Onwards, beyond words

The plan was to post about the witticisms and evolution of slang and lingo. It was to be garnished with a picture of a silhouette. Instead it became something other, something else, because of two people.

I posted last about what we are told to be and who we really are, in part, the meaning of this journey. It's a constant exploration and interest and I am so pleased with your lovely and personal comments, thank you.

Lisa, your compliment was extraordinary. As is her dripping with charm blog, A Bloomsbury Life which also recently contained a picture of a silhouette (book cover); thus my change of mind on using a similar image.

The photographs you see are from my camera-fuelled voyage through Morocco, a truly amazing experience as much as a place. This was alluded to in the “Retour” post. I might just have to punctuate a season of posts with the pictures I took there.

I then read this comment from setyourselfonfire, who after reading the post decided to change her career course:

“I've just had the realisation about living my dreams. I've always chosen more practical things for the reason of being financially stable. But i've realised I can't do that any more because i don't put my all into the practical things because it's never something i'm passionate about. I've just made the choice to quit my job and follow my heart. I'm excited.”

Immediately, I had to get up and walk around. Then sit back down again.

I am pondering and processing what our hearts and our minds can do, when they spell out that meeting truthfully. Astounded; everything we say and do can release small ripples that grow in ways we have no idea of. That comment felt like the splash of a wave, coming back after I threw a pebble out to sea. I don't know what your life will be like, I just hope it will be beautiful. Sending out my prayers and love to everyone.

Peace,
x

What do you want to be?

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

As I near a birthday in a few weeks, the thoughts of an old familiar question remind me of bygone times.

I remember that question being drummed into us kids from the age of three. We soon began to ask it of ourselves. "What do you want to be?", "What defines you?". Why? What? When?

Before the philosophical ramifications of such questions revealed themselves, the answer was simple. At the age of three I wanted to be a ballerina by day and a ninja at night. The power of flight, optional.

And why not? Is that not what innocence of the world teaches us? Be who or what you want to be?

I don't know if a simpler answer to the question "What do you want to be?" might not to have been, "Taller". After all, the truth we learn and the wisdom we gain is that we do not control the future. We have only a vested interest in it and must work hard for our place in that landscape. I don't mean materially or professionally, but more soul-deep and intelligently.

If all else fails and you are alone on a bare rock overlooking the ocean, who you are inside will carry you forward. Not the job, the attention or the paraphernalia.

Ballerina and ninja. The two choices define qualities I still admire. Grace and mystery. Softness and strength. Light and shade. Perhaps Filmmaker/Writer is a grownup amalgamation of both. As I now have no use for leotards (uncomfortable) and dressing like a ninja in London is likely to draw just a little too much attention. Although I'd like to see a ninja, just once, sipping tea outside a cafe.

I would suggest a revised approach to the above question. Let it not be about the job. Let it be a measure of the qualities that will shape the human being in this fleeting world. I hope one day to hear such answers as "Stronger, happier, patient". Perhaps even "I don't know". The honesty in that answer alone is beautiful. It gives one time to think, reflect and ultimately grow up.

Simply Bill Granger

There's something about Bill. There's something about his eclectic and original food. There's something about sharing - all entwined. He is exactly as he appears in my photograph above. After the brownies post, I was emailed about Bill Granger so had to blog a bit more about him. Why? He has an abiding love of cooking, giving and what I admire most in talented people, a lack of pretense.

Hence him being able to place brownie recipes in a cookbook that contains Spicy Prawn Stir fry, Italian Onion Soup and Pumpkin and Pea Coconut Curry. I am not one to recommend what you should buy, but his "Feed Me Now!" is an All season favourite I could not put down. I think it is a good indication that a cookbook is a success when you want to eat the entire book, I mean literally.

