| ISSUE 2 // FEBRUARY 2021 . ashen things . A year ago the sky was shrouded in smoke so thick the light cast an eerie hue, eyes would water and sting. Wild fires raged across our country. Black Summer , we would come to call it: 18.6 million hectares of earth, thousands of homes and farms and structures, thirty-four people and countless creatures lost: consumed in it’s wake. A year ago we were a country grieving, raging and lamenting the power of fire, the harshness and increasing unpredictability of our climate. And before the full scale and impact of the devastation could settle in - the entire world caught alight, changed forever by a deadly and contagious fire of another kind. When I was a child, a bush fire tore through the property my dad was living on at the time. I can remember clearly the smell of burning oils from the eucalyptus trees, the ashen ground under my feet. I can still taste the burnt honey I dipped my finger in, that sprawled in black stickiness on the ground, where the beehives once sat. I look at photographs from this time, of the after , and it's almost as if they were taken in black and white film, all the colour is gone, utterly desaturated. I have been thinking a lot lately about ash. In so many cultures and religions, including my own faith tradition, ash has been used as a symbol of loss, sacrifice, repentance, sanctification. Ash reminds us of what once was, what remains. It reminds us of our earthly making, our hubris. The latin refrain comes to mind: " Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris " Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return . Ash reminds us of the cycle of all living things, beginning and ending, going and returning, changing and renewing. Ash is earthy and otherworldly: it feels like the remains of what was once alive and is no longer. And yet it contains a life-giving quality too. The ash of burnt wood contains minerals that help can improve soil and the plants that grow in it. In Australia there are a number of pyrophytic plants like the eucalyptus tree, flannel flower and the banksia that require fire - it's smoke and heat and ash - to flower and reproduce. I find it interesting too that the alkaline quality of wood ash mixed with water and rendered into salty residue can bring about incredible chemical reactions like the saponification of fats and oils. That something charred and blackened can help produce the very thing that helps us clean and renew our bodies and belongings: a white bar of soap. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the day we mark on our skin the sign of the cross in ash, the beginning of Lent . You may be familiar with this season of faith and observe it in some way each year, or perhaps you've never heard of it before. Lent means "spring season" - though it falls, on our side of the hemisphere, at the end of summer as autumn is beginning to unfurl herself. It comes with the shortening of the days and cooling of the air. It marks the forty days leading up to Easter week and has been observed by people of faith for centuries. Lent is a season beginning with ash: with remembering our humanity, with letting go, going without and going within - a season of reflection, offering, lament, hope, and new life springing from resurrection. Lent is an opportunity to slow down, to carve out sacred space for the inner life - for choosing contemplation over distraction, kindness over criticism, thanksgiving over worry. The older I get, the less I want to draw a rigid fast of stuff or vices. Something to proclaim or feel smug about. The more I just want to dwell - to make my home in - the True Vine, the Good Shepherd, the Door, the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the I Am, the Way ; the God of creativity and passion and grace and mystery and mercy - the more I want to dwell in love. As T. S. Eliot writes so beautifully in his poem, Ash Wednesday : "Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still Even among these rocks, Our peace in His will And even among these rocks Sister, mother And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, Suffer me not to be separated And let my cry come unto Thee" . to contemplate . - Read T S Eliot’s poem “Ash Wednesday”. You can read a complete version of it here . - Contemplate Eliot's words: " Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still" and the bible verse in Isaiah 30:15 : "in returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength" - Consider whether you like to commit to doing something during the forty days of Lent this year. Traditionally people have fasted or abstained from certain foods or preoccupations: meat, sweetness, chocolate, coffee, alcohol, television, social media. I think fasting can be a helpful discipline, but I wonder sometimes if it can become it’s own sort of outward virtue signalling, or even controlling-obsession rather than a true setting aside and refocusing of the heart. Instead of fixating on what can be "taken away" we could think about what we can "take hold of" each day in Lent. Here are some ideas: - Sitting still for five minutes upon waking in the morning or last thing before bed at night - Going for a short walk to observe the slow change of seasons and the beauty of creation - Keeping a Lent journal to put thoughts, ideas, quotes, or even doodles and sketches each day as you have your morning cup of tea or break for lunch. - R eading a Psalm each day or a chapter of Isaiah from the Bible, or you could try reading a daily poem from a poetry collection or a devotional series. Last year I read Gayle Boss's