The other weekend I was sitting on the train with my family (something we rarely get to do) after a trip into the city to buy a tea pot (I am sure another blog will surface about tea when I get around to it). Anyway…it was a pleasant morning, and I was thinking about the ‘cook up’ I had planned for the rest of the day so that I can survive the working week.

It was then that I noticed something move against the scalp of my 5 year old’s head, and it was then that the focus of the rest of my afternoon was redesigned for me.

Head lice….eeeerrrrrgggghhhhh. Just thinking about them makes the hairs on the back of my neck creep and gives me the urge to scratch an itch that suddenly appears on my scalp. Even if someone else tells you that their child has nits, suddenly you start to feel your own scalp feeling itchy. Heck…mine is feeling itchy right now as I write.

This was my first ever experience with head lice. I guess I have gotten off pretty lightly prior to this. I have wondered in the past what they actually look like, as I have never actually seen them, but after much discussion with a girlfriend who’s children have had head lice, I was pretty certain most of my previous run ins were just my brain being CONVINCED I had them and all of the associated itching that you feel propelled to do. No lice/nits comb came up with any evidence though.

But this time, as I gazed down, I could see two small dark insects crawling about Jasmine’s scalp. Without wanting to alarm Jasmine (who was having a wonderful time on the train), or repulse the rest of the passengers into a subconscious scalp itching frenzy, I mentioned to Tom that “we need to get the SPECIAL comb onto someone’s hair when we get home”.

Sadly, I must say, Tom isn’t great when you try to spell something out to him. His brain just doesn’t work that way. It’s not that he can’t spell, but if I say I have I C E C R E A M in the fridge (because I don’t want the kids to know), he gets all flustered with me. Maybe it’s because his first language isn’t English, or maybe he can’t see the word you are spelling and needs me to say it. Anyway….after three attempts at trying to convey the message that could eloquently be phrased as “Jasmine has f&@king head lice in her hair” I gave up and sat in silence, prayed that the train trip would end soon, and tried not to itch.

One thing that concerns me about conventional head lice treatments sold in the pharmacy or supermarket is that the ingredients sound like you are attempting chemical warfare on a your youngster’s scalp. I just don’t feel like I want to go there.

First things first I smothered the hair in conditioner and used the lice comb. This stuns the head lice (of which I found two), and removes some of the eggs.

So I turned to my aromatherapy books and oils. I have a myriad of aromatherapy books, and I recall seeing a head lice treatment in there somewhere, and sure enough, there are a myriad of recipes you can choose. The treatment I chose came from Aromatherapy Blends for Life by Judith White (which is no longer in print).

Ingredients

• Eucalyptus – 2 drops
• Thyme – 2 drops
• Tea tree – 1 drop
• Lime – 2 drops
• Lemon – 1 drop

• 40mls of Jojoba massage base oil – this oil is wonderful as it doesn’t go rancid, and is beautiful for warming and using for facials or hair treatments

What you will need

• Vapouriser – us this to heat your massage base oil, and add your essential oils to it. Yes, you can do this with massage base oils, it heats them just slightly

• Basting brush – from the kitchen – I prefer the natural bristle instead of silicone

What to do

1. Heat the oil in the vapouriser
2. Add the essential oils
3. Baste onto the hair, making sure you get the roots and all sections of the hair
4. Leave in your hair for 20 mins or more – I got Jasmine to do some colouring – if you wish wrap a towel around the hair to stop oil from being spread around your walls/furniture
5. Wash out the oil and shampoo – you might need to shampoo a few times, as the hair will be oily

Jasmine was terrified of what I was about to do to her, with a vapouriser and candle blazing, and a basting brush poised to attack her head (or maybe it was the ‘die nits die’ look I had in my eyes) but when I started to apply the oil to her hair, she relaxed back and really enjoyed it. We had a nice mother/daughter time together, giving her a deluxe hair treatment, and it smelt divine. So, all in all, it was rather pleasant and the end of the day, and no nasty chemicals – just natural ones.

The following week, I repeated the treatment. This time we both looked forward to it. There weren’t any lice in Jasmine’s hair, but a few random nits attached to the hair shaft that I perhaps missed in my first treatment (they hadn’t grown in size, so I suspect round 1 killed them). Today I checked again, and her hair is clear. It’s been three weeks since the second treatment, so I am pretty happy with the results.

