[Update: this post is a bit old, but I thought we should add some photos!]

It has been so long since we have posted. In between our last posts we have bought a house and got married!

On August 28th we moved into our beautiful new home in Wynnum, a suburb of Brisbane on Moreton Bay. Our house is a Queenslander “worker’s cottage” built in 1937 (so we were told, but we haven’t found documentation of the date yet). We love the Queenslander style — raised on stumps to increase airflow (and protect from floods and termites), with wide verandahs, high ceilings, and timber floors and walls (often called “VJ” or vertical joint walls).
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It was quite deflating to see new shoots of nasty weeds sprouting where we have been working relentlessly to clear. I was reminded of Michael Pollan’s brilliant  book “The Botany of  Desire” in which he discusses the Greek mythological gods Apollo and Dionysus—Apollo symbolizes the desire for order and control, while Dionysus embodies madness and mayhem. I think the Mountain is likely to always lean toward madness, no matter how hard we try to bend it to Apollo’s rule.

We are slowly learning the names of some of these nasties, often with groans of “oh no, you have that” from the locals.   Madeira Vine, introduced from South America, grows  aerial rhizomes (which look like cat turds) from its vine and drops them to sprout new growth.  Unfortunately we didn’t know about this reproductive capability and pulled a ton of this vine down from the trees.  After seeing how rapidly new growth spread from the dropped tubers, in the future we will instead cut and poison the vines from the ground up.  To combat the already dropped rhizomes we raked up an entire top layer of mulch and burned it in a bonfire. Continue reading…

I just made these Greek-style roast potatoes to accompany Lakshmi’s famous (to me) buttermilk-thyme fried kalamari. I recommend you try the potatoes — so yummy!  The kalamari recipe is simple: clean and slice up the squid, marinate in buttermilk, batter in flour, thyme, salt and pepper, and fry. Yum!   Serve with a nice greek salad.

Reminds me of a great taverna in Patmos… (images after the break) Continue reading…

After a hard Easter weekend of work on our Mountain property we decided to treat ourselves to a day a of wine tasting in Stanthorpe (AKA the Granite Belt). The drive from Kyogle to Stanthorpe is quite enjoyable. You see a dramatic change in landscape as soon as you cross over McKellar Range. The terrain out west is more typically Australian — quite dry with lots of gum trees. Continue reading…

Over the last couple of months Mark and I have ventured down south to work on clearing Dad’s property. It was an emotional first visit back in December when we couldn’t even see the road, but slowly we are beating back the lantana and other weeds to reclaim the land. Continue reading…

On Saturday the 28th of March we celebrated Earth Hour with a great bunch of friends and some wonderful food.  We had a delicious BBQ (including North Carolina pulled pork) and then took a roady up to the top of Balmoral Hill to watch the city go dark. Unfortunately there were many lights still on; especially disappointing were all the big wealthy houses immediately around us still glowing bright. On a positive note, there were several other people partying in the dark and our friends all got into the spirit of the event. We came home and continued to eat, drink and be merry by candle light until after 11pm. Continue reading…

As we have mentioned once before one of our favourite cookbooks is Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries, which takes the reader on a 12-month journey through Nigel’s seasonal home cooking.  The book is beautiful, with descriptive writing, full page images and high quality paper. To make it even better every recipe we have ever cooked from it turns out great. The dishes are never too complicated; instead their sensational tastes rely on fresh, seasonal ingredients. Our great friends Angus and Elizabeth gave the cookbook to Mark for his 30th Birthday and we think about them every time we cook from it.

Despite the recipes being based on English seasons we still cook many of its recipes here in Australia, including this amazing chocolate cake, which can be baked all year round. I have baked this cake several times now and each time it impresses everyone who tastes it. I served it at our Earth Hour party last night and lots of people asked for the recipe, so here it is. Enjoy! Continue reading…

This weekend I made the best pancakes that I think I have ever made. The secret ingredient is buttermilk; I can’t believe I haven’t caught onto this sooner. We served these light and fluffy pancakes with fresh banana, figs and maple syrup. Continue reading for the recipe.

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For our Earth Hour party this weekend I made something I haven’t made in years: North Carolina barbecue.  Barbecue in the United States varies widely across regions.  In North Carolina, when you say “barbecue”, by definition you mean pork (unless you qualify it by naming another kind of meat).  Typically this is slow-roasted and smoked pork with a vinegar-based sauce.   Note that in NC the word “barbecue” never refers to the apparatus you use to cook the meat like it does here in Australia (although the word my have its origins in the apparatus).  It is also seldom used as a verb.

When I was living in Chapel Hill, NC, my friends and I had a tradition of having an annual “Pig Pickin’” every autumn. We only actually roasted a whole pig once.  After that we learned that it’s much easier to just roast pork shoulders.  It’s a little more expensive, but you get a lot more meat of higher quality and you don’t have to deal with the remains of the carcass.

This year I only cooked for about 10-15 people, so I only needed two boneless pork shoulders, each about 1.1 Kg (2.4 lbs).  I smoke-roasted the shoulders one at a time on our Weber charcoal grill using a technique that my mom developed.  The resulting barbecue is smoky and succulent.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to find pork whose provenance was known and transparent, so I have no idea if these pigs were ethically raised or raised in a factory farm.  I’ve made a vow recently to only buy meat for which I know these details (we already eat only free-range chicken and eggs), so the next time will be different.

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This Christmas Mark and I decided to give each other bikes. Three months down the track I got a swanky new bike for my 30th Birthday (Mark got one too). We did look at getting second-hand bikes from www.gumtree.com.au and Bicycle Revolution but there are just not that many good bikes available. There are more second-hand dealers popping up and I recommend you check them out first because you might just find what you are after.

After a bit of research we decided that we primarily want to ride our bikes on roads and paths around the city, and I want to cycle to work. We looked at hybrid bikes, but decided against them because of the extra weight of the suspension and the energy it wastes. We both ended up getting skinny-tired commuter bikes by Specialized. The bikes have given us more freedom and are allowing us to get out and explore Brisbane. This weekend we went for a 30km ride along the river to Toowong, across to the West End, and back home.

I have started cycling to work which is about a 7km ride each way. My employer is currently paying for me to park at the King George Cycle Centre, which is a brilliant secure facility with lockers, showers, towels and other creature comforts to make cycling life easy.