The 10-Year Rewind – Part 23 – What to do in a Blackout

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 23 is this one — What to do in a Blackout — from October 2012, and it's the last in this 10-Year Rewind series, as today, June 24, is the 10th anniversary of our gardening blog. Oddly enough, June 24 is also our wedding anniversary (we're up to #29, next year is going to be #30 and a big one for sure).

So it's only appropriate that I finish up with something about Pammy and me. It includes a recipe at the end for one of our favourite meals, Teriyaki Salmon, but before then it tells the story of two little lovebirds caught in an electricity blackout around dinner time ...

Talk about good timing. The teriyaki salmon was ready to serve, the baked small potatoes were crisp in the oven, the steamed buck choy had wilted nicely. And then the power went out. Not just in our house, but in 25,000 houses in inner-western Sydney. And the house was pitch black. For the next few hours.

The good thing about living in the same house for 21 years is that you know your way around in the dark. I just went to the cupboard where we keep one of our torches, turned it on, went to the cupboard where the candles and the matches have lain undisturbed for years, and two minutes later we were back in business, glowing dimly but happily enough. Dinner served. Yum. Then what to do?

Scrabble by candlelight, of course! Pam and I love our
new swivelling Scrabble board. We saw one in a movie
a few years ago, and then at the end of that year, Santa
(and Pam) gave me one. The board sits on a little
swivelly plinthy thingy, so you can spin it around so that
each  player sees all the letters right-way-up when it's
their turn to get a triple word score with a 'Q' and a 'Z'.

As we were so blessed with good timing for the blackout, the least I can do for the unfortunates who were halfway through cooking dinner is share the teriyaki recipe that never fails, because it's quick! Works brilliantly with Atlantic salmon.

100ml soy sauce
30ml mirin (or sake)
1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon finely minced ginger
1 dessertspoon sugar

Combine ingredients to make a marinade, then marinate the salmon (1 piece/cutlet/steak per person) in this for 1-2 hours. When the time comes to cook the salmon, cook it how you like it. I cook mine on a griddle plate, about 3 minutes either side, so it's still rather pink and underdone in the middle. Others prefer it more well done.

The 10-Year Rewind – Part 22 – I See Small People

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 22 is this one — I See Small People — from August 2008, in which I reveal our little gnome collection. Oh, OK then, our big gnome collection ...

As well as collecting eminently transportable, and collectable, succulents while out on the road on holidays, my wife, Pam, and I have acquired another garden collection that's altogether more disreputable. Gnomes. Little people.

We're music lovers, so originally our idea was to put together a band: guitar, bass, drums, fiddle, accordion and maybe flute, sax or whatever else musical and gnomey that came our way. Well, those parameters merely provided a basis to start shopping, and we soon got off the rails on the very first trip. The guiding factors for us were "no boring gnomes" and, with only a few exceptions, "only solid concrete gnomes, please". This is not all of them by any means, but for starters, here's a selection of the little people in our backyard.

If the rules say "only solid concrete gnomes" then it's only right to start off with a plastic one. A plastic shampoo bottle, to be exact, with the shampers still intact. I saw him in a local discount store and all I could see was a great little gnome. He's aged well after six years outside (I keep him out of the sun, of course).

This is how most of the backyard gnomes are placed, hiding amongst greenery somewhere. This guy is the bass player in the band. When young kids come to visit the backyard we just tell them to go find the gnomes, and count them. They like the hidden ones, and of course they all want to take Bart Simpson home.

Hand-painting plain concrete gnomes is a pleasant rainy-day job if there's football on the radio. This guy, who is billed as an anti-terrorist commando gnome, handles security in the backyard. I think he was meant to be a postman gnome, with his cute little satchel, but with some army camouflage gear his postie's bag is now his demo charge unit. When painting them, I do the easy stuff like the clothes, but Pam does the faces.

Almost all the gnomes here are male, as they are in most gardens, but this is Ingrid, one of our more recent acquisitions, who we found, already beautifully painted, in the NSW Blue Mountains last summer. She likes to bake pies, apparently.

Not far from where Ingrid hangs out (under the mint pots), her boyfriend Mitchell, the local librarian, spends all his days reading gardening books in his little garden seat set amidst a field of native Australian violets. 

