Our rainwater tank

Our rainwater tank was finally delivered and installed on Friday. It has been a long wait as the suppliers could not keep up with the demand due to the drought. Now we can start collecting 5000 litres for use in the garden and pool. A hose will go under the house and out into the back garden - there's quite a fall so we won't need a pump. It started raining shortly after the tank was hooked up and what a wonderful sound that was, listening to the water pour into the tank.

The Man Who Cooks inspecting our new addition to the family. The lower pipe is for the overflow when the tank reaches capacity. It's an optical illusion that makes it seem that the pipe is going uphill...
We park the cars in front of the moveable fence which is on castors.

After only a couple of hours of moderate rainfall, water had already reached the lower tap on the right. I wonder if we should give the tank a name.

Coffee/tea meme!

How do you take your coffee/tea?

This is from Stu out in Western Australia. I have strong feelings about my coffee, so this meme is ideal for me.

Whether you're a coffee or tea drinker, you too might have fun answering the questions and posting a photo of your favorite coffee cup or mug.

What's your preference - coffee or tea?

Mine is definitely coffee. "Regular" tea makes me cough (something to do with the tannin?), but I do like peppermint tea.

Instant or Brewed?

Instant coffee is a contradiction in terms for us. And it has to be filter coffee, none of this new fangled plunger stuff for us. When we go on holiday, we make sure beforehand what the coffee making facilities there are like, and if necessary bring our own filter and other equipment, even on the train to Adelaide.

How do you take it?

Black. The Man Who Cooks weaned me off the tiny splash of milk I used to put in it, and now HE drinks lattes! (but only when he goes to a cafe).

Do you have a favorite cup?

For coffee we use the cups and saucers that go with our every day dinner set. I use a couple of mugs for my afternoon tea, both from my library days.

How many will you enjoy during a normal day?

I used to drink a lot more, especially when I was living in Germany years ago - they used to call me the Kaffee-Tante (coffee aunt). But now I have my two strong cups in the morning and will rarely have coffee after that.

Does it matter if you don't start the day with a coffee/tea?

Absolutely!! I do not venture outside the house without first having my morning coffee. This has two implications:

1. I am not a candidate for going out for breakfast. This fits well with my preference for having my breakfast while still in pajamas.
2. When I have to fast before having a cholesterol check, I am an absolute wreck until I get the all clear to have breakfast and coffee. Just don't get in my way on those mornings.
   

Anyone else care to do this meme? Let me know!

Where do you eat dinner these days?

No, this is not a question about your favorite restaurants. I'm talking about the dining habits of those of us who started out in a two-person household, then were invaded by some hangers on (= kids), and now are back to two again (at least sometimes).

When the Man Who Cooks and I met all those years ago, the preparation and consumption of food was a shared interest, dare I say, mania. Because we were students we lived in a small apartment, with a table in the tiny kitchen to serve as a dining table. Occasionally we would turn the tiny "living room" into a pretend dining room. Oh, for the day when we'd have our own house which would of course have a separate dining room.

That eventuated, and we always set the table nicely, including candles, a ritual that has even become a habit with our sons when they were old enough to understand. Dinner was the time when everyone was present, none of this trend of each person heating up their own meal at various times (our household is one of the last holdouts in the developed world NOT TO HAVE A MICROWAVE). There was always conversation, catching up with everyone's day, maintaining that family togetherness. (Sidetrack: recent research has pointed to decreasing time children spend talking with adults as a possible reason behind the fall in children's language development and that the fact that modern families often don't eat meals together means less opportunity for adult conversation).

Now things are changing in our household, especially the first half of this year with Techie Son studying overseas. Number One Son is now in a job with odd hours which often has him working from late afternoon to midnight, so he too is often missing from the dining table. That dining table, and the dining room, now appear way too large and lonely! And although I would have never thought this would happen, the two of us find ourselves gravitating back to our comfy and cosy kitchen for the evening meal.

I guess a lot of people have gone through this...

Some photos from our student days in our apartment. This must have been a special occasion. A tablecloth on a card table does wonders! (I've just figured it out: These first two photos were taken in August 1973, so that was probably my 28th birthday)

My sister made my dress, with a beautiful appliqued animal (?) on the front. Unfortunately I outgrew this dress years ago.

An early photo of the Bread Nazi!!

We still have that bread board, made by my brother in his high school workworking class.

Stacking dishes - is it only me?

Does anyone else get infuriated about finding every last inch of kitchen surface cluttered with dishes, glasses, cutlery, etc which would take up a fraction of the footprint it they were stacked (this is prior to putting them into the dishwasher, which of course rarely gets emptied if unprompted)? Or is it just me? Sometimes it seems like there's a contest going on: watch out, points taken off for letting a bit of kitchen surface show! Even the Man Who Cooks is guilty!

