A soft light of a new day outside, and I’m well into my second cup of chai. There is a streaky grey sky morning about to break through and all is quiet. With little people still tucked up in their beds, a new day lays before me.
It’s 5.30 am and the day was going to be a busy.
Biscuits to make, boys to take and a check list that needs crossing off one and a half pages long; but my mind is only half on it. I want to make a little bag. A little bag with colours and tassels, a little bag for a little girl.
Colours were chosen, scraps of wool divided out and the bag already finished in my head. But it wasn’t to be. That bag lay dormant for another whole month until finally, there it was, finished. Not exactly as I had imagined it, (but things made by me rarely are.)
She loved it, and I was happy to make her something out of bits I already had.
I recently wrote a quite lengthy post on eating meat. Of which I got to the end and then just quietly, deleted the whole lot. All 852 words of it.
I felt like I was justifying my own meaty actions. Which is something I didn’t feel like I really wanted to do or needed to do. I was more than happy to engage in an amicable conversation with anyone who cared to listen. I was also more than happy to pass on any food information that I’d come across in my readings. Informed decisions on any level is an empowering thing, especially when it comes to something as important as food.
We all need to eat, it’s how we go about it that’s important.
So will I be made to feel guilty for eating a little meat here and there?
It’s the basis of many heated debates, but at this stage of my life? No. No I won’t.
I believe strongly in a diet based mostly on ‘real’ foods. Food that comes in as natural a state as possible. Keeping processing to a minimum, packaging to a minimum and being able to identify the food in front of you are top of my lists.
I also believe different bodies require different foods. Some people can exist happily as a Fruitarian and others strongly advocate they feel healthier on a Paleo based diet. I wouldn’t like to base my diet on either of these, but I respect the fact that they feel happy and healthy eating as such. I remember sitting in the audience of the His Holiness the Dalai Llama once, and his comment on the fact that he ate meat. Shocked I wasn’t, but happy yes, as he had obviously made an informed decision; and decided he functioned better with a small meat intake.
As meat eaters, vegetarians, vegans, raw enthusiasts, sugar free, gluten free, locavores, we all have choices to make and ethics to consider when we are preparing that dinner plate in front of us. (Unless by chance you are a city-living-raw-vegan-sugar free-gluten free-locavore AND on a family budget, in which case holey moley I would love you to comment and please share your story!)
Pescatarian– love eating canned tuna? Have a look at this snippet on what line and pole fishing actually is, and the value of paying that bit extra for your can of tuna. Also read here on GoodFishBadFish– sustainable seafood, what’s it all about or Slow Fish– and it’s campaign.
Vegetarians– Do you eat seasonally? Food Miles, have you considered them, how many do you clock up?…this site is so very humbling.)
Quorn– What do we know about this myco-protein? Made from mushrooms it isn’t.
Eggs– In what condition hens have your eggs come from? Caged Eggs
Are your meat substitutes highly processed coming in excessive packaging and have a full paragraph of odd sounding ingredients?
There are an array of options for cow milk alternatives- soy, almond, rice. Is there vegetable oil in there. Does this vegetable oil contain palm oil? Sunflower Oil? Added sugar? Food miles on your soy milk? where has the alternative milk been grown. Was it processed in the same place or somewhere else altogether?
Are you using sugar substitutes such as agave syrup. Have you considered the food miles (unless you live in Mexico) and extensive chemical process that is needed in order to obtain this yield?
1 billion takeaway cups and lids each year… {image credit to Responsible Runners}
Coffee– Got a coffee habit- Is it fair trade? Food miles? Excessive packaging on your daily take away coffee cup? Keep Cup– reusable coffee cup
Chocolate- Is it again fair trade? Does it have even more excessive packaging? Does it have an extraordinary amount of food miles? Was it harvested using slave labour? (Despite popular belief the cocoa bean is not produced in Belgium.) Slavery in the Chocolate Industry
There is always an impact on our food choices, regardless of what food types we mostly eat. Pretty much every choice we make has an impact. If more and more people make informed choices about what they are eating and passing a little less judgement on those that eat differently perhaps we would make some sort of head way in our food environment.
Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants…[Michael Pollan]
Our family meat intake is really quite small, we eat a mostly vegetarian diet, and bought meat is always considered; where it has come from and how it was raised. Fruit and vegetables are eaten in season, vegan and gluten free meals are becoming regulars, I try to make as many things from scratch as time allows and we eat on a family budget- keeping things as locally produced based as possible.
