“They lay resting in the great strong arms of the sea” 

This is from Charlotte Wood’s latest novel, The Weekend, a description of three women swimming and floating in the ocean.  My friend Mrs L is currently reading this book and shared this line with me. It’s beautiful isn’t it? I would love to do that but our beach is still infested with seaweed. A dip in the ocean is a struggle against strands of thick algae wrapping their tentacles around your ankles and  dragging you out to sea, never to be seen again! The sea gulls loved it though.

 

And it’s still a magical place early in the morning

Because of the weed I walked along our street a few times

The sunflowers were happy

The playground in the park a sad lonely sight

But an enterprising dad has built a playground for his kids around a huge tree in the front yard. I have just realised I have made a presumption there,  I guess I am saying Dad because I have seen him out playing with the kids.Maybe Mum could have built it and Dad is the one who plays with the kids….or perhaps….sigh, these days you are so scared of being politically incorrect! Anyway, it looks fabulous, unfortunately there are shadows all the time, so not a very good photo I’m afraid

 

We are well into a routine now. We got a huge grocery delivery from Woolworths, I have taken full advantage of being a senior! We unpack onto the bench and attack everything packaged with disinfectant and wash our fruit and veg.

Obviously we have way too much time on our hands because we spent a lot of time before the delivery discussing whether it would come before or after 10:00am in the designated 7:00 – 12:00 window. We even bet on it! I bet that it would arrive before 10:00am and would you believe the truck pulled into the driveway at 9:59…no joke! We then spent some time discussing whether the bet meant the delivery was actually unpacked outside the front door. Here is Papa bear  cooking dinner as a result of losing the bet.

The slices of crumbed eggplant were a delicious nibble with our evening drinks

You may have noticed by now that a lot of our time is spent around food and food prep! I spent some time this week putting together a Monthly meal plan in my bullet journal.

You may also  notice that I haven’t made much progress with making my journal Instaworthy but it is functional. 

After  I dragged out my sourdough starter for pancakes I decided I’d have a go at sourdough focaccia. The starter activated nicely and I soon had the dough ready for the first prove.

Next prove was in the pan

And here it is ready for the oven

You will have to believe that it was the best sourdough focaccia ever, because I forgot to take a photo!

I made my second fruit cake, this time with Grandma Bear’s recipe which we sourced from Papa Bear’s cousin. Don’t you love it when you are just about to put a cake in the oven and you see this,

the sugar that was supposed to have been boiled with the fruit for the fruit cake! I’m saying don’t you love it because I found it before the cake went into the oven and was able to stir it into the mixture. It was fabulous, Papa Bear was happy. I got carried away with putting almonds on the top of my baking. I have decided not to do that any more because it is difficult to slice neatly when there are almonds in the way.

Papa Bear cooked breakfast,

fried egg and potato and cabbage patties. Everything is served with cabbage because we got the biggest cabbage you have seen with our groceries.

I cured salmon pieces in sugar and salt with a spice coating

Papa Bear cooked it on a smoke infused piece of wood on the BBQ, it was amazing!!

My sourdough starter came from a sourdough bread class I went to at the Matter of Taste Cooking School in Perth, which is run by the gorgeous Tracey. Papa Bear and I were actually due to go to an American Nosh class the week before we entered self-isolation, but because of the C-19 Tracy had to close the classes. Instead of face to face classes she gives us 3 online classes a week and I just love them, I look forward to them all week. She makes delicious, simple, every day meal, her love of cooking just shines through and I learn so much. One of the dishes she did Week 4 was chicken parmigiana (yay!)

I am a member of her Cooks Collective so get access to all her classes but  you can purchase classes individually. Next week we are doing creme brûlée, so if you want to join up click on Matters of Taste above.

I think that’s it folks, I want to get this out there and go have a coffee and some fruit cake. Keep safe.