Secrets of the Red Lantern by Pauline Nguyen

Secrets of the Red Lantern was one of the books I tracked down after my Easter visit to Vietnam. Mr Books and I loved the food whilst in Vietnam - so fresh, so tasty and so much variety. We loved the casual, shared style of cooking and eating.

We have eaten at the Red Lantern restaurant in Surrey Hills before with great pleasure, but when I spotted that Pauline had a cookbook memoir, I knew I had to give it a try. I wanted to create some of their famous healthy, delicious dishes myself.

Preparations

I have been dipping in and out of Pauline's story ever since, but have failed to try any of the recipes.

Curiously, it has been #AusReadingMonth and #nonficnov that finally got me to have a go at one. On Thursday evening I made Cha Ca - ling fillets marinated with dill and tumeric - with great success.

I love any chance to use my granite mortar and pestle, so I was delighted to crush the garlic, spring onions, tumeric and curry into a smooth paste.

The aromas that wafted around the house were so sublime they drew Mr Books down from his office to partake of the process!

The recipe was easy to follow, easy to recreate and very, very easy to enjoy.

Dinner!

Secrets of the Red Lantern is much more than a cookbook with great recipes though. It is also a substantial family memoir.

Generously littered with family photos and stories, we follow Pauline's immigration to Australia at a young age with her family after the war in Vietnam, to her early life in Australia, the importance of food in maintaining family connections and the opening of the first Red Lantern restaurant with her brother Luke and (now) partner Mark Jensen.

The book is sumptuously put together.

Each chapter begins with another part of Pauline's life story and a few family photos. Beautiful, simple photos of the food follow with one recipe per page. Brief chef suggestions by Luke and Mark accompany each recipe.

It really is an aesthetic delight from start to finish.

This post is part of #AusReadingMonth, #nonficnov and #weekendcooking.

Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor

Kenneth Slessor (1901 - 1971)

Australian poet, journalist & war correspondant. 

Born in Orange, NSW.

Moved to Sydney with his family when he was two.

Five Bells (1939) is his most famous poem.

About his artist friend and colleague Joe Lynch, who drowned, Five Bells is an ode to Sydney Harbour, time, memory and the past (wikipedia).

Australian writer Hal Porter described Slessor as: 

 "...a city lover, fastidious and excessively courteous, in those qualities resembles Baudelaire, as he does in being incapable of sentimentalizing over vegetation, in finding in nature something cruel, something bordering on effrontery. He prefers chiselled stone to the disorganization of grass."

If you would like to read the entire poem, please click here.

For now, I have selected the final stanza (below), as my own homage to Sydney and it's beautiful, dangerous waterways.

I looked out my window in the dark
At waves with diamond quills and combs of light
That arched their mackerel-backs and smacked the sand
In the moon's drench, that straight enormous glaze,
And ships far off asleep, and Harbour-buoys
Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each,
And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard
Was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal
Of seabirds' voices far away, and bells,
Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.
Five bells. 

 

 This post is part of Saturday Snapshot & AusReading Month.

My Country by Dorothea Mackellar

The love of field and coppice

Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

Capertee Valley, NSW

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

Broome coastline, WA

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

North Haven, NSW

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Mudgee, NSW

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

The Olga's, NT

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Weethalie, NSW

The poem is Dorothea Mackellar's; the photo's all mine!

Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar was born July 1st 1885 in Point Piper, Sydney.

Her father was a noted doctor & parliamentarian. 

They had family property in the Hunter region and around Gunnedah. 

The Mackellar family travelled the world extensively and Dorothea became fluent in several languages (French, German, Spanish & Italian).

My Country was written during a visit to England when Dorothea was 19.

She was obviously feeling homesick.

Dorothea never married & died 14th January 1968.

Her ashes are buried in Waverley Cemetery.

 This post is part of Saturday Snapshot & AusReading Month.

Dunlop Shed

On the drive between Cowra & Bathurst, just near the little village of Lyndhurst, is the old Dunlop shed. I've been driving past this shed since 1981 - watching it's slow decay with the passing of time.

