My reading was more normal this week than it was last week!
I was pleased to finish my selection for the Classics Spin with a couple of weeks to spare. This time, the selection was The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Not only did I finish reading it, but I also managed to get the review done which you can read here.
I also finished my second Christmas novel for this year which was The French Christmas Market by Gillian Harvey. I like her books and this was another good one!
On Thursday, I reviewed three Japanese novels. I was hoping to get through a fourth but my reviews were all done before I finished reading the fourth one which was Dreamers of the Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki. I ended up finishing it over the weekend
I also started reading The Slow Cooker Supper Club by Sue Heath. I have loved both of the Sue Heath books I have read previously and I have high hopes for this one!
I'm watching
A couple of months we watched archaeologist Dr Alice Roberts as she went in search of the Ottoman Empire by Train and really enjoyed it. This week we saw that she has a new series out where she goes in search of the Roman Empire. It feels like there is plenty of Roman history around but we will still watch it as her shows are always interesting!
Max
Max went on holidays this weekend. It's the first time he's gone sightseeing around the state. He got to work along the edge of Lake Mulwala, he got to see New South Wales, he got to explore lots and lots of new places!
Life
Last week was a crazy, crazy week including a banking outage on pay day which was pretty stressful. Thankfully the bank system came back up at around 7.30 and the bank extended the deadline so everything got sent in due course. It was only a four day week as we had a long weekend with Friday off, but it felt like five days worth of work!
You may have guessed that if Max went away for the weekend, then there's every chance we did too! We went up to stay with friends who moved to a town called Yarrawonga. We had a lovely weekend. We had a chance to catch up, we went to lunch at a winery that has been in operation more than 100 years old. We crossed the river and went to a town called Corowa in New South Wales, where we visited a mill that has been converted into a Whiskey and Chocolate Factory, including an amazing events space and a cafe. We also managed to see two new art silos
I did a lot of starting books this week! Some finishing but nowhere near as many as I started!
One book that I finished was the audio of Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt by Lucinda Riley and Harry Whittaker, the final book in the Seven Sisters series. I have listened to all of these on audiobook. Given that each of these books is more than 20 hours long that's a lot of listening time! I started listening to the first book more than 6.5 years ago, so it has been a bit commitment! This final book was narrated by Richard Armitage for Pa Salt's parts and Tuppence Middleton for the modern story. It feels like this book did what it needed to do in terms of tying all the origin stories together, and telling Pa's story, so I was satisfied with the end of the series. I did have one question about what happened on the luxury super yachts (IFYKYK) but overall it was good.
I then started listening to Away with the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Kerry Greenwood had passed away recently, so I thought it would be a good time to go back to the next Phryne Fisher book. It did surprise me a little that is 16 years since I read one of the books but I think I have slipped back into the world quickly. After listening to Richard Armitage for so long it did take me a little while to get used to the sound of a new narrator but I think I am there now!
We did a bit of a roadtrip on the Friday and Saturday of the Easter weekend, and I convinced my husband that we could listen to a book while we drove. It needed to be something that he would enjoy too, so I chose The World According to Kaleb by Kaleb Cooper. Kaleb Cooper is a young British farmer who is now a bit of a celebrity thanks to his appearances on Clarkson's Farm, a reality TV show featuring well known British....presenter I guess is the best word....Jeremy Clarkson. It is only a short book at around 2.5 hours and it was amusing. Kaleb is a young man who knows exactly what he likes (farming) and what he doesn't like (sheep among other things!).
As that book was so short, we then started listening to The Satsuma Complex which is both written and narrated by Bob Mortimer. Bob Mortimer is a British comedian who appears regularly on panel shows such as Would I Lie to You and he makes us laugh a lot every time he is on! He's a great oral storyteller. We will listen to this when we are in the car together for the next little while!
In terms of books I was reading myself, I finished The Best Days of Our Lives by Helen Rolfe. The review for that will be up this week.
I then read The House of Lost Whispers by Jenni Keer, which is another super interesting book by her! It's a bit of a genre bender but I will say more when I review it next week!
I also started The Tea Ladies by Amanda Hampson which is going to be my read on a theme book club selection this time around. The theme is 1960s and this book is set in 1966 so it fits the theme beautifully.
I also started The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe by Catherine Greer. I picked it up on a whim when I went to the library last week, but I can only borrow it for a week so I needed to get going with that one sooner rather than later!
Finally, I didn't take the physical books I was reading with me when we went away so started The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods. I am a bit torn now as to which book to finish first as I did get sucked into this one pretty much straight away!