thoughtful and moving book " Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing" in which she tells the story of a different endangered animal - on the brink of extinction - for each day of Lent under the weekly themes: "the hungry, the sick, the homeless, the poisoned, the hunted and the desecrated". She writes: "The promise of Lent is that something will be born out of the ruin, something so astoundingly better than the present moment that we cannot imagine it. Lent is seeded with resurrection. The Resurrection promises that a new future will be given to us when we we beg to be stripped from the lie of separation, when the hard dusk suffocating our hearts break open and, like children again, we feel the suffering of any creature as our own. That this can happen is the wild, not impossible hope of all creation" . from the recipe book . Plum & Almond Tart This is my gluten-free adaptation of Stephanie Alexander's frangipane tart in her cookbook-to-rule-them-all, A Cook's Companion . She doesn't call for plums, but of course they work perfectly alongside almonds and the buttery shortbread base. It works just as well with nectarines, peaches, apricots, cherries, blackberries, strawberries, mulberries, raspberries, pears, poached quinces or apples or rhubarb. For the base: 200g plain gluten-free flour (or 100g each of rice flour + 100g tapioca/arrowroot starch or cornflour) 1 tablespoon sugar 100g cold butter, sliced into small cubes 1 small egg 2 teaspoons cold water Blend flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until crumbly. Add egg and water with the motor running and blend together until a dough forms. Roll out onto a piece of floured parchment paper (I might this minimises mess and stickiness). I do not bother chilling the dough as specified in the recipe - I simply roll out a disc shape to fit my pie dish which is about 22cm in diameter (with enough size to line the fluted sides). Instead of greasing and flouring the dish, I lift the dough with the baking parchment and place both of them in (the paper of course creating a barrier between the dough and dish). This ensures simple lifting out of the tart and cleaning of the dish. Feel free to grease if you prefer! Once dough is pressed into the dish, use a fork to mark a number of pricks on the base of the tart. Bake in a low-moderate oven (160'c) for 25 minutes or until lightly golden. Again I don't bother with weights or rice for the baking, the dough seems to keep it's shape well enough. For the frangipane: 150g white sugar 120g unsalted butter 200g ground almonds 2 eggs 1/4 cup brandy or similar (this really gives it a delicious something else, but can be omitted) ______ 1/4 cup flaked almonds 5 small-medium sized plums, pitted and halved or sliced into wedges. You may need more/less depending on the size of the plums to cover the surface of the tart. Cream together butter and sugar in a food processor. Add almonds, eggs and brandy if using and mix well. Spread over tart base and arrange pitted and sliced plums on top of the tart. Bake in the oven (180'c) for 20 minutes. Oven oven and pull out tart so you can scatter with flaked almonds and a tablespoon of white or raw sugar (you may omit this if you wish). Cook for a further 15 minutes (or until tart is golden brown and the centre feels springy to touch - the size of the plums and moisture in them may increase cooking time). Cool in the tin. Serve on it's own or with some double cream. Pumpkin + Silverbeet Soup 2 tablespoons butter or ghee 1 large brown onion, chopped 500g pumpkin, seeded, skinned and chopped in large chunks 1 large silverbeet/Swiss chard (leaves & stalks) 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth 1 cup fresh parsley ______ handful of fresh chives for serving creme fraiche, sour cream or greek yoghurt for serving Heat butter in a large pot, gently sauté onions until soft. Add in chopped pumpkin and chard. Pour over 4 cups of chicken or vegetable broth. Let the pot simmer on a low heat for 30-40 minutes. Add fresh parsley and blend with a handheld blender. Season to taste with sea salt and pepper. Serve with a dollop of sour cream or yoghurt and a sprinkle of fresh chives. Very Vegetable "Spaghetti Bolognese" 2 tablespoons butter 1 large brown onion 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 large celery stalks 2 medium-sized carrots 600g pastured beef mince 4 cups tomato puree/passata/chopped |
A year ago the sky was shrouded in smoke so thick the light cast an eerie hue, eyes would water and sting. Wild fires raged across our country. Black Summer, we would come to call it: 18.6 million hectares of earth, thousands of homes and farms and structures, thirty-four people and countless creatures lost: consumed in it’s wake.
A year ago we were a country grieving, raging and lamenting the power of fire, the harshness and increasing unpredictability of our climate. And before the full scale and impact of the devastation could settle in - the entire world caught alight, changed forever by a deadly and contagious fire of another kind.
When I was a child, a bush fire tore through the property my dad was living on at the time. I can remember clearly the smell of burning oils from the eucalyptus trees, the ashen ground under my feet. I can still taste the burnt honey I dipped my finger in, that sprawled in black stickiness on the ground, where the beehives once sat. I look at photographs from this time, of the after, and it's almost as if they were taken in black and white film, all the colour is gone, utterly desaturated.
I have been thinking a lot lately about ash.
