Philippa Moore's Blog, page 5

this week

This week has passed in a bit of blur, as they all tend to at the moment. Thank you to those of you who have messaged me recently saying that you’re enjoying reading these weekly posts. Knowing that people are reading certainly gives me an added impetus to check the calendar, realise it’s Friday and crack on with sitting down and writing to you all!

Favourite experience/s of the week

There have been many. A trail run one rainy morning, where the tracks were deserted and the lung-clearing, earthy sweet smell of wet gum leaves and crushed gumnuts was simply divine. It made me a bit sad for all the times over the past couple of years that I decided not to go out running because it was raining slightly. I had forgotten that they are usually the best runs! As I was the only human around, the wildlife were out in force. I ran towards what looked like a field of white cockatoos, all of whom took flight as I approached - it was spectacular, and made me feel a bit like I was in a nature documentary.

Going to sleep to the sound of heavy rain clattering down on our metal roof - perfect white noise - and then woken early by an incredible storm raging outside. I love thunderstorms. Especially when I’m all tucked up and cosy in bed.

Our Robo-Vac (who we’ve named Avis DeRobo after Julia Child’s friend) arrived and it has already completely changed our lives. I don’t think our house has ever been this clean, and we are not unclean people! I was gobsmacked by the amount of dust and debris it picked up after just doing under our bed!! We hope to get a dog at some point in the near future so I can imagine having Avis will be a lifesaver in that regard.

These are from Kerry Ward’s Good Karma Tarot, which is a beautiful deck and I highly recommend it!

And finally, a lovely, much-needed catch-up with a dear friend I haven’t seen all year. A full, golden afternoon of laughs, bolstering conversation and even a tarot reading at the end, which was equally comforting. I told her about everything that’s happened lately and she reacted just as I hoped she would. I was worried I was boring her, as I’ve bored myself going over and over the horrid details of it all. “God no,” she laughed. “You sure know how to tell a story.”

Well, one day, dear reader, I will tell you the story of what’s been going on this past little while, but not yet. Not yet.

Reading

I’ve been reading a lot for my PhD but I realise that’s a bit like a coal miner saying they’ve been handling a lot of coal this week. It’s what one expects!

Boston Review: Hating Motherhood by Judith Levine. I don’t know how I stumbled on this (a link, then another link, then another which led to this - nice to know the internet can still be a delightful rabbit hole) but it was a fascinating read.

Sydney Review of Books: The Aesthetic Conduct of Sally Rooney’s Readers by Beth Driscoll. Such an interesting discussion of Rooney’s work alongside reading culture - “Readers link art and life when they find books that make them feel seen and known, when they learn something new, when they discover an author and decide to read everything they’ve ever written. These interior moments are accompanied by bookish behavior, which is abundantly on display in the twenty-first century.” Indeed!

I started Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett this week which reminded me a lot of reading my own Morning Pages back, when I occasionally dare to do that. You might think that sounds like I’ve got major tickets, as this book has been very well-reviewed by the Guardian, among others, but no, of course not - more that the voice and the way it jumps around from memory to memory, reminded me of the random, stream of consciousness stuff that I come out with as I sit at the kitchen table, freshly meditated but still sleepy, scribbling between my first sips of coffee. And then I thought, my stuff would be pretty unreadable to anyone else but myself. It’s one thing to just write whatever comes to mind, without thinking. If you’re going to deliberately write an entire novel that way, you have to write with incredible control and clear intention, which is what Bennett does. I’ll be interested to keep reading!

Listening to

My inner spring playlist - quite a contrast to actual season and the wild, windy autumnal weather outside.

Also my running playlist - with the recent addition of Ricky Martin’s “Cup of Life” which until this week I hadn’t actually heard since 1998. Perhaps no one else has either - haha! It’s a surprisingly motivating song to run to.

In fact, I’ve been listening to a lot of 90s music this week, for some weird reason. Perhaps it was my friend’s influence at the weekend! Instead of jazz playing while I cook dinner, it’s been “Glycerine” or “Lithium” blasting out of the speakers. Accordingly, I’ve created a 90s Nostalgia playlist on TIDAL too!

No podcasts this week! I know. I’ve been chained to the desk, apart from my runs, what can I say?

Eating

It has been freezing at night lately, so I’ve been embracing that in my cooking and dialling up the comfort factor.

A few weeks ago, I made our favourite summer meal - Charity Morgan’s Nacho Average Nachos, which are utterly, utterly delicious. There’s a bit of prep involved, as I might have mentioned in a previous This Week, but you end up with plenty of the fixins leftover. As it’s got much colder, I thought I’d try Charity’s suggestion of using the leftover queso and walnut chorizo to make a taco mac and cheese. I cooked the pasta in some stock with some frozen peas (I like to have something green with every meal if I can), then combined with the fixins, topped with breadcrumbs and vegan mozzarella (I get the Made with Plants one from Woolworths). It was sublime…but so filling. We did not finish our usual greedy portions and there was quite a bit leftover! The queso is made from cashews and the chorizo is made from walnuts - a double hit of protein, so combine that with pasta…yeah, not a mystery why we were so full! But 10/10, would make again!

I made the speedy sausage and smoky bean ragu which I found in the Coles free magazine and to my surprise it was gorgeous! I used Eaty No Meaty sausages, which I kept whole, and served alongside my homegrown potatoes, which I also kept whole rather than mashed, as they were on the smaller side. I think this dish will become a real winter favourite. The addition of the canned smoky beans makes the whole thing really quick and easy, but it tastes like it’s been simmering on the stove for hours. Yum!

I have been meaning to make my favourite vegan banana bread all week but kept putting it off - and now the bananas are so black they may have turned! Ooops.

We also treated ourselves to croissants from Banjo’s yesterday morning as a treat after getting our flu vaccinations - I feel ready to face the winter now. Tom likes his plain, I had mine with some apricot jam I made in 2020 that’s still happily in its jar in the fridge, infused with bay and vanilla. It’s probably the best jam I’ve ever made. Time has only deepened its flavours.

Picking

Before the rain yesterday, I dug up some more potatoes, which we’ll be eating this evening. I will try and dig up the rest this weekend before the frosts come! I am hoping there will be another giant one I will be able to bake and enjoy in all its simple glory like last week. I’ve also picked a lot of celery and red chard leaves to use in aforementioned sausage ragu and in a thick minestrone soup which makes a wonderful WFH lunch in the late autumn, as its so chunky and filling.

Watching

Jurassic Park III (Blu Ray) - Tom’s choice (as he wants to watch them all again before the new one comes out) and, in his words, a stinking pile of garbage. I am inclined to agree. It’s one redeeming feature is Sam Neill, whose delivery of the line “it’s a birdcage” was probably the most terrifying moment of the film. The raptors and pterodactyls were also pretty scary. But I was secretly hoping Tea Leoni and William H. Macy’s characters would get picked off by one of them! Does that make me heartless, that I failed to identify with the terrified parents desperate to find their son whom they sent on a parachuting adventure with some random? Probably. Nothing to do with the terrible script and overacting, haha!

Marley and Me (Netflix) - A very sweet little film that I’d never managed to see until now and it was genuinely emotional at the end. Perfect date night flick. But oh dear lord John and Jenny, just get your puppy trained instead of just giving in and letting him destroy your house!

Devoured (SBS) - We watched the first episode of this, about links between the food world and organised crime. I found it a bit repetitive - it’s frustrating when they only have enough material for 30 minutes but somehow stretch it to 45! But super interesting nonetheless.

