all things in abundance

the prettiest girl i ever saw

2009-09-18T23:32:00.000+10:00

was sippin cider from a straw.

this is a picture of my boyfriend

2009-09-02T20:33:00.002+10:00

Yes he is very nice, thank you.

and then there's fluff

2009-08-28T22:49:00.003+10:00

Kittens are fantastic. You should find one and touch it!

You might enjoy this kitten's other modelling work here.

please be seated

2009-08-22T18:05:00.003+10:00

Clever verandah designers make perfect pictures for late-night psychedelic adventuresses. I'd venture a guess of William St near Victoria St, North Melbourne. But who can say?

vernality approaches

2009-08-22T16:47:00.005+10:00

Springtime is just around the corner. Longer stretches of palpable change in the weight and length of the day. The damp ground seeps through your jeans but is kept at bay by blanket barriers. Bikes wait patiently for the moment when the sun has sunk away and it's time to move to where we can warm our hands over tea lights.

with arms outstretched

2009-08-14T11:52:00.003+10:00

The sun comes out at brief intervals and everyone rushes out to soak up the vitamins. This guy hung out like this for 15 minutes, drastically increasing his intake surface area. Lucky duck.

sawdusty

2009-08-03T09:18:00.001+10:00

Refinishing wood is a remarkably satisfying task. The neighbours think you are a good girl for crafting so hard. They tell you so as they pass by. Sawdust in the creases of your skin and music in your ears. Upgrading workspace makes all the work feel better.

all that's fit to grow

2009-07-26T12:31:00.007+10:00

In the dead of winter, still they grow, up and up. I want a good macro of the stamen of that orchid but my camera doesn't do things like that. Scary obsessions with orchids are so very justified - they are instantaneous existential questions.

Reaching for the lifelocus. Basic horticultural demonstrations in cotton wool.

tea and crumbs

2009-07-18T22:30:00.002+10:00

Crumbs of a super chocolate chunk cookie at Each Peach, which makes excessive use of pastels, souveneir teaspoons, and thematic tea towels. When you can do anything all day, you make very good choices.

and bone

2009-07-15T07:32:00.001+10:00

Everything disintegrates back into the Single Mass. That makes things easy.

chili chocolate puddings

2009-07-06T21:59:00.002+10:00

There is always dessert.

bikes in love

2009-06-30T07:28:00.002+10:00

urban textures

2009-06-21T08:29:00.002+10:00

A concrete jetty out to the sea of sky.

oh noez

2009-06-18T01:14:00.003+10:00

When these pages are neglected, so too is the observance of abundance. In this way the thing I have made has made of itself a way of gauging my awareness of the subject. It is winter now, and so it is a challenge to see things as abundantly when the days are shorter and all is subdued. And so I reach into abundance archives and pull out a date.

mitre 10, queens parade

2009-06-03T07:41:00.004+10:00

This lamb has strayed from the flock and attempted replacement has been undertaken by the staff of the hardware shop.

If you thought looking at it straight-on felt nice, try getting closer so that you can look her or him in the face.

Oh, dear.

pumpkin carraige

2009-05-23T17:38:00.003+10:00

I've got some pumpkin abundance. They're in season and I keep getting more before I use the ones I have. This blue pumpkin came from a stand on the roadside outside of Bright, VIC. A quarter of it went into a 'pumpkin masala' which taught me some things about making Indian food. Or just showed me how few of them I know now. It's mushy but fresh and spicy.

