The Maroon Diaries

1. Suffer miserably through another record-breaking heatwave. Climate change? - well isn't is obvious ? 2. Wake up after the cool change has come through and have a meltdown, because it's so much easier to have a breakdown about something after the fact, rather than while you're busy coping with it. 3. Try to take it easy but end up feeling sick with over-exhaustion by evening. Become driven to distraction by a powerful craving for something , only you don't know what it is. Something to do with nutrients that the heat sucks out of you. 4. Go through every item in the kitchen, looking for whatever it is that you don't know what it is yet. Find a bag of frozen blueberries in the freezer. Oh, that's it. Or close enough. 5. Wonder what goes with blueberries while they are defrosting. Go through the kitchen again and come up with yoghurt, honey and linseed-sunflower-almond meal. Mix them together in a bowl. 6. Hmm. We're getting there, but it's not...

I was walking up the stairs yesterday morning when I first caught it, sensed it. A smell, perhaps, or a feeling in the air - but what exactly? I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Is it that it's a bit cooler today? No, that's not it, it's more than that. Hmm. I got on with my day. Then I was out in the backyard, just a little before sunset, when I caught it again. Oh yes, that's it. I definitely smell autumn coming. I did a little counting of the days in my head and then smiled when I realised, oh yes, it's February already. February 1 - it's Lammas. Perfect timing. I love it when it works like that. Lammas is the celebration of the first harvest. The Sun King has been in his prime, at the height of his powers since the Summer Solstice. The Goddess is heavily pregnant with the Divine Child, his son and heir, and the crops are ripe in the fields. But there is a change coming, and it heralds the time of sacrifice for the Sun King. He must die and re...

I went out early today to give the garden a good drink before it got hot. According to the weather website, it's 41.6 degrees Celsius right now. That's over a hundred degrees in the old money. Positively ghastly. (Question. Why doesn't my keyboard have a degrees symbol? It would be most useful.) This morning, I harvested my first ever zucchini that I've grown myself. I was soooo excited. It's a yellow zucchini, because differently coloured vegetables are more fun. I'm sure I feel as proud of it as if it were a baby. But it's not a baby. It's a zucchini. So I cut it up into tiny pieces and cooked it. I think we'll call today's creation Yellow Zucchini and Corn Fritters. Yum. And there's plenty more where that came from. Last full moon, the sky was clear and the light was bright. It was a perfect time for harvesting some magickal herbs. In particular, the sage and the lemon balm were getting a bit unruly and crowding ou...

I've often thought of making jam, especially when there happens to be a local glut of some fruit in particular. Or when I find a recipe for something tantalisingly exotic, like White Peach and Rose Jam or Blueberry and Blackberry Jam. I've often read through the recipes and instructions for jam-making, and visualised myself performing the actions described. At some point, however, I would feel overwhelmed or discouraged, and come up with a story about why it might be a disaster - anything from burning myself, to bugs that survive my sterilisation procedures, to failing to comprehend the setting point. Somehow I'd been feeling a bit inspired and adventurous when I went shopping at the greengrocers, and found strawberries for 69c a punnet. Of course I bought six punnets, and then I had to find something to do with them. When I found a recipe that used 500g of strawberries to make just one jar of jam, I reasoned that I had little to lose if it didn't work out. I was...

This post here  by Kirsty, an Australian woman living in France, at  You had me at bonjour  really touched and moved me this morning. I considered typing a post consisting of my thoughts on this occasion, and it would have been a fabulous post, but my brain just wasn't up for wrapping itself around an essay today. I felt the need to make a more tactile, physical, domestic gesture. And so, to the kitchen, and to the baking of Anzac biscuits. My recipe comes from the P.W.M.U. Cookery Book, first published 1904. My copy, pictured here, is a 1971 reprint passed down to me from a great-aunt. This was the cookbook in my home when I was growing up. I have doubled all the quantities given, because one batch is just not enough. 4 cups rolled oats 2 cups flour 1 cup sugar 1 cup melted butter 2 tbsp golden syrup 2 tsp bicarb soda 4 tbsp boiling water Mix oats, flour, sugar and melted butter, then the syrup, and lastly the soda dissolved in water. Drop by spo...