This doesn’t make me a sainted eater, it makes me an informed eater and at this stage, that’s the very best I can do.
So, to the next person that gets on their high horse about me making a conscious decision regarding what I have chosen to eat, please don’t. As I might just eat that high horse… I hear they’re quite delicious.
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Thoughts? Input? Ideas? Everything up for discussion in an unbiased nonjudgemental fashion.
I had the day all planned out. It would start with tea, chai to be exact. Two pots worth, and it couldn’t be a rushed thing. Some writing, a lazy eye over the weekends paper, followed by a swim. Back home for another cup of tea, something herbal this time. Perhaps a little gingery zing to kick things along for the day.
I’d now curl my legs around me, choose from one of my many unfinished books, balance it a little precariously along side my tea cup and read until the heat started to penetrate the lounge rooms blinds.
A brief stop for a light salady lunch, and a flick through this beautiful and inspiring new magazine of the sea while I ate.
Coffee would be made and along with it a lengthy phone call to a good friend. Friendship rekindled and two cups worth would be sipped while doing so. I would then make the strenuous shift moving from the kitchen table to the cool dark of the bedroom.
After two coffees I probably wouldn’t want a little midday siesta but was certainly open to the idea if one came up. Stretched out over the whole queen sized space I would then take the chance to read from my new ipad library. I would ignore the grubby little finger prints from small sized people and instead revel in the fact that I had now clocked up at least 8 hours of reading time on this most glorious of summer days.
At this point I would probably contemplate popping the kettle on once more and choose from my impressive range of herbal teas. Tea once more would be supped and with it a change of perspectives. The bedroom, to the couch, to the kitchen table. It was a tough choice but I knew regardless, my tea would be by there by my side.
In seemingly small blink of the eye, the whole day will have dissolved in a blur of reading choices, tea cups, (and realistically multiple trips to the toilet.) It was indeed a well planned day.
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In absence of ever, ever having a day like this one. (Having three small children ensures that my reading times are heavily locked in at two minute increments, and tea generally sipped on the fly.) I am linking in with the wonderful Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mikes for a tea party, A Cup of Tea with Me party.
The kettles hot. There is tea to choose from and if you can find a biscuit that hasn’t been nibbled on by a particular small person, you’re more than welcome to it. Sit down, take your shoes off.
A Cup of Tea with Me
Sunny greetings to those that are new to this space and those that regularly drop in. My name is Brydie, a city mama of three trying to balance a simple life, city style.
I’m a person who likes to dream of curling into a tight cat like ball and reading for 3 hours straight. I also like writing at 5am, it’s the magic hour for so many things.
Someone who feels at peace watching stormy dark clouds tumble over a horizon, while simultaneously keeping eagle eyes on three children that move at the speed of light, (usually towards another horizon.)
A girl who likes nothing better than listening to the sing of a sourdough loaf straight from the oven. Who marvels at the sprouting goodies on the kitchen window sill, thinks naturally fermented foods are the bees knees and dreams of cake creations by night.
The same girl who gets inspired by the smallest of smalls to the biggest of big. I can never tell where a tiny idea will sprout from next.
Someone who also yearns to know more about, well pretty much everything. But throw words like, sourdough, permaculture, upcycling, handmade, fermented and I’m all yours.
I’m also inspired by a whole bunch of these rockin’ women who I was lucky enough to meet through Pip. Like Rachael who makes me laugh and takes pictures that are so beautifully magazine worthy. Helen whose Friday Feminism posts I adore and Dear Moo whom I would happily scratch behind the ears if only to get just a little closer to those stunning crochet creations. And oh so many more of these absolutely amazingly creative women.
It started with my nana really. If she hadn’t have given me those two matching brown coffee cups and plates 10 years ago, well, I would never have gone looking.
They were good cups. Solid cups and I liked having my one cup of coffee a day to drink out of it. The amount was perfect, the handle comfortable and the lip was great. Call me Polly Pedantic but I like a good lip on a cup- it makes the drink, I’m sure of it.
So there I was, happy with my two brown cups from Nana. Happy drinking my daily coffee from it, just as my Nana had done before me. When my mum would visit, all she could think of was seeing my Nana drinking her one coffee a day in there, but 50 years beforehand.