The seeds are in the process of becoming pepitas, roasted cajun-style I think. Retrieving these seeds from the flesh of the pumpkin was a sensuous activity. When I know where something came from I want to consume all parts of it, to experience it completely, to dig right through it and all its textures and components. This was one such occasion. The seeds are big and fat and healthy and they pop out of the flesh with little encouragement. Very satisfying, a feeling of harvesting the fertility from this big body. I got to dig the last few rows, which are sort of rib-like in their arrangement, out of the flesh with my fingertips.

photos by the man with whom I shared the experience. iphone loves to blog.

ghost kitten

2009-05-23T17:36:00.004+10:00

She forgot to hide her tail, otherwise I would have believed her.

nice biscuit

2009-05-20T14:45:00.003+10:00

lifted from the no of all nothing

2009-05-19T23:11:00.005+10:00

When I was in literature school they taught us that this man was a very good one for thinking about syntax, which is a delicious thing to think about. When I was in music school we sang his poem. This is what it was.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

the bit that spills over for me:'and for everything / which is natural which is infinite which is yes'

yes.

stoutly

2009-05-11T09:06:00.004+10:00

Bicycle mechanics with beards and grimy fingers are for lovers.

so much special all at once

2009-05-08T18:00:00.013+10:00

This is a celebration cake. It's divided into several celebrations that I didn't even realise I was celebrating (the recipe yields 2, and I could have halved it...).

It's this girl's birthday. She is mucho special, for reasons I know in secret and for the ones she will happily tell you. Here is her cake, to be shared among an office full of people who I know are lovely but simply couldn't be with today:

It's also another girl's birthday. She is Lauren and if she has any web presences I don't know about them yet. But I do know that she is very special in some circles whose opinions I tend to respect, and that makes me feel like we are connected in this web of special-ity that is constantly being built up around us, ladies that we are in this land of the foreign and the familiar. Here is her cake, bearing her initial:

Tonight is also the night where Penguin Pete makes so many musics in a room. I think it will be beautiful. I have seen him before and he is doing some tiny squeal boom box rumpus room comfort sounds. They are special too. This is Penguin Pete making some sounds:

This is his cake:

So much love goes directly from my bursting heart to Bobby and Lauren and Pete. Directly.

And so that's the story of how one little cake celebrated so many things on this day of common excesses, which happened to be a day I randomly decided not to go to the grindstone of my wagework and decided to live instead.

p.s. This is Lauren's cake and Pete's cake looking like Ls and Ps, which is what you get in Australia when you drive somewhere with very little experience.

Rae St, 9:41 a.m.

2009-05-05T14:16:00.004+10:00

Lucky Lydia is very loved.

the uniform

2009-05-03T16:55:00.006+10:00

For some time I, like any good domestic enthusiast, have been collecting a rather amazing set of $2 aprons. This in itself is not a feat; any good thrift store will always have some, it's just up to you to go and pick the one that's prettiest. The few times I have had the opportunity to cook a meal in my kitchen with many, it's been lovely to see everyone finding one that fits their needs. And every time I wear one, I think why, oh why is this not just a dress instead?

jussa lil' bit

2009-04-26T19:12:00.003+10:00

This is my special fucken ladyfriend in her joy garden. She also grows veggies there.

Yes, abundance, yes. She also had this to say about common excess, and whilst it's not in standard 'comment' form I thought it was a lovely comment:

i really love the new blog,too. it's something that i think about a lot. and such a beautiful thing to soak in during a time when all i hear from everyone is tighten the belt, better get hip to the economics of scarcity, reign it in. but you say NO! sustainable excess! you're a fucking genius.

I wasn't going to leave in the 'fucking genius' bit but I thought it a bit dishonest not to present her words in their entirety.

I hadn't really thought about that myself when I started this little project up, but now that it's been put into those words in that order, I think about it all the time. And the more I think about that 'belt tightening' stuff the more little excesses I find to roll around in. And maybe in some small way that's a way of coping with things that are narrowing - by noticing the things on the other side which are opening up.

chocolate and beetroot cake

2009-04-19T10:26:00.008+10:00

The first time I saw a slice of chocolate and beetroot cake it was displayed behind plexi-glass on the counter at Loafer, looking moist and shapely and deeply cocoa-coloured. I might even go so far as to use the word 'quivering' to describe it - it's a very sexy cake, and so very moist and spongey that you can almost detect movement in it the way you could with a pudding or jelly. And it's so packed with amazing that you envision it sort of jittering around on the plate until you break into it for the first bite, causing all of that energy to explode.