This is surprising as he is a self-taught cook and one of Sydney's most successful Chefs and Cookbook writers. His background was not easy, less about that here. He is an amazing success story not primarily because of his talent, achievements and innovation- but because he is still a nice guy, speaking in the voice of a teenager about his life, loving family and an unabashed enjoyment of food. We shared a "few" words after watching him cook for the first time in London the other evening. The condensed version is below.

Bill:

On Growing up:
My mother was a vegetarian and my father was a butcher, so you can imagine what our mealtimes were like. Sometimes meat would be placed in the oven until a few hours later it had settled into a grey solid layer. Other times dessert for me would be: add water, eat.

On Cooking:
I believe that meals should centre around the family, good cooking, great ingredients, just taking time to sit down and talk together.

On Other Chefs:
I really like Cooks for whom it is not about ego, but a real respect for food.

On Special Ingredients:
I am not that fussy about branded ingredients, even Soy Sauce. My emphasis is on ingredients that are fresh, delicious and simple. It's natural sometimes for people to be fussy; at home my daughter will only eat cheese that is Buffalo Mozzarella - not just any old Mozzarella, it has to be Buffalo!

Home life:
I am the designated cook at home! Although I run the restaurants [he is also opening another soon in Japan] my family expects me to come home and cook dinner and that is incredibly gratifying to me.

On his Cookbook:
I wanted a book that makes easy home-cooked meals into joyful and delicious experiences. Time is of the essence nowadays, so whether you're cooking for family, friends and even on a Shoestring, this book will have lots of choices for you. There are breakfasts, teatime treats, small meals and fabulous dinners. With a young family, I am very aware that feeding the eyes is just as important as feeding the body, so the foods are as delicious as they are healthy and fresh.

His Cooking Philosophy:
Cooking for others is about giving, if you cook with love then it will show.

Bill's books are available via amazon and his website is http://www.bills.com.au/home.htm

Have a lovely weekend, Peace, x

A Midweek Treat

There are a thousand different ways to say I love you. One of them is with food. The simple act of cooking a dish fulfills so many simple pleasures, even before the eating of it.

The recipe that follows resulted in the ambrosial brownies you see above. They were too luscious to eat (almost) so I thought I'd photograph them quickly in the spirit of Spring, just before they disappeared.

The recipe is from Bill Granger's new cookbook "Feed Me Now!" the only chef/restaurateur I pay attention to. He told me it would be "Killah" in his Australian accent and he was right. It is also, (gather round), much lower in fat than regular brownies. The moistness comes from the novel addition of dates. When I snapped Bill doing his thing below, one thing that struck me was how easy and fast it is. Do try this at home.

Healthy Chocolate and Date Brownies (makes 25)

140g butter

140g finely chopped dates

60g cocoa powder

90g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

95g soft brown sugar

3 medium eggs

1tsp vanilla

• Line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees centigrade.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the dates, stir well, take off the heat and stand.
• Sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder into a large bowl, add the brown sugar and combine.
• In a new bowl, whisk the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the dates and butter. Add to the dry ingredients until just combined.
• Pour into the tin and bake for 20 minutes or until just set. Leave to cool and cut into squares. Enjoy!

Bill sees baking in this day and age as something special, like

letter-writing, I have to agree.

Richmond Park Muse

"...and she was just going to spring over, when she heard a deep sigh, which seemed to come from the wood behind her."

~Alice in Wonderland

We spent a few lovely hours in Richmond Park. A sumptuous green wonderland full of paths, stags and room for thought. You could walk it for years and still find something new, a hidden lake, a quaint English lodge, hollow trees large enough to hold an avid reader with a soaring imagination. I was dragged willingly from screen and keyboard; slowly shaking off the thoughts of the day as they clung on, merging with reality: Scene 1, Ext. Richmond Park, two friends walk gingerly upon...
and of course you simply release here, talk when you want and enjoy the silence when you feel it. The camera came along, resulting in the photograph above. One ought to find places like this as often as possible. Embrace the heady gift of nature.