I'm watching
We are big fans of the archeological show Time Team here in my house. It is often on the Real History channel at around dinner time so we will watch it if it is on, even if we have seen the episode multiple times before. I was a bit surprised to find that over the last couple of years they have been making Time Team specials that are only on Youtube! This week we watched one called Digging Band of Brothers which was an excavation of the camp where the US 101st Airborne Division was based in Britain. There are a few other specials that we will watch now! If you are interested this is the link.
We also started watching a new series of the American Baking Show which is the first one I have seen where Paul and Prue are the judges.
I also watched How to Steal a Million as part of the Springtime in Paris event hosted by Erin from Still Life, with Cracker Crumband Lisa from Boondock Ramblings. What a fun movie! It starred the beautiful and ethereal Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, who was very handsome as a young man. The premise is that Audrey Hepburn's father is a serial art forger. He agrees to hand over a famous statue to display in a museum without realising that he has agreed to have the piece authenticated. If it is tested, then it will be revealed as a fake then he will be found out. Hepburn's character then enlists the help of a man she caught stealing a painting from her own house (or so she thought) and hijinks ensue. The movie had such charm and naivety. I couldn't help but think if the movie was made today how very different it would be! I am planning to watch the next couple of movies for the event this week.
Life
I had to go to the funeral of a friend last week. He was a larger than life character who drew people to him. It was a reminder to live life to the best of your ability as you don't really know how long you have. Also #$%$ cancer.
In Australia, Easter is a four day weekend with public holidays on both Good Friday and Easter Monday. A lot of people choose to go away for the weekend. Originally, we were planning to go away overnight next weekend, but then my son is going interstate that weekend so we decided to go on Friday and come back on Saturday.
You probably recall that we like a good art silo, and this trip we managed to see 4 full size ones, plus a collection of smaller ones. The main reason for heading up the highway was to go to the Lake Boga Flying Boat Museum. During WWII, Lake Boga was a secret base for the repair of flying boats like the Catalina aircraft and saw Australian, American and Dutch planes landing on the lake. It was also a key point in the communications between the Allies. It was a fascinating place, and I think it might be a place that we go back to should we be up that way again. Recently there has been a new art silo done at Lake Boga, which reflects this history. The other photo is of a silo at a place called Sea Lake, which was cool because in the day you can see the image below, but at night they projects some films onto the silos taking about the farming and the dark sky environs around which means amazing stargazing
One of the highlights of the trip was going to a nearby lake called Lake Tyrrell which is the largest salt water lake in the state of Victoria. We went at sunset the first night and it was spectacular. I took so many photos. The next morning we went at about 8am and we were pretty much the only ones there. Well...us and the flies.
We had to come back on Saturday as we had a show from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival featuring another British comic, Tom Allen! He is on various UK show and he was very entertaining. This was the only show we got to go to in this year's festival as we were away for most of it!
We went on a road trip to South Australia over the Christmas/New Year period. The main reason was because my brother wanted to host Christmas, which I posted about here. We thought that we would also take advantage of the compulsory shutdown at my husband's work to see a bit of Australia that we haven't seen a lot of.
Our plan was to head to the Eyre Peninsula, staying in Kadina, then catching the ferry over to the Eyre Peninsula, then driving to Port Lincoln, up to Venus Bay, across to Port Augusta, back to Adelaide and then home via Mount Gambier.
We saw a lot as we drove. I have previously posted about the amazing silo art that we saw, and I will post a few other things as well, but today I wanted to focus on the food side of the trip!
On Christmas Eve Eve, we went for a drive through the Barossa Valley. My brother in law spent a lot of time up in the Barossa growing up, so we visited some of the places he knew in search of really great cured meats. The plan was that we were going to have them with some crackers and pate for dinner on Christmas night. That didn't end up happening as it was so hot (39 degrees), they ended up deciding to drive back to Melbourne that night. Nobody was going to be getting any sleep in the caravan or tents in that kind of heat. We were staying in a cabin with a tiny air conditioner in and that took forever to cool down as it was.
Anyway, I digress. We also visited Maggie Beer's Farm Shop which is in the Barossa Valley. Maggie Beer is a legend in the Australian food and TV industry, and she has a lovely shop where she sells all sorts of produce and housewares.
There is a whole food and wine trail that starts in the Clare Valley, goes through the Barossa Valley and then down to the McLaren Valley. If you like food and wine, then Adelaide is a pretty good place to visit!
