Baking (for Michelle)

I talked to my lovely friend Michelle the other day. We've both been suffering a loss of 'blogging mojo' lately. Anyway Michelle's always been a great baker, one more reason why going to visit her is always a great pleasure. She'd been ovenless for a while but is now baking again - so I thought I would share my latest baking recipe with her:

Choc-chip muffins

220g sr flour

1/2 cup castor sugar

3/4 cup milk or buttermilk

1 egg

3/4 cup of vegetable oil

150g choc (or white) chips

brown sugar

Add the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients, mix it all up. Spoon batter into 12-hole muffin tin (use patty pans to make it really simple). Sprinkle brown sugar on top of muffins. Bake for 20-25 mins @ 180. The oil gives them "a very tender crumb and crisp crust", according to Stephanie Alexander - whose lovely simple recipe this is (The Cooks Companion). You can adapt it and add different things (apple or savoury things - for savoury take out the sugar). These are good for school snacks and very popular "dakes" ('cakes' as Jamie says) in our house.

my beautiful friend

Married in a tranquil garden with a stormy sky and rainbow-bouncing bubbles.

Playdough Shop

Ella says: My friend Kaelan made some chocolate mice and I made lots of different little biscuits and cuppacakes.

what I love more than anything

I went to my friend Ruth's concert on Friday evening- she was directing, conducting, playing, singing with six choirs. It was called "The Big Sing - Songs of Freedom - singing to celebrate the possibility of freedom for all people." It was lovely. At the end the choirs, who love her, thanked her, and she replied, "I'm only doing what I love more than anything."

yoga anyone?

Isn't this great - your friend comes round and you get into a bit of yoga for fun. Note the different variations of the pose in the first picture - I called this the Child's Pose (how appropriate) but Ella calls it The Seed and hearing this description, Kaelan interprets The Seed in his own way (hands over head - about to burst free). Ella was teaching me the yoga she'd learned at kinder and it was great to get down and do a bit together - reminding me of how much I love yoga. "You love it so much you haven't done it for three years" Edward noted when I last spoke yearningly about it. Ha ha.

Lovely things

We took a family trip into the city and up the very special lifts ("The lifts remain some of the last in Melbourne to be operated by a 'lift lady'") in the Nicholas Building to visit Kimono House - a Japanese textile workshop that Mum had discovered. I have been looking at Japanese Loop Bags lately and trying to work out "how to" and finally got a set of instructions. This is my first bag - and I like the way it turned out and hope to make many more! Also here is my new wonderful felted hole-scarf from my Felting Friend Michelle, which I love. She said the "holes were the most popular" with her friends and explained how to refelt it if it needed it down the track. I like this concept - that you sort a bit of wear and tear with some gentle coaxing with soapy water and bubble-wrap and hey presto - brand new scarf.

The Mars Project

We went to see The Mars Project at RMIT. Our favourite exhibit was Phillip Allan's delicate depictions of the 'mythical canals of Mars.' Phillip combined images from the Hubble Space Telescope with early drawings of Mars, in particular the drawings of Percival Lowell.