I don’t know if this counts as reading, listening or watching, but I’ll put it in this section as it’s mostly videos! I’ve been neck-high in Kerstin Martin’s brilliant Squarespace Express course this week as I have finally made some serious headway on my business website. Can’t wait to launch it - it’s looking fabulous, which is more down to Kerstin’s excellent instruction than anything. If you use Squarespace and want to get your head around it a bit more, or are a complete beginner and want to build something that looks incredibly professional, Kerstin is the best teacher I’ve come across for the platform.

Thinking about

How this week I marked a milestone - I have meditated, in some form or another, every single day for five years straight. That’s 1,827 days. I don’t know if that’s an achievement or not. I’ve often wondered why I still do it, and whether I should stop. What would happen if I missed a day? Is it actually helping me?

The thing is, meditation is now so ingrained in my routine that it would be a bit like stopping my Morning Pages, or drinking coffee. I don’t know if I can attribute a daily meditation practice to being more focused in my life but things certainly started coming together a few years ago, when the world was different and I had a bit more control over things. Many things have been out of my control for about, oh, 827 days now (!) so I think meditation has probably helped me more than I realise. Have I been more grounded than I otherwise would have been, during the pandemic and everything that’s come about because of it? I’d like to think so.

Quote of the week

“Let everything happen.” - Tara Brach

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! Otherwise, stay tuned for another exciting instalment next week xx

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this week

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How is it Friday already? And how is it May on Sunday?

“I feel like it’s still March,” I remarked to Tom this morning.

“I feel like it’s still some time in 2020,” he replied.

Favourite experience/s of the week

There have been a few.

Digging up my first potatoes on a warm, blue-skied day, which was so joyful and fun, like digging for treasure…and finding it! Many of them were knobbly and oddly-shaped but there was one giant one, which I baked for a late lunch. Split in half; butter, pepper and salt gently mashed into its fluffy insides. Tom and I shared it at the kitchen table, the warm breeze wafting in, and we were quite speechless by its utter deliciousness. Funny how the simplest things can feel like the most luxurious.

There was also a memorable misty morning walk, when the air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke, the pavements were carpeted in yellow leaves, and boughs heavy with red apples and buttery quinces hung lazily over fences, the occasional musk lorikeet pecking away at some of the fruit. It felt like autumn had truly arrived.

The wedding of a dear friend on Saturday afternoon - the weather was glorious, my friend was a beautiful beaming bride, the wine at the reception was fantastic (rare) and our fellow guests were a fascinating creative and intellectual bunch. How I have missed mingling and meeting new people!

Finally, afternoon tea with another dear friend I haven’t seen all year, and her two children who are sweet, intelligent and lively little creatures who made me smile a lot.

Reading

I’ve just started Breadsong by Kitty and Al Tait, a father and daughter, which was released in the UK this week and is just astonishing. A young girl whose life was derailed by depression and anxiety finds hope, and her passion, in bread making and baking. Her parents were willing to do anything to support her, including turning their kitchen into a bakery! Kitty and her dad Al are now professional bakers and run the Orange Bakery in a small town in England. They have become widely known not just for their very heartwarming story (which I’m sure will give so much hope to all young people struggling with their mental health) but for their excellent bread too! There’s a great Guardian article about them here.

Wonderground: “Other-Motherhood” by Georgina Reid. This article almost had me in tears of recognition at the first line - “There are few things lonelier than being a childfree woman in a house full of mothers.”

Continuing The Writer Laid Bare by Lee Kofman - I’m finding it very relatable and insightful.

Stray by Stephanie Danler - when I used to be on Instagram, Stephanie Danler was one of my favourite people to follow. She gave great insights into the writing life and craft, and recommended some fabulous books. I like her as a person, and enjoy her online persona, but I’ve not been as taken with her actual work, but perhaps that’s because both her books have featured a lot of drug and alcohol abuse, which is something thankfully I don’t know a great deal about. And I’m always reluctant to say anything less than glowing about a memoir, because I’ve written and published one myself. I know how much courage it takes to put it out there, and how it stings when people who weren’t your intended audience are careless or indifferent in their assessment of it. And Stray is a courageous memoir indeed, unflinching in its portrayal of all its characters, including the author/narrator herself. There’s a lot I enjoyed about the writing and imagery, and Stray is certainly an interesting journey but I don’t think it was a journey I personally needed to take. But that’s OK. I’m glad I couldn’t relate to a lot of it, because some of the things Danler writes about are truly horrific. There is no doubt that being raised by addicts has lasting, damaging effects on children well into their adulthood. But Danler certainly intrigues me, as a person and a writer, so I’ll happily read whatever she writes next.

How to End a Story - The third and final instalment of Helen Garner’s diaries. I read it in a day. As usual, I find it astonishing that people annotate library books (albeit in pencil) but what they choose to asterisk is always very revealing. I’ve read all the volumes of Garner’s diaries that Text has put out over the past few years, and this was by far the most compelling one. Completely immersive, in fact.

Listening to

My inner winter playlist on TIDAL

In the evenings, gentle jazz

The First Time : Masters Series with Bernadette Brennan - I really enjoyed this one, particularly Brennan’s discussion about archives. I felt very reassured that my own note-taking system is perhaps not as haphazard as I thought.

The Creative Penn: From Big Idea to Book with Jessie Kwak

How to Own The Room: Julia Samuel

The Shift: Christina Patterson on how to deal with the blows life throws at you

Eating

We’ve had potatoes a lot this week, unsurprisingly! I made Pip Lincolne’s Casserole again (as mentioned Last Week) with extra potatoes and carrots instead of pumpkin. The leftovers made a lovely soup thinned out with stock.

I also made a divine potato and cauliflower curry, generously spiced with mustard seeds and curry leaves. It was even better the second night, as curries tend to be.

I made apple butter a few weeks ago with the giant bag Dad brought round, and we’ve been enjoying that on porridge in the mornings.

My sourdough bread dough didn’t rise very well, so I made pizzas with the dough rather than put it in the compost. They turned out brilliantly, and I was very happy there was no waste. Our favourite topping at the moment is basil pesto, mushrooms and green olives. Divine!

Shepard avocados - I have no idea why nearly everyone in Australia moans about them! I think they’re wonderful. Once ripe they last significantly longer in the fruit bowl than Hass tend to. You cut one open and it’s nearly always perfect and blemish free, none of the yucky brown bits. The flesh is buttery and wonderful for toast and guacamole. Honestly, I think they’re brilliant. No complaints here. Shepard forever!

Maggie Beer Seville Orange Marmalade - Vegemite will always be my go-to toast spread for comfort, but a well-made orange marmalade is a close second. A perfect start to the day for me is a steaming hot coffee and thick toast made from Pigeon Whole’s malt and linseed sourdough bread, spread liberally with butter and marmalade. I got a taste for it living in the UK and it still makes me think of weekend winter mornings there. Once, I remember the toast was so hot I could hear the butter sizzling on it while it waited on the plate.

Picking

I dug up the first potatoes, as mentioned, and my joy in doing so was unconfined. Totally worth being sore the next day, as I planted them in the ground this time rather than growing them in gro-bags as I have done for the past five years. That is a low-fuss way to grow them, but I can’t deny the specimens I unearthed at the weekend are bigger and taste better.

Our lovely neighbour came over with a bowl of green tomatoes. “Would you like these? I only eat the red ones!” she smiled. It inspired me to pick all the remaining tomatoes in my garden and make my great grandmother’s recipe for green tomato pickle. It was fun to see her wonderful familiar (though sometimes unreadable) handwriting and work out the metric measurements for all the quarts, pints, pounds and ounces. How I might have managed that task prior to digital scales and Google I have no idea.

