A cooking hiatus

I'm in between houses and don't have access to my normal kitchen, kitchenware, mixing bowls, measuring cups etcetera. This is why I haven't been keeping up to date, but as of next week, I will be back in the swing of cooking and blogging. I'm only 14 recipes from finishing what I had set out to do many months ago! Then it's onto preparing this to become a BOOK (someone, please publish my cookbook...?). I'm currently looking at print on demand options, as well as refining my book proposal to go out to more publishers, more research will lead me the right way. 

As to my move, I decided to return to my home town of Melbourne, after finishing up a lovely job with incredibly lovely people in Brisbane. Still settling into my new workplace, but I'm sure once the year starts up, it'll soon be like I've been there forever. I do miss everyone I worked with in Brisbane though, you are all terrific people and I promise I'll come back to visit! Maybe in winter, when it's cold here. I'd obviously acclimatised to warmer weather during my years in the north, as I find myself reaching for a jumper whenever the temperature drops below...25°C. I do love wearing winter clothing though, so I'm more than OK with it. Let's discuss my love of winter clothing in summer when it's a little more like 40°C and the outdoors is set to 'oven'. I know by then I'll have a different point of view. 

The drive down was fantastic, apart from country internet in Goulburn being so so slow that it took me nearly 2 hours to download an audio book so that I could listen to a book while driving for so many hours. I totally recommend audio books, and thank you Rosemary for suggesting it, saved my sanity! Two hours in Goulburn though, thank goodness there were distractions...  

Like...this giant fibreglass merino ram. One of Australia's many Big Things. When I was a kid I remember coming to see this on one of my family's many drives around the countryside, and it seemed amazing. As an adult waiting for a book download? Yeaahhhh, not so much. I did also see the Big Banana in Coff's Harbour, but it was raining so I didn't get a nice photo. I drove past, mouth agape, the Big Avocado in QLD not realising it was a certified Big Thing. 

Driving through NSW was pretty impressive, here are a couple photos of the countryside that are an almost literal manifestation of the Dorothea Mackellar poem we all know and love. 

OK, I included the rest stop toilet because it's disgusting and I had to share the downsides to a road trip. The other downside to a road trip is an almost overwhelming need to eat terrible sugary energy laden food. I started out with nuts and fruit, rather righteously, and quickly degenerated to liquorice all-sorts, along with cheese and tomato toasted sandwiches on white bread with instructions to "don't hold the butter. Yes, put more butter on the sandwich please. More. Thanks. That's great. A bit more." 

Sugar cane somewhere north of Coff's Harbour.    

Now, I hope everyone's Christmas was great, I managed to fit the Christmas Pudding into my small suitcase to take over to Radelaide for family christmas. It took most of the day to heat up, but it seemed quite nice. I critiqued it pretty hard, because my memories of cooking the damn thing are filled with exhaustion and clock-watching. In all honesty, I think I prefer a steamed christmas pudding rather than the boiled one. It seemed, perhaps not oddly, a little watery for my liking, however the family seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps they might like to add their own feedback in the comments section below. (Obvious hint is obvious.) There are photos of the other Christmassy things I'd cooked that day and these will be posted up in due course. Need a bit of sorting and sitting at a desk time to get through a bit of a backlog of photos and writing. 

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone, I hope 2014 is as wonderful for you as I am intending mine to be for me. xx