When we talk about beetroot there is always the preoccupation with the colour - the depth of it, the way it stains your fingers, your chopping board, your tongue. When you combine that with cocoa, well...you need to see it, really, and I'll need to take some photos through the process. There's also something, for me, about root vegetables that is really affirming, hardy, familiar, solid. The stuff reaches down into the ground to become what it is - there of course is something to be read in that - isn't there?

So when I saw that row of generous slices of chocolate beetroot cake, it went on my mental list of baking ambitions and showed up on the table a few weeks later. I served it to a couple of special friends, still warm, and the room was mostly quiet whilst it was consumed. It was a small event on a Sunday evening and everyone felt full of it. It is velvet and perfect. Vegetables making moisture in baked goods is the way forward.

The recipe, with credit given where credit is due:

chocolate and beetroot cake

the cake:

Roast 2 medium beetroots in foil @ 180C for 90 mins. Leave them to cool. Then mash them however you are able - puree is best, so food processor, blender, or knife/fork/immersion blender combination.

Cream 3 eggs and 1 cup of sugar in with the beetroot puree. Add 1 tsp vanilla (or the insides of a vanilla bean if you're so slowmantically inclined) and 3/4 cup veggie oil (or other preferred oil).

Sift these together:
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup cocoa
and then combine with the wet ingredients.

Pour the batter into a lined cake tin, however you like them to be shaped, and bake for 40 minutes. Check for doneness, the size and shape of the pan will vary baking time. Let it cool for a little while and turn it out onto a plate.

the icing:

I didn't use this exactly. I wanted it to have cream in it so I whipped some cream and added some icing sugar to it, and a melted Lindt bar (100 grams of 70% dark). I may or may not have used a bit of vanilla, and I just add sugar a few tablespoonfuls at a time until I'm happy with the sweetness - I want the flavour of the chocolate to be the main feature, only a hint of sweetness. The beetroot provides so much sweet, and it is quite natural-tasting, mellow and sort of like real cane, it actually tastes a bit like a plant. So yeah, you can do what I did or figure out your own icing. This one, though, was amazing. I spread it on when the cake was still warm so it got a bit melty but in the perfect way - the first slices were definitely the best ones, and it's a whole new (still indulgent) experience the next day.

This is what it looks like.

abundance laboratories

2009-04-16T11:11:00.002+10:00

the light that comes through your window in the morning,

2009-04-14T21:54:00.007+10:00

and the chance to see it, evokes much gratitude.

the roots

2009-04-12T15:05:00.004+10:00

At this week's market, a basket of multi-coloured carrots from Daylesford Organics. I particularly love purple carrots - there are some of the nantes variety sprouting on my windowsill - and am still searching for the perfect blue cheese dressing to adulterate their simple nutritional goodness. Taken by a special visitor who later turned a few of these babies into curry.

edible glitter

2009-04-09T07:43:00.003+10:00

Easter cupcake from Babka. Lemon-flavoured and sprinkled with edible glitter, which is under-utilised in this modern culinary trend to minimalist aesthetics.

Yesterday was the perfect day, autumn at its best. Crisp and sunny and bright blue.

everything flowers

2009-04-07T22:36:00.004+10:00

Garlic flower from a farm in the Grampians. We got some great tips for planting the bulbs which were at its very root, and some well-wishes that we wouldn't have to meet the farmer in a transaction the following year. Everywhere people are giving each other permission to be sustainable.

Oh, and in the background are some happy little beetrootlings.

