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School holiday Lumberjack Slice

It may be spring, but we're still cutting firewood and usually keep our wood fire in the house burning until the end of October. The spring days are beautiful, but the mornings and evenings are still too brisk to be fire free. So it is fitting to post this recipe for Lumberjack Slice, a great school holiday filler, full of Granny Smith apples, chopped dates, and shredded coconut. After five months of cutting firewood I am sure Duncan is starting to feel like a lumberjack (see Wood Chopping video here). It is hard work, but there is joy in the physical work and the beautiful country.

An earthy collaboration and new friendship

Tamworth potter Sasha Jury-Radford sits at a table in her home studio, making the most of the natural light from the window, rolling, pressing, and carving chocolate coloured clay with earth stained hands into ceramic tea strainers. We joke that the upside-down mound shapes resemble tortoise shells, or, right side up, a squadron of planes about to take off. Sasha and I met when she contacted the store to order Robert Gordon organic swatch mugs. I had admired Sasha's work for some time, but this was our first opportunity to talk. When I delivered Sasha's mugs I asked if she was interested in collaborating to make ceramic tea strainers.

Foraging on the banks of the Peel River

After spending time in the company of chef Sarah Glover and admiring her talent for using food at hand, whether it is locally cultivated or wild produce, I walk on the banks of the Peel River with new eyes. At Nundle, near Tamworth in northern inland NSW, we've experienced our wettest June on record and I wouldn't be surprised if July follows suit. So walks to Nundle Creek and the Peel River have suddenly become more interesting. We walk to the river to see how high the water is after rain, after a couple of days of rare sunshine, after snow. Along Nundle creek we see two wild rose bushes with ready to harvest rosehips. It is winter, so the rose red seed buds are clear to see without the camouflage of foliage. Further along the creek we see clumps of stinging nettle growing in the creek bed and on the banks of the Peel River. In the shallows, where the crystal clear water rushes over river rocks, there is watercress.

Unplugged at the #dailyplentyworkshop

The knowledge that you cannot send or receive emails, SMS, internet or social media gives you the freedom to be present like it’s the 1980s. There are no heads down checking phone screens. Our ubiquitous phones are refreshingly absent for the duration of the workshop. Instead our group of 11 students and eight tutors and caterers fast become friends over a candlelight welcome dinner, leisurely breakfasts on the shearers’ quarters verandah, and a riverside picnic.

Big tomato love

We grow a lot of tomatoes. Friends visiting our vege garden for the first time comment, "That's a lot of tomatoes," eyes widening at the 3 x 4m patch. It is not a large crop by commercial growers' standards, but for the average domestic grower, it's a fair size. The reason we grow so many tomatoes is we enjoy preserving them, a passata of sorts, ready to break the seal of the Fowlers preserving lid to add flavour to slow cooked casseroles, pasta sauces, meat balls and more. Duncan teases that he could just go to the nearest supermarket and buy tinned tomatoes for less than $1/can. I protest, our cooking wouldn't taste the same.

Mother's Day edit

This Mother's Day, Sunday, May 8th, make sure Mum doesn't take the burnt toast (or crumpet) for breakfast. Reciprocate Mum's generosity with a gesture of appreciation, whether it is breakfast in bed, a small gift, lunch out with extended family or a homemade meal. The emphasis here is on taking time out to be present, give thanks, say Happy Mother's Day, and raise a glass to mums no longer with us too. Here we bring together some new arrivals and proven favourites.

Summer thanks

Plum abundance

I do love a glut of produce and the opportunity it provides for trying out new recipes. It's a little inconvenient when the glut comes at Christmas time and you are a little distracted cooking and eating a Christmas feast, opening presents and being with family. That's why we found ourselves preserving apricots and plums on Boxing Day. For weeks we'd been watching the clusters of apricots and plums on the trees plumping up nicely, becoming ever so slightly soft to the touch, and tasting deliciously warm and sweet. But we couldn't do anything about it until Boxing Day.

Are you an apron wearer?

The world is divided into those who wear aprons and those who do not. To celebrate the relaunch of our online store Annabelle Hickson of The Dailys blog and I are hosting a giveaway on Instagram. My apron loving friends and I post to the hashtag #ApronAppreciationSociety. This week Annabelle and I invite you to tag an apron themed shot #ApronAppreciationSociety (old or new) for your chance to win an apron from our store. The winner will be announced Sunday evening Dec 6. 

I stumbled across this article from The Mercury listing Stephanie Alexander, Michelle Crawford and Sally Wise as apron wearers. In recent years I am a convert to apron wearing, having splattered too many loved shirts or dresses with oil or butter while cooking. I am guilty of wearing my apron to the dinner table because, well there's even greater danger of destroying clothes there.

Honey back on the shelves

When our shop honey supplier Middlebrook Honey of Nundle stopped producing earlier this year I wondered whether I might be able to fill the gap and produce honey on our eight acres. I bought myself a copy of Doug Purdie's Backyard Bees and Dad gave me more than a dozen back copies of The Australasian Beekeeper and other references to read. But it was Michelle Crawford's honest tale of beeking in A Table in the Orchard that hit a raw nerve and brought my plans crashing back to reality. Michelle wrote "My live and let live approach to beekeeping meant that the first year, the hive swarmed...Once the bees swarmed, that started a cascade of events that led to the end of our first hive...I was left with an empty hive and damaged honeycombs, a bit like the ruins of a lost civilisation." I could so easily see that happening to me.