Yesterday morning I was trying to work out what I could do with a kilo or so of chicken drumsticks. As I was thinking through my cooking options I also followed a train of thought to do with healthy cooking when you are living below the poverty line. There is so much negative publicity out there relating to low incomes being synonomous with poor eating habits. On and on whirred my brain, busily formatting blog posts until I slammed back into a wall of negativity relating to that blasted review.

I stood in the kitchen chopping vegetables and stewing on the fact that the reviewer had spat out the word recipes like it was a curse. And that moment was when I finally let go of the review. Of course I occasionally share recipes I am passionate about good food as well as playing in the mud. Tosser.

So I need to say a big thankyou to everyone that has humoured me whilst I have been sulking over that stupid arsed review. I am finally over it now and that really is all down to you, my dear internetz. Whilst I was analyzing my responses to the review and giggling at some of your responses to my post about the review, I also had a bit of a think about my blog and why I am blogging. The main reason that I am still blogging is because I really enjoy the ongoing conversation that I am having with you my readers. Thanks to blogging I now have a large circle of online friends and I am not lonely anymore.

Your ideas for the dragon eggs have made the air around me crackle with creative energy. Your feedback, friendship and support gives me respite from the sadness that threatens to overwhelm me. You have all given me a great gift and I am thankful.

So back to the chicken,I threw them into a large pot with a chopped onion, three or four cloves of garlic, some carrots and potatoes. I tied together some sage leaves and fresh thyme from the garden I also threw in a good shake of mixed herbs and a pinch of salt. I simmered the pot on top of the woodheater until the drumsticks were cooked through and then I fished them out and put them aside for later.

Somehow I managed to get sidetracked by twitter and the telephone and before I knew it it was tea time and the spouse was looking a tad gaunt. I kept the peace by giving him a drumstick and shooing him back into his cave shed. I browned off the drumsticks in some olive oil and more garlic and dished them up with mashed potatoes, peas and gravy. Simple comfort food for a Sunday night.

Today I will tart up the soup base that I made yesterday, by throwing in some greenery from the garden, kale and silverbeet. I have a heap of zucchinis that I was given so I will probably throw some zuke in to the pot as well. I normally have frozen celery tops in the freezer that I keep specifically for soups and stock but I have just run out and the celery in the garden is looking very sad.

This pot of vegetable soup will be our main meal tonight and probably lunch tomorrow.I will also freeze three portions for my lunch this week whilst I am at the studio. So I think that I got my moneys worth out of that batch of drumsticks.

And just because I can here is a photo of the moon I took last night. I couldn’t be bothered setting up the tripod so I just went outside and pointed at the moon and hoped the shots wouldn’t be too blurry. They weren’t. Yay.

The highlight of the trip for me was spotting a wedgetailed eagle perched on a ledge in a local quarry.

Yesterday was De-Lurker Day.  The day that bloggers like me ask the burning questions. Who are you? How did you find me? What is it that keeps you here? Where is my chocolate? Well maybe not where is my chocolate because I know that it should be in the fridge. David knows better than to eat my chocolate without nearly nagging me to death for it first.

I am intensely interested, some might even say a tad obsessed with you, my dear readers. I had someone from Queensland read here for a couple of hours with 59 page views. On the one hand it is rather nice to know that my babbling kept someone interested for that long but on the other hand it is also a bit spooky because they came via a relatives facebook page. What were they looking for?

Lots of my family read my blog and never ever comment which is also kind of weird? Why dont you ever comment?

Some of the google searches are interesting as well, I especially like the “frog on ceramic rock” searches that then stay for three or four page views. They make me happy.

I get lots of people looking for accidental UFO’s and photographs of Zombies. Then there are the slightly disturbing searches looking for sexy grandmothers and fun with pigs in the mud.

*updated someone just arrived here looking  for ‘peanut zombie pics’ hmmm.

Which brings me back to you, how did you find me? What was the first blog that you read? What are your favourite blogs? What do you enjoy about blogs, bloggers and blogging?

Come out and say hello or send me an email if you are too shy. frogpondsrock(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Cheers Kim

I successfully avoided getting together with my extended family at Christmas.Today we will all be together for the first time since Mum’s funeral. Combined with the fact that I handed the keys to Mum’s house over to the lawyers on Monday has made this past week very emotional.

Tears are never very far from the surface and my men are tiptoeing around me lest I rip their heads off.

Veronica has been busily disagreeing with a “hate blogger” which has provided me with a much needed distraction from myself. The comments section of that blog is a hoot. Accusations, sweeping assumptions,aspersions and arseholiness are the main themes.

It is all very amusing for about five minutes until you realise that it is real people they are ripping on. I am very proud of Vonnie for standing up for what she believes in and loudly saying that by our silence we are giving these stupid hate bloggers more power. Personally I believe in Karma and I cant be bothered with the small mindedness of chicken liver and her pathetic cronies but I will stand shoulder to shoulder with my daughter and say this crap shouldn’t be tolerated.