Sure, I have eaten lentils before, and sure, if you know how to accompany them with the right spices, they can taste amazing. However, I don’t.

So…I thought I would experiment with the humble lentil this year, and expand our food repertoire a little from the rice/pasta/mash bases to include this pulse.

My memories of earlier experimentation with lentils occurred when I was at university. Of course, being a poor student, and living away from home, this was my first experience of actually having to fend for myself – on many fronts. I loved it.

I am the second eldest child of four, and mum was a stay at home mum for most of my school years, so the kitchen was usually running hot, and there wasn’t really much room for experimentation. I came of this and went to college in country Victoria, and although I had a good understanding of how to cook (probably better than some people who for instance, could make pancakes or bolognese), I had no idea about quantities. I could easily whip up a meal for 6 people, but had no idea what to put together for one. And if I did whip up a meal for 6, then unfortunately I had to eat it too…..

I moved into accommodation with another student Sue, who decided she was going to be vegetarian, and we shared cooking. There was lots of experimentation, let’s just say, some massive disasters (like the time Sue decided to cook chicken for guests, but let’s just say only cooked each side for 2 minutes because that’s what you do for tofu, to then watch the guests all shudder at the sight of bloody raw meat, and leave it uneaten – all when you are dying for a piece of protein – unforgettable!). We were your typical students, making do with the cheapest foods you could buy, and I would say we ate vegetarian for most of the year. By the end of it though, I was fanging for something with flavour.

If only I had discovered some decent spices – I might have explored the Lentil further.

I made a lentil salad recently – massive hit with Tom…so much so that when he came home recently from traveling, I made it for him as a surprise (sad really). He thinks it tastes as good as meat. The kids don’t love it, but they do eat it, so it’s one of those things – not as bad as my early childhood broad bean experiences, and not as great as lasagna.

We went to dinner at my friend Lara’s house the other day. She’s on a “no red meat, no dairy and no wheat diet”. I am SERIOUSLY considering not having her as a friend anymore. I mean honestly, what is there left to eat? I took this lentil salad, and both Tom, Lara and I ate it. Lets just say, not everyone else was raving about it.

Anyway, after a slight mishap in the bath tub that night (involving one of my children, two of Lara’s and a ‘floater’) I dare say I won’t have to worry about my next invitation.

Anyway…horror stories aside, I think the lentil has big potential, and I am keen to expand my recipes to include more. If you have any favourite recipes that you are happy to recommend…then I would love to know about them. Here’s my Lentil salad recipe!

I am a big fan of ReuseMoose, mostly because I was there for his birth (after totally loving the whole Freecycle concept, but complaining to my geek husband and his geek friend Vincent that it wasn’t the nicest interface and there were about 500 million rules).

Today they noticed the traffic going mad on it, and traced it back to an article in my favourite news paper The Age: Furnish your house for free.

I am glad to see more people becoming aware of the benefits of getting someone, anyone to re use their unwanted belongings – even if they can no longer get money for them.

It’s actually harder than you think to just give something away. I gave away a perfectly good breadmaker on Freecycle, as I hate hoarding. Nothing wrong with it, but it was used. Since we have started to make our own Sourdough bread we just never used the thing anymore, and are likely not to.

I listed it on Freecycle, and then observed an interesting phenomena. I started to feel anxious about who to give it too….what they will do with it, will they profit from it.

Finally, I realised I had to change my mindset. If you don’t want it anymore, can’t get money for it (ebay), can’t give it to the local op shop (be careful here as many can’t take white goods – dropping them off causes even more landfill for these poor charities), then just give it to someone, anyone who needs it. Just try to avoid having it end up in the tip.

Then, if it does end up in the tip after all, you know it really is trash. No one want’s it. You can’t be much more responsible than that unless you open up a recycling factory!

Also, the act of cleaning out unwanted clutter is a very healthy thing to do. It helps you clear your mind, not just your house, and can even help you loose unwanted weight (read more on this on Cyndi O’Meara’s Changing Habit‘s website).

If that’s not enough, then watch the video’s on Annie Leonard’s website: The Story of Stuff – I found this website very informative, and it has helped immensely understand the pressure to accumulate stuff in the first place. If you have accumulated lots of stuff, you might find it helps you break that pattern.

So stop whatever you are doing right now (obviously finish reading this blog) and start hunting for those unwanted items.