We were also given a giant bag of cucumbers as our neighbour grew so many of them this year and didn’t want them to go to waste. Two we ate raw, dipped into hummus, but most of them were washed, cut into batons and put straight into waiting brine in the fridge. Pickled this way the cucumbers are ready to eat within a few days and keep for absolute yonks. We particularly enjoy them with a veggie burger, both in the bun or alongside.

Watching

The Walking Dead (Binge) - we’ve started on Season 11 at last, the final season. Tom was a fan of this show for years and years, and towards the end of 2019 he finally convinced me to give it a go, appreciating it wasn’t my kind of thing (zombies, violence, etc) but, in light of my PhD work, I’d probably get something out of it because he thought colonial and post-apocalyptic societies have many similarities. He was right.

I also think watching The Walking Dead prepared me a little for the events of 2020, as strange as that sounds. While I was still frightened and outraged by the selfish, dangerous and downright bizarre behaviour we saw playing out all over the world as lockdowns were imposed, businesses were closed, and everyday goods became scarce, it didn’t take me by surprise. The Walking Dead is a deeply accurate meditation on how human beings behave in a crisis, when the scaffolding holding society up falls apart and then, further down the line, is re-established. The show forces you to think about your own morality, about what you might become, or be reduced to, in a similar set of circumstances. On the surface, it’s a zombie show taking place in an imagined future. Buried underneath the gore is a fascinating portrait of our world as it already is.

Yesterday (on BluRay) - we discovered this film during the 2020 lockdown and it’s become one of our favourites. I won’t spoil some of the best, tear-jerking moments of it in case you haven’t seen it, but if you are a Beatles fan and have not watched it yet, do so NOW.

Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent)(Netflix) - the final episodes, and they were manifique. Oh how I’ll miss it! “We have to start it again, from the beginning!” I cried as the last credits rolled. Tom looked aghast. “When we’ve got so much Walking Dead to watch?!” Ahem.

Thinking about

Some big things, and negotiating the trepidation I feel in daring to make some big plans, knowing how easily they might fall away. How risky it all still feels.

But also some small, insigificant things but that give my brain a welcome respite from the big things. Such as how I will make sourdough now my house is too cold to prove dough in overnight? How is it possible that Tom and I got the same score in Wordle and guessed exactly the same letters and words, independently of each other?! Spooky!

Looking forward to

Our robo-vac arriving! I’ve been promised it will change our lives. We’ve already decided to name it after a character in Julia. I’ll let you guess which one.

Quote of the week

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” - Bob Marley

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! Otherwise, stay tuned for another exciting instalment next week xx

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this week

This is actually from last Friday - our last morning in Orford, doing my Morning Pages and having coffee with the magpie that visited us each morning we were there. It was very friendly and made me think I’d like a neighbourhood magpie at home. I know they swoop on the mainland but they don’t tend to down here….that I know of!

Another strange week, despite the joy and fun of the last, so we’ve tried to prioritise having some Mental Health Days, which has helped. As stated previously, the Philippa Moore Way is not to dwell (too much) on the less-than-ideal but to focus on the good, because there is always some to be found.

Favourite experience of the week

Having a dear friend round for dinner on Easter Monday, who made us laugh and smile. I do love entertaining and cooking for people, but the omicron surge has put a (hopefully) temporary stop to that. But we had negative RATs after the wedding so round she came. We had a nut roast feast and I even sent her off with leftovers!

I also enjoyed, as part of aforementioned Mental Health Day, just sitting and reading a book for hours one afternoon. It’s something I don’t allow myself to do very often, unless it’s a PhD-related book, but in that case my brain is in work mode rather than relaxed. It felt nice to be relaxed.

New mug who dis?

Looking forward to

A dear friend’s wedding this weekend. Digging up my potatoes. A few unavoidable things being dealt with and behind us.

Reading

Three-Martini Afternoons at The Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther - this is the book I sat down with and lost myself in for a few hours, during which I finished it. It was uplifting and hilarious on one page, then heartbreaking and rage-inducing (most of them involving Ted Hughes, the bastard) on the next. A brilliant book for two brilliant women who were so ahead of their time and who deserve to be remembered and read in more nuanced ways that better reflect the complex, rebellious and brave women they actually were. Loved it!

Think on the Page by Sarah Firth - I bought this as a birthday gift for Tom last year and I finally read it myself this week. Sarah was one of the few people on Instagram who made me feel joyous and creative, so I do miss her. She’s one of my favourite artists and this book has lots of wisdom and observations about the complexities of modern life that are funny, relatable and deeply intelligent.

Sydney Review of Books: Lost Weather by Louis Klee

Meanjin: Joy by Anna Spargo-Ryan

Jack Monroe: It’s Not About The Pasta, Kevin - Jack Monroe is a courageous and well-known activist for poverty issues in the UK, particularly hunger relief, and I’ve followed their work for a long time. This post is a long read but an important one and, in true Jack style, pulls no punches (and nor should it).

Listening to

BBC Sounds - World Piano Day - Interview with Ludovico Einaudi: thank you to reader Helen for alerting me to this. It was a great interview and Ludovico played “Flora” off his new album, which was utterly beautiful.

As a result, I have been playing Underwater non-stop. Perfect for meditation, writing, or just sitting.

I’ve also been playing the new album from Lisa Mitchell, A Place to Fall Apart, out today!

The Shift: Philippa Perry takes issue with your inner critic and Esther Freud on motherhood, guilt and upending your life in your 50s (I enjoyed both but particularly this one).

Best Friend Therapy: this may be my new favourite podcast. I caught up on the last three episodes on my walks this week and particularly enjoyed the Shoulds and Oughts episode. I had to pause and sit several times during that one to take in the truth bombs as they landed.

Grounded with Louis Theroux: Interview with Fka Twigs which was quite incredible. The grounded, intelligent and utterly perfect answers she gave to some very weird questions had me almost punching the air on my walk this morning. Thank you Sophie for alerting me to this! Any creative person who just wants to do their own thing will get a lot out of listening to this.

Eating

I haven’t had a great appetite this week, but that hasn’t stopped me eating All The Chocolate. We discovered Lindt’s vegan milk chocolate is now available in Australia too, which is delicious!

In addition to aforementioned nut roast (which was actually still in the freezer from Christmas), I made Pip Lincolne’s Pumpkin-y Lamb Casserole (pictured) but obviously there was no lamb - I used chickpeas and mushrooms instead, and tarragon instead of parsley (so it was probably nothing like Pip’s original recipe!). OMG this was SO incredibly delicious. For such a simple recipe, it’s full of flavour. I was seriously bowled over by its subtle spicy sauce and the sweetness from the tomatoes and pumpkin. I will be adding this to my regular repertoire for winter, I think it will work with pretty much any root vegetable. Also, as it was meat-free it only needed to cook for just under an hour, not 90 minutes. Bonus!

I also made a tempeh banh mi (pictured right) for lunch one day this week, which was insanely good. And surprisingly easy to whip up quickly when we got back from town, hungry, with a fresh baguette. I was suddenly seized with the desire to do something other than slather avocado and dukkah on it. And I also wanted to start using all the pickled vegetables in the fridge. I’ll write up the recipe next week, as it will be made again!

