in the moment

Today was our wedding anniversary, and we agreed that we could celebrate by having a picnic on the South Perth foreshore.

Being Saturday, we did the usual Saturday things first. H went out early for a bike ride with his group out of Garlands, and I woke up slowly listening to the radio. Then it was making the weekly menu and shopping lists, and off together to the farmer’s market and supermarket.

The weather was humid, so cooking earlier in the day to prepare for our picnic was not much fun. But we had a shower to freshen up, then cycled down to the river to look for a gazebo to sit under for the light.

The foreshore is very ugly at the moment with temporary fencing erected for the Australia Day activities. Just about everywhere you look, there is a fence that made me feel I was in a cage. I decided to sit in the gazebo facing H.

It was very pleasant eating our picnic of chicken sausages poached in champagne with apple and cinnamon sauce, potato fritters, and rocket. I couldn’t fit in our prepared sweets of Morrocan figs, pears and red wine and yoghurt. We drank the rest of the champagne that didn’t poach the chicken sausages, and a very nice bottle of my favourite champagne – Veuve Clicquot, UC’s present to H for his birthday.

What added to the atmosphere was other people that were making use of the BBQ’s and gazeboes. There were many sounds of enjoyment and laughter.

pickled cabbage

H gave me Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Companion for Christmas. It is similar to the Cook’s Companion (which I already own), except that it has a section at the beginning of each chapter how to plant, grow, and cultivate each of the plant ingredients.

I wanted the book because I saw it as a way of knowing what what was in season, and considering what to grow in the garden, and how many plants.

When Red Cabbage is in season and plentiful, I usually make a couple of batches of pickled red cabbage. In the ‘Kitchen Garden Companion’, it says that you can grow cabbage all year round in hot and temperate climates. But it looks like I will have to sort out the water issue first, as I have read that they need a lot of water.

healthy comparisons

I was fortunate to be able to participate in the CSIRO Online Diet Study and have access to many of the resources available from the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet (TWD). I say fortunate, because after the completion of the study, participants including myself now have continued access to these resources until June 2011.

I chose to participate as I was already a waning member of SparkPeople. I wondered if the CSIRO Online Diet Study would compare favourably with SparkPeople with the extra benefit of including more local (as in Australian) content.

Although the CSIRO Online Diet Study had the usual hiccups of a new website and the user experience is rather awkward, I do prefer the unadorned simple tools. SparkPeople is a very rich or complicated web site, with many tools and resources that sometimes become overwhelming.

I’m sure the study will show that participation online achieves better results in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But how much, how little, or what, I think will be difficult to interpret. It appears, that if you participate, you continue to progress. Whether this is eating healthily, exercising regularly, or writing a blog post.

Participation and interacting with others that share similar goals I think is one part of the answer, and being able to do it online too is an added bonus.

in the ground

The mango pip that I sprouted almost three years ago to the day, is now planted in the ground. It is under an established pomegranate tree, which I hope will protect the tree until it is more established. I will then cut back the pomegranate tree.

Just prior to the tree going in the ground, it did flower but it was not followed up by fruit as we had about three very hot days and the flowers were scorched. Also, many of the bottom leaves have dropped off either due to the stress of planting or the hot summer weather.

I’m happy that it has found its feet (or roots), as there is new growth from the top and it is groiwng upright. Also, it is happily sharing the irrigation with some catmint and a feral pumpkin, zucchini, or cucumber. Not sure how to tell these apart until you see the fruit.

flour and water

Some people are fascinated by how planes stay up in the air, I’m amazed at how the combination of just flour and water with a bit of salt makes beautiful smelling and tasty sourdough bread.

1. Beginning with the starter, add flour, salt and water.
2. Mix and rest.
3. Toss.
4. Rest.
5. Bake.

beginning with the starter

I started to bake sourdough bread again this week, beginning with the starter.

It took five days, but now I think it’s ready. I used organic rye flour and bottled water. Just kept adding 1:1 flour and water every day. On the fourth and fifth days, the starter expanded to the lid.

Next step, make the dough.

NIMBY

Yes, I have a supply of clean fresh water. However, water is becoming more scarce and is limited so I don’t feel I can wholly claim “Not In My Back Yard”.

Currently, I rely on a state government authority to deliver clean fresh water. Water is plentiful for drinking, bathing, flushing toilets, washing clothes, etc. However, I can only water my garden once per week with automatic sprinklers and supplement this with hand-watering using a hose pipe.

It is only the middle of October, but already the garden is suffering from subsequent dry warm days. I’m not sure whether watering with a hose pipe is going to be enough for the garden during the hot summer days. It is going to be difficult to prioritise my time to spend an hour every day to water different parts of the garden.

What I feel is really crazy, to me anyway, is that people can top up their swimming pools, but I can’t leave the hose pipe running on a fruit tree or turn on the automatic sprinklers. I guess if my lime tree dies, I can always go to the shop and buy a lime. But I would prefer not to buy the wax coated limes that have travelled thousands of kilometres.

If I could hear lots of splashing from people enjoying their swimming pools, then I may feel differently about it. Sadly, I think most of them are simply contemplation pools that require lots of top ups with water, chemicals, and power for the pumps.

I recognise that I have choices, some of them lifestyle choices. Unlike some parts of the world where the walk to a supply of clean fresh water is a long one. I don’t have to grow my own food, as there are many fresh food choices in shops very close to my home. And it is sheer joy to be able to pluck the ingredients from my own garden to create our meals.

