garden and some paint will give us a better view from the kitchen. This is the first step before I attack the back steps with some red paint :-)

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  Inspired by soulemama

You can polish your shoes with what?!?!

I found this tip on a forum the other day. Apparently banana skins are great for polishing your shoes. So I decided that it was such a novel idea, that I had to give it a try.

Take one very dirty boot

Apply your magnificent polishing skills with said banana skin (organic of course LOL).

And voila:

One very clean and shiny boot.

I did wipe the boot over with a cloth and plain water afterwards (to get the little bits of banana off). But I have to say I am very impressed. These boots were muddy and scuffed and now look great. I'd been avoiding shoe polish because of the nasties and now I have a natural alternative, that I am very happy with :-)

Plus it's good to get another use out of our bananas!!