So if you are mentally, emotionally and ecumenically ready to give your unwanted things away, have a go on www.reusemoose.com.

Please don’t read this blog if you don’t really want to know where meat comes from.

Shock horror….did you realise that meat actually comes from an animal that used to be alive? I never realised this. I thought it came from Woolworths, and actually just grew in the plastic packet with the little absorbent pad underneath it! Of course I am being totally facetious, but I noticed a very interesting reaction to an email I sent with regarding the topic of eating guinea pigs.

Tom found a youtube video about eating guinea pigs. The video doesn’t actually show a guinea pig being eaten, or being killed, but it is very frank about them being used as a source of meat. The owners of the guinea pigs in the movie obviously love their pigs, and also obviously eat them too.

I sent to my permaculture email group thinking it was an interesting concept (and slightly amusing too), and got an interesting reaction. Some people thought I should have put a warning in the email as they found the content to be too shocking. I have been thinking about what that warning might be:

Warning: The following video may be shocking to some viewers. It toys with the concept that some people grow, kill and eat meat from animals. It doesn’t actually show the killing or eating of the animal. Even more shocking is that these animals happen to be cute.

Youtube: Eating guinea pigs

This video is very interesting, and a tad amusing too. What is more interesting is how the concept of killing a ‘cute’ animal, or an animal we associate with pets arouses such emotions. I am amused also by the comments in youtube below the video, such as ‘these people are monsters’ and the like. If these people are monsters, then isn’t anyone who has ever eaten meat a monster? All meat comes from animals, even fish. Perhaps a tad hypocritical and a little bit squeamish.

I am a meat eater, and comfortable with this. I have tried being a vegetarian, even a vegan in the past. I admire the discipline that it takes to be a vegan and to eat properly, but I lack the know how to do this properly, and the time it takes to source all of the right things, cook everything and so on. What does disturb me is a number of documentaries I have seen recently that show food production these days as a major ‘conveyer-belt’ like production, but involving live animals. These shows include:

• Food Inc – a movie
• Jamie Oliver’s series on where our food comes from
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series.

But I do believe in taking a pragmatic approach – I like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s (from the River Cottage series). If you are going to eat meat, then you need to be responsible about how it is grown, cared for, and respectful in how you slaughter and use it. Playing a part in growing and slaughtering your own food brings this message home beautifully, meat comes from a real animal, let’s make sure it’s life wasn’t a waste, let’s use it respectfully. But most of us can’t do this, we might work office jobs or live in a small apartment etc. So, where does your food come from? How is it grown? Do you have any idea?

Since becoming more aware about where my food comes and how it is grown, I have started to ask the questions of my local producers, or change where I source my food from.

I sit here gazing outside at my guinea pigs as I write. Don’t worry, there are still 4 pigs outside. Maybe I should try one?

What have I become?

Anzacs are a great biscuit should you ever want to make ‘special’ cookies – if you know what I mean.

Mum has been churning out Anzacs to the same recipe ever since I can remember. When I left home and started carving a life of my own, this recipe was one of those home comforts I had to go back and ask for. I don’t recall having to grovel down at mum’s feet and beg, which is surprising actually. Mum guards most of her recipes very tightly (something old school, where you kept your recipes like a best kept secret), so I am probably committing some major sin blogging it. I know I would have had to majorly suck up for it. Mummy dearest….kiss, kiss – that sort of thing. Sometimes it’s just worth it really.

I know being part-Dutch you would think that I freely smoke weed and crunch on Oma’s hash cookies as I peruse my weekly newsletter from The Cannibis College, Amsterdam. Unfortunately, I don’t. I am entertained by the concept of it all, but I don’t action that into a reality. I am really a big dag. I have been accused of being so straight that I only cross at the green man. When growing up, I was the girl who was miss goody two shoes class prefect who would report you for smoking in the girls toilets to the teachers. Yep, it’s true.

When I lived in NZ I had a work colleague Aaron who was one of those friends who was my polar opposite in so many ways, and yet we were such great friends. He once told me that thought my being part-Dutch was so cool because it conjured up images of relaxed attitudes to drugs and prostitution (his idea of cool). From that time on I would sign my emails to him ‘Geri, Of Dutch Descent’ purely because it would tickle his fancy. Only on one occasion, after being friends with Aaron for about 4 years did he offer me a draw on his spliff (at the tender age of 28). After sitting there for about 2 minutes nervously contemplating the morals of it all, I finally inhaled. I promptly turned around and simultaneously vomited and had an asthma attack. I didn’t get any special after effects, I didn’t feel good, I felt green, and I wasn’t instantly transformed into ‘cool’.