A greywater reuse system seems the way to go. However, most systems are not suited to a small metropolitan block or the guidelines preclude any real advantage such that I feel that I am paying for an expensive hobby rather than working toward an environmental sustainable living. But I guess everyone has to have a hobby.

adaption and resilience

For me, climate change is on the doorstep.

If I differentiate the back of the house from the front, the two spaces each have a different combination of energies or microclimate. For example, the back yard has the air moving quite differently as it tumbles off the multi-story house at the rear. Whereas the front yard is somewhat sheltered from the wind by our own home and the surrounding limestone wall. The back yard is mostly shaded, whereas the front yard is in full sun, apart from one section that has some afternoon shade from the neighbour’s carport.

All the garden ‘soil’ is black sand, alkaline, free draining, and repels water.

We are considering installing a greywater reuse system and rainwater tanks as Perth’s 800 mm rainfall is reducing each year. The sprinkler ban during winter and now back to only being able to use irrigation twice per week is not enough to easily manage a lush food producing garden.

At the moment I consider myself fortunate in that I have the opportunity to grow my own food and that it is still a choice. That is, if I don’t grow food in my garden I can go to the shops and I buy what I need. It may not be as tasty, and there will be dozens of other decisions to make such as do I buy the local oranges from Gin Gin, Western Australia, oranges from South Australia, or from California. And that is not including the varieties or whether to buy organic or biodyanmic.

Eventually, we will have the greywater reuse system, rainwater tanks, solar hot water system fixed and back on the roof (currently we are using gas), and a photovoltaic system. We already have a pretty light carbon footprint, but we will do our best to look at ways of reducing it further.

Working with the climate, adapting to it, I feel is a better way of living sustainably and increasing resilience. So no, we won’t be installing the exterior uplights, swimming pool, or airconditioner that appears to be the new home essentials.

sourdough croissants

Yum!

If you had asked me before today whether I like croissants, I would have given you a straight no.

Today, I can tell you I like very much the sourdough croissants that I made with Yoke this morning.

We tasted and scoffed plain sourdough croissants, sourdough croissants with chocolate filling (i.e. shaved bitter chocolate), and sourdough croissants with an almond filling.

The workshop also consisted of making a Tarte Tatin and slow-roasted vegetable quiche both made with croissant dough. We had the quiche and Tarte Tatin for lunch. Phew!

The making does not require any special kitchen equipment (unlike the Wholegrain, Sprouted Wholegrain and Essene Sourdough breads), but I will need to clear the end of the kitchen bench to be able to roll out the dough 75 cm x 30 cm, and a wider rolling pin will make the task that much easier. Like in previous workshops, all the dough was made with organic or biodynamic ingredients and wholemeal wheat or spelt flours.

Fortunately, the pre-formed dough and formed croissants can be frozen or refrigerated so I don’t have to eat 32 croissants all at once. Knowing what goes into them, I think they will be a special treat! However, I’m looking forward to having some dough ready in the freezer and refrigerator. And just so you know, it takes hours for the dough to become something you can eat from the freezer or refrigerator.

organic and biodynamic weekend

Saturday was mostly taken up with Yoke‘s ‘Wholegrain, Sprouted Wholegrain and Essene Sourdough’ workshop. A dozen of us ate and baked our way through:

• wholemeal sourdough sandwich bread
• multigrain sourdough bread (sweet and moist)
• black rice sourdough ciabatta (very sweet and dramatic looking)
• quinoa spelt sourdough bread (would look great with red quinoa)
• light rye spelt sourdough bread
• dark rye spelt bread
• essene bread (we made wafers and decided these may have been early ryvita but much tastier)

Yoke demonstrated making a multigrain sourdough bread dough, which we got to take home to bake. Also, we had the choice of what dough to make ourselves to bake at home. I made a quinoa spelt sourdough bread with 50% cooked quinoa and 50% sprouted quinoa. Apart from being a bit big for my small loaf tin and the difficulty of getting it out, the crust was crisp and the bread was delicious. We had it with Borlotti Bean soup on Sunday.

Now I need a kitchen gadget, i.e. a juicer/grinder to pulverise the sprouted grains. Having seen Yoke’s Samson – it was so quiet and steady, I’ll wait until I can save up for something similar. However, apart from the essene bread and multigrain, I can bake the other breads from the workshop and perfect these. What is really great about them, is that they require a lot of starter. Great for the those days, when it is plentiful and raring to go.

Armed with sun hats and umbrellas, on Sunday we went up to the WA Biodynamic Festival at High Vale Biodynamic Orchard in Pickering Brook. It did rain while we took a tour of the orchard, but the weather was warm and we missed the very heavy downpour. The guide’s presentation was interesting and he answered many questions clearly and succinctly. A article written about biodynamic vs traditional farming was posted with a photographic display of the farm that explained that a biodynamic farmer’s enthusiasm for the health of the soil is what makes them different to traditional farmers that rely on products brought onto the farm.

One of the reasons we went to the Biodynamic Festival, is that they promised tasting of their core cider. It was worth the drive. Unfortunately, we could only taste it. Distribution is not happening until January next year. We’ll be watching out for it.

Over Saturday and Sunday, I emptied the worm factory tray ready to plant seedlings, and moved the compost bin for the first time. Also planted two lots of cucumbers (bush crop and burpless), sweet corn, basil, and red onions. I planted the seedlings in the worm castings, and spread the compost around the plants. The compost is very black and a nice crumbly texture, and very wormful. Hopefully the worms will find new homes before the neighbourhood magpies come on their rounds. There were so many snails, that I opted for the snail pellets. Not sure what the biodynamic or organic gardening technique is for snails. Strange as it may seem, I have found that they prefer my basil seedlings to beer. Perhaps they are not Australian snails