Picking

The last red tomatoes and some kale and silverbeet. The potatoes aren’t quite ready yet but will be very soon. There’s lots of green tomatoes left on the vines so I may end up picking them to ripen inside.

Watching

Spider-Man: No Way Home - a great popcorn flick, as they say. The plot is a bit scatty, with a lot of plates in the air, but I did enjoy it, particularly when the two previous Spideys turn up (Tom, who saw it in the cinema, said the audience went wild at that moment!). I found the scene where Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man prevents Tom Holland’s Spider-Man from avenging his aunt’s death (sorry for those who haven’t seen it!) very moving. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about transactional analysis and so I interpreted Maguire’s Spider-Man as the younger one’s older, wiser self stepping in to guide him to a better choice. That made me cry, admittedly.

Antoinette dans les Cévennes (English title: My Donkey, My Lover and I) (iTunes) - an utterly charming French film with my favourite actor of the moment, Laure Calamy, in the title role of Antoinette, a primary school teacher who is having an affair with the father of one of her students. When the lovers’ plan of a week alone together during the summer holidays is thwarted by the man’s wife surprising him with a walking holiday in the Cévennes, Antoinette is devastated….and decides to go on the same holiday herself, with a stubborn donkey as her companion. It’s as hilarious as it sounds.

Run Fatboy Run - an old favourite that I’ve seen so many times, as it used to be the film Tom and I would watch the night before a race. For a period of time, we would watch it every weekend! But I hadn’t seen it in many years and it’s still very, very funny and a real comfort watch. My long distance running days were a happy time in our lives and I remember how patient and supportive Tom was, coming along to every race of mine all over the country, without complaint, always with a smile on his face, cheering me on. I still feel very grateful for that support. And I of course went for a run the next morning, you can’t not!

Julia (Binge) - I mentioned the first episode in a previous This Week saying I wasn’t that impressed by it. I will now, pun intended, eat my words. After reading a Guardian review, we were encouraged to give it another chance and I’m glad we did. We’re now all caught up and impatient for the next instalment! I stand by some of my original thoughts but I’m slowly being won over, especially by Sarah Lancashire’s performance. I’m also appreciating that some of the characters are possibly meant to be emblematic of some social mores of the time, rather than accurate reflections of the real people. It’s very enjoyable either way.

Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent)(Netflix) - we have only three episodes left! What will we do?!

Creative Mornings Global: Nina Elizabeth Lyrispect Ball talks about Roots - I was a keen member of the London chapter of this organisation when I lived there, and their newsletters are always worth a leaf through. There is always at least one nugget of gold in there. This time it was this wonderful talk from Nina Elizabeth Lyrispect Ball, well worth watching with your morning coffee to get you set up for a day of creating and serving!

“Give the same energy, no matter what. If you’re an artist, you’re an artist. It’s not about who’s responding or how many people are clapping, but what is coming from your soul.”

Wearing

A smile, despite everything! And a Loki t-shirt which I picked up for a bargain.

Thinking about

On my walk this morning, I noticed a wheelchair user not just having to dodge wheelie bins that were out for collection scattered all over the pavement but those fucking scooters just dumped there too. He ended up having to go into the road to continue on his way to wherever he was going. Nearby I also noticed a car parked at the top of a driveway rather than further down it, so it was blocking that section of the pavement. Again, a wheelchair user would have to go into the road (a busy main road, I might add) to pass, likewise anyone with a pram. Why don’t people think about this?! Admittedly I never used to notice this sort of thing as much as I do now. Perhaps it’s been reading more disabled writers, being a bit more conscious of ableism…I’m not sure. Regardless, I’m pretty appalled at the fairly consistent lack of consideration for everyday accessibility that I witness, not just this morning but in general. It’s not good enough. I will have a think about what I could do to help change things.

Quote of the week

“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! Otherwise, stay tuned for another exciting instalment next week xx

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this week

Mrs Hunt’s Cottage, Maria Island. Picture by Tom!

After a pretty rough past couple of weeks, this one has been really good for the soul.

We went to a family wedding up on the east coast, and you can’t help but feel happy at a wedding, surrounded by love! This one was particularly sweet and romantic, and it was lovely to see some people I haven’t seen for ages. We decided to make the most of being in the area and took a day trip to Maria Island - a place I had never been, and was utterly blown away by. It was one of those places that is truly magical, that pictures and words will never do justice to. If you ever visit Tasmania, it is a must do. We’re already planning a return, but staying longer!

I had also forgotten the profound impact that a change of scene can have on your mood and outlook. We’ve barely left the house since the borders opened and I hadn’t appreciated how much we needed just a little break in the routine. It has been a literal and metaphorical gust of fresh air!

Favourite experiences of the week

Maria Island was absolutely spectacular. We haven’t stopped talking or thinking about it! The ferry from Triabunna was a breeze - though I highly recommend booking as far ahead as you can. I stupidly left it to the day before, thinking we could stroll up to the marina like we did with Rottnest Island when we visited Perth in 2020 (before covid). It wasn’t a complete disaster but as the earliest and latest crossings were already full we only had half a day to explore rather than the full day. But that’s OK, we’ll definitely be going back!

I just love spending time in nature, and getting up close and personal with adorable wombats was one of the highlights of the visit:

One of about a thousand pictures we took of a mother wombat and her joey, who were totally unbothered by the presence of humans.

A Cape Barren goose in its lush natural habitat.

The lesser-spotted writer of this blog post on the deck of Mrs Hunt’s Cottage (the house in the first photo).

The Painted Cliffs.

A beautiful tree.

I mean LOOK at that water!

It was extremely hard to pick a leading image for this week’s This Week, let me tell you!

With my husband of nearly twelve years! Attending a wedding always makes us feel very nostalgic for ours!

The wedding was also a highlight, because it’s always wonderful to be in the presence of love and joy. Whenever I go to a wedding I can’t help but be overwhelmed with happy memories of my own, remembering the incredible high of it all and how full to bursting with love you feel, not just for your new spouse but for all the people sharing in your excitement and wishing you well. And it’s so wonderful to know someone you care about is having the same experience, and you get to be a part of it. The happy couple were also very blessed with the weather, it was an unseasonably warm and sunny autumn day, and the setting was stunning.

We enjoyed the festivities so much that one of my sisters suggested that Tom and I renew our vows at some point and have another wedding for all the Australian family who couldn’t make it to London in 2010. We’re certainly thinking about it!

Looking forward to

Another upcoming wedding, this time of a dear friend. Another dear friend visiting Tassie soon. Finishing the introduction to my thesis. Potentially another trip to Maria Island before the end of the season!

Reading

The Writer Laid Bare by Lee Kofman - I’ve just started this and just want to tell every writer I know to buy a copy and read it ASAP. Incredibly insightful and relatable!

The Practical Australian Gardener by Peter Cundall - I plan to make good use of the Easter break and get some jobs in the garden done as the fruitfulness of autumn is starting to wind down.

Bigger than Us by Fearne Cotton - a lovely book I dipped into each night at bedtime, about intuition, connection and “finding meaning in a messy world”. Some really beautiful reminders to trust the Universe a bit more and to stay open rather than close down when life gets tricky.

Sydney Review of Books:  Plath Traps by Felicity Plunkett

Poetry Foundation: Sylvia’s Table by David Trinidad

Listening to

The Shift: Marian Keyes on menopause, Botox and learning to be shameless - I particularly loved this quote from Marian, “Other people’s anger and judgement is utterly survivable and, ultimately, it’s not even important.” I also enjoyed the follow up with Marian which aired last month.