My husband Tom lived for 20 years in the Netherlands, where using cannabis is legal, and you can smoke it or eat it in special coffee shops. He has never tried it. Not once. Not even been tempted. Why bother he says? What’s the big deal? He has witnessed mostly tourists visiting his country who loose all control and get silly on the stuff – to the extent now where the Netherlands is considering applying some legislation. It doesn’t look very cool to him.

Anyway, back to my story. An old boyfriend and his mate once obtained a stick of ‘special butter’. We were going camping for a 10 days, and these two clowns thought that if transformed into biscuits, this magical butter would make their holiday even more un-memorable. They wanted me to cook them some special cookies when I was focused on making sure we had enough food, tents etc. It was a impossible to do it all, so I left them the recipe for Mum’s Anzacs on the bench top, took out all of the ingredients from the pantry (as I so knew they wouldn’t be able to find them having never navigated a pantry before), and placed all of the measuring spoons and cups, trays etc on the bench. You couldn’t have made it any more straight forward really.

My girlfriend and I went shopping for real food while these too giggled like school girls in the kitchen. When we came home, the house smelt of  ‘aroma of Anzac’, so I thought that they had managed to do well. But on walking into the kitchen, we noticed what looked like an Anzac on steroids lying on the kitchen bench. Each individual biscuit melted together into one big massive Amoeba-like thing on the tray. It had also spewed off the sides and dripped into the oven. What a nightmare! I knew instantly that something had gone wrong. Upon tasting a crumb, it was so bitter that the saliva in your mouth started to foam. We walked through what they did with the recipe. The ingredients called for one and a half ‘tspn’s’ of baking soda. They misread ‘tspn’ this to mean tablespoons.

I had a fabulous time camping. My girlfriend and I laughed so hard watching the two of them impossibly trying to get high on something so repulsive they couldn’t keep it in their mouths. All because they had never read a recipe before. Classic!

So, if you do find yourself with a stick of ‘special’ butter, and in need of a good recipe, then I can recommend mum’s Anzacs. If you can’t read said recipe, then I suggest you just eat the butter, on toast. It’s less risky.

Below, a few photo’s I took from the shop windows when in Amsterdam last year. Yes, these do tickle my fancy!

Last weekend we picked some olives from Uncle Bob and Aunty Marg’s tree. It was so laden with fruit that the 5kgs we took didn’t even make a dent.

My olive tree (which I have had for 7 years) only this year fruited for the first time. It must have known I was going to gift it to someone else if it didn’t perform. Anyway, I was keen to use these olives, but only 3 actually ripened, so I don’t see images of myself cold pressing bountiful amounts of olive oil.

I am going to pickle these olives using a long pickling method you can use for ripe, part or fully coloured olives, and hopefully down the track use these olives in things like sourdough bread (I sadly live with people who don’t love them. Only me). The recipe has been handed down by Uncle Bob. I need to soak the olives in a brine for 6 months before I do anything else, so that’s pretty straightforward.

So, here they are, and in 6 months time I will continue the story and give you an update on their progress.

Ingredients

• 5 litres of water
• 300g cooking salt (I use rock salt for no reason other than I have a 25kg bag of the stuff, that I also use for hams and bacon)
• 2kgs of ripe, part or fully coloured olives

What you will need

• Big cooking pot

• Big container with a lid (I have glass, but food grade plastic is fine)

• Small cup or plate to submerge the olives
• Dark cool spot (my laundry is perfect for this)

What to do

1. Heat the water in a pot, and add the salt, stirring until the salt dissolves. Allow to cool
2. Add the olives and brine into a container
3. Use a plate to unsure the olives are submerged below the brine
4. Cover with a lid
5. Sit in a cool dark place for 6 months

Uncle Bob assures me that during this time, the water will go mucky, and a horrible scum will appear on top of the olives, and all of this is normal. This process removes the bitter flavour from the olives. To tell when the olives are ready for the next step, taste the olives (in 6 months time), and if they only taste of salty olive, then we can move to pickling!

Will update this blog mid-October.