In so many cultures and religions, including my own faith tradition, ash has been used as a symbol of loss, sacrifice, repentance, sanctification. Ash reminds us of what once was, what remains. It reminds us of our earthly making, our hubris. The latin refrain comes to mind:
"Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris"
Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.
Ash reminds us of the cycle of all living things, beginning and ending, going and returning, changing and renewing.
Ash is earthy and otherworldly: it feels like the remains of what was once alive and is no longer. And yet it contains a life-giving quality too. The ash of burnt wood contains minerals that help can improve soil and the plants that grow in it. In Australia there are a number of pyrophytic plants like the eucalyptus tree, flannel flower and the banksia that require fire - it's smoke and heat and ash - to flower and reproduce.
I find it interesting too that the alkaline quality of wood ash mixed with water and rendered into salty residue can bring about incredible chemical reactions like the saponification of fats and oils. That something charred and blackened can help produce the very thing that helps us clean and renew our bodies and belongings: a white bar of soap.
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the day we mark on our skin the sign of the cross in ash, the beginning of Lent. You may be familiar with this season of faith and observe it in some way each year, or perhaps you've never heard of it before. Lent means "spring season" - though it falls, on our side of the hemisphere, at the end of summer as autumn is beginning to unfurl herself. It comes with the shortening of the days and cooling of the air. It marks the forty days leading up to Easter week and has been observed by people of faith for centuries.
Lent is a season beginning with ash: with remembering our humanity, with letting go, going without and going within - a season of reflection, offering, lament, hope, and new life springing from resurrection.
Lent is an opportunity to slow down, to carve out sacred space for the inner life - for choosing contemplation over distraction, kindness over criticism, thanksgiving over worry. The older I get, the less I want to draw a rigid fast of stuff or vices. Something to proclaim or feel smug about. The more I just want to dwell - to make my home in - the True Vine, the Good Shepherd, the Door, the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the I Am, the Way; the God of creativity and passion and grace and mystery and mercy - the more I want to dwell in love.
As T. S. Eliot writes so beautifully in his poem, Ash Wednesday:
"Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee" | |
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- Read T S Eliot’s poem “Ash Wednesday”. You can read a complete version of it here.
- Contemplate Eliot's words:
"Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still"
and the bible verse in Isaiah 30:15 :
"in returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and trust shall be your strength"
- Consider whether you like to commit to doing something during the forty days of Lent this year. Traditionally people have fasted or abstained from certain foods or preoccupations: meat, sweetness, chocolate, coffee, alcohol, television, social media. I think fasting can be a helpful discipline, but I wonder sometimes if it can become it’s own sort of outward virtue signalling, or even controlling-obsession rather than a true setting aside and refocusing of the heart. Instead of fixating on what can be "taken away" we could think about what we can "take hold of" each day in Lent. Here are some ideas:
- Sitting still for five minutes upon waking in the morning or last thing before bed at night
- Going for a short walk to observe the slow change of seasons and the beauty of creation
- Keeping a Lent journal to put thoughts, ideas, quotes, or even doodles and sketches each day as you have your morning cup of tea or break for lunch.
- Reading a Psalm each day or a chapter of Isaiah from the Bible, or you could try reading a daily poem from a poetry collection or a devotional series.
Last year I read Gayle Boss's thoughtful and moving book "Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing" in which she tells the story of a different endangered animal - on the brink of extinction - for each day of Lent under the weekly themes: "the hungry, the sick, the homeless, the poisoned, the hunted and the desecrated". She writes:
"The promise of Lent is that something will be born out of the ruin, something so astoundingly better than the present moment that we cannot imagine it. Lent is seeded with resurrection. The Resurrection promises that a new future will be given to us when we we beg to be stripped from the lie of separation, when the hard dusk suffocating our hearts break open and, like children again, we feel the suffering of any creature as our own. That this can happen is the wild, not impossible hope of all creation" | |
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 | Plum & Almond Tart
This is my gluten-free adaptation of Stephanie Alexander's frangipane tart in her cookbook-to-rule-them-all, A Cook's Companion. She doesn't call for plums, but of course they work perfectly alongside almonds and the buttery shortbread base. It works just as well with nectarines, peaches, apricots, cherries, blackberries, strawberries, mulberries, raspberries, pears, poached quinces or apples or rhubarb.
For the base:
200g plain gluten-free flour (or 100g each of rice flour + 100g tapioca/arrowroot starch or cornflour)
1 tablespoon sugar
100g cold butter, sliced into small cubes
1 small egg
2 teaspoons cold water
Blend flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until crumbly. Add egg and water with the motor running and blend together until a dough forms. Roll out onto a piece of floured parchment paper (I might this minimises mess and stickiness). I do not bother chilling the dough as specified in the recipe - I simply roll out a disc shape to fit my pie dish which is about 22cm in diameter (with enough size to line the fluted sides).
