Statues and silos!

In my post last week I mentioned that we had recently visited a town colloquially known as Cowtown, and all down the main street there were a lot of painted statues of cows.

It got me thinking about the other statues we have come across both at home and on our travels, so I thought I would have a bit of fun by sharing some photos from various locations.

My interest in this kind of thing started with the baby elephant named Mali. Back in 2012 there were 50 painted elephants all around Melbourne to celebrate the birth of a baby elephant named Mali at the Melbourne Zoo. There was a map to help you find all of them, and my goodness, I walked all over this city so that I could say that I found them all.

When my son was in America for college he lived in a small town called Concordia in Kansas. In that town, there is a museum for the Orphan Trains remembering those children that were relocated from the East Coast to the midwest. All around Concordia there are statues representing some of the stories of the children involved. Whilst they aren't painted it was interesting to wander around this small town in Kansas and read some of the stories.

The first time we went to visit him, we had to drive from Concordia from Wichita, and along the way we stopped in a town called Lindborg in Kansas. The town claims to be Little Sweden, and all around the town there are painted wooden horses, known as dala. In addition to being a beautiful little town, there was also an awesome coffee shop there!

In Wichita, there is a large statue called The Keeper of the Plains. It looks amazing on a beautiful autumn day and spectacular when it is lit up at night. At the time we visited Wichita, there were mini versions scattered throughout the city. I say mini but they were all 10 foot tall painted statues. With limited time, we obviously didn't have time to find all of them, but we did find a couple of them.

Just in case you think that this is all about America, when we were in Capetown in South Africa, we stumbled across some painted rhinos at the docks in Capetown. Such a beautiful place.

 Whilst I have been talking about mini things, we have also spent some time wandering around the western part of Victoria looking at the painted silos that are out there. In due course we intend to go looking for more of these all round the country. We have seen maybe 6 silos, but all up there are about 35 across the country, and it turns out that there are 40 painted water towers as well. I feel a road trip coming on to go and look for some more of these

We did stumble across another painted silo when we were in Albany a month or so ago too.

I love these painted silos and can't wait to see more. As you can see from the video below there are some amazing pieces of art out there waiting to be appreciated

Have you come across some fun statues or something similar to the silos either in your home town or on your travels?

Top Ten Tuesday: Oh, The Anticipation

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books On My TBR I Predict Will Be 5-Star Reads.

I think this topic is a good one, but I am not sure I am going to come up with ten. We'll see how we go. Let's start with what I have downloaded from Audible,then what I have on the Kindle, and then what's on the shelves.

So bearing in mind the above statement, here, in no other particular order, are my choices

Rolling with the Punchlines by Urzila Carlson - Urzila Carlson is a South African comedian who now lives in New Zealand and spends a little bit of time in Australia  as well. Every time I watch her she makes me laugh, and I have been lucky enough to see her live which was extremely entertaining!

The Rise of the Magicks by Nora Roberts - The third book in the Chronicle of the One trilogy.

The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley - For the last year and a bit I have been working my way through the Seven Sisters series by this author. I am really looking forward to this book, when I get to it.

Hearts on Hold by Charish Reid - There was a rave review over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books a couple of days ago and I one clicked that sucker so quick even I was surprised!

Lilac Girls by Martha Kelly Hall -One of those authors that I know that I will enjoy when I finally get to it!

The Vineyard of Champagne by Juliet Blackwell - This is a new release that is right up my reading alley..

The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis - Similar to Martha Kelly Hall, I haven't actually read Fiona Davis, but I am pretty sure I will enjoy her books when I do.

The  Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley - this is not part of the Seven Sisters series, but I do feel as though I have got the hang of Lucinda Riley's style now.

Beauty in Thorns by Kate Forsyth - I can't believe I haven't read this yet.

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar - So funny story about this book. I have looked at this book to buy several times over the last few weeks. I had no idea it was already on my shelves! I did find another couple of other books that I didn't remember.

This week...

I'm Reading...

I mentioned last week that I was reading the first book in the Chalk Hill series by Lily Malone. II thoroughly enjoyed that book and have ended up reading both the second and now I am reading the third book which is called Last Bridge Before Home.

