Sweet

Red(ish) Fruit Salad

islands parting tides as meteors burn the air.
Oysters powder to chalk in my hands.

– from ‘The River’ by Robert Adamson

It’s been raining for days.* Heavy rains that leave the air humid and cloying. A sky washed in bruised shades of grey. It makes the spring greens look impossibly greener, the overhead leaves seem closer reflected into prisms by raindrops. T describes the weather in the simplest terms: rain, sun, rain, sun, rain, sun, rain. An apt description. We walked to school the other days in gumboots and umbrellas, W’s skirt tucked up inside her rain jacket. And she still had to change into a dry set of clothes by the time we got there. Continue reading “Red(ish) Fruit Salad”

Pistachio Butter Birthday Cake

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

– from The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare

The waratah flower, native to the south-east coast of Australia, is a striking plant. Its deep crimson flowers bloom on top of a branch whose spirally-arranged leaves are serrated along the edges. It is known to be difficult to cultivate and can take five years from seedling to flower. It is in season for just a short few weeks in late spring. The name comes from the Eora Nation, the sovereign peoples of the area known as Sydney. We named our first born Waratah, our bright spark of a child. Continue reading “Pistachio Butter Birthday Cake”

Rhubarb Pound Cake

There’s a wild sunset brewing up over the Pacific. The water is glowing turquoise, the sky is turning crazy pink, the lights of the Santa Monica Ferris wheel are starting to pulse and spin in the twilight. Life is so interesting I’d like to stick around forever, just to see what happens, how it all turns out.
– from White Sands, Geoff Dyer

It’s been an age since I’ve posted. There are numerous reasons, none of which are particularly original – work, kids, life. But last Wednesday, T requested that we bake something together. He sat up on the kitchen bench and helped me stir and sift (and lick the bowl), small hands sticky with such pride and joy that I found myself wanting to preserve the moment. Continue reading “Rhubarb Pound Cake”

Pistachio & Rosewater Cake with Cardamom Frosting

— the dusk light, the cloud pattern,
recorded always in your heart

and the rest of the world — chaos
circling your winter boat.

– from ‘Last Ink’, Michael Ondaatje

The hot days are starting to roll across Melbourne, stretching out, settling in. The trees lining our street are heavy with new green leaves, the sky is a high blue question mark up above, dissolving at the horizon. Sweat beads across my upper lip as I bake bread in the morning. Continue reading “Pistachio & Rosewater Cake with Cardamom Frosting”

Masala Chai

…
again the emerald green pallu of her sari
tucked in at her hips, across her breast,
and cough it up over her shoulder a hush
of paprika and burnt honey across my face.

— from ‘Wrap’ by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

India is unrelenting and wildly beautiful. It is an endless array of colour and scent and sound, a byproduct of the sheer density of population. It is also a geographic rainbow, from rolling tea hills to dry desert, high buddhist enclaves at the foothills of the Himalaya to incense-wreathed Hindu temples, the bustling metropolis of Mumbai to long stretches of sand and ocean down south. The one consistent thread, the soundtrack of India if you will, is the chai-wallah call to arms: chai, chai, coffee, chai, chai… Continue reading “Masala Chai”

Flourless Chocolate Cake

The skies today are a bright, pale mid-winter blue, the air still and cold. I’m enjoying a moment of afternoon silence, drinking a cup of tea with a thin sliver of the Rhubarb & Chocolate Ganache Tart that I baked on Sunday afternoon.

T will be waking up any minute now, so I’m going to keep it short and sweet with a list of my latest favourites (if you’re just in it for the Flourless Chocolate Cake, keep on scrolling)… Continue reading “Flourless Chocolate Cake”

Pear & Strawberry Muffins

Now the leaves are falling fast…

– from ‘Autumn Song’, W. H. Auden

The day we made these Pear & Strawberry Muffins last week was unexpectedly lovely. The morning was the first really cold one of the year. Thick socks and hot cups of tea kind of cold. Frosty breath in the morning air, clear blue skies, thin yellow sunshine turning the autumn leaves still clinging onto tree branches all the shades of gold there are no names for. Continue reading “Pear & Strawberry Muffins”