So much just sprouts out of the ground. Lots of rain lately means everyone's deeply green and up-reaching. Tomorrow morning in the early light I start supporting peas and broad beanlings with bamboo and string.

exuberance

2009-04-03T09:37:00.004+11:00

I have the privilege of knowing some fine individuals.

stories written in dust

2009-04-02T09:27:00.004+11:00

Tiny corners of one particular goldmine of minute and ancient abundances. I'd like to someday grid the whole place and catalogue them. That would make a book.

chocolate chip cookies

2009-04-01T20:23:00.005+11:00

My mum made chocolate chip cookies as a semi-profession, and so of course I will probably never use any recipe but hers - there's really no need. Hers were always thick and cakelike, but not dry - they were airy and pleasant to eat. You definitely would call them a cookie and not a biscuit. She had the timing perfect and they were never burned - she was very methodical and always working with the same equipment, not like us renters who have to move on just as we're figuring out the temperament of the oven that happens to us.

I've been making them since I left home, but I tend to modify the recipe as I've got more of a taste for flat, buttery, chewier cookies. I use real butter also, unsalted, a 250 g block of it (about a cup). I also use much less flour than she does - 2 cups, maybe a little more, but that's the thing you have to tailor very specifically to yourself. I prefer brown to white sugar so sometimes I only use brown. I also experiment with combinations of the two and find that 2 cups total is too much for me, so it's usually more like 1 1/2.

When I bake them I try to brown them a bit more, which isn't hard since they're so full of butter, and I go overboard on the chocolate chips because that tastes good to me. Or I do half the batch with a reasonable amount and then add a bunch extra for the last dozen. I also find that they are better as large cookies - ones you'd share or eat over a whole day - maybe 3 or 4 inches in diameter. That way they get crispy on the periphery and chewy in the centre, which gives you all of the textures you want. When you've got a small cookie you get a more uniform consistency, and I just want some heterogeneity.

I share them with everyone I can think of. They are the sort of thing that, unlike a slice of cake or a tart, travel well and can be passed from one hand to another. When I moved away from home at 18 my mum used to send them to me express post and they'd still be good on the other coast.

I can't bring myself to reprint her recipe in any other form than the original, so I have not listed my bastardisations - you'll have to scan the text above for them or, better yet, just figure out what sounds best to you and try it. After the first batch you'll know which way to go to get what you want.

Faukes Family Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oven at 350 F, 185 C, or gas mark 4 (knock of 15 degrees for fan-assisted, those horrible things)

Combine:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup margarine (softened)
- 1/3 cup Crisco

Blend these together until smooth, whether you're strictly manual, pedal-powered, or electrically labour-saving in your method of creaming things. Assemble your dry ingredients and sift them together:

- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda (bicarb soda, sodium bicarbonate)
- 3 1/2 cups flour

and turn these into the wet ingredients until it's all absorbed.

Dump in 1 packet or more of your chocolate chips of choice and stir to distribute. Spoon them onto a cookie sheet and place in heated oven for 12 minutes. Sell them to your friends and their friends and the ladies at the bank, and then use the money to buy your kids' Christmas presents.

dreamers of dreams

2009-04-01T07:37:00.001+11:00

perch

2009-03-31T01:42:00.004+11:00

It is autumn and sunsets are delivering beautifully - light shows perfectly and ephemerally executed, and a perch is the best seat in the house. From my rooftop, which is the place to meditate on small figures in a vast expanse. Or just those in the neighbouring suburbs visible from Level 2.

broad beanlings

2009-03-29T16:03:00.005+11:00

and a pretty new dress, channelling vintage psychedelic prariegirl. These babies were sprouted from seed and they are the most eager little guys I have ever seen, gratifying to a novice urban foodgrower.

2009-03-29T14:16:00.001+11:00

Every day I find that there is more abundance than I can possibly absorb. And then there's more. In this economy of excess I must find a place for the spillover - channelling it into shared spaces instead of simply letting it evaporate. This is a sustainable economy. And so here you will find some of these offerings - images of the everyday excesses we often fail to see as such, reminders to find abundance in minutiae.

My cup runneth over. Drink up.