Robert and I then when to visit a Dutch shop that I had heard a lot about. For him, it was a real walk down memory lane as he looked at all the different products in the store. he talked about the things his grandmothers and mother would make. We ended up buying some chocolate letters for each of the kids, yes, even my son the grown up kid and some nasi goreng spice mix. The store itself is super cute and I can definitely see us going back there when we visit Adelaide again.
There is a cafe attached to the store where you can get all sorts of Dutch food, like traditional croquettes, and we couldn't resist trying the Dutch version of vanilla slice which is called Tompouce. There was a huge mural, so it could almost have felt like you were sitting next to a canal in Amsterdam. Almost, but not quite.
On Christmas Eve itself, we took my 5 years old nephew last minute Christmas shopping for presents for his mum and dad, and then he came and played in the pool at the caravan park. A bit later we headed to the beach for fish and chips. Have I mentioned it was hot!
On Boxing Day we started the next stage of our trip driving to Kadina, via lots of silos. The next day we caught the ferry to the Eyre Peninsula. The less said about that the better, as it was a bit rough and I did get a bit seasick. We then drove the east coast of the peninsula to Port Lincoln, which is a huge fishing town, and is rightfully famous for it's seafood. There was also a pretty amazing French bakery in town, which was very popular. We ended up eating our sitting on a bench by the beach because it was booked out. All their pastries looked amazing.
One of the places I really wanted to visit was Coffin Bay which is about 30 minutes from Port Lincoln. I had been there once many years ago, but it was completely different to what I remembered! The food highlight of the whole trip was the Seafood Experience we had at 1802 Oyster Bar in Coffin Bay. Fortunately, you don't have to have oysters, because we don't like them very much, but the lunch we did have was spectacular and it was a lovely day to sit out on the deck and indulge. This is the description of the seafood experience from the menu
I really loved the mussels which were in a sweet sauce and the curried kingfish collar, which we were encouraged to eat with our hands! I am not sure I would normally have chosen that off a menu, but it was so good! Everything was great really.
The final touch was grilled peaches and ice cream. I am going through a real peach phase at the moment. Can't get enough of them!
After just chilling for a couple of hours under the shade of a big tree, we finished our delightful day in Coffin Bay with a sunset cruise on a catamaran. There was a charcuterie board as well which was a lovely touch to a fab way to spend a couple of hours. There were also a lot of oysters on offer which we didn't have, but there were a couple of oyster lovers on the boat who ended up having a massive feast!
It was a fabulous day!
We then started to make our way back to Adelaide where we spent New Years Eve. We had walked all around the Botanic Gardens in the heat looking at art by acclaimed glass artist Dale Chihuly, so I was exhausted, and I hadn't thought to book anything ahead of time. We knew that we did not want chips as we were all pub mealed out) so we ended up finding a nearby Thai restaurant that had a vacancy, and we had a really lovely meal there. I was dead to the world by 10pm and didn't even wake up for the fireworks which were just down the road!
We had Moneybags and satay chicken for starters, and then I had ordered pineapple chicken fried rice and Roberts ordered Thai Green Curry. I didn't expect my rice to be delivered in half a pineapple, but it was. Finally, we shared a dessert of Cheesecake Spring Rolls - delicious!
Along the whole way we stopped at various bakeries. We love a small town bakery and there were a couple that were absolutely fab, particularly in the small town of Tumby Bay. If we lived in Adelaide I could definitely see us visiting this little town more as we loved the feel of the place.
One of the things that I am always reminded when we cross the state borders, is that you can get all sorts of different things in each state. You would think there wouldn't be that many differences! So to give you some examples, in South Australia you can get Apple and Custard tarts whereas I don't recall seeing them here in Victoria. They also have different cream filled buns called Kitchener buns, you can easily get a chocolate donut filled with cream. The thing that I had the most this trip though was a pub classic - Beef Schnitzel. Now in Victoria you can get any number of variations of chicken schnitzel at any pub, but beef is nowhere to be seen, but in South Australia, you can get both. I had it a couple of times. This one was from a pub in Port Augusta!
All in all, it was a very successful road trip, seeing a different part of the country. Now, we are looking forward to our next trip in about 9 weeks!
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
Recently we spent some time in South Australia. We went to Adelaide as my brother was hosting Christmas, and we thought we would take the opportunity to see a bit of the state given that Robert's work has a compulsory shutdown period. We decided to focus on the Eyre Peninsula, as I hadn't spent as much time there as I had in other places.