Unfortunately, even in the most peaceful gardens in the most beautiful cities in the sunniest Antipodean countries, crime continues to claim the innocent. I read once in the English 'Gardens Illustrated' magazine that these corpse gnomes are a specialty of the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, but I bought mine in Melbourne. The kids counting the gnomes usually reel in horror when they find this guy. "Hey mum, there's a dead one over here" or something like that usually announces their macabre little find. 

A very Australian tradition is the footy gnome. Up until recently we didn't have one, but then we came across an unpainted plain concrete fellow and so I gave him the colours of my local Rugby League team, the Balmain Tigers. Following the Tigers used to be a case of long suffering loyalty including back-to-back lost Grand Finals, but then the Tiges went out and surprised everyone by winning the 2005 Premiership, so that should do me for the remainder of my lifetime. I have the DVD.

Earlier on I think I mentioned something about painting gnomes, rainy days and footy. That is a bit of an exaggeration, to be truthful. Here's the gnome painting workshop. It's looked exactly like this for at least the last 12 months. I don't rush gnome painting. Do it in bursts. One day here, and then another day next year. There's hardly any more hiding spots out in the garden for them anyway. And when I finish the clothes, etc, Pam will move in to do the faces (and the rest of the flowers on wheelbarrow boy).

And so with this post completed, I feel like I know what it's like to have 'come out'! I collect gnomes, not a lot of them, but quite a few. Think what you will, I don't care.

The 10-Year Rewind – Part 21 – Tiny Tots

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 21 is this one — Tiny Tots — from October 2014, which features some gorgeous artwork by my talented partner in gardening and life, Pammy.

All sorts of spring flowers in our garden are coming out right on schedule, and the tiny ones Pammy and I have been looking closely to spot have finally made their appearance. They're so small that if you stand back a few feet you can't see them. You have to get up close … very close.

Spanish moss, or Tillandsia usneoides.

This enormous log photobombing my Spanish moss pic is
the tip of a toothpick. It illustrates nicely how small these
Spanish moss flowers are.

The flowers form at foliage junctions.

Though small, they're perfectly formed, complete with a
little yellow centre of pollen. Haven't exactly seen the
bees making a beeline for the Spanish Moss yet, though.

Just in case you're not familiar with Spanish
moss, it's that bromeliad which is also known
as old man's beard, for an obvious reason.
It's an 'air plant' that is not a parasite on its
host plant. Instead, it gets all its nutrients
from the air and rain. Here's it's thriving, hanging
off the branches of our Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream'.

Pammy loves this plant, and has done several paintings of both the plant and the flower. And so, to finish off our little celebration of this little cutie, here are two of Pammy's Spanish moss flower paintings, one a lovely little portrait of the flower itself, and the second (one of my favourites) an imagined microscope-eye's view of the foliage, where yet again Pam has created something which seems abstract at first glance yet is also realistic – it's one of the themes in her painting which I enjoy the most.

'The Reality', © Pamela Horsnell 2013

'Living and Breathing', © Pamela Horsnell 2013

The 10-Year Rewind – Part 19 – Petty Jealousies

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 19 is this one — Petty Jealousies — from March 2014, in which I suffer from a mild case of the other gardener's grass seeming greener.


It was a comment from Jo in Melbourne, complaining gently about her fair city's recent lack of rain, that got me thinking about this next, not very serious, post. We're a jealous lot, we gardeners. Talk about "the other one's grass is always greener"! There's always someone else who we gardeners can envy in a very green way. Usually it's for their idealised climate. So often I wish I could do some gardening in another climate zone, just for a year or three. Where else would you like to do some gardening, if you had your wish come true?

Jo's comment arrived on the same weekend that a friend showed me a photo of her wonderful crop of fresh quinces from her backyard tree. No, that's not her quinces in this photo above. They're some I bought in our local 'Banana Joe's' fruit and vegie supermarket here in Marrickville. At least the quinces are in season now and I guess that's what really counts. But I would love to be able to grow my own. 

And so, here's my list of petty jealousies, in no particular order. 

1. I am jealous of those in cool climate gardens who can grow what I can't grow here in Sydney, in particular quinces, raspberries, cherries, Seville oranges, Cox's Orange Pippin apples, plums and pears. 

2. I am jealous of those in tropical climate gardens who can grow what I can't grow here in Sydney, in particular great mangoes, mangosteens, rambutans and pineapples. And cardamoms and nutmeg trees, too. And zillions of orchids, and flowering gingers...