Now You’re Asking, with Marian Keyes and Tara Flynn: The High School Problem and The Co-Dependency Problem, both enjoyed while gardening. I love this podcast, Marian and Tara are so kind, encouraging and understanding with their answers to problems sent in by listeners (apart from the idiot who wrote in saying that he had cheated on his wife and now didn’t understand why she didn’t trust him - their response to that was gold). You might notice that my listening habits tend to reflect the fact that when I’ve really enjoyed an interview with a particular person, I start listening to everything I can find with them in it! I’ll try not to be too repetitive or boring in that regard, haha.

My main writing playlist on TIDAL - it’s so full of goodness, for my writer’s brain at least!

Eating

We made fresh pasta dough with chickpea water and it was utterly amazing. Like, life-changing. I couldn’t recommend trying it more highly!

It seemed to be the week of pasta - I also made a Moroccan pumpkin, chickpea and feta pasta which was delicious.

Lots of hiking and road trip food - energy balls, apples, muesli bars, mini packets of chips.

Today is Good Friday so I’ve procured fresh hot cross buns - as this is the appropriate day of the year to eat them, not on Boxing Day when the supermarkets start selling them! I enjoy a fruit bun as much as the next person but I do think we lose something when something that is meant to be saved for a particular time of the year is simply made available once another major holiday is out of the way, or even all year round as is often the case. OK, I’ll get off my soap box now.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the potatoes with garlic, oil, herbs and preserved lemon at my cousin’s wedding (made by another cousin)!

Picking

The remaining red (or red-ish!) tomatoes and there’s still a few zucchini that may or may not be coaxed into their fullest expression by the heatwave we’re expecting over the Easter weekend. I will also dig up the first potatoes over the long weekend, I think.

Watching

American Beauty - I hadn’t seen this film for many years and we enjoyed it last Friday night. On this rewatch, I found it more funny than I did dark (as I had on previous watchings) and I wondered why that might be so - perhaps it was because I found it rather amusing to watch a privileged white man explode his current life in the pursuit of a supposedly more authentic one. And I agree with Stephanie Zacharek’s take that American Beauty is “a movie from a time when we didn’t know what we wanted. From where we stand now, the dark, buried desires of affluent suburban men and women, no matter how ludicrously they’re presented, seem even a little touching. Maybe that’s partly because our eyes have been opened to the way so many men—unlike Lester, regardless of how you feel about him—have simply taken what they wanted, with no regard to whom they’re hurting.”

Fences (iTunes) - another great film based on an August Wilson play. We saw a clip of this played in Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart and were immediately intrigued. It’s set in 1950s Pittsburgh and centres around a middle-aged garbage collector named Troy (Denzel Washington), a man who appears jovial and charming on the surface but deep down is very bitter about his failures in life and his missed opportunities in professional sport, which were primarily due to being too old for the professional leagues by the time Black people were allowed to play in them. His son Cory (Jovan Adepo) now has the opportunity to go to college thanks to his talent in football, but Troy is dead-set against the idea. Odie Henderson said in his review that “anyone who had a strict taskmaster as a parent will find parts of Fences unendurable” and, indeed, Troy’s brutality and pig-headedness in dealing with his son is hard to watch and ends up driving Cory away. Unfolding in parallel is the revelation of Troy’s infidelity which devastates his devoted, long-suffering wife Rose (Viola Davis) and has some permanent consequences. It’s superbly acted, and very powerful, but we weren’t wild about the ending, which seemed a little neat and sentimental given everything that had preceded it. But worth a watch, for Viola Davis’s performance alone.

Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent)(Netflix) - our addiction to this fabulous show continues, but we only have a few episodes left! I hope they make more!

Wearing

I had at least five people comment on my outfit at the wedding - which was my glorious Keshet jumpsuit, both stylish and incredibly comfortable! The photographer came over at one point and just said “Keshet?” which made us both laugh! They are certainly a distinctive Tassie brand for those in the know. I do want to get some more of them because they are so wonderful to wear.

Quote of the week

“He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.” - Jean-Luc Godard

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! A Happy Easter and Pesach Sameach to those celebrating this weekend xx

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moroccan pumpkin, chickpea and feta pasta

Autumn is pumpkin season in every hemisphere! This week I was thinking of ways to use my homemade dukkah, but in a warming and hearty way that the cool weather precipitates. Spying a wedge of pumpkin in the fridge, I decided to make a Moroccan flavoured pasta. It might sound like a weird combination of ingredients but the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts! The sweetness of the pumpkin combined with heat from the spices, nuttiness from the chickpeas and dukkah, and a salty richness from the feta, really makes for a bit of a showstopper. We were certainly very satisfied with it!

Moroccan pumpkin, chickpea and feta pasta

Serves 4 heartily

1kg Kent pumpkin, skin on (or off, if you prefer)
Olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 can chickpeas, drained (save the liquid to make pasta)
2 teaspoons Moroccan Souk spice mix (or you could use another Moroccan seasoning, or ras el hanout)
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (or a mild chilli powder)
500g orecchiette or other small pasta (macaroni would work well)
1 litre vegetable stock (I added a little miso, cinnamon and turmeric for extra flavour)
Spinach or kale leaves, shredded
Almond feta, or regular feta, to serve
Dukkah, to serve

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Cut your pumpkin carefully into similarly sized medium cubes - I keep the skin on but you can remove it if you like - and place on an oiled baking tray. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake the pumpkin for about 30 minutes or until golden. You may need to toss them halfway through. Keep warm.

Put the kettle on to boil.

In a large saute pan with a lid (I use my Le Creuset shallow casserole), heat some olive oil and add the onion and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, for a few minutes until soft and starting to colour. Add the chickpeas and spices and continue stirring and cooking for a few minutes until everything is combined and smelling nice but not browning.

Using boiling water from the kettle, make the stock in a jug and set aside.

Working quickly so the stock doesn’t cool, increase the heat on the stove and add the pasta to the spiced chickpea mixture in the pan. Stir to coat well, then add the stock - just a little at first, as it will probably hiss and bubble, then add the rest. Stir gently, making sure it’s all combined and nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pan, and ensuring all the pasta is submerged by the stock. Add a little bit more boiling water if needed.

Bring the pan to the boil, stir once more to ensure nothing is stuck to the bottom, then reduce the heat right down to a simmer, put a lid on and set your timer for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, return to the pan, check the pasta for done-ness. It might need slightly longer. When it’s done, nearly all of the liquid should have evaporated, but there should be a little bit left as the pasta’s sauce.

Once the pasta is cooked to your liking, add most of the roast pumpkin cubes to the pan, reserving two or three per serve for decoration, plus the shredded spinach, and stir through until the spinach has wilted. The pumpkin should disintegrate a bit and meld with the remaining stock to form a lovely sauce.

Serve in pasta bowls and top each serve with a few roast pumpkin cubes, some feta and a scattering of dukkah. Perfect Netflix and chill food.

If you have any leftovers, you can make a pasta bake - which I think we enjoyed even more than the original dish! Add half a cup (or so, depending how much you’ve got left) of hot stock to the leftover pasta, stir to amalgamate, add any extra vegetables you want (I added broccoli), stir again, top with feta (or any other kind of cheese), breadcrumbs and a little dukkah, and bake in a hot oven for about 25 minutes. So good!

homemade fresh pasta (vegan + easy!)

One of the things I really resisted about a vegan diet was giving up eggs - not only are they delicious in their own right but they are key ingredients in so many other foods I enjoy, fresh pasta being one of them.