As today was back to work day for this chicken, I am devoting a few hours today to getting ahead on this weeks dinners – otherwise I might be tempted by the restaurant strip outside the door, which is not only not good for me, but expensive too.

You know the kind of dinners I am talking about – the ones that you can pre-prepare, and are not costly, are mostly healthy, and you can even freeze half of them so that you are way ahead for next week!

These meals have been around our house for a long while. It’s not the sort of food I would ever serve you if you came for dinner (unless your name is Anna or Vincent, and then I treat you like one of the clan and it’s nothing fancy).

I will start with my tuna casserole (which the kids call White Lasagna – because it is nothing like lasagna, but it is white). Hope you enjoy!

In an earlier blog I wrote about how disheartening it is to hear that perfectly good food is wasted by the major supermarket chains as it isn’t deemed to be of the quality they want to be known for (No rotten bananas… the price for being so picky).

Can I just say, today I am a very happy customer, and wish to applaud the small but significant change I have witnessed occurring in our Woolworth’s supermarket.

In the last month I have started to notice marked down fruit in bags next to the ‘perfection’ so many customers must be demanding. I am pretty happy with the quality of the marked down food – to me this is perfection. Perfect food for a fraction of the price. I am excited! Most of the bananas are absolutely perfect, and if we end up with one or two rotten ones at the end of this, I can just smell the Banana loaf coming on!

And, I believe that we should encourage these small but very significant changes. Woolies, I never thought I’d see you do this. Please keep the rotten banana’s coming.

When can or should you introduce your baby to chocolate?

Well – Amber is 6.5 months old, and she has tried rice cereal, pumpkin, pear, zucchini, porridge, and carrot. So I guess now’s probably not the chronologically ideal time to introduce her to chocolate, but then it’s just been Easter, and everyone in our house is hiding some chocolate in a nook or cranny.

It has to happen at some stage, and it’s one of those foods you want to be around with a camera to capture the moment.

Being a responsible parent, I believe it’s best to only start with a small piece of chocolate – just so the situation doesn’t get out of hand. A chocolate frog is ideal. I also find that infants can’t hold things very easily, but a frog is big enough and long enough for an infant to grasp. Make sure they have a firm grip, as you don’t want the whole frog to go in their mouth and have the little one gag.

Make sure you peel the wrapper so your baby doesn’t confuse it with food. They often can’t tell the difference, and if they get in a bit of a frenzy, who knows what will get eaten!

Then, just make sure they have a small taste and watch to see if there is an allergic reaction. If not, then I don’t think it’s a problem to let them eat the frog. You are guaranteed to have 99% of it will be smeared all over their head anyway. Don’t try to stress your baby by being over controlling with food. It might cause a negative association with chocolate, which could cause life-long issues.

We used a Haigh’s milk choclate frog (thanks Oma and Opa!). Nothing but the best! She didn’t eat much, but Tom helped with the rest.

So, some photo’s of Amber with her first chocolate experience.

My story continues….after a few days in Eden, we headed up to Gerroa. No one I talk to ever knows where this place is. It is 40 mins South of Wollongong and sits at the top of the Seven mile beach National Park. I am blessed to have a friend who loaned us his house, and really, the view doesn’t get any better than this.

I discovered the culinary delights of the Berry bakery (Logan berry pies and Macadamia and Pecan nut tarts). I will now have to try to reproduce these recipes – but I suspect this will take some time. The in-laws love a good old Aussie meat pie – so in the last few weeks I think I have eaten more of these then I have in the last year. Never mind, that is what holidays are about. My brother in-law couldn’t believe we have ice creams called ‘Gaytimes’ so these became a hit. Oma even cut out some meals just so she could have a Gaytime instead. It’s all good. As you can see, even with the extended family, it’s all about the food.

Having no internet, no telephone, no email, no pressure makes you realise how much these things normally fill our lives. Sitting by the water and watching the tides go in and out, watching the birds dive for fish, or the Pelicans float past is surreal. One morning I thought I could see a swimmer in trouble, splashing and then out of sight. Then I realised it was a pod of dolphins. Normally I take a huge amount of time to throw myself into the water, but I was in in a flash to get closer to these amazing creatures. We spent a week waking on the beach, watching the view. It was so nice we didn’t even go out for dinner to eat. Why would you with a view like this.

Here are some of my photos. They are no where near as breath taking as the real thing!