3. And woe is me for residing in a place with humid, clammy summers, instead of somewhere nice and hot and dry and Mediterranean in summer (like Perth, Adelaide, or California or South Africa, or Greece or Spain) where I could much more easily grow pomegranates, olives, grapes, caperberries and huge drifts of lovely lavender. 

Before everyone leaps in and says "you can grow mangoes in Sydney, pineapples too" and "we grow olives, figs and grapes here in Sydney town too." I know, I know. But it's such a lottery when you garden in the wrong climate. Some seasons it all works fine, others are disasters. Besides, all the tropicals grow too slowly down here, and the Mediterraneans cark it in a really humid Sydney summer. In the ideal climate zones for all these crops, most seasons are good ones. Trying to grow these crops in the "wrong" climate zone, out of sheer bloody-minded "I'll show them" gardening envy, is utterly normal for gardeners, but a tragedy waiting to happen, as it does again and again. 

So this is a not-very-serious griping post for me, and I'm not really jealous of others, either. It's just sometimes I feel a little fleeting pang of garden envy, comforted only by knowing that someone else, somewhere else, is envious of lucky little Jamie and Pam in evergreen, lush, easy-grow, warm-temperate, cuddly Sydney. 

However... if I was a rich man, I would definitely buy a property in all the climate zones that I'm currently jealous of, and flit between them cultivating all the forbidden fruits I can't really grow all that well in Sydney. That's a sensible plan for a jealous man. Shame I'm poor...

The 10-Year Rewind – Part 18 – Spring Cleaning

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 18 is this one — Spring Cleaning — from September 2012. As the soccer World Cup is happening now in June 2018, it's fitting that I start this post  with reference to our own Australian-themed Festival of the Boot, but the posting itself is actually about my tiny garden shed.

There's a major cultural event happening this weekend in Australia, known as 'The Festival of the Boot', and so this is the perfect chance for me to spring-clean my garden shed with a radio playing in the background. 

(So, "What's the Festival of the Boot?" overseas readers will no doubt enquire. It's football Grand Final weekend here in Oz. In Melbourne on Saturday, it's one code of Football (called AFL) in which Sydney plays a Melbourne club (Hawthorn) to find out the winner of 2012 Supremacy. And for a completely refreshing change of pace, on Sunday, in the other, totally different, culturally 'other' code of Football (called NRL) it's Melbourne against a Sydney club, Canterbury, to decide the 2012 champion.)

While I cannot bring myself to spend much time watching football on TV, I do enjoy listening to it on the radio while I work. And as my shed is a disgrace in need of redemption I have the perfect Saturday afternoon ahead of me.

Here's my tiny little shed (on the right). On the left
is our bigger, original garden shed, which is now part
of Pammy's art studio empire. Such is love...

There was hardly any room to move in my shed, no
tabletop space to do anything... clutter, clutter
and lots more clutter. A complete disgrace!

So, in such a tiny shed, the only way to clean it and
tidy it up is to take almost everything out then get
stuck into cleaning, sorting, throwing out, tut-tutting
and wondering "why in the hell did I keep that?".
Then put 80% of it all back, and throw out the rest.

Though it's hard to tell at first glance, this is how things
look after two solid hours of spring cleaning. There's
shiny brown polished timber tabletop space, and take
my word, there's space to stash more crap here now!
(And yes, one of these days, I will finish painting our
latest batch of gnomes, probably when I retire!)

I've even added major environmental
upgrades to shed comfort levels. I like to
think of this as air-conditioning. Admittedly,
it is just a fan and it does work best with the
door open and a southerly breeze blowing,
but that cheap little fan makes quite a
difference to comfort levels now. As far as
I am concerned, it's an upgrade!

Looking through the window out to the garden, my
aspirational (tin) chooks love the view. Oh how I would
love to have some real chooks here, but at this stage
these are as clucky as I can get here in Amateur Land.

The other major improvement here is
the new artwork. My friend Jolanda
found online this great image of
Superheroes 'Victory' gardening, and I
then found a big enough jpeg of that
image that printed out OK on our printer.
Pammy had a spare frame that was
almost the perfect A3 size. I love it!

This corner of the shed is now my
'pretty' area, with my modest collection
of decorative tins underneath.

I love old-style tins. On the left is a tin of cookies I
bought in Savannah, Georgia, and on the right is a
brand new commemorative 125th Anniversary seed
tin put out by Aussie seed company Yates.