Fast forward to the land and time of Instagram, and I had taken a photo of my one cup a day and posted it. Not particularly exciting stuff but there it was non the less.
“Looks like Denby”
“Denby”
“Oooh Denby!”
Say what?? What are you all talking about? My cup has a name? I looked on the bottom *gasp* it does have a name. I confer with my friend google *double gasp,* it is! It was. There stamped before me was Denby, and it seemed it’s rather a collectors thing. Looks like I could find more in the set if I was willing to sell a small child as well.
Two instagramer friends showed me the insides of their own parents Denby-ed kitchen cupboards. My knees felt a little weak…it looked so good. My cupboards too could look just as good, if I had a sack full of money and was ready to scour the earth for single pieces of Denby to create a collection.
Was I willing to do that?
Yes. Yes, it seems I was. Months later I found myself clicking pay now on ebay where I had found three exact matches to go with my other two cups. I quietly justified it by having sold a whole lot of unneeded/unloved items on gumtree the week before. About 20 things of mine had moved out to other peoples households and three sleek brown sixty year old coffee cups moved in to mine.
Decluttering the household AND some lovely bonus kitchen additions. I think my daily cup of coffee tasted particularly good that day.
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Tell me… do you use gumtree or ebay to sell things you no longer want or have a need for?
Do you buy second hand where possible, sometimes or never ever ever in all your days?
And lastly, do you all know Denby and I was really, really slow on the uptake with this one?
Nothing says it’s nearly Christmas time, quite like belting out Wham’s Last Christmas at the top of your lungs. While big hair, eighties clothing and a snowy white landscape aren’t really necessary this year; an enthusiasm for all things just a teeny bit cheesy are. With three little people grinning from ear to ear for encouragement, I plan to quietly soak all that Christmassy spirit well and truly up.
I wasn’t going to though, well not yet anyway. It all seemed a little too early still.
However, last years advent calendar was hung, and the boys were keen for the Christmas sticks to be draped and decorated. Pre-school carols were seeping in and had a funny way of sticking in my head all day. I also couldn’t avoid the fact that everyone else was well and truly already on the Christmas wagon.
What pushed Last Christmas on to replay was the very real thought of my little people becoming big people. No longer finding it quite as exciting to decorate some fallen sticks with some brightly coloured baubles and their bunk beds with draped silvery tinsel. The excitement of seeing what might be in the advent calander in the early morning, and the planning of all the things they would do, once the Christmas holidays began. I know that contagious excitement will someday fade, as their limbs get longer and their childhood thoughts and ideas change.
So while their little dancing legs are eager, their air guitars await and theres a willingness to sing all songs Christmassy, then so will I.
And I’ll love every second of it.*
* In the spirit of Christmas, so will all my neighbours. It’s a well known fact that Last Christmas should never be played quietly; and living in a small city apartment, well playing something with Christmas enthusiasm means everyone gets to enjoy it as well. Now THAT’S the spirit of Christmas.
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For added Christmassy goodness, I’ve been making speculaas again. It’s been two years since the intermittent light swearing incident over the little wooden windmill and, this year I thought I’d try my luck again. Alas, still not to a standard I like, so no windmills again this year. However, the dough I’ve tweaked a little and it’s still a happy biscuit to eat.
Perfect for a little dunking, munching or sending of small parcels off to the neighbours.
Speculaas #2
150g cubed cold butter
150g brown sugar
300g plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cardamon
2 tbls cold water
Pulse all ingredients except the cold water, until resembles bread crumbs. Turn out to a board, add the water and give a quick knead to bring it all together. You are a after a smooth dough consistency. Roll out between two sheets of baking paper and pop into the fridge to firm up (or roll into a log and freeze for a later date.) Cut out shapes and bake at 180 for 15-20 minutes.
Before Changing Gears landed on my kitchen table, I knew I was going to love it. I knew I would. How could I not? It was about the travel tales of Greg Foyster and Sophie Chishkovsky travelling 6586km on two bicycles, from Tasmania to Cairns.
While cycling a really long way and sleeping in an Aldi tent, they were exploring simpler ways of living or ‘voluntary simplicity’. Either way, they were speaking my language and I couldn’t get enough. I was turning pages at a pace like a tour de france rider and anticipation to match.
