Chocolate, Community and Choices

beetroot brownie || cityhippyfarmgirl

I’ll let you in on a little secret. This place here, is my number one place to eat out. It doesn’t happen often, actually hardly at all really, but when it does…oh it’s bliss. Sheer bliss.

While this blog is not about food reviewing (and never will be) I can’t help but want to stand on my pedestal and shout…”you really should go there!”

Once in that blue moon period when I do go out, I want to go somewhere that holds similar beliefs to me. Going somewhere where the selling points of a dish are “Salmon from Alaska, oranges from Malta, cheese from Turkey and wine to wash it all down with from Italy”. Nope, it just doesn’t cut it for me, I’m seriously not interested. Tell me the bacon is from a small scale farmer a few hours away, the milk is from the outskirts of Sydney, the eggs are organic and the plated greens were grown three metres away in the small backyard. Now that’s going to make me sit up and pay attention.

Also add to it being some of the best tasting food I’ve ever tasted and I will be scrambling for any opportunity to get a table again.

Now when time ticks by and life gets in the way, their cookbook will be tiding me over. The pages talk of how they started, seasonal eating, not wasting anything and community– all topics of which I’ll happily devour every page, (which is includes this rather tasty Chocolate Beetroot Brownie.)

beetroot brownie || cityhippyfarmgirl

Coming back for a moment, to that wonderful C word that I love so much- community. It’s important to me here in blogland. It’s important to me in ‘real life’ and is also one of the big things that has struck me every time I’ve been lucky enough to eat there. (And it really is a privilege to eat out , for anyone!) Community is something that really seems to jump out at you, even just walking down the street. You can tell that this is a close knit area that really looks out for each other, (which also includes famed sourdough legend, Iggy’s just a few doors down.)

Living in a big city, if you are lucky enough to be in the position of choosing to go out for a meal, then considering where your dollar is going just makes sense. It makes wonderful sense. Combine a little chocolate and community in with those choices and you have yourself a pretty great combination I think.

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Tell me, what are some of your favourite community minded places (or books) to eat or hang out at? 

 

the halo effect (and a giveaway)

I’ve sat here trying to find the right words for this post, and everything has got slowly repeatedly deleted. Why am I finding it so difficult to put in to words what is sitting so comfortably in my heart?

I’ll try to explain…

Last week I went to a screening of Face of Birth. A documentary on pregnancy, childbirth, choices and where Australia currently sits with those choices. I’d been looking forward to seeing it for a long time, and the premiere week was finally here.

It was wonderful. AB.SO.LUTE.LY wonderful.

Yet sitting here now with my decaf coffee, my newborn sleeping peacefully near by, and my fingers paused over keyboard… I still hesitate to find the right words. Partly due to a mushy baby brain and partly due to the fact I have so many thoughts and emotions racing around my head that they seem to be tripping over themselves.

Tripping aside, what I do know is that birth is important, it’s so incredibly important and this documentary is an absolutely beautiful look at why it is. The film looks at a number of different women and their choices, along with experts in the field (Ina May Gaskin, Michel Odent, Dr Andrew Bisits) and their thoughts on how things are in the birthing world at the moment. This is a film for teen girls yet to even contemplate pregnancy, young women not having given birth before, pregnant mamas, partners, mums to one, mums to many, fathers, grandparents… anyone who thinks choice is important.

Nearly four weeks ago I birthed my third babe. A waterbirth at home, my third baby, but my first homebirth.

It was the most exhilarating, joyous, empowering, truly magical experience of my life, and I would choose to do it again in a heart beat. I’m so very thankful that I was given that option of midwife led care while pregnant. The whole experience is the founding block of something wonderful. What that is I’m yet to find out but I know that it sits there, and it can never be taken from me.

While my words for this post still sit tripping over themselves, I’m still going to press publish. As if I don’t, it could be quite some time before I find the right structure to really convey how I feel in a coherent way. Time doesn’t wait and now is the time to see this wonderful film.

If you would like to see it I have one to give away. Just leave a message in the comments below and I will draw a winner on Monday the 26th of March. (Or you can buy your own copies here.)

* The picture above was of a ice sun ring, or 22 degree halo effect I saw during the week. For two weeks after I gave birth I was blessed with a magical babymoon period. The wonderful hormone oxytocin was running high, and I felt well and truly surrounded by a bubble of love. Just like this ice sun ring, there was an almost halo effect here at home surrounding us as we all got to know our little girl.

 

** Congratulations to Kari @ Bite Sized Thoughts on winning the dvd.**