But at least he cooks. Came home from my workshop this afternoon and there was a wonderful aroma of some long cooking meat. But that's for tomorrow night. Tonight we had grilled chicken (Turkish recipe), with fennel cooked to melt-in-the-mouth and roast potatoes. Yum.

Household chores - too easy!

HOW TO CLEAN THE HOUSE

1. Open a new file on your computer
2. Name it "Housework"
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin
4. Empty the Recycle Bin
5. Your computer will ask you, "Are you SURE you want to delete Housework permanently?"
6. Calmly answer "Yes", and press mouse button firmly......
7. Feel better?

Works for me!

Another (final?) bat update

We are finally rid of those bats, reported on earlier (here and here). I'm not sure if it's due to the wonderful suggestion of Pea to shine light into where they're hanging out (couldn't resist), or the fact that the berry supply that had attracted them in the first place had simply run out. That was helped along by the regular appearance of a flock of birds that also took a liking to those berries, but with actually more annoying consequences than the bats. The bats stayed only from dusk and left before it got light. The birds moved in during the daytime. You might recall that I mentioned a clothes hoist near the berry-bearing tree in the photo I took. Well, those berries have a rather quick-acting and explosive effect on the innards of those birds, with the result that I'd have to rewash about 1/3 of every load of wash I put out. My solution was to get some old sheets and peg them onto the top of the clothes hoist which protected most of my wash. It worked well!

The rotary clothes hoist is very iconic in Australia, and is so practical (read more about it here). In our first house we inherited one that used to be driven by water power. A hose was hooked up to it, so after hanging up the clothes, to raise the whole thing up you just needed to turn on the water at the tap which would then push it up to catch more of a breeze. That feature had been dismantled by the time we bought the house, but I don't know if I would have been game enough to try it. I could think of all sorts of unwanted scenarios happening! I rely on muscle power to crank up the washing.

Queen of the Pantry!

Jude over at the long-toothed hinterland dweller has named me the Queen of the Pantry based on the responses to my photos in the Bloggy Tour of Homes. I like it! Through touring other people's homes in bloggerland I got some good ideas, including one day having a laptop in the pantry, with a folding chair . Then I can keep an eye on dinner (rather than forgetting about it altogether) while still blogging. Although someone wrote back and said that that wouldn't necessarily help: she has been known to keep blogging while dinner burned only a few feet away.

I have tried to make a 180º view of my pantry heaven, but this is the best I can do. Also tried to make a "movie" as some others have done, but much of each photo gets left out. I also tried powerpoint for a slideshow, but figured some people might not have the necessary software. This will have to suffice, starting from the righthand side:

This is the middle.

Lefthand side

Also thanks to Jude I have corrected a HUGE mistake in the Greek yoghurt, honey and orange syrup cake recipe I posted recently. I had left off a vital 2 in the amount of self raising flour. It should be 2 ½ instead of ½ cups - BIG difference! But because of that I looked up how to type fractions nicely ½ as opposed to 1\2. Hold down the alt key and press 0189 on your number keypad. For ¼ it's 0188 and for ¾ it's 0190.

A Bloggy Tour of Homes

Welcome! This front courtyard is part of the Japanese garden look we are trying to achieve. There's a rumpus (hubby's workshop and sons' gym to the left of the front door. Behind the bamboo blinds is the kitchen, and to the right, out of view, are our two studies, and one son's bedroom.

My blogspace. Well, not much to say about that. But I'd love to replace my workstation which I bought along with my first computer in about 1990. In those days I didn't use the mouse much, and now it's apparent that I don't have enough mouse-moving room.

Dining room, living room on other side of bamboo screen, STILL decorated with Christmas things, yes, in July.

Kitchen, with waiting dirty dishes edited out to left of screen. Two lazy susans in the bottom corners, glad the kitchen design man convinced us to have two rather than one. So easy to get at stuff.

Walk in pantry, taken from the doorway. It extends to the left and right, with shelves on two walls perpendicular to the one you see. Top shelf full of Gourmet magazines. I love my pantry!

Announcing: a Bloggy Tour of Homes

Boomama has organised a Tour of Homes for tomorrow. Everyone is to post 5 photos of their houses: the front door, where they blog, the living area, the kitchen, and the fifth is left up to participants. Sounds like fun! Read more at Boomama's blog, and remember to visit again tomorrow.

