Looking back

For one reason or another, I have been remembering snippets from my childhood lately.

* My father, singing in the shower. Every morning. Steam seeps from under the pale-blue door, and the sounds of splashing accompanied by the operatic yet essentially-tuneless tones of "Oh-ho-me-oh-ho" echo through the house. It isn't until well into adulthood that I realise Dad has been singing his own version of O sole mio.

* I wake up extra early and set the table for breakfast each morning. When everyone else gets up, they say "Look! The fairies have been to set the table!" I beam with pride, even though I know they know. But my morning is fraught with tension because I am terrified of being caught. If anyone gets up before I am finished and comes in to thank me, I am devastated. I race out of the room in a temper of tears. I still don't know why.

* My cousins and I are going to be detectives when we grow up. We set sticky-tape and talcum powder traps all over the house to entrap burglars and parents.

* The horse-mad phase. The outside of my bedroom door is a larger-than-life poster of a horse, gazing out into our hallway from over a stable door. The door-knob into my room is in fact a cast-iron stable latch. Inside, the floor is covered in straw matting. All my furniture is made of wood ("like a stable"), and aged and cracking bridles and spurs found in my great-grandfather's garden shed are the chief decorations. A wall-frieze of Norman Thelwell cartoons circumnavigates the room.

* Mum has given me my own patch of garden, and we plant radishes together. The sun is hot on the back of my neck, the earth smells good. In the weeks that follow, I water and watch my radishes impatiently. I am so excited when we finally pull them up. Wash them, slice them, eat them in a salad. And then tears. "Mum, these are horrible!"

* Our tree house. It is up, up, up in a willow tree, accessed via rope ladder, and it is SO great. Why did I never decorate it?

* I'm in trouble for something, I don't remember what. I hurtle into my bedroom and throw myself face-down on my bed, next to my cat Peppy. "You are the only one who understands me Peppy!" I cry. Peppy purrs.

* Peppy's favourite place to hang out is the second floor of my Barbie Townhouse.

* I can't decide what to call my new doll. In the end, I decide on Betsy-Ann-Amanda-Aunty-Rose and the name is never to be shortened.

* Which reminds me: Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo. And his little brother Chang.

* My budgie Simon is a hand-me-down from somebody else and he is already old when we get him. He has a strange growth at the top of his beak. We take him to the vet to find out about the growth and find out that Simon is a girl. Mum tries to rename him Simone but it won't stick. I try to teach Simon-the-girl to talk but if she ever speaks, it isn't to me.

* Daisy chains, made from clover flowers.

* There is a soft, clay patch at the side of our house. All the neighbourhood kids come over to our house with plastic spades and we dig a really gigantic hole, big enough for us to climb inside and get covered in clay from head to toe, before we are discovered. We estimate it will take a good week to finish this project. We are digging to China.

What is making you nostalgic?

Photo is by Lizzy Gadd, licenced under Creative Commons

Madeleine's diary: lemon preserves

Sunday, 3:30pm: We are picking lemons. I LOVE picking lemons! Mummy says I'm very busy. I think I will shout. ME BUSY! ME BUSY! The lemons are up very high in the tree. This is so exciting, how can I contain myself? I know, I'll yell. UP HIGH! UP HIGH! Now I think I will run around in circles. Oh there's my dog Oliver! Catch Oliver! Catch Oliver! Why is he hiding under the table?

3:40pm: Mummy is picking lemons without me! Nooooo Mummy! How could you? I am devastated. Waaaaaaah! Me! Me! Where is Oliver? No, wait, I'm picking lemons. Me busy Mummy! Me busy!

3:41pm: I am very good at picking lemons. The neighbours should all know about this. YEMONS! ME BUSY! ME BUSY!

3:50pm: We filled the whole basket. I can carry it Mummy. Me!

3:51pm: Oh no! The basket tipped over and all the lemons fell out! Waaaaaaah.

3:52pm: We are picking up all the lemons and putting them back in the basket. Me busy Mummy! Me busy! Oh look there's Oliver...

4:15pm: Mummy is washing the lemons, ready to make preserves. I help! I help! I know all about baking. I'll just get my little stool. Here Mummy, I'll bring you all the things you need from out of the cupboard and put them on the kitchen bench. Flour. Cocoa. Vanilla essence. Golden syrup. Hundreds and Thousands. Cornflour. Now I'll bring your baking things. Big mixing bowl. Rolling pin. My pink mixing spoon with the pig on the end. A whisk. These lemons will make excellent chocolate cake!