Instead of greasing and flouring the dish, I lift the dough with the baking parchment and place both of them in (the paper of course creating a barrier between the dough and dish). This ensures simple lifting out of the tart and cleaning of the dish. Feel free to grease if you prefer! Once dough is pressed into the dish, use a fork to mark a number of pricks on the base of the tart.
Bake in a low-moderate oven (160'c) for 25 minutes or until lightly golden. Again I don't bother with weights or rice for the baking, the dough seems to keep it's shape well enough.
For the frangipane:
150g white sugar
120g unsalted butter
200g ground almonds
2 eggs
1/4 cup brandy or similar (this really gives it a delicious something else, but can be omitted)
______
1/4 cup flaked almonds
5 small-medium sized plums, pitted and halved or sliced into wedges. You may need more/less depending on the size of the plums to cover the surface of the tart.
Cream together butter and sugar in a food processor. Add almonds, eggs and brandy if using and mix well. Spread over tart base and arrange pitted and sliced plums on top of the tart. Bake in the oven (180'c) for 20 minutes. Oven oven and pull out tart so you can scatter with flaked almonds and a tablespoon of white or raw sugar (you may omit this if you wish). Cook for a further 15 minutes (or until tart is golden brown and the centre feels springy to touch - the size of the plums and moisture in them may increase cooking time). Cool in the tin. Serve on it's own or with some double cream.
| |
Pumpkin + Silverbeet Soup
2 tablespoons butter or ghee
1 large brown onion, chopped
500g pumpkin, seeded, skinned and chopped in large chunks
1 large silverbeet/Swiss chard (leaves & stalks)
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup fresh parsley
______
handful of fresh chives for serving
creme fraiche, sour cream or greek yoghurt for serving
Heat butter in a large pot, gently sauté onions until soft. Add in chopped pumpkin and chard. Pour over 4 cups of chicken or vegetable broth. Let the pot simmer on a low heat for 30-40 minutes. Add fresh parsley and blend with a handheld blender. Season to taste with sea salt and pepper. Serve with a dollop of sour cream or yoghurt and a sprinkle of fresh chives. | |
Very Vegetable "Spaghetti Bolognese"
2 tablespoons butter
1 large brown onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 large celery stalks
2 medium-sized carrots
600g pastured beef mince
4 cups tomato puree/passata/chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons fresh (or dried) parsley, oregano, thyme + bay leaves
1 tablespoon grass-fed gelatin mixed in 1/4 cup cold water
1 cup garden peas
_______
2 large zucchinis, julienned or spiralised
freshly grated parmesan cheese for serving
In a saucepan melt butter and gently saute onions until soft. Stir in garlic and cook for a further minute. Stir in celery and carrot, cover with lid for a few minutes to soften. Stir in beef until meat is lightly brown all over. Stir in tomatoes and herbs to your tasting (I like 1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley + 2 teaspoons of oregano and thyme chopped and 2 bay leaves) and gelatine water.
Bring to a gentle simmer and leave covered for 30minutes - 1 hour, adding more water if needed. In the last few minutes of cooking stir through garden peas (fresh or frozen). Meanwhile bring a pot of salted water to the boil and rapidly cook zucchini spaghetti which has been cut in fine strips or spirals. Strain and serve with generous spoons of meaty sauce and grated parmesan.
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Last month I decided to close my instagram account after almost six years of using it regularly to post snippets of everyday life. I have had a complicated relationship with it for a while: I felt gripped, beholden - but also like I couldn't leave, that the loss would be too great! Quitting has brought waves of sadness and jubilation and uncertainty and peace in equal measures. You can read a long (and rambling) post I wrote about the experience on my blog: | |
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in summer I can walk in the evening light
when little people have gone to bed
when dishes have been washed and dried
each step a kind of devotion
a prayer for being alive
in summer I can walk in sandals
and feel the breeze under my skirt
coolness and dust and grass seeds
anoint my summer skin:
tanned hands and dry feet.
in summer I can walk at a slower pace,
follow tracks of who came before me:
rabbit, horseshoe, tractor tred
I wait for kangaroos hopping down the hill
and lean in to hear the frogs croak,
and crane my neck for the goshawks,
I can never tell if they are hunting or playing.
in summer I can walk and gather
dried grasses in my hands,
elderberries off a twisted old tree,
blackberries from a thorny vine,
I reach for dancing thistle fibres
and hear my son's voice:
"Mum! Look at all the fairies"
in summer I can walk in the moonlight
when the stars begin to shine,
and I let my feet do the praying:
each step breaking bread
each breath thanksgiving | |
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