Reading through the book, it seemed like a funny combination but I kept thinking of Bill Bryson’s snort out loud travel books he’d written years before. Combining that with “An Inconvenient Truth” and Changing Gears was sitting before me. It was honest, it was engaging, funny, made me think, and ultimately… damn inspiring.
Just occasionally I need someone, or something to remind why I should keep doing things the way I do. This book did. Like my Milkwood Permaculture course had propelled me forward for next few months, I think this book had just done the same thing…in a pretty amazing way.
Changing Gears– a Pedal Powered Detour from the Rat Race- by Greg Foyster
Changing Gears is a high-spirited adventure charting Greg Foyster’s remarkable, life-transforming cycling challenge from Hobart to Cairns. Resisting the pressure to conform to an ‘Australian average’, Greg and his girlfriend Sophie set off with the question: can we be happy with less?
Before the trip, Greg was an inner-city advertising yuppie who spent his days coming up with clever ways to get people to consume more. Unhappy with the contradictions in his life he finally quit his job – but when a panic attack landed him in hospital, Greg realised that something had to change.
And so unfolds a riveting yarn – engaging, self-effacing and with many laugh-out-loud moments. The 6586km bike expedition was a million miles from Greg’s comfortable lifestyle – the furthest he’d travelled on bike was 50km and the longest he’d been in a tent was at a 3 day music festival. And along the way he must confront his own character flaws, contend with bum blisters, taste road kill, survive on only 2 changes of clothing, live with his partner 24/7 in a tent for 9 months, and cycle the final 1700-kilometre stretch up North Queensland on a diet of raw food.
An enthralling personal narrative, Changing Gears is also a compelling insight into the different ways of living being embraced by lone visionaries and engaged communities alike, all seeking a more sustainable life. On the road, Greg and Sophie meet a host of unique characters – including a barefoot monk who travels with nothing but a blanket and an alms bowl, a forest activist who lives up a tree, a man that survives on 18th century hunting techniques, a family who have lived without electricity for 20 years, and many more DIY downshifters with fascinating stories to tell.
Twenty per cent of Australians want to downshift to fewer hours and the trend towards simpler lifestyles is gaining momentum. Changing Gears is for anyone who’s considered escaping the rat race, living more simply or taking a breather from the nine-to-five grind. It is a timely, life-affirming and inspiring book that tackles the most important issue facing humanity, but in the most personal and delightful way.
And if you would like to meet them in person, the last of the pedal powered book tour…
Gleebooks, Sydney
Tuesday 19 November, 6pm Greg Foyster in conversation with Craig Reucassel & book signing
49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
Phone: (02) 9660 2333 Book online
I frowned a little bit when I opened the package. Frowning seems to help with remembering, and while I stood in the post office I was wracking my brain trying to think whether I’d bought a book recently. I hadn’t bought a book though, and yet here was a book still sitting in my hands.
A beautiful book, that just reading the first paragraph within the sleeve had me smiling and knowing I was going to love it. I frowned again, trying to think… now who could have given it to me?
To Brydie, from Brydie.
I made some phone calls and sent some messages. None of those people had sent me this book.
My finger traced the front cover and my heart felt fuller, as I tried to think of who it could be. On a week that had felt rather overwhelming with all that motherhood and life had to offer it came at a wonderful time. Who would be so kind and thoughtful? Whose such generous kindness had I been the recipient of?
I didn’t know and it looked like I wasn’t supposed to know. I filled the coffee pot, got my favourite cup out, settled the little people and opened it up. I loved it.
Truly inspiring.
Both from the beautiful book and also, from the kindness of others.
With an enormous amount of gratitude, thank you.
Brydie. xxx
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FRANZ KAFKA, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wiggle through by subtle maneuvres.”- Daily Rituals, How Artists Work.
I”m having a quiet love affair with photography at the moment. Every little pixel of it. I’m loving the fact that I’ve been lucky enough to live in a time of digital photography. To be able to take 400 photos of the same thing and then to just quietly delete most of them later on in the day is a wonderful thing. Compare that with getting 400 photos developed at the local chemist and paying a small bag of gold in order to do so- lucky indeed.
To take a picture, try and tell a story within four small corners is a challenge and one that I really am loving.
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What are you loving at the moment?
“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE
* There have been some odd sunrise colours lately due to terrible bush fires in the surrounding areas.
cityhippyfarmgirl 