I'm not sure what I will pick up yet. I mean Lily Malone has at least four books I haven't read yet so I could keep reading those or I might pick up something completely different. I'll be as surprised as anyone else as to what comes next.



I'm Watching...

On Friday night we watched the final episode of The Good Place, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried. It felt like the series ended in a good way, with all of our characters coming to their own sense of peace and contentment.

From the first episode we have been engrossed in the story of Eleanor, Chidi, Jason and Tehani as they found their way into the good place where they met Michael and Janet, and I will miss them all. Luckily, if we really wanted to, we could go back and watch all of them again.

We loved that The Good Place was a lot of fun, but that it was also smart with the conversations about ethics and how to become a better person. I am, however, glad that the team behind it recognised when the story was done and didn't try to drag it out for longer than necessary.

We did go to the moves on Saturday to see Midway. Whilst I don't think the movie will end up as a classic in any way, it was watchable. I found myself thinking that it was trying to be Top Gun WWII, but it didn't quite make it. It didn't help that there were a couple of scenes that reminded me of Hot Shots either! Sort of middle of the road film for me.

My Kitchen Rules started again last night. We weren't really sure if we were going to watch this year because last year was just so awful but we watched the first episode. Jury is still out, but we'll see how we go. There was some evidence of the bitchy personality based TV, but nowhere near as bad as last year.

In Life...

So I am a month into my blogging comeback, and so far, it feels good to be back. The interesting thing about trying to come back to blogging is that I don't seem to have any shortage of ideas of posts to write.Then again, even when I didn't post for a year I would often think I should blog about that, but never quite got around to it.

What I have found hard is that there are so many people who used to be in the book blogging world who just aren't around at all anymore.. I guess that means that there are lots of new bloggers around and I need to figure out how to connect in the current blogging world. The challenge is how to rebuild connections, readership and working out how important that is in the big scheme of things.

Posts from the last week

Six Degrees of Separation: Fleishman is in Trouble to Spinning Silver
Weekend Cooking:  Mexican Chicken and Rice
2020 Reading Challenges
Top Ten Tuesday: Book Cover Freebies featuring lots of delicious looking baking book covers



I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Six Degrees of Separation: Fleishman is in Trouble to Spinning Silver

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. This time, I have chosen to use all books that I have read, apart from the starting book

This month's starting point is Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodeser-Akner, a book I hadn't heard of until I saw it as being the starting point for this month. Other than reading the blurb, I have no idea what it is about but the name Fleishman reminded me of ....

Flashman and the Dragon by George McDonald Fraser - I only ever read one book of the Flashman series of books which I summarised as being very politically incorrect but fun at the time. I am a little surprised at myself because I have always been such a stickler for reading a series in order but this is the eight book published in the series, but it is much later in the series if you read it chronologically. Which leads me to

The eighth book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, Written in my Own Hearts Blood, which features Jamie Alexander Malcolm McKenzie Fraser as the Scottish highlander who finds himself caught up in the Jacobite uprising. I hear that we will finally get to read the next book in the series this year to which I say hoorah!

The Jacobite story is one that author Susanna Kearsley explores in many of her books, but for the purpose of this chain I am choosing to use The Winter Sea, a book that is right up there with my favourite ever books.

The next one is perhaps a tenuous link, but I am choosing to jump to Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan, a fairy tale retelling about selkies which in Scottish mythology are creatures that could change form from seals to humans by shedding their skins. I actually could almost have linked to the third Outlander book as there is mention of the selkie legend but instead I am linking to

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth, who is a master of taking a fairy tale and retelling it in a historical fiction setting. Bitter Greens was the first book by Kate Forsyth that I read, and it is still my favourite. In this book, she gives us a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale set in Renaissance Venice mixed in with tales from the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV

For my final link in the chain, I am sticking with the fairy tale retelling theme. In this case, it is Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik which I listened to on audiobook early last year. This is a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, with a good pinch of  Polish (I think) folklore.

From here, there are any number of directions the change could go, but that is my six for this month.

Next month's chain starts with Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar. I think I know what my first link is, but who knows where it will take me!

Weekend Cooking: Mexican Chicken and Rice

Many years ago now I was at my cousin's house for dinner and she served up this dish. The recipe  was written on the back of a blue envelope and I made it a few times but then forgot about it.