I did not think it was possible to make a decent fresh pasta dough without eggs…..but then I came up with this recipe and was blown away!

It’s also a great no-waste recipe because it uses aquafaba - the liquid found in canned chickpeas. It’s slightly gelatinous, like eggs, and protein-rich so works as a great binding agent. We honestly couldn’t tell the difference. The dough was silky smooth, went through the pasta machine like a dream, and was absolutely delicious to eat.

You don’t have to be vegan to enjoy this recipe - if you feel like fresh pasta but have no eggs in the house, you’re in luck! If you’re curious, I highly encourage you to give it a try.

Vegan pasta dough

Enough for 4-6 servings

400g pasta tipo 00 flour
200ml aquafaba (or tepid water, or a mixture of both - see instructions)
Large pinch turmeric powder (for colour)

Weigh out the flour and add to the bowl of a food processor, together with the turmeric.

Open a can of chickpeas* and drain the liquid (the aquafaba) into a jug or place a jug/small bowl on digital scales and pour the aquafaba directly into it to measure it that way. You’ll need 200ml of liquid in total. I found that a typical 400g can of chickpeas gave me about 175ml of aquafaba, so I made up the 200ml with some tepid water.

Add the liquid to the flour in the bowl of the food processor.

Turn the food processor on and blend it all together for a minute or so, until a dough begins to form. You may need to pause the processor, scrape down any flour or stray dough from the sides, and whiz again until it all comes together.

Turn the dough out on to a lightly oiled or floured surface and knead together until it’s one large smooth ball. It won’t take very long. In fact, you’ll probably be quite surprised at how fast it comes together!

The dough then needs some time to rest and chill - don’t we all. I don’t buy clingfilm, but I do have a stash of clean plastic bags that bread, etc has come in - I put the dough in one of those, wrap it up and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Note: you can, of course, bring the dough together by hand if you don’t have a food processor, it will just require a bit more effort and elbow grease! Just make a well in the middle of the flour, put the liquid in the centre and then mix together with your hands and knead as above.

Once the dough has had its chilling time, you’re ready to roll!

Cut the dough into six equal pieces - I cut it in half, and then each half into thirds. Feed each piece of dough through your pasta machine according to the instructions, and until it’s at your desired thinness.

Either use the sheets of pasta to make lasagna, cannelloni, ravioli or tortellini, or cut the sheets into your desired pasta shape.

We used four pieces of dough to make pasta sheets that we turned into a lasagna, and the other two pieces we made into thin noodles which we enjoyed with dumplings and green vegetables in a soup.

This is a seriously incredible pasta dough, and I can’t wait to make it again. And seeing that it’s so easy, I think “again” might be “tonight”!

*Obviously reserve the chickpeas for another dish! Maybe this one ?

this week

My week, summed up in a photograph!

It’s been a time, hasn’t it?

But this week was an improvement on last week, which can only be a good thing. And when times are trying, it’s deeply comforting to have people who care in your corner. Thank you to those wonderful people, you know who you are!

Looking forward to

Getting in the garden this weekend, getting the beds ready for winter. Making apple butter with the giant bag of apples my Dad brought to the door.

Reading

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. I haven’t read this for years and had forgotten how lively and incandescent the writing is, and just how utterly right she is about everything. I was also glad for the reminder about John Keats and his epitaph (it’s basically “fuck the haters” though far more poetically expressed, as you’d expect!). As Woolf points out, “unfortunately, it is precisely the men or women of genius who mind most what is said of them.”

Why I Write by George Orwell. I’ve been picking away at this little book for a few months and every time I read it I am convinced these essays must have only been written last week or last year. So very little has changed. I love Orwell, and I have Rebecca Solnit’s amazing Orwell’s Roses (also highly recommended) to thank for reintroducing me to his genius.

Around the Kitchen Table by Sophie Hansen and Annie Herron. An absolute delight, as expected! I’ve been inspired to revive both my sourdough starter and my sketching.

Elusive Subjects: Biography as Gendered Metafiction by Susanna Scarparo. This is a PhD-related one but I’ve barely been able to drag myself away from it. A very interesting interpretation of how several writers have reimagined notable women who have been forgotten or excluded from history. My PhD is centred around that concept so everything she had to say was very relevant and exciting.

The Sun: The Love of My Life by Cheryl Strayed. “What does it mean to heal? To move on? To let go? Whatever it means, it is usually said and not done, and the people who talk about it the most have almost never had to do it.” And also something I know from experience: “if you lose a ring in a river, you are never going to get it back, no matter how badly you want it or how long you wait.” Oof.

Women’s Agenda: Everything you need to know about Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the US Supreme Court. This sent me down a rabbit hole of wanting to know about women, and women of colour, in the highest court of my own country. I didn’t know the current Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia is in fact a woman, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel, and it’s fairly even in terms of male/female representation - three women, four men - which is better than I expected (when I was a law student 22 years ago, the last time I was aware of the composition of the High Court, there was only one woman). But there are no people of colour, not currently nor in Australia’s High Court’s entire 120-year history. I found this fantastic AFR article that asks why. Lack of diversity perpetuates bias and as long as federal judicial appointments are solely at the government’s discretion, it won’t change. “The demography of the bench will never perfectly match the nation, but people should be able to see themselves in the faces of those chosen to dispense justice,” argues Andrew Leigh in the article. I wholeheartedly agree.

Listening to

Best Friend Therapy: Boundaries - what are they? Do we need them? How do we say no?

Broadly Speaking: Roxane Gay in conversation with Jamila Rizvi at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne

Inner spring TIDAL playlist

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown on audiobook

Torch by Cheryl Strayed on audiobook

Eating

Nigella Lawson’s spaghetti with chard and chilli from Cook Eat Repeat - I followed her vegan suggestions and used olives (kalamata) and Vegemite instead of anchovies. Delicious!

Lauds Aged Cashew Cheese - made in Tassie, and absolutely lovely! I want to try everything of theirs now. I put some of the cheese on top of the Nigella spaghetti, as pictured. So good.

Vegan banana bread - again! I particularly like it spread with peanut butter as a post-run snack.

In January I pickled some cherries and had some leftover pickling liquid so I pickled six fresh apricot halves as well. I discovered these were still in the fridge a few days ago!! After a quick taste test, I discovered they were not only still fine to eat, but delicious - sour and tangy, yet sweet. For lunch today, I grilled some halloumi and served that with the pickled apricots, alongside some mint, celery and spinach leaves from the garden. Eaten in the sunshine, it was truly ambrosial. Many memorable meals in my life have involved halloumi in some way! I am yet to eat the pickled cherries. That might end up being an Easter thing.

Picking

Ruby chard, tomatoes, the last of the beans. My beautician sent round a bag of fresh red chillies she’d grown, which was so kind! I think I will freeze most of them, as chillies can be successfully used from frozen. I also have about 10 kilograms of apples to preserve this weekend. I’m going to have to find a few podcasts to queue up!

Watching

Atlas of the Heart (Binge) - a dear friend told me she’d watched the whole season in one weekend, and Tom and I did pretty much the same. It’s like having therapy, in a good way. Highly recommended.

Jackie (iTunes) - I didn’t love it, but being a Kennedy aficionado I still enjoyed it. Oh my god, how did people used to smoke that much?!