Sunlight and pancakes

This is for someone who needs a little sunshine today and anyone else out there as well. When a rare bad mood bothers a friend, my immediate instinct is to banish it. As this friend is away I decided to indulge them by spending a minute to send a wee scented candle- red for the "mean reds" and place it in a candle holder I designed in the style of Breakfast at Tiffany's, which she likes at the moment. It's not quite me, but that isn't the point of gift giving.

"The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of." - Holly Golightly

So this is one little way of burning away the mean reds... aromatically.

I once heard that if you're scared of God then everything falls off in comparison. With trepidation, I tried it and it worked... the nightlight disappeared (Earth Day, bonjour). Sometimes the things that scare us most are as thin as paper, we're made of stronger stuff.

When Insomnia meets a Snowglobe

I got a little cold this weekend. Welcome to London, you are truly back. I wish someone had reminded me that cold medicine contains caffeine and caffeine, well... look what happens when you don't sleep.
I always find that my mind shuts down but my body is awake which negates writing. Option 1: Paint .. too messy, Option 2: Make something I like. I like .... I like.... zzz... OK... I like Snowglobes. This was a hobby I haven't indulged since childhood. A time when I travelled everywhere with my loved ones and wanted to capture each experience in a bowl of water and have it slow-moving and dreamlike like a memory. It's been a while but I still see the small snowglobe collection from those years with a mixture of warmth, nostalgia and a slight twinge of tacky-shyness.

This then reminded me that "someone" I know enjoys a recon. altoid tin. This is the strangely therapeutic practice of taking an empty tin (formerly housing mints) and making it a into a new artwork. In my case, I wanted to make the world's first altoid tin Snowglobes. As a previous insomnia-fuelled effort had been admired, I decided to make another. The themes were chosen for me - travel, mystery, Taj Mahal, which I someday have to visit. It's time to rest, tins take ages.

Retour

"Be in this life as if you were a stranger or a traveler on a path."

I'm back in town.

An intensely felt blog was written by me last, in the world which is still invisible to those who know me best, this wonderland. I felt relieved, blessed to share it with you, but somehow, something old in me wanted to return to my shell and shy away for a day. A hug is welcome and you can't escape from it, thankfully. But words touch me deeply and I wanted to savour your responses, remember and breathe in private.

Something was happening in England, I felt an alien inertness; it was physical rather than emotional. Like watching your wings laying still on the grass and wondering why that is so?

Two answers arrived, firstly, my laptop expired only days after I thought to myself "Backups, remember" - I did not. Secondly, a gift was presented to me to leave these sleek rainy streets and travel, far away to a land of heat, light and mountains.

Where phones are left on voicemail and email escapes me. I missed coming here, yet am so grateful and caught up with the impact of it, I will share it sooner, God willing. I was so busy recharging my phone, my laptop, my adored appendages - I forgot to recharge myself. And so in my one break - my first in years, I brought only time and hope. It was wonderful.

A Rose Life

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. "

~Lewis Carroll

On a beautiful day not more than 3 months ago I was given wonderful news. This news followed the not so hot news that a) I might have cancer b) the chance of survival for someone in their twenties was "fair" and c) I shouldn't worry.

The beautiful day that came was the "all clear" - negating a) and b).

I also realised that a) and b) were simply wake up calls. Loud, clanging in your face, don't forget to write wake up calls. It didn't teach me much about myself, but it did encourage a 180 back to my original course. Thank God.

If I can share something else that is intensely personal, it reminded me that my mild mannered self is not bad in a crisis. If this could be called that. I don't panic or raise my voice, I don't even cry. Except for a brief moment walking back to the car, when I consider for the first time whom this news might affect; c) I did worry for them.

The world opened up for me when several days after the op, my doctor gave me the wonderful news; a reprieve, for God knows how long this gift will last for any of us.

So, before you finally decide to follow/change your dreams and your journey. Do give another loving hug to those near to you and take time out to look at all sides of the rose.