happiness is…..
….cooking your first meal in your first real oven in your first beautiful proper kitchen. we had a very lazy saturday, so dinner was an uncomplicated affair of proper macaroni cheese with a decadent gratin topping. i’m very serious about making white sauce….it has to be cooked forever, very low, with plenty of stirring. and [...]
persephone books
i’ve just discovered persephone books. and i am besotted. what an absolute treasure trove of quiet little literary gems. they are all paperbacks with a nice firm smooth dustjacket of pale gray and a simple, discreet cream & black spot on the cover for the title and author. inside, in complete contrast, are gorgeous endpapers [...]
lotion-making with a steripen
i make various lotions (usually the good old olive oil and honey) for myself and some friends, but i don’t sell it per se. i’ve never really looked into bulk-lotion-making equipment or supplies….my needs really are modest. one of the big drags with lotion-making is the necessity of keeping everything as sanitised as possible. oil [...]
it’s may 25th!
happy towel day everyone! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day so long douglas, and thanks for all the fish.
if i was on south park…
…i’d look like this. look at my profile pic….it’s UNCANNY, is it not? that is miss mousie with me…she’s a gorgeous silver tabby. you can have a giggle making your own south park self here.
retirement? pish posh!
i had a thoroughly unpleasant dose of reality recently. my WONDERFUL bookkeeper, lynn, who has nursed me through three businesses over the last 12 years (a year each in various terrible catering enterprises and the current seven-and-a-half-years of fooling about with soap), casually mentioned how she’ll be retiring next july. i absolutely freaked out all [...]
happy birthday yungaburra market!
my very favourite local market turned 32 today. in 1977, they started with just 14 stallholders and an incredible 50% (7 people) from the first day STILL attend the market every single month. isn’t that cool? and now we have grown to 290 stallholders and it’s an epic event with volunteers and a committee and [...]
in these tough economic times….redux….
how’s that for a subject line? i’m hearing it so much that it’s become a sort of a parody of itself. i do get asked from time to time, from no doubt well-meaning folks, how the heck do i manage to stay in business, selling a frivolous luxury item, in these tough economic times, , [...]
phew, blog retrieval win!
for the last 11 days, it looked as though the internet ate my blog. i was a trifle concerned….it isn’t exactly earth-shattering blogging, but it keeps me happy enough and off the streets, and it provides me with a space to keep my ideas and recipes and photos and links and jottings and other random [...]
four weeks growth
i can scarcely believe this. you simply cannot underestimate the power of good soil, enriched with LOTS of compost and horse poo. and rainwater and mulch mulch mulch. our zucchini seedlings were planted the day before good friday….april 9th. this morning, four weeks later to the minute, elizabeth picked these monsters off the plants….and there [...]
four seasons soaps: followup
i blogged about the development phase of these a while back. now the first lot have travelled off to japan and soon they will be available in australia at the perfect potion. the essential oil blends are simply divine and it was a privilege to work with them. this image is courtesy of the perfect [...]
finalising new soaps for 09/10
i’m running a little late with this (ok, a month), but we’ve had a bit of a busy year so far. it’s may already….and i’m in deep shock about it! where did the time go? i’ve made a major effort this weekend to corral all the inchoate ideas for my new soaps…how did w.b. yeats [...]