Whenever I see a special biscuit tin at
our local supermarket, I snap it up.
Arnott's is our major biscuit maker.
Neither Pam nor I eat biscuits, but I buy the 
nice tins no matter what's in them!

In this Arnott's tin I keep all the plant 
labels of the major plants growing here, 
plus all the latest annuals/vegies as well.

Finally, after spring-cleaning the shed
I gave the barbecue its major spring
renovation, fired it up to make sure
it all works perfectly, and tonight I'm
kicking off the 2012-13 barbecue
season with a deboned, butterflied
shoulder of lamb.

And stop press: Festival of the Boot, part one, is over, and the Sydney Swans have defeated the Hawthorn Hawks in a thrilling nail-biter which went down to the wire and used every cliche not once, not twice, but a hundred times!

While I didn't get to see the game, thanks to the immortal radio call of HG Nelson and Rampaging Roy Slaven (Aussies will know who I am talking about, a comedy duo who broadcast sport in their own immortal way) I was there living every exciting, groin-straining moment... while I cleaned out my garden shed.

The 10-Year Rewind – Part 17 – Cowgirlz

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 17 is this one — Cowgirlz — from September 2011, another posting from our marathon drive across the USA. We're in Santa Fe, New Mexico this time, trying out the local food but mostly enjoying the decor at a BBQ joint and cafe that's dedicated to the wonderful world of Cowgirls.

We're in Texas now (in Lubbock, birthplace of Buddy Holly), so we're slightly lagging behind with this next blog that's all about a fabulous place in Santa Fe with fun decor, where we enjoyed some well-cooked and very hearty old-style US food. A bit on the food at the end of this posting but right now we're talking cowgirlz and decor, folks.

The two-step is a popular dance all through the Southern US, and it's mostly performed by two people, but no-one told this cowgirl and her horse. This is just one of the great photos on the wall at Cowgirls BBQ Cafe in Santa Fe, and I loved these photos most of all at Cowgirls, but it's a good spot to eat out nevertheless. 

Here's the sign outside the place on Guadalupe Street, and here's a weblink to Cowgirls BBQ.

The front part has an open-air area, and lucky for us on the night we arrived, it was full, so they ushered us into the room out the back. 

The room itself is homey and comfy, but it's the photos on the walls which had us captivated. Where are all the people? I came back the next morning just before lunch and asked if I could photograph it, and they were very friendly and obliging. And so, let's have a look at a few of the many great framed cowgirl photos on the walls.

There are some charming 'lady cowgirls' who looked like they didn't like to get dirty, and just loved the outfits.

And they had plenty of Sporty Cowgirls who could ride the hooves off a horse. As a motorcyclist, I really loved the way this woman is leaning her horse into that corner. They're going fast!

Showgirl Cowgirls aplenty adorned the walls, and I guess several of them were no doubt household names back in their heyday, as many of their photos were autographed as well.

Don't try this at home.

There were young cowgirls who seemed to be showing a lot of horse-riding prowess from an early age.

And beautiful Senior Cowgirls who had seen a lot of rodeos and probably ridden in a few, too.

Several starlet cowgirls looked like their photos were probably taken closer to Hollywood than Santa Fe.

This one was my favourite by far. Beneath her photo is a little biography, and let me share it with you.

Elsie Adams 'Billie' Blackwell. Born in Naco, Arizona, in 1920. Dual citizen of USA and Mexico. Occupation: rancher. First female licensed pilot in Texas, 1938.FBI employee, Washington DC, 1940. Enlisted pilot, USA Women's Air Service Program WWII. Red Cross Lifeguard Instructor, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 1940s. Married to Jack Blackwell 65 years. Mother of four children. What a life! All that involvement with the FBI and Los Alamos in the 40s suggests we might not have heard the full story...

And finally, what is the food like here? Well, for starters, Pam says they have made the best Margaritas so far. But for me, the food was hearty, but too much. This is actually what I had for lunch on the day I came to take the photos, as we didn't have our cameras with us on the Friday night. This is a 'pulled pork sandwich'. It consists of five times too much smoky, tender, pull-apart BBQ pork, coleslaw, half a pickle and fries. I actually pulled away four-fifths of the pork from the burger (er, sandwich) and ate it with a knife and fork. I don't think I'll be eating all that much BBQ here in the USA, as everyone here seems to love slathering meat with sweet barbecue sauces, and I don't. I'm a savoury flavour kind of guy, and so barbecue is probably not meant for me, which may turn out to be very good news for my already hearty waistline. So what's in the big red drink container? Iced tea, of course. Yummy and refreshing, as always.