In order to try and share as many pics as possible without taking up too much space, I was going to try creating some groups of slideshows. however I couldn't really get them to work so apologies in advance but this post is very image heavy! Originally I was going to do the silos, sculptures, scenery etc in just one post, but I think I will break it up into different posts just to make it easier!
I have shared some individual photos here and there over the last couple of weeks, but this will be more comprehensive.
So let's start with the silo art. We have seen quite a few art silos now. You can see others by clicking on this link. Most of them have been in Victoria but we had previously seen one in South Australia and one in Western Australia. Our route for this road trip was really designed to see as many as we could, but we did surprise ourselves by adding an extra in on the way to Adelaide that we hadn't actually planned for.
We then planned to see more on the way to Wallaroo where we stayed one night, and a couple more on the Eyre Peninsula. All up, I think we saw 13 different silos on this trip. Actually, we saw many, many more of them but 13 of them had art on them. Now when I see unpainted silos I just see a blank canvas just waiting to be decorated.
We won't mention the fact that I got sea sick on the ferry trip from Wallaroo to the Eyre Peninsula
Horsham - we had seen this one before!
Arkona - This was a new one to us, and was interesting because it is an invisible man, and something a bit different. The way I interpreted it was about how important sport is in country communities.
Albacutya - This was one that we only realised was close by when we were at Arkona. When I say nearby, it was about 70kms away, there and back. Distances is relative right?
Kaniva - We had seen this one before, and I only had a couple of minutes to grab a photo because I had added on more travel time by going to Albacutya
Coonalpyn - The first of our South Australian silos. This one is right on the main road between Melbourne and Adelaide and so we have seen this one before!
Eudunda - This one is about story and books, and honours a famous South Australian author called Colin Thiele who came from near this town
Farrell Flat - Great colours on this one!
Owen - We have seen one of this artists other silos in Victoria before.
Bute - All of these have lovely details in them. In this one I liked how the flowers seem to be flying off her dress.
Wallaroo - This one is a bit different in that the silo isn't painted, but there is a light projection that is shown every night as it gets dark.
Cowell - This one commemorates a local legend and his camels! Yes, we have lots of camels in Australia.
Tumby Bay - I swear you can feel the joy in this one!
Kimba - The last of the art silos for this trip. Kimba is approximately half way across Australia going from East to West.
I will be back with the customary What We Ate of Holidays post for Weekend Cooking in the next week or so and the other posts in the next few days, hopefully!
I have added the map below to give some idea of where we went. The blue line is a very approximate idea of the route we took. All up we travelled approximately 3500 kms, so it was a fair bit of driving. We did try to plan to only drive a maximum of 4 hours each day after the first day, and we mostly stuck to that!
Every year Sheila from Bookjourney asks us to share our first book of the year. I am usually still deciding what that book might be come 1 January, so I am always too late to share it with her, but here it is this year! And I have to say, it's a good one!
Also, note that shiny new Kindle Scribe! Yes, I am very excited that my husband got me one for Christmas!
I'm reading
I was very determined to finished Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang in 2024, as I really didn't want to carry it forward into 2025. Fair to say I didn't love it, but I read it for Cook the Books and it did provide plenty of inspiration for food to make. Expect that post in the next couple of weeks!
Whilst I started There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak my first book, I ended up then picking up A Love Like No Other by Kate Frost for a blog tour this week.
I then started The Chibineko Kitchen by Yuta Takahashi which was a delight! I read this for Japanese Literature Challenge and my own version of January in Japan!
In other news, I decides to restart again at Storygraph for my 2025 reads. If you are on Storygraph, look me up! You can find me there as Margreads. I am also on Instagram as Intrepidreaderandbaker!
I'm watching
We really have only been watching bits and pieces. For example, we watched the Last Night of the Proms, and the Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood
Life
We finished our South Australian road trip, coming home via Adelaide and Mount Gambier! I am planning to do a post about all the big things, silos and art we saw along the way but for now here is the Big Lobster in Kingston SE and the Blue Lake in Mount Gambier.
One of the highlights was wandering around the Botanical Gardens in Adelaide seeing the 16 piece of art that are currently on show by famous artist Dale Chihuly. We really enjoyed the display. It would have been great to see it at night where it is all illuminated but we couldn't make the dates work!
After we got home we have been doing a lot around the house in terms of cleaning out the pantry and things like that, but not much more. The last couple of days in particular have been hot, hot, hot!