Julia (Binge) - I was so excited about this show but I wasn’t sure what to make of the first episode. The Nora Ephron film Julie and Julia is one of my favourite films of all time, so perhaps I am just too attached to Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci as Julia and Paul Child. This show is a bit…grittier, for want of a better word. I know, I know, they were just fallible, ordinary human beings at the end of the day, but everything I’ve read about them suggests Paul Child was nothing but supportive of his wife and her late-in-life career. This show, certainly the first episode, seems to think otherwise so I’m wondering where they got that from or is it pure speculation? And what are the ethics of telling a story about someone’s real life and injecting some drama into it? Again very relevant to my PhD work. I don’t know if I’ll keep watching…but I probably won’t be able to help myself!

Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent)(Netflix) - our addiction to this fabulous show continues, and we have to ration it because we’re down to the last season now. It’s just a delight.

Wearing/applying

I treated myself to a Smitten Merino scarf which I haven’t stopped wearing, apart from today because it’s been so warm! I love the bright colour.

I ran out of my favourite shower gel so will have to replace that, stat!

I stopped using anti-perspirant deodorants in 2017 - when we moved back to Australia a year later, I found No Pong and have been a subscriber ever since. It’s the best, most effective natural deodorant I’ve found in this country. For someone who is very active (I walk to work, run at lunchtime, etc) and was really worried about odour, this stuff is seriously the bomb. In the UK, this one was my favourite (after trying pretty much every single one on the market) and I also had no BO issues! Also, no marks on black clothes with both No Pong and Neal’s Yard, which seriously used to be the bane of my life!

Favourite experiences of the week

Cooking with my two-year-old niece, who is utterly adorable, and has her own apron and little chef’s hat, which was too cute for words. She was quite fascinated by the onions and painstakingly peeled the skin off one. Her parents have joked that that’s how they’ll keep her occupied from now on! She’s a beautiful child and spending time with her truly is balm for the soul.

I also joined my university’s Shut Up and Write Zoom group this week and found that a concentrated period of time to focus on my exegesis revealed many ideas, all of which are slowly connecting like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It is quite thrilling to see it come together. Not to mention a relief!

Quote of the week

“I’m going to aim high. And why not.” - Anne Sexton

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! Otherwise, same time next week? xx

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publishing the ghosts: after the finish line

In 2015, when we were still living in the UK and The Latte Years was a few months away from being a real live book, I was thrilled to have an article accepted by a publication that I loved. It was a magazine about how to make both a living and a life, full of empowering, inspiring stories of interesting people and how they got to where they are.

After my story was submitted, I got a strange but breezy email back saying that things were up in the air and they’d let me know - by the end of the year, the magazine had sadly disappeared. The words I wrote never saw the light of day.

I’ve been looking through some old folders and hard drives over the past few days, and I found the article. After The Latte Years, it was the second thing I ever wrote on my MacBook Air, in Pages! It’s very much of the mindset I had when I wrote it, almost like a little time machine. It was never edited, and most definitely could have done with a going-over. In the intervening years I have become painfully aware of my natural tendency towards long sentences!

But what the hell - as one of my writing goals for 2022 was to “publish all the ghosts”, rather than find an alternative home for it or rework it significantly with seven years hindsight, I thought I would honour the hopeful, forward-looking me that wrote it and share it here.

After the finish line

What's next? is a question I’ve been trying to answer for as long as I can remember.

I was a straight A student at school and university, so it seemed there was always another hoop to jump through, another pat on the head I was waiting for. While I was very driven (good) I was very dependent on external validation to feel good about myself (not good). To say the real world hit me hard after graduation is something of an understatement. I went through a period of major stagnation in my early twenties where my physical health deteriorated and my lifelong ambition of being a writer was all but shelved. 

I took up endurance sport nearly ten years ago to shift a few pounds and negotiate the aftermath of a painful divorce at the fairly young age of 25.  When I crossed the finish line of the London Marathon in 2011, I had never been so proud of myself. My thighs were taut with muscle, my heart soared with joy as I had surely conquered the ultimate physical feat. I didn’t know if I wanted to ever run another marathon - the training had taken over my life and I’d had no time to write.

But what on earth would I do next? As a born overachiever, the fact I didn’t have an answer to this question didn't sit well. 

A year after the marathon, I was now a full time writer after a well-timed redundancy, but despite having taken the biggest leap of faith of my life, things were not going well. I had come dead last in a trail half marathon (a race harder than the marathon had ever been), money was running low and it looked like my biggest dream, publishing a book, was never going to happen as my hopeful queries to agents and publishers were met with rejection after rejection. 

 On New Year’s Eve 2012, with my confidence in tatters, I did a manifestation exercise where I wrote a letter to myself from my 2015 self. What would she say? What was life like now? What words of encouragement could I give myself, based on where I hoped I would be in three years time?

I found the letter the other day. It’s so accurate it’s frightening. 

2015 has been a big year for me, possibly the biggest of my life. Since my agent rang me with the news in March, I’ve surfed a giant wave of publisher deadlines, edits, cover designs, fitting in writing a 100,000 word book around a full time job within three months, not to mention the fear of exposure that comes with having a book that contains such a raw personal story out there in the world. But my heart is soaring. Fear is a luxury I daren’t indulge in.  My memoir The Latte Years will be published in January 2016. 

 Just like when I finished the marathon, I’m pondering the same question. What am I going to do now? What do you do once you realise your biggest dream in life? The similarities between writers and athletes never fail to amaze and amuse me, and so I have been negotiating this time for my work and creative practice the same way I approached the aftermath of completing a marathon.

I have had to find ways to get “goal hungry” again both after success and after failure. Both scenarios require gentleness and asking questions and setting intentions from a place of love rather than fear. 

This is what has helped me so far:

Put your feet up

 A wonderful running coach, Martin Yelling, told me to “put your slippers on and have a well deserved rest” after the marathon. He’s a wise man - often the best thing we can do after achieving something massive is let the dust settle, take stock and, for heaven’s sake, RELAX. 

Detach

 This has been key to my personal growth as well as my creative work. Keeping my self belief while detaching from desired outcomes and expectations is trickier than it sounds but it can be done. Sometimes you need to detach from an old identity too. Many of us cling to old personas that don’t always reflect who we are now. It’s very tempting to call myself a marathon runner forever more but while that achievement can never be taken away from me, I can’t keep measuring myself against it either.  It reminds me that achievements come and go in the fullness of time, but life goes on. Nothing you leave behind will ever be truly lost if it is relevant to your future. Trust that. 

Manifest (or visualise)

An essential technique for successful athletes is visualising their moment of glory. Not just what they can see, but how do they feel?  I’ve found doing the same thing immensely helpful for my creative goals. The great paradox about the creative life is that you cannot ever possibly know what the outcome of your efforts will be - and I truly believe that’s a good thing - but writing down what I wanted to achieve in the voice of a future self who had already achieved it was a powerful exercise. It helped me visualise where I wanted to be, work out my priorities and feel gratitude for how far I’d come. It also gave me some clues as to how I was going to get there from that moment in time, dejected and wondering if I should just throw in the towel.

 If you’re struggling to figure out what’s next for you, really recommend trying it. I’m not saying all you have to do is write down what you want and it will happen like magic. We all know life doesn’t work that way. But what does work is getting really clear about who you are and what you want (and who you’re not and what you don’t) and then taking some action. A little imagination doesn’t hurt either. 

Trust

 It’s easy to fret our lives away, looking for our next achievement. The current culture of social media does little to reassure us that everything doesn’t have to be instagrammable, and if you can’t apply the #blessed hashtag to your life then you’re doing something wrong. 