David is aghast at the ramming and subsequent sinking of the Ady Gil by the Japanese security ship the Shonnan Maru. The Japanese are killing whales in Australian territorial waters and our government is hoping that by ignoring the problem, it will just go away.

I have been very impressed by my son’s articulate and passionate response to the sinking of the Ady Gil. David would love to join the Sea Shepherd’s crew and be actively involved but the ships are vegan and my son is honest enough to admit that he isn’t quite that committed. Yet.

There is a rally to support  Sea Shepherd at the Abel Tasman Memorial fountain at Salamanca at 11 am on Saturday the 16th of January.David is keen to attend his first environmental/political rally.

I am very proud of both my children for passionately standing up for what they believe in.

Thankyou for the response to my video of Harry and the pigs. Jientje and Barbara have asked me to make some more videos and so I will. What sort of things would the rest of you lovely people like to see?

I have had the camera out a bit this past week and I think that I might have enough decent shots to post a couple of photos later on this week.

Lastly I want to thank you all my dear internets. I really don’t know how I would have gotten through the last six months without your support. Thankyou.

Images of Tasmania is a celebration of the creativity and collaborative spirit of the Tasmanian arts community. The inclusion of 42 artists ensures a diverse range of art practices on exhibition, including painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed media, ceramics, glass, photography, jewellery and furniture design.

The ongoing development and refinement of “Images” has resulted in a strong and inspiring exhibition.

The 12^th Images of Tasmania opens at 8 am on Saturday 19 December and runs until Thursday 31 December. Entry is free and opening hours are 10am – 6pm daily Long Gallery and Sidespace Gallery. We invite you to come along and enjoy this exciting and thought provoking exhibition.

Thankyou for your kind wishes, stories and smart arse comments.

I am fine. A bit ’spinny-outy’ from the pain meds but remarkably lisp-free.

More later. xox

We got the tears out of the way first off and Tanni was as sad as I, when I told her that Amy thought that Mum hadn’t died. Even now the thought of  Amy’s excited hope makes me cry.

Tanni had cooked me comfort food for lunch. Osso Buco with Milanese Risotto. When I got home late last night I found the very same recipe in Mum’s Italian cookbook.

So here is the slightly altered recipe. I use beef shins instead of veal. But really you could use any red meat that you liked, cheapo stewing steak would do nicely.

Osso Buco (ala Tanni and Kimmy)

4 veal shanks or knuckles approx 750g each (1 and 1/2 lbs) *

90g (3 oz) butter

2 carrots

3 sticks celery

2 large onions

2 cloves garlic **

flour,salt,pepper

2 tablespoons oil

2 cans of whole tomatoes

1/2 cup of red wine

500g (2 cups) of beef stock

1 tsp basil

1tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

2.5 cm (1 in.) strip of lemon rind***

1 teaspoon grated lemon rind (zest)

3 tablespoons chopped parsley****

Heat 30g  (1,oz) of the butter in pan, Add peeled and chopped carrots, onions, celery and one crushed garlic clove. Cook gently until onions are golden brown. Remove from heat and transfer to a large oven-proof dish.

Coat the veal shanks (or whatever meat you are using) in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Heat remaining butter and oil in large frying pan, add shanks, brown well on all sides.  Place the shanks on top of the vegetables in the oven-proof dish.

Push tomatoes, with their juice through a sieve***** Drain away all the fat from the pan the veal was cooked in. Add the wine, beef stock, tomatoes, basil, thyme,bayleaf and strip of lemon rind. Bring sauce to the boil and season with salt and pepper.

Pour the sauce over the veal shanks. Cover the casserole and bake in a moderate oven for 1 and 1/2 hours or until the veal is very tender, stirring occassionally. Just before serving sprinkle the remaining crushed garlic, parsley and lemon zest over the Osso Buco. Serves 6.

The name means hollow bones and the traditional accompaniment is Risotto Milanese.

This is the traditional recipe for Osso Buco. I generally always adapt a recipe once I have cooked it. Years ago I used to live with a Hungarian girl and so I would add 3 or 4 heaped tablespoons of Sweet Hungarian paprika to the sauce as well as oomph up the ingredients a bit.

* Veal is almost impossible to find down here in Tassie and David won’t eat it anyway after he watched that episode of South Park. So I would use beef shin which has been cut into round sections. Failing that I would use whatever red meat I had in the freezer.

** I would easily use half a dozen cloves of garlic, (maybe more)

*** Tanni uses a whole lemon peel, cut into strips

****  I would use a good big handful of flat leaf parsley

***** Sieving takes too long and just makes more washing up. I would just mash the tomatoes up a bit with a fork.

Risotto Milanese

375g (12oz) long grain rice

60g (2 oz) butter

I large onion

1/2 cup dry white wine

3 cups hot water

2 chicken stock cubes

1/4 teaspoon saffron

30g (1oz) butter, extra

2 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese

salt, pepper.