Recently we were doing a bit of clean out and we came across the blue envelope again and so we have made the recipe again. There was a photo of the recipe sent to my son so he could make it one night, and to my husband (still getting used to saying that!) so he could  make it another night, and yet, every time we put it on the menu for the week we walk around the house saying things like "has anyone seen that envelope?".

So, in the interests of saving everyone's time and sanity, I am going to share the recipe here.

Now I am aware that this isn't really Mexican, it's more inspired by than genuine, it is easy, and it is tasty so it is on our rotation of meals now.

Mexican Chicken and Rice

Rice
Coriander
Red kidney beans
8 Chicken thigh fillets chopped
2 jars Taco Sauce
Grated Cheese
Sour Cream

Preheat over to 160C.

Cook rice and then mix with the beans and coriander. Spread in the bottom of a baking dish.

Cook chicken in a frying pan. When brown, stir through the taco sauce and heat through.

Place in baking dish over the rice

Sprinkle with more cheese

Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes

Serve with sour cream

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. 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. For more information, see the welcome post.

2020 Reading Challenges

Back in the day I was a sucker for a reading challenge. But when you aren't really reading and you  are most definitely not blogging there doesn't seem to be much point in challenges.

I am, however, going to sign up for two challenges for this year. The reading part isn't actually an issue for either challenge, but the writing a review part is! They might just be mini reviews, there might be no reviews, we'll see how it unfolds.

The two challenges I am joining are:

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - back in the day we used to host this challenge but when we decided to call it a day Amy from Passages to the Past now does a sterling job of hosting it.

Australian Women Writers Challenge -This is a no brainer for me as about half of the books I read are by Australian Women authors.

Top 10 Tuesdays: Book Cover Freebie

This week's theme for Top 10 Tuesdays is Book Cover Freebie which can then be interpreted in any way we like. The brief is "choose what kind(s) of covers you want to talk about: prettiest, most unique, most misleading, weirdest, most memorable, creepiest, ugliest, etc". I am aiming for most delicious.

Just before Christmas we were talking about what we might want to buy for each other for Christmas and I gave a suggestion for a cookbook which couldn't then be sourced. The other day, we were out and suddenly I was presented with said cookbook because the husband is very good that way.

In honour of that, I bring you the Top 10 baking book covers from my bookshelves.

The obvious place to start is with the two books that I have received recently but first a couple of things I have noticed as I put this post together.

Firstly, there are a lot of Australian cooks/authors here, and there will be a few mentions of Masterchef Australia.  Just goes to show how much that show has influenced  the Australian food scene over the last decade!

T

Bake Australia Great by Katherine Sabbath  - Katherine Sabbath is an Instagram sensation with her amazing cake designs. Previously she had published a popup cake book (which sounds like so much fun, but it was seriously pricey) but now she has given us some fun designs and some delicious sounding flavour combinations. She has made numerous guest appearances on Masterchef Australia.

Natural Baking by Carolin Strothe and Sebestian Keitel - This is the cookbook I did get for Christmas. This one is a bit more outside my comfort zone as I am more about the normal baking recipes, but I don't think it will hurt us to try some different recipes

Women's Weekly Baking: The Complete Collection - If Masterchef has made  a difference to the Australian culinary landscape over the last decade then the Women's Weekly has done the same thing for the last 100 years or so. Come to think of it, the husband bought this one for me too. You can see how he encourages me in my baking!

Women's Weekly: Cook - Whilst this is actually an all round cookbook, I have made numerous baked things from this one over the years.

Merle's Kitchen by Merle Parrish - Many years ago Merle appeared on Masterchef as a guest to encourage the contestants to do some country style cooking, and everyone loved her. She ended up having two books published. This was the first.

The Sweet Life by Kate Bracks - Kate Bracks won a series of Masterchef a few years ago. This book contains my go to chocolate cake, lemon syrup cakes that are always a hit and more. I really must have a look at it again and see what else I can try out of it.

Simple Essentials: Chocolate and Modern Baking by Donna Hay - Donna Hay is an Aussie legend. Her cookbooks are always styled perfectly and her recipes are definitely doable, most of the time anyway.