I wish I had stopped more often to take a picture over the years.

It was fascinating to see how each letter fell off one at a time.

1983

1989

2011

2014

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot & AusReading Month.

Art Gallery of NSW

Tuesday 

I'd been having a dud day. It was my day off work, caught up doing the dreaded domestics. Nothing felt right; I felt irritable and out of sorts. On the spur of the moment I decided to take myself off to the art gallery to see the new America exhibition.

I figured I needed some beauty to soothe my savage soul!

And I was right. As soon as the bus went past the gallery & I saw the big brash America sign out the front, I smiled and knew I'd done the right thing.

The exhibition itself was fine & interesting, although not particularly outstanding. Whilst browsing through the gift shop at the end though I spotted something new.


Icon Magazine is a new mag celebrating the art world in Australia. The first edition came out this month. It's bright, Ned Kelly cover stood out a mile in the gallery shop, tempting me to buy one.

It has some fascinating articles detailing the various exhibitions on around the country at the moment as well as the Australia exhibition currently on in London. Each article is accompanied by big, lovely, glossy pictures of some of the works.

I'll be looking out for the next edition in the New Year.

However, I was still feeling rather flat and at odds with the world.

So I took myself off to the permanent galleries & The European and Australian rooms to see some of my old friends.

As soon as I saw The Sea Hath Its Pearls (1897) a huge wave of relief and release washed over me. For the first time in weeks I felt calm, serene and at peace with the world.
The name of the painting comes from a poem by Heinrich Heine. Call me a romantic, but I love both to pieces!

The sea hath its pearls,
The heaven hath its stars;
But my heart, my heart,
My heart hath its love.

Great are the sea, and the heaven;
Yet greater is my heart,
And fairer than pearls or stars
Flashes and beams my love.

Thou little, youthful maiden,
Come unto my great heart;
My heart, and the sea and the heaven
Are melting away with love!

Below are details from some of my other favourites - all Australian paintings. 

I love how easy it is take photo's these days with my mobile phone.

I can now use these shots as my screen or lock window and see them every day -

so that I can have a little bit of peace, calm & serenity in my handbag wherever I go :-)

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot & AusReading Month.

Saturday Snapshot - a trip down sweet, sweet Memory Lane

My mum was the proud owner of the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book.

Our childhood birthday's were made memorable by the cakes mum made from this book. She usually managed to match the theme of the cake to the present being given that year or to a particular interest one of us had at the time.

Unfortunately I don't seem to have photos of all the cakes and all the birthdays, but the few I found brought a great big, sugary smile to my lips!

Recently AWW brought out a revised, vintage look edition of this famous cookbook, so that modern generations of Australian children can also enjoy train, caterpillar, humpty dumpty and swimming pool cakes.

Thanks to Shannon at Giraffe Days for the prompt with today's post. 

She recently reviewed the AWW Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits from her childhood here.

The horseshoe cake mum made for me when we moved from coast to country.

I was in Year 8 at highschool and this was my farewell party.

I love seeing my old tape recorder on the side - because no teenage party is complete without music!

My sisters carried on the tradition with their kids when they were little (below). 

My stepsons were too old for theme cakes by the time I entered their lives, so, sadly, I missed this fun baking phase. Although I did manage to get one soccer themed cake into the picture!

This post is linked to Saturday Snapshot & AusReading Month.

Writers Walk Circular Quay

Dotted around Circular Quay - from the Overseas Terminal to the west, through the bustling area in front of the ferry wharves and around towards the Opera House to the east - these discs commemorate Australian and overseas authors who have lived, visited or written about Sydney.

Some of the links seemed very tenuous to me, but it was a lovely way to spend a morning.
It was quite a challenge to get some of the photos thanks to joggers, buskers and seagulls :-)

If you'd like to see the entire list and read the inscriptions on each disc clearly visit here.

This post is linked to Saturday Snapshot and AusReading Month.