Kitchens, food and the meaning of (family) life

I have always felt that the preparation of food for people you love, and the sharing of that food around the dinner table, is the cornerstone of family life. You are caring for family members as well as having time to communicate with each other. There are many things in modern day life that get in the way of that scenario, but it's worth getting right, and it's not impossible to achieve. Since I've been blogging I've come across so many people who also value those things and it makes me feel so good when I read their posts. In the last couple of days there are two special posts which talk about families, gathering to prepare and eat meals together, etc.:

Lee-Ann at Pear tree cottage, who writes about the women in her family
and shares some corners in her kitchen with us
and
Alice at A growing delight, who writes about the kitchen, the heart of the house

Thank you, ladies!

We will be spending a couple of days in the country - see you when we get back.

Sandwich tins? Round?

This is something sure to cause some comment amongst both Australian and American readers. Yesterday Kali sent me a recipe for cinnamon tea cake, which I made today and can thoroughly recommend. It's quick to make, and nice and light. The recipe is below.

However, I'm just wondering about the term "sandwich tin", and why it would be round? Does anyone know? I didn't have something as small as 18 cm so I used a bread loaf tin and baked it for only 25 minutes instead of 30. Another thing I noticed when I first starting using Australian recipes is that self-raising flour is much more widely used than in the U.S.

Cinnamon tea cake

1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 egg, separated
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
vanilla essence (about a capful)
1 ½ tablespoons butter, melted
extra melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar

Sift the flour with the 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and the nutmeg. Beat the egg white until stiff. Add the egg yolk and mix in. Gradually beat in the 1/2 cup of sugar. Slowly stir in the milk and vanilla essence. Stir in the sifted dry ingredients, with the melted butter.

Spoon into a greased 18cm (7 in) round sandwich tin and bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes. While still hot, brush the top with extra melted butter and sprinkle with the teaspoon of cinnamon mixed with the tablespoon of sugar.

Serve warm or cold, with butter.

From: The Australian Heritage Cookbook
ISBN 1 74045 492 8

Tried n true kitchen gadget

Guess what's hidden behind this cabinet door...


















Well, there's a Kenwood Chef which we've had since the 70s, but that's not the subject of this post.


























It's the wonderful slide away shelf that allows me to lift up the Kenwood into just the right height, and afterwards store it back out of the way. The Man Who Cooks bought this in the U.S. just before we were about to leave for Australia. It has been installed in the 3 houses we've lived in over the years, and I wouldn't be without it!

Oh, and the Kenwood Chef is a winner too.

New kitchen gadget

Not to be outdone by Tanya over at the Purple Giraffe with her new washing machine, I must show off my new appliance, my very first electric kettle . When I was living in the U.S., pre 1974, I don't ever remember coming across these, but it's a very common appliance in the Australian kitchen.

So why am I blogging about it? Well, electric kettles have long been on my banned gadgets list, along with microwaves and mobile phones. Our current conventional kettle is a wreck: blackened from having stove spatters burnt onto it (do not send cleaning tips please), and the whistle cap broken from having been dropped, so that it not only looks yuk but also no longer whistles, a disaster-in-waiting (if I'm forgetting the days of the week, how am I going to remember that I put on the kettle a few minutes ago?).
















But the Man Who Cooks convinced me that an electric kettle would be an improvement over the conventional one. It won't take up any more space than our current kettle (a big objection to new gadgets), and it does not sit on a stove so can't get burnt black; it shuts itself off automatically and it boils water much faster than a conventional kettle. OK, already, I'm convinced, but that's the thing: I need to be convinced that buying something new is necessary and will offer an improvement over what we already have. I am a reluctant consumer.

Electric kettles are a mainstay of even the most budget of hotel and motel rooms in Australia, where coffee, tea and sugar are supplied, as well as milk in a small fridge in the room. I was amazed to see that when arriving in Australia, don't know if that's done in other countries. It's very convenient, and can save money too as it means we have the ability to make a simple bread and cheese breakfast. But we always bring our own coffee - both of us are Coffee Nazis.

Painting a picture with window coverings

We love the look of Japanese interiors, and when we saw these shojii style blinds we knew they would be perfect for one of our living areas. The entire wall is floor to ceiling windows, looking out onto the garden. We can have some or all raised or lowered to various heights, to keep sun out, or let light and warmth in. Even when they're lowered completely they give such a nice backdrop to the room, and let in enough light so that it isn't claustrophobic. Now that the sun is getting lower in the sky and temperatures are milder, sitting in those chairs is blissful. But it's sometimes nice to have just the one blind up, framing a snapshot of the garden and highlighting the hibiscus and birch tree.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

It's now 2 p.m., and I am still in my dressing gown and slippers. Yes! Having a slipper day, very much like the hermit day Kali talked about in her blog. Just pottering around the blogs, and communicating with first year English lit students via the university's online learning system. That BTW does not replace going to lectures and tutorials, but it is a terrific way of communicating with students at any time, and they may even be at other campuses in the bush. My priority is to monitor the discussion lists to see if there are any problems with library resources, and reference queries, and I can answer them where all students will be able to read it. Often one student will answer another student's question, there's a great deal of co-operation going on.