PS: you might have noticed few little changes to the way the blog looks today. As well as updating the map, we've changed the main photo at the very top of the page. On this trip I'm carrying around a diecast toy model of a 1957 Corvette car (much like Gulliver our gnome). So far we've photographed the car parked in Hawaii, at Vegas, Grand Canyon and Santa Fe. So, yesterday I sent these photos to my mate Ben Hewett, the Photoshop wizard where I work. Ben then improved the Grand Canyon shot, quickly taking some photos of Pam and I from the blog, dropping us into the Grand Canyon photo, and presto! We now have the perfect header photo that will last us all the time we are on the road. Thanks for that Benno, brilliant work!

The 10-Year Rewind – Part 16 – Chermoula

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 16 is this one — Chermoula — from May 2010. Over the years I've done occasional cookery postings, and this is one dish I still love to make from scratch, starting the time-honoured way with a mortar and pestle.

With more than a week of relentlessly wet weather drenching the garden and ruining that kind of fun, there is but one thing for this boy to do – cook! But something new, something different. For our 20th wedding anniversary last year, Pammy bought me a lovely Scanpan Tagine plus a big, beautiful Moroccan cookbook, and that's where I went to for inspiration. Hmmm, "chermoula" – a classic North African spice/herb blend – that sounds nice. I have most of the ingredients either in the pantry or growing in the garden. Let's go.

I'll give the recipe at the end, but here it is in its prettiest stage, just after I added ground cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper to the garlic. But I am already getting ahead of myself.

Here's the makings of my chermoula. Coriander, parsley and lemon (all home-grown), garlic, paprika, cumin, cayenne pepper, olive oil, and mortar and pestle.

Oops, forgot to mention the salt. In fact the salt is a magic ingredient, as it helps to turn garlic to soft mush with just a few thumps of the pestle. It's just like a little chemistry lesson on its own, the way salt disintegrates garlic.

Then you add the three spices mentioned earlier.

Then add chopped parsley and chopped coriander, plus some lemon juice, then at the end, some olive oil.

Traaa daaaa! Chermoula. It wasn't that hard to do, but the trick is to not add all the bulky parsley and coriander in one go. I added it in small batches and it quickly pounded down. Total time taken to pound it all down to a paste was about 5 minutes. Good village-style peasant work, and good rainy-day work, too. I suppose you could do it all in a blender, but it wouldn't come out like this, with the little chunky bits here and there.

The next step is to coat the "meat" with some of the chermoula. This in fact is a beautiful fish called Bass Grouper (it's similar to blue-eye cod). It comes as big, thick steaks from which I remove the bones, then cut it into chunks. It holds together beautifully in cooking and remains moist, never seems to go dry. However, this recipe would work equally well with other meats, such as chunks of chicken or pork, for example.

Next, the vegies. Here, I cut up slices of potato, red and yellow capsicum, zucchini, and tipped in a can of diced tomatoes, then stirred in the remainder of the chermoula and a few leftover scraps of parsley and coriander.

Big spoon to toss all the vegies together, plus a grind each of salt and pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Any casserole dish will do, of course, but I do think my tagine looks snazzy.

Into the tagine I scooped in half the vegies to layer the bottom, then covered these with all the fish (which had been marinating in the chermoula for the half-hour it took to prepare all the vegies), then I covered the fish with the rest of the vegies. Lid on. Bake one hour at 180°C (350°F) and it's ready. Serve with couscous on the side.

Halfway through eating it, I said to Pam: "Oh oh, I forgot to take a photo of the finished dish". So you'll just have to imagine the results. It tasted yummy, though. Anyway, here's the amounts for the chermoula. As for the vegies, I just made all that bit up as I went along.

Chermoula

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

3 tablespoons chopped coriander (cilantro)

2 teaspoons paprika

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

Method: pound the garlic with the salt until mushy, then add the paprika, cumin, cayenne pepper and lemon juice to make a paste. Then add the parsley and coriander in batches, and pound until reduced in bulk. Finally, work the olive oil into the mixture in stages, until blended nicely.

(For Aussie readers, this recipe is from the excellent book, "The Food of Morocco" by Tess Malloss, published by Murdoch Books, ISBN 9781741960341).