Well, it has been a very busy couple of weeks, which is why I missed last week so we have a bit to catch up on. From a reading perspective though, the first week was very busy, but this second week I haven't read much at all!
On audiobook, I finished listening to The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley! This is the seventh book in the Seven Sisters series, and I have to say.... arrggghhh that ending! It felt like an unfinished book to me. I therefore started listening to Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt so that I could get some answers. It doesn't hurt that Richard Armitage is one of the narrators.
I managed to squeeze in The Chimes by Charles Dickens, which I posted about here.
I did start reading Last Christmas by Clare Swatman, but I have had to put it aside for now. Not sure if I am going to get back to this. It might be next Christmas.
As I mentioned in last week's Top Ten Tuesday post, we did a family read of Bluey: Verandah Santa, which was a lot of fun..
Finally I started reading The Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang which is the current selection for Cook the Books. To be fair, I am struggling with it a bit, but I am determined to finish it this year!
I'm watching
Before we came away we watched the movie Blitz, which tells the story of the Blitz on London, through the eyes of a young woman and her son. It wasn't too bad.
I then watched A Paris Christmas Waltz. I mean.. Paris and Christmas? Yes please!
We then watched A Very Musical Christmas which was the stars of Australian musical theatre singing Christmas songs! The event raised funds for Beyond Blue, and I hope that they do it again.
On our family Christmas Day, the two boys/men said that we should watch a movie together and it was decided that we would watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The irony is that they were both asleep very quickly so the rest of us watched it but they didn't!
Life
We travelled to Adelaide for Christmas Day, and then after that, we have taken a road trip to the Eyre Peninsula, and we are just beginning to start the journey back to Melbourne! There have been silos, sailings, street art, seafood, scenery and so much more! Here's a couple of pics
Last weekend my husband, my sister and I undertook a quick roadtrip to Adelaide for my brother's belated 40th birthday celebrations.
Normally when we do this drive, it is get in the car and drive, only stopping at certain designated places. This time, because it was my husband's first time of travelling this road we stopped a lot to see various sights along the way. Here are a couple of photos:
First, there is the Big Koala (Australia likes big things) which I prefer to call the scary koala! We also added 3 more of the art silos to our list, with the bonus of painted sheep all through the town of Horsham! You can see other examples of silos we have seen before in these posts.
I am aware that this is a Weekend Cooking post, so here are 5 food related things from our trip to Adelaide
1. Delicious pasta - We didn't book anywhere for dinner on our first night in Glenelg, so we just went to an Italian restaurant around the corner from the hotel. This was Fettucine Al Pollo - so good.
2. No more bowls of coffee - The last two times we have been to Adelaide, we have gone to a cafe called Swedish Tarts where the highlight for my husband has been the ability to have a bowl of coffee (literally). They don't do the bowls anymore (insert sad face here).
3. Burrata - Until a couple of weeks ago I don't believe I had ever heard of burrata, then I heard of it twice! So, when it was on the menu I knew we had to try it, and it was totally delicous. Creamy cheese, delicous bread, balsamic vinegar and heirloom tomatoes. I was kind of expecting it to be served warm, but it wasn't. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of the cheese ball before I cut into it. I guess that means I need to order one again!
4. After a really good steak dinner, it was time for dessert and I chose "Davidson plum and rhubarb crumble with pepperberry
custard, macadamia & honey ice cream, freeze
dried davidson plum powder, murray river salted
tuille". Oh my goodness, this was so good!
6. Hahndorf - On the Saturday we went for a drive through the Adelaide Hills. There are plenty of foodie places through the hills. We decided to visit the town of Hahndorf which is famous for it's German heritage. I was hoping to have something distinctly German for afternoon tea but instead I had a giant cream donut. So delicious!
Whilst in Hahndorf we visited the Fruchoc shop. What you might ask is a Fruchoc - well, it is a South Australian favourite. It is a small ball of a paste made from dried apricot and peach which is then covered in chocolate and my South Australian friends go mad for it! We bought home a bag but havne't cracked it open yet!
On the way home we took a detour to a historical railway station in a tiny town called Serviceton. Once upon a time, it was a bustling border station between Victoria and South Australia where people changed trains. I have seen the sign for the station so many times but this was the first time we visited. What an interesting place!
Weekly meals
Saturday - Birthday dinner
Sunday - Beef brisket rolls
Monday - Butter Chicken Pizza
Tuesday -
Wednesday - Mexican Chicken and Rice
Thursday - Stir Fry
Friday - Takeaway
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
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