Golden Wattle Cookery Book - Speaking of country style cooking, this is a  cookbook that has been in print in one form or another since 1926

The eagle eyed among you might spot that there are only 9 titles here. This is because there are a couple of online sources that I use a lot. The main one is the Queen website where there are all sorts of different recipes available, supplemented by the fortnightly challenge in their baking group on Facebook. The other sources are things like the free magazines from the supermarkets

Are you feeling hungry yet, or do you have a sugar headache?

Top 10 Tuesday  is  hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I will also be linking this post up to Weekend Cooking as hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

This Week...

I'm reading....

I had every intention of reading a book set in France after finishing Sixty Summers (because as I may have mentioned last week we booked a trip!) but I ended up picking up Water Under the Bridge by Lily Malone instead. I got an email telling me that the second book in the Chalk Hill series was on sale. When I was looking I realised that I had actually bought the first book in the series a while ago, but had never read it so I decided it should be my next read. I have read one book by this author which I enjoyed so it was time to try another book by her.

When I started reading, I realised the series is set in a fictional town in south western Western Australia, which is an area that we visiting between Christmas and New Year so it feels a bit familiar. In fact, on the author's Facebook page she shared a post from her local paper talking about her latest release. The town where she lives is Cowramup, and it is a place that we visited during our trip and so it is helping me visualise the town as being similar to the area. The town is colloquially known as Cowtown, and all down the main street there are cows everywhere and lots of the shops have cow inspired names. Let's put it this way, if there was a movie theatre in the town it would definitely be called the Moo-vie theatre.

I have noticed something unusual about my reading so far this year. Normally I have a mix of paper books, audiobooks and ebooks, but this year all of the books I have finished so far are all ebooks. I'm not sure why that is, but it is a change.

I'm watching...

The only new thing that I watched this week was the first episode of the new Star Trek: Picard series. It is only being released weekly, so it is one episode at the time, but I felt that it was a good start. It's been a long time since we have seen Picard on the small screen, and I found it a very comfortable return to that world.

I have long been much more a trekkie than a Star Wars fan, which is interesting in our house because my husband is very much the other way. Until I started dating again I had never seen a Star Wars movie from beginning to end. I went and saw one on a date (not with him) and then another one with my husband, so I haven't seen them all but I get the world now.  We did watch The Mandolorian together recently which I enjoyed. Whilst I don't expect to be converted from one to the other, I am coming around.

In life...

On Saturday we went to see another classic Aussie band. This time it was Icehouse and the show was awesome. It was held in the grounds of the zoo so we took the opportunity to spend a couple of hours wandering around looking at the animals. It's been many years since I had done that.  We then had to exit the zoo and line up to get back in (we won't talk about how hot it was or how long it took) to go and claim our spot on the grass.

On thing I did learn as a result of this event is that the only part of my body that should make prolonged contact with the ground is my feet. I am not made to be sitting or laying on the ground. Next time we will take chairs even if it means sitting at the back! Despite the discomfort, it was a perfect night to sit outside and listen to fantastic music. My husband didn't grow up in Australia and so sometimes when we got to see bands he only knows a few songs but he enjoyed the concert because he knew almost all of them.

Icehouse is a band that I have wanted to see for the longest time and I would gladly go see them again. I think the next Aussie band I really need to see is Hoodoo Gurus, and I am totally hoping that Simply Red comes back to Australia soon as they are also on my have never seen but must see list!

Back in the day the lead singer from Icehouse had the full on mullet and a perm as you can see in the video below. These days he looks a bit different, but then again my hair has changed in that time too!

The other thing that we did this weekend is a small project in the house. My husband, who is often known as Bob the Builder because he is very handy, loves a good project and he decided that this long weekend was a good opportunity to redesign the walk in robe. That meant taking everything out and so I tried to at least get rid of some clothes that I no longer need! Hopefully I'll have some pics for next week's post.

This is just a small project. Previously he had done our kitchen (see the pics here), the flooring, the deck and my son's bedroom. This year, we intend to do the two bathrooms and our room which will pretty much leave the spare room and the garden! At least that's the plan for this year!

And for fun....here's just two of the cows from Cowtown

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Weekend Cooking: Pavlova board

January 26 is Australia Day and so we have a long weekend this weekend. What better time to talk about that quintessentially Aussie dessert....pavlova?