Heat the butter in pan, add peeled and chopped onion. cook until onion is tender, stirring gently.

Add rice to pan, stir until it is well coated with the butter.

Add wine and one cup of the hot water add saffron and the crumbled stock cubes. Stir well and bring to the boil. When the water has almost evaporated add another 1 cup of the hot water. Stir well again. Bring to the boil again. When this water has almost evaporated,stir in the remaining water. Reduce heat. Cook until the water has been absorbed.

Cooking time is about twenty minutes from the time the first cup of hot water is added. Cook the rice uncovered in this time.

Stir in the extra butter, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, stir gently until the butter is melted.

These two just worked perfectly together.The richness of the sauce and the zing of the lemon combined with the creaminess of the risotto was just pure comfort food.

Thankyou Tan xox…

Mum was much better yesterday (Tuesday) She still needed help to get in and out of bed. But she was much more ‘there’ within herself. The confusion has faded and even though Mum is still vague and loses her train of thought half way through a sentence, she will pull a face to indicate her frustration. And more importantly Lauren she was starting to ‘growl at me’ for teasing her. So she is getting her feistiness back YAY..

It was her last radiation treatment yesterday as well. They also X-Rayed Mum’s chest but I don’t know the results of that yet.They have taken bloods and there isn’t any sign of an infection. They have adjusted her pain meds so that she isn’t so trippy and Mum is learning to push the call button and ask for help and/or extra pain relief.

A specialist nurse came in to talk honestly to Veronica and David about what to expect as Mum gets closer to dying  and I am relieved to see that my children are handling this very well. I cant even begin to describe how very proud I am of both of them.

David wouldn’t let me leave Mum yesterday until he had helped her eat her evening meal and once David was satisfied that Mum was comfortable he reluctantly left the hospital. God help anyone that upsets Mum whilst David is there.

After all the anger,frustration and grief of the first two days in hospital I have come to a calm acceptance of what will be, will be. I spoke to a lovely nurse or rather I sobbed and listened as she spoke and I was able to accept that now we have come to a different stage of Mum’s care. I am still really, really sad but I am not distraught anymore and now I don’t have the distraction of my own grief clouding my judgement.

My brother is flying down today with  his wife and toddler.

Friday will be the day. I am trying to organise a meeting with Mum’s doctor on Friday and then we will discuss our options.Which as far as I can tell at the moment Lauren, are limited to keeping Mum in hospital, as Mum now needs the oxygen to talk.

My grandmother has been in to see Mum every day and watching my Nan it is easy to see where the women in our family get our strength.

I will update for you again Lauren after the meeting with the doctors on Friday. Here is a link to Veronica’s blog as well. Because Veronica will remember all the stuff that I forget.

I decorated some tall cups with a black iron oxide slip mixture, which unfortunately turned poo-brown once they were fired instead of the charcoal black that I wanted. Also the porcelain warped heaps in the firing, turning perfectly round tops into eggy oval shapes.

My first thoughts when I saw them was, “I should send these to Kelley” then I wondered if Kelley really needed a couple of cups that looked  like they were decorated a la Boo…

The reason that the porcelain warped was that the kiln shelf expanded differently than the cups in the firing. So to make sure the porcelain doesn’t warp next time I will need to fire each cup on its own little square slab of porcelain so that the movement in the kiln is the same.

These next two beakers are from the sky dancer series that I am working on. This is my photograph of the Tasmanian summer sky that has inspired this lot of work.

The decisions that I need to make about my slipcast work are all related to my personal aesthetic as well as my belief that, in each piece of work that I make, I have left a piece of my very essence,my soul or spirit within the work. In these two cups above, there is a nice free decorative line contained within the boundaries of a rigid form. But also there is the makers mark, my marks that also contribute to the overall freedom of the work.

I think with these two cups I made for Jientje that I am beginning to get my artistic balance together.When you hold the cups you can tell that they were handmade by a real person and not mass produced in a factory somewhere. I hope that when Jientje holds them she feels a small touch of the Tasmanian sky.

I believe that my work should look like it is handmade and by handmade I don’t mean poorly made. There are a zillion perfectly glazed, perfectly shaped, totally soulless plates, bowls and cups out there on the supermarket shelves. I deliberately leave fingermarks on my plates when I am glazing them and I have slowly started to accept that my work doesn’t need to be perfect.It needs to be technically sound but I will leave perfect to the factories.

This small, side plate is an example of the marks I leave on my work. You can see my fingerprint where I held the plate when I glazed it. The black decorations were done with a paintbrush I made using my own hair, so that I had very little control over the line. I really like this plate. It looks handmade. It has soul.