Pippins, Pippins everywhere!

This was the scene at Petty's apple orchard last Sunday. These people grow heritage varieties of apple, so they won't be lost to the world. Once a year, people like me get to taste them, buy some, and some smart people take trees homes to plant.

My support for the event was more along the lines of making it a financial success for them (I know I can't manage to grow a tree, but I can sure eat apples!).

Here's what I brought home with me :

A kilo of Cox's Orange Pippins...

And a kilo of King of the Pippins. So I think we've established I like pippins.

We've already had an apple struedel, and there's more to come. Mostly I'm just eating them though.

Thanks to Jeff, Catriona, Jonathan and Thomas who came along on this visit, even if comparing apple varieties wasn't number 1 on their daily to-do lists!

Having a go at making Caneles

I tried a new recipe - it's one of those ones described as "tricky", "temperamental", and even "fraught". Sounds like my kind of snack!

The cake of the moment is the Canele - here's the wikipedia entry, and here's a lovely blog post by a super enthusiastic cook called Pim.

I'll post the rest of this blog entry in the form of questions and answers.

Q. Weren't you mad keen on making Macarons?

A. Yup, still am, just taking side trip to another tasty French treat.

Q. How did you hear about Caneles?

A. Ate some at the Harvest Picnic, and they were good! But instead of ordering more from THOSE expert cooks, I'm afraid I decided to go off and find out how to do them myself.

Q. What are they, then?

A. Sort of a cross between a cake and a custard. If it was polite to pick up creme brulee and eat it in your fingers. Like that.

Q. Yours doesn't look much like the official one.

A. That's not a question. But no, I didn't have the right mould. I used a mini kugelhupf mould. Thankyou for noticing. The next ones will look more official, because now I DO have the right mould.

Q. Are they hard to make?

A. Nup. Easy to burn though. Ask me again on about Sunday.

Cephalopod over here, please?

Have you been needing more cephalopod-based fun? Catriona can help! She just knitted a fabulous octopus.

The pattern came from a book called Amigurumi Knits, which Jeff found for her.

We have a new play area!

Want to come over? We can sit a the new mega-big coffee table. I've put a Lego model out for you already. Pull up a pentagon, I'll get the kettle on.

Oh, and there's card games in all the drawers.

Except for the ones that have puzzles.

Mr Piranha Attack

Thomas made a Lego model yesterday. Meet Mr Piranha Attack. Wonder how he got that name?

We must make this into a little tableau - we have a Lego fish, that's a start.

Possibly the most fabulous chair in the world!

Jeff and I were shopping at Freedom Furniture today, and found this chair. Wow, so awesome. Baroque will totally never go out of style.

Strangely, the rest of Melbourne seemed less impressed with this fabulous chair, and it has been discounted a few times... From $1699 to $849 to $699 to $489. The current price is 30% off the $489. So hurry in, this won't last.

Hope I'm not being rude to the retailer - we really liked some of their other stuff, and will be back tomorrow to finalise a buying a truly excellent coffee table.

Last Chance to admire my tomatoes

OK, this is the last time (this season) I'll boast about how great my tomatoes are. I didn't put in a real lot of effort, and I grew about double this amount. And they have been delish, in salads and on pizza! They are Tigerella variety, and have grown well, and tolerated heat well (though they did whinge and demand watering twice a day!).