4:16pm: No Mummy! Don't put those things away! We're baking! Waaaaaah!

4:17pm: Why is she putting lemons into little bags? The freezer Mummy? I open de door! I OPEN! I opened the freezer door for Mummy. I am very good at that. I closed it too. Oh look! Oliver is inside the house. Catch me Oliver...

Monday, 4pm: Mummy is stuffing rock salt into partially-defrosted lemons. It is probably chocolate cake. I will lick the bowl. I'll quickly grab it before asking, in case Mummy says no. YUCKY! Waaaaaah! Lemon juice and salt do not taste like chocolate cake AT ALL.

So, lemon preserves. I followed this recipe. Two big jars are now resting quietly on a dark shelf at the top of our pantry, ready for the eating in about a month or so. Unlike Madeleine, I am doubtful that they will taste like chocolate cake. On the other hand, I am hopeful that they will be delicious. Do you have any recipes using preserved lemons that you'd recommend?

ps. more from Madeleine's diary here and here

Lemon madeleines with beurre noisette

"one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell... No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses..."

~ Marcel Proust, "Remembrance of Things Past"

It has taken me more than two years to finally make an attempt at baking the lovely little French tea-cakes that bear Madeleine's name. But now that I've done it once, I'll be making these again and again! The recipe I used was super easy, and quite forgiving. (For example I had to estimate the amount of butter to include because I'd rewrapped the cooking butter without lining it up with the measurements on the paper, you know what I mean? And I don't have any kitchen scales. But I digress. My point is the madeleines worked out fine anyway.)

This particular version was made a bit decadent and fancy-sounding with the browned butter (beurre noisette) and vanilla beans.

Do you want to try it? Here's what you'll need:

You mix the dry ingredients together, then add everything else gradually, one by one. The full recipe is here. The batter needs to rest for an hour or two but that's ok, because madeleines are best eaten warm, straight from the oven.

I made my mixture during my lunch break on Friday (oh hello, benefits-of-working-from-home), then popped them in the oven on Saturday afternoon after brewing up a strong cup of tea. They only take about 10 minutes to bake.

If reading this has not sent your cholesterol through the roof already, make a note that you're supposed to eat them dipped in melted butter and liberally dusted with sugar. Just do it. The diet starts tomorrow.

Little things - the cowboy

Little things in my home...

This pensive cowboy sits outside his restaurant and on my kitchen bench. I found his photograph in a bric-a-brac shop in Aspen, Colorado, when I was staying up there for a fiction writer's course (called Aspen Summer Words - if you ever get the opportunity take it - it was amazing!).

I almost didn't share the cowboy today because the whole purpose of this series is to tell the stories behind the little things in my home. Like this. Or this. Or this. And I don't know the story of this cowboy. Nor have I created a story for him since bringing him home. But I am so deeply drawn to this picture, and I don't even know why. I never tire of looking at it, or thinking about it, and wondering what is his story? What is the story of this new town?

“Little Things” is an occasional series about the stories behind some of the little things you’ll find around my home. Are there stories behind the little things in your home? I’d love you to tell me about them! Or if you’d like to join in and write a post like this of your own, don’t forget to share a link to it so I can read it.

It feels like home when...

Ours was a chilly and sometimes wet weekend, tailor-made for staying home. For jaffles and baking and craft and family dance-parties. Madeleine hosted her very first slumber party, with one of her cousins, and you have never seen a two-year-old more excited. She quite literally jumped for joy at the prospect of it, and the reality sent her into a frenzy that was so extreme she could barely contain herself. At one point as we sat around the table having dinner with her aunty and uncle and two cousins, already an hour past her bedtime, Madeleine repeatedly kissed me on the lips. Not for any reason, except, UNCONTAINABLE EXCITEMENT.

It is on weekends like this that our house comes into its own. When squeals of laughter bounce off the walls and little feet thump-thump-thump down the hallways. When the kitchen smells of toasted cheese and chocolate cake, and tiny fingers reach up to trace circles in spilled flour on the bench.

Half-wilted flowers grace an old jar on the dining table: they were carried home in sweaty palms by my beautiful daughter and niece after a coffee-run with Mr B, and thrust at me with so much pride.