A lovely spinoff though is that I get to know some students as individuals, and we discuss mutual interests, whether it's reading matter or which football team we follow. At the moment we have a "book club" going in the discussion lists, but the titles are a far cry from the Jane Austen books on their reading lists! This interaction with students is one of the best things about my job.

Here I am (last year some time actually) sitting around in my dressing gown and matching slippers, reading the newspapers. Hmmm, I wonder if I've straightened up that print behind me??

My bedside library

Cowtown Pattie left a comment in my New Year's resolution post about bedside reading:
"My bedside always has a pile of books by it (please, no dusting!). I get on a "jag" with a particular author sometimes..."

I can so relate to this. There's a good chance that if you've liked one book by an author, you'll like other things they've written. But that's just the start. What about books ABOUT the author? A biography or autobiography that will set the scene for why an author might have written what they did. And then there's all the stuff OTHER people have written about the author and their works. One of my favorite things to do is to follow up a historical event which has featured in a book I've read, and again Cowtown Pattie set me off on a tangent when she recommended the book "Crow Dog : four generations of Sioux medicine men" by Leonard Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes. After reading that book I now have to do some reading about Wounded Knee. And so it goes.

So how fortuitous it was that the house we bought 11 years ago has built in bedside bookshelves. And to think we were going to rip them out, along with the built in drawers, just so we could fit in our own furniture. Glad we didn't do that!



Here is a fairly modest collection, which includes what I'm currently reading ("On beauty" by Zadie Smith), "Dharma Bums" by Kerouac which I want Mel to read, and "On the road" because now I have to catch up on Kerouac, the new Doctorow book ("The March"), and for complete fun and charm, Alexander McCall Smith's "the Sunday Philosophy Club". I hope it's as good as his first series, "The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" - Mel and I both devoured the whole series.

Dust to dust

In a comment on my post about Christmas trees, Jude said...
Now that's efficiency! I'm wondering about dust though. Do you not have to wipe over each of those little bulbs at some stage during the year?

Dust?? What's that? It's something I have conveniently overlooked over the years, and with advancing years and less sharp eyes, it is even easier to just not notice. Yet another advantage of getting older!

Though I did flick around the dust cloth the other day as things had got so bad that even I noticed it. Funny how different people pick up on different things. My husband will notice (and might mention ever so gently) that there's some dust around (what an understatement!), but he will leave things lying around that are so obviously THERE. This is especially true of the kitchen bench (counter to some of you) which has always been his favorite dumping ground. In all the houses we've lived in, the kitchen bench has collected unkitchenly items: wrenches and screwdrivers, paint brushes soaking in turps, packets of seed and plant food, you name it. Sometimes I have tried to not touch them, to see how long it will take for him to put them away, but I can never wait that long! Arrrgh! Oh, and his second favorite dumping ground is right at the front door. It's like he's leaving little shrines around the place.

But one last word on dust: I am living proof that dust does not kill!

Monstrosity in the kitchen

11 years ago we found this house which we fell in love with and bought. However, the kitchen needed to be renovated as it was then 30 years old. This included replacing the oven. Back then, I took one look at it and I said, "This has got to be the first thing to go".


11 years on, and it's still here. Even though it has lost bits and pieces over the years, and not everything works, we can still cook and bake, plus it has 4 electric burners hidden in a slide away drawer if we need that. That came in handy a few years ago when Victoria's gas supply was cut off for about 2 weeks due to an explosion in the power plant. Our regular cooktop is gas, but we were still able to cook, and heat up our water for our "showers" on the electric burners. (That was fun - NOT!).

Anyway, this old monstrosity consists of two side by side ovens, which are both at just the right height - no bending down. The larger oven is really large too, not these tiny ovens they make these days. But what a marvel it must have been 40 years ago in the 1960s when it was new and everything was working: rotisserie, programmable to turn on and off, there was a built in meat thermometer which turned off the heat when the meat reached the right temperature, and there are even powerpoints. Note modern day accessories (click on photo to enlarge): additional thermometer on top of oven, and bottle of wine at the ready to smooth the cooking process.

All four of us are used to coping with the wild fluctuations in temperature, eventually getting the thing to stabilise. The other night Toby cooked one of his specialties, the mustard coated roast lamb from a Julia Child cookbook. Although he complained about the usual scenario of the temperature soaring at first, then having to use tricks to reduce it but maintain the correct temperature, the roast came out perfectly. Ah yes, these men who can cook...