In those near three years, I didn’t look at what I’d written in that letter from my future self once, but I did remember how authentic the voice sounded. Future Me was on to something, I decided. I would trust that all would be well. I would put my faith in the universe to deliver. Even if it meant I had nothing to instagram but my breakfast in the meantime.  

Take action

 I think this is the step many of us have trouble with - I certainly did for the first half of my life. It’s easy to want - it’s the doing that’s the hard bit. You have to keep your end of the bargain. Everything is a choice, including doing nothing. 

 For me, action was a conscious act of surrender and letting go. I decided to stop for a while and listen, take notice, instead of pushing so hard all the time. I no longer had any grandiose ideas, no project I thought would be my “game changer”. But every day, I got up and committed myself to my practice, just as a runner puts on her shoes and runs every day. Even if it was just Morning Pages, I was “in training”. I was a marathon writer. 

Be true to yourself

 For me, the question “what next?” has to be answered by examining your own motives. I’m a goal-oriented person by nature and while this is not necessarily a bad thing, it was crucial for me to get a balance between goals that were truly authentic and goals I was pursuing because I thought I “should” or that would earn me admiration from others.  

Experience has taught me that things get clearer, or solutions present themselves, when you stop and enjoy the view for a while. In fact, that is the only reason to climb the mountain. Don’t worry about whether others can see you on top of it – do it for the fun of the climb and, above all, let yourself enjoy the view once you get there.  The next mountain can wait, just for now.

dukkah

Dukkah is one of those things, if you’re anything like me, you may have written off as “too trendy”, having seen it on every restaurant menu and on the shelves of every posh grocery store. But then you try it and realise the hype is very much deserved! And it’s so easy to make yourself.

I am a huge fan of dukkah and enjoy having a jar of it in the house to use in all manner of savoury things - I particularly like it scattered over avocado on toast, wedges of roast pumpkin, or as a salad topper. It’s also beautiful, and traditionally served, with crusty bread and grassy olive oil as a snack or starter.

Dukkah, my way

6 tablespoons coriander seeds
6 tablespoons sesame seeds
4 tablespoons pumpkin seeds
3 tablespoons fennel seeds
3 tablespoons cumin seeds
1.5 tablespoons black peppercorns
1 tablespoon nigella seeds
100g almonds
100g other nuts
0.5 teaspoon garlic powder
1.5 teaspoons Moroccan Souk spice blend (or another North African flavour of your choice, like harissa or ras el hanout. But I particularly like this one)
2 teaspoons za’atar (optional, I just had it in the cupboard)
4 teaspoons sea salt

Put all ingredients except for the salt into a dry frying pan, stir to combine and toast over medium heat until fragrant. Don’t let anything brown. Allow to cool.

Put the whole lot, together with the salt, in a food processor and pulse until combined but still chunky. You may prefer it slightly more pulverised.

Place the mixture in clean glass jars. Keeps….forever! And it also makes a lovely gift if you can bear to part with any of it. Believe me, that’s a difficult task.

this week

A cute friendly creature we often see on our morning walks.

I’m not going to lie, this has been a long, fairly shit-house week. And yet it still had some highlights and lovely things - so that is what I’ll focus on, for that is the Philippa Moore Way. When you’re in the arena of life, you can’t get bogged down by feedback from the cheap seats. Onwards!

Looking forward to

A break over Easter. Reorganising my book shelves. Maybe seeing friends on the mainland again soon. Making Nigella’s vegan gingerbread again!

Reading

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami - I haven’t read this book in years. It was an old favourite in my marathon days, and now that I think about it, a real influence on The Latte Years too. I have been running for sixteen years now and, like Murakami, my journey as a writer has unfolded in parallel and there are so many similar lessons and challenges. I keep running now to, as he puts it, “maintain, and improve, my physical condition in order to keep on writing novels”! It was nice to spend time with this old friend again, and even nicer to find my old Up and Running postcard bookmark. Good times.

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House by Audre Lorde - this is just phenomenal and a wonderful introduction to her work.

Creative Histories of Witchcraft: Magpieing, sparking the creative process by Anna Compton. I just love reading about other people’s creative processes. I engage in quite a bit of magpieing myself!

Three-Martini Afternoons at The Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther - only a few chapters in and LOVING it.

I also enjoyed many of the articles and blog posts on Gail Crowther’s wonderful website - particularly What Sylvia Plath Can Teach Us About Gaslighting which felt particularly pertinent this week.

Vox: How To Forgive Someone Who Isn’t Sorry by my old blogging and running pal Rachel Wilkerson Miller. “Forgiveness is my safety valve against the kind of toxic anger that could kill me…waiting for the apology is to misunderstand your free will, and it’s to misunderstand the medicine that is forgiveness, that you should be able to take freely, whatever you want.”

Julia Bausenhart: Why I Quit Social Media

Jen McLeary: Why I Am Leaving Social Media For Real This Time

I’ve also continued reading My Body by Emily Ratajkowski but, to be honest, I am finding it very triggering. Should I keep going, knowing it is an important book and it is vital that stories like this are shared - or should I shield myself from reliving my own painful experiences, and continue to suppress the rage I feel for what so many women have been subjected to? Thoughts welcome.

Listening to

My Running playlist!

The First Time Podcast: Masters Series: Sarah Winman - an absolute must for any writer, I loved every minute of this one. Perfect for walking to work and getting ready to face the page.

BeWILDered with Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan: Comparing Lives and On Top of Things?

James and Ashley Stay At Home: Living with ambiguous loss with Erin Stewart

Eating

I have not had much of an appetite and thus have not enjoyed my food as much this week. But these were the highlights:

Rick’s pasta - our last jar of capers had gone off so we used green olives instead, which was pretty delicious. I didn’t think it was possible for capers to go off, but there they were in the jar, a mouldy pink like the scum that grows at the bottom of the shower. Gross!

Pumpkin-topped cottage pie - a recipe I was intrigued by in the Woolworth’s magazine, which I veganised! TVP instead of mince, an easy swap! Very delicious, served with beans from the garden.

Vegan chickpea curry jacket potatoes - I was lazy and used tandoori paste instead of the spices, which turned out very nicely.

We also polished off the last of the cocoa brownies I made from Leah Hyslop’s The Brownie Diaries.

Picking

It’s all been about greens and beans this week. I also threw some of the last strawberries and figs into our morning smoothies. There are still plenty of tomatoes that seem to redden overnight like magic, and the potatoes will be ready to pull up soon. I also bought some mustard green seedlings at the Botanical Gardens for a bargain $2 each, so I hope those will be a bountiful source of winter greens.

Watching

I watched the first two episodes of Season Two of Star Trek Picard (Amazon Prime) for my darling husband, and they actually weren’t too bad! Patrick Stewart makes anything bearable!

Wearing/applying

Modibodis - these have changed my life and I only wish they had been around 28 years ago. My very first pad is probably still in landfill somewhere, which is a haunting and horrifying thought indeed. It feels a bit odd to finally be embracing the power of my cycle, only to know I may not have it for much longer. It is very weird indeed to be asked by your GP “are you still getting your periods?” but I guess that’s to be expected. I am 40 now, after all!

Favourite experiences of the week

The article about my Nan and her Anzac biscuits in this month’s Australian Country Style - we were at the shops first thing on Thursday to get a copy!

A bolstering and productive meeting with my PhD supervisors, who are kind, perceptive and deeply intelligent women who truly get what I’m trying to do and always offer the right encouragement when I need it. I couldn’t be happier or luckier with my team.

Quote of the week

“I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.” - Zadie Smith

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! Otherwise, same time next week? xx

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