There are many things I love about my home and, of course, many things I would change and many things we have yet to do. That's what happens when nesting and budgeting go hand in hand, I guess. But the thing I absolutely love most about my home, towering above everything else, is having a place from which to welcome the people we love. Even with no pictures on the walls, and so much left to do, my house feels like a home because I am able to make others feel at home here too.

Do you ever read design blog Design Sponge? It's a favourite of mine. One of the regular features, called "Spaces," opens up beautiful homes from around the world. In each post, the home-owners (or renters) are invited to share something they love about their home, or their favourite thing to do or place to be within their home. I find it really interesting to read this. We are all so different, and yet there are definite themes that emerge.

What about you? What do you love most about your home? What do you like to do most in your home?

Photo credits: all images of “home notes” are used here with kind permission from Grace Bonney at Design Sponge. See the homes they come from at (from top) 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5, or click on the photos themselves. All other photos are either mine or licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons. They do not relate to the homes in the comments.

Winter mornings

It is dark when I wake up, and Harry and I spend our winter mornings together on the rug of the lounge room floor in the gentle quiet of the predawn. I draw the curtains to let the day in but outside, the stars are still bright. Harry wiggles and squeals. "Dad dad dad dad dad," he says. I kiss his impossibly soft cheeks. "Say Mummy!" I tell him. "Dad dad dad." The door is closed to keep the heat from escaping. Through it I can just hear the soft click that means the kettle has boiled and I ease my way off the floor, feeling ancient, and shuffle into the kitchen to make tea. "DAD DAD DAD DAD" Harry yells cheerfully at my retreating form.

I love these early mornings and guard them jealously. Sometimes on a weekend, Mr B will offer to get up with Harry to give me some more sleep. It is tempting. I am sorely tired, and I haven't had a true, decent night's sleep in more than two years. Not one night. But these mornings are worth even more than sleep. So I drag my body out of bed and hold Harry's chubby little hot-water-bottle-body close as we climb down the stairs. Flip the kettle on. Ease Harry onto his mat on the floor. Tickle his ribs. "Dad dad dad dad." "Say Mummy!" And so another day begins.

It is so rare that I am still, in life, ever. Still of body or of mind. I multitask obsessively. I can't even relax doing one thing: I'll draw or craft or write while watching TV. I've never been good at meditating, I'm one of those people guilty of composing shopping lists and having imaginary conversations with people at work while supposedly entering a guided meditatively-zen state at the end of a yoga class.

But these winter mornings teach me to be present in a way that meditation never has. I sit on the floor and smile at Harry. There are books and magazines and my phone and my computer nearby and they call to me, but I have learned that the best mornings happen when I leave all those distractions closed. It's just me and Harry and that cup of tea.

I know I'm not the only one finding the pace of life almost insane these days. It's such a cliche to talk about the progress of time but have you realised that this year is already more than half over? Wasn't it just New Years? Just last month? Life tilts in a dizzying chaos, and any tasks I put off can languish neglected for months that feel like mere days. It's as though the rush and roar of our planet and its moon hurtling around the sun can actually be heard and felt, and in the cacophony of that cosmic journey we all have to yell and scream and jump up and down just to be heard. Even to hear ourselves.

But in the still, dark morning, the planets pause. The world hovers. Venus hangs like a jewel outside my window while the dawn waits to happen. My legs are crossed on the rug beside Harry ("Dad dad dad dad"), my fingers are laced around the Pantone colour mug I have chosen to match the mood of my waking (orange or yellow for energy, blue for creativity, sage green for calm), and it is perfect peace. Dawn can wait.

{All photographs licensed for unrestricted use under Creative Commons}

A surfeit of lemons (and 16 mostly-savoury things to do with them)

Outside as I write this the wind is howling - true Brontë-sisters-story-style howling - around the house. Rain is whipping sideways into the windows, the dog inside is shifting on his chair and can't seem to relax.

Yesterday the beautiful old rose vine that had been clambouring over our front verandah for more decades than I could guess fell down, tumbling loosely over the little front garden and spilling over onto the pavement outside. I tried to pick it up and tie it back but all the tendrils have latched on to our front fence and it is impossible to shift that heavy, thorny mass. So I guess I know what we will be doing on the weekend. Also yesterday the little green patch of synthetic grass I put down out the back for Madeleine to play on lifted right up off the ground and flew onto my little veggie box.

And so it goes. While I sit and type in ugg boots and an old jumper and heating and sip a warm cup of tea, outside, you will find Winter. Deserving of the capital W.

But in one small spot in our back yard, no matter what the weather throws at it, you will also find a joyful patch of sunshine. Our lemon tree, once intended to be espaliered along the courtyard wall but long since left to branch out and flop over and do any darned thing it wants, is positively dripping with fruit. There is so much fruit we can't pick it fast enough, and it is starting to rot on the tree. Does anyone want any lemons? Hit me up! And I'm not trying to boast or anything (ok I am a bit) but these are the BEST lemons you'll ever taste. I'm not even kidding. They are sweet and juicy and not at all pithy. The skin is an almost luminous yellow, it doesn't quite look real. Except it is.

But what am I going to do with them all? Mr B has put a spanner into the works by not liking lemon-flavoured sweets. Crazy right? I know! So no lemon meringue pie or lemon butter or lemon slice... because I can't make it all for me, can I. (Can I?) Last night I cooked this recipe for our dinner, mainly because it used the zest of a lemon. I thought it was delicious but Mr B gave it a "Meh," so it won't stay on rotation. What would you do? Here are some (mostly savoury) lemon ideas I've gathered so far:

* Home-made lemonade (we love this recipe), although it's more of a summer drink

* Have you ever tried this handy tip for freezing lemons?

* Charred broccoli & tofu stuffed avocados with sweet lemon curry sauce

* Roasted lemon potatoes sound pretty delicious

* 5 natural beauty remedies using lemons

* Lots of great ideas in this Lemon Love  post, not all of them sweet

* Grilled lemon chicken

* Preserved lemons, to be used in dishes like these

* This one pan spicy lemon chicken pasta looks tasty and easy

* How about a lemon garlic vinaigrette?

* I think this lemon flatbread looks interesting

* Spaghetti with lemon, ricotta and spinach

* One of these days (!) I might try this detoxing lemon water, to be taken with whole foods

* Cheese ravioli with lemon basil butter sauce

* This creamy lemon poppyseed salad dressing looks tasty

* The next time I cook a roast, I may try this oven-roasted lemon parmesan broccoli

How about you? Do you know any tried and true non-dessert uses for lemon you think I should try?

Little things - snow globe

Little things in my home… Inside this snow globe is a sculpture of my old house. If you look closely, you can see the No. 10 number-plate gleaming proudly beside the door.

This was the first home that I ever owned and lived in, and it was glorious. Old carved-oak staircases winding up and dividing in two and winding some more. Hallways with stairs that go up two and down two again for no apparent reason. A Harry Potter-esque cupboard under the stairs. French doors, stained glass windows and a rickety upstairs balcony. There were tatty Persian carpets over the floorboards, left behind by the previous owner, and a truly hideous Medieval-style painting in vomit-tinted hues hanging over the fireplace in the dining room, that we kept up because it made us laugh.

The house was also icy and draughty in winter, and oppressively hot and prone to letting bugs inside in summer. It was dusty all the time, no matter how often you cleaned and vacuumed. The downstairs bathroom was too frightening to use (unless you were really desperate), and whenever planes took off or landed in nearby Sydney Airport, all the windows rattled and all conversations had to be put on pause.

Outside, we turned the little back courtyard into a garden with winding pathways and vegetables and flowering plants and vines. There was space for a table and chairs, and we would sit out there together on warm summer nights with a glass of wine to hand, and listen to the live music wafting across from the Warren View pub, just down the road. Until a plane flew over, blocking out all other sounds. Then, we would wave because, seriously, those planes were so close we were sure the passengers could see us.

Before we moved into this house, I lived out of our car for three months. Which is to say I didn't sleep in the car (there wasn't room - after a while I couldn't even drive the car because there was so much stuff in it), I just kept my things (and Mr B's things, and Emily's and Meg's things) in it while moving from place to place: hotels, hostels, short-term accommodations, while working every day an hour away in Sydney's west, and waiting. Waiting to buy a house, waiting for settlement so we could move into the house, waiting for Mr B to finally move down from Queensland, where he was still working. Waiting because I had crossed the world - again - and moved from New York to Australia to start a proper life with the man I loved and here I was with all my belongings in plastic bags (suitcases had long since stopped fitting in the car), alone, treading emotional water, and searching for home.

We only lived in that house for nine months. But in that time we hosted birthday parties and BBQs, my book was published, we got engaged, we planted vegetables (we harvested the vegetables, we ate the vegetables), we got married (in the back yard, witnessed by 40 of our closest friends and about 400 air passengers en route to some holiday or another), the house overflowed with summer house-guests, we rescued a cat. We loved we argued we laughed we planned we painted we explored we wove stories of us. I started to learn how to cook.

So much has changed since we lived at No. 10 (three more interstate moves! two babies!), and often I feel like the me that lived inside that house was somebody else, somebody I read about inside a book. Could all this really have happened only three years ago?

Just before we moved, I had this snow globe made so that we could take it with us. It sits on the bookshelf of our family room now, where more often than not mess and chaos and all things children reign. And that seems fitting, because No. 10 was the first house I lived in that felt like a family home, since leaving the one I grew up in. It was while living in this house and spending so much time with Emily that I first began to think that maybe, just maybe, I might like to be a mother after all...

“Little Things” is an occasional series about the stories behind some of the little things you’ll find around my home. Are there stories behind the little things in your home? I’d love you to tell me about them! Or if you’d like to join in and write a post like this of your own, don’t forget to share a link to it so I can read it.

12 lovely things to do on your day off

It's the Queen's Birthday long weekend today. Happy birthday Queen! Happy day off all of us! Here are 12 lovely things you can do with your free day to make you feel good.

1. Shout a stranger a coffee (just pay for two when you're buying yours) 2. Shout a CHARITY a coffee (or the cost of one), using this app 3. Sit down and draw a picture. Take your time on it 4. Go for a spot of urban foraging (the lemons are great right now) 5. Sing. Really loudly. Just belt that tune out 6. Sort out all your clothes and put aside the ones you don't wear any more to give to charity 7. Grounding (have you ever tried it?) 8. Hot tea! Crumpets with honey! 9. Bake something you've never baked before. I might try baking bread 10. Write a postcard to someone you've been thinking about 11. If you can get your hands on a baby, tickle one 12. Walk + camera. You'll notice things you'd never normally see

What does your workspace look like?

What does your workspace look like? Do you like it clean and organised, or do you thrive on creative chaos?

I love those pictures of great writers sitting at their antique desks, all slumped and drowning under mountains of paper, with pictures in scraps pinned all over the walls, and old coffee cups, stacks of yellowed airmail correspondence bound in old string, desiccated red wine in dirty glasses, dusty armchairs, and dying, drying flowers… and they are invariably writing one or another of the world's literary masterpieces, you know? That would drive me CRAZY. Which is perhaps one reason why I haven't written any of the world's literary masterpieces lately. I can't even start to work until my desk is clear and my office tidy.

I'm the same in the rest of my living and working space. I can't stand it when the house gets too messy: suddenly everything feels like it's crowding in on top of me, I feel out of control and claustrophobic. Which seems a rather melodramatic sentence when I write it out like that, but it's true. That's just me.  First world problems, I know!

Anyway, all this is a lead-up to explain why things might be looking a little different on this website lately, if you've happened to have popped in to take a look. I've been having an autumn clean. I felt like my blog was starting to get a bit cluttered, a bit old and tired. I was uninspired. Like a dingy, messy old office, my blog needed a fresh coat of paint and some creative storage solutions. Some white space to make it feel clean and fresh. And some nice pictures on the walls to inspire me when the fog of creative block descends.

What do you think? Do you like it? I renamed the blog "Naomi Loves," because this space is all about the things I love. I painted a new header in bright patterns and colours, because they make me happy. My enormously talented friend Brandi Bernoskie tweaked these things to make it all work. I've made it much easier for you to subscribe to receive updates via email, if that's your thing, with a simple box on the sidebar. And there is some exciting content in the works, not the least of which that book I was telling you about!

Now, tell me about your workspace (online or offline). How do you make it somewhere you want to be?

ps. Photos are old Instagram ones (remember when we all went beserk with the filters and the frames after it first came out?) of my home office in Adelaide. That was the most amazing workspace. I wish there was a way to replicate it everywhere I go!