This isn't the first time, or even the second time, that pavlova has featured here on the blog. I have posted about it several times before, and it was even mentioned in a fun conversation that I had with Kiwi blogger Maree who used to blog at Just Add Books. This is because there is a very long lasting battle between Australia and New Zealand about who is the rightful claimant of having invented pavlova. Interestingly, in the course of writing this post, I saw an article which suggested that it was neither of us, but rather a US creation, which is shocking and as such I am going to ignore!!

Just before Christmas social media went crazy with the idea of Pavlova Boards. They were everywhere over social media, and so because I am nothing but a follower, I decided to get on the bandwagon! This is despite the fact the whole craze me laugh because we have been doing DIY pavlovas for years. Pavlova/meringue nests on the bench and then make your own fillings with fruit and cream, but what I have never done, because this is not something I ever really think too hard about, is put it on a platter, make it pretty, post it on Insta, serve it up and then let everyone make their own!!  Full credit to Swish Biscuits for seeing that opportunity.

What was also different this time is that I actually made my own meringue nests. I have talked before about the fact that I find even the idea of trying to make meringues intimidating, and this is still the case, but I have gradually been building up to trying them. I've made meringue buttercream icing, meringue kisses, topping for lemon meringue pie (must do that one again) and more so maybe the time was right to give actual pavlova a go!

While I was generally pretty happy with the meringues I made, they were a little on the chewy side and not as crisp as  I would have liked. But the taste....oh my goodness..... so good. So much better than any store bought one. And I say that as someone who doesn't necessarily go out of my way to have meringue because I often find it way too sweet. But the ones that I made ...so delicious!

The recipe I ended up mostly using was from New Idea Food, but I didn't do the pink food colouring thing. I also made the raspberry sauce and the chocolate ganache which were delicious.

Pavlova Grazing Platter

MINI PAVLOVAS

6 egg whites, at room temperature
1 ½ cups caster sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon cornflour
Liquid pink food colouring

RASPBERRY SAUCE

3 ½ cups frozen raspberries (350g)
1/3 cup caster sugar

CHOCOLATE SAUCE

200g block dark cooking chocolate, finely chopped
2/3 cup pure cream

Trace eight x 7cm circles, about 2cm apart, onto each of two sheets of baking paper. Grease two large oven trays. Place paper, trace-side down, onto prepared trays.

To make mini pavlovas, beat egg whites in a large bowl of an electric mixer until frothy. Gradually add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition, until sugar is dissolved. Continue to beat for a further 5 to 6 minutes to form a thick and glossy meringue. Beat in vinegar and cornflour.

Dot six to eight drops of colouring randomly over meringue. Gently fold twice only, to create a marbled effect. Spoon meringue evenly into circles on trays. Gently spread to edges. 4 Dot another drop of colouring onto each meringue and use a skewer to swirl through.

Cook in a very slow oven (120C) for about 1 hour, or until pavlovas are dry and firm to touch. Turn off oven. Leave pavlovas to cool in oven with door ajar for 1 hour. Remove.

To make raspberry sauce, combine raspberries and sugar with 1 tablespoon water in a large saucepan. Stir over a low heat until sugar is dissolved. Bring to boil. Gently boil for about 5 minutes or until thickened. Remove. Strain through a sieve over a bowl. Discard seeds. (Makes 1 cup.) Cover and refrigerate.

To make chocolate sauce, place chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl. Sit bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until melted. Remove bowl from pan. Cool slightly. (Makes 1 1/3 cups.)

To serve, place whipped cream, passionfruit pulp and sauces in separate serving bowls. Arrange on a serving platter or board with pavlovas, berries and chocolate.



I decided to serve ours with raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries and mango, the sauces plus a store bought salted caramel sauce with squares of chocolate as well. It was a big hit to the point that I was asked to do it again when we went to dinner a couple of weeks ago. That time, I used bought mini meringues and added peaches to the mix, which was nice, but not as nice as the home made pav!

The interesting thing now is that there are a lot of variations on the theme! Recently I saw a suggestion about a baked potato grazing platter, Fries boards (no really - all different shapes of fries with lots of sauces), pancake boards, and a couple of days ago I even saw what was called an Australia Day platter which is all different types of iconic Aussie biscuits,chocolates and lollies on a board.

Turns out you can put anything on a